Kudos to the talented troupe of magic makers over at the George Lucas special effects house Industrial Light and Raging Boredom, who were obviously retained at some great cost by the increasingly apprehensive folks at BMP to, for once, impose a blue sky on the opening montage of a city that has lived its entire run of this season so far in the ominous shadow of slate gray desperation. And what a radically inventive montage it is: Generic skylines! Nondescript buildings! Uh, more nondescript buildings! Trains! Passing! Each other! A group of schoolchildren -- bundled to the gills in the latest in asbestos-lined, NASA-approved tundra-wear necessary for a stint any longer than the amount of time it takes for your average crusty New England curmudgeon to walk outside his rustic clapboard cabin and comment, "A-yuh, it's still cold" -- skate on an icy pond in an essential reminder that, a-yuh, it's still cold. In hopes that the montage will have so compromised our collective perception of what constitutes "visually interesting" (Didn't. Work.), we come to rest at a bleak-looking brick building which we learn is the "East Boston Social Centers." And then below it, vexingly, "Central Square Center." Three times. Center. We get it. All the while, Hanson's mildly disappointing "Mmm-Bop" follow-up ditty "Where's the Love" rages on as the soundtrack, an equally bleak reminder that the band's gold-card membership in the teen-pop milieu was as close to expiring as my dwindling patience with the seven tedious self-obsessives who lurk inside of this unadorned edifice a good twenty miles outside of center city Boston, no matter how many times the building's front tries to assert it as being in the "center." Poor Hanson. Middle of nowhere, indeed.
Someone's gonna end up in the major shithouse this week, because the happy images of the housemates dancing and playing merrily with the children is a contrived attempt to endear us to someone, anyone, in the hope that we will emotionally invest in their plight and actually take sides for once. Allow me to be the first to express my radical allegiance to any of them with an emotionally invested and staunchly loyal "feh." Anyway, we zero in on Syrus, having a time of it with the kids, and he VOs us right into a confessional with the resurgent "I'm a social butterfly. I'm gonna meet people no matter what. If I got both my feet chopped off and had one arm, I'm still gonna meet people." Yeah, a truckload of paramedics and the better part of the Boston Police Department wondering wildly, "Dude, where the HELL are your FEET? You say someone CHOPPED off your FEET? You must meet a lot of people! People who hate you." Cue montage of Tiny Tim meeting and greeting numerous women at the center, and we learn from a Genesis confessional back story that "there was a mother who has a crush on Syrus at the community center." Doesn't she mean the Center for Center Center? ["Is that like the Foundation Foundation [tm xixax] from ?" -- Sars] Cut back to said center, where Genesis and Syrus talk quietly about the single mother Syrus has been talking to, who Genesis agrees is "really cute," and Genesis makes it all about her in observing, "It kind of pissed me off that she'd want to date you instead of me," because we didn't know Genesis was a lesbian. We learn from that hip white scrawl that periodically appears on my television screen to introduce new characters that the cutie in question is named "Luetta." And ordinarily I would point out that she's cute, if by "cute" you mean "haggard," but she's a single mom so I'm cutting Luetta some major slack here. Because if there is one thing that poor used Luetta does not need in her life, it is the lecherous comings-on-to of a self-proclaimed "playa" who has already dated, slept with, and tossed away the collective lowest rung of Boston's fashion ladder and the TJ Maxx personal shoppers they rode in on. Save yourself, Luetta! Before you find yourself wearing cheesy costume jewelry and tapered jeans! Ruuuuuuun!
But Luetta seems to be taking no real pains to run, and we learn from Elka that "the boy's mom just kind of went up to Syrus and started talking to him." Cue the only recorded shot of Luetta walking up to Syrus and talking to him. Syrus elaborates: "Half the parents there are single parents, I bet. They're looking for a guy!" He badly botches an economics metaphor by remarking that "it's simple supply and demand. The supply is there at the after-school program," and even more egregiously demolishes a baseball metaphor by adding, "whoever's in demand better step up to the plate. You pitch a curve, you just hope it fits." Curveball? Fits? Syrus, please step off baseball analogies if you're not going to at least kind of know where you're taking them. I'd even go so far as saying that in the World Series of stupid comments, you must be Mr. October. Ordinarily, I would say that. But you've frozen me here. Because you wouldn't get it. So I won't. Strike three, asshole. That's a baseball term. Except for the "asshole" part.
