When we last left our main characters, Rusty (Jacob Zachar) and Calvin (Paul James) have finished their rush periods for Kappa Tau Gamma and Omega Chi Delta respectively, and look forward to their first year as actives, while the rivalry between their two houses, mainly due to each house's president, continues strong.
Rusty's sister, Casey (Spencer Grammer), finishes up her summer internship in Washington DC only to realize that her heavy social life in college isn't really preparing her for the real world, while her boyfriend Max (Michael Rady) has decided to stay at Cyprus-Rhodes for his post-grad studies despite being offered a full scholarship elsewhere, just so he can stay with her. Of course, he doesn't let that tidbit of information slip until several months after school starts back up, and when Casey learns the truth, she gets a little freaked out. This becomes a major point of contention since the third part of the latest Casey love-triangle involves Cappie (Scott Michael Foster), head of the KT house, and while Casey professes to still wanting to be friends with Cappie, he can't get over her and backs out of her life.
As for Casey's sorority, Zeta Beta Zeta, Ashleigh (Amber Stevens) struggles with her new-found presidential appointment as well as the fact that former ZBZ member Frannie (Tiffany Dupont) has created her own greek house, Iota Kappa Iota and divided the ZBZ in two. Ashleigh finds herself not only dealing with a Casey that is trying to back out of greek-life, but also trying to gain enough new members to keep dues from going up, all while Frannie "dirty-rushes" since she isn't a part of the official greek system... yet.
Back on the Rusty side of the show, the younger Cartwright finds that he can't live in the KT house because he isn't able to keep up with his heavy coursework, so he and Dale (Clark Duke) get an off-campus apartment. As a hilarious side-story, Dale actually ends up with a girlfriend in the pair's cougar landlady (who of course, does everything in her power to get him to break his purity vow). Meanwhile, two new characters enter the scene in Freshman Football super-star Andy (Jesse McCartney) and a liberal-arts major that Rusty falls for named Jordan (Johanna Braddy). As an odd twist, Andy actually pledges to Kappa Tau instead of the obvious Omega Chi choice (much to Calvin's chagrin). While things seem fine at first, Rusty soon regrets his push for Andy's acceptance when he finds Andy and Jordan kissing at a party... and later going out.
Omega Chi's president, Evan (Jake McDorman), doesn't play as big a role in this volume. Last volume had him making hard decisions about accepting his family's trust fund and all the strings that are attached to that acceptance. While he has accepted the money, he now finds himself constantly wondering if anyone is truly his friend, or if people just like him for his money. This is especially true in his relationship with Frannie as she keeps asking him for money to support her new sorority. As an odd twist, the rivalry between Evan and Cappie seems to come to a conclusion before the end of the volume as both find themselves thrust together in a very unusual circumstance that causes them to finally talk things out.
The season culminates in a party thrown by the KT's when a reprimands from a prank means they will not be able to have any social events for several weeks. This final blow-out called their "End of the World Party" will have a ton of repercussions in the following seasons as several characters make some major choices before the night is out.
There aren't a lot of special features in Greek: Chapter Four. It offers some commentaries, a gag-reel and a music video of "How Do You Sleep" by Jesse McCartney, but the only thing I really found interesting was the behind-the-scenes featurette about the season finale episode.
In general, Greek is a show I have to all but force myself to watch when it comes time to review it, but once I get into it, I enjoy the show a lot. The acting is okay, and while the drama seems pretty convoluted at times, it doesn't feel too over the top. It is hard to get into this show mid-stream (as it were), so Volume Four isn't a good starting point. If you are interested in the lives of these characters, then you might want to rent the first volume and see how you feel from there.
