Last week's "O-Town: Adventures in Deutschland" wasn't worth a thirty-second rehash, but I'll give you a quickie anyway: Erik got sick, then better; Dan got irritated, then recovered; Jacob got cocky, then...cocky. Before you watch this episode, Making the Band wants you to remember that Ashley and Dan both have girlfriends. Only one of those ladies is well adjusted. A few weeks ago, Jay dared the guys to sustain a healthy relationship during the upcoming years, and something tells me -- it's a radical idea -- that someone's girlfriend gets jettisoned in the half hour.
Every time the show shot off-course, I wish the producers had changed the credits. It'd be so much more interesting if they chronicled the process as it actually happened: Twenty-five to eight to seven to five to four to five, who then Make the Band. Sigh. Too bad they didn't ask me.
Trevor leads the band into the Pearlmansion for a meeting with its lumpy tenant. "You have the option of either going to Cancun or not going," Lou explains, making perhaps the biggest no-brainer offer since a few weeks ago when he invited Ikaika to live with him. Dan and Jacob choke out, "Going, going, we want to go," almost faster than Ikaika sputtered, "No, no, for God's sake, no." The gang sprawls on Lou's couch, having learned this sitting technique from weeks of watching Lou try to negotiate the world's confounding maze of chairs and sofas. Tony Harrison, the producer from Düsseldorf, stands in the background. Forget what I said about his bizarre German enclave -- I think Tony's avid attachment to O-Town counts even more compellingly toward my theory that he's in music-industry exile. "We have a huge show coming up," Jacob tells us. "We're just going to move our rehearsals [to Cancun], which is kinda weird, but I think it's just a break." As Jabba skulks around his lair, his prodigious belly swirling like a tutu, the camera catches sight of -- I am NOT kidding -- a C-3PO statue sitting on a coffee table. Looks like Jabba the Gut is taking his likeness a bit seriously. Ranger Marc jumps out in a skimpy bronze bikini and chains himself to Lou's wrist. Jabba asks if any of the girlfriends are coming to Cancun, to which Ashley nods and Dan pipes up to ask whether it's okay for him to invite Cindy. Dan's main concern, he shares, is whether she can stick around and watch rehearsals to get a taste of what his life's become. Lou just stares at him, lost in a fantasy of O-Town's hero whipping his "light saber" from its Hanes cotton sheath, so Jacob answers for him. Dan's thrilled that Cindy can see everything. "I'm excited to see her, and that she gets to come out and experience what I go through every day with this group," Dan says. R2-D2 pops in to serve drinks.
Sensitive Ashley is packing inside the O-Zone. "The hardest thing I'm learning about this business is relationships," Ashley says. Barely comprehensible -- who does he think he is? Erik? What Ashley means is, he's having a tough time sustaining a meaningful and solid relationship because the band absorbs too much time and focus. Shelli's getting the shaft, and sadly, it's not the kind of "shaft" he's used to giving her. "She wants me to do something about us being together more," Ashley says. "Which is out of my control." We see the old Glamour Shot of Shelli: A black-and-white sultry picture where she looks half-blonde and wholly horny. Erik already asked Paul for Carrah's number; if Ashley breaks up with Shelli, I'll wager the photo mysteriously disappears and resurfaces two months later underneath Erik's mattress.
Happy "We're leaving Orlando!" music. Ashley greets Shelli and escorts her to Lou's private jet, which will transport a passel of Trans Con and ABC/MTV employees to Cancun. Shelli's shrouded in a massive leopard-spotted faux-fur coat. This will be very useful for a weekend in the scorching Mexico sun -- it's the ultimate in oil-free sunscreen. To complete the outfit, Shelli sports knee-high white leather boots with tall, thick heels, and a barely-there skirt. An airport employee scampers over and asks what the going rate is for a little slap-and-tickle in the luggage hold. She refuses, so he just looks up her skirt as she climbs the stairs into Lou's plane. "This is the first family vacation!" Lou shouts. "Right?" No one answers. He repeats himself twice. "Yep, that's right," Ashley finally says lamely. This satisfies big daddy Lou and he gives the go-ahead for take-off. Ashley fellates a lollipop. "I'm eighteen and I'm young, and I know that my life is going to take a lot more twists and turns," Ashley confesses to the camera, his eyes moistening. "I thought we'd be strong enough to make it through anything." As the plane flies, Ashley whispers to Shelli that while in Cancun, the two of them need to have a serious and uninterrupted talk about their relationship. Shelli nods and turns toward the window seat, staring morosely at the passing clouds, or possibly at Jacob's train-wreck of a hairstyle. She looks a little shell-shocked amid all that eyeliner. Ashley informs us that Shelli flat-out demanded that he reveal which is more important -- O-Town, or her -- a query that upset Ashley to no end. "I'm like, 'Why are you trying to get me to say this right now? Why can't you let this go?'"
