Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 1, Episode 11 “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met”
Written by Rick Wiener, Kenny Schwartz & Danny Jacobson
Directed by Margorie Weitzman
Aired May 26, 1998 on ABC
Though flashback episodes were hardly a new thing in 1998, it wasn’t often common to see them occur as early in a show’s run as “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met”, the 11th episode of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (though it is certainly more commonplace in the post-Friends and LOST era). However, in the case of the young, Boston-set sitcom, looking back at the genesis of Pete and Berg’s friendship with Sharon was important to do early on; not only does it help bring Sharon a bit more into the fold than she previously was, but it allows Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place to excise the various “will they, won’t they” scenarios it has so obviously avoided with its co-leads (at least, for now… but that’s a discussion for another day, in another season) – a smart move, that despite its premise, pays off in spades.
Set six years ago in a local Boston bar, “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met” is, as the title suggests, the story of how the boys met Sharon – but it is also an episode about the show’s own identity, reflecting on the possibilities of what a show where Sharon, Pete, and Berg are tied up in an all-consuming lover’s triangle. “How They Met” introduces us to slightly more immature versions of Pete and Berg; both undecided about what majors they want to pursue, and both adhering to a dating “playbook” that is more than a little reminiscent of the iconic, leather-bound volume Barney Stinson would produce in New York a decade later.
The dating playbook is the table-setter for what is a rather cringey, if accurate, portrayal of what a young Berg would be like – that is, arrogantly full of himself, someone crawling out of their small childhood pond for the first time into late 90s dating culture, in all its horrible glory (thankfully, there are no jokes or suggestions of any kind about roofies). “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met” basically suggests little personal growth for Berg and Pete in the six years between this and “The Pilot”; Berg is still chauvinistic and Pete (with goatee!) is still insanely over committal (while still somehow being indecisive) – even Sharon, who meets the guys while trying to get signatures for a Save the Whales campaign, is mostly her quippy, driven and slightly self-righteous self, immediately seeing through Berg’s attempts to flirt with her.
From there, it would seem “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met” was setting the stage for an underwhelming episode, when the two decide they’re throwing the playbook away so they can fight over who gets to ask out the hot hippie-haired blonde. And they certainly do that for awhile; but with their interests explicitly boiling down to wanting to see her naked (and also, having 10 episodes of foresight into the arrested development these two man-boys are experiencing), there’s really not a whole lot for this episode to do, except eventually solve the mystery of why none of them ever dated (posited by Bill and Mr. Bauer in the episode’s opening, to set the stage for the flashback sequence).
Once Berg’s pickup lines and Pete’s silly facial hair have been ridiculed, “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met” drags quite a bit – that is, until the two get themselves kicked out of the bar, after having a fake bar fight to create a distraction for Sharon to run out of the bar and pee in an alley. The episode then shifts to Sharon’s apartment (which… fairly certain this is the first time we see her place), where the boys quickly realize she’s brought them back not to choose one for a sexual fling, but to get the surround sound system her father bought for her installed – and the boys finally realize that Sharon is just like them, an absolute nightmare to be avoided at all costs by logical people.
That endpoint is a terrific one – one that doesn’t just satisfy the prerequisite of making the three platonic friends, but in a way that helps the entire premise of the show click into place. After they call her out, she admits to her ploy and asks them to go to Beacon Street Pizza with her; like any good flashback episode, “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met” ties in a bunch of series lore with its resolutory moments, and it strengthens what could’ve easily been one of the weakest episodes of the season.
There’s still a bit of meat left on the bone, of course – how Sharon would go from Greenpeace volunteer to cracking jokes about paralyzed crocodiles is one we don’t really need to see, knowing the plight of Gen Xers and their sense of identity once thrown into America’s corporate machine. However, the episode is primarily about Sharon’s pragmatism and brutalist approach to honesty; and once it finally reveals that as its true purpose, the entire episode – and some of the season preceding it – snap into place.
Now, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place would go through a number of shifts through the series; from its cast, to its narratives, to the very construction of its scripts would always be in some state of flux. Eventually that would become part of its creative identity; in “Two Guys, a Girl and How They Met”, it is more a preview of what is to come than a full-throated declarative statement (at one point later in the series, it would even toy with abandoning this established dynamic between the three altogether, in arguably the show’s most divisive plotline). However, it is a strong statement, one that brings its central trio of well-meaning degenerates into clear focus, in what makes for a surprisingly strong antepenultimate episode.
Grade: B
Other thoughts/observations:
- Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place teases a proclivity towards fourth wall breaking, when Mr. Bauer adopts the show’s origin story as his own (he even asks at the beginning, “Is this going to be a flashback?”).
- The idea of a Bladder Bust is just silly. Everyone drinks free until someone pees or leaves? that is a one-way road to bankruptcy.
- Berg: “Man, those Milli Vanilli guys are awesome. Their music sounds so effortless, like they’re not even singing.”
- “I can’t drink.” “Then why are you in college?” Cue audience laughter, because it’s 1997 TV baby!
- “Do you know how many carrots died so you could be regular?”
- Berg: “Whales play a big part in my life. Just this afternoon I had this delicious whale sandwich. Humpback. Lettuce and tomato, thinly sliced between two mountain gorilla hats. With some white rhino fries and a chopped cheetah salad – which by the way, I spilled all over my sea lion skin rug.”
- Sharon really does look adorable in her wig – and she is drinking Shasta Cola in this episode, which is a reference for the real ones only.
- Sharon’s assessment of Berg: “You’re just a woody with a body attached.”
- Up next: Berg’s father takes a trip to Boston in the aptly-titled “Two Guys, a Girl and a Dad”.