TRICK OR TRUTH

Girlfriends

Season 2 (2001)

Wow, this episode was dramatic!  And weird.  Weird and dramatic.  When I sat down to watch this, my first episode of the surprisingly long-running Girlfriends, I expected a slightly stupid and corny sitcom (which often produce the best holiday episodes).  Instead this episode veered off into some crazy directions, none of them Halloween related. 

This episode begins with the titular girlfriends split asunder by a feud between Toni and Joan (the convoluted catalyst for this fight, somehow involving Toni’s boyfriend, apparently happened in a previous episode).  This is the first year that Toni will therefore not be invited to Joan’s annual Halloween party.  The party proves something of a dud as Toni usually “brought the men.”  So instead the party is a bunch of women and just one guy, a regular character who is supposed to be a horny, woman-hungry dude but is confusedly played by a super gay actor (his Wikipedia page says he “chooses to keep his private life private” AKA he sleeps with men). 

Meanwhile crazy shit is going down with Toni!  She goes out to get a pumpkin to carve with her boyfriend as consolation for missing the party but when she returns, wielding a massive pumpkin in a shopping cart (that she stole from the store, I guess?) her boyfriend is shirtless and making out with some other woman.  He set the whole thing up as revenge and then berates Toni with a lot of genuinely upsetting insults (including something about her giving him an STD?  What is this show?!).  She attempts to run him over with the pumpkin-filled shopping cart (not kidding) but he fends her off and she goes crazy.

Now crazy, she shows up at the party (she brings the shopping cart, for some reason) but Joan is still all “nope, not friends” so the other two girlfriends later drag her to Joan’s church to beg her forgiveness yet again.  What then unfolds is a very long, VERY intense sequence in which a preacher sings about forgiveness while Joan is STILL like “nope, not friends.”  So Toni goes from crazy to batshit crazy and stumbles to the front of the church sobbing uncontrollably and just stands in front of the singing preacher, swaying and on the verge of collapse until Joan starts sobbing too and joins her and I guess they are friends again and ohmygod this show is way unnecessarily dramatic.

Toni, seen here slumped over her beloved shopping cart.

So yeah, not so much Halloween to be found here.  There’s a couple brief scenes at the party and a fun, decorated buffet table.  And then way, way too much religion and sobbing and drama for my tastes.  Seriously, it was stressing me out to watch this.  Toni looked like she could pull a gun and shoot everyone at any moment.  I mean, she did try to run someone down with a shopping cart earlier in the episode.

And isn’t that what Halloween is all about?

No?

Okay.

Halloween Quotient: The weird religious turn this takes merits an overall rating of 1.

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Skip it unless you like experiencing uncomfortable feelings while watching people having public mental breakdowns on church altars