Greek

Greek can be best described with this equation: "Brotherhood of Funny Hats + Teen Drama + Dramedy + a little nutmeg + some pepper + a pinch of cheese = GRΣΣK".

For an ABC Family original series, it's surprisingly decent. Not good, exactly, but not a waste of time. Focuses on the fraternity ambitions of Rusty, a nerdy freshman (now probably a Junior, the passage of time is very much stop-and-go in the series, with some episodes taking place back to back and others jumping weeks if not months ahead of the last), and the goings-on of his friends and relatives. (His sister, Casey, is played by Kelsey Grammer's daughter) Contrary to many teen dramas on nowadays, it's not really a drama. College/Greek life isn't treated as a matter of life or death. Some "serious" issues, such as Betsy's alcoholism, are even played for laughs.

Likely not what a majority of Tropers are looking for, but it's good, funny, interesting dramedy-fluff.

Tropes used in Greek include:

• Absentee Actor: Mainly Dale, but both Evan and Rebecca have been missing for stretches.
  • Anyone outside the core group of Rusty, Cappie, Casey (and usually Ashleigh) will be absent (without commentary) for random episodes every season. Presumably, this is when these people actually go to class.
• Actor Allusion: Several times. See the Jen K example below; Casey's Frasier references (she's Kelsey Grammer's daughter); Ferris Bueller references in front of the Dean (Cameron Frye from that movie). Abby(played by Olesya Rulin) saying she choreographed 3 high school musicals and the third one being their senior year, shortly followed with Casey saying "we're all in this together".
• The Alcoholic: Betsy.
• Alpha Bitch:
  • Frannie.
  • Tegan at the Nationals level proves that being an Alpha Bitch is one of two general paths of a ZBZ alumna (with Lizzi being the other general path).
• A Day in the Limelight: All About Beav.

Beaver: "I am the star of my own life. I deserve to be center stage... Thanks Mom."

