The show kicks off with the pledges admitting that Earl isn't exactly a ladies' man, which is hardly a CNN Special Report. We see Earl all giggly and stammering around that he can't believe he's about to tell twenty million viewers this -- but he's a virgin. A nation pauses to absorb this tragic news. Schoolgirls weep into their diaries, their tears blurring the ink that bore the words "I (Heart) Earl" as they realize that the stampede to be the one to snag MTV's most eligible virgin has just gone into full effect.
Paul's running around telling everyone to wake up for class, since he's the group leader for the week. Apparently, each week one of the guys has to be the designated responsible bastard around the house, and it's finally his turn. He admits that it's a tough job to hold down, but says he takes it seriously just like everything else he's ever accomplished. Tim thinks Paul needs to loosen up, and considers spiking his drink with a roofie. Paul never goes out with the other guys or bonds with them, which makes them all think that he might possibly be a successful achiever in life and not a true frat boy. Brad calls Paul a "Super Pledge." He says that every pledge class has a die-hard pledge, and this time it's Paul. Paul's hardcore. Paul's super. Paul has some fantastic abs. Then Brad just yanks it out of his pants and starts whipping it with his eyes rolling back in his head, moaning, "Paul...Paullll." Brad notices that the red light is still shining on the camera and quietly stuffs his pathetic meat biscuit back into his pants. Somebody points out that Paul is the "Mom" of the group, and Paul says that he's taking this pledging process more seriously than everyone else, and that he just doesn't want to be the only one left pledging. Is this a foreshadowing of things to come? Will Paul be the only one left to become a fraternity brother? Will they have to change the name of the show to Paul's Life? Will I get paid the full amount owed to me by TWoP if the show ends several episodes early because it all fell apart around Episode Eight? ["Hey, if Wendola got the full fee for Wasteland after it got yanked three episodes in, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Plus, MTV never ends any show before people get sick of it." -- Wing Chun]
Upstairs, the guys are supposed to be showering, but instead they're whipping each other with wet towels, which I always hated growing up. Those wet towels hurt. And believe me, I was never at the end of a good-natured wet towel whip. My wet towel whips were always punctuated with the phrase "Quit coming to school, you fat turd!" Ahhhh...memories. Anyway, we see Earl trying to whip Alex with a belt, but he's doing it like a little girl with a dislocated shoulder. Meanwhile, Paul's mopping the kitchen floor. The juxtaposition of these two scenes is way off: it's daytime when the whipping is going on outside the window, while it's nighttime when Paul's mopping the floor. It's like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space: The Television Series. Meanwhile, Tim is entertaining himself upstairs by shooting off a fire extinguisher in the shower stall in which Alex is trying to shower, leaving Alex gasping for breath. That Tim is becoming quite the prankster. And by "prankster," I mean "psychopathic asshole." Alex announces that he's going to throw up, which is becoming a regular thing for ol' Al. I think the guy might be bulimic.
Tim says that Paul needs to bond socially with the other pledges rather than spending all his time doing housework and homework. Which is kinda weird because "house" and "home" almost mean the same thing, but "housework" and "homework" are two different things completely. It's amazing what one can learn from this fascinating series. You know, as long as one is reeling from the amount of cough syrup one must drink in order to sit through this steaming pile of televised bullshit.
The guys go out to a club. Earl ends up with a stripper named Sarah. Tim's walking around with two strippers on his arms, which must please his girlfriend, Nicole from Sorority Life to no end. Earl takes Sarah back to the pledge house, breaking the "no females" rule. Then again, judging by Sarah's looks, we're not completely convinced that she's an actual female. I'm guessing we're going to be watching The Crying Game 2 in less than thirty minutes. Tim thinks Earl could have done much better, because Sarah is definitely not an attractive stripper as far as Tim is concerned. Tim's an idiot: everyone knows that beauty is only skin deep and it fades after time. But a nice body? Man, oh man...a nice body sticks around for life! But Tim is still an idiot, because he's currently dating the least attractive girl from the DZO pledge class. (You know...if you don't count Maggie, and seriously, who does?) Earl begs his stripper friend to stick around the house, but she says she's got to go. I'm guessing that she's late for work ,and the club is overflowing with senile alcoholics who desperately need lapdances. Earl's a bit despondent over Sarah's departure, so the other guys try to cheer him up by saying that she was a hideous beast in the face and that Earl shouldn't lose any sleep over it. Hey, what are pledge brothers for if they can't tell you that you have lousy taste in women?
At the line-up, we see a Big Brother Ceremony. This is where each pledge is given a Big Brother who will guide him through the few years until he graduates, and then they'll go their separate ways, never to have further contact with each other again. Tim gets a guy named Yak, and seems pretty stoked about it. Paul gets a guy named Mike, and Earl gets Mags. The rest of them get a bunch of flakes whose names we're not even told because they're not involved in any current storylines.
