Essex College is back in session, of both class and make-out variety, on Sex Lives of College Girls. Justin Noble and Mindy Kaling’s “lean back†entertainment returns to HBO Max for a sophomore season, which picks up right where season one left off. Thanksgiving break is over. Leighton and Kimberly may or may not have procrastinated having some big conversations they’ve been meaning to have with their friends and family, and Bela and Whitney have their own problems.
One big revelation in the episode is that the girls have been banned from frat parties after outing Theta’s cheating ring. If you don’t recall from season one, Kimberly got caught cheating after using the stash of tests and class notes that her boyfriend Nico’s frat had stockpiled. In order to avoid expulsion, and not not because Nico was cheating on his girlfriend with her, Kimberly and her roommates blew the whistle on the frat. Unfortunately, now they’re known around campus as narcs. First, the boys of Theta inform the girls that their charter has been suspended and the girls are no longer welcome in their house. They also throw things at them in public multiple times throughout the episode. Then, at the end of the episode, the girls try to party at Omega and the Theta boys rat them out. Now they’re blacklisted by all frats.
For the most part, the girls go their separate ways in the premiere episode, getting their respective semesters back on track and meeting up periodically between classes and confrontations. But it all ends at the Snow Run, a freezing race through campus where students just wear their underwear. Sex Lives of College Girls is like Gossip Girl in that most episodes end with an event. But, while the Upper East Siders get dressed up, the guys and gals of Essex get undressed. Seriously, it seems like every party or event at this school is about being as naked as possible.
Oh, and before we get into each girl’s story line, we gotta talk about Jackson the climate refugee from Kansas. What in the Channing Tatum is going on with the new guy in the hall?! He’s way too good-looking for a college dorm (and is fact played by model Mitchell Slaggert) and has, as Kimberly calls it, “performatively loud sex†just on the other side of her wall.
Kimberly needs a way to pay for college. She’s lost her scholarship after getting caught cheating and is scared of admitting it to her parents. First, she applies for a loan — and then realizes that a parent has to co-sign it. Obviously, she should just tell them, but her parents guilt her about finances in a way that’s funny for a comedy series but would be devastating IRL. Her procrastination and willingness to take the burden of tuition on her shoulders rather than face them is at least understandable. What’s a gal to do? Sell feet pics? Get hit by a bus? Nope, she takes a remote gig transcribing a Love Island–esque show called Sex Paradise: Australia for closed captions. It’s an okay plan, except it means working around the clock, Drunk Aussies are hard for Americans like Kimberly to understand, and transcription requires quiet … which is hard to come by in a college dorm.
Whitney realizes that without soccer, she’s kind of lost. Everyone else has goals. Her teammates have lined up their off-season with plans to run for student government and pad up their grad-school résumés, and she doesn’t have any off-season extracurriculars or secondary sports lined up, or really any interest in plans for her future at all. She tries to fix this by trying out for the water polo team, but … surprise! You actually have to be good at water polo, and she just watched one YouTube video about the sport. To make matters worse, she overhears her boyfriend talking about how her only “thing†is soccer at a party. What Canaan said wasn’t actively mean, but it must’ve hurt to overhear regardless.
Bela is not impressed with the applicants for her new girls-only magazine. Okay, well, it’s not a magazine, per se … more of “an Instagram presence, a sassy Twitter account, and a website [they] have not bought the domain name to.†Anyway, the submissions are a bit too try-hard. They’re overwritten. They’re not funny. One is about celiac disease. She goes to visit Eric and beg for her spot at The Catullan back, but he’s not having it. Instead, he advises her via sports metaphor to recruit the writers she wants instead of waiting for them to come to her. Later, at a party Bela and her roommates are subsequently kicked out of, she strikes up a banter-y conversation with Kimberly and Canaan’s Sips co-worker Lila and recruits her to write a listicle for the mag. This is a great solution! It’s college. You don’t necessarily need trained writers with perfect packets. Just get funny people who can develop their voice.
Leighton, on the other hand, bounces between the story lines. She’s not the focus until she is. She helps Kimberly apply for a student loan. She speaks for the girls when the Theta boys bully them for narcing on their frat. And at the end of the episode, she finally comes out to her roommates. She also slides into the DMs of a girl who tried to pour tequila into her mouth (!) at the Snow Run after-party. With frat boys staring them down, Leighton freaked out, but her roomies convince her not to give up.
Oh, and then Bela kisses B.J. Novak Eric at the end of the episode. They definitely had a vibe in the last season, though Bela was wise to not make any moves with essentially her boss after everything that happened at The Catullan in season one. Is this too fast? If you were looking forward to this slow burn, are you now worried it won’t last? This show isn’t really about romantic overtures and endgame OTPs, but we shall see.
Electives
• Is Kimberly going to get with Jackson the climate refugee? He gave her his number at the end of the episode, and she did hook up with the most impossibly hot guy in the last season.
• I know this is a sitcom, but you really do accomplish a lot in a day in college. It’s nuts.
• It’s hard to put into words, but the four girls struggling through the snow and wind in their underwear was an incredible visual gag, punctuated both times with Reneé Rapp’s “fuck!â€
• Not only was Whitney underprepared for her water-polo tryout, but the school’s team has multiple State Championship banners displayed on the wall. She really picked the wrong sport!
• So Gavin Leatherwood, who played Leighton’s brother Nico, will not be returning for season two. The reasoning is sound: Nico’s a Theta, and senior Thetas got kicked out. Leighton’s quick exposition is only a little bit depressing. Their parents got him transferred to Cornell and an Audi to cheer him up. Ah, to be rich and male.
• I knew there was probably more to the names of these fraternities than “Theta†and “Omega,†but I was not planning on learning it. I wasn’t interested in Greek life when I was in college, and I’m not about to start now. But then I felt guilty and gave it a look. They’re Theta Pi Delta and Omega Pi Delta … the exact same … so turns out Kaling and Noble care just as much as I do.