In an epidsoe where you can tell they are setting up Smash to fail academically as seen where he responds to the preacher that "things are going good" instead of well it is worth noting that in the class when the teacher is discussing the preferential treatment Ulysses gets from Homer for having relations with Circe it is giant error in that Homer did not write about Ulysses. That is the Roman version of the story. Homer wrote about Odysseus. Hence it is called The Odyssey.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-06-20T23:10:10Z
5.7/10. There's a worthwhile idea here -- the double standard when it comes to women, especially young women, and sex as opposed to their male counterparts. The problem is that the heart of the story -- Lyla getting blowback from her sleeping with Tim, centers on the three worst actors on the show. Lyla in particularly always seems insincere, so it's hard to muster up much sympathy for her when you don't believe the tears or Tim's marble-mouthed inspirational dialogue or Jason Street's Dawson's Creek-esque anger. It also doesn't help that we did see Tim ostracized in similar terms last week, only to show that it was resolved through a very contrived and rushed setup of him playing through injury. So the whole basis for the double standard, at least in this particular instance, feels pretty weak given how perfunctory the show's response to Riggins's side of things was. The idea of a a young girl being disproportionately judged and punished by her peers for something sexual is fruitful territory for what is, at least partially, a high school drama, but this was a weak exploration of it that wasn't helped by the acting.
The Coach/Julie/Matt stuff was a little better, if only because those character and the actor who portray them are better. But at the end of the day, the story was still a high class version of a Full House story. The disapproving dad, the pushback from the daughter, the mom who says papa's overreacting, and the nervous boyfriend trying to please all parties is just such a giant cliche. The complication that Matt's girlfriend's dad is also his coach adds a wrinkle to it, but that also just makes the arms race between Coach and Julie feel a little more contrived. The individual moments are generally amusing just because everyone involved sells it, but it all has to overcome the cheesy nature of the storyline.
Smash's story is probably the best, just because he's one of the most interesting characters on the show, and watching him try to back water from his playboy ways in the face of a girl he's actually trying to impress for once is an interesting look for him. I'm not sure what his date's deal is (jail? rehab? some trauma in Africa?), but I like the idea that both parties have a secret that they're not totally forthright about, but they're feeling each other out and able to tell what's going on to some degree. Things move a little fast, and there's some cliches here too, but the actors have some good chemistry and that helps things work.
Overall, a weaker effort, but with some good elements.