Hal Karp's bachelor pad is in a bland apartment complex painted boring beige with a tinge of this show's favorite condiment: mustard. It's got an illegible one-word name, too, scrawled on the front façade in metal cursive. For our purposes, it should be something like "Midlife Villas," or "Celibacy Row." Inside, Hal's doing what every self-respecting divorcee should do -- standing on his head, trying to chug a beer, and keeping company with a portly bald man who's so hammered that he's close to mistaking Hal's hush puppies for a warm bosom. They're cackling hysterically. "You've still got it, Hal baby!" chortles the man.
Steven rounds a corner and spies his dad's antics, stopping dead in his tracks and recoiling a bit. Hal successfully drains his plastic cup and leaps to his feet, cheering. This feels like something Ron and Shaggy would do, except they'd make Steven hold the puke bucket. Hal's shirt rides up, revealing an as-yet undiscovered, plentiful other other white meat. "Dad, what the hell...?" Steven sputters. Hal greets his son cheerfully, throws on his glasses, zeroes in on Steven and leaves his boozing buddy to stare vacantly out the window, which he does with admirable dedication. "Come here, I want you to meet Dingleberry," Hal booms, looping an arm around each of their necks. The probably aptly named Dingleberry is an old frat buddy, and is also recently divorced. "Women cone and go, but brotherhood...brotherhood is forever, man," Dingleberry slurs. Dingleberry has a soul patch. And, as it turns out, Dingleberry's son is the sage of Theta Delta Zeta's UNEC chapter. Hal and Dingleberry encourage Steven to rush TDZ. "I've already kinda got my group of friends," Steven says, although they don't seem to party together much, so maybe a fresh social scene is in order. Dingleberry insists that he can bring his friends along, "unless they've got something against free beer and chicks." Heath has something against both of those -- his mouth. Steven nods and tries to be polite, although he's probably attracted to the idea already. "Steve, this is a good thing," Hal decides. "You and I are already father and son, but now, we can be brothers!" Only in certain states, Hal. Steven tries to smile, but looks slightly sickened by the fact that he caught his dad acting a whole lot like a Matthew Lillard character. Dingleberry has swung over to the video library, and shouts, "Hey Hal, got any dirty ones?" Hal duhs, "Oh, yeah, I've got a lot in there." Steven dies a little inside.
The camera pans down the dorm hall toward the elevator, passing a black-and-white poster of a child at a chalkboard. It reads, "There are no stupid questions...only stupid kids," but it looks like the last part was taped over the actual text by a sniggering co-ed high on Busch Light. The elevator arrives, and Steven hops off, with Heath. "I'm auditioning for Lee, the abusive brother," Heath says, excitedly. They don't say the name of the play, but I'm pretty sure it's Sam Shepard's True West. Heath notes that he has to master an American accent for the part. "Do you want to get a hamburger and some French fries? Then we'll jump in my pickup truck, go to the ballpark and get us a hot dog," drawls Heath, quite badly but comically. "Daddy, I don't want yer life!" Oh, wow, even in exaggerated badness, he's trumped The Beek's Southern accent. Steven, though, watches with rapt admiration, complimenting his roommate enthusiastically on his effort. Heath offers to let Steve help him learn lines. "That would be wicked, what do I do?" Steven asks. "You can be 'Mom,'" Heath replies, snickering. Steve's face falls like Niagara.
The Rock and Triple H are fighting The Undertaker and Kane, locked in a hardcore tag-team match to the bloody bitter end. HHH throws 'Taker, then Rock hits him with a chair, I think, but then Triple H falls out of the ring and we see Kane celebrating triumphantly. His team must've pinned The Rock. That's so bogus. The Game could take Undertaker and Kane any day -- single-handed. It's all about The Game. Um, or so I've heard. Anyway, it's just a damn videogame, and Steven and Heath were on the losing end. Either Ron or Shaggy makes a crack about Steve's mom. Heath has a better idea. "You suck!" he yells at Steven, hitting him. "I'm not playing with him anymore." Shaggy taunts them lightly, and Ron just shakes his head in shame and notes how very, very weak Steven is. "Why am I weak? Because I can't outwrestle your stupid cartoon guy?" Steve spits. "Among other things," snickers Ron. Shaggy jumps in with a taunting question about which girl has the hotter ass -- Rachel or Lizzie. He emphasizes Lizzie's name with seventh-grade enthusiasm and looks pointedly at Steve. Doing the gentlemanly thing, Steve politely suggests that they stop talking about Lizzie that way. Heath cracks that he didn't realize Steve was a major shareholder in L.A. -- "Lizzie's Ass," supplies Ron. Steve can't figure out why they aren't ribbing the luckless Shaggy, King of the Unintentionally Celibate. Obscure condom pun unintended. "Yeah, come on, guys, don't make fun of Steve, or one of his breasts will lactate," Shaggy says. That would put Shaggy closer to a mammary than he's been all season. Steve rolls his eyes at the total pointlessness of Shaggy's comment. "Yeah, guys, that's not clever. I mean, seriously, guys, don't make fun of me, because it's just not wicked, and if it carries on, I'm gonna go and do Lizzie's laundry," Heath says in full Americana, imitating Steven in such a way that he sounds half Valley girl, half Jewish grandmother. Steve plumbs the depths of his soul and returns with the following comeback: "Whatever." Quite. Steve half-heartedly invites the gang to the frat party, but the consensus is that frats are undesirable and brainwash poor innocent freshmen. Steve lulls them into submission by singing "Free Beer and Chicks: What's Not To Like?" off the hit album Dingleberry's Greatest Hits, Vol. II.
