A great overarching theme of Awkward. is power, and when the catalyst for every ounce of drama is usually someone being a super jerk to someone else, the show can be really fun. And where the most interesting dynamic of Awkward.'s first season was Jenna's complete lack of power and control in her life, this season has shown her growth exponentially by the episode, and it's really propelling the second season to be much better than the first.

| Related: Kiss and Tell: A Conversation With the Cast of Awkward. |

I've said before that Awkward.'s magic exists in overdramatizing the smaller, more realistic things that stain high school, and that alone separates it from a lot of teen drama crap out there. "Three's A Crowd" is to date the best example of this: Jenna has DTR'd with Jake, but Matty has been incessantly finding his way into their couples time. Now there's four big options that the story could use in order to explain this threesome: 1) Matty is attempting to sabotage the relationship between Jenna and Jake, 2) Matty is worried about losing Jake as a friend, 3) Jenna is actually intruding upon Matty and Jake's friendship, and 4) Jake is trying to keep Matty around in order to maintain their friendship, for fear that his girlfriend could hurt his relationship with his best friend.

The incredibly smart thing that "Three's A Crowd" does is use all four of these options, and it's an example of great character management and mixing each of their motivations, instead of taking the obvious Matty the Destroyer route. Matty asserts to Jenna that he's been Jake's friend for a lot longer than she's known him, and she's the third wheel here, which has a lot of truth in it. And Jake—still clueless to Matty/Jenna—honestly wants Jenna to get along with Matty (if only he knew, am I right?). But the idea of Jenna intruding upon Matty and Jake does stymie her a bit, and the episode at the close does a brilliant job of not solving this issue in a tight bow. There's still residual worries for Jenna and Matty and their respective relations with Jake, and yet we also find out (through good use of Sadie) that Matty is certainly trying to sabotage Jenna and Jake, even if he's convinced Jenna that he isn't.

But "Three's A Crowd" also examines power and its effects from many different angles, from the central idea of Valerie's Bullying Awareness Week: Tamara is still subjected to Ricky's public displays of slut antics (and Sadie only buries her even more), Valerie as the new Vice Principal can't shake off her new guidance counselor replacement, and Lacey's continued inability to be a rational parent and wife lead her to buy a hot tub (which is really just a catalyst for getting every hot cast member on the show topless) and further divide her house in the process when Kevin moves out. My favorite of these—aside from obsessing over Tamara's spandex dance—is Lacey by far, who's really running out of options when it comes to destroying her family. Her earnest need to fix things only makes them worse because she goes about it the completely wrong way, but when she confesses to Jenna that her dad might be moving out for a while, the scene (thanks to Nikki DeLoach) added an inexplicit truth to Lacey: she might actually be coming to terms with her mistakes.

So I loved "Three's A Crowd". It's the best episode of the season, and I'd be completely fine if it stayed that way. It's not a significant turning point for anyone but Lacey, but this is a great episode that digs into everyone just a bit more, and it's a worthwhile one at that.

SumOlogy: Best of the season (so far).

Grade: A-

Leftovers

Another editor—the lovely Stephanie Webber, who watches and loves Awkward. as much as I do—brought up a valid point about the show: if Sadie knows that Matty likes Jenna, why hasn't she told Jake? And I think there's a big reason for that: I don't think Sadie has a solid enough rapport with Jake in order to want to destroy his relationship with Jenna. Sadie's mean and cruel, but the show's also proven that she's human, and that vindictive attitude only stretches so far. Plus, from a writer/creator standpoint, I think Jake has to find out through Matty or Jenna, the ones who have been lying to him about it. At least, I want to believe that's where they're headed. I could be totally wrong.

This was by far the best use of Desi Lydic and Jillian Rose Reed all season. Where I thought last week's episode was a little imbalanced, this one found time for all the right characters (they even squeezed Lissa in there, but where was Ming?), and each of them really brought their best to the table to make this a great half-hour.

Beau Mirchoff shirtless is always a good thing for the tweens.

"Like a uniboob in a sports bra, I was the one being confined."

"Nobody likes a Klingon. Including my Panini."

"You acted like a bully and you need to run it off."

"Ricky Schwartz called us all beautiful so we would cup his balls."

"I want to thank you all for coming to this required assembly."

"You might as well have bought our daughter a sex swing."

"Get over you."

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