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Though the theme song remains the same, the opening credits sequence has been recut for S2 to showcase the five boys' tough-edged, hard-rockin', facial-haired (read: puberty-hitting) new look. The familiar Making the Band Surgeon General Warning unspools with its sinister caution about "5 performers, 1 shot at stardom, inside the music industry, behind the fame," so I guess jettisoned were the far more elucidating warnings, "O-Town causes burst eardrums and ruptured belief in the integrity of the music industry. O-Town contains carbon monoxide. You must be this tall to ride O-Town. Pregnant women and the elderly should not approach, look at, or taunt O-Town. O-Town should not be taken on an empty stomach. O-Town sucks unironically. The rest get sugar pill." Shots of singing and dancing, reminding us of the rigorous training and tireless effort required to reach a level of performance ability similar to how they would have ultimately sounded if these were shots of the boys dissolving their underdeveloped vocal chords in battery acid and sitting around in their pajamas eating Klondike Bars and prank-calling Boyzone. Shots of screaming fans. Shots of celebration juxtaposed with shots of angst-ridden, the-press-just-referred-to-us-as-"The-Monkees-but-without-the-humor-or-guitars-again-didn't-they?" glassy stares. And finally, the new shots of the individual boys, looking like they've been looking since last we left them: Ashley is spiky-haired and just as awwwww-inducing as ever, if you want my opinion about it. Erik is sporting an ill-formed patch of facial hair, which must have elicited more than one confused cry of "I don't remember this ecosystem containing a forest" from the race of tiny people who have built a working city in the cool, cool shade underneath his lower lip. Dan holds out a hand toward the camera and sneers, totally striking that rock-star pose that unmistakably says, "I have an automatic car-door opener and you don't." Trevor sports slicked-back hair and the slightly more apparent Waxed Eyebrows Of Undeserved Fame than I'm used to seeing from him. And then there's the most apparent victim of the stardom Jakeover, sporting dreadlocks and a chin covered in so much hair there must be young fans trapped deep in the underbrush. Shave. It. Off. White. Boy. I mean, really. The final shot of the new opening is the five of them, looking up at the camera. Jacob, incidentally, is wearing a black tank top and tight black pants, which, of course, is shorthand for "O-Town's Bad Boy." Oh, wait. I'm sorry, it's actually shorthand for "Gay Russian Defector Ballerina." I constantly get those two confused. And apparently, so does Bad Boy.
Cue stock footage of young, screaming fans looking crazed with adolescent hormones and holding up signs of the "We [heart] O-Town" variety. Interspersed with shots of a photo shoot, Ashley "There Must Be An" Angel "Playing With My Heart" tells us in confessional, "I feel like this last year has spun my life into outer space." Erik "Lips Ahoy" Estrada agrees that the year has been "so unbelievable, and so not real," realizing just in time that those two phrases mean exactly the same thing and wisely deciding not to tack on his belief that the year has also been "non-believable," and "totally real but in an 'un' sort of way." Cut to a quick shot of Erik, Jacob, and Dan singing a quick clip from "Liquid Dreams," as a numeric counter on the studio wall reading "Days Since Our Last In-Tune Chord" flips exhaustedly to four billion and bursts into flames just out of the camera's range. Cut to shots of more screaming fans, one of whom is holding a magic-markered sign reading "We skipped final exams for O-Town!" Oooooh. Quite the sacrifice. I skipped getting run over by a bus or contracting polio so I could stay home and write this recap. Where's my moment on TV? Trevor adds that he "could never have dreamed of anything this big," a general statement that does nothing but prove Trevor has spent so much time with Erik these last months that someone has finally become desensitized to the Venus-Flytrap-esque size and scope of The Lips. Airport montagecakes, as a stock footage plane we're supposed to believe is carrying the band takes off. Dan "Dan, He's Our Man, If He Can't Do It, No One...Zzzzzzzzzzzzz" Miller voice-overs, "Now it's a different city every day, running through the airports to the hotels, living out of a suitcase, and basically a big whirlwind." The boys walk toward their new house, as Jacob "Chia" Underwood fills us in that "the house is so phat. It's like a dream house." Embarrassed that he has said nothing that can't readily be seen by looking at the band walking into the house, Jacob strolls off camera, pulls an entire Salisbury Steak he started at last night's dinner out of his vast stores of facial hair, and begins nibbling at it mindlessly.