Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 5 – “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 5 “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming”
Written by Mark Ganzel (story), Rick Weiner & Kenny Schwartz (teleplay)
Directed by Michael Lembeck
Aired October 21, 1998 on ABC

The path of growth is hardly ever linear, a lesson “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming” take to heart, another early season two Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place episode torn between its two developed identities, the bro comedy and the ensemble rom-com. As a result, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming” feels too slight and contained to have any impact on its characters or the season’s overarching narrative – even in the one moment it tries to, making “Homecoming” an amusing, juvenile episode that neither expands or retracts on the potential seen in the first episodes of the season.

“Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming”, unsurprisingly, focuses on the Homecoming game for Tufts University – the seventh one Pete and Berg are attending in the students section, which quickly becomes a sore point when two former classmates come into the pizza place and laugh at the two post-grad students and their arrested professional development. From that point, Berg and Pete’s story is all about said immaturity, as the two hatch a scheme to not only get them out of work on the day of the game, but also how to get themselves out of the student section and into the luxury box, where they could gleefully look down upon their past classmates and their assumed superiority.

The most impressive aspect of this story, really, is how many obstacles Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place put in place for Pete and Berg. It is necessary, of course, to give their story some sense of propulsion, but the execution of the continued elevation of difficulty as they get out of work, get a couple scalped tickets, and then deal with the fallout of getting caught with fake tickets always ensures the episode keeps moving, even if it does ultimately act as a distraction from the underlying theme of the episode (Berg and Pete wrestling against the powers of time, trying to maintain their youth through Hilarious Antics).

It makes for a lot of great little bits – the pair trying to score tickets, deciding to dress up in marching band uniforms when that fails, and of course, the faux play-by-play voiceover while Berg is getting arrested (Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place again playing with form in fun ways) – but the emotional impact of this story, obviously, is quite limited. “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming” knows this, ending their story with the two laughing in a jail cell together about getting one over on their former classmates Jack and Smelly (who go unseen after the scene in the pizza place, oddly enough), resolving a silly story with an equally silly ending, probably a good choice after the episode quickly lost the thread on anything related to its main characters and their (somewhat stunted) maturity.

The more consequential half of the episode comes from Sharon and Johnny – both of whom, we learn, are lying to their friends about what they do for careers. Putting aside this is a plotline exclusively experienced by the Generation X era (millennials and Gen Z have had to let go of any pride or shame around careers), this episode establishes a conflict between the young couple, one much of season two and three would contend with (to wildly varying effect); are Sharon and Johnny good for each other? Clearly, as we see in the moments when Sharon isn’t trying to impress her former college nemeses, the two of them have hit it off pretty quickly – but their immediate instinct to lie to their closest friends about the kind of people they are professionally, is a bit foreboding in how it pertains to the two accepting each other’s differences as their relationship would grow.

“Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming” is the understated genesis of this idea – and though the shape this story would take will change as the season continues, it plants the seed in an interesting way, even as it closes the episode on what’s easily the show’s most romantic moment to date, as Johnny confides in Sharon his quickly-developing feelings for her, which she surprisingly reciprocates. Though it may be convenient to play their relationship as intense and serious in front of her friends, Sharon is starting to contend with the fact her jukebox repairman crush is turning into something else incredibly quickly, and seeing Sharon embrace that potential (after her well-noted recent dating history) is an encouraging sign of a new direction for her character – one tied to a man’s presence in her life, of course, but is still the catalyst of a series with a more intentional focus on Sharon and her life, one of the big noticeable improvements early in this second season.

Though “Two Guys, a Girl and a Homecoming” is explicitly designed as an incidental, forgettable episode, the dividends of season two’s improved pacing and wider lens on its characters keeps it from feeling like a complete throwaway. It’s a solid marker of how the series has grown, even within the confines of its old season one formula – not an eye-opening or knee-splitting episode by any means, but one that continues the show down the right path, even if it does so without finding a way to attach any significance to itself. For a filler episode, one can do a lot worse.

Grade: C+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Two great cameos in this episode: Brian Dunkleman as a whiny pizza shop patron, and Rockmund Dunbar as Tommy, one of Johnny’s tailgating friends!
  
• Who the fuck is Mikos, and why is his storm out the only scene we see of him?
  
• Johnny gets welcomed by Sharon in front of her friends: “You know I’m planning on eating later, can I have my tongue back?”
  
• Pete shouting “ATTICA!” after they get arrested is great.
  
• Kamen picks up a girl!
  
• “I’m never going to forget this.” “How could you… you’re an elephant!”
  
• Berg embraces the luxury suite: “I knew heaven would have an open bar.”
  
• Instead of bloopers over the credits, we get Berg’s slow motion arrest from different angles while he does a fake post-game interview with the announcer from the previous scene.
  
• Up next: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place celebrates Halloween with “Two Guys, a Girl and a Psycho Halloween”.