The “straight edge character gets high” plot line is one sitcoms and dramas alike have done to death – there’s no running away from it. Every show is going to do it at one point or another, some much better (Freaks and Geeks) than others (Saved by the Bell… caffeine pills, y’all!) – and unsurprisingly, “Baked and Toasted” is that episode of Ground Floor.
Thankfully, “Baked and Toasted” only highlights the inebriated Brody for a few scenes, relying mostly on a very pleasant story with Lindsey and Jenny, where it’s revealed they went to high school together, and Jenny was a Mean Girl. As hard as it can be to imagine Jenny being a mean girl on the surface, “Baked and Toasted” manifests those qualities in a very interesting way: as the girl without a curfew or a father, Jenny wasn’t being actively mean to be a horrible person – she just thought she was being clever, not realizing herself the ramifications of her upbringing on how she treated others around her. Flimsy Lindsey might sound innocent enough, but sometimes it is the little things in high school that drive our deepest insecurities – and in the present, informs our small knowledge of her character as an intelligent person who is both kind and resourceful, unwavering in her commitment to her career.
Instead of taking the easy route and pitting Lindsey and Jenny against each other in the episode, “Baked and Toasted” puts them together to fill their respective characters out more: even Jenny’s happy-go-lucky attitude is given some gravity here, with her explanation for her lack of curfew revealing some deeper-seeded issues she’s struggled with her family (“I didn’t have a curfew because sometimes I didn’t know where our home was parked” she tells Lindsey). Sure, none of this is particularly original material (mean girl in high school has parental problems? Again, Freaks and Geeks did it better), but it works successfully both as catalyzing a friendship on the show, and giving depth to the show’s only two female characters, a very underrated facet of Ground Floor‘s dude-filled world of sexual innuendos and masculinity satires.
Their story line covers up what is mostly a pedestrian Brody/Threepeat story; Mansfield’s birthday puts Threepeat in a panic, and Brody makes plans to intervene and save him with a signature birthday speech to save the day. Problem is, Harvard and Derrick (who still isn’t really much of a character as he is a loud device for delivering setup lines) are bored around the office because Brody’s been so efficient, they get him high on pot treats, leading to Brody breaking down in an elevator. Nothing exciting – until Lindsey steps into the elevator, fresh off her conversations with Jenny throughout the episode.
Rather than push her rival under the bus, Lindsey offers him support, saving him from making a fool of himself in front of Mansfield. He later does (kind of), but her genuine attempts to help him really delivered her character in a way the season premiere didn’t, adding a new dynamic to the show that is much more promising than anything Tori offered in season one (though I am sad to see the show doing a one-for-one woman swap… can’t we bring in Anna Camp as a recurring, too? Please?). Plus, it paves way for the show’s final moment, where Brody lets Mansfield know he still cares for him, pointing out the obvious fact that Mansfield does in fact, feel something for Brody: he hates him right now, disappointed in the choice to abandon the new position Mansfield handed him on a platter (halfway across the world). After Brody leaves, Mansfield picks up the speech Brody was working on, and goes through all the emotional beats Brody laid out for him; a sweet reminder while the credits rolled that Ground Floor‘s beating heart is huge, and Brody’s redemption is going to be an important moment for both characters, whether it occurs in the season finale or randomly halfway through the season.
Despite the predictable slapstick that comes along with drug-addled characters, “Baked and Toasted” reveals itself in the third act to be a surprisingly strong character piece, one that doesn’t need to rely on the orchestrated conflict built right into the premises of both stories in the episode. Instead of being Brody Got Baked or Lindsey’s Revenge, it subverts those expectations for a much more hopeful story about the possibilities of redemption – and in that, quietly becomes one of the most poignant episodes of the series to date.
Photo via TBS
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