Four very different girls end up sharing the same dorm room at Essex College, Vermont. Naive Kimberly Finkle, who came from a conservative town in Arizona, works part-time to pay her tuition and tries to break out of her small-minded self. Aspiring comedian Bela Malhotra wants to get into the prestigious comedy club, only to face the harsh reality of the comedy scene. Privileged Whitney Chase, daughter of a senator from Washington, starts an affair with the married assistant coach of the soccer club but struggles to define herself not as the daughter of a politician. Aloof Leighton Murray, a city girl from New York, originally does not want to share a room with the other three, but ends up being roped into joining their social circle while secretly hiding her sexuality.
Tropes featured in this episode:
- Casting Couch: Bela gives handjobs to the writers of The Catullan so she can earn her place. In response, she gets slut-shamed by one of the writers' girlfriends at the Theta Pi Delta frat party.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Played for Laughs. Kimberly says that her boyfriend Max looks like Shawn Mendes. Bela, Whitney, and Leighton find out, to their dismay, that he does not look remotely like Shawn Mendes.
- Closet Gay: Leighton. Apparently, even her brother doesn't know, as he still unwittingly ships her with Cory.
- Eating the Eye Candy:
- Kimberly gets distracted watching a shirtless guy passing by her on the first day of college. That guy ends up being Leighton's brother, Nico.
- Bela dares Cory to bare his abs, and is happy when he complies.
- Digging Herself Deeper: Kimberly's attempts to be politically correct towards Canaan.
- False Friend: Leighton's "friends" Esme and Francesca dump her because they thought she is bitchy and unapproachable, which, as she realizes in hindsight, is a correct assessment.
- Fish out of Water: While the other girls either grew up privileged or urban, Kimberly is from a working class, white family from suburban Arizona. She is clueless about race, prudish about a lot of things, and hasn't had sex with her boyfriend of several years. Needless to say, she has the most struggle fitting in at Essex.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Despite savoring the sight of his shirtless body, Kimberly doesn't recall Nico when she meets him again a few days later.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As a teacher supposed to step in when two teammates almost kill each other, Whitney's anger at Dalton for interfering in her problem with Jena and almost making it look like he was giving his top student a "special treatment" was a 100 percent reasonable. The fact that Dalton only made it worse because Jena thinks that Whitney got on the team due to her mother's highest position as a senator further proves her point.
- Nepotism: Whitney is disparaged by some fellow soccer players because they thought she got in as a senator's daughter.
- Race Fetish: Whitney thinks her white secret lover Dalton has a fetish for Black women due to him complimenting the color of her skin. He admits he's attracted to Black women more than other races.
- Rage Breaking Point: Kimberly vents out her frustration of being broken up by Max by lashing out at a customer who deliberately throws trash at Canaan's direction.
- Relative Error: Bela initially thinks that Nico is Leighton's boyfriend and not her brother.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Whitney has a fling with the assistant soccer coach, Dalton, not knowing that he is married until she bumps into his wife, who doesn't know about the affair either.
- Their First Time: Kimberly's sex with Max is their respective first times. She doesn't take it well when he decides to break up the morning after.
- Troll: Canaan makes up a sob story about his sad Black life to Kimberly, who believes it without a second thought.
