'Greek': To catch a sorority girl
My fellow Greek lovers, can we all agree on one thing? No matter how adorable it may be, never, EVER trust an attractive man holding a box full of puppies. That much cute in one place is always too good to be true. Just ask Casey!
All of these spoilers are over the age of consent.
Although there were three main stories in tonight's episode, the majority of the hour was spent on Casey coming to grips with Rebecca and Cappie's relationship. It's Big Sister/Little Sister week at ZBZ, and Casey seizes this as an opportunity to try to repair her antagonistic relationship with her own Little, Rebecca. Rebecca then seizes this opportunity in turn to agree to finally date Cappie out in the open. She says it is because she didn't want people to think she was only dating Cappie to get under Casey's skin, but it seems more like she wants Casey to hate her again more than anything. Cappie's one condition is he needs to tell Casey himself, which seems a bit over the top to me but Rebecca agrees, so what do I know?
When he spills the beans, Casey pretends like it doesn't bother her but she's obviously totally wigging out about the pairing. Even though she insisted at the beginning of the episode that she wasn't ready to date, the news that Rebecca is bringing Cappie to a sorority mixer causes her to change her mind. But where oh where will she find a date when she's all dirty doing community service at the local animal shelter? Perhaps the extremely attractive shelter employee holding a box of extremely cute puppies? Casey asks puppy boy Jonah to be her date and he seems quite charming, but Casey spends the entire mixer eying Cappie and Rebecca and generally being a jealous, nervous wreck. In order to make herself feel better she gets drunk and hooks up with Jonah, and doesn't realize until the next morning that he's 16 YEARS OLD and LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER, who is seemingly quite fine with her high school aged son having strange women sleep in his bed all night. Um...OK, Mama Jonah. You're much more enlightened than my mother ever was, that's for sure. Realizing she narrowly escaped an encounter with hidden cameras, Chris Hansen and public shame, Casey realizes she needs to fully let Cappie go as her safety net and allow him to be happy with Rebecca. I wonder how long this epiphany will last. Until the season finale, perhaps?
Elsewhere at CRU, Rusty starts to realize that he's an outcast in his pledge class, which makes sense because he's always hanging out with Cappie and Beaver and never with any of his pledge buddies. When Cappie assigns them a pledge project, all of Rusty's ideas are rejected and the rest of his class decides to make the decidedly unimpressive "Swingaling," a.k.a. a tire swing in the Kappa Tau backyard. Yawn, boys. Rusty says they should try to make a video game instead, but his pledge class only wants Rusty to use his influence with Cappie to try to get them out of the project altogether. Now that's the college experience I remember: doing the least amount of work possible and just squeaking by. That's why I went to a state school. At the advice of Cappie's big brother Joe (who is the exact same character as Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers) Rusty takes matters into his own hands and does the video game himself. When the guys tell him to just turn it in and "be the hero" again, Rusty says he doesn't want to be a hero, he just wants to fit in but doesn't know how. The guys give him some very good advice, and they all come up with a plan together to build their very own Kappa Tau brewery. The beer isn't very good, but the teamwork is and Rusty is now officially part of the group, much to Cappie's delight. Rusty then accidentally catcalls his own sister while trying to fit in with the group which is really, really disgusting. Just another example that peer pressure is evil, ladies and gentlemen.
The third storyline of the night was Dale and his quest to "cure" Calvin of his homosexuality. I neglected to mention this plot point in an earlier episode because I found it highly offensive, but since it was such a large part of the episode this time around I simply cannot ignore it. Dale is convinced he and his Purity Pledge group can turn Calvin straight, and Calvin sort of plays along with them for a while with the basic goal of showing Dale that it's perfectly fine to be gay. Dale's main objection to Calvin's gayness is a good one at heart, as he's been taught all gay people are going to hell and wants to save a nice guy like Calvin from that fate. To prove his point for good, Calvin amusingly starts to make Dale paranoid that he himself might be gay, and after some negotiation gets Dale to accept that Calvin in gay and happy about that fact. Dale accepts Calvin without necessarily changing his beliefs on a dime, which is a quite deft and realistic way to play this storyline. Although I find the show's use of Dale's religious homophobia for laughs to be in poor taste, the way they handled the resolution of this storyline was quite satisfying. Now, as Calvin said, if only they would do something about that Confederate flag in Dale's dorm room. One lesson at a time, I suppose.
What did you guys think? Do you like the way they handled the Dale/Calvin storyline? Did you miss Evan this week? And how long do we all think this Cappie/Casey friendship will last without turning into something more? (I for one like Cappie and Rebecca, so I'm hoping it's later rather than sooner myself.)
I really enjoy Dale's character. Usually those characters tend to be portrayed as bad people, but it's about time they showed that people can have different beliefs, but yet get along with one another. I really hope they keep him as a big part of the show, because he brings so much diversity onto the show.
I did worry that for a little bit they were going to use Dales as a gag relief, but this episode came out very well in the end.
I did miss Evan this week.
And I would really like Casey to get over Cappie and move on past the same 2 guys and find someone new to complain about.
Is it just me, or did Casey and Rusty look a little tooo friendly after Rusty whistled at her? I kinda felt some sexual tension.......
Oh yea, Lizzie is in some furniture commercial. I forget which company it is.
It seems to me that Dale serves primarily as a foil to allow the writers to infuse anti-Christian propaganda into the show. Giving the typical Hollywood treatment to the issue, the stereotypical Christian tries to stand up for what is right -- but is portrayed as doing it in a foolish manner. When challenged, he gives a typical argument in favor of his point. The other character gives a typical counter argument. The Christian is left unable to respond to this 'brilliant' line of reasoning and gives in.
