Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 11 – “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 11 “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo”
Written by Barry Wernick
Directed by Leonard R. Garner Jr.
Aired December 9, 1998 on ABC

Although “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” is not nearly as experimental as other episodes in Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place season two (like “Two Guys, a Girl and a Psycho Halloween”), there’s a certain level of ingenuity to an episode that should mostly be remembered as “the one with Loveline‘s Adam Carolla” (or, if you prefer, “current conspiracy theorist and jokeless comedian Adam Carolla). More importantly, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” contains important fragments of the show’s ever-changing blueprint, teasing a few important plots of season two (and three, oddly enough) and transforming a gimmicky, simple premise into something that’s mostly watchable – which, considering its guest star, is no underrated feat.

“Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” offers nothing new at first glance, centering on stories around Berg’s frustration with Ashley, Pete’s lack of career direction, and Sharon’s romantic insecurities – though how these stories surface and coalesce offer some insight into the show’s development in its sophomore season (for better or worse, in some cases). Which makes it all the wilder that it’s Adam Carolla, of all people, that this episode decides to center itself around – a decision that, at first, appears to be a miscalibration of just how ‘cool’ Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place really was in its time.

The show finds a natural way to introduce the moderately-famous host of MTV’s Loveline show, a call-in talk show featuring Carolla and the infamous Dr. Drew Pinsky that was adapted from Carolla’s radio show, running for four years on MTV at the turn of the century. When Pete finds himself driving Carolla around for the week, he seizes the opportunity to treat it as free therapy for the entire group – beginning with his career anxieties, and eventually dumping a pair of burgeoning relationship conflicts in his lap.

Carolla’s presence is more performative than performance, his casual disinterest shifting into tepid curiosity as Pete insistently shares details of his friends and the lives they’ve lived over the course of the show’s half-dozen episodes. As he drives Carolla around Boston, he details his decisions to abandon architecture and find his own path in life – which, sadly, the episode doesn’t really do much with, except unceremoniously relieving him of his chauffeurial duties at the end of the episode, sending him back on his path of personal and professional self-discovery while the series turns its attention back to the pairings of Berg/Ashley and Johnny/Sharon.

However, by the time “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” finally gets its two pairings into the limo, the two central relationships are already on shaky ground. Berg and Ashley’s problems are obvious – set some time after “Two Guys, a Girl and Thanksgiving”, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” finds Ashley still dating Justin, but still wanting a friendship with Berg, a purgatory that has Berg flinging hockey pucks at high speeds out of frustration.

Their dynamic only gets more complicated when Ashley shows up mid-episode, crying after hearing an angry voicemail from Berg – and although he insists he’s not going to go through the same cycle we saw in “Two Guys, a Girl and Oxford”, it isn’t long before he’s whisking Ashley off for a secret night away from reality, begging Pete to be happy for him, who instead sets the pair up to meet Adam Carolla in a limousine to work out the implications behind their confusing emotions.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this setup; it works effectively to reestablish the central conflict between the two, and utilizes Carolla well when he forebodingly warns them that they should get two plane tickets to opposite sides of the world, never to speak to each other again. As Carolla points out, their dynamic is incredibly toxic already, two screwed up people who are playing with fire, seemingly only to see how good it might feel to be burned by it.

It makes a surprisingly prescient point about Berg and Ashley, answering a question this season has danced around answering (literally so, in “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding”) – do Berg and Ashley make a good couple? With one cheating on her boyfriend and the other encouraging it, there’s obviously some moral implications two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place is handwaving away – but on a deeper level, it almost feels like the series recognizing its putting trying to make two identical puzzle pieces somehow fit together, something that has more potential to fail in disastrous fashion than it is going to end in a happily-ever-after sitcom wedding.

It doesn’t do anything with this observation, of course – by the time it occurs, there’s about two minutes left in the episode – but it represents an interesting pivot, pulling away from the pairing it teased in the season premiere, to focus on a couple it didn’t start teasing until three episodes later. Even as it leans in with Berg and Ashley, there’s already a growing dichotomy between Berg and Sharon’s romantic storylines, another point Carolla smarmily touches upon, creating an unfortunate parallel between the two stories, and tipping the show’s hand a bit which one it’s really more invested in.

It also just has the more engaging conflict; when Sharon discovers Johnny’s best friend Shaun is actually a woman, she suddenly finds herself uncomfortable with the situation – another time where the series puts Sharon in a hypocritical position, which always draws interesting material out of her character. And to a degree, it’s not hard to side with her; it’s a bit weird that Johnny wears a necklace Shaun gave him when him and Sharon have sex, especially when considering she ‘taught’ Johnny how to kiss (and of course, a little bit of foreknowledge where the series would eventually lead with their dynamic).

It’s the rare Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place story that works better in retrospect; without knowing where this all heads towards the end of season two, it’s easy to brush off Sharon’s insecurity and Johnny’s ignorance as hammy sitcom plots, drummed up conflict used to fill space. But knowing this show puts Sharon and Johnny through the ringer as a couple for the next season or so of episodes, makes the introduction of this conflict – and Carolla’s warning that they are “screwing up something special” if they’re not willing to budge at all – a little more illuminative than it might seem, and a rather effective way for the episode to tie all of its main characters and story threads back together in the eleventh hour.

While the individual elements of “Two Guys, a Girl and a Limo” aren’t particularly strong or memorable (even Carolla, whose flat performance explains why this didn’t become a thing in the early 2000s), what they represent, both in terms of the show’s narrative and creative directions, is surprisingly strong, one of those episodes that’s probably more interesting to think about than actually watch – but one that still represents an important bridge between the show’s past and future, setting an early course for the long path to the impending, controversial season two finale.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• Carolla exudes turn of the century dude host energy: “Does this by any chance have to do with a threesome?”
  
• I like that the show touches on Ashley and Sharon, and how the two still aren’t past having an awkward conversational dynamic.
  
• Sharon imagined Shaun to be “taller, broader… more penis-y.”
  
• Pete has a great assessment of Ashley’s conflicted feelings: “That must be really hard… on Justin.”
  
• Carolla points out Ashley and Berg “crave friction”… I’m not saying this quote frames the next two dozen episodes to follow, but I imagine we’ll be returning to this prescient line of thought from noted shit heel Adam Carolla.
  
• Pete tries to find inspiration from Carolla: “Just a few years ago you were a carpenter!” And to think, he’s now the creator and star of DailyWire+’s ‘hit’ animated comedy based on his character from Crank Yankers.
  
• Up next: It’s Pete’s turn for a romantic subplot in “Two Guys, a Girl and a Christmas story.”