Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 8 Review – “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 8 “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding”
Written by Liz Sagal & Paige Bernhardt
Directed by Marjorie Weitzman
Aired November 11, 1998 on ABC

Just about every post-Cheers network sitcom featured some sort of will they, won’t they at the core of their series – their individual mileage with this abundant premise varying wildly, of course. Though Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place explicitly avoided including the trope in its first season, the seduction of possibility was too alluring for it to resist in season two; after introducing Ashley in “Two Guys, a Girl and Someone Better”, it wasn’t a matter of whether the series would push her and Berg closer together, but rather when it would. The answer? The end of season two’s first act, set mostly at a wedding reception full of hilarious moments, a bit of petty bullshit, and a bit of intrigue for where the season would head after the surprise reveal in its closing moments.

“Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding” takes two directions in its first act; the simpler of these being Pete’s existential crisis, this time filtered through his romantic life (rather than his personal life, as we’ve seen in previous episodes this season like “Two Guys, a Girl and an Internship”). When Pete’s ex-girlfriend Katie is set to be married, Pete predictably begins to spiral, wondering what went wrong and how he might be missing out on the love of his life (as Sharon unhelpfully points out, she has everything he doesn’t in life). Pete is convinced Katie “was the first one who could’ve been the one”, turning himself into a mopey quasi-Ted Moesby as he sits at the wedding reception, sad over the life he never thought about pursuing until just a few days earlier.

It’s fun to see Pete squirm inside his own identity, and Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place is making a concerted effort in season two to double down on the quarter-life crisis that’s arrived early for Pete. He’s questioned his identity, made terrible romantic decisions, and engaged in impulsive attempts to redefine himself on the fly – though it’s not always a rewarding watch, it’s certainly a consistent, relatable experience (at least for Gen X and early millennials, who were afforded the luxuries of even being able to have these kinds of professional reflection and experimentation), and “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding” gets a lot of good mileage over Pete’s inner turmoil falling out of him as he continues to drink at the wedding, eventually stumbling his way into giving an awkward toast to Katie and her new husband Spud (as the group affectionally refers to them; his real name is Steve).

Of course, what Pete eventually realizes – as everyone does when their first ex gets married before them – is that he’s going to be ok, and in fact, Katie’s impending nuptials only gave Pete rose-colored glasses about their past relationship. In his speech, he reveals how much they used to fight, and how he hated the way she chewed gum – and finds resolve in the fact that she did find the person who had no problem with those very things, giving him a little bit of hope that just because someone could’ve been ‘the one’, doesn’t mean they would become ‘the one’ in this life.

Pete’s story, of course, is the supporting plot of the episode, his despair converging with Berg’s own, as he confronts Ashley’s continued rejections of him. Berg, of course, goes about this in incredibly shitty fashion, agreeing to go to Katie’s wedding with Ashley “as a friend” – and then proceeding to exploit that little wrinkle, demeaning her at every turn for her unwillingness (as we find out) to cheat on her long-distance boyfriend. Of the two halves of this story, Ashley’s is much more interesting than Berg’s; where Berg is merely acting on the juvenile whims of his attraction to someone who has proved to be a worthy adversary, while Ashley has been trying to resist his advances, not just because a lot of it was chauvinistic peacocking, but because she trying not give in to the impulsive feelings she had towards Berg.

Their dynamic through the episode is an interesting one, a mixture of frustration, immaturity (with Berg going out of his way to remind Ashley that she friend-zoned him), and restrained attraction, seen best when the two break out into a well-choreographed tango sequence on the reception dance floor. But when a fed-up Berg confronts Ashley about her resistance to him; after mentioning her boyfriend, she tells Berg she wasn’t going to tell him “until it mattered” – an incredibly curt, unsatisfying justification for why Ashley’s held back from telling Berg about her Oxford-attending boyfriend (who she met in undergrad, and keeps secret from the world?).

But it does raise an interesting question; why are these two attracted to each other, and why can’t they tell each other the honest truth about it? It’s a question to watch as Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place‘s second season moves into its second and third acts; here, it’s more of a surprise reveal than an effective piece of character building, but it still offers quite a bit of intrigue as to what Ashley’s place really is on this series; an adversarial presence to keep the lead trio in check, or a romantic pursuit reflecting Berg’s own worst, aggrandized qualities within himself? “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding” wait too long to make Ashley’s reveal work as a true answer to any of these questions; but it does underlie the potential for a more engaging, developed dynamic between Berg and Ashley, which certainly would help this still-young sitcom grow into its own voice.

For the time being, it’s mostly a tease; and with Pete whining and Sharon swooning (her entire plot is tied up in what suit Johnny’s going to wear to the wedding, and whether it means he could be gay or not… it’s really empty, and thankfully doesn’t get much screen time), it does give the episode a bit of propulsion it doesn’t have elsewhere. But to be honest, it really doesn’t need it; a wedding setting turns out to be a great background for a number of fun scenes, from the guys getting fitted for tuxes, to the Ashley/Berg dancing scene – and my favorite, when Johnny tears off the ugly parts of Sharon’s dress, as he reminds her that he’s falling in love with the woman in the dress, not the hideously cliched bridesmaid dress she walks around in for most of the episode.

Though it’s not quite as revelatory or dramatic as it wants to feel, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding” is a great mid-season episode for the series as it settles into its new, expanded cast and group dynamic – as one of the first episodes of the season to feature both Ashley and Johnny, a telling sign that the writer’s room could already feel the benefits of opening its lens a bit. It remains to be seen whether the show dipping its toes into romantic comedy is a smart choice, but at the very least, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding” is at least a sign the series isn’t content to sit on the heels of its newfound riches, continuing to push itself forward into uncomfortable waters to challenge itself and its characters – what more can you ask for?

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• “It’s not about the dress… it’s about the pathetic liar in the dress!”
  
• The group striking Charlie’s Angels poses over the closing credits is one of many times this cast just looks like fun to hang out around.
  
• How is Berg’s dancing? “John Travolta meets Fred Astaire… with a dash of Gomez Adams.”
  
• “If I had a seatbelt and an airbag, I’d be alive today.” Sometimes Berg has so many one-liners, the best of them get lost in the mix, like this one.
  
• There’s a funny bit with Terri and Berg remembering having sex with each other in exotic locations – except it was never actually with each other, but other people.
  
• “You call that a toast? You know what I call it? LIES!” Pete is in rare form this episode.
  
• I appreciate that Berg’s confrontation of Ashley at the end gets a bit ugly; it makes the moment feel more realistic, his hurt feelings bubbling into a moment that makes his character noticeably less endearing. It’s a bit of complexity modern sitcoms mostly avoid in moments of conflict, and I appreciate it here.
  
• Up next: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place hits the road in “Two Guys, a Girl and Oxford”.