Review: ‘Rooster Season 1, Episode 5 “Mr. Razzles”

Greg continues  to hit the books in the classroom, and he’s getting better at teaching as his students are hating his class less and less. Walt calls him into a meeting. Greg’s ex, Beth, is coming into town to give a lecture about the student center named after her. Greg already isn’t thrilled about Beth coming, and Katie immediately throws him under the bus by inviting her mom to stay with him. She just wants to see her parents at least be friendly. Katie and Archie are secretly still seeing each other behind everybody’s backs. For Katie is also still being written everywhere around campus.  

Greg attends Beth’s lecture, where his ringtone — 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” — hilariously goes off multiple times. Later, the three family members take  a walk around campus. Katie hypes up Greg  to Beth  because she knows it will make him feel better. Greg urges the three of them to have a fun night, which they agree to. Greg takes Beth to Walt’s office where they learn the hockey coach has been removed due to problems with alcohol. Beth says that Greg used to play hockey and that he could help out with whatever Walt needs. Greg is visibly unhappy about this because hockey is no longer his thing. Beth used to always pressure him to do things he didn’t want to do.   

Archie picks up Sunny from the airport as she has just returned  from NYC. Sunny just finished  with interviews and it’s explicitly obvious that Archie didn’t even bother to ask until they walked through the door. They mostly talked about him during the car ride. Archie blows Sunny off when she asks to hang out, and Sunny is so tired of him and what he does to her. While Archie is in his office, he hears a marker on a dry erase board and steps outside to see For Katie written on his door. He runs  down the hallway in hopes to catch the student running away from him. He passes Katie sitting in a lounge area as Sunny approaches her. Sunny apologizes for being romantically involved with Archie and ruining a part of Katie’s life.  Her own life is in shambles, and she only has herself to blame. Katie encourages her to put a bit of blame on Archie as well. Katie is also concerned about the baby.    

Dylan and Beth are at Greg’s house playing board games. Beth points out how there is unspoken romantic tension between Greg and Dylan, which makes things immensely awkward. When Beth pushes his buttons by commenting on his personality, Greg grows frustrated and calls  Beth out for cheating on him with one of their friends. Dylan leaves. Greg tries to tell Beth that they were just razzing each other, but  Beth isn’t having it. She goes to meet up with Katie. Katie confides in Beth that she feels guilty about seeing Archie. Beth reminds  Katie that she isn’t the parent that handles the emotional stuff like this, and  Katie knows that. Beth tells her that has a very kind heart, and she can face this problem.

At the hockey game, Greg gets into action, and Beth and Katie are there supporting him. He hilariously gets hit in the face with a puck. The episode ends with the three of them in Greg’s house taking care of his lip. Katie notices that Greg has a framed photo and puts it up on the wall. It’s a photo of Beth during a time that they were in Italy. Beth questions why he still has that photo. Katie apologizes to her dad as she didn’t realize that he still isn’t completely over Beth. The two of them share a heartfelt father-daughter moment before cutting to black.

This episode had many elements to it that didn’t necessarily blend completely well together, but it was clear to see what it was trying to get at: Greg is trying to be there for Katie. The many elements of Greg trying to teach, getting back into hockey, and blowing up on Beth felt very layered, and we are continuing to learn more about him. The storyline of Sunny realizing that Archie is a terrible boyfriend is starting to be more apparent, especially during the scene where she apologizes to Katie. That was their first real interaction thus far, and Lauren Tsai’s performance was really well conveyed as Sunny is struggling with her life. She has an unplanned pregnancy, her boyfriend treats her poorly, and she’s struggling to get an internship. While it’s an interesting storyline, it felt like the episode was trying to highlight more of Beth. She seems to be a troublemaker as she constantly stirred Greg’s pot, which was pretty entertaining due to the fact that Greg deals with situations with comedy and making jokes. We learn more about his past and what he went through with Beth, which was well written as Katie is the only character that can really get any secret out of him. 

7/10