The Ranger sleeps, cuddled up against the plane window. The seat to him is vacant. Apparently, he doesn't get to bring a date. Marc, I think a few people in the forums might volunteer to fill that void. Ashley and Shelli revert to grade eight and pass notes to each other. "Did you want to talk seriously about 'us' this weekend?" Ashley writes in juvenile print. "Yes/No/Maybe. Circle One." Shelli does want to talk, she scribbles, but she's afraid of the conversation's probable outcome. Ashley feebly writes that he's scared too, but things will all turn out just fine. Annoyed, Shelli grabs the notebook and does an impetuous game of MASH, getting back at him by leaving his name out. It backfires: She ends up married to Jacob, driving a 1980 Chevette and tending to their twelve kids in a shack outside the Underwood Compound. He's a garbage man and she's a hand model. Disgusted, Shelli stuffs the notebook in her purse and vows not to sit with either of them during lunch period. The camera cuts to Ashley, who stares pensively into space and voice-overs that he deeply loves Shelli, but simply can't devote the time to her that he once did. "It just has to happen," he concludes. "You have to grow up at some point." The couple stares into one another's eyes, and we fade to commercial.
The Backstreet Boys are hawking Burger King. McDonald's has been selling *NSync CDs. O-Town has to plot its strategy carefully. If the band picks Jack In The Box, it can sell Jacob Underwood antenna balls and the E-Coli Estrada burger. See? All it takes is a little thought.
Shelli's boots were made for walking, and that's just what she's doing. Barely. A peacock stares after her strutting figure as she and Ashley parade through the Cancun resort. "Did you bring any sandals?" Ashley asks. "No, I didn't bring anything like that," Shelli says. What a bright girl. As Shelli staggers around looking very much like a well-paid prostitute -- is that a skirt, or a band-aid? -- the peacock flares its plumage. Ah, sweet metaphor. In a smashing example of continuity, the editors cut to a hotel room in the throes of morning-after havoc, with unmade beds and clothes strewn about the floor. Still, Ashley's harping on the boots. "Must we call them go-go boots?" Shelli whines. Dear lord. I'm sick of her already.
A cute blonde, escorted by Ranger Marc, barrels through the hotel. Her name is Cindy, and she's Dan Miller's girlfriend from Ohio. She babbles that she's nervous because it's been three weeks since their last encounter. Dan waves enthusiastically and they hug. "Wait 'til you see Shelli. She's a trip," Dan giggles. "She's got these knee-high white leather boots on." Cindy's the antithesis of funk: Casual khakis, white shirt, barely any makeup. She couldn't be more different from Shelli. They arrive in the hotel room they're pretending to share, and Shelli squeals and hugs her fake roommate rightly. "Oh my God, I love these shoes," Cindy gushes at Shelli's boots, which are now unzipped and sitting unoccupied on the floor. The girls make plans to shop while the guys croon. Dan offers Cindy some cash. "Like he's my sugar daddy or something," she grins, refusing. Dan extols her virtues. "Bless her heart," Dan gushes. "She works two jobs, she's paying for a lot of her school, her apartment, everything." As they chat casually, Shelli unfortunately bends over to retrieve something. Not enough skirt there to cover that, honey, unless you're flashing a cameraman as payment for not filming anything steamy.
