Hi, everyone! Welcome back to my Real World recaps, a job I can get back to now that my other MBTV duties are on hiatus for the summer. Shout-out to my new doctor, who'll be prescribing me the drugs necessary to keep me awake for the non-activities of the London cast. Not everyone can get a prescription for pharmaceutical-grade cocaine, but when I told Dr. Rabinowitz that I had to recap the London season of The Real World, he whipped his pen out right then and there.
Attention Deficit Syndrome Manor. The gang is doing dishes in the kitchen and wondering where Jay is -- something I've been doing since the third episode. Kat responds that Jay is at the Theater. Mike calls Jay the "theater ma-a-a-an." Mike, since your house nickname could have been "Cream on a Cracker," "Ugly Lazy Retard Virgin," or "Spooge Hair" -- if I'd lived in that house, anyway -- maybe you shouldn't be quite so enthusiastic about nicknames.
Judging by the b-roll of London's theater district they're showing us, Jay is indeed at the theater. And furthermore, he obviously feels the need to explain in a voice-over why he's at the theater alone: it's so he can evaluate, as a writer, the plays he sees. Hey, Jay? We've met your housemates. If you want to get out of that house, no explanations are necessary. None.
While they lie in bed, Jay pours his heart out to Mike. He's got writer's block. His first play was easy to write because he didn't know anything. They show a clip from Jay's first national-award-winning play. Jay -- looking even younger than he does now -- is delivering a monologue about how his bed hasn't seen much more than "a one-man show." Everyone in the Oregon audience guffaws at this "bawdy" humor. I go shower with anti-bacterial soap. Then, to add to the embarrassment of Jay's not being able to write, it appears that Mike has fallen asleep while Jay is trying to talk to him. Dude, you want to be a playwright and you put Mike to sleep? That is not promising. Learn some storytelling skills.
"Playwrights and musicians, they don't have to get up at 9:00 in the morning or go punch a clock or whatever," Jay voice-overs while wandering around the house in the middle of the night, raiding the fridge and playing pool. Yeah, Jay -- writers stay up late because they have bartending or waitering jobs, or they're writing. You're not doing any of that, so shut up. The other housemates are concerned. While Jay sleeps on the couch, Jacinda and Lars discuss Jay's complete lack of initiative. Jacinda, in an interview, goes on to explain that if Jay wrote and produced a play back home, he should be able to do the same thing here. Hey, Jacinda? If you could go out on "cah-stings" in Paris, you should be able to do the same thing here. Or do you have model's block?
Jay explains in an interview that he's still adjusting to London, and hasn't been able to throw himself into writing anything yet. The housemates give him a "Slacker of the Week" award, and commemorate it with a certificate stuck to the fridge. I imagine that's a big hint for him to get off his butt and start doing something. As if Jay's flatmates are doing anything worth watching on basic cable. Couldn't someone have sex with someone? Please?
Actually, Jay isn't "Slacker of the Week," as he points out in an interview. He tries to rationalize that his roommates don't, in fact, think he's a lazy piece of shit. He's actually "Co-Slacker of the Week," an honor he shares with Neil. At the breakfast table, Neil complains that he shouldn't be in the same league as Jay, since Jay has been rollerskating and playing pool while Neil has been "pushing back the frontiers of music." Neil, let me explain "frontier" to you. You don't push a frontier back or forwards. The frontier is that place that you've never been. You don't push it; you push its boundaries. But then, I'm the product of an American public education, not an Oxford graduate student. What would I know about correct usage of the English language? And dude, how does it feel to be named co-slacker of the week when one of your roommates is Mike?
Neil shows Lars a poster for one of his performances. "It's a bloke who's been attacked by a machete," says Neil, explaining the photo on the poster, which depicts a bloody hand. "Oooh! Tasty!" says Lars. Hi, Foreshadowing! So then Neil gives an interview in which he explains that he needs money to keep his musical interests going, and wouldn't it be nice if fans of his music could support him and keep him comfortable? But he doesn't want to sell out. Hmmm. He wants to make lots of money but doesn't want to sell out. Yeah, Neil, I know what that dilemma is all about. I myself would love to consider myself a vegan and still eat veal parm sandwiches every day, but I hear that's impossible. I found a solution, though: it's called self-delusional behavior. Look into it. Oh wait, it appears you already have. And I have to wonder why they're even going there with Neil right now when in just a few minutes, he's going to have his tongue bitten off by some drunk guy. Like, what do Neil's money issues have to do with his almost losing a body part? Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
So then Jay voice-overs some more rationalization about slacking while we see him buying a ticket to something from some ticket window. I would assume it's a play, but then he brags to Sharon when he gets home that he's the first person in London to get tickets to see Blues Traveler. Sharon's all, "It was meant to be!" Like, whatever that's supposed to mean. I guess when something happens, it was in fact meant to be in some metaphysical way. Therefore you could say "it was meant to be" when Mike got out of bed this afternoon and took a dump because it did, in fact, happen. Where were you with your "meant to be" then, Sharon? Huh? Just another example of something Sharon has to say in order to spoil a perfectly good silence. "It was meant to be!" Like, whatever, Sharon.