Over at the corner of River and Mt. Vernon, Syrus terminates a phone call to answer the front door. Cut to Luetta entering the house, frighteningly conscious of the cameras, and then to Syrus standing with Luetta and talking on the phone again. Then they leave, somehow walking right through the impermeable wall of self-righteous do-goodership the rest of the house has constructed in their honor. Let's watch while the reigning queen of the sovereign nation of self-righteousness puts way too fine a point on it for us. Hello, Kameelah: "I cannot believe that one of the mothers was in our house and is going out with Syrus." From somewhere afar, Elka deems the situation "sick." And not "sick" as a synonym for "rad" and "gnarly," either. And of course Kameelah speaks the truth. Until now: "I don't care what Syrus does." Yeah, you do. "I'm not his mother." No, of course you're not. If you were, in all probability you'd never have wanted to sleep with him. "I don't care if Syrus dates twenty single mothers at one time." Yes, as you exhibited with your trademark levels of patience and absence of this identical speech when he brought home his parade of fashion heretics earlier in the season. You do. Anyway, Kameelah does promise that she won't judge his actions, "as long as they don't go to the center, as long as we don't see those kids, and as long as those kids don't see Syrus with their mothers." Cut to a "don't walk" sign blinking the red hand that screams, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" Oh, man. Bunim and Murray crack into that chic metaphorical editing style known as "Traffic Light Symbolism." I bow at your altars, you magnificent bastards, you.
The mother is on a date with an employee of the center while the rest of the volunteers sit at home and bitch about the unprofessionalism of it all. Right now, at this very moment, where's the kid, exactly? Syrus and Luetta sit at a diner (Mr. Ladies Man knows all the hot spots. Actually, you've gotta give him credit for being the only member of the house who knows that other indoor venues besides the firehouse and the laundromat actually exist) and talk with their mouths a whole lotta full. Luetta garbles something wildly incomprehensible and Syrus volleys, "Are you that closed-minded?" Sigh. Speak up. Actually, just shut up. And for the love of all things holy in the universe, Luetta, you've gotta stop looking at the cameras. You're the focal point of the entire episode, and all of your scenes are nine seconds long. Leave those editors something to work with here. Meanwhile, over at the aforementioned laundromat (ridiculed to exhaustive finality a few episodes back), you can practically hear Elka's "you mean we have to talk about this again" plea to the producers before a shout of "And action!" and Elka's scene-starting, "I wonder what's gonna happen if Syrus keeps dating that girl." Kameelah frets the contingencies: "What if he disses her, or what if she gets pissed off, or what if she falls in love?" Elka is encouraged to bring up the name "Anthony" so that the short-attention-spanned audience remembers who he is when he makes his triumphant, finger-wagging, tut-tutting return later in the episode.
Syrus and Luetta are midway through the fiftieth grease-drenched, napkin-soaking foodstuff the couple has seen fit to tack onto their "Thank God Someone's Finally Causing A Little Controversy" free lunch tab, compliments of the fine (and relieved) folks at BMP. Syrus apologizes for the collective behavior of his roommates for not saying hi when Luetta entered the firehouse, adding, "I don't introduce people to them no more [sic] because I've got [sic] a couple of bad responses." And, back at the laundromat, I revel in the wild coincidence (and expensive editing equipment) of it all when Kameelah ponders, "I wonder what he says about us." Elka mistakenly proposes that he doesn't even bring them up, so great is his indifference with them, and Kameelah shuts it down in telling us, "Some things are so fundamental. You don't date people where you work." Ouch. Sorry, Sars. I know it hurts now, but our torrid affair must end and our love can no longer be. Because Kameelah deems it so, is why. ["Damn you, Kameelah -- DAAAAAAMN YOOOOUUUUUU! [Sob!]" -- Sars]
Wow. Five minutes. Even if this episode were occurring in real time, it would still be the longest date Syrus has ever been on without the exchange of fluids or cheesy pick-up lines about "running through my head all day." Anyway, they're back at the firehouse playing pool. Syrus sinks the 8-ball because he's a bad, bad man. Cut to him seeing her off, sans kiss goodbye. Inside again, Syrus plays pool with Sean, and Syrus asks if the rest of the house is "talking crap" about the improper goings-on with this here parent trap of his. Sean tries to plead ignorance, quickly reckons himself way too dumb for this ruse to continue, and volunteers, I think, "Just appreciate what this means to the job." Luckily for the embattled and defensive Syrus, though, he has already cooked up a steaming hot pile of rationalizations: "First of all, I was the one pursued here. Second of all, she's twenty-five." Sean adds, "Third of all, she has a kid," which isn't exactly the point. Confessional-bound, Syrus garnishes the pile with a sprinkle of exactly what he has already said: "She turned out to be a really cool person. She's my age. She's from Boston, she knows Boston. Why can't she show me around?" Because, as I have mentioned, Kameelah deems it so.
