“And since Jeremy left, no one lives in the dumpster, so let’s use it.”
-Rusty
“Your Friends and Neighbors” made the mistake of trying to build on every story started in the previous episode. That sort of worked for “Love, Actually, Probably…” because it was an homage to “Love, Actually,” but trying to continue all those stories in the next episode made for a bit of a jumbled mess. There wasn’t really anything to hold all of the stories together. Some, but not all of them, had the common theme of looking at the future and deciding to stay where you are, but it was a very tenuous connection. Overall, I wasn’t impressed.
Casey spent much of her time in this episode working on her law school application personal statement (which really should have been done back in October if she wanted to have a prayer of being accepted to one of the upper Tier 1 schools she was aiming for, but that’s another story). Casey thinks she has an acceptable draft until she shows it to Joel, who tells her she needs to do something more to make it stand out.
One thing I found kind of ridiculous about all this was that Casey and the people advising her (Joel and Catherine) hand this hang-up about the personal statement needing to include something that related your life to a specific law. The personal statement that got me into a Tier 1 law school was about the fact that I am a cellist, not about anything actually having to do with law. I like to think that my law school, which makes an effort to bring in students from a variety of backgrounds, decided to admit me in part because they thought that the fact I was a musician was interesting.
Ashleigh is a bit miffed that Casey is spending so much time on the personal statement and with new friends like Catherine. She gets especially upset that Casey isn’t really helping with an upcoming freshman dorm reunion. Casey spends much of the episode worrying over whether or not she and Ashleigh are growing apart for good. I’m glad that the question of growing apart was in reference to Ashleigh and not Cappie. I really hope that Casey and Cappie manage to stay strong, but I have a feeling that since this is TV, that’s never, ever going to happen.
Cappie is also attempting to start dealing with his future, and he’s also doing his best to distract himself from it. He really has no clue how to go about finally choosing a major. I don’t think he really wants to make the choice as much as he says he wants to make it. When a professor moves in next door and starts trying to impose rules on the KT house, Rusty’s plan to fix the situation provides the perfect distraction. Rusty thinks that by making the professor feel like part of the KT brotherhood, he might lighten up.
Cappie spends most of the episode reveling in the frat guy life with the professor, playing pool and drinking games, and sometimes games of pool that involve drinking. The rest of the brothers are pretty creeped out by the professor hanging out at their house, but Cappie loves it. Cappie sees it as a sign that he never has to give up the lifestyle that he loves. The professor’s sixteen-year-old daughter has also been hanging around the KT house, which could seriously get the brothers in trouble if it’s discovered.
When Officer Huck stops by the KT house, the brothers have to quick shuttle the professor and his daughter back to their own house. It’s quite the production, especially because the professor’s wife is getting home from work just as all this is about to go down, and nobody wants her to know what her husband has been up to. Beaver and Rebecca (who has been looking for the necklace Evan gave her and thinks she lost it when she slept with Beaver) try to distract the wife while Cappie and Rusty get the professor settled in his bed.
At the end of the episode, the professor pays a quick visit to the KTs and says that he won’t be partying with them in the future, although he won’t impose rules on them anymore. Cappie has a heart-to-heart with the professor, and it’s hard to say whether it made Cappie realize that he needs to start thinking about moving on, or if it made him determined to stretch college out as long as possible. Although I love that Cappie is a free spirit, it would make me very disappointed if he arrived at the latter conclusion.
Calvin and Evan’s stories were continued, sort of entwined, and equally not compelling. $500 is missing from Omega Chi’s petty cash fund, and everyone’s a suspect. Calvin is trying to walk a thin line between his new life with Grant, who was responsible for the petty cash, and loyalty to Evan. In an extremely predictable turn of events, Evan is the one who stole the money to buy that necklace for Rebecca. Calvin is the only one who knows, and the money has been returned, but all trust has been lost between Calvin and Evan. I don’t really care enough about either character to want to know where that will go.
After a really awkward freshman dorm reunion and a conversation with Catherine, Casey is finally ready to make peace with Ashleigh. They have a conversation in the laundry room where they first met. They agree that even though their lives seem to be changing, they don’t have to stop being friends. Casey also has a new, better idea for her personal statement. She’s going to connect nostalgia and stare decisis, although I’m not quite sure she knows exactly what stare decisis means yet.
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