Srugim Season 3 Episodes 8 and 9: The Mega Recap

Hello fellow srugim goers. We apologize for the delay in recapping, as our personal lives became a bit crazy over the past few weeks. But we are back! Deadline has passed for Sarah, Shayna has partied with the Jewish academics, and all is slightly back to normal. So, we decided to do a MEGARECAP with episodes 8 and 9 combined, so we can get right to work on episode 10!

 

So in the past two episodes, lots of exciting things happened. Nati is convinced Tehila has a weird mole, Hodaya continues to be crazy and somehow continuosly attracts new men, Yifat is judgy and controlling of everyone in her life (but gets an awesome new job!), Reut arranges for Amir to learn in kollel and also gets a taste of Azarya’s true bum-ness, sugarcoated with a promise of poetry written for her. Obviously, she cannot remember it and it disappears. Just like any hopes of him being normal, or being a good cook. Oh, Reut.

 

Realer Than No One Ever Learning Anything in Kollel

Erez Lev Ari! This is all so meta, we love it. Of course Tehila is obsessed with them and Nati is so not. Also, we love the song they play about running away, etc. The lyrics match Nati’s discomfort totally. But what if he had played the Srugim theme song? Would the world explode? Would it be like that scene in Being John Malkovich where everyone just says Malkovich over and over again? Deep Thoughts. Also, Lev Ari’s music is excellent and angsty and religious–we approve. +15

That baal teshuva Magic Touch speaker  lady  Rona (played by Laizy’s wife!!)  was way too into her former secular life and gave lots of details about how awesome it is . And so were the ulpana students. Be careful, that seems like an advertisement for the dark side. +25.

We are just going to assume her whole speech was an homage to R. Kelly.. After all,  after the party is the after party and after the party is the hotel lobby… In an unrelated note, who’s excited for unreleased chapters of Trapped in the Closet? WE ARE.

Of course someone is texting during the speech. +5 for the real life of Israeli teenagers. Ditto for the girl knitting in the back. Israeli women and knitting during class, we still don’t get it.

Of course Yifat thinks classical music is good for the baby. She is a Smug Pregnant!! +100 for confirming to the stereotype

Mmm, Angel Baked Goods. At least preggers has good taste. +20

We love Hodaya’s heckling!  Especially because those speakers are SO ANNOYING. +20.

Ulpana Tamar Ross tells her to shut up. Amazing. +100

Hodaya, as crazy is she is, knows she has one upped Ulpana Tamar Ross when she says we should teach about what is positive about Judaism.. And then later there is a bonding moment!! +100.

Hodaya writes “Hamered Hagadol” (aka the great rebellion) on the board. Heavy Handed symbolism? Perhaps, but we love it anyway! +15

Students LOVE asking teachers about their personal lives. It is one of their famous diversionary tactics. Since they are appealing to Hodaya’s vanity, it works splendidly this time. +40

We also really like the ulpana girls assumptions about secular life. If only everyone had tiger tattoos, went to clubs without wearing bras, and everyone knew how to make cosmos. +30.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE the moment between Hodaya and Ulpana Tamar Ross, even if it’s kind of far fetched. Octopus in Barcelona will always make us nostalgic now. And Datlashim–everyone has one! We like that this is the theme of these few episodes.

Hahaha, you American Lame O. You are such a friar. +100, because that is every Dad in Teaneck thinking he can get a good deal in Israeli real estate. It’s not worth it. Go back to Cedar Lane. (Edit: PS we know he said he was from boston. Fine, go back to Brookline!) 

Hahhaa, he gets feisty and yells that he needs a coffee. In English. +10.

Of course the only way to get things moving is to pay off some rabbi. Haven’t we seen this before ? +15 for accuracy

Using Amir as arm candy.  Yifat has realized her hubbie is kind of a dud. So apparently she does what other highly successful frum women do — sends him to Kollel. We love the idea of high-powered women toting around their trophy Kollel husbands. +100

When Yifat doesn’t want Hodaya to date her brother she uses a lot of euphemisms for why they wouldn’t be a good match. But we all know, including Hodaya, she is calling her a whore. +9

Azarya’s Manet inspired sweater. You could not even buy something like that in America if you tried. Actually Sinbad could. OMG Azarya is an Israeli Sinbad. Everything makes more sense. +15

Even if you are the hottest haredi lady ever, you still cannot resist bursting into “mishenichnas adar” at random times. We love it. You can take the girl out of bnei brak, can’t take the bnei brak out of the girl. +10

Chani says she is a lady on the outside, and crazy within. WE LOVE YOU CAN YOU BE OUR BEST FRIEND?! +100.

Finding a Chevruta is totally the worse. AHHHHH,  TOO MANY TRAUMATIC MEMORIES. +40

This may be inapproriate but it must be said. Hodaya’s breasts looked spectacular in episode 9. Look out Serena Van der Woodsen. (Sorry rabbis.) +30

“Your friends are boring” -Chevruta speaks the truth. +100

Great Ikea references. Israelis do love the Ikea. So much. +60

The fact that all the job negotiations take place in the gym makes us think this is some sort of Charedi lady Entourage. Ariella Gold, where are you? Spin off!!! + 25

The Yifat-Nitzan break up scene is pretty epic. We loved that it was preceded by fake niceness–we had forgotten that Nitzan is totally a Crazy Bitch. But by far the best line was “Without me you are nothing! You will make bar mitvah invites without me!” +100 for that uber Israeli insult and plus another 50 for Yifat totally taking the high road. But readers, did Yifat screw over Nitzan? Your comments needed! Shayna thinks Yifat totally was in the right, but could have handled it better. Sarah kind of thinks leaving with no notice especially at a small company is kind of a dick move. Thoughts?