Apparently, Blues Traveler is this major important thing to Jay, because while he was getting ready to do his play, he'd go drive in the hills to think about things and he'd play a CD of theirs. So he wrote a letter to John Popper, the lead singer, and told him all about his play. We don't know whether John Popper wrote back, but I can't imagine that a busy successful rock star like John Popper could resist answering that letter. I mean, it's about Jay's play! So Jay's excited and can't wait to go to the concert.
Okay, Neil's performing. Meaning that his band plays stuff while he screams sporadically into the mike. Okay, I'm a pop-music freak, so I may not be qualified to say that Neil's music sucks, but it does. Unless Neil is intentionally trying to sound like someone who is bored working as a bogeyman in a haunted house.
"I quite like being on stage," says Neil in an interview. "And it shows." Then they show Neil introducing his song which is about "a thirty-foot worm that entered my anus." Ooh! How Punk! I guess this also answers my question about what exactly is up Neil's ass. Some drunk guy in the audience starts giving Neil a hard time. Jacinda and Kat, in their respective interviews, give a running narration of what happened later. Apparently, there were these two drunk people who had wandered into the club. "They weren't really there for the show," says Kat, amazed that anyone could not be there for the spectacular groundbreaking musical talents of Neil. Neil starts interacting with the couple as part of the show; one of the guys keeps sticking his tongue in Neil's face, so Neil grabs him and kisses him. 'Cause, you know, kissing a guy when you're a straight dude is so underground and progressive. "All of sudden there was a tumble and a smack to the ground," says Jacinda. "No one knew what had happened. There was blood everywhere." An ambulance arrives and Neil is taken to the hospital so that they can sew part of his tongue back on. Back home, Jacinda acts out the whole thing for all of the grossed-out flatmates; actually, she does a really good job of recreating the scene (since apparently the camerapeople missed getting it on film so we could actually see what happened). I'm starting to think that ultimately I'd be hanging with Jacinda if I ever had to live in this particular RW house. She and I would sit around smoking pot and I'd just listen to her stories -- like the one about the modeling contract in Japan that didn't go quite the way she'd planned, if you know what I mean. The phone rings; Jacinda picks it up and someone (a doctor?) tells her that Neil is being kept in the hospital overnight. "It looks really bad," Jacinda tells the other flatmates.
Neil arrives home the afternoon with Chrys in tow. He can barely speak, "but he can mumble," says Chrys. He shows his flatmates his black and blue tongue while everyone barely suppresses a smile over the fact that yet another tediously talkative roommate can't speak for a while. In interviews, the rest of the flatmates express how bad they feel about Neil's injury. "He can't go out or anything," says Mike. Um, Mike? You don't go out and your tongue is fine; even Lars has better things to do than be seen with you. Chrys confides in Jacinda and Kat that Neil fears he may never speak again. They hook Neil up to a computer that has a text-generated doohickey that speaks what he writes. Remember the Ellen Jamesians from The World According to Garp? Neil's like a high-tech Ellen Jamesian. He sits to Chrys and says, "So here I am, tongueless. And to top it all off, I have to speak in a [bleep] American Accent." Hee! "I can wholly sympathize with Neil because I do know what it's like not to be able to speak," says Sharon, bringing it all back to her. "It's like being in a space world of your own. I wouldn't wish it on anybody." Speaking of which, what is up with that scenario? I wished Sharon and Neil would shut up and all of a sudden, there they are "shut up." Is that karma, or what? Or do I have secret powers that work retroactively? "There is a chance I may have some sort of speech impediment," says Techno Neil. "But again, I don't know yet. Obviously I am worried."
Okay, so if any of you start emailing me or posting in all-caps in the forum about how heartless I'm being considering that something really awful and violent happened to Neil, you're right. I'm going to hell someday. I'll be the first to admit it. But he apparently got use of his tongue back and everything worked out fine for him in the end so you can all join me in making fun of him for being stupid enough to put his tongue down the throat of a drunk belligerent stranger for the sake of showing off how punk he is.
