Second Look: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 15 – “Two Guys, a Girl and a Graduation”

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2, Episode 15 “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation”
Written by Rick Wiener
Directed by Amanda Bearse
Aired February 3, 1999 on ABC

After its first successful use of flashbacks in season one’s “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met”, it’s no surprise to see Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place return to its own past in “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation”. And in the spirit of its more experimental, thoughtful second season, how “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” utilizes flashbacks is much more interesting, slowly unpeeling the many layers of story surrounding the day of the group’s college graduation – and the secrets Peter and Berg have been protecting since then. The result is one of the more dramatic, intricate episodes in the show’s still-brief existence – and easily one of the best half hours of the series.

“Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” opens with the trio reading a profile on Sharon’s father in a local newspaper – and when he doesn’t mention anything about Sharon in the article, she takes it as a sign he’s embarrassed of her career doing PR for a toxic chemical company (as Pete points out, she does get quoted in the same newspaper; unfortunately, it’s usually about things like accidentally creating new, mutated species of fish). But when Sharon is in line for to be a marketing executive at a fashion company – which she thinks is an “ethical” company, a fitting attitude for 1999 – she finds out she never actually graduated Tufts University, something the episode immediately reveals is the result of some mysterious thing Berg and Peter did.

After showing the audience a picture of them on their graduation day – Peter and Sharon smiling while Berg is in the middle of a violent spit take – “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” wastes no time in revealing what happened to Sharon, after she learns her diploma was held because of $210 in unpaid parking tickets (and that she needs three more English credits before she can graduate, thanks to changing requirements); overwhelmed with things to do on graduation day, she entrusted Berg and Pete with the money to pay her bevy of unpaid parking tickets with – something they make a bunch of lighthearted jokes about, leading Sharon to storm out on them mid-episode, angry and ready to break up their friendship over the massive, obvious breach of trust and how little they clearly care for all she does for them (right down to recording Pete’s episodes of General Hospital).

Or was it not obvious? It’s not until Sharon storms out that “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” starts to backtrack into the past, to provide the context for what happened on graduation day, and how it could fundamentally change the dinner she’s about to have with her father in the present. As Sharon begins to think about graduation day, she remembers the two of them showing up with expensive champagne to celebrate with, as we see in the episode’s first flashback. But from that moment, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place begins to work backwards, using that misdirection as a foundation to upend the story we think we know behind their graduation photo – and in the process, delivering one of the most unexpectedly awesome, subversive episodes of its four-season run.

“Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” eventually reveals that Pete and Berg didn’t spend her money on champagne – that really was given to them by a random woman, as they told Sharon earlier in the episode, when it appeared they were covering up for themselves with half-baked lies (*more on this scene in the episode’s other thoughts section below*). They also hadn’t spent the money at the dog track, as they had originally intended – they had spent the money bailing out Sharon’s father from jail, who had been arrested that evening for public drunkenness.

When they pick up Sharon’s father (who annoyingly is never actually named; neither are Sharon’s two siblings she mentions) from the drunk tank, he reveals to them that he’s let his entire life fall apart. What Sharon saw as her father leaving the rat race of high-end real estate was really him leaving with his tail between his legs, his fortunes squandered and his family’s financial situation severely compromised – but Berg and Pete promise him they’ll never tell Sharon what happened that night, and inspire her father to pick up the pieces of his life and find a new path to success – which he does in the time between the flashbacks and present, his secret still safe with his daughter’s best friends, as she anxiously avoids trying to disappoint him by presumably wasting the tens of thousands of dollars he spent putting her through college, to get the career he’s so obviously disappointed in her having today.

Throughout the episode’s second half, “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” relishes in putting its little narrative pieces and reveals into place, as it shows us what happened in the 24 hours leading up to the picture still sitting on Berg and Pete’s mantle. And though the flashbacks reveal the two are as dumb and selfishly opportunistic as they were three years prior in “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met”, they were willing to do whatever it took to keep Sharon from ever being disappointed in her father – as we’ve seen in “Two Guys, a Girl and a Dad” and with Pete’s long-established identity struggles, having a healthy relationship with your father is a precious thing that can’t be restored in the same fashion once it is shattered. So they decide to protect their lie, at any cost – until Sharon is ready to end their friendship, until her father reminds her that “jobs come and go, but friends get you through the worst of times”.

It’s a simple message; but how “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” reaches that conclusion, consistently upending audience expectations as it builds out the layers of its story, constantly recontextualizing Berg and Pete’s seemingly selfish, immature behavior until revealing the real motivations behind their decisions to try and protect Sharon and her father’s lies from each other. The lengths they’re willing to go, to draw her ire towards them and away from her family, is an unexpectedly emotional twist that elevates an already-clever episode into something much more resonant and moving, to really reinforce the foundation of their friendship in unexpectedly poignant ways (like when Berg points out to Sharon’s father that they lie to her all the time… a fact that points out how annoying and immature they can be, but also how far they’re willing to go to protect Sharon from being disappointed in herself or others).

Though there are much more obviously experimental episodes in the series, from “Two Guys, a Girl and a Psycho Halloween” to season four’s “A Moving Script”, “Two Guys, a Girl and Graduation” remains one of my favorites, as it continuously upends the assumed truths of its story, to slowly reveal a story that deepens the bonds between its main characters. What more can you ask for?

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

• Ok, more about the scene with the champagne; that is the first appearance of Irene, who we will meet briefly in next week’s episode, before she joins the main cast for seasons three and four. Without context, her first appearance is incredibly strange; she just walks in, hands them a bottle of champagne, smiles, and leaves.
  
• Sharon pays for 12 parking tickets, plus interest and penalties… “At least you’re getting airline miles!”
  
• Berg agrees to take Sharon’s ticket money to the campus police, because he wanted to say goodbye to them anyway.
  
• One truth Sharon unsuccessfully tries to hide: that Johnny moved in after the events of “Two Guys, a Girl and a Gamble”, thanks to Berg and Pete.
  
• Up next: Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place explains the champagne scene in this episode (kind of) in “Two Guys, a Girl and Valentine’s Day”.