, we see intertwined scenes of rehearsal and the girlfriends. Jacob kicks off an a cappella rendition of "Baby, I Would," and...sigh. With every scene, Jacob's voice grates even more on my nerves. Cindy and Shelli walk outside. "I'm gonna die," moans shrill Shelli. "I need sunglasses and I didn't even bring them." Shelli's a few grains short of a sand dune. Forgetting sandals and sunglasses on a beach vacation is as ridiculous as wearing thick fur coats in tropical temperatures -- oh, wait, she did that too. Cindy and Shelli hop on a bus. Ashley, Angel of Prophecy, sings his "Would I give up all I have to see you smile" line as we cut back and forth to Shelli. Prediction: He wouldn't. Cindy makes the fatal mistake of being a captive audience, and Shelli uses it to unload her love burdens. "I have been in love with Ashley for, like, years, okay, and him with me," Shelli says, shrilly. "It's getting where it's not going to be that way anymore." Cindy acts incredulous and sympathetic, agreeing that separation is extremely painful. Shelli grouses that Ashley isn't the same person that won her heart. "I fell in love with the guy that was always there for me when I needed him," Shelli shrills, further lamenting that it'll be years before he can devote that time to her again. To give my ears a pleasant break from Shelli's weak shriek, I grab a chalkboard and scratch my fingernails back and forth across it. Cindy nods politely at Shelli, who launches into her list of must-haves. Shelli wants marriage, children and a husband who comes home every evening for some sizzling demonic love rugby. "There's a certain maturity level that goes with an eighteen-year-old boy and a twenty-year-old girl," Cindy tells the camera, carefully trying not to roll her eyes and scream. "He's just out of high school, she's into college, and those are two totally different scenes." We see Ashley singing more. The strains of "Baby, I Would" play in the background, and we again instantly understand that Ashley won't be living the lyrics. "I always pictured him as my husband, but what now?" Shrilli says. "He totally took a turn with his life, and I'd love to be a part of it but it's almost too hard." Cindy bangs her head against the seat in front of her, preferring this masochistic practice to Shrilli's migraine-inducing high-pitched blather. My ears start to bleed. To the camera, Cindy aptly notes that it's completely ridiculous to expect Ashley to embrace the idea of marriage and children when he's just a kid himself.
Cut to shots of Cancun: Beaches, bikinis, bellies, breasts, bouncing bums. In a word, Baywatch. In a skimpy bikini, oh-so-discreetly covered with a sopping wet white t-shirt, Shelli romps in the surf. Lou plops himself at a shaded table at the hotel, and en route to the beach, Cindy stops by to introduce herself. Jabba insists on hugging her, and she thanks him for generously footing the bill. Trevor drifts past. "I'd like you guys all to meet my girlfriend," Trevor says suavely. "Hmm, I don't have one." Ha! Listen up, North America: Trevor's single, sultry and salivating for a female form. Please answer his call before the poor tenor gets repetitive-stress syndrome in his wrist. Lou gurgles that it's a big beach...but before he can add, "in my pants," Trevor announces he's off to find a woman. Curses! Foiled again. Trevor ponders the stress this career can put on a relationship, weighing true love against getting a shortcut to fame. "Lifelong dreams are hard to come by," Trevor says. "But fortunately, they're usually wearing thong bikinis, so I could be in luck." Dan and Cindy walk on the beach, then sit and cuddle. Three girls walk by, and as the camera focuses tightly on their pert buttocks, David Hasselhoff trots past and drags them back to the Baywatch set in exchange for some impromptu mouth-to-mouth. Ashley and Shelli frolic in the surf, but every time she tries for a sultry come-hither pose, she gets relentlessly slammed and knocked backward by waves. Those From Here to Eternity pills don't appear to be working. Dan rubs Cindy's leg. These girls are skinny. Doesn't any wannabe singer have an average woman? Someone with a six-pack of Michelob muscle instead of a toned stomach? Cindy looks right at the camera, snickers mockingly and proceeds to dry everyone's beach towels on her abdominal washboard.
Later, everyone abandons the beach in favor of the hotel pool. Most of the band gets in the water and tosses each other around, splashing and grabbing and posing for that nice photographer from Homoerotica magazine. Ranger Marc appears to be amid the fray. Dan and Cindy watch distractedly. "How long do you have to live in Orlando?" she asks, feigning casual indifference. They settle on "until whenever" as the answer, and laugh at the water sprites' wacky antics. Slowly, like a solar eclipse, a huge black shadow obscures the pool. The guys scream, "Nooooooooo," in slow motion and bolt for the pool ladders as Lou barrels toward the water screaming "Cannonball!" Luckily, he stops when he spies the "Two-Chin Limit in Pool" sign.
