It's yet another beautiful day in Miami. Waves lap serenely at the camera and we move into the kitchen, where Sarah says to Cynthia, "You've got to be optimistic." Cynthia, ever sassy, replies, "I don't know nothing about being optimistic. I think of the facts...ACTUAL facts." Cynthia is very smart. Joe comes up and says, "Even if we fail, you still were part of running the business." Running it where? Into the ground before it even started? This is a rather progressive attitude towards failure for 1996, but really, the roomies have barely got anything together but some conversations that resulted in nothing! Maybe to expect failure is to simply be realistic. That's mighty Zen of Joe. And yet...
...in an interview, Cyn admits to being "irritated, aggravated, agitated." Her honesty and vocabulary are good, or, to quote the less eloquent Melissa, "really really really" good. "As far as the business goes, it's a big headache." I so feel her. I'm running out of Tylenol and I wasn't even there.
Back in the chicken, we see Cyn is frying up a batch of chicken, which probably explains that needy look on Joe's face. It's either lust for Cynthia, or he wants some of that fried chicken. Fried chicken takes forever to cook, and it smells so good. It may be the most frustrating food in the world to prepare. Mmmmm...fried chicken...okay, I'm back. Joe leans over the counter, ogling the chicken, and says in voice-over that Cyn needs to understand how business works. And you want to be the one to show her, right? Mm-hmm. They are so hot for each other. Then he says, "If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't, I've already learned a lot about myself." Is it that you are not succeeding? That's what I've learned. Cyn says, not unkindly, "I'm glad you're here to share that on me [sic]." Sarah chimes in with, "It's good to fail now, 'cause the last thing you want to do at age thirty is fail. I want to get it out of the way now, so that there's less when I'm thirty, when I'll have twice as many commitments." Hmmm...can this be true? If you screw up when you're young, you're less likely to when you're older? And if Sarah really believes this, could she perhaps be trying to deliberately sabotage the business? BUM BUM BUUUUMM! What a bunch of wacky armchair philosophers they all are. Oh, who am I kidding, they all just want fried chicken.
Dan runs around outside some building yelling for "Robert." They're going to talk about a business idea. Oh, joy. It's for their own clothing line, for the "active, fit woman." Dan says he became interested "instantaneously." Is that like instantly? Whatever.
Flora is giving Sarah a manicure. Sarah makes a few remarks about how she bites her nails and "looks stupid with makeup on," and doesn't know how to file her nails. Flora giggles at her naïveté. Whatever. Then Sarah suggests that they do this as a business. Yes! A cool beauty shop! Do it do it do it! Between Melissa and Cyn, they probably spend about $100 a week on beauty treatments and stuff. Who knows how much Flora doles out, but whatever it is, it ain't working. Sorry, but that girl is fugly. Every time I pause the tape with her onscreen she looks like Regan from The Exorcist. Sorry, but it's true.
Dan drags Cynthia to clothing meeting with Robert, version 2.0. Robert and his partner have already been written up in W and Bazaar! Wow, no slouches they. The talk about costs and other boring stuff until they're done.
So now we're back at that walk-snit that Joe, Mike, and Cynthia had last week. Nice continuity, B-M. Joe's being all skeptical about Dan's idea, asking, "Who are they, nobodies?" and "It seems like we're at Dan's mercy." Oh boy, what a baby. Tense guitar riffs play and we go to commercial.
The sun sets, and the beautiful sea laps at the camera some more. The roomies take Landon out for coffee to meet 'n' discuss the blah blah blah businesscakes. Sarah sees a dog and suggests the dog-walking business again: "I'd hate to walk that dog, he looks boring." May I suggest walking my insane, crazy, freaky, frisky, wiggly, sweet, lovable dog a few times to forever cure you of your dread-of-boring-dog, Sarah? My dog Artie is such a freaky freak, walking him makes me nuts sometimes. I still love him, but EVERY DOG we see, or squirrel, or bus, or skateboarder, or rollerblader, or motorcycle, or EVEN A PLASTIC BAG BLOWING will make him strain at the leash to try and attack it. He's never bitten anyone, but still. It's ANNOYING. And yes, I've tried choke collars and even the Halti, THEY DON'T WORK. My dog is a giant spaz. Okay, back to the show. The roomies ask Dan about his business idea and he, like a giant drama queen, says he isn't ready to talk about it yet. They nag at him until he gives in, Mike being the most soap-opera-y with his comment of "no secrets." Then in an interview, Dan says, "They turned my SURPRISING idea into, ooh, covert operations." Shut up, Dan. You wear the drama queen crown, okay? Now shut up. So he tells the group that the "prestige" of having their own fashion label "will be cool," and the whole gang starts drooling...except for Sarah, who puts on her hoodie and is silent. BUM BUM BUUUUM!
