Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. Okay, this is a big one. We get an actual sex scene in a show about college girls having sex and not just Lifetime movie jump cuts to undressing or boobs. Bear witness β this is the only Thanksgiving miracle in recorded history. Sadly, that scene is also quite literally the only action we get in this episode.
In these particular 30 minutes, we slowly unwind the most significant narrative threads of the last episode; Leighton does community service as penance for underage drinking, Kimberly gets tutored by sexy WeWork ground-patrol member this is the backstory I gave him Nico, Whitney continues her torrid love affair with DALTON, and Bela has sex and talks about masturbating to Kyle Mooney.
Leighton has already received pushback for how unfriendly and selfish she is from everyone she knows at Essex, including her New York friends, current roommates, and various Essex College staff members. Will shoulder-padded Alicia be the one to finally crack that frozen exterior and release the neglected Snail Mail-loving lesbian within? To that first point, now, instead of a bunch of hand jobs, Bela really wants to have sex with a guy with abs.
This prompts a conversation between her, Whitney, and Kimberly on their favorite guys with abs, including Zac Efron in Baywatch, Michael B. What, did they forget Paul Giamatti? Sure, those are all perfectly handsome men, but these girls are teenagers, Mindy Kaling. In any case, Bela eventually lands the washboard abs of her dreams, a guy with his shirt riding up in the library that she spots with the same laser eyes as a rabid raccoon or, I guess, sexually inexperienced teen.
Expand on the fire thing instead! But, alas, she never does. At first, I was excited to watch a show where a South Asian girl actively pursues a personal relationship to sex, which often gets shrouded by cultural shame. But instead of allowing Bela to host any thoughtful conversations about her background, the show reduces her culture to a punchline, a party trick she whips out for the white guys she lusts after, or just a lazy way to summarize her character without having to develop it.