The Trans Con posse dines at a dinner-and-dancing club. Trevor salsas with a crowd of blurry-faced women, shaking his groove thang and gettin' down with OPP. The camera pans the room from all angles, taking special care to film a short-skirted woman wiggling her tush. Because there's not enough soft-core nudity on Making the Band these days, the woman is shot from the feet up and we're almost treated to her bare ass. Erik, put down the camera. Cindy and Dan hit the dance floor and he shoves his butt in her crotch, bends at the waist and proceeds to wiggle like she's pluggin' his ripe behind. Nothing says, "Honey, I've missed you since I ran off to join a boy band," like a rhythmic simulation of anal sex. Shelli watches sadly. "Where's mine?" she thinks. Ashley claps and giggles. "Where's mine?" he wonders. Tony, Düsseldorf's most dapper bratwurst, commandeers the dance floor and performs gymnastics moves: flips, somersaults and other smooth moves. The crowd goes wild. Erik sways pathetically in the background, trying to imitate Tony without actually doing anything acrobatic. He grins as though the crowd's saluting him -- because he doesn't know that arm gesture translates to "up yours." Shelli stares morosely at the floor.
Trevor and Erik flop on their beds and pass out cold. Outside, Dan's stopping at a street vendor to buy Cindy a ring. Dan is a master haggler: He whips out all the cash he has, counts it in front of the seller, and then asks if it's enough to cover the ring's cost. Enthusiastically, the vendor nods and tosses him the ten-cent bauble, pocketing twenty-two dollars and calling the local paper to place a birth announcement for Cancun's latest sucker. "Muchas gracias por mi anillo!" Cindy shouts drunkenly. "Yeah, I'm a big spender now," Dan boasts. "I bought her a twenty-two-dollar ring!" Laughter ensues. Problem is, Dan's probably not kidding. Cindy shoves the ring onto her left hand's third finger. Yes, that finger. Panicking, Dan tries discreetly to nibble through the metal to get it off her hand.
Back at the hotel, Shelli and Ashley are in her room, each tucked into a double bed. Don't worry -- I'm sure he's just checking Cindy's bed for bugs. "I hold you responsible for not letting me be with you," whines Shelli. She's frustrated that a forty-five-day separation yields to a mere three days of togetherness, especially when they were once practically joined at the groin. "I live the day so I can get a phone call from you," Shelli shrills pathetically. "And ninety percent of the time I'm crying because you're the only person that calls me, the only person I have in the world to talk to." So Shelli, despite being twenty and in college, has no friends except her high-school-age boyfriend. I'm sensing co-dependence here. I'd recommend a twelve-step program, but in those go-go boots Shelli would just trip on the third step and break her nose. Shrill Shelli wimps to Ashley that her lifelong dream is to get married and be a mother. "Then you tell me I need to go for my dreams and goals," Shrilli points out. "How do I do that when you're pursuing yours and I get to put mine on hold?"
Ashley rubs his forehead and sits up, somewhat Shelli-shocked. "Who knows when you'll be ready for what I want," Shrilli says. My water glass shatters. Completely under the covers, Shelli sneaks a furtive glance at Ashley and bats her false eyelashes. She's still wearing mounds of jet-black eyeliner, which, combined with sleep and sobs, will create that stylish Gene Simmons look that's sweeping the nation. "I care about you so much that I carry that guilty responsibility of being the one that left you behind," Ashley says. "I'm so burdened by how unhappy you are." Ashley says he can't think straight when he knows, in the back of his mind, that Shelli's hurting. He can't look at her. "You're just not the same anymore," Shrilli mopes. Ashley apologizes. Shelli wipes her nose on the comforter and bitterly vows to make Cindy sleep in the snot-laced bed, because people in happy relationships are societal boogers. "I don't want to talk about this any more," Shelli chokes, lying down. Ashley wonders when it would be appropriate to slide out of bed and try on the white leather boots.
Here's an ad for Madigan Men. This will be a revolution in sitcoms: Take a divorcee and an obnoxious kid, and move a sexagenarian into the home to really shake things up! It's comic gold and it's groundbreaking. Really.
