If you’re a single dad raising a teenage daughter in the heart of New York City and you find a box of condoms (unopened, but still) in her dresser drawer, what would you do? Freak out and uproot your entire life to ship her out to the suburbs where she will be so unlike the other kids that at least you’ve bought some time before she finds someone to have sex with? If you answered yes, then you and George (Jeremy Sisto) in ABC’s new half-hour comedy, Suburgatory, should start some kind of sad dad’s club. It's a nice sentiment but pretty misguided...But the good news for the rest of us is Suburgatory takes the best part of that insanity-- the real heart and depth that drives it-- and exploits that just as much as it does spray tans and Red Bull.
Growing up embodying the attitude of the “real” New York (read; not the silver spoon of the Upper Whatever Side), George's teenage daughter Tessa (Jane Levy) is self-assured, confident, and should therefore be every suburban wannabe’s nightmare. She has something they are all trying to fake, usually by layering on eyeliner and hemming skirts within an inch of their life (and the girls’ backsides), so naturally the minute she arrives at her new school she is not welcomed as the exotic transfer student from the cool big city but instead the girl with “lesbian boots” who might as well be from Mars. She may not be breaking down any barriers in the pilot, but she knows she doesn’t need to put on a façade simply to be liked; she will find her way in this new place in time.
Levy slides into this role like it was tailor-made for her, finally offering the tweens of today a positive reflection of what to aspire to on network television. She is not overly down-trodded; she is barely snarky; she is not at all bratty. She is the most mature teenager we’ve encountered in a long time-- on television or otherwise-- and she accepts her new place in life pretty smoothly. The gears in her mind might be working over time to process everything that seems shallow or otherwise ridiculous, but she is smart enough to stay relatively quiet about it, knowing it would be beneath her to make public accusations or pre-judgments, something that not everyone else (including the audience) will be able to resist. And for an actor, we can only imagine the fun it will be to eventually get to peel back those layers over time.
When Tessa holes up in the handicapped bathroom at school during her lunch hour, it is not to cry or feel sorry for herself that she has yet to make any new friends, as we so typically see in other high school programming. Instead, she and the show by extension, chooses to showcase solitude as something to be relished; it is rare we see a character look so relaxed, and we have to admit we would kill to have some alone time to stretch out, enjoy some natural light, and read. What? Reading is cool again! ...At least, Tessa makes it seem so. She is the teenager we all would have killed to be-- the one we imagine we would be if we had a chance to do it all again, knowing as much as we know now. She is doing it for the first time, though, and somehow managing to get it right.
Suburgatory isn’t about jamming a “just be yourself” message down the audience’s throat, though. And it certainly isn’t out to imply that though the suburbs are full of cookie cutter houses with the same manicured lawns and the same manicured people inside that they can all be put into such boxes. There is quirkiness behind these closed doors-- from Alan Tudyk’s Stepford country club goer to Ardin Myrin’s awkward waitress with a crush on the edgy new guy. The pilot alone schools Tessa on the real value of these people when Dallas (the always hilarious Cheryl Hines), a spray-tanned and zebra-printed adorned trophy wife, reaches out in the only way she knows how (shopping) and ends up giving her a (non-material) gift Tessa may have tried to forget she even really needed.
Forgive the rhyme, but Hines truly shines in this role, and it’s not just because her hair is so blonde that looking at her is like squinting into the sun. When you first meet her, as she pulls open the door and greets George with an expositional monologue of who she is and who he must be, your instinct may be to slap some sense into her. But that’s okay. In fact, that’s his instinct, too. But she blinks away any judgment, and you can’t help but respect that. And as the pilot goes on, Hines delivers a layered performance that will have you finding yourself surprised that you warmly embrace her and call her such an in-tune parent. Though at first glance it certainly looked like it would happen the other way around, there are definitely a few things George can learn from Dallas, and probably, so can the audience.
Tessa and George’s relationship is something we cannot wait to see further explored, as well. It is the opposite sex Gilmore parent-child relationship if we ever saw one, and the fact that they have each other to help them navigate through these rocky new waters is a comfort. Plus, they relate to each other using long metaphors that often include film references and know each other well enough to convey thoughts with just a look. After years of watching hapless dads on family sitcoms, George is a welcome fresh breath of clean suburban air.
In fact, Suburgatory itself is a welcome fresh breath of clean storytelling. For once there’s no mystery behind closed doors or evil at the end of the cul-de-sac; there are just some misunderstood individuals out to redefine such a community. And we can’t wait to see how that unfolds!
You, too, can move into Suburgatory on September 28th at 8:30pm, only on ABC.
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