"Multiple Choice"
After last week's detour we now return to our regularly scheduled plotlines, and it's midterm time here at Cyprus-Rhodes. At Chi Omega, midterm season means Calvin and Evan continuing their blossoming friendship by studying together like the upright students they are, while the Kappa Taus are busy distributing old test files as "study aids." Rusty is incredulous about the cheating and says he's never gotten less than an A before. With students ranging from Rusty-quality to, say, Beaver, what caliber school is Cyprus-Rhodes meant to be, anyway?
In any case, Rusty's plotline involves the question of whether he should cheat or not after the professor springs an unmanageable amount of new work on the honors physics class. With even pious Dale doing uppers to keep his A-game, Rusty wonders why college is turning out to be "just a four-year course on how to get by and beat the system." He tries studying and in the end buys a set of candy bars with formulas printed on the back, which he uses during the test. Afterwards, he regrets the whole thing because he's forgotten that he came to college to learn, and he and Jen spend their big date in the library, presumably learning what he should have for the day's test.
Meanwhile, Evan takes Casey aside in the stacks and instead of doing anything a little R-rated he "lavaliers" her. Apparently getting lavaliered - i.e., being given a necklace with the Greek letters of one's beloved on it - is a major step in a relationship, and it is followed by pinning and then engagement. I think I just heard the word "lavalier" more in the last hour than I had sum-total in my life.
When Cappie gets news of the lavaliering he decides to try to win Casey back - by bribing a TA so that they get paired up to work on an essay on heroes. Pair essays in college - really? Sparks fly when they meet up to work, and although Casey is doubtful about Cappie's work ethic when he picks Keanu Reeves as his chosen hero, she is impressed by his work ethic and knowledge of Prometheus. Aren't we all? They reminisce about all the crazy times they had together and all the pie they shared, and Casey feels conflicted.
Meanwhile, Ashleigh's long-distance boyfriend Travis comes to visit. Travis goes to Brown and orders pinot noir and seems all around very un-Ashleigh. We learn that they've been together since their junior prom, but none of the girls feel too warm about him - especially after he publicly pans the drinking and the pseudo-pageantry of the entire Greek system. He and Cappie throw down, Latin-style, in the bar, and in the aftermath, Frannie tells Ashleigh they should break up. The claws come out when Casey agrees. Ashleigh calls Casey out for not being true to herself about the Cappie-Evan situation at the candle-passing ceremony (candle-passing - really?) where Casey announces her lavaliering. Despite being ill-treated by Travis all weekend, Calvin tells Ashleigh that she should just "keep her personal life personal." So Ashleigh sticks with Travis secretly and she and Casey aren't speaking.
In the end, Casey, too, gives in to the temptation to cheat and she and Cappie kiss while working on their essay. Cappie is decidedly un-smooth in telling Casey that it wasn't just fate and he arranged for them to work together, and she is upset that she almost threw everything away when it's a big joke to him. He says that it's not and that he sees them together in 10 years. Aw. But Casey goes ahead with the lavaliering ceremony, and she makes wistful eye contact with Cappie while she and Evan embrace. Oooh.
So much drama, so many one-liners this week. Glad the show is back on it's A-game.