• Added Alliterative Appeal/Full-Name Basis: Ben Bennett.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Cappie's parents
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Evan bribes a Lambda Sig who genuinely likes Casey to leave her alone for a thousand dollars.
• Anticipatory Breath Spray: Of course, this being Dale, he sprays it right into his eyes.
• Bachelor Auction: Geek Auction in Season 3.
• The Backwards R: Σ for E in the name. Note that Σ is Sigma, and is the equivalent of S in English.
• Bait and Switch Tyrant: Lizzi.
• Baseball Episode: In season three Omega Chi and ZBZ team up against Gamma Psi and Kappa Tau.
• Beautiful All Along: Lizzi, after Casey and Ashleigh make her over to bust her out of Plucky Office Girl mode.
• Betty and Veronica: Evan (Betty) and Cappie (Veronica) for Casey (in this case, only because Cappie is the Cannon Love Interest, Evan actually fits the Veronica personality type much better, being rich and kind of a prick).
  • Casey (Betty) and Rebecca (Veronica) for Cappie.
  • Max (Betty) and Cappie (Veronica) for Casey.
  • Tina (Betty) and Katherine (Veronica) for Rusty.
• Black Best Friend: Calvin, to Rusty, and Ashleigh to Casey.
  • Well, not really. He's more a best friend who happens to be black (and gay); he's never played up as "hip" or anything along those lines (only RELATIVELY so compared to Rusty and Dale who are both very nerdy, especially early on).
• Bridezilla: Kiki, Frannie's Big Sis.
• Brilliant but Lazy: Cappie
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Without the hats and with a lot more drinking.
• Brother-Sister Incest: The writer's really seem to like having Rusty unknowingly hit on his sister.
• Contest Winner Cameo: One of the judges in "Mr. Purr-fect".
• Corrupt the Cutie: Cappie and one of his girl friend's reactions to Rusty.
• Cool Big Sis: Casey to Rusty
• Cool Loser: Rusty
• Credit Card Plot: With Ashleigh in the end of season one.
• The Cynic: Rebecca
• Dark Horse Victory: Ashleigh comes out of nowhere to win the ZBZ presidency.
• Did Not Do the Research: Where to begin... Season 4 has probably had the most egregious examples
  • The complete breach of academic protocols regarding credit on Rusty's wire when his girlfriend tried to list herself as a co-inventor after the fact, rather than simply a primary contributor or researcher which she would certainly have actually qualified for
  • Several Law Students dismissal Casey's attempts to dispel a rumor with her side of the story as "hearsay" (a rumor is, by it's very nature, already hearsay)
    • Pretty much all the Law School stuff. The prof even threatens to just fire one of his interns (which he says would look bad to her future potential employers) when she expresses concern over working on a case against her boyfriend's frat house. Neither of them seems to have ever heard the phrase "conflict of interest" or be aware that is a perfectly legitimate reason for a real lawyer NOT to work on a case (and could be a major liability to their client in court if they go ahead with it anyway).
• Dogged Nice Guy: Rusty Rusty Rusty and Dale too.
• Double Agent: Rebecca.
• Dramedy
• Dumb Blonde: Laura and Beth, averted by Katherine and Casey (well, most of the time).
• Establishing Character Moment: Evan cheating on Casey in the first episode.
  • Lizzi's entire spiel to Ashleigh and Casey when she's first introduced set her entire tone, and Ashleigh and Casey's faces said it all...This is going to suck.
• Expansion Pack Past: Cappie's majors (and one-time photography minor).
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In Freshman Daze: In a flashback to show that Evan has left his rebellious ways behind.
• Fake Defector: Rebecca to Iota Kappa Iota.
• Freudian Excuse: Implied about why Cappie doesn't want to leave college.
• Gargle Blaster: Aerosol Death Juice turns a geek party into the wildest party the party frat's thrown in years.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Any mention of the Gag Reflex
  • 'I'm sorry for being such a dick...tator'
  • I guess the use of 'fun-buddies' might qualify too.
  • Am I the only one that thought of all the sexual innuendo during the cram session for "Joshua Whopper"? From the discussion of phalluses 'going soft', too much to cram in, it goes on...
• The Generic Guy: Heath, he's still adorable.
• Hair of Gold: Katherine, president of Panhellenic.
• Hello, Attorney!: well, "hello law student!" for Katherine.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Ashleigh and Casey
• Hidden Depths: Rebecca
• His Story Repeats Itself: Casey & Cappie's relationship. Cappie & Evan's friendship
• Hollywood Nerd: Rusty straddles both types. Dale is a type 1 and Max is a type 2. Psi Phi Pi is an entire fraternity of type 1's.
• Hollywood Spelling: Ashleigh (self-explanatory); Lizzi ("Two Zeta-Beta Z's", no E.)
  • Ashleigh is a fairly traditional spelling.
    • Traditionally male...
• Horrible Judge of Character: Casey, to maximum.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Katherine.
• Hufflepuff House: Every house not named Omega Chi, Kappa Tau, or ZBZ...
• Jerkass Has a Point: Frannie's frequent bouts of advice to Casey.
• Kidnapped by an Ally: Kappa Tau pledge class kidnap Cappie and Rusty, resulting in their loss to Omega Chi
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Evan: "Now the fate of the entire Greek system is in the hands of a flaky, alcoholic degenerate" Cappie: "I'm not an alcoholic"
• It's Always Spring/SoCalization: Seriously, an Ohio with no snow?
  • Lampshaded by Cappie in "The Tortoise and the Hair", including "the weather never seems to change" in his list of reasons he would never want to leave college.
  • Also in "Our Fathers" when telling Rebecca's dad about the school, Cappie says, "It's the only place in Ohio that's exactly like Southern California."
  • Recent pictures from the set of the 4th season indicate that, finally, it does snow in Ohio.
• Ironic Echo: "I didn't give you permission to call me by a nickname."
• Lampshade Hanging: Rusty's girlfriend, "Jen K," is played by Jessica Rose, aka, "Lonelygirl15." At one point she says living with her roommate is "like living with lonelygirl15."
• Lonely Rich Kid: Evan and Rebecca both fall in this category, sometimes.
• Love Triangle: Among others, Cappie/Casey/Evan.
• May-December Romance: Ashleigh and Casey's law professor Simon Segal.
• The Mole: Jen K.
• My Friends and Zoidberg: During the beer pong game in episode two:

Cappie: Gentlemen (beat) and Omega Chis.

