‘The Neighborhood’ Season 1, Episode 2 ‘Welcome to the Repipe’ Recap: In Deep Water

Awkward hugs and sincere apologies later, the tension between Dave and Calvin is far from water under the bridge. So instead, it found itself leaking under the Johnsons’ new house in tonight’s episode of CBS’s The Neighborhood.

Episode 2, titled “Welcome to the Repipe,” presents the first sticky situation that the Johnsons get themselves into with the new, and apparently very old house they bought. Dave (Max Greenfield) needs help with the piping and turns to Calvin (Cedric the Entertainer), who reluctantly agrees. Marty (Marcel Spears) catches Gemma (Beth Behrs) meeting Tina’s (Tichina Arnold) secret friends and Grover (Hank Greenspan) and Malcolm (Sheaun McKinney) learn something from each others’ fathers.

Pipe it down

Dave and Gemma unpack all their misplaced stuff when Dave decides to put some of them in the basement. What he found was a pool of water gushing out of the wall. When he tried to turn it off, it made things a whole lot worse. He turns to next door neighbor Calvin, who was actually hoping to avoid him.

Calvin brings Malcolm along to check out the situation. They find the problem in the kitchen behind drywall, which Calvin smashes through in front of Gemma and Tina. They find a hole in the pipe which Calvin agrees to fix while Dave and Grover stay out of it. Tina invites Gemma over to take a shower at her house. So far, their relationship is the only stable bridge the Johnsons have with the Butlers.

While Calvin tries to teach Malcolm how to fix the pipe, Dave tries to teach his son how to play baseball and tells him he’s great even though he sucked real bad. On the other end, Malcolm finds an easier way to do it on YouTube and so out of frustration Calvin puts Malcolm in charge of the Job. Calvin takes over the father-son catch game with Grover, and Dave rushes in the house to give Malcolm a hand.

In the Butler bedroom, Gemma finds out that Tina wears a wig. After taking a shower in their bathroom, she tries one of them on. Marty caught her in the act and stood by as his mom catches Gemma too. She apologizes, but Tina laughs. Instead of being mad, she shows off her collection of wigs which all three of them try on for fun.

Fatherly advice 

Malcolm found himself on the verge of giving up on fixing the pipe despite being close. With Dave’s encouragement, he managed to follow through. Grover got a little better in baseball if you consider hitting the ball straight to Calvin’s nuts an improvement. It happened because of Calvin’s tough love. Both fathers saw the difference in their parenting and how a little bit of both their strategies improved their sons’ outlook on life.

‘The Neighborhood: Welcome to the Repipe’ Overall Verdict

This time around, “Welcome to the Repipe” focuses more on family dynamics. Dave and Calvin clearly have different styles of parenting, but a combination of both get things done on both their boys. And it’s simply impossible to ignore the wig action that went on in Tina’s bedroom. But frankly, nobody’s snatching wigs anytime soon. The series so far is fun and light with a couple of jokes (with only a couple of good ones) and cringe-worthy white guy (Dave) antics here and there. A time-killer is pretty much all it is.

The Neighborhood continues next Monday, October 15, with “Welcome to the Spare Key” at 8/7c on CBS.