TV Recap: 2 Broke Girls, Episode 9

In the ninth and most recent episode of2 Broke Girls,the saga continues between Johnny (Nick Zano), Cashandra (Marsha Thomason) and our Mad Max.For those ? like me ? who wondered why the weird name for Johnny's girlfriend, we got our expected answer last night: so Kat Dennings can refer to them as Johnny Cash!

Johnny himself is starting to look more and more weasel-like. He stops by the diner to ask Mad Max if they can be "just friends," and Max reluctantly accepts. Later on, however, Johnny invites himself into the girls' Bushwick pad (I mean, that place is not secure at all, is it?) while Mad Max is baking more cupcakes, and ultimately gets very friendly. He finally kisses her. (Note: when girls tell me they just want to be friends, this result does not happen.)

But wait, there's more! Mad Max has been baking for an art show Sweet Caroline has booked for their baked goods. Not just any art show, though; it's Cashandra's show, featuring Johnny's work (including his billboard portrait of a kiss between him and Mad Max). She has hired the roommates to serve guests for the duration of the party, ostensibly a power trip meant to humiliate them.

Except things get a little muddled here. Writer Morgan Murphy never makes it explicitly clear that Cashandra is out for blood. In fact, Sweet Caroline seems to think Cashandra has no idea Mad Max poses a threat, making her condescending treatment that much more peculiar. And even though it looks like this2BGis just biding its time until an inevitable Johnny-Mad Max union, Murphy's episode makes it increasingly hard to like or respect the painter-bartender, especially after he tells Mad Max he and Cashandra have been together two years. Two years??

She rightly tells Johnny they cannot be friends. Except then, off-screen, the two apparently kiss again. OFF-SCREEN!? WTF? That's one of the big moments of the episode! It shows Mad Max's constant confusion. I'm not sure if the scene was ever there and edited out, or just not written, but not showing that was an error in my evening's entertainment. At any rate, Cashandra tells the girls that they cannot leave until all cupcakes have been eaten, so the girls make a spectacle of themselves gobbling down the goods and eventually tucking them in their clothes.

It's all a little much, but it's also worth the end of the episode, as Sweet Caroline has bought Johnny's painting of him and Mad Max for Mad Max to destroy, symbolically extinguishing the flame she carries for her crush. Mad Max becomes Sad Max, admitting she likes him and Sweet Caroline lets her sleep in while she goes back to the diner. It's nice to see the softer side of Max and how caring Sweet Caroline can be. The two have come a long way over the course of nine episodes. But now it's time to put up or shut up with Johnny ? and to give Sweet Caroline the A storyline of an episode.

In the meantime, the girls will have to console themselves with having broken even this week, still having saved $623.25.