It's nighttime, Sarah and Flora are in their beds talking. Flora says she likes the fashion idea, but Sarah does not. "I don't want a fad...a business is first and foremost a service." True, but people need clothes. "No one in our group knows about fashion." That's true -- Flora still thinks white jeans are cool. Boy, are those guys in trouble. Flora suggests they make (white!) "jeans and a tank top, you know, those bisexual jeans, whatever you call it." Um, that's UNISEX, you moron. They giggle and go to sleep. No pillowfights or anything.
Daft Punk plays as Sarah thinks about how a fashion line is a bad idea. So she calls up this guy Mark, whom she met at Dan's fancy hotel dinner party thing, and arranges an interview with him at his "favorite bar," a dive-y-looking joint called the "Irish House Bar Grill." Mark is a bald, thirty-ish looking guy who runs a food service company with another guy named Terry. Sarah accepts a job with them, and is excited to "learn how to run a business." Okay then.
Beck plays one of his funny little guitar riffs as the roomies sit around a table and assign titles to each other. Mike is the "Organizer Officer" or some such nonsense -- which is just so fucking funny to me. Can I be the "Make-Fun-Of Commander"? Thanks. Melissa says she just wants to "help in whatever's lacking." That would be the brains department; can you spare any? Thought not. She also says she's into the clothing line, it's an "our generation" thing to do. Hee hee. So Joe types up a flyer with a "call for proposals," by which I think they mean "designers needed to do all work for MTV-funded business." I can't really read the flyer, but the font is Helvetica, I think, and it has no illustration. It's like a dense document -- not punchy at all. They are so not writers. They all take turns reading it and think it's fine, and then they go out to Washington Street and duct-tape it all over everything, including trees. Dude, that is so stupid. That's like trying to hit a target by throwing a handful of salt at it. Maybe go to, oh, I don't know, stores? Where they sell, you know, clothes? That designers make? Or maybe even a fashion design school? Or trendy cafés or nightclubs? Whatever. So they tape tape tape up their stupid flyers until a pith-helmeted city cleaner tells them they're in violation of city ordinances. Sarah's response is "that's okay," and they keep going. Oy.
So, back at the homefront, Cyn gets a call from the city. They tell her it's illegal to handbill the city they way they did, and that it's a fineable offense: $18 per flyer. She says, "I'm new to the area so I had no idea." Hee hee -- it's my first day! The soon-to-be-patented tense guitar riffs play and we're out.
We're back. Cyn's still on the phone and the roomies are still in trouble. Gee, I hope this doesn't mean the business is going to fail! That would suck. She gets off the phone and tells the roomies that that can't post bills again. "We have to figure out a different way." Now you're talking.
Sarah works away at her way-unglamorous job of loading food service-stuffs into Mike and Terry's pickup truck. She's excited about seeing different parts of Miami and that she's "learned more in four days than in four weeks" with her roomies, who are "more concerned with being hip hostesses than getting their hands dirty." Now that is pretty fucking accurate. Then, she rips the back door thing right off the pickup truck, and everyone busts out laughing. Sarah laughs at herself and says, "My secret powers are acting up!" Hee hee hee.
Boss Hog sing their "Baby, I dig you" song as we see millions of anime/comic pictures and stuff, and Hello Kitty toys, and a computer...hmm, must be Sarah's stuff. She's looking cute in a little blue gingham top and dark carpenter's jeans, and talks to Landon at their kitchen table. As he looks at one of her comic books, she mentions a swimsuit line and how she'd be "stoked" to do that. In the funniest example of a grownup co-opting a young person's speech, Landon says, "Have you communicated just how stoked you would be to your roommates?" Hee! Sarah says no, and that "those guys think I'm nuts when I talk about this stuff." Awww! Landon says, "Your name's in a billion comic books as editor -- why wouldn't they take you seriously?" Sarah says her problem is "sharing -- I want to do it all myself," and that she "has a problem with authority." I SO feel you there, sister.
Then she shows Landon more foxy anime women with names like "Caitlin" and "Roxy" wearing very bodacious "swimsuits," and Landon says he doesn't know if his heart can take it. Perv. Sarah goes on to say, "It's beyond sharing, it's trust. I want to be sure these guys respond to this stuff the same way I do." Melissa comes in and sits down, uninvited. Sarah stretches against two chairs in an ungainly way and says, "Can't you tell I'm getting ornery? I can't even sit on furniture." Landon says she "has her own file drawer," whatever that means.
Cyn is making cold calls, trying to get "proposals." She totally sounds like she's reading from a script (she's actually reading off the clumsily worded flyer) and isn't having much luck. Finally, she starts to get into a rhythm and communicates more clearly. Joe wanders in and notes her confidence and growth in voice-over, until she uses the word "sexual" where she meant to say "successful." Whoops. Joe teases her, and she says, "I wasn't talking like that until you got here!" Oh, just go do it already.
week -- it's all about Joe and Ick! And Cynthia doesn't like it. And neither does anyone else with functioning retinas.