Thursday, October 29, 2009

Greek 3.09: "The Wish Pretzel"

“You really do think your life is like a romantic comedy, don’t you?”

-Rebecca


I know I’ve been kind of down on Greek this season, but I have to say that I pretty much adored this episode. Between a really adorable and sweet homage to Peanuts (I’ve been a massive Peanuts fan since I was about three years old) and the long awaited Cappie and Casey reunion, it was as near to perfect as an episode of Greek can get.


The ZBZs are packing up for Thanksgiving break. One thing I like about Greek is that despite airing on a split season like many cable shows, it maintains its own internal timeline. They aren’t afraid to show a Thanksgiving episode a month early. I like that because otherwise, we wouldn’t get to see a Thanksgiving episode (Greek isn’t on the air in late November). We wouldn’t get to see a lot of college milestones, actually, if episodes of Greek were supposed to correspond to the time of year in which they were broadcast like network shows do.


Anyway, amidst all the chaos of ZBZ house packing, Casey and Rebecca briefly chat about how excited they are to go home. Casey has a date with a former boyfriend, Derek. Rebecca is (probably rightly) convinced it’s just a booty call. Over in Casa Engineering, Rusty and Dale are coordinating cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Dale mentions that he’s going to be spending the hours of the break when he’s not cooking working on his research project so he can win a grant. Rusty doesn’t think he has a shot at the grant, so he’s not worried about work himself. Casey then appears at the door wondering why Rusty isn’t packed yet. Turns out their parents have ditched them and gone to Maui for the holiday. Casey didn’t know about it because she purposely skips over her mom’s very long voicemails. I thought this was an amusing addition to Casey’s character. So they aren’t going home after all.


It turns out Evan and Cappie aren’t going anywhere either. They discuss their situations at the Amphora Lair. Cappie’s hippie parents don’t do Thanksgiving, and Evan declined the e-vite from his dad’s secretary given the tensions in the family since he gave up his trust fund. Cappie wants to do the KT Turkey Hunt (a KT tradition), but Evan convinces him they should go golfing instead.


Casey arrives back at the ZBZ house, which appears to be deserted. What happens next is my favorite scene in the episode other than the two scenes I already mentioned in my introduction. Casey starts unpacking her clothes while singing along to Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas,” and it escalates to a full-on, jumping on the bed, singing into a hair brush extravaganza. Until she’s interrupted by Rebecca, who didn’t go home either (she says her flight was cancelled). I love this scene because it is absolutely something I would do back when I had roommates and they were all gone for the weekend. Well, maybe not the jumping on the bed part (I’d probably fall flat on my face), but definitely the singing at the top of my lungs part.


Thanks to a game of pool over at the KT house, Rusty has a breakthrough with his polymer science project. Apparently, the polymer science equivalent of a “combo shot” in pool might make a self-healing wire conduct. He runs to Dr. Hastings, who, in between insults, seems to think the idea is plausible. Rusty has renewed hope for his future in the engineering program and is starting to think the grant might even be a possibility. When Rusty tells Dale he’s going for the grant as he’s packing up for the lab the next morning, Dale isn’t happy. Dale decides he needs to go to the lab too instead of starting to cook Thanksgiving dinner.


At the ZBZ house, Casey and Rebecca decide they’re going to volunteer to give turkey dinners to the elderly with CRU’s Moveable Feast. Casey thinks things really haven’t been going her way lately, and she could use some good karma.


At KT, Cappie is watching the Macy’s parade as he waits for Evan to get off work so they can go golfing. Beaver, Wade, and Heath burst into the room ready to start the Turkey Hunt. It’s a scavenger hunt of sorts where the brothers going home for Thanksgiving leave a series of clues for the brothers staying on campus. Cappie sees the other guys struggling with obvious clues and decides to join in, blowing off Evan.


Casey and Rebecca don’t have much luck volunteering. Everybody left on campus is feeling charitable, and Moveable Feast already has more than enough volunteers. I like the lesson here. We need to help others throughout the year, not just on holidays. Things aren’t especially charitable in the engineering lab. Rusty is making progress on his project, and Dale is freaking out. Dr. Hastings thinks Rusty ought to distance himself from Dale as Dale’s project catches on fire, dooming his hopes of a grant.


I loved all the KT antics as they complete the Turkey Hunt. While in Heath’s room, which is filled with boxes because Heath is graduating soon, Cappie realizes that he hasn’t been spending much time with his brothers. He didn’t even realize Heath was graduating. The next clue leads them into a great brotherly bonding experience- breaking into Omega Chi. The other guys want to do some mischief while they’re there, but Cappie keeps them on task. They find the clue and leave after almost being found out by an Omega Chi brother. Cappie gets some good advice from his brothers in the process. They think he’s crazy for not getting back together with Casey.


Evan meets up with Rebecca and Casey as they try to figure out what to do after being rejected by Moveable Feast. To top it off, the Casa Engineering Thanksgiving Dinner has been canceled due to the Rusty/Dale tensions. Casey has a new plan. She wants to throw a big Thanksgiving party at the ZBZ house for all the volunteers. Sounds better than Evan’s plan to steal Moveable Feast meals for themselves. Evan came up with a Thanksgiving themed cocktail, and everybody seemed to have a good enough time. After the party, Evan misreads some signals from Casey and thinks she wants to hook up, but, happily, Casey completely shoots him down.


Rusty and Dale go from bad to worse when Dale tells Rusty that the breakthrough Rusty had on his project made Dale see Rusty as real competition. Rusty is, understandably, insulted. Rusty gets the last laugh in the end, though, as he gets his self-healing wire to actually work.


Casey, Rebecca, and Evan decide to go to Thanksgiving at the KT house. It turns out it’s a full-out recreation of Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving, complete with pretzels, toast, and jelly beans. I seriously came close to crying at that, it was so sweet to see it reenacted. Things get even better as Cappie walks Casey home and finally tells her how he feels. Casey and Cappie are back together, and it’s about time!

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