Rachel escaped that hell, but appears to be mired in another: Larice still won't stop blasting "How Bizarre." Frustrated, Rachel throws down her book and bursts into the common room, plastering a kind smile on her face. "Could you please stop playing this song?" Rachel asks nicely. "But I like it!" protests Larice innocently. "It's catchy!" Yes, like a V.D. "See, it's driving me crazy," Rachel points out, still very polite. "It's the most annoying song I've ever heard." Larice shrugs, but half-heartedly offers to turn it down to three, because she's blasting it at seven. In the background hangs a WWF poster, but it's for the World Wildlife Foundation, and I'm cracking up that this episode features both WWFs, especially because the wildlife WWF won a lawsuit giving it rights to the initials (and all the URLs using them), and the wrestling WWF is appealing madly. Apparently, the wildlife folks think the identical initials might breed confusion between the two groups. And sure, panda bears and The Rock are both cuddly and cute as hell, but that's about the only parallel I can detect.
Rachel returns to her room, flops on the bed and tries to read with the door closed. Mischievously, Larice edges the volume back up to her preferred level. Rachel explodes. "Will you shut that crap off?" she screams. "No, you're not the boss of me!" Larice says, very maturely indeed. Larice accuses Rachel of being mad because Lizzie blew her off to embark on a career in the exciting world of prostitution. Rachel denies it: "I'm mad because you're an obsessive-compulsive lunatic who keeps playing the same song over and over!" she yells. Defiantly, Tina cranks that shit right up to eleven and starts to boogie. She sings, she shakes, and she darts Rachel a hilariously sassy expression before nodding frenetically to the rhythm.
Shaggy trots into the Frosh Pit with a hackey sack and asks the guys if they want to go hack in the quad, impressing all the hot college women. Hacking? Please. It's like so many other activities that involve adeptly working small, soft balls: girls know guys do it, but they don't want proof. Ron catches the hack and gazes at Shaggy, noting that without Steven around to distract him, he's finally noticing what a total moron Shaggy is. Aw, evil. Shaggy catches on that he's the new whipping boy, and bristles. "Why me?" he asks, wondering if it isn't someone else's turn to get kicked around. Ron and Heath put it to a vote; Shaggy loses. I knew so many people like that -- the ones that always finagle the upper hand somehow, the ones with a silent pact that somehow helps them win every time. Clearly, I was always the loser. Shaggy feels my pain. "We definitely need a fourth here," he decides.
So the gang plucks Perry, probably yanking him away from a Steve Jobs Fan Club seminar of some kind, and installs him as The Fourth Member. Heh. I love double meanings. The Rock and Triple H have called for a rematch against 'Taker and Kane, and things are again going awry for Heath's team. "Hit him!" he shouts at Perry. "Stop jumping and hit him!" Perry, perplexed, holds the controller high up and close to his face, irritatedly pushing one button over and over. It's pretty hilarious. He holds the controller like it's radioactive. "Why doesn't anything happen when I push this button?" he frowns. "Because you suck!" Heath shouts, smacking him. They lose the game. "It's true, I suck at video wrestling. How will I tell my parents?" Perry deadpans. Ron sadly says he doesn't want to keep playing. He's bored. It isn't fun. "No, no, no, no, no," Shaggy panics. "Perry's a good addition to our little group. Our gang!" Heath gripes that Steven has disappeared, and was supposed to help him run lines. He stalks out of the room right past Perry, who shrugs and raises his hand, waving hopefully as if to say, "Hello? Shitbrain? I'm the new Steven."
