Awkward. 2×08 ‘Time After Time’ review: It wouldn’t be good comedy without miscommunication

This pivotal episode of Awkward. basically consisted of one misunderstanding after another. Jake breaks up with Jenna but doesn’t tell her why, so she turns to Matty for answers. Both Jenna and Kevin walk in on Lacey canoodling with Ben, but she’s still in love with her husband, or so we can assume. The one couple—or ex-couple—who communicates loud and clear is Tamara and Ricky. Mr. Two Time is up to his usual antics, as he slinks away from Sadie to look for a little somethin’ on the side, but for once Tamara has the strength to say no. At least that’s what I’d like to think. She actually looks as though she’s going to give in until a very handsy, ponytailed ten-year-old saves the day.

I think another misunderstanding that has yet to be debunked is Aunt Aly telling Jenna that Kevin was always awful to Lacey. My guess is that she’s referring to the guy Kevin was before he decided to marry Lacey. In most cases, it takes an idiot of a guy to accidentally get a girl pregnant in high school, so that leads us to believe that Kevin was probably just a selfish little punk back then. Because Aly constantly sees the world through beer goggles, I predict that she’s completely overlooking the fact that Kevin did step up and was a good husband and father to Lacey and Jenna. It seems as though Lacey gets that, which is why she dismisses Ben.

If I were a writer on this show, I would have flip-flopped Lacey’s interactions with Ben to play up the drama a little bit more. I would have had Jenna walk in on something minor at the pool, like a dance or hug, and had Kevin walk in on the “goodbye kiss”(which looked more like a “hello kiss” to me) on the dance floor. Now that I think about it though, I think the fact that Kevin doesn’t see Lacey kiss Ben will do a lot to save their marriage in the long run, but Lacey will still need to be honest about what happened between her and her old flame. I think Jenna is right to dub her father as “her mother’s Matty,” but what she doesn’t yet understand is that her parents always belonged with one another despite their shortcomings, just like her and Matty.

Speaking of the devil, I’m a proud supporter of Team Matty, so I’m glad that they have their moment at the end of the episode, but I still need to bash on Jake a little bit. Though I predicted that his realization of “the other guy” would bring out the fight in him, he still doesn’t really have much of a backbone. A real man would have:

1. Told Jenna that he knew about Matty during the break-up speech. Real men don’t mince words.
2. Left the wedding in a huff after getting in Jenna’s grill instead of hanging around like a loser.*
3. Run over Jenna with his car. Just Kidding! I liked the fake-out move he did, it was the only cool scene he had all night.

*Actually, Jake had to stay at the wedding so that the writers could force a conversation between him and Tamara, which I submit gave her the confidence to turn down Ricky. Another rare, semi-manly action on Jake’s part was how he stepped up to defend Tamara in last week’s episode, and how he told her that he did it because they’re friends, not to impress Jenna. Does anyone else want to see these two hook up now? I still think this scene could have been more realistic if Jake had left the wedding and Tamara had called him on the phone.

I also have a hard time believing that both Jenna and Matty aren’t smart enough to put two and two together to figure out that Jake knows about them. Especially Matty, who even talks to Jake on the phone about “the other guy,” and still doesn’t pick up on the fact that someone clued him in. Regardless, Jenna finally admits that she’s still in love with Matty, and I predict that Jake’s behavior at the wedding as well as in next week’s episode will cause irreparable damage to both his relationship with Jenna and his friendship with Matty.

What did you think of this week’s episode?