Lou turns the hotel ballroom into a rehearsal studio, and Tony shows the guys how to somersault in the air. "I'm always searching for something different, original," Jacob tells us in the confessional. "A different style of music, a different style of dance...that's exactly where Tony's going with this." Ashley jogs and flips forward, landing on his ass with a loud thud. "You're scared! You let go," coaches Tony. "When you opened up, you were still the man." Somehow, Ashley processes that statement as advice and tries again, this time hitting the somersault with his knees deeply bent. He springs up and wins applause for sticking the landing. Everyone gives Ashley's flip a 9.9, except for the French judge, who stiffs him with a 5.4 for not doing it with his pants around his ankles. Ashley then flips backward as an encore. Desperate to horn in on the action, Jacob tries. His off-kilter, off-center somersault thumps to an end when the tenor hits the floor and sprawls on his buttocks. "Ouch," he says, cursing his parents for teaching him that skill at age seven and denying him the extra two years of practice.
, Tony unveils a new dance routine for O-Town. I feel dirty, as though just by watching I'm cheating on TyJuan and Raymond. Jacob explains that the dance is something called a "crew lock," which he thinks might scare people because it's so wildly radical. Naturally, Jakey likes it. The choreography begins as a series of stern marches, and we watch O-Town execute it in a trippy triad of small screens tinted red, yellow and blue. Trevor helpfully explains the theory of crew lock. "It's a group of people doing a lock together, like hitting a pose," Trevor says. "Not all hitting the same pose, but all hitting different poses, to make it look like a crew...lock." A more helpful explanation might have come from the stuffed moose on my bookshelf. The dance consists of jerky, random poses being struck in mechanical rhythm. It looks like the kind of interpretive dance -- performed by men in blue face-paint, yellow contact lenses and loincloths -- that shows up on The Tonight Show whenever Carrot Top cancels and Joan Embry doesn't have a spare wallaby-cheetah hybrid to wield.
On the last day in Cancun, Ashley and Shelli take a romantic stroll down the beach. It's an intimate little "I'm dumping you" junket. Ashley hugs her and explains gently that he wants to make a decision about their status. He buries his feet in the sand, and Shelli kicks more grains onto him. Rebel. "I just don't think we can be together right now," Ashley says in a monotone. "I don't want to make you feel hurt any more because I'm so far away and I can't make you feel loved, not like I used to." Shelli wipes her eyes and looks away from the cameras. Ashley reminds her that this is their first time apart -- as if she needed that tidbit -- and that a trial separation would bring into focus what they really want. The camera zooms away as Ashley checks his crib sheet and then lifelessly repeats to Shelli that he knows they both truly want this break. Poor Ashley. That acting school apparently wasn't money well spent. Shelli briefly puts her head on her Angel's shoulder, then abruptly moves away. "I hate you," she whines tearily, grabbing her purse. Ashley is so bored. He feigns interest in why she said that. Her winning explanation? "It's just…" Splendid. Gotcha, Shel. Ashley stops her and invokes a little Sting -- no, not the celebratory "Brand New Day," but instead the theory about setting someone free if you genuinely love them. His hackneyed words nauseate Shelli, who looks like she'd much rather mark her territory by pissing on his left leg. "It's not about me feeling like I have better things to do with my life than to be with you," Ashley says, despite the fact that the entire conversation stems from his decision that O-Town's a better thing to do than Shelli. "Damn," she says softly. She's lost, and she knows it. They hug, and Shelli shudders with sobs. Ashley hugs her loosely and stares off-camera, bored and waiting for the cue to cut the scene and hit the wet bar for some virgin drinks -- and then after that, some beverages that don't contain alcohol. "You have no idea," he reads from a cue card. "You have no idea." As they stand and sway, Ashley prepares his Emmy speech and Shelli contemplates waterproof eyeliner.
And now, back to the relationship that didn't fail this weekend. Dan wants to escort Cindy to the airport, but Marc nixes the plan. Cindy is completely freaked that she has to cab it alone, and leave immediately to boot. "They could just pluck my boyfriend out of my life that quickly," she muses. "One day he's with me, the he's in Orlando. With the snap of their fingers, all of a sudden he's gone." Such is Dan Miller. He's a benevolent spirit, invisible but omnipresent. Mere walls or borders can't contain him. He is Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. He is rock, paper and scissors; eeney, meeney, miney and moe. And he is the magic inside whitening toothpaste. "Don't worry, honey," Dan coos. "I know it's tough." She weeps that she doesn't want to leave this way. Dan starts to steer her toward the back exit. Jay pops up and Cindy unleashes a torrent of emotion. "We had to be so quick," she sputters. "I had to pack everything, now once again I have to say goodbye." Jay calms her and says that, pending Marc's approval, he'll personally take them both to the airport.
