Felicity: Season 02 (1999)

Season two of Felicity was the celebrated "year of the haircut," in which series star Keri Russell became a tabloid favorite through the simple expedient of shearing her familiar long tresses. Evidently, Russell's character, Felicity Porter, had made the big snip while traveling cross-country with her erstwhile boyfriend Ben Covington (Scott Speedman). Now summer has segued into fall, and Felicity enters her sophomore year at the University of New York in Greenwich Village. Changing her major from pre-med to fine art, Felicity also undergoes a few changes in her personal life as well. For starters, Ben briefly drops her to have a fling with a caterer named Maggie Sherwood (Teri Polo) but eventually returns to our heroine. Meanwhile, Felicity's former beau, dorm advisor Noel Crane (Scott Foley), starts dating a freshman named Ruby (Amy Smart) but ends the relationship upon learning that Ruby is pregnant with another man's baby. At the same time, Felicity's best friend and Ben's ex-flame, Julie, surprises one and all by moving in with Ben and his naïvely idealistic roommate Sean Bloomberg (Greg Grunberg) -- who, as it turns out, is harboring a crush on Felicity, expressing his ardor by way of a student documentary film. And in another "affair d'amour," Felicity's classmate Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller) falls for new student Tracy (Donald Faison) -- who, in a reversal of the standard "teen TV" cliché, refuses to have sex until marriage. Later in the season, Ben pines away as Felicity dates Greg Stenson (Chris William Martin), who runs the health center where she occasionally does volunteer work. By the time Felicity goes back to Ben, he has accepted a construction job in faraway California. On the verge of taking a summer internship at the Metropolitan Museum, Felicity discovers that her parents are divorcing, which sends her into therapy. And at season's end, Felicity's former boss Javier returns to New York, intent upon wedding his gay lover in an elaborate ceremony. Of the many individual Felicity episodes this season, the best remembered is "Help for the Lovelorn," a black-and-white Twilight Zone spoof in which the viewer learns a lot more about Felicity's somewhat spooky roommate Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman). ~ Rovi