The Great North season 1, episode 6 recap – “Pride & Prejudance Adventure”

By Jonathon Wilson
Published: April 12, 2021
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The Great North season 1, episode 6 recap - "Pride & Prejudance Adventure"
3.5

Summary

A love triangle complicates the school dance in “Pride & Prejudance Adventure”, while Beef is temporarily reunited with his big city (kind of) brother.

This recap of The Great North season 1, episode 6, “Pride & Prejudance Adventure”, contains spoilers.


Most episodes of The Great North have worked by taking a familiar sitcom premise and imbuing it with a specific Alaskan weirdness, and “Pride & Prejudance Adventure” is a particularly good example since it’s built around a classic set up – the high school dance, and all the romantic travails associated with such an occasion. Of course, given the way the show is, things are a bit more complicated than that, including a very welcome character reveal that, at least to me, came as a real surprise.

So, in the A-plot, Judy develops a huge crush on fellow student Crispin (Julio Torres), who actually has much more obvious eyes for her brother, Ham, and what follows is a love triangle with a very heart-warming and progressive conclusion. Of course, Judy being useless socially, and especially where boys are concerned, is an ongoing theme, but the fact she doesn’t realize Crispin is gay or that he clearly has eyes for her brother is a charming example of her naivete (and the fact her only advice on romantic matters comes from Alanis Morissette and a poster of a man from the nineteenth century).

I can’t recall the show mentioning Ham being gay, and if it did then it certainly didn’t make a big deal out of it. Part of me hopes that it hasn’t been brought up before, because the totally blasé way in which he and Crispin lock lips during the school dance totally works as a nonchalant, “Yeah, people are gay, this is normal,” way of raising it. Plus, Judy isn’t surprised in the least and plays matchmaker for the two of them later, so presumably, she was well aware of her brother’s sexuality anyway (making her failure to recognize his connection with Crispin even sweeter.)

In the B-plot of The Great North season 1, episode 6, Beef is temporarily reunited with his brother, Brian (Rob Delaney), who left Lone Moose to flourish in the big city of Anchorage – something that Beef has never really forgotten or forgiven. There’s some fun to be had here, and a scene in which Beef accompanies Brian to a business dinner is a particular highlight, but while I hesitate to say it, this whole thing felt a bit aimless to me, especially after Wolf’s subplot in the previous episode covered a lot of the same ground in regards to recognizing that other people see things differently to you and that it’s quite okay if they do.

If there’s a recurring trait among all the Tobins, it’s naivete, and that’s becoming more and more obvious as the show progresses. “Pride & Prejudance Adventure” – so-called because of a reference to the book, by the way – showcases this trait in Judy, Ham, and Beef, just like the previous one highlighted it in Wolf. It’s very in keeping with the show’s overall goodhearted, open-minded nature because it puts the audience on the side of the characters. Nobody is smug or snarky; in fact, they’re often too earnest for their own good. It’s nice to be able to say that for once.

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