In the car, Cindy clutches at Dan's bare arm and kisses it lightly. Cut to the airport, where Cindy apologizes for her outburst. "I didn't get to say goodbye to you last time, and I felt we were being rushed again," Cindy complains. Dan rubs her face and kisses her. It's all very touching, except Dan's not showing much emotion. Trevor needs to teach him the art of tears-on-demand. Cindy weighs in on the long-distance situation, yet again positioning herself as Shelli's polar opposite. "One thing I never do with Dan, and will never do, is to hold him back from anything," she tells the camera. "Danny had to be able to drop everything to do what he's doing...I have to support it." While Cindy blubbers on his shoulder, Dan hugs her. His mouth hanging open and his teeth prominently bare, Dan distractedly scans the room, possibly scouting crunchy vegetables. Ashley and Shelli stand several feet apart, glaring at each other and not talking. Ever the tactful tub, Lou lumbers over to the squabbling couple and squawks, "How ya doing?" Well, let's see: Ashley's sucking a fountain drink instead of Shelli's face, and she's giving him an eye so evil that it steals Mr. Angel's halo and pawns it for drug money. Yeah, Lou, everything's peachy. Lou loops his burly arm around Ashley's shoulder and again asks if the situation is copacetic. His belly swells between the estranged couple, a mountain of cellulite folds dividing two lovebirds. It's the oldest story in the book -- well, right behind the timeless classic, Joe Versus the Volcano.
Cindy and Dan share a final goodbye. Hug, kiss, wave. She desperately scours the crowd for Jay, then embraces him with a big thank-you for his efforts in getting Dan to accompany her to the terminal. Cindy shouts one last "I love you," to which Dan responds with a big wave. Not the best answer, but it beats "Really? That's quaint." I like Cindy. She's been nothing but considerate. In contrast, if Shelli pouted any harder, she'd be Erik-Michael.
Shelli saunters through the airport at least ten feet ahead of Ashley, who is stuck explaining things to Lou. Erik-Michael grins like a goon, thrilled to be walking two paces behind the almost-naked Shelli just in case she bends over again. "I should have come and said something to you," Ashley tells Lou in a misguided apology for the earlier awkwardness, which was pretty much Lou's nosy fault. "I felt a little strange walking into something," Lou admits. Ashley laments that it's tough to sustain a relationship under such circumstances. Lou tries to help. "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," he says. "In the meantime, it's a big world, you're eighteen and these things happen in life. There's no point in feeling bad." Shelli sashays up in front of the procession. Ashley's heart is breaking, she's his first love, career is important, blah blah right decision, blah blah blah scrotum yawn snore blah mountain goat. All the regular drivel. I am so sick of the Ashley/Shelli trauma. If we have to endure this season, then it had better come packaged with an episode in which Trevor loses his innocence to a rabid pack of roadies, while Jacob shaves his head and discovers Hare Krishna.
Back at the O-Zone, Shelli's only friend calls her on the Bat Phone. "I apologize," Ashley whispers. "I always pretended like there wasn't a problem, even when it was obvious your heart was hurting so much." He defends himself by saying he had no idea how best to deal with her massive heartache. Ashley adds that he can't imagine finding anyone he loves as much as Shelli, and he feels a depth of affection that will connect him to her forever. "No matter what happens to us, I'll always, like…" Pause. Ashley looks around the room for some assistance, then loses interest. He yawns and picks his teeth, then grabs a calculator and punches in the numbers that spell "boobless" when you turn it upside-down. "…Always love you so much," Ashley finishes abruptly, finally remembering that he was in mid-sentence. Hanging up, he trots outside and sits in the designated spot on the porch. Ash picks up his guitar and strums a sad ballad. "That's beautiful, Ashley, love, just gorgeous," coos the cameraman. "Hold it, hold it, work it, make love to the instrument, baby...yesss. Cut." And that's a wrap.
week is the season finale -- but not, apparently, the series finale. There's a big concert on tap, plus a Total Request Live appearance that's sure to be a real laugher.