The opening strains of Supermodel by RuPaul start chirping. I guess we're focusing on Jacinda now because, after all, she is a supermodel. Well, except for one tiny problem -- you know, the fact that she doesn't walk for major designers or pose for magazines that are read in non-third-world countries. It's Fashion Week in London as we can gather from the car that drives by with "London Fashion Week Sponsored by Vidal Sasoon" plastered on the side of it. Can I just ask when the hell is Vidal Sassoon going to give up? The haircuts haven't been relevant since 1974, and the products smell like Hawaiian Punch. Jacinda is shown made-up and walking down a runway. The shot is edited carefully so we don't see the "Sears" logo on the back wall. A shot of the audience reveals a great deal of Japanese men in suits. But then to give you that "real fashion world" flavor, they edit in a shot of Suzy Menkes, the style editor for the International Herald Tribune, who had a brief cameo in the very last episode of Ab Fab. She clearly is not sitting by the runway down which Jacinda is "Sashay"-ing. Nice try, though. More shots to establish that Jacinda is a model: Some lackey blow-dries her hair; someone else puts on her make-up; another assistant makes sure that the Jaclyn Smith for K-Mart ensemble Jacinda is wearing fits properly since it was originally custom-made for Daisy Fuentes, who had to cancel at the last minute due to prior obligations to the House of Wal-Mart. It's all so glam, but Jacinda, in a voice-over, expresses her dissatisfaction with her jet-set lifestyle: "I do it because it's a fantastic opportunity -- I travel and I make great money but, more and more, modeling isn't what I love to do." Oh God, there's just nothing in this world more glamorous than a model who doesn't really want to model. She's like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face! Or at least, in this case, she's like Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.
Back at Attention Deficit Manor, where the house coat of arms features a television viewer yawning, the gang is eating a pecan pie. Jacinda, in particular, is digging in with gusto. Because, you know, models are always eating whatever they want. Mike delivers a voice-over, talking about how down-to-earth Jacinda is despite the glamorous life she leads as a "top model." Is there such a thing as a "bottom model?" To illustrate his point, Jacinda, ever the free spirit, smears pie all over her face. Awwwww!
The gang eats dinner -- either it's a different day or they just ate their dessert first -- and Jacinda reflects on her career: "I could understand if you were struggling to get by with no money for a good reason, but to struggle to get by to do modeling -- it's just not worth it." Sharon, in a rare moment with nothing to say, listens intently and nods in agreement -- no doubt remembering her own days as an unpaid model for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Jacinda then tells the gang dark stories about her early modeling days in Milan, living in over-crowded model dorms and "dancing for dollars." And I thought Tina had it rough.
Jacinda takes the subway to the Storm agency, where she meets with her bookers. The agency is so glamorous. It's filled with supermodels -- well, pictures of them anyway. And at some point, a secretary actually calls out, "Kim Hunter on line seven!" Jacinda hangs out while a woman (who, by the way, is much prettier than Jacinda) tries to line up "castings" for her. Does that mean they're going to dip her in bronze? "Hi, we've got one of our really brilliant girls, Jacinda Barrett..." says "cah-stings" lady to the folks at Contempo Casuals.
"Casting" lady tells Jacinda that she's got to change her look: "You can either be funky and young-looking, or you can make money!" Jacinda goes and gets her hair trimmed and colored while "Sometimes I don't know if I'm real" plays in the background. "I don't care about hair. I don't care about clothes. I'm just trying to find my own little peace in this world," says Jacinda, as she submits to the will of her stylists. A montage sequence is shown, featuring shots of Jacinda looking lost and lonely, taking the subway, and walking the streets of London. I guess they're trying to tell us, the viewers, that modeling can be empty. Bunim-Murray, please don't ruin my illusions of modeling, which I previously thought to be a profession known for providing its workers with spiritual and intellectual satisfaction. I, like Blanche DuBois, don't want reality. I want magic. Well, actually, I just want to turn my TV off and go take a nap.
Okay, then for no reason at all, Kat and Jacinda give Sharon a make-over, which basically consists of them putting her head into a really, really big newsie-style cap to detract from the fact that she can't fit into any of Jacinda or Kat's clothes. No! No! No! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Stop! Ouch! Please don't do that ever again!
If you all thought that Mike's attempt to race cars professionally during the last episode was boring, then break out the extra-strength Ritalin (and mail some to me). Sharon's trying to find a job as a waitress. She goes to a little place down the street called Mas Café. That's Spanish, by the way, for "more coffee." As in, "Hey miss, could you quit yapping to your friends for a second and bring me some more coffee?" Then there's this preposterous interview -- like the ones Kat and Mike had last week -- at the end of which, even though Sharon has no restaurant experience, they give her four shifts a week immediately, and actually let her pick the shifts. Anyone who has tried to work as a waiter at a restaurant in a major city knows that this never happens. I'd sooner believe that the Storm agency is sending Michael out on "cah-stings." Oh, wait. They do. But we'll get to that later. Be sure not to have any food in your stomach. Sharon then gushes over how wonderful it is to have an excuse to get up in the morning. Okay.
