Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 18 – “Two Guys, a Girl and Ashley’s Return (Part 2)”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 18 “Two Guys, a Girl and Ashley’s Return (Part 2)”
Written by Barry Wernick
Directed by Michael Lembeck
Aired March 10, 1999 on ABC

After an underwhelming opening to its first two-parter, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place stumbles its way into “Two Guys, a Girl and Ashley’s Return (Part 2)”, abandoning the high concept storm episode for a much more straightforward story exploring the show’s two vaguely formed love triangles: Ashley/Berg/Venita and Pete/Sharon/Johnny. What plays out is a tale of two entirely different episodes, dissonant in both tone and quality; the crass, toxic dynamic of Ashley and Berg’s reunion, and the heartfelt, engaging story of Johnny and Sharon’s own romantic rekindling.

Opening on the final moments of “Two Guys, a Girl and the Storm of the Century”, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place tries, half-heartedly, to convince us that Berg is really torn between the woman he just met and the woman he fawned over for the first half of the season. Even after Sharon and Pete convincingly cosplay Ashley and Berg (respectively) and what an awful pairing they make, Berg is still torn between the hot weatherwoman and the woman who rejected him multiple times (sometimes in incredibly epic fashion).

It doesn’t help that in the next scene, Ashley reveals that while she’s excited for her upcoming date with Berg, she hasn’t actually told Justin she’s broken up with him, planning to do it mere hours before her and Berg presumably go on their fated first date together. It leaves Berg with a choice: try and date the weatherwoman who charms the ward of sick children at the hospital, or go out with Ashley, who is still with her boyfriend of four years even as she’s wrapping her mouth around Berg’s in front of the sick children? Watching the two of them feels like taking crazy pills; forget a suspension of logic for the sake of tragedy and comedy, the attempts to justify this are absolutely ludicrous, doubly so when Berg tells Ashley he’s going out with Venita, and she flat out refuses to accept his supposed “break up”.

There might’ve been a way to make this story work; but between Berg’s smarmy bullshit and Ashley’s unhinged approach to relationships, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place makes it pretty clear their dynamic is fundamentally toxic – so while it may attract them to each other in the short-term, it is a pairing bound for disaster… which kind of makes the only interesting part of it seeing how it inevitably falls apart (which, spoiler – will be a bit longer than any of us would like it to be). Forget the lack of romanticism – given this is late Gen X comedy, its bound to be wrought with irony, rather than emotion – there’s just nothing appealing about watching the two get horny snarling over each other, which is precisely where this episode lands (after Venita storms out of a date Ashley interrupts, an unceremonious ending for a woman willing to sing and dance while singing “The Gambler” acapella).

All while this is happening, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place intermingles their nonsense with a rather moving little story for Sharon and Johnny, after Johnny arrives at the pizza shop worried Sharon got hurt in the storm (since he called her 15 times and she ignored him). Johnny’s looking for her because he’s excited to tell her that he kissed Shawn and “felt nothing”. It’s not the smartest idea, obviously: Sharon runs off, furious at Johnny for what was, as he reminds her, exactly the thing she told him to do after their abrupt breakup during “Two Guys, a Girl and Valentine’s Day”; he went out with Shawn, felt nothing, reinforcing the fact that Sharon is the love of his life.

Of course, Sharon’s not really mad because Johnny kissed Shawn; she’s mad at herself, because she kissed Pete and isn’t entirely sure what it means for them. She insists that she wants to fix things with Johnny, but she does tell Pete that their kiss “meant something”, because the two of them are close friends who share a special bond – she stops short of saying anything further, but Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place very lightly alludes to the fact that Johnny could be a bit shortsighted to just laugh off Pete as a potential threat to their relationship – and does so with a very delicate touch, offering nuance and a patience with its storytelling the abrasive, annoying Berg/Ashley material of the episode is absolutely begging for.

Thankfully, “Two Guys, a Girl and Ashley’s Return” decides to end on Sharon and Johnny, as they set up a bit of farce for Pete to think that Johnny was actually mad at Pete for his kiss with Sharon, including actually punching Pete in the face to fully commit to the bit. something the episode deftly plays as a bit ambiguous, even after it’s revealed to be a joke. After an episode of Ashley and Berg’s manipulative nonsense, it’s more than refreshing to see the show end by restoring the relationship that has been one of season two’s biggest growth points – particularly for Sharon, whose character gets to enjoy a level of dimensionality rarely offered to her character in earlier episodes of the series.

Though Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place appears to be walking into a trap with the revival of one of its two major romantic plot lines, it’s hard not to be encouraged by how well everything else in the episode holds together (and even in the Berg story, there are plenty of funny moments making the more obnoxious material watchable) when it turns its attention to the other 3/5ths of the show’s expanded ensemble. With only four episodes left in the season, that kind of third-act recovery is important – not only for the sake of this episode, but in recovering the show from its creative stumble just in time for season two’s final act.

Grade: B-

Other thoughts/observations:

• Pete talking shit to himself in the mirror with his black eye is classic: “I kissed your woman. You know what she said? At last, kissed by a real man.”
  
• Hey, it’s Trevor Einhorn (otherwise known as Frederick Crane starting in season four of Frasier) as a horny kid in a wheelchair!
  
• Dr. Berg, addressing children: “I’m afraid I have some bad news… we’re out of Ritalin.”
  
• Pete tries to prepare for a punch that isn’t coming: “Please don’t pull all your weight into it.”
  
• “I had to talk to somebody.” Sharon: “Then get a therapist!”
  
• Sharon: “I have a real problem with Johnny not having a problem with me.”
  
• Up next: Berg tries his hand at sport medicine in “Two Guys, a Girl and a Fighter”.