“IVY” Recap: Tangled and Tumultuous

This week, the student-produced television show “Ivy” released its first episode. A ruminative and extremely hip examination of the tangled and existentially tumultuous lives of five Harvard sophomores, the series is heavy on noteworthy tropes and funny little morsels. We've assigned points to both the revelatory and ridiculous moments in this week’s message from the existentially grappling youths of “Ivy.”

+4 for prolonged blank stares

+2 for Audi insignias on t-shirts

+1 for mid-fellatio Tempest orations

+2 for real cashier at University Market

+3 for Blodgett Pool scene straight out of “The Paper Chase”

+1 for cool looking, flare-lit smoking

+200 “heteronormative free market economy”

+5 shoutout to The Crimson

+18 for Mad Men devolution into surreal brown-out

Total: 235 Positive Elements

0 for early morning self-aggrandizing PBR sip (bad habit, you've got to start the morning with something classier)

0 for playing with flares

-4 for a TF being that distressed by a student’s lack of preparation

-3 for excessive self-conscious arm movements towards mouth

-2 for beckoning women exclusively through snaps

-100 for “End of Episode Friendship Revelation” edging the discourse ever-closer to Girls

-2 for “not knowing what’s going on, man”

-5 for several too many minutes of frosting-licking

-3 for slightly delayed “Wait!”

-3 for a burned cake being a metaphor for anything, if that line is meant seriously

Total: 122 Negative Elements

A net positive of +113! The episode sometimes sinks into self-indulgence and familiar millenial angst, but captures the Harvardian aesthetic, vocabulary, and inherent existentialism with much verve. A promising start to a potentially campus-consuming new media force!