TV Recap: Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23 Retrospective

Left to right: Dreama Walker and Krysten Ritter

Welcome to the TV Recap column for the ABC comedy Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23. Every Wednesday, I will be bringing you a recap of the most recent episode as well as personal insight into why I find the characters to be an infectious version of what 2 Broke Girls wishes it was. So please join me for a fun season as we deal with the bitch, the Beek, and June as they get into wacky adventures. 

Left to right: Ray Ford and James Van Der Beek

We have reached the unfortunate end of Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23. It seems bizarre that as notorious as NBC has been with programming blunders that ABC would enter the ring with the back-to-back cancellations of Cougar Town, Happy Endings, and the little show that could. After premiering during the Spring season along with Veep and Girls, it quickly heralded in a new wave of female-driven comedies that were all very, very funny.

Unlike the other shows, Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23 was more willing to be silly and satirical. Casting former Breaking Bad star Krysten Ritter as the titular bitch Chloe may be one of the more inspired cast choices made in recent years. Her vitriol rode the line between comedy and nastiness so perfectly that along with her buddy James Van Der Beek, the show took up the challenge to satirize the concept of celebrity and eventually even how a sitcom can be narrated. True, for the most part season one was very rough, but within it all was a diamond in the rough. A gem of great chemistry between Chloe and roommate June (Dreama Walker), who got into trouble week after week and rarely stopped for sensitivity.

The only issue is that the show was successful enough to pick up a full season after a brief seven episode run. This allowed everything to be told over an entire season as opposed to leave us to wonder if this little show was just a fluke. Why is this an issue for a show that clearly got better as time went on? For what problems it had as a Freshman, it was reflective of a show willing to try everything and succeeding most of the time. However, as a sophomore, it lost the audience simply because of all things, time scheduling.

Now I really liked season 2 a bit more than season 1, but nobody can argue that for devoted fans, the treatment was terrible. For starters, there was a lot of season 1 burn-off that instead of airing in sequential order, was thrown in randomly, notably in January when the network attempted to air new episodes twice a week, only to realize that ratings were down. My personal belief was that nobody could follow continuity, and thus that was the problem. Season 1's burn-off episodes reflected the series' lesser moments and thus resulted in damaging whatever momentum it had. Then Hulu eventually released the final, unaired episodes, and it only made me mourn poor time scheduling issues more.

Left to right: Walker and Eric Andre

The issue arose after "A Weekend in the Hamptons...," which saw Chloe and former coworker Mark (Eric Andre) finally move forward in their relationship. Mark, in a drunken stupor, tried to hit on her, and it was a hilarious way to get things started, especially after breaking up with his girlfriend in the exact same episode. There is something ingenious about the episode solely because most of all, it was the first true moment that the show finally went from being a rocky beginner to an overall solid, funny show with characters to like. 

Notable examples of the series reaching bizarre misses includes when Tom Lennon guest starred as a grown man with a head injury who drops his pants for comical effect. There's some making fun of wheelchair people, the homeless, and even the characters. Robin (Liza Lapira) started off the show more as an idea of obsession than a character. Eli (Michael Blaiklock) started off as more of a pervert next door. In the beginning of season 2, the kinks were still not worked out. By the time that "A Weekend in the Hamptons..." rolled around, it looked like the show was fixed.

Provided that you follow the series in order, this is an issue that was quickly solved after this episode aired. However, cut to two episodes later with "The Scarlet Neighbor..." and you'll see a lot of issues not only with the show's logic, but with the relationship that had potential to build. Nothing seemed more baffling in reviewing the series than discovering that the somewhat competent Mark, two episodes after dumping his girlfriend, claims to June that he is rebelling against his girlfriend, which would theoretically have been June. It was either the most surreal moment in TV history, or the definition of why this out of order challenge wasn't going to work.

But if you go in order, the show got progressively better. I unfortunately bought and downloaded all of the episodes in a way that forced the order to be shifted drastically so that I saw the finale "The Original Bitch," way before I had known the significance of Charro's cameo. It is a move that I still regret and plan to revisit at a later date.

But here's where the series went right and why I felt that if given a third season, things would have improved drastically. For starters, there wouldn't have been burn-off episodes. It could go in narrative order and not confuse audiences. Then there is what should actually be constituted as season 2: the episodes in which June got a job, Chloe had a boyfriend, and James Van Der Beek kept getting casting calls from big name directors like Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Woody Allen. All of these, and the fact that the supporting cast now vastly improved, meant that the show knew what it was doing and that ABC owes them a serious apology.

It could be argued that the show understood its satirical motivations from the beginning of the season with "A Reunion..." in which Van Der Beek attempts to get a Dawson's Creek reunion together only for the episode to turn into a parody of a Dawson's Creek-type show with black-and-white scenes and corny music. It wasn't brutally different from what the show was going for, and it built the Van Der Beek character into a self-deprecating yet inspired take on celebrity that hasnt' been covered in too many other modern shows. At very least, I am going to miss seeing him try out for movies and trying to convince everyone that his crazy actions are justified in order to get press.

There's plenty of genius just in the show's two "desperate" characters. While not "desperate" in a sad way, I mean that Chloe and Van Der Beek were pals in a way that complemented each other, but still weren't above doing desperate things for attention. Chloe managed to rig People Magazine so that Van Der Beek could be Sexiest Man Alive (ironically the same week that in real life, Channing Tatum got that honor). It was tough to really judge Chloe, because she fulfilled the bitch requirements, but there were limits. Her behavior somehow had to benefit the story and not just her. I felt that was greatly resolved by "Dating Games..." when the ending amazingly turned into an interrogation scene.

It is really tough for me to judge if any of the characters actually evolved outside of a few stories involving boyfriends and Dancing with the Stars. I felt like June was consistently too innocent and helpful, up until "Ocupado...," and the Mark relationship was even more confusing, if just because I chose to end the recaps on "The Seven Year Bitch...," which sees the two sleeping with each other. It is a tease and one that was greatly annoying. The Mark and June relationship could have been so much more. I also am saddened that the supporting cast of Just Beans, notably Pepper (Jennie Pierson), didn't evolve at all beyond those awkward meetings. 

Left to right: Andre, Walker, Ritter, Liza Lapira, and Tom Lennon

The show had a lot of creativity and spirit. I still love the closing credits sequence in "Ocupado..." in which Van Der Beek does an avant garde commercial about bathrooms. Everything had been building towards that moment, and it was bliss. The show had a nice touch of building to these great moments that whether involving awkward song cues ("The Seven Year Bitch...") or bizarre running gags involving Chloe's infidelity. The show had likable characters until the end, and the way that they existed began to complement each other nicely. Even the idea that clothes became a metaphor in "Teddy Trouble..."  for Chloe's love for someone was an inspired choice and proof that the show had so much more to give that it only began to realize.

I may at times be rough on Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23 for having bad supporting characters, but that slowly devolved. What we were left with was an amazing batch of episodes mixed with a lesser first season batch that didn't help anyone. Just as I am mad at ABC Family for cancelling Bunheads, I am mad at ABC for cancelling the show that chose to tackle celebrity and turn glamour into hilarious running gags and gave Krysten Ritter one of the most inspired TV characters from a new series in years. She was so perfect and with Van Der Beek, Ray Ford, and Dreama Walker all contributing, it was a show that maybe didn't take itself too seriously, but that's what made it fun. It's a shame that now that it's proven itself, it has been lost to the ages.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5