5 reasons you should try 'Suburgatory'

ABC's delicious sitcom Suburgatory returns for its second season tonight, and I'm thrilled. It's one of the few network sitcoms right now that I will actively advocate for, in that annoying way where you meet someone at a cocktail party and they start chastising you about not having seen this really great show and you know you should, but you have so many other things to watch. … Well, I'm about to subject you to my cocktail-party pitch for this show right now. Here, my five reasons you should check it out if you haven't yet:

1. Teenage New York-to-suburbia transplant Tessa is a revelation, both as a character and for the actress who plays her, Jane Levy. Tessa's one of those smart, witty, combat-booted outsider girls we love to have as our heroines, in the vein of Lindsay Weir from Freaks and Geeks or Daria . But she's totally well-adjusted about her outsider status, even proud of it; you never catch her pining to be homecoming queen. And her budding relationship with her hot-jock neighbor has an interesting new dynamic: She's embarrassed about her attraction for him, rather than pining for him à la She's All That. As a bonus, Levy happens to be a cross between Reese Witherspoon and Ellen Page.

2. Jeremy Sisto as funny, sweet, struggling single dad George.

3. The Clueless reunion it gave us last season between Sisto and Alicia Silverstone as his crunchy-granola, Alicia Silverstone-esque girlfriend. I'll miss her this season, but …

4. Apparently the sexual tension between George and Real Housewife with a Heart of Gold Dallas (played to the outrageous hilt by Cheryl Hines) will come to fruition this season.

5. Ana Gasteyer and Chris Parnell as the over-the-top straight-laced neighborhood parents who have shown hints of their other dimensions: a secret adoption and a past fling with James Ingram.

You can find Jennifer Keishin Armstrong on Twitter at @jmkarmstrong or at her website.