The problem is primarily that Dale's approach is wrong. No one is going to change their sexual orientation just because you tell them it's a sin. Rather, he should try to lead Calvin to Christ first. Unless Calvin comes to the point where he chooses to change his behavior, no "cures" are going to have any effect. Only when one's attitude is changed so that he desires what God desires will one truly be inclined to live rightly.
Now, if Calvin claims to be a Christian, then Dale could proceed to debate finer theological points. First off, using Leviticus to make the argument is probably not the best place to start. I would suggest Matthew 19:4-8 and Mark 10:5-9 (in which Christ speaks of marriage being between a man and a woman) and Romans 1:18-32 (in which both male and female ****sexual acts are specifically and strongly condemned).
But let's look at Leviticus anyway. The p***age Dale quotes from is from 18:22. A similar p***age is in 20:13. Both call of male-male sex "detestable," or in some versions, an "abomination." Now, as Calvin rightly points out, the same is said of shellfish (11:9-12). However, in Acts 10 Peter receives a vision releasing Christians from Jewish dietary laws. One might argue, "Couldn't this mean all of the former regulations have been lifted?" But now come into play the p***ages I referenced before: the words of Christ affirming marriage being between a man and a woman and Paul's condemnation of ****sexual acts years after Peter's vision. Hence, while dietary rules have changed, the sinfulness of ****sexual acts has not.
All that is to say that ****sexual acts are sins, not that 'all ****sexuals go to hell.' So far as I can tell, it is the actions that are sinful, not the temptations to carry them out. Rather, sinners (that's all of us, myself included) who do not accept the forgiveness offered freely to them by God go to hell. The good news is that Christ has died and paid the penalty for our sins and has risen from the dead and now offers us forgiveness and the opportunity to go to heaven. It is, or at least should be, a natural response to this gift for us to desire to live rightly. I am not even going to say that all ****sexuals can change their orientation. But they do have the choice of whether or not to act on their temptations, as we all do.
Now to be fair, all of that might be a bit much for a TV show. Still, the writers started us down the path, but they didn't follow through. Perhaps Dale is merely being portrayed as not really knowing the Scripture that well. Maybe he is to be one of the many Christian who walk away from their faith in college. One could come up with plenty of explanations. But the most likely primary goal, I think, is that the writers wish to promote the acceptance of ****sexuality.
Sigh, Jack24, gay people are gay. I don't care what scriptures you recite, what brain washing technique you use, if someone is gay, they are gay. If god didn't want people to be gay, he wouldn't make them gay.
As to Dale's character I think it is one of the most realistic representations of hyper religious bigots on TV. If you don't like it, why don't you try to stop people like Dale from doing the patently ridiculous stuff they do?
You can't cure gay. You can, however, cure religious bigotry. A good place to start is with yourself.
Come on, Jack24. Does reciting all those quotes make you feel superior? Echoing what Calvin said, college should enable you to open your mind. Let this show open yours. It isn't about being gay as much as it is about being open to other ideas. Come off your high horse.
OK, everyone, be nice. Jack24 stated his opinion calmly and precisely, and has a right to that opinion even if you don't agree with his beliefs. Let's not turn this thread into name calling and recriminations.
Thanks!
The Joey Fatone / "Fat One" joke was the best of the night.
I missed about 3 of Casey's jokes after that one, because I was laughing so hard.
I don't want to jump on the bandwagon, but I do want to respond to Jack24.
I was curious about the Bible p***ages you quoted, so I wanted to look them up for myself
First, I looked up Romans 1:8-32. Very interesting reading. If it had ended at verse 27, it may have simply been a comdemnation. But Verses 28-32 continue to link the following to being gay: wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful, they invent ways of doing evil, they disobey their paretns, they are senseless, heartless, faithless, and ruthless. Then it says that people who do such things deserve death. Now, I don't care where that's written, it's bigotry and it's false.
As for Mark 10:4-8, it does state that marriage is between a male and a female. But in context, that entire discussion is in answer to the question, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" So you use it to condemn a gay lifestyle while even Jesus was only using the phrase to emphasize that divorce was unnacceptable. Let me state this another way, here's part of Mark 10:13:
"Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them."
Doesn't quite give the same meaning without the rest of the discussion in context.
I also don't think Calvin "winning" the argument is the same as Anti-Christian propoganda. How is propoganda to have a gay character say, can't you accept me and that I'm happy? Perhaps you referring to the earlier argument when Calvin quoted the Bible. Again, is this instance, Dale did exactly what I've seen religious people do when someone outsie the faith tries to argue biblical p***ages with them. They want to end the discussion. Because, the fact of the matter is, the way the Bible was written, there is no final word. Every Christian will always have some "word of God" to fall back on and every non-Christian will always have some hypocrisy to fall back on.
In the end, I must fall back on the words of Henry Drummond, in reference to the Bible:
"It's just a book. A good book. But not the only book."
This is what I love about "Greek," it reminds me of my college days when people of all different backgrounds have to figure out how to co-exist together in dorms. And everyone grows a little...
Lots of controversy over the Dale/Calvin story, but no one's upset that if Cappy had slept with a high school girl the FCC wouldn't have let them air it? Why is it only "funny" that Casey committed statutory rape?
How can I find a recap of the first"Greek episode back post-strike,the one that involved the carnival? I missed it, so I have no idea how Evan humiliated Casey. Great recap, by the way!
How can I find a recap of the first"Greek episode back post-strike,the one that involved the carnival? I missed it, so I have no idea how Evan humiliated Casey. Great recap, by the way!