“With that salary, we can move to Rehavia!” +100, because we love Rehavia! MMM, waffle bar on aza.

Amir decides that baby needs to listen to Sephardi piyutim. +50 for fighting your Smug Pregnant Wife with multiculturalism!!

V’Gam Ein Kinuch FTW!!!!! Plus 1000. It is kind of like our life motto.

Faker Than Poetry Being Pikuach Nefesh

What is with everyone sleeping through Shabbat? -15 (ummm, how is this not in the real section?-Sarah)

Azarya, azarya, Get thyself to AA. Stat. -25. The cuteness has worn thin, and you dissed Reut with your big meal. This is why Yifat always has to host. -500.

Reut, you suck at lying. Give it up. Amir can see right through you. -15

Nati, you are a crazy pants with all this skin cancer insanity!! Nothing like overly creeping stalking and sending wikipedia links with gross pictures to your beloved to win her over. Also, involving that skinny weird doctor is just really creepy. -100

Azarya knows everyone in the shuk. +50 because we miss our shuk friends

Also, Nati, we think you would be better at pretending to like things for babes at this point. -20

Of course no one brings croissants to Nitzan’s office. They work in Fashion!!  -10

Floppy hair, when you will learn to not interrupt Reut? You are never right.-15

Hodaya is a history teacher. We know this has been alluded to before, but really? The girl has a degree in Bible. She barely knows how to brush her own hair. And we are supposed to believe she is entrusted with teaching  Zionist propaganda / Israeli history to today’s youth? -60

Also let’s be honest. Hodaya would not be teaching at the Ulpana. We know Ulpana Tamar Ross has a soft spot for the chilonim because she has a black sheep in the family. Yet it is hard to believe with Hodaya’s attitude toward religion and her inability to accept boundaries– see shouting down a speaker in the middle of a speaker,, offering a student a bite of her sandwich– she would still be employed.

Hodaya you are probably not the poster child for clean secular living. You look stoned pretty much all the time. But Israeli Magic Touch lady: where is this Marijuana breakfast bar you are talking about? Do they take reservations?  -80

Nati‘s nightclub outfit is a preppy sweater over his shoulders. Actually maybe he would do that. Plus his incredible awkward dancing was spot on. Wash.

So at first we thought Yifat’s brother/Hodaya’s love interest was super sketchy (2002 wants its word back). But then we remembered it is Hodaya’s real life husband in the role. But then we still thought he was sketchy. That is one serial killer smile that dude’s got. Also, Avri is still hotter. -40

We get it. Reut doesn’t know how to cook and she is a micromanager. How many more times can they show us the difference between her and Azarya? -10. Also girlfriend should have kicked him to the curb after he screwed her over with dinner, We don’t care how many pretty lines of poetry he write. -30 At least they both can’t cook.

Nati was awesome in episode 9. What is happening? He just had a ton of great one liners. Commentating on Reut’s apartment, the awkwardness of the meal. Basically he needs to get away from Tehilla more often. -20

So the Amir Chvruta thing at the end, with him taking him home and putting him to bed was supposed to be endearing, but we were creeped out. We were waiting for the to catch a predator guy to jump out from behind an expensive cupboard and bust him. Amir is trying to be his mentor, but older men attempting to build intense relationships with younger ones never ends well– especially when there is Talmud involved. -20

It was really exciting when we thought the turn on for Yifat’s brother was that Hodaya was frum in the am and secular in the pm. We started thinking of a whole superman like show, where the character goes into a phone booth wearing a long black skirt and collared shirt and comes out in some skinny jeans and a tank top. The character would also fight crime. HOW HAVE WE NOT GOTTEN A TV DEAL YET??? -10

Also, Yifat’s brother being secretly not frum reminded us of all the family visits at college when all the rebels pretended to be frum briefly and stepped foot in the kosher cafe for the first time since Welcome Week. Sucks. No points, just an observation.

San Fransicso? Really? Be a real expat Israeli and go to New York. -25

Hodaya, stand up to Yifat! You walk a good walk but then give in to her. Ugh. But I guess you were trying to protect Datlash brother. Still, -10.

So taken together episodes 8 and 9 were awesome and gave all the characters a time to shine. But man it is time for some real drama up in this joint. Bring back Avri!  We will be back on track, we promise.

Srugim blog news:
Sarah will be in Srugim land for the next two weeks and then Shayna will be for all of the spring semester doing research on her dissertation that is not about Srugim.  (!!)  We will inform you of any important sightings. How about a Shabbat invite,  Laizy? Cough Cough.

Also Sarah introduced Shayna to twitter, which was a horrible idea because she can’t stop. So follow us  @shaynamalka @sbreger  for the most up to date TV news.

 

It appears that Ohad Knoller just got divorced.  Be strong!

Plus for fans of Arab Labor we stumbled upon an interesting analysis of it recently.

See you soon, Srugim Land. Leave your comments!! Chappy Chanukah!!