Cut to Heath's room, where he's perched on the end of the bed. Perry has pulled a chair up and sits facing him, boasting excellent posture, I might add. He's also wearing white socks and tan slacks. Few things are as insidious as slacks, slipping their way into national wardrobes, thinking they can disguise themselves as regular pants. But they're not pants. They're not even trousers. They're a cloth nightmare, shapeless, usually thick with polyester. Kids wear khakis; grandparents and Long Duck Dong wear tan slacks. Oh, Perry. I'm sorry -- sorry your Mom buys all your clothes. "Oh, hi Mama. Me and Austin were just wrestlin'," Heath drawls. Perry peers at the script and recites, punctuation- and emotion-free, "As your mother I am very disappointed that you want to kill your brother she sighs and exits with her luggage." Heath tenses and spits through gritted teeth that Perry should probably stop reading the stage directions.
At the frat house, Brandi leads a passel of blindfolded girls into a basement. Sounds of barnyard animals and chainsaws fill the room, and hordes of candles are ablaze. The girls all kneel, and current Little Sisters encircle them. Brandi solemnly makes them swear their loyalty to the Little Sisters, and tries to channel Parker Posey by barking at them when they don't answer loudly or enthusiastically enough. But once she's satisfied with their tone, she cheers, "Okay, you're in!" The girls scream and rip off their blindfolds. "Oh my God, I was so scared!" Lizzie squeaks, hugging Cindy. "I thought you were going to make us do something messy!" Hee, just wait until she's stuck in a Little Sisters-sponsored orgy.
Speaking of messy, the frat geeks are making Steven learn a terrible, terrible hymn of loyalty. It goes like this:
Oooohhhh, one day I asked myself, 'Hey Steve
What kind of man would I like to be?
I'd like to be an honorable man
Like the men in a fraternity
And that's how I became a
Theta Delta Zeta.
Skinny, Clucky, and Samm are in maroon, while Steve's got a blue button-down shirt and blue striped tie. It's all very Glee Club. This truly is a pack of nerds. Although I admit to being wary of Samm Levine pulling off the role as a frat leader, he's actually doing a really good job of it. Heath sidles into the room, gaping, never before having seen such sheer, concentrated dork power. He sneers that he'd like to talk to Steve once he's done caroling. "That Brit's a GDI," Samm whispers disdainfully. (That's Greek for "goddamned independent.")
In the common area, Ron, Shaggy, and Heath apologize for being mean to Steven and plead with him not to join the frat. If I were Steven, I'd get the apology in writing and add a few anti-abuse clauses. Ron calls Theta Delta Zeta a cult; Steven calls it brotherhood and a harmless campus activity. Yeah, right. Until week. Shaggy decides it's time to be brutally honest with his pal. "Seriously, Steve, that song is not very good, you know?" he says gently, because he's a music major, and he's trained to know these things. Steven resents being told what to do, and suggests that for him to establish a new group of friends wouldn't be such an unhealthy thing. Samm appears. "Time for you to become a Greek god," he tells Steven. To the other three, Samm says, "You must be real proud of this guy. Steven rocks." Heath looks sad. "We know," he breathes. Aw. He misses his lapdog. As Steven and the Greeks leave singing, Heath glares miserably at Ron.
After the commercial, the new quartet of guys shuffles toward the Frosh Pit, only to spot a gaggle of giggling girls skipping away from it, carrying tons of bags. Lizzie is among them. She's patented a way of running that makes her ponytail flick from side to side with the precision of a metronome. The guys are completely astounded, never having had so many girls in their room -- nay, in their presence -- since arriving. "Are there more in our room?" Shaggy asks hopefully. "You think?"
The guys enter the room, though, and it's empty but for the obscene abundance of streamers and balloons. The Union Jack, ripped from Heath's door, is draped over the shoulders of a huge cardboard cutout of The Rock. Good thing the Brits don't have flag-desecration rules like we do, although if I were that flag, I'd be damn happy with the current situation. Heath's angry, though. Ron laughs at the decorations. Perry's startled that Theta Delta Zeta -- "more like 'Theta Delta Dorka'" -- is infiltrating their lives. "I cannot believe Steven is joining those guys," he continues. "That kid could not become a bigger dork if he went on the road following the Dave Matthews Band." Shaggy looks hurt by this, and a tad guilty. I glance over at the three early Dave Matthews albums I own and cringe a little inside. Perry swears Steven will be unrecognizable by the time he's done pledging -- which is a six-week process. "Once he's in, he's a brotha for life," Perry says, going totally homeboy for that last bit, complete with a stereotypical gangsta gesture. Shaggy mutters that he likes the Dave Matthews Band. Me too, Shag. You're not alone. Perry makes a snarky remark to the effect that Shaggy should try to catch up with the band on its tour. It was mean. Perry's supposed to be the Steven, isn't he? Then why does he already have the upper hand on Shaggy? The guys determine that they have eleven minutes before Steven's pledging ceremony, and vow to stop him. "Grab your fishing poles, boys," Heath Americans. "We're gonna catch us some Karp."
