While the rest of the country is gearing up for a huge presidential election, some of the characters on ABC Family’s Greek are more concerned about a more localized election. Of course I’m referring to the race for the ZBZ presidency. Frannie and Casey are all set to go head to head but based on Ashleigh’s frequent polls, it’s too close to call and a lot of it hinges on where Rebecca’s loyalty lies.
Casey is hoping to get Rebecca to nominate her for presidency, believing the nomination will sway some of the other sisters. Nominations are all a formality but all the same, it’d be nice to show the rest of the ZBZ’s that Rebecca’s on her side. Rebecca truly is a tough nut to crack. Or as Ashleigh put it, she’s like one of those pistachios with no opening. Yeah, I hate those too. Casey sort of mentions that if she were to become president, she might work it out so that Rebecca could have her room. This helps win Rebecca over but Frannie still has a few tricks up her sleeve.
Frannie seeks Evan’s counsel on her campaign and he encourages her to go negative and win Rebecca over by telling her something she doesn’t want to hear. So Frannie tells Rebecca that Casey slept with Cappie during spring break. This was totally made up but since Casey did kiss Cappie at Myrtle Beach, she has a hard time denying the rumor, which quickly spreads throughout the house. Rebecca nominates Frannie and after Ashleigh throws an obvious nomination to Casey, it becomes clear that the house is now favoring Frannie.
Casey tries to fight fire with fire, serving up her own helping of mint chocolate bitch by snooping through Frannie’s room and coming up with some truths about dear Frannie’s past. She passes out fliers to the other sisters revealing that Frannie was once a Miss Turnip runner-up and a high school band dork. While some of the sisters seem moderately put out that Frannie lied (having claimed to be captain of the cheerleading squad and a Miss Teen winner), the mud slung Frannie’s way doesn’t stick. Frannie uses the info to her advantage by gaining sympathy from the sisters. At this point Casey realizes that fighting fire with fire isn’t going to work so she fesses up to Rebecca about kissing Cappie after they were technically broken up during Spring Break. Rebecca tells Casey she’s the worst politician to which Casey responds that at least she can trust her. Eh, not exactly a winning strategy but I’m still glad Casey admitted to the hook-up rather than continuing to try and one-up Frannie. Unfortunately, that doesn’t last.
After a conversation with Max, whose dorkiness is all the more charming when he’s alone with Casey and babbling on about Worlds of Warcraft (as opposed to making small-talk about statistics with Cappie – that conversation was almost painful to witness), Casey remembers that it was Frannie who ratted out Rebecca to nationals. She uses this as her last little throw-in during the election speeches and the revelation quickly turns the polite house meeting into an all out OMG-fest. Ashleigh stands up and hushes everyone, begging her sisters to stop fighting and tearing at each other.
Little did Ashleigh know that this call to her sisters to pull together would be the election-winning speech. Just one vote more than a third of the house votes Ashleigh to win the presidency. Ok, so if they’re allowed to have write-in candidates, what’s the point of the nomination process anyway? Whatever. Ashleigh wins, leaving Casey almost speechless. Ashleigh is just as shocked but the votes are in and hey, at least Frannie didn’t win, right?
Later Rebecca explains to Casey to win an election you have to inspire the voters, not just convince them you’re better than the alternative. She makes a good point. Casey congratulates Ashleigh but there’s no tension lost here. I have no doubt that Casey’s going to have a hard time relinquishing control of the house to her best friend, who let’s face it, handles things a bit differently. This is not to say that I don’t think Ashleigh’s up for the job. But I do think it’s going to put a major strain on her friendship with Casey, at least at first. Then add in what Evan said to Frannie after the election about how not winning doesn’t mean she still can’t control the house. So will Frannie try to manipulate Ashleigh? Or will she attempt to work the house against her? I can’t decide which is worse though I expect we’ll be seeing at least a little bit of both.
Now on to Rusty’s story. He’s going through his diary – er.. “journal” and realizes that he hasn’t been dating enough. There was Jen K of course and the My So Called Crabs chick but that’s about it for the most part. So he convinces Cappie to go speed-dating with him. We get a laugh-out-loud moment during one of the speed-dating sessions when Rusty explains to a faceless girl that he doesn’t call his fraternity a “frat” the same as you wouldn’t call a country a… Yeah, we don’t get to hear the end of that sentence.