• My Name Is Not Durwood: Cappie finds several names to refer to Evan by.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: One of which is "Evan Longoria", before the baseball player with the same name led his team to the World Series. Cappie was going for the Desperate Housewives connection.
• Nerds Are Virgins: averted with Rusty, who has slept with every girl he has dated. And also, Dale, but his reaction was quite disheartening
• The Nicknamer: Kappa Tau!
• Noodle Incident: The CRU Honors Engineering students managed to get a building condemned after an incident involving a genetically modified raccoon.
  • According to Cappie, Beaver nearly became a Canadian citizen.
  • What happened on Cinco de Mayo between Cappie and Casey?
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Cappie.
  • With a dose of Wicked Cultured, such as the time he wins an argument in latin and then gives the following;

Cappie: Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari? Beat. Cappie: Translation! How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

• Only Known by Their Nickname: Cappie most notably; plus a few of the minor Kappa Taus are only known thusly.
  • Another notable example is Wade, his real name is Wade, and so is his nickname.
  • We get to find out in the finale that his name is Captain John Paul Jones
• One of the Boys: Jordan.
• Naive Newcomer: Rusty to the Greek system.
• Pink Means Feminine: ZBZ's sorority color is piiiink. Lampshaded in the convention episode: "I've never realized there could be so many shades of pink."
• Pair the Spares: Evan and Rebecca.
  • Ashleigh and Rusty in the final series.
• Plot Parallel: Evan/Casey/Cappie triangle to Rusty/Jordan/Andy.
• Plucky Office Girl: Lizzi fulfills this trope to the rest of ZBZ Nationals at the convention.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Katherine.
• Put on a Bus: Jordan, and hopefully she never comes back.
• Quirky Curls: Lizzi, to the point where Ashleigh's first line to her as they get ready to make her over is, "It's time to get serious...and it starts with the hair."
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Or in this case, didn't. The writers' strike bisected the first season; the producers decided to keep shooting them in 10-12 episode "chapters" and haven't looked back since.
• Really Seventeen Years Old: That guy Casey met at the shelter and later slept with.
• Retcon: Remember when Heath said he was graduating at the end of Rusty's sophomore fall semester? Well, they explained his return as him failing his finals after some of his frat brothers were expelled. However, he still shows up in season 4, which takes place the fall of Rusty's junior year. I love Heath, but Writers Cannot Do Math.
• Rich Bitch: Rebecca, before her father had an affair and lost his office and his influence.
• Rich People: The Chambers and the Logans.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Evan.
• Science Fair: In Season 3.
• Shout-Out: Two characters participate in a psychological study numbered 8675309.
• Shown Their Work: The series is set in Ohio, so why not get an Ohio weatherman to do a cameo weatherman appearance? (Although it's set in Central Ohio (Analogous to Ohio University), and the weatherman was from the Toledo ABC station...)
• The Slacker: Cappie. When some speak of graduating, he tells them, "Bite your tongue!"
  • This looks to be a ship sticking point for the final chapter, as Casey breaks up with him in the most recent chapter's finale because he can't commit to graduating.
• Speed Dating: Rusty and Cappie go through this at Dobler's
• Straight Gay: Calvin, Heath and initially Grant, although after coming out to his brothers he morphed overnight into full-on Camp Gay.
• Suddenly Sexuality: Rebecca says she's a lesbian now. Cappie and Evan disagree. Within a day, so does she.
• Take Our Word for It: Heath's sister being younger than she looks.
• Teen Drama
• Teens Are Short: All of the freshmen (Rebecca, Rusty, Calvin) are shorter than their "bigs" (Casey, Cappie, Evan). Averted with Lizzi, who's shorter than most of the ZBZ sisters even though she's older than all of them.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Zeta Beta Zeta.
• Tomboy: Jordan
• Three Amigos: Cappie, Evan, and Casey in the Backstory.
• Trickster Mentor: Cappie to Rusty.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Cappie, Evan, and Casey.
• Volleying Insults: Cappie and Evan. Rebecca and Casey.
• Wacky Fratboy Hijinx: Kappa Tau.
• Weird Science: Why Max decided to study science.
• We Used to Be Friends: Cappie and Evan.
• Whole-Episode Flashback: Freshman Daze, for the most part.
• Will They or Won't They?: Cappie and Casey, definitely.
• You Didn't Ask
• Younger Than They Look: Jonah, Casey's date in "Highway to the Discomfort Zone". He's 16, but has a fake ID good enough to fool Lizzi, the resident "Party Patrol" for the Double Date Dash at Dobler's.
  • And, of course, Heath's younger sister.
• Your Cheating Heart: Evan on Casey, Rebecca on Evan, Fisher on Ashleigh, and Jordan on Andy.