Back at the house, Earl calls Sarah to ask her out. She's more than happy to go out with him as long as the MTV camera guy comes along, because she can smell her big break a mile away with her abnormally large schnozz. Tim says that Earl can have the Rover if he brings the strippers over. He repeats this phrase over and over to show that it actually rhymes; he's extremely proud of it, since he's been working on it all night. Everyone agrees with Tim: they want a house full of strippers, even if Earl's stripper has the face of Charles Durning. Alex giggles that he wants to see a picture of Sarah...but only from the back. Earl wonders if perhaps he was a little too drunk the night before and his beer goggles got a bit fogged over and perhaps Sarah was a tad uglier than he remembered. Tim says he can remedy this situation, because Sarah had told them about her personal website. Earl's getting excited because he's about to see his dream girl's face when Tim pulls up several photos of a rat. Ha ha. Sarah's got a rat face. That Tim -- he's living proof as to why frat brothers willfully lose touch with each other after graduation. Tim says that Sarah looked like a rat, but looks good from behind. Dan asks Steve if he happened to see Sarah the night before, and Steve says, "Unfortunately." Lotsa laughs are shared at Earl's girl's expense. Earl says he doesn't see the other guys with any girls, which points out the obvious: he's living with a bunch of losers who'd rather dress up like Obi-Wan Kenobi and go to midnight showings of Attack of the Clones than actually talk to a woman. Earl admits that he's been taking a lot of heat from the guys over Sarah, and that it's because they can't believe that he's dating an honest-to-goodness stripper while they're holding circle jerks in the basement of the frat house every night. Earl and Sarah go to an outdoor café to have some pie and coffee at 2 AM. He looks a bit uncomfortable being in public with an ugly stripper, but her attitude about her job is great, so that keeps him around and interested. It's really our first extended look at the girl and...she's not exactly ugly, but she does look kind of rough. Like she'd slice your testicles open with shards of broken glass just to "see what will fall out." Tim and Steve happen to be walking down the street and spot Earl and Sarah at the cafe. Tim says that they've decided to "have a little fun" with the happy couple, and we're taken to those wretched commercials.
After commercials, we see Sarah talking about how she once lived with a virgin for a while; she says it was interesting, and that virgins are a breed of their own. Meanwhile, Earl is demonstrating the textbook example of "shifting nervously." Tim notes that they're having dessert at 2 AM, and that Sarah should be at work right now. He tells Steve that Earl's an idiot, because only horny old men wine and dine strippers. This is the "little fun" Tim promised they were going to have? I've had more fun at the proctologist's office.
At line-up, the pledges are ordered to empty their pockets to produce their items. Apparently, they have to carry a list of items like gum, condoms, and a dollar bill because all the items have a history of the fraternity behind them. I guess these are all objects they've shoved up each other's asses during hazing. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much! I'm sure you were all waiting anxiously on the edge of your seats for my weekly obligatory reference to their shoving foreign objects up each other's butts, and were beginning to lose hope that I may not have one this week. You should know by now, Uncle Bob never disappoints when it comes to "foreign objects up the ass" references. Uh, yeah. So anyway, Paul has misplaced his $1, so the other pledges have to get down and do thirty-three push-ups each. Paul feels bad about this and doesn't like having others paying for his ignorance. The whole thing pisses Tim off. Hey Tim, here's a suggestion: Depledge, you freak!
In the bedroom, Tim is asking Earl whether he wakes up feeling all dirty after being with a stripper, and if whether hurts when he pees. He tells Earl that Sarah probably has problems with her parents, is stripping to get back at her father, cheats on her taxes, and burns kittens with her cigarettes. You know, the typical stripper personality profile. Steve's cracking up at all of this, proving once again that he's the Andy Richter to Tim's Conan O'Brien. Earl says in a POV that Tim is quick to judge Sarah on what she does for a living, but what he doesn't know is that just a few short months ago, Sarah was a college student, and was in exactly the same boat they are now. What? She was an overbearing pompous asshole who abused society with her presence solely because an MTV camera was recording her every move?! Earl, dude, you need to tell the brothers that! They may finally come around and accept Willard in that case! Over in some restaurant, Paul is having lunch with Erin. I don't recall ever seeing her on the show, but we're evidently supposed to know who she is, because her identity isn't explained. She might be a stripper. If so, ooo la la. She can come give Uncle Bob a Louisiana Lapdance any time. Paul's explaining that, as pledges, the guys all have to be on the same page, and yet they're all still meandering around the table of contents. Meanwhile, Tim and Steve are eating in another restaurant and saying that Paul is not the Super Pledge the brothers may think he is. He's not bonding with the others, and he needs to work on that. I guess they're pissed because Paul hasn't referred to Earl's girl as Mighty Mouse or anything derogatory yet. Back with Paul and Erin, Paul is telling Erin that he'd feel horrible if any of the guys doesn't make it all the way to the end of the pledge period. Erin looks like she's trying to sympathize with Paul, but I can tell she just wants to get naked and hop on Uncle Bob. Oh yeah. That's right, baby. Erin...Eriiiiiin. Hup! Hoo! Oh shit! I just fell backwards out of my chair. Where was I?
