American High School
Genre: Teen/Comedy/Romance
Executive Producer: Richard Linklater
Writer: Chad Taylor
Season 1 Episode 5 - The Christmas Social
Cast:
Cooper Hoffman .... Buzz Gentrie (Regular)
Shea Whigham .... Vern Gentrie (Regular)
Mitchell Hoog .... Dennis Christy (Regular)
Sung Kang .... Sung-min (Regular)
Judy Greer .... Helen Gentrie (Regular)
Minka Kelly .... Cheryl Christy (Recurring)
Morris Chestnut .... Reese Johnson (Recurring)
Odessa Young .... Francine (Recurring)
Plot: It’s December and the base is preparing for a holiday celebration. Helen (Judy Greer) has volunteered as the head planner of the Christmas social and recruited Cheryl Christy (Minka Kelly) to help. The two of them click immediately and develop a friendship, just as their two sons had.
Reese (Morris Chestnut) is woken up by a sound coming from his daughter’s bedroom. Startled, he goes to check but finds that it is just Gwen singing to herself in the middle of the night as she works on homework. He asks if something is wrong and she says no, she just finds that she works best late at night. His first instinct is to chew her out for waking him up but decides to insist how she’s hanging in there. “School? School’s been pretty easy.” He says he figured that. He meant more in general. It’s been almost two years since her mother’s passing. She admits that it never gets easier. He holds her hand and says he knows. They hug and he tells her to get some sleep so he can too. Or at least be quieter.
At the Gentrie home, Helen is stressed about making sure the upcoming social goes off without a hitch. Vern (Shea Whigham) tells her it will go fine, she’s practically a professional party planner at this point. She asks about how things are on the base. He says it’s not been an easy few months, that’s for sure. But he knew that going in. He admits that one of the toughest parts is managing the differing personalties from much different backgrounds. Helen laughs and says tell her about it—she has to teach the Civil War to kids from the North and South. He kisses her and says she’s got a point. She smiles and says she’s glad he’s in a good mood because she has a request. He gives her a curious look.
Dennis (Mitchell Hoog) meets with Gwen after school so she can tutor him in Korean. Unsurprisingly, he seems pretty disinterested and asks what the point of learning this is if he’s probably going to be moving to another new location in a few years. She can empathize with this sentiment but says there is always a value in learning another language. He asks her if she wants to know a secret. Since they don’t really know each other, she is curious what he’s going to say. He admits that he waited to enter the room because he heard her singing to herself. She is embarrassed but he says not to be. She’s got a great voice.
The Christmas Social is held at the biggest mess hall on base. All of the families are there and socializing. Sung-min (Steven Yeun) and other outside workers were also invited. Helen recruited a band of musicians on the base to play holiday music. Vern makes his grand entrance dressed as Santa Clause, to the amusement of most but the embarrassment of Buzz (Cooper Hoffman).
Buzz sits at table with Gwen and her friend Francine (Odessa Young). As she looks up at the musicians on stage, Gwen randomly asks if they’d like to start a band. Simultaneously Francine says yes and Buzz says no. Gwen gives him a confused look and Buzz he says it sounds fun but he knows his dad wouldn’t allow it. He’s pretty strict about these things. They are then joined by Dennis, who asks what they’re talking about. Gwen says Buzz is being lame and doesn’t want to start a band. He laughs and swears that he can’t.
On stage, there is a mishap with the lead guitarist of the band when he says he is feeling light-headed and can no longer play. Helen starts to scramble as the party feels a bit empty without the music. Sung-min approaches his colleague and tells her he used to play some music back in his day so he’d be willing to play some tunes if she’d be interested. She says absolutely and so he takes the stage with the band. It is immediately clear that he was under-selling himself as he’s a virtuoso at guitar. The crowd is enraptured by this as the holiday season is in the air.
End credits: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ajuTaHBtM
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