Togetherness Teaches Tina A Tough Lesson About Trivia

Two episodes in to the second season of Togetherness, it's safe to say that Tina isn't handling her relationship with Alex -- which is to say, her demotion in his personal hierarchy now that he has a girlfriend -- with much grace. She gave him the world's oldest, heaviest piece of junk for his birthday and tried to bully him into being more appreciative by telling him what an absurd amount of money she'd spent on it. She diminished his obvious happiness with Christy by taking credit for having made him over and accusing him of having turned into a jerk. Just as she did when Alex told her how he felt about her back in the season finale, she lied to him and herself by insisting that they're nothing more than friends. But in this week's episode, Tina brings her issues with Alex to Christy's party game and ruins it for everyone. NOW SHE'S GONE TOO FAR.

We don't know yet what, if anything, Alex told Christy about Tina when their relationship started in New Orleans -- but then, however he spun it hardly matters now that Christy and Tina are in a relationship of their own. From what we saw in the season premiere, Christy was confident in her connection to Alex -- enough to devour his face at dinner in front of a whole bunch of people she just met, anyway -- but seeing Alex and Tina goofing around at karaoke gave her pause, and now that it's time for Alex's surprise birthday party at Brett and Michelle's, she's keeping eyes on this broad. Tina still might not be ready to admit to herself that she wants to be Alex's girlfriend, but Christy's not going to get caught off-guard if or when Tina finally does.

After the initial flurry of the surprise, when our core four protagonists -- plus Christy -- are standing around chatting, we get to see what "coming in hot" looks like for a quintessential cool girl like Christy. She talks about working on the set of Alex's new TV show making sure everyone's dressed, since "Alex has trouble not being dressed in his trailer," punctuating the description of her duties with a hard smack on Alex's ass. She puts on an ingenuous face to ask what Tina does for a living, and won't let her get away with the non-answer "It's just a bunch of stuff, it's so complicated." When Christy pushes Tina into saying, "It's just some entrepreneurial stuff I've got in the works," Christy is full of admiration! "I love that, I love that you're still just, like, in it at your age. That's awesome."

SHOTS FIRED. This show pivots on significant looks between characters: Christy's steady gaze and Tina's responding tooth-gritting smile is maybe the most nakedly hostile yet.

Christy goes on to ask, generally, "So is this, like, the essence of the party?" Hands up, everyone who's surprised Brett and Michelle are crappy party hosts. Oh, no one? Me neither. Christy proposes a round of "the movie game." Alex agrees. Tina is clearly incapable of backing down from any challenge Christy might level under the best of circumstances, never mind after Christy's called out Tina's status as a senior citizen, so she's in too. Hands up, everyone who thinks Tina's a closet film buff who's going to slay the movie game. Oh, God, Tina, find a way to look through time and...reality and see that no one wants you to play this game!!!

OH GOD, NO, IT'S HAPPENING.

Christy knows exactly what she's doing: she's not only proposed the game but positioned herself so that she's the one serving questions to Tina, the better to trip her up and make her look crazy and dumb -- something Tina, as we might all predict, really needs no help to do. Tina starts the scene being pulled in two opposite directions: she wants to convey how dumb she thinks Christy's game is, in order to undermine Christy's attempt to help everyone have fun. But Tina also wants to be great at Christy's game, and show her up in front of Alex.

I love Tina, you guys -- I love her -- but this scene tests my love for her in a way that none of the other terrible things she's done ever has. For someone who likes games and takes them seriously, nothing's more irritating than the person who acts too superior to pay attention to the rules, like Tina: when Christy kicks off with A Clockwork Orange, Tina babbles, "Wait, wait, I don't-- Is it-- I don't know what to do, what do I do?" Christy patiently tells her to name an actor or actress in the movie, which is no problem for Tina: "Yeah. It's that guy. It's that guy. What's...his balls." Alex can't stop himself giggling at Tina's immediate meltdown, which means that when the other party guests, not unkindly, join in, Tina has no sense of humour about herself. Christy gets herself the upper hand again by rescuing Tina with an easy alternate -- Forrest Gump (which also sets her up for a secondhand brag about Larry playing poker with Tom Hanks this very night, not that anyone cares). But when it comes back around and Alex serves Christy Major League, she turns around to give Tina Corbin Bernsen. You know, well known and prolific movie actor CORBIN BERNSEN? To Tina's (brief) credit, after a minimum of grousing about that trap of a clue, she cheerfully accepts getting knocked out of the game, but Christy doesn't want her to have to be its first loser and suggests that the two of them switch seats, meaning Tina will henceforth be getting her clues from Alex instead. Another trap, and not just for Tina: watching Alex and Tina in this context will give her more data on which to form her opinion of the true nature of Alex and Tina's relationship. Christy may be VERY YOUNG compared to Tina, but she's shrewd beyond her years.

Thus it is that, when the game goes all the way around the circle again, Tina mutters at Alex, "You better give me a fucking easy one." Alex, maybe hearing and maybe not, comes back with Dirty Dancing. And Tina, perhaps assuming Christy can't possibly be conversant with movies that were big when she was a kid EVEN THOUGH Christy tried to START the game with A Clockwork Orange, gets waaaaaaaay too cocky.

"I have one but it's so hard I don't know if I want to do that to you," coos Tina to Christy. Though Christy hasn't known Tina as long as we have, she almost certainly guesses, as we do, what's about to happen, and tells Tina not to go easy on her. "Jennifer Grey," says Tina. "BOO-YAH." Everyone else looks uncomfortable, either because they know this clue isn't nearly as hard as Tina thinks it is, or because Tina's continuing to make this game a trying chore. Christy fakes like she's at a loss for Jennifer Grey joints before coming up with Ferris Bueller's Day Off. "She's not in that!" yelps Tina, even though it's clear that everyone knows she is. Even MICHELLE knows she is, for God's sake. But Tina is certain she's right: "She's the mother in Back To The Future!" "Lea Thompson?" asks a flummoxed Alex. "YES!" squeals Tina, turning back to Christy in triumph. "Lea Thomas!" Christy calmly sticks on Jennifer Grey. Tina...is not calm at all, insisting that someone in the circle look it up and betting Christy $1000 that Ferris Bueller's sister was played by Lea Thompson. "Don't be sad!" Tina urges as Alex takes out his phone. "No hard feelings."

The rest of this episode features Tina instigating a screaming fight with Christy over the way she treats Alex, Tina drunkenly getting into her car and immediately driving it into a tree, and Brett responding to Michelle's post-coital confession about her infidelity with David by projectile-vomiting on her.

But this is worse.