Being Jill

Suburgatory, S02E16

Tessa, wanting to have something good on her college application, asked Jill to take her on as her intern.  To Tessa's dismay, her new boss was less impressive and more exhausting than she had imagined.  George tried to follow the therapist's advice to distract Noah from his feelings for Carmen until they died out.  Dalia also gave Mr. Wolfe advice about how to feel better about his breakup with Chef Alan.

Of course, I can give Tessa a lot of credit for being ambitious by jumping at the opportunity she saw in working for Jill.  It's good that she's motivated to get into college and all, but I didn't like the way that she basically pushed Dallas aside, who has been so great to her, the second she thought that Jill might make her look more accomplished.  Maybe so (because let's be real--the crystal store isn't going to wow admissions personnel), but I wish that Tessa had thought to speak to Dallas first before she nearly begged Jill for the job.  I don't like seeing Dallas hurt like that.

Unsurprisingly, Tessa did not like Jill as a boss.  I don't know why she would have thought it would work.  I mean, she babysat for Jill and Noah before.  She couldn't have possibly thought that Jill was less terrible than she seemed.  I would just look at that crib made out of bones (or tusks?) and realize that I was going to work for someone crazy and most likely insensitive.  My favorite crazy thing that Tessa was tasked to do was to interepret Opus' review for Jill's new book.  That was the stupidest and most pointless thing I could imagine Tessa doing for her that involved writing.  It was a good way, however, to teach Tessa that she might have been a bit jumping the gun when asking to work for Jill.  I don't think I've seen Tessa look so mad in a long time.  Seeing her writing up "Opus'" review with so much hatred, I wouldn't have been surprised if she later went to Jill and shoved her own book up her ass.

My favorite part of the story was the very end after Tessa had seen Jill for the self-loathing and pitiful woman that she really was.  By then Tessa wasn't admiring Jill's success or anything and realized that she had been pretty terrible to Dallas.  I'm not mad at Dallas for making Tessa straight out tell her that the person who could teach her how to be a good person was Dallas, not Jill.  I really loved how Dallas pulled that compliment out of Tessa and graciously took Tessa back as an employee.  If she didn't, it would sort of contradict that compliment.  Still, I think that Tessa is lucky that Dallas has a heart of gold.  She could have easily been petty and immature about taking Tessa back, but instead she welcomed her with an open arm.

I didn't think much at first about George doing his best to get Carmen out of Noah's mind.  It just felt like with Noah being married, that was the most sensible thing to do.  However, his persistence and tendency to defend Jill was mostly about his own issues about Alex leaving him long ago.  I wouldn't have ever thought that George and Jill might have something in common, but I liked that this story showed that they do.  It had just looked like George was trying to do right by his friend, but he was really sympathizing with Jill and trying to protect her (and himself).  That's pretty interesting.  Luckily, George isn't as bad as Jill, but we might see more sides of her (like her being her own biggest critic) as Noah continues to pursue Carmen.

I felt a little relived that Carmen didn't have romantic feelings for Noah.  It made his public announcement for divorce and that ridiculous shower scene between him and Carmen seem silly.  I don't get the impression that Carmen is the type to hide her feelings, so I think that she would have made it clearer if she had liked Noah from long ago, even if he were married.  Noah, looking a little swept away by "love," doesn't want to give up.  I feel sort of bad for Carmen, who no doubt, has to endure Noah's courting for a while.  I know he's going to do a lot of outrageous actions to win her over, and I hope he doesn't succeed.  Noah's not such a bad guy, but I still think that he's more trouble than he's worth.  Carmen, being employed to such unstable people, has enough on her plate without having to date Noah.

It was weird to see Dalia helping out Mr. Wolfe, but I get that she sort of identifies with him because Evan broke her heart too.  It was sort of cute to see her taking Wolfe to the salon and giving his hair a new look.  I don't know if Wolfe has any other friends, so Dalia might have been the only one to at least give him the kick in the pants not to mope about his breakup.  The one thing that stands out most in their story, though, is when Dalia was "crying."  The noise she made sounded like a robot was malfunctioning.  It's impressive that she's taught herself how to cry without tears, and yet it's also a little frightening.  I feel like Dalia, who suppresses her emotions so easily, is one day going to explode.  I would not like to see that.  I'd much rather her have like a few seconds to cry for real and get out her pain rather than go psycho one day from never truly expressing her emotions.  Maybe Evan will come to love her after all and Dalia's emotional time bomb will be defused.

I liked this episode all right, but it was far from my favorite.  It's nice to have a break from "What's Ryan and Tessa's problem this week," but I didn't like having to see Tessa try to climb her way to success by stepping on Dallas a little bit.  It's fortunate that Jill was the worst person she could have interned for because it gave Tessa a reality check about how valuable being under Dallas' wing really is.  I don't think it was fortunate that George gave Noah the okay to go pursue Carmen.  If she's smart, she'll stay away from that train wreck.  I think it was cute to see Dalia helping someone with whom she has something in common with, but I'm more worried about her than I am with Mr. Wolfe.  She's obviously still hurting, and I want to see her heart mended as soon as possible.