Speaking of getting up in the morning -- as in "getting up in the morning: people who don't" -- Jay, who hasn't done a damn thing since his gay friend came to town, and Mike, who hasn't done a damn thing, period, complain that they are bored. Jay and Mike? Welcome to my Real World. They sit around, eat, discuss the origins of Heinz Ketchup, and play Nerf basketball. Now I'm not saying that if MTV paid my rent and fed me, I'd be all that judicious with my free time, but if a camera were following me around 24/7, you'd better be sure that I'd find something stimulating to do. At the very least, I'd try to find a good book to pretend to read -- like something by Flaubert in original French or something.
So, basically, a war breaks out between the "night crew" -- Jay, Mike, and Sharon (who gets to sleep late because she works nights) -- and the "day crew" -- Kat, Lars, and Jacinda. I'm not sure which category Neil fits into, since he's not really on a regular schedule, but he's not playing Nerf basketball with Mike and Jay, and I can't say I blame him. The day people complain that the night people wake them up at night and vice versa. "The night crew," says Jacinda, "Are the people who aren't doing anything." Heh heh. Word, Jacinda! It's not that the night people are simply on a different schedule -- they're really loud. Sharon, Jay, and Mike start calling each other "smegma" at the top of their lungs. Whatever. This wakes up Jacinda, who asks them to keep it down in a seriously more diplomatic way than I ever would. Mike suggests they nickname her "straight-up bitch." Why someone -- namely Jacinda -- doesn't bitch slap Michael at this point, I have no idea.
Jacinda gets a phone call from her booker, who sends her out on some "cah-stings." Jacinda complains that the "cah-stings" are like job interviews. Actually, Jacinda, they are job interviews! But we at home find them full of Glamour! Glamour! Glamour! "Walk for us...take off your jacket...smile...lick your lips...show us some attitude...yeah, baby, yeah!" At some point, Jacinda tells one group of "cah-sters" that she's "done" Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, and Missoni in seasons past. She means their laundry, right?
Okay, remember that scene from Fame, in which Irene Cara gets lured to audition for that creepy guy she met in a coffee shop who's supposed to be a TV producer, and he tells her to take off her shirt, and she does, but she realizes she's being used, and so she starts bawling while the camera rolls? Okay, the scene is JUST like that, except it's with Jacinda, and she's wearing a short-sleeved angora top and a shiny pair of leather pants, and the creepy guy behind the camera is actually a prim-looking British woman in her thirties, and instead of having to take off her shirt, Jacinda has to dance to a Wham! song in order to get a part in an ice cream commercial. Oh, and she doesn't actually burst into tears or anything. "I just saw this and I thought, 'Oh God, this is just ridiculous,'" Jacinda says about the audition in a voice-over. As she travels home on the subway, she looks steamed. Then the whole thing turns into the "Father Figure" video, in which that model shags that hunky cab driver portrayed by George Michael, and it gives her the confidence to walk the runways without feeling like an object. Well, except for the part where she screws the hunky, closeted cab driver. And the part where she starts walking the runways, period.
Mike is all excited because he got rollerblades in the mail. He tears open the package and finds that his parents sent him some magazines, too. They don't show us all the magazines he got. Damn! I wanted to see if there was some sick porn or something. Mike pores over his high school newsletter, which his parents included. "Someone from my class was named a Rhodes Scholar. Stuff like that makes me feel so brilliant." Um, actually Michael? The girl who was named a Rhodes Scholar is the one who should be feeling "brilliant." You just went to high school with her. I guess this fact slowly dawns on him when he reads what they have to say about him: "Mike is a junior who hangs out, drinks a lot of beer, and feels pretty worthless." No mention of being a Real World cast member, which is odd because everybody knows that a year on The Real World is so much better for your career than a Rhodes Scholarship. Oh wait, I'm kidding. But seriously, it is the sort of thing that would be published pretty prominently in a high school newsletter.
This feeling of inadequacy inspires Michael to take to the streets and ponder what he's going to do with the rest of his time in London if he can't race cars. He goes into a skate shop and asks whether he could teach rollerblading for them. For the first time in the entire series, the shopkeeper actually mentions the attention that Mike, as a Real Worlder, will bring to the store. "So you'll promote us as well?" he asks. Oh and then -- miracle of miracles -- the shopkeeper won't hire Mike until he knows that Mike can really skate, so he tells him to get evaluated by the head instructor. Mike is excited at the possibility of having a job.