Rusty gets two phone numbers out of the speed dating and while Cappie goes off to serial-date the ten girls he won over, Rusty takes out girl #1. Turns out she has too many body piercings, none of which Rusty got to see and he’s pretty sure she’s a fascist. On to girl #2. This girl seems great but then the waitress comes over and guess who it is? Before I answer that, I have to say that I thought it was kind of random that Rusty kept bringing up Jen K. throughout the episode, talking about her like she was this amazing woman who somehow slipped through his fingers. He rarely if ever talks about her and then all of a sudden he’s obsessing over her? Weird. But then again, he’s been pouring over his diary, which is what sparked this whole reminiscing thing to begin with. Regardless, there was a reason Rusty broke up with Jen K. and that was a mere six months ago.
It’s Jen K. who is waiting on Rusty and girl #2. Prior to Jen K. spilling water all over Rusty, it seemed like he could have hit it off with girl #2. So much for that. Rusty continues his date with the girl then later calls Jen K. The two go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then back to her room to make out and grope each other. Then Rusty sees the framed article Jen K. wrote exposing the Greek system. Rusty realizes he’s still not over that whole mess. What he is over is Jen K. After Jen tries to tell Rusty that she thought he’d have left the Greek system since she considered him an outsider like herself, he decides it’s time to go. She tells him not to call her and something tells me Rusty wasn’t planning to. Neither seems mad at the other but it’s clear to both of them that this attempt to rekindle their relationship was a big mistake.
During a quiet rooftop chat, Rusty tells Cappie that he realizes he set the Jen K. bar so high that not even Jen K. could live up to it. Lesson learned. After Calvin shares some of his own love-life woes (we’ll get to that in a sec), Cappie mentions something about how if a person is your soul mate, you’ll eventually get back together with them. We know he’s talking about Casey. He remembers he has another speed-date date and promptly gets up and heads towards the window. Then he falls off the roof. Fortunately, the bouncy castle that the house rented for last week’s non-formal was still on the ground and partially inflated, breaking Cappie’s fall.
And now on to Calvin. He cheated on Michael with Heath and now he’s mad at Evan for putting it in his head that it might be ok to do that. Ok, even Calvin knows that’s a flimsy excuse and since Evan’s tossing around free advice wherever he goes these days, he tells Calvin that its better Michael find out from him than to have it come out later when it’s too late for Calvin to decide what he actually wants. So Calvin blurts out his misdeed to Michael. Michael keeps a cool head about it and tells Calvin they never officially agree to exclusivity. I was waiting for him to admit that he too cheated but that wasn’t the case. It seems like Michael’s just not the kind of guy to react emotionally.
Calvin isn’t sure he wants to stay with Michael though. Calvin likes hockey and burgers. Michael likes Moroccan food and Broadway divas. Calvin brings this point up to Michael when the two talk later. Michael’s extremely disappointed and tries to assure Calvin that it’s ok that they have different interests and that it’s totally normal in a real relationship. But Calvin’s 18 and Michael’s in his mid-twenties. While Michael may be right, this is not something Calvin can just blindly accept. He needs to learn that for himself the same way Michael did. So the two are going their separate ways. I liked Michael a lot (and I adore Max Greenfield) so I’m sad their relationship seems to be over for the time being but all the same, I’m not surprised it ended. While they both seemed to really dig each other, the age difference and Calvin being a freshman in college was bound to get in the way sooner or later. At least Michael didn’t have to confess to Calvin that he sold out his own principles for a chance at a decent job. I kind of thought that was going to come up. Perhaps it will some time in a future episode.
The clock has been reset for some of our favorite Greekies. Calvin is single again and probably headed back to hooking up with Heath. Rusty’s still single but at least he can stop comparing every girl to Jen K. And Casey’s about to see what it feels like to sit in Ashleigh’s shadow. I really hope she comes to accept her defeat and maybe even learn to appreciate Ashleigh’s own leadership qualities. But realistically, I don’t expect to see that anytime in the near future.