The aggressive strains of "How Bizarre" rape Rachel's ears again. In a well-timed move, it's the lyrics, "Oooh baby/ It's making me crazy/ Every time I look around, it's in my face." Rachel throws open the door and stares at Larice, who's in her own room with the door open and the stereo perched on the corner of her desk. Irate, Rachel stalks over to her own stereo and throws in some heavy metal. Larice just smiles and turns her stereo so that it's blaring outward toward Rachel. This means war. Rachel fires off a round of "Jingle Bells," so Tina counters with the Ace of Base classic from my high-school years, "The Sign." My friend Leigh and I used to blare that as we drove around the streets of Calgary, windows down, screaming the lyrics. It was that song, "Black Betty" by Ram Jam and "Insane in the Membrane" by Cypress Hill. I'm sure Calgary appreciated us and our artistry very much. Narrowing her eyes, Rachel fires the bazooka commonly known as Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping." Um, that one's on my treadmill tape. Tina fends it off with "Macarena." Tom Jones asks, "What's new, pussycat?" as Rachel bumps and grinds against her door frame, prompting the entire male audience to start campaigning for her Emmy nomination. Larice boogies, too. This actress is great with sassy moves and facial expressions. The lyrical bullets fly fast and furious, including a cameo from "Baby Got Back," until both girls get really serious and unleash a hell unlike any other, something so evil, so rotten, that even the most strong-stomached of recappers would be reaching for the Maalox. That's right: Enrique Iglesias. Oh, it's so awful. I live in fear that he'll team up with Sheryl Crow to birth a musical love child that's the culmination of my worst nightmares. And yet Rachel and Larice like the man! This CD is their common ground, and Rachel and Larice enthusiastically agree to play it instead of "How Bizarre." Rachel looks gorgeous in this scene. I'm an extremely heterosexual chick, and even I'm practically drooling. No, wait, sorry -- that's not drool. Those are tears of envy. Satisfied with the tuneage in their room, Rachel and Larice return to their studies. I think we've learned a valuable lesson here, which is that Undeclared wants me to die. But at least Enrique didn't ask to be my hero this time.
Meanwhile, Steven is traipsing down into the TDZ house's basement. The eerie music sounds like what would result if Enya tried to write a porn-flick soundtrack. Paddles adorn the walls, too stubby to be anything but cricket bats or tools of spanking, unless they're relics of an older, more competitive age of ping-pong tournaments. Samm holds court in front of his small pack of pledges. He explains that they're the future of Theta Delta Zeta. "That guy's going to be the best man at your wedding," he says, pointing to assorted pledges. "He's gonna bail you out of jail. You ever need an organ transplant? Liver, kidney, bone marrow," Samm continues, gesturing at three delighted-looking guys. "That's why God gave you two of everything, and five brothers to turn to," Samm intones. Erik looks delighted that his left knee might someday be of service. Samm tells Steven that when he wakes up at 3 AM in a Minnesota dumpster, he'll be calling "that guy," one of the same group of guys that will carry his casket, dig the hole and lower him into the ground. Steve, impressed, turns around to introduce himself to "that guy," a bespectacled blond named Jim. Jim doesn't seem to mind that he'll be driving to Minnesota one frosty winter night to rescue Steven's drunk ass.
Perry's crawling along the roads in his yellow Chevette. This show's really into old, crumbling hatchbacks. Eric drives one, too. "Faster, boy, faster! Don't make me get the hose!" Heath yells. This American thing feels a bit old now. Perry snipes that they're in a school zone, and that in this country, it's considered illegal to mow down little kids. Yeah, but school zones aren't in effect at night, bonehead. I guess maybe it could be 5 PM. And maybe it's just a television show. Shaggy screams, "Get your stick out of your butt and go, man!" Perry caves to the pressure, swears they're paying for his ticket, and guns it out of there. I'm going to pretend that's a shout-out to me, and my roommate uttered about the same line to me earlier that night when I convinced her not to feed a parking meter. Also, I'm a loser. I don't quite get Perry -- they dress him like a geek and sometimes he acts like one, but in "The Assistant," he seemed a lot hipper, and he's got a hell of a snarky mouth on him. Plus, he drives, and I think there's scientific evidence proving geeks don't have cars in college.
