TV Recap: 2 Broke Girls, Episode 10

Is it possible that the writers of2 Broke Girlsalso write forSouthPark? Few shows other than the latter are able to squeeze in so many of-the-moment pop culture references into a 28-minute slot, but with shout-outs to Kim Kardashian's aborted wedding and the unseasonably warmNew YorkNovember, you'd practically think that this episode was filmed live. It's possible that this episode was written more recently, as it is oddly out of synch with the ongoing ballad of Johnny Cash that's been providing the series' A-plot for the last several weeks.

I got what I wanted though: a Sweet Caroline-centric episode. Caroline attempts to learn how to bake under Mad Max's tutelage, but when she forgets to cover the mixing bowl, she ends up destroying the whole mixer in a frenzy to shut it off. Covered in batter, Mad Max quips "Christmas comes but once a year... and it just did." (I sense a double entendre.) This is a) gross, and b) cribs directly off of the most infamous line from the 1999 James Bond flickThe World is Not Enough.

Now in need of extra dough, the roomies decide to be department store elves on Black Friday. Sweet Caroline is heartbroken to learn that her father won't let her visit him in jail for the first time due to embarrassment. Sweet Caroline outwardly keeps her spirits up, and to stay awake following a free Thanksgiving dinner at the diner, she chugs an energy drink instead of sipping it like Mad Max does (really, Mad Max couldn't have warned her beforehand?)

And for the rest of the episode Beth Behrs gets to play new notes as Sweet Caroline; she's antsy and impatient and brutally honest. It's easily the best sitcom use of speed since Alex P. Keaton studied in a swivel chair.It's a marked contrast to how Dennings plays Mad Max, who is either so snarky that her line readings hit you over the head with a sledgehammer, landing like Kerri Strug did after the vault in the 1996 Olympics, or so uncharacteristically sympathetic that her rare moments being nice read false. Behrs' work is far more fluid and convincing, with timing more suited to a modern sitcom's pacing.

At any rate, the episode's last act finds Mad Max stepping in to play Mrs. Claus and getting into a fight with an amped-up Sweet Caroline. The two quickly make up, and there's nary a sign of Johnny or Cash, and while the men of the diner get about five lines instead of their ordinary three, it's still short shrift. At the end of the episode, the girls are down to $621.25. But I've got a reason to keep watching2BG: the multi-talented secret weapon that is Beth Behrs.