Sharon is also excited about starting her waitressing job that night. "I'm going to be a little waitress!" she shrieks triumphantly. She tells Lars in the living room that her customers are an "up crowd" and "kind of chatty." "That's your type of crowd, then," says Lars. Heh! She walks out the door eagerly.
At the end of her shift, she arrives home exhausted and burned out and vowing to quit: "It was total chaos! Total chaos!" I guess Sharon forgot about that whole "customers wanting decent service" part of her new waitressing job. As she complains about how many customers she had to deal with, the editors show a "flashback" with a staged presentation of some restaurant interior b-roll in order to make it look as though they had a camera along during Sharon's first night.
Jacinda goes out on more "cah-stings" and complains that, even though she's busy, she's not being paid for all these "cah-stings" she goes on. She puts on a dress and walks around for yet another group of "fashion-y looking" people who can tell she's not that thrilled to be there. I guess they work for Garanimals or something. As she walks home, she vents to Kat: "I'm like, 'I don't feel comfortable,' and the lady's like, 'Look, if that's your attitude then we wouldn't book you for the show,' and I'm like, 'Thanks, that's okay, I didn't want to do it anyway.'" Kat asks Jacinda if stuff like that gets her into trouble with her agency. Hey Kat? This bringing reality up every once in a while? I'm liking it a lot!
We don't get to hear Jacinda's answer, but the phone rings later in the house. It's Jacinda's agent at Storm, who thinks she should be going out on more "cah-stings" and is disappointed that Jacinda's not hustling more for work. "I'm not that interested in working anymore," says Jacinda in a sit-down. The motif for tonight's episode is "Sometimes I don't know if I'm real" because that song plays again. I guess no one had the guts to play "Father Figure."
Mike, in a stunningly ugly hockey shirt/matching turtleneck combo and no baseball cap, talks to a potential student. They arrange to meet, and Michael tells her to "rent some pads" so that she'll be "less scared of falling." Um Michael? You are supposed to rent pads because you could really hurt yourself if you do fall. Fear has nothing to do with it. As a licensed instructor, I thought you'd know that.
Anyway, Mike's suspiciously camera-friendly student turns out to be totally helpless skating-wise, so she has to lean all over hetero-boy. He has brought along a hockey stick so that she can balance when they both hold it. "I get to skate around the park," says Mike. "And I get someone new to talk to." Aw, Mike found someone who can't afford to blow him off until her lesson is over!
Back to Sharon's subplot and her on-going attempt to find gainful employment. Sharon is demonstrating tents at some sort of new-products convention while M People's "Moving on Up" plays in the background. A friend of hers owns a store. I have to admit that she's perfect for sales -- all that bubbly energy. She totally convinces people that she uses the tent all the time. "I enjoy conversation," she says in a voice-over. "I enjoy meeting people so this is a cool job for me." Unfortunately, as Lars points out in a sit-down, "A salesperson always has to come to a point and Sharon doesn't." In other words, she's not selling as much as she is making conversation. "Sharon would make a fantastic salesperson," says Kat in a sit-down, rolling her eyes. "First off, you wouldn't escape her." Heh! That makes two reasons to love Kat this episode.
Jacinda brings the gang in to see the Storm agency. For some reason, the modeling agents don't mind having six gawkers and their camera crew coming in and drooling all over the portfolios. Oh, and then one of the agents -- a blind one, I'm guessing -- actually thinks that Mike is handsome enough to model and wants to take Polaroids. He poses but without his baseball cap. I don't think we'll hear any more about that modeling career. "You probably set the whole thing up to screw with my head," opines Mike on the way home. For some reason the gang contradicts him. Oh wait, Neil is laughing really, really hard. This has to be a joke.
Okay, this Mike modeling subplot ain't going away quite that fast. "I went from Mike the Race Car Driver to Mike the Male Model because, first of all, I hadn't been Mike the Race Car Driver in quite a long time," says Mike in a sit-down. The gang continues to encourage him. I can't look.
Jacinda finally gets some modeling work, so we get to see some more of those "applying make-up" and "hair-styling" shots that we just can't get enough of. Apparently, there is something about modeling that Jacinda actually loves, and that's "producing something fantastic." No one explains who the photo shoot is for or what's so "fantastic" about what they're "creating," but they style her to look Asian, poof out her hair, and have her pose in a lime-green dress, looking scared. Jacinda conveys "scared" by putting her manicured hand to her mouth in horror. Then she puts on a pink dress and sucks her thumb while she sticks her butt toward the camera. Björk plays in the background. "Strong shapes, Jacinda!" says the photographer. Whatever.