The Big Door Prize S2E7: Rehearsals

We’ve heard Izzy speak loudly and often about her past as a dancer, but we finally see her in action, and while she moves like a woman her age, she’s got some moves. And more to the point, when she’s dancing, she looks happy, which is something we’ve seen rarely-bordering-on-never from the mayor. But she’s excited about her date with Freya, so much so that she impulsively asks her to move it up to a lunch date that same day.

Meanwhile, Dusty has moved out of the house at Cass’ request… and into Giorgio’s McMansion, and while he’s clearly not entirely comfortable with the guy who only a few weeks ago was trying to steal his wife, now insisting that they’re BFFs, Giorgio actually is being a supportive friend, in between backhanded compliments. It also comes out that Trina isn’t speaking to her father, to the point where he didn’t realize she had passed her driving test. 

He does manage to break her out of the silent treatment with the time-honored Dad trick of annoying her until she can’t help but respond. But with that out of the way, all Trina wants to do is grill him about his relationship with Alice. In that conversation, it comes out that she’s directing the school play, and doing a bad job of it, leading us into this week’s main storyline.

And things aren’t going great. Alice is working from SparkNotes’ version of Our Town, boyfriend-and-girlfriend Jacob and Trina and playing father and daughter, and the rehearsal is sharing the gymatorium with the badminton team. Dusty rides in to try and help, which just results in Trina taking out her frustration with her real dad on her stage dad. (Jacob doesn’t seem to mind, as he just assumes she’s putting a lot of passion into the role.)

And Izzy’s date is hampered by the fact that Cass has taken a part-time job at Giorgio’s, which she immediately regrets when she realizes her daughter has seniority over her, and her mother walks in to see her in the “trainee” sash Giorgio makes her wear. Cass decides to pre-empt her mother’s abuse by telling her off in front of Freya, assuming it’s a business meeting and not a date. But for once, Izzy’s completely innocent, and handles the outburst with surprising grace. 

For a moment, she’s even sympathetic. She then makes a confession to Freya that doesn’t paint her in the best light, but is a more human moment than we’ve ever seen from Izzy. And she’s expecting Freya to judge her — she’s constantly on her guard about how everyone around her sees her — but Freya’s quick to accept that everyone has their flaws. And she’s very quick to stand up to Izzy and cut through the bullshit. She might end up being good for our narcissistic mayor.

But the confrontation in the restaurant also leads to a revelation on Cass’ part, with Xavier — Jacob’s stoner friend whose potential card read “Gum” — as the unlikely font of wisdom. As much as the show feels like it’s been building to a moment where Cass and Izzy work out their issues together, working out their issues separately actually makes a lot more sense.

Stray potential:
• We haven’t seen much of Father Reuben this season. Last year he confessed to Hana that he didn’t want to be a priest, and then he kissed her… and then seemed content to fade into the background and the show hasn’t given us any followup on either story. I think he’s had fewer lines this season than Hana has doing her impression of him. But he pops up here to teach the kids stage fighting, which is something he apparently knows how to do. Which leads to him showing off wrestling moves on Dusty as the students cheer him on. Ah, the theatre.

• Trina pulls of her usual trick of making an adult feel guilty, and then getting something out of them, so we might end up seeing a Trina-directed wrestling-themed production of Our Town in a future episode.

• Giorgio’s house wine is a Boca Raton Merlot “from the northern region of southern Florida.”