I Just Want MY Pants Back Episodes 1 and 2: The Gratuitous Recap

February 3, 2012

By Jonathan Lazzara

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I Just Want My Pants Back/Photo courtesy of MTV

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Last night marked the glorious, much-anticipated premier of the new MTV series “I Just Want My Pants Back.” In my little corner of the universe, this was notable for a handful of reasons.

First, this show marks MTV’s full-on, wholehearted return to a scripted series. We’ve seen rumblings for a few years, with “Teen Wolf” and the doomed “Skins” experiment, but “Pants” is the real deal: a well-cast, sharply written show that seems to be as much for those of us who remember Daria as those of us who can’t remember further back than season one of “Jersey Shore.” Set and shot in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, and filled with beautiful-yet-realistic actors and actresses – almost all of them unknowns – “Pants” ditches the spray-tanned, vapid depictions of twenty-somethings I generally expect from MTV. These characters are still way over the top, but the show as a whole is surprisingly real.

And that point brings me to the second reason for excitement last night: That realness is largely a product of the show’s pitch-perfect script, much of which was contributed by producer David J. Rosen. David is also the author of the 2007 novel I Just Want My Pants Back, which the series is based on. I’d read David’s novel back when it came out, and while a few details have been altered for television’s sake, the series he’s helped create retains all of the sharpness and endearingly comic raunchiness as the original novel. David has played an integral role in the series (check out a clip of him talking about it here), and for the next nine weeks, we’ll all be drunk on the results.

And there’s the third point of excitement: I’d been lucky enough to see an early screening of the pilot, and the first scene – Tina and Jason out for drinks at their neighborhood bar – was in fact shot at my neighborhood bar. Tommy’s Tavern in Greenpoint is at the end of my block. On camera it looks a lot nicer than it does in person (smells better, too), but I can’t hate on Tommy’s. It is what it is: a lovely, basement-like dive that hosts some of the loudest punk shows in Brooklyn in its back room. I’ve ended nights there. I don’t think one can do anything but end nights there.

So I celebrated last night’s premiere by swinging by Tommy’s for a few drinks. After a few beers, I found myself doing exactly what Tina spends about half of her time on-screen doing – checking my phone. “Pants” was trending on Twitter, and I couldn’t resist putting myself (via the @CrownPublishing twitter) into the conversation. As usual, I found myself shocked, upset, amused, and eventually delighted by the discussion that was developing on that most pummeling of social medias. Ladies and gentlemen, the highlights:

•    Elizabeth Hower, who plays (my secret favorite character so far) Stacey, on the intersection of circus and sexuality, here;
•    Kim Shaw (Tina!) and Sunkrish Bala (Bobby, provider of early morning deli sandwiches and hungover admonishments) bringing it back to what really matters, here and here
•    And author extraordinaire David Rosen, deadpanning his way through the twitter storm, here.

The discussion spread way outside cast and crew, with a bunch of folks both chiming in with their love for the show and using the trending topic “I just want my pants back” as a chance to seriously creep the rest of us out.

Seconds after downing the last of what I swore would be my final beer at Tommy’s, @MTVSoundTrack dropped one last gift for the evening: the full soundtrack for episodes one and two. While a lot about “Pants” brought me back to the glory days of MTV original series, nothing felt as significant as the great job they’d done with the show’s soundtrack. Beach Fossils, Margot May, and Cloud Nothings? These were familiar sonic faces, but to hear them getting some air time on the musical black hole that is modern MTV was a delight.

There’s a lot to be happy about with “Pants”: great writing, great music, and a cast that is sure to grow on us. MTV is taking a leap with this one, but I think it’s one made with the not-unfounded faith that their viewers are hungry for something more intelligent and well-crafted than the processed “reality” they’ve been feeding out for decades now. Now if I could just get Tommy’s to pony up for a cable subscription, my Thursdays would be spoken for.

Check out last night’s episodes, streaming free at MTV here, and check out an excerpt from Rosen’s book, on which the series was based, here.

“I Just Want My Pants Back” – Thursdays at 11 EST on MTV, 24/7 at fine book retailers anywhere.

Tags: Brooklyn, David Rosen, I Just Want My Pants Back, MTV, Relationships, Teenagers, Twitter