Though “he who hesitates is lost” may seem like a throwaway excuse Pete throws out to justify running away to France in the opening scene of Two Guys and a Girl‘s third season, it’s really an incredibly succinct definition of the show’s pathos. After all, Two Guys and a Girl‘s first two seasons have seen its characters and the show’s format both shift and grow into new forms – and in “A New Hope”, it’s clear the series is once again on the precipice of great change once again, with the titular pizza place missing from both the episode’s locales – and more importantly, the show’s very name itself, a sign as sure as any that Two Guys and a Girl has returned from summer break a much different show than it was at the end of “Two Guys, a Girl and an Engagement (Part 1)”.
Existential change doesn’t come without a bit of chaos – smartly, “A New Hope” keeps that energy to its protagonists, and smartly lines up the season premiere thematically, so all of its characters are undergoing fundamental challenges that push them farther into the adulthood they were so clearly resisting back in season one. And it does so by tethering itself directly to the stories at the end of season two; despite this change from being stories of arrested development to tales of maturity, Two Guys and a Girl masterfully weaves the stories of its titular trio resisting the changes that have arrived at their door (and have no sign of leaving).
“A New Hope” begins by trying to untangle the goofy love triangle it forced itself into at the end of season two; but smartly, this episode becomes less about whether Sharon and Pete are in love with each other, and more about their individual journeys, and the naivety they both have about the paths they find themselves traveling down. Pete’s story – which sees him making friends with the second person he talks to on the plane, who ends up ripping him off and leaving him penniless on the streets of Paris – is a more simplistic, visceral version of this idea; but Berg’s, which is no better signified than him trying to dunk on the basketball hoop Ashley’s removed from the living room in their first scene, is also an incredibly effective rumination on the immaturity of its protagonists and the emotional reaction they have to the concept of having to grow up.
Berg’s mostly just leads to him jestering around and arguing with Ashley, but this provides the basketball hoop as the anchoring visual metaphor for the changes undergoing Two Guys and a Girl and its main characters. I don’t even mind that there really isn’t a reason given for why Ashley has decided she’s tired of Berg’s immature tastes; she’s just decided that its time for Berg to stop playing games, which gives a nice undercurrent to the more prescient stories for Pete and Sharon, the two characters resisting the world that has continued to turn and change without them – in a way making a great case for why Pete and Sharon aren’t really attracted to each other, and really have just been using each other as excuses to ignore the challenges lying right in front of them.
For Sharon, it’s finally letting herself be vulnerable romantically; we saw throughout season two how her developing relationship with Johnny has pushed Sharon into really uncomfortable places. She broke up with him mid-season out of paranoia, flipped out when he tried dating other people during that time – then she gets cold feet when Johnny proposes to her in the season finale, an anxiety that carries through “A New Hope” and the eventual “theoretical” yes she gives to Johnny’s proposal. Again, it’s smart for Two Guys and a Girl to mostly ignore the catalyzing event of Johnny’s proposal and Pete’s impromptu trip across the Atlantic Ocean; these two characters are so afraid to face their own fears in life, that the sheer concept of a healthy relationship is one that sends them both into respective spirals.
“A New Hope” does run out Sharon’s nonsense a bit too long in the episode, which comes at the cost of having Berg’s story feel like it has any emotional stakes in the transformative stories churning at the heart of the series. Thankfully, it still leaves plenty of room for Pete, whose personal spiral reaches a new nadir when he gets ripped off in Paris, forced to drunkenly wander the streets without any clothes or money, yelling at happy couples as they huddle under umbrellas – until he gets hit by a car, seemingly by a cute French woman to whom he declares “I loof you” before passing out and leaving the episode on a cliffhanger. Obviously Pete is not going to die (even the pizza place doesn’t die until the next episode); but “A New Hope” leaves him at a new personal low, in what looks to be a fun reset for a character who has bounced chaotically from story to story in the show’s first 35 chapters.
Although it sometimes feels like an isolated trio of stories, a strong thematic undercurrent makes “A New Hope” an uncannily strong season premiere, considering the creative circumstances. Though it would be easy for Two Guys and a Girl to make a neat cut from the first two seasons and drop itself into a new world and narrative, “A New Hope” understands that the key to its new identity lies in the evolution, not disposal, of the show it exists on the shoulders of. Thanks to that, Two Guys and a Girl‘s third season gets off to an incredibly strong start, recovering nicely from a mixed season finale and further cementing itself as as one of the most subtly subversive, versatile comedies of its era.
Other thoughts/observations:
- Welcome back to Two Guys and a Girl reviews! If you missed it, here are links to season one reviews and season two reviews (and if you want to see more, check out the TV Archives and/or subscribe to the free newsletter!). Season three is my favorite of the series, and I’m excited to get through its extended 24-episode run.
- Johnny can’t release his anger in Sharon’s apartment: “Everything in here is too nice to break!”
- Apparently Pete sings “Rhinestone Cowboy” in the shower frequently?
- Berg: “The simple answer is usually the right one… Sharon’s unbalanced”.
- Pete: “I talk loud, I grew up in a really long house.”
- Johnny tells Sharon she’s letting him “roast in the flames of uncertainty”, which is more poetic than I’d normally expect from him.
- One of the Eiffel Tower workers has advice for Pete: “I would jump off this side… the view is beautiful.”
- Pete, using logic: “Love means egg, which means zero, which means nothing.”
- Up next: Two Guys and a Girl says farewell to Beacon Street in “Au Revoir, Pizza Place”.