Samm melodramatically recites Very Important Things to his pledges. "Neophytes, as you begin your journey, you must walk across the great hot sands of the desert." Someone dumps hot sand on the ground, and the brothers lead the barefoot, blindfolded pledges across it.
Meanwhile, Perry wonders aloud if anyone knows which Greek house is Theta Delta Zeta. Ron knows it's got a pyramid thing in the name, and the first letter looks like "a boob with a bowtie." Ha! I love you, Ron. I need to buy you many, many beers. But didn't any of them take high-school math? Theta is all over geometry. And Delta is all over chemistry. Was I the only one who loved that stuff? Sigh. Yeah, probably. Now I want to hide. Perry hears "boob with a bowtie," and snaps, "No, [Shaggy], that's your Chippendales calendar." Ha. Shaggy snaps that Perry isn't allowed to make fun of him. "Step on it, dumb-ass!" they yell. Aw, lay off Perry. He brought you Adam Sandler.
Samm turns on a huge electric fan and drones, "Be warned: You will encounter many great storms on your journey." A brother carries the fan down the line of pledges, while another spritzes water into the gust.
Outside, the guys all scream, "Boob with a bow tie!" They found the frat house and yell for Perry to pull over.
Samm is still blathering through the ceremony. "But when the clouds clear, you can bask in the warming glow of knowledge, brotherhood and enlightenment that is Theta Delta Zeta." The brothers simulate sunlight with a hot blue spotlight that's trained on the pledges' faces. It feels like Samm's about to convert them all to Scientology.
Beast-Whore guards the door, blocking a panicked Heath, Shaggy, and Ron from entering.
Samm congratulates the neophytes on commencing their journey. "But beware the Minotaur of Malfeasance," he whispers. He grins evilly. Someone whoops that there's a huge party upstairs waiting for them, replete with chicks. "It's time to get pinned, boys!" Samm announces.
Outside, Ron wrestles a bit with Beast-Whore until Heath tries to intercede. "You just made your last mistake! I'm gonna rain on you, boy!" Heath Americans. So of course, he gets a bloody nose for his trouble. Heath shrieks in his regular voice. Shaggy, standing behind his cringing, bleeding friend, holds out his hand as if to say, "Step off, Beast-Whore," but his face -- and probably his pants -- says, "Oh dear God, please not me." Beast-Whore laughs at Heath. "What's with your voice? You're not even American!" he guffaws. They go inside and slam the door.
The gang pretends to leave, then scampers over to the window and peers inside. Samm pins Steven and tells him to wear the pin at all times as a symbol of his loyalty and their deep and abiding love. "Steve, don't do the fraternity!" Shaggy screams through the window. Because I'm infantile, I laughed my ass off transcribing that line. They all yell his name over and over, but Steven is too busy reveling in the warm glow of brotherhood to hear them. Suddenly, a bunch of TDZ brothers dump buckets of milk -- God, I hope that's milk -- on their heads and cackle uproariously. Perry uses his time wisely, opting to floor the gas pedal and strand them. "I hate my life," Ron says. Shaggy seconds that emotion. Heath fumes silently.
Lizzie bounces over to Steven and hugs him. "I'll be Aphrodite, and you can be my Zeus," she giggles happily. Steven shares that he's totally delighted with himself and his fraternity. Samm approaches and orders Steven to fetch him a drink. "What's the magic word?" Steven asks, grinning and punching Samm lightly on the shoulder. "No dice," Samm says sternly. Lizzie stops laughing. "The magic word is 'Yes, sir.' You're a pledge now. I own your ass, Steve-o." Flustered and very unsettled, Steven chokes out a "yes, sir," and leaves. Samm turns to Lizzie. "So, 'Lizzie.' Is that short for something?" Samm asks Lizzie's shoulder. She wants to go find Steven. "You know what? You don't have to worry about him," Samm says into her navel. "He's my bitch now." And we are out on Lizzie's concerned face, sad to be losing a bitch and gaining a gnome.
During the credits, we get outtakes from Samm's speech to the pledges before the ceremony. He says that frat brothers are the guys you go mountain-climbing with, and the guys you fall off the mountain with, and the guys you use prepositions to end sentences with. "Ever need a piggyback, Steven?" he asks. "These are the guys who won't laugh at you when you ask. It's true." He talks about sharing an oxygen mask while scuba diving, and says it's happened to him. It's funny, but not as funny as what they ended up using. In the last clip, he has to stop talking because he's got the giggles. The crew laughs.
To be continued...