After last week’s fairly refreshing episode, it’s a little sad to see 2 Broke Girls revert back to its standard half-hour of redundant sex jokes and predictable plotlines. “And The Three Boys With Wood” (these episode titles are definitely getting worse as the season goes on) wasn’t the worst episode so far. It was still somewhat enjoyable, and it didn’t lose my attention like “And The Pearl Necklace” did but unfortunately, it added nothing new to the table.
On the bright side, it seems like Ryan Hansen is sticking around Brooklyn for a little while as Andy, the candy man who wooed Caroline last week. Andy and Caroline go on their first date, but when he neglects to put the moves on her, she immediately assumes that he’s gay.
There is a lot of this episode that doesn’t make much sense. The date happens right after Andy learns (through Max) that he’s dating the Caroline Channing: Former Rich Girl. His reaction to that information clearly makes it known that this is going to be a problem for him especially when he explicitly says that he originally assumed Caroline was just “a regular Williamsburg girl.” The problem here is not the actual storyline because I think that’s an interesting thing for the show to explore. We’ve seen Caroline deal with her fall from grace and we’ve watched her adjust to being poor in plenty of different ways (such as working odd jobs, selling her possessions, and using coupons) and we’ve seen some other people react to her new life (her ex-boyfriend, store owners, the party planner from the season finale, etc.) but we haven’t seen this all play out in terms of a new romantic relationship. It’s not farfetched that Andy would feel uncomfortable and intimidated by this revelation—though it’s a little odd, considering his own fall from grace that we learned about last week—but instead of taking the time really explore this, 2 Broke Girls basically decided to put it on the backburner for the majority of the episode and instead focus on lots of jokes about Amish men getting erections.
Oh right, two young Amish boys on Rumspringa walk into a diner, and the writers fail to write a successful punchline for the joke. The boys (named Jacob and Jebediah, of course) agree to build a barn for Chestnut in Max’s backyard, much to Max and Sophie’s delight, especially when they take off their shirts and Sophie dumps water on them from her window. The plot is full of hacky humor about the boys not understanding the name Williamsburg, saying beer is the “devil’s saliva,” and offering up the aforementioned plethora of erection jokes. It’s barely funny the first time, let alone the sixth or seventh when the entire storyline culminates in Jacob having to go to the hospital because Caroline gave him a panic attack and his first orgasm. It was just another of those go-nowhere storylines that 2 Broke Girls springs on us nearly every week.
But back to Caroline and Andy. What doesn’t make sense is that Caroline would immediately leap to the “he’s gay!” explanation, considering how much time and effort Andy has already spent on trying to win her over. My main problem, however, is that it also doesn’t make much sense that Max doesn’t ever catch on. She’s the more perceptive of the two girls and is often someone who can see through people’s bullshit, so it’s strange that she doesn’t realize why Andy’s acting the way he is until he breaks it down for her. He’s intimidated because she’s gone from a normal Brooklyn girl to someone incredibly rich and refined; Caroline tries to undo that image by chugging draft beer and grinding on one of the Amish boys. It somehow works, and Andy finally kisses her, but it’s a significantly less satisfying ending than Andy’s cute (and embarrassing) gesture from last week.
Stray observations:
- If you want to do a 2 Broke Girls drinking game this week, may I suggest taking a drink every time the characters say “hipster,” “Amish,” or “erection”?
- Max’s life advice for Jebediah was pretty spot-on, especially for her character: “There’s really no point to anything, but sometimes, you get to eat candy or have sex, and that’s when it all feels right.”
- I did enjoy the scene between Max and Andy when he first showed up to take out Caroline. The friendly rapport between the two was quickly established—and it was cute that he knew to bring her pixy stix—and worked better than the scenes between Caroline and Andy. Maybe Max and Andy are the better couple?
- Did anyone watch Ryan Hansen’s short-lived sitcom Friends With Benefits? Pointless trivia: One episode had a similar storyline featuring an Amish guy who visits a big city during Rumspringa which I enjoyed a lot more, though that guy was played by Cappie from Greek.