I, Evan Yeong, do solemnly swear that I will keep it together when reviewing this episode. This close to the end of Season 4 and it only makes sense that I remain cool, calm, and collected as I chronicle how 2 Broke Girls concludes its fourth year and prepares for its fifth. In retrospect, given how things have gone as of late, I was kind of a fool for not instituting the EVAN YEONG MADNESS WATCH I considered back in my first ever review of the show.
This week’s episode is the first in over a month without Nashit, a poor character portrayed by a very stand-up dude named Austin Falk. His tenure as Max’s love interest lasted all of five weeks, which doesn’t quite match up with reigning champion Deke [Eric Andre] who holds the title at eight episodes. Let’s all pour out a bit of our beverage of choice for poor Sebastian who was with us but for a single installment of the show. And no, I haven’t forgotten about Johnny, but he’s from a time before I was officially reviewing 2 Broke Girls when it was somehow worse than it is now-
-and before you remind me of the first line of this entire review you need to hold on just a sec, because this episode was actually pretty good! There were some terrible “jokes” as per usual but also some very funny ones! I’m actually in a good mood because of it!
This episode is actually an Oleg and Sophie episode, which leads me to wonder why I haven’t come up with a gross portmanteau-couple-name for the two of them yet. Soleg? Ophie? Both truly, truly terrible. The wedding is finally rearing its ugly head [ostensibly taking place in the season finale] and given that Sophie went through all the trouble of finding a maid of honour I suppose it’s high time that Oleg find a best man.
Given that the only two other male characters on the show are Earl and Han, it had to be one of them, and let’s be fair we all know it wasn’t going to be the former. Han throws Oleg a bachelor party and fun stuff happens there that I’ll mention below, as well as the revelation being made that the fry cook is an illegal immigrant of sorts [by which I mean he is absolutely an illegal immigrant]. That leads to this whole thing because if Sophie finds out that their marriage will result in his green card her mistrust in men may cause her to call it all off.
And it absolutely does result in that, for a time. I need to mention that Jonathan Kite acts incredibly well in the scenes where he’s uncomfortable and trying to tell Sophie the truth; he absolutely 100% sells it. Within the span of a few short minutes, however, Oleg manages to prove his love to his wife-to-be by planting his lips on, well-
Not the LGBT kiss anyone was expecting. Or wanted. Or needed.
Han and Oleg, literally no one’s OTP. It’s an expression of his devotion to Sophie, however, and accompanies his promise that he’ll marry anyone he has to in order to stay in the country and win her over. It’s sweet in only the way Oleg can be sweet, and honestly not a terrible lead-in to what I already promised up above, the inevitable wedding/season finale episode.
Elsewhere we have Max and Caroline opening up the airport branch of The High where not much happens. I mentioned my confusion in last week’s review as to why this was a terrible thing and it most definitely continues on to this week. Apparently working in an airport is a truly terrible fate that the characters of this show would only wish upon their worst enemies. I may have romanticized the whole idea of holding down a job in that sort of environment, though-
Even without having seen The Terminal it really never struck me as that bad a gig, but then again I did do a good portion of my traveling in a pre-9/11 world. Anyway, all that really happens there is that a cute pilot flirts with Caroline, and later on at the bachelor party she sends him a boob pic with her face in it. As Max states outright, “Girl! You stupid!”
I didn’t expect them to touch on the very relevant topic of privacy and personal/intimate images and their being [stolen and] shared online and all that, or even to have them track down the pilot in order to erase said picture from his phone. That being said, it ends with them finding out that her boob pic has been turned into a meme. There’s obviously a lot of very serious stuff to be said about this, but honestly I just found the idea of that meme existing at all to be very funny.
That’s really how it ends, though, everyone. Han and Oleg’s wedding is still on and Caroline becomes a meme. I meme you can make more of! Use this link and leave your own in the comments!
Next week I will of course be doing what I do every year and try to figure out what direction this show is headed, and what I think about that. This week I’m going to legitimately enjoy myself by listing all the parts I like in the Stray Observations below [there are lots of them!].
Current Total: $2,261.
New Total: $3,261. I don’t know how they made a cool one grand. I can’t explain it.
The Title Refers To: Okay, seriously though there are no references to grates anywhere in this episode. I’m very strongly of the opinion that this was supposed to be titled “And the Gate Expectations” in reference to their pastry restaurant in the airport but somewhere along the way someone at CBS royally screwed up.
Stray Observations:
- Resident large guys Big Doug and Sancho have been known to enjoy a few BLTs [Burgers, Lasagnas, and Tacos].
- “And we’re trying to get in shape.” / “Preferably a shape that doesn’t resemble a seasonal gourd.”
- I’m going to use this bullet to state that they poke fun at Max being a child and the object of men’s sexual attention, Oprah’s weight fluctuation, and the Malaysian Airlines tragedy last year. Not great.
- “If I took a run at you you’d go right through that wall like Wile E. Coyote.”
- Oleg’s brother Yushinko couldn’t be best man because he’s in jail. Which is too bad because Sophie engraved a ham for him.
- “No way, you know I was planning on going home and crying tonight.” Caroline, any excuse to get out of a party.
- “What do a Rubik’s Cube and a penis have in common? They more you play with it the harder it gets. [beat] A Rubik’s Cube is a popular 80s toy.”
- “What’s in that, ground glass?” Han feels the same way I do about bad vodka.
- “This party is worse than the communist party. And they killed half my family.”
- “[Sophie] has major trust issues since one day her father went out for perogies and [beat] came back without perogies.”
- “Max, I just did something I’ve never done.” / “Tell a story about someone else?”
- I wanted to capture the face Caroline said she made when taking her boob pic because it is hilarious.
- Also, Matthew Moy/Han is the MVP this episode. First of all there’s his tipsily smashing the glass he tries to give a toast with-
- -the subsequent line “I am bleeding. I repeat, I am bleeding.”
- And then his best man speech:
“Sophie. Oleg. What’s there to say about these two kids? Oleg is a bad cook. Sophie, quite loud. But somehow when they get together, magic.”
- “Oh no, what am I gonna do with all those pigeons I painted wedding white-“
- “Woo, sunglasses and Advil. Last night was mad real.”
- “My boob pic is gonna be hanging over me for the rest of my life.” / “Aw c’mon, your boob couldn’t hang over a pencil.”
