Review: Ben and Kate ‘Girl Problems’ – You Choke Up On It

The Ben and Kate ensemble is a pretty calm one – BJ usually pokes fun at Ben and Kate while helping them out, while Tommy is the lovable dude who has everyone’s back all the time. ‘Girl Problems’ dives into the one area of conflict and awkwardness in the group: Tommy’s longtime crush on Kate, something joked about, but not really discussed since the second or third episode. Although it’s an episode that severely under utilizes Brittany Snow, ‘Girl Problems’ manages to redeem itself with one of the most enjoyable Ben plots of the season.

The problem with Lyla’s character is she isn’t really given much to say throughout – most of the dilemmas occur from Kate’s diarrhea of the mouth, with Tommy representing her anger when he visits Kate’s house later in the episode (“How are you today? Don’t care”). Lyla and Kate really only have one fragmented conversation where Kate is apologizing profusely and Lyla seems reluctant to Kate’s ideas. I think more interaction between Lyla and Tommy would’ve helped this material out; we’ve really got no context of their relationship and where it is outside of the short opening scene, book ended by their predictable make out session in the end. It makes Lyla’s presence feel more like a placeholder than a real character, a person who is a catalyst for the Tommy/Kate story line, then a genuine love interest/possible threat to Kate, who’s knowingly kept Tommy on the end of a leash for the better part of a decade.

‘Girl Problems’ was an opportunity to show a darker side of Kate – we all know part of her poking around into who Lyla is, trying to be her ‘friend’, isn’t just a matter of her trying to help Tommy where her and Will went wrong. There are ulterior motives; they may not be intentionally malicious of course, but there’s no doubting that Kate is sizing Lyla up in their scenes together, passive-aggressively trying to be her new girlfriend. I wish the show would’ve shown us a bit of an uglier, jealous side to Kate: even if she’s not in love with Tommy, there’s undoubtedly some bitterness Kate would feel towards Lyla, especially in her post-failed relationship state.

But like I said, Ben steals the episode with the return of his Rail Mall idea, which gets him in the pants of a horny mid-life executive, who has absolutely no interest in his idea. If this is where Ben’s going to hang out for the rest of the season, it definitely will be interesting: he’s finally refined his idea into something useful (subway food delivery system) with the help of this woman, but unfortunately, sleeping with your business partner will eventually lead to some ugly shit (this goes double for sitcoms and their multi-episode “guest stars”). But the episode gives us lots of  uncomfortable Ben (at his funniest), and the confident, people-charming person he is (at his most endearing, like talking to the old guy about vacationing in Santa Fe).

Top it off with some hilarious BJ material (her southern accent was fucking killer in the fancy business party scene), and ‘Girl Problems’ more than makes up for its attempt to bring some insight to Kate and Tommy’s complicated relationship (Tommy is literally only in three scenes… how are we supposed to invest in his relationship with Lyla, OR his conflict with Kate?). Rail Mall lives!

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– “What do you give your doorman for the holidays? A solid two hundo, maybe some baked goods?”

– the mailman returns, used in an ‘elaborate’ Tommy/Kate plan that involved a test run.

– “You enjoy brandy?” Ben: “we’ve met.”

– Awkward Kate is a little too similar to Awkward Jess on New Girl at times.