Neil takes a taxi to a Dental Institute. It's his first doctor's visit since the emergency-room visit. They intersperse images of him being examined by a dentist with images of him rocking and rolling on stage like he did in the "old" days. The dentist explains that the blood supply to the tongue was maintained; otherwise it would have turned black and fallen off. Techno Neil complains in an interview that no one bothered to tell him this earlier. I don't know, Neil. Maybe they were too busy sewing your tongue back on to break down what your exact options were in a situation like this. The dentist explains further that they won't know whether there's a speech impediment for a month or so. Neil walks the streets of London alone and contemplates this. Chrys explains in a voice-over that she's worried, but knows he'll pull through.
It's time for the Blues Traveler concert. Jay explains that he got there earlier so that he'd be close to the stage. A close-up reveals that Jay had to bring Mike along. Lead singer John Popper dedicates this song ("Hook," their top-forty hit) "to Jay," and Jay goes crazy. He explains in an interview that some girls were like, "'Oh, your name is Jay too?' and I was like 'You don't understand, he's talking about me!'" Of course, a shot of Jay standing to Mike in the audience reveals that there were absolutely no girls around him. After all, he is standing to Mike.
After the show, Jay introduces himself to John Popper, who looks totally confused. I guess an off-camera MTV person manages to convince him to invite Jay back to his hotel room. I guess Jay's allowed to stay before John goes off with some groupies. He promises to read Jay's play at some point. Jay has an orgasm.
Chrys explains in an interview that despite the "ludicrousness of it all," (or what I'd call "poetic justice"), the other housemates are quite sympathetic toward Neil. "But they all started to make fun of him, which I guess is part of the healing process." The camera shows us various roommates licking their plates and Sharon fawning over Neil and talking about what a sexy pout he has when he's frustrated. Neil tries talking on the phone, and that earns him more laughter.
Neil and Chrys are shopping in the outdoor markets while Chrys goes on to explain in a voice-over that she feels closer to Neil these days because he can't talk: "He just shuts up." Neil gives her the Brit equivalent of the finger. More scenes of Neil and Chrys getting along and being domestic. Chrys cuts his hair and Neil takes his shirt off to show her how much weight he's lost not being able to eat solid food. Chrys explains in an interview that Neil is an "unemotional British type," but that she knows that, deep down inside, Neil is worried about the future and the possibility that he might not be able to speak again. They eat more soup together.
Jay calls his girlfriend Alicia and goes on and on about getting to meet John Popper. Alicia sounds slightly annoyed. "This incredible night wouldn't have happened," says Jay in an interview, "if I hadn't just written this letter to him." Sure, Jay, and being followed around by MTV cameras didn't have anything to do with it. John just thought you were worth hanging out with because you claimed to be a great playwright. Sure. More flashbacks to his hug with John Popper. That's right. Make the most of this footage, people. Not to mention that this is probably the closest thing to a sexual experience that any of these housemates will have. Back on the phone with Alicia, Jay explains that when he becomes super-famous, he's going to be "just like John" and be nice to his fans. "This is about as exciting as things get around here." Amen, says Gustave, crushing up a Vicodin tablet and snorting it.
This inspires Jay to wax philosophical about the endless possibilities that are available to people if they just took a tiny risk and did one little thing. He takes the bus to "The Fortune Theater," a West End theater which he claims has been around since 1926. Dude, Typhoid has been around since 1926, so what's your point? "As soon as I walked into the theater, I knew it would be the perfect place to put on my new play." Hm, what is the perfect theater space to perform a play whose playwright has been too lazy to write anything yet? A really, really dark theater without a stage? A theater that only admits the deaf and blind?
Anyway, Jay ends up talking to the Artistic Director, Paul Gane. They have one of those conversations that every Real World London cast member gets to have with an older person in charge of something, during which everyone tries to pretend that being on The Real World has nothing to do with the older person's decision to take said RW cast member under his wing and give him a very prestigious opportunity that he doesn't otherwise deserve. But wait. Paul is different. Paul explains to Jay that putting on a play in the West End costs several hundred thousand pounds. "And that's a lot of dollars," he explains, assuming (correctly) that Jay probably isn't familiar with matters of world currency. He suggests that Jay get in touch with one of the "fringe theaters" in London. Now that Jay has had a conversation with someone, the whole house in energized about Jay and his new play. Mike volunteers to be "prop guy," a role not unlike the one he plays in this very house.
B-roll of London at night. Lars explains that Neil is in two bands and, in fact, has a gig with his other band despite the fact that he can't talk or sing. Hey, maybe Jay can fail to write some song lyrics that Neil can fail to sing! "I still have other ways of making noise," says Techno Neil. Hey Neil? I have other ways of making noise too. Just put your face to my ass and have a listen. Then we see a montage of shots of the performance showing Neil playing keyboards, rolling around on stage, and crouching pensively in front of a glass of water. "I think Neil's more wary of where he puts his tongue in the future," says Chrys, ruminating on the lessons to be learned from the accident. If only the other flatmates were less careful of where they put their tongues...if you know what I mean.