The Neighborhood - Welcome to the New Pastor - Review

Happy new year everyone, let’s begin with this week’s episode recap shall we?

Calvin, Dave and Grover are watching a football game at the Butler’s house when Dave mentions that Tina is running late from church. Calvin explains that she’s on a committee dedicated to choose a new pastor, and she’s been spending time with the new pastor, leaving him free to watch Sunday’s NFL.

It all seems okay until Tina brings Pastor Don to the house for Sunday dinner. Calvin seems reluctant about the pastor from the first moment he seems him, since Don is way taller than him and also dresses fancier too. They all carry on though, with the Johnson’s joining Calvin and Tina for dinner, and that’s where things start to get awkward.

For starters, Tina makes Calvin give up his seat at the head of the table, much to his dismay, so Pastor Don can sit there. The dinner continues and Tina and Pastor Don keep on talking, and Calvin keeps feeling left out. The pastor comments how the Butler’s have a lovely home and suggests they could host bible study there on Thursday, and Tina makes Calvin agree to it.

The next day, Gemma runs into Calvin and he begins ranting about Pastor Don, like how he drinks scotch (even though Calvin offered it to him), or how he held Tina’s hand during grace. Gemma tells Calvin to follow his gut if it’s trying to tell him something, and Calvin agrees to keep an eye on the pastor.

At bible study, Calvin shows up unexpectedly to keep an eye on Pastor Don, and he’s being his usual, grumpy self. When bible study is over, Tina confronts Calvin and tells him that he’s been acting so weird all night. Calvin reveals that he doesn’t like Pastor Don because he thinks he is after Tina. She tells him that he always does this: gets jealous of every man that so much as gives a compliment to Tina - like their dentist, even though Tina reveals he’s gay.

Meanwhile, Marty and Malcolm are playing video games at Marty’s apartment when noises are heard. Turns out it’s the upstairs’ new neighbor who is constantly making loud, disruptive noises. Malcolm asks if Marty has confronted the neighbor already, and he replies that he left a note under his neighbor’s door. Malcolm begins telling Marty that he needs to get over his fear of confrontation. After a couple of Star Wars’ references, Marty decides to do nothing.

Days later, Marty talks himself into confronting his upstairs neighbor. When he’s about to, the door opens to reveal a woman, and Marty completely freezes to the point where he introduces himself as Morty. She asks him for help moving some furniture around, and he agrees. Marty is so nervous around her that he keeps constantly messing up his answers. Whether he has a crush on the girl, or he’s just too scared to confront her, the way he keeps messing up to the point where he drops the couch in his foot is one of this episode’s highlights.

Malcolm goes upstairs thinking that Marty was in trouble (he even brings one of Marty’s figure rockets as a weapon) and finds out about the neighbor. He makes up an excuse and ends up giving her the rocket figure as a “housewarming gift”. Malcolm points out that the neighbor is cute and that good things can happen when you confront your fears, and Marty kicks him out before she could overhear them.

Back at the Johnson’s house, Dave is watching videos of church choir to prepare for Sunday’s mass at the church. Calvin goes over to talk to Dave about how he suspects Pastor Don of trying to make moves on Tina. Dave tells him that maybe Calvin is overreacting and he’s upset over the fact that they’ve connected. This seems to get to Calvin surprisingly, and we see one of the first times that he has actually listened to Dave instead of outright ignore him.

At Sunday’s mass, Calvin is resigned and admits that he was wrong in how he behaved after Tina tells him to not embarrass her in front of Pastor Don. He even goes as far to apologize to Pastor Don. Everything seems okay… until Pastor Don makes a comment about how Tina is a “very attractive woman”, among other stuff. Of course, Calvin gets angry about it, and him being classic Calvin, can’t just sit there with arms crossed.

The next five minutes are the funniest of the episode, with Calvin quietly complaining, making faces, and just being bitter everytime Pastor Don speaks. While this may be a character regression on Calvin’s part, it is part of what adds to the humor of the show; his grumpy, snarky comments. Calvin has had enough, so he gets up and claims he has to testify. He exposes Pastor Don’s behavior, and to his luck, a lot of women (who apparently Pastor Don had been going after) speak up as well. He ends up running out of the church, followed by all the angry women who were ready to fight him.

The episode ends with Tina and Calvin talking, and he tells her how he was the only one who saw Pastor Don for what he truly was. Tina’s response is to tell him that he’s part of the church committee now as a result of that, and Calvin doesn’t look too stoked about it. After an interruption, thanks to Dave’s backflips that he learned from online videos, they all just go back to singing and celebrating the lord.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Leave a comment below!