Later that day, Steve is trying to track down Paul by cell phone. Paul is at the football field, where the brothers will be playing against the pledges. Steve asks Paul where his football jersey is; Paul doesn't know. The pledges are frantically searching the house for the missing football jersey, while Paul's at the football field. We're reminded by MTV that the pledges must be on time for these football scrimmages. Jarreau finally gets a POV, and it's basically a narration of what's going on: Paul's at the game without his jersey, the pledges are trying to find Paul's jersey, and it's pissing Jarreau off. Thanks for the update, Tom Brokaw. With such complicated plot twists, I would have never figured that out on my own, you lethargic twit. The guys call Paul again, and he can't help them; he has no idea where his jersey is. The pledges show up for the scrimmage thirty minutes late, which makes them look really bad to the brothers. Paul admits that he screwed up, and Tim reiterates to the other pledges that Paul has screwed up twice in two days. Both Tim and Jarreau admit that Paul seems to have his shit together, but he doesn't. I'm sure Paul's spirit is crushed by all of this. To have his pledge brothers point out his inept behavior is the kind of thing that leads a young man to drink. Godspeed to ya, Paulie.
Earl's in the kitchen at Sarah's house, where Sarah has asked him to uncork a wine bottle. Earl fumbles with the wine bottle like a virgin fumbling with a wine bottle in a stripper's kitchen. Earl says that for the past several days, as soon as his pledge stuff is over, he runs into the skinny, heroin-ravaged arms of Sarah, because she's honest and they can relate to each other really well. This is the same guy who didn't want the guys saying "fuck" in front of his mother, like, four episodes ago. Now he's making out with a creepy stripper. I bet Mom is oh so very proud of her little virgin. This is going to make for great conversation around the bridge table Tuesday.
The day in the Rover, Earl is checking out his hickey with pride and asks Alex if it's "noticeable." Alex says it looks like Earl's got another head protruding out of his neck. Earl wears the stripper hickey with pride, constantly tugging down his collar. At the student union, Tim is riding Earl hard about dating a girl who looks like a rat. He mutters the obligatory "She can suck a golf ball through a garden hose" statement all guys make when their friends hook up with rat-faced strippers. All the guys are having a hearty chuckle at Earl's expense, and Tim tells Earl it's all in fun, and that he should just roll with the punches. In a POV, Earl says that the teasing is okay up to a point, but then it starts to bother him that they harp on the fact that his girlfriend looks like a lice-infested rodent.
Earl goes to talk to his big brother Mags about the guys picking on him and Sarah. I'm not really sure what all was said, because the majority of it was bleeped out, but I think Mags told Earl that the other guys are jealous because they don't have girlfriends while Earl's dating a stripper, and that Bill Bixby was never truly recognized for the outstanding dramatic abilities he once brought to Hollywood. Earl says he felt better after talking to Mags about dating a stripper and not getting any nookie for three dates now.
Meanwhile, Paul takes Earl's lead and goes to talk to his big brother Mike. Paul explains that he goes after everything very seriously, and that pledging is like a business to him. Mike sits there quietly, rolling a joint and wondering what the hell he did to his brothers to be stuck being this boring-assed pretty boy's big brother. Mike finally tells him to put the mop down and just fucking bond with the other pledges before he gets a mop handle jammed up his ass. This is like a revelation to Paul, who gives Mike one of those jive-assed handshakes that I've never been any good at and leaves to let Mike smoke his joint in peace.
The other pledges are shocked that evening when Paul wants to tag along on their bar crawl in order to "bond" with his pledge brothers. Tim and Earl can't believe it because this is the first time that Paul has shown any interest in bonding with them in a public setting. As it turns out, Paul is a natural at bonding, he just thought it'd be in his best interest to be totally serious about the process and not spend his evenings eating soggy saltines out of barroom urinals or whatever these guys consider "bonding" to be.
At the student union the day, the guys are still riding Earl about dating a rat who gives somewhat decent lapdances. Earl's letting it all roll off his back, and says it doesn't matter what they say because he thinks that Sarah is "damned sexy." Awwww...spoken like a true drunk and separated sixty-year-old man who's stuffing $5 bills in a rat-faced stripper's g-string. We see Sarah and Earl in the house, making out. Then we see a night-vision shot: Sarah's wearing this maxi-nightgown that my little sister used to wear in the early 1970s. It's hideous. Earl says that if people don't have anything nice to say about Sarah, then they shouldn't say anything at all. Because Earl does like her. A lot. Why am I reminded of Forrest Gump and Jenny every time Earl opens his mouth about this skank? We see Earl and Sarah making out some more and then see a crane slowly rising to erect status, a car going in a tunnel, and Niagara Falls. We then see the door to the pledge house sex room as Earl is saying -- in a voice that sounds like he's about to scream -- "Hello church, hello family, hello friends, hello old teachers and principals!" He adds, "I finally found out that going out with a stripper can be an incredible amount of fun." We see him giggling, all wrapped up in a blanket, as a snippet from The Jeffersons theme song plays: "He finally got a piece of the pie."
week on Fraternity Life, Dan finally shows his true colors and goes apeshit. Did I call this one a long time ago or what? I hope Ron the Scary Alum will step in and beat Dan into submission before he attacks the other pledges, leaving them brain-dead. Oh wait. That must have already happened during the premiere.