Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 20 – “Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother’s Day”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 20 “Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother’s Day”
Written by Rick Wiener (story), Mark Ganzel & Kenny Schwartz (teleplay)
Directed by Ellen Gittelsohn
Aired May 12, 1999 on ABC

Witch hunts are afoot on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, in what is perhaps the show’s last “regular” episode before undergoing its next big, fundamental set of creative changes. But before it can get to that, there’s gotta be some time for some… anxious paranoia?

The most obvious parallel one could retrospectively draw from “Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother’s Day” is How I Met Your Mother‘s “Belly Full of Turkey”, which sees Lily travel to Minnesota and being directly confronted with a future full of giant Erickson babies and disgusting holiday trifles she’s thoroughly unprepared to contemplate. Though Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place‘s episode about mothers and relationships doesn’t end up with anyone in jail, the thematic parallels between Lily and Sharon are quite similar – only this time its her future coming to her home, rather than the other way around.

And what a smart decision it turns out to be; “Two Guys, a Girl and Mother’s Day” is one of the stronger Sharon episodes of the season, not only pushing her relationship with Johnny back into an anxious place, but also reigniting some of the show’s curiosity in Sharon and Pete’s relationship. The convergence of these two stories is not an unexpected one, of course, but how it manifests pushes Sharon to some intriguing places; contemplating a life she clearly doesn’t want for herself, and then, quietly wondering if the life she aspires to might actually lie with someone else in her life.

Unfortunately, it’s more table setting than an actual meal in “Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother’s Day”; after all, it’s not like Sharon having anxiety about her relationship with Johnny becoming serious is a new thing for her – and it’s also not the first time this season has hinted at Sharon and Pete both wondering if they might have feelings for each other. If anything, “Two Guys, a Girl and Mother’s Day” gives the episode an excuse to revive these dormant plots, in what’s clearly ramping up to a be a melodramatic finale between Pete, Sharon, and Johnny.

The rest of the episode wastes a mid-Buffy Anthony Head guest starring appearance, as an anatomy professor who is so overtly sexual with his teachings, Berg immediately thinks he’s trying to sleep with Ashley when he offers her a teacher’s assistant job. Berg is, of course, completely wrong about this (though Head’s Dr. Staretski does like to paint himself nude while students are in his proximity, which seems more than a bit weird), and ends up costing Ashley her T.A. job when he confronts him in his home. Outside of some vaguely humorous moments where Berg is openly self-conscious about his burgeoning relationship, “Two Guys, a Girl and Mother’s Day” does quite a terrible job of convincing the audience their relationship is anything but the toxic mess we’ve seen highlighted in episodes like “Two Guys, a Girl and a Thanksgiving” or “Two Guys, a Girl and a Wedding”.

In fact, “Two Guys, a Girl and Mother’s Day” doesn’t even try to resolve anything about their conflict in this episode, which basically boils down to Berg being an irresponsibly self-conscious douchebag. Instead, he gets bailed out when Johnny’s sister goes into labor; after that, she is just a puddle of hormones, going on about how poised and professional Berg was while giving birth to Johnny’s nephew in Pete’s bedroom. It does the same thing with Sharon; once she sees a baby, everything washes away and she becomes just another googly-eyed person ready to spit out babies, even though she was questioning the entire practice, and her relationship, but a few scenes earlier.

Though “Two Guys, a Girl and Mother’s Day” is an episode without some compelling conflicts between its core ensemble, those elements are just photocopies of ideas from earlier in the season, and not really expounded upon in any kind of interesting way in the course of this 22 minutes. What it does offer is a mix between mildly amusing (Johnny has a bunch of pregnant sisters!) to intolerably obnoxious (Berg’s shtick through the majority of the episode) – which is a bit more disappointing in hindsight, knowing this is the show’s last true episode of its first era, before next week’s penultimate episode would mark the beginning of the show’s biggest, most definitive creative shift of its entire run.

Grade: D+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Pete: “If you’re going to rob us, have the decency to tie us up!”
  
• Ashley, responding to Berg’s demands: “Well, that was a fun trip back to the 50s, now get out of my face.”
  
• Kamen makes an appearance – and gets a kiss from both Berg and Pete. What a day!
  
• Johnny’s sister is a classy one: “After seven kids, my birth canal is like a waterslide.”
  
• Sharon has a prescient thought about parenthood: “The contractions stop, but the labor never ends!”
  
• Johnny’s sister does fix a pair of shoelaces while giving birth – not an unimpressive feat.
  
• “And now, for an encore – I’m going to breast feed.”
  
• I LOVE the pictures of the cast members with their mothers over the closing credits.
  
• Up next: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place takes a step forward with “Two Guys, a Girl and Barenaked Ladies.”