Greek 3.10: "Friend or Foe"

“Jiminy wants you to be careful with your killer robot.”

-Beaver

The fall finale of Greek really brought the drama. Everyone’s relationships are being tested, and a bunch of minor (and some more major) characters have been expelled or are facing expulsion if their secrets are found out. This should all provide for interesting fodder when Greek returns next year, and the set-up itself was certainly juicy.

The opening scene of the episode was very sweet- the calm before the storm. Casey is getting dressed in Cappie’s room at the KT house and trying not to wake up Cappie. Cappie wakes up anyway, and they discuss how Cappie needs to tell Evan that Casey and Cappie are back together. Apparently Casey has been hiding the relationship from Ashleigh for the past week because she and Cappie both decided that Evan needed to be the first to know, and not surprisingly, it’s been difficult. Cappie promises to tell Evan that day, and Casey rewards him with a kiss in the KT living room. The kiss is met with a round of applause from all the KT brothers who have been hiding in the shadows. It’s a lovely callback to the pilot, and it’s nice to see the same events happen again in a much more positive context.

Anticipating that Cappie will indeed tell Evan, Casey rushes into the ZBZ how while the ladies are in the middle of rehearsing for Songfest, another Panhel competition that awards points towards the Greek Blue Ribbon. Ashleigh isn’t as excited as Casey hoped she would be. She’s generally okay with it, however, once Casey assures her that her new relationship won’t interfere with the Songfest. Kind of mixed up priorities, eh Ash?

Cappie manages to corner Evan at the Amphora Lair, and the reaction isn’t much better. In fact, it’s worse. Evan says he’s’ happy for Cappie and Casey, but it’s painfully obvious that he’s not, and that he wishes he had Casey back himself. Actually, the events of last week’s Thanksgiving episode make that painfully obvious, too.

The usually dynamic duo of Rusty and Dale isn’t fairing well, either. They are waiting to find out who gets the grant they’ve both been working for, and they still aren’t speaking to each other. I was glad to see Rusty showed a little spine, however. It turns out he deliberately didn’t update his lab notes so Dale wouldn’t know that his experiment had succeeded. The funniest part of this whole subplot happened when Rusty and Dale’s projects were being judged. They were both being egged on by their faculty advisors to insult each other. It was amusing and kind of pathetic at the same time, considering it seemed like it was really the two adults trying to live out some fantasy of besting each other in an insult contest. Unfortunately, although Rusty and Dale were both named finalists, we won’t know the winner until “next semester,” which by Greek reckoning, probably means Season 4, since the second half of Season 3 should cover post-Thanksgiving through winter break if Seasons 1 and 2 are an accurate model.

Meanwhile, there’s much more drama surrounding Songfest, and it could have some dire consequences for some of our favorite ZBZs in the second half of the season. Katherine makes Casey an offer that she thinks Casey can’t refuse. She wants Casey to be Vice President of Judicial on the Panhel exec board. The catch? Casey, who, for some reason, is regarded as one of ZBZ’s best dancers, will not be allowed to participate in Songfest because the VPJ must remain neutral in all Greek competitions. Casey does refuse all right, although it takes Katherine using a technicality (Betsy, their choreographer, deactivated from ZBZ and hasn’t officially re-activated) to throw out ZBZs dance routine on the night before the competition. Casey gives as good as she gets in what is probably my favorite Casey moment of the series. Imitating Katherine, she says, “My house needs me. Moving on.”

It appears that Evan has used being jealous of Cappie as an excuse to look the other way when the KT/Theta Chi feud is escalated. Lots of prankage takes place, including a cricket infestation in the KT house (how adorable was Beaver with his cricket “Jiminy,” by the way?) and a walling-in of the Theta Chi front door. At Casey’s prodding, Evan and Cappie agree to try to end the conflict by uniting their houses against a common enemy- Officer Huck, the Campus Security officer. None of the other KT or Omega Chi brothers like the idea, though, and the Omega Chi’s in particular threaten to impeach Evan over it.

Rusty and Dale also have to settle their differences if they want to continue living together, and they decide to do so in true nerd fashion. Battlebots! Rusty worked hard on his robot, and he’s pretty sure he can beat Dale. Before the competition, however, Calvin has a heart to heart with Rusty. He reminds Rusty that he has a whole fraternity of guys who support him and he’s gotten an opportunity to date and have fun, but science is all Dale has. Rusty ends up throwing the match for Dale’s sake.

Evan, however, is not such a good friend. KT and Omega Chi are in the middle of trying to hand Officer Huff’s golf cart from a building when they hear the police approaching. The KTs are all holding the ropes that are tied to the golf cart, so they have a much harder time getting away. Most of the guys do manage to escape, but three KT brothers are caught, and they are going to be expelled. Cappie is devastated at the loss of three brothers, and even worse, it turns out that Evan was the one who called the police. He thinks his house is all he has, and he didn’t want to lose them. Cappie rightly says that he lost four of his best friends that night.

The ZBZs might also be facing some discipline. They killed it at Songfest with the help of one of the pledges who, surprisingly, could choreograph. Gamma Psi, however was announced the winner. The ZBZs thought something fishy was going on, so a group of sisters, including Casey, Ashley, and Rebecca, sneak into the Gamma Psi house while the Gamma Psis are out celebrating. Everybody but Rebecca thought to bring a flashlight. Rebecca decides to light a candle. They find Katherine’s clip board, which contains evidence that the Gamma Psis bought off one of the judges. The mood of the night changes, however, when they find out that the Gamma Psi house is on fire. They aren’t sure whether or not Rebecca left the candle lit. Even if she did, there’s no way to know if that caused the fire. The ZBZs, however, take a pledge never to speak of what happened that night. They know that if they do, someone could be expelled because it’s the “kind of thing that rarely occurs unless someone is at fault.” Somebody on the Greek writing staff is a lawyer and knows their res ipsa loquitur!