Because we haven't already been adequately shown the extent to which Syrus has become alienated from the members of the house, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of an eye-rollingly lengthy montage of Syrus playing basketball with a whole lotta guys we've never seen before. He waxes, "Basketball will show you, you know, that no matter how good you are as an individual, you need the rest of your team. You need to work together with people in order to get things done." Cause meets effect, as they have a tendency to do on this show, and we cut from a shot of Syrus standing on the basketball court and vaguely staring in the general direction of the floor to Syrus on the phone lying pathetically in bed (and, in another shot in the same alleged "conversation," on the floor), informing the individual on the other end that his ankle is "jacked up." Seconds later, the phone rings again. Of course Kameelah picks it up. Of course it's for Syrus. As he hobbles like the Tiny Tim he once insisted he'd love to be ("I'm a social butterfly. I'm gonna meet people no matter what. If I got both my feet chopped off and had one arm, I'm still gonna meet people"), Kameelah hands him the phone and asks when they can expect him to be at work. But he's not going. I guess he won't be meeting anyone after the loss of proper feet capacity after all, with the possible exception of the short end of Kameelah's firmly-tied-on bitch. He takes the phone. The white writing informs us that the caller is "Luetta," because the white writing and the accompanying arrow pointing to the phone think that we are very, very stupid. In the bathroom, Montana agrees with Kameelah that it's "bull" that Syrus isn't going, that "he doesn't have to walk around," that "he can sit and help out with homework, he can sit and play games." Meanwhile, Syrus tells Luetta that he'll be home and expecting her. And if you think Montana and Kameelah are overreacting, consider the fact that six people are about to board a subway to a location so far from recognizable civilization that it's still depicted on the map in a black-shaded area labeled "Disputed Zone." Now consider that they're going there to baby-sit, among others, a child whose mother is back at your home making nookie fun times with your faux-infirm roommate. Ladies. Gentlemen. Tie that bitch on tight. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
The soundtrack plays a song prominently featuring the lyric "I don't wanna go." Hey, guys, how am I supposed to finish the recap if the subtle editing keeps trying to clever me to death? Seriously. Stop that now. Kameelah mysteriously decides to play "Angry Mom," entering the room and demanding that Syrus keep his ankle up. Then she offers to fetch him an ice pack, and he happily accepts. An ice pack kept cold by her frigid demeanor and chilly spite and, of course, the cold comfort she takes at finally finding a situation in which he will react kindly to something she could ever have to say for once. Montana enters the room and tells Syrus he should go to the center and just sit and chill. She thinks hiding behind his ankle is a weak excuse, and that they get "judged" as a group, and that going out late, as he apparently did the evening, is not an acceptable excuse for skipping work. Yawn. Is this a fight? Are they really angry or do they just play it on TV? Sean, put your freakin' shirt on.
And action! Over at the Government Center T stop, Sean polls the crowd (and where the hell is Jason, anyway?), "So I wanna know: what is everybody's opinion -- 'cause I don't really have one -- on Syrus having that woman over to the house from the after-school center." Montana launches right into her prepared material on the matter, filibustering, "I think it's a bad idea. I think there could be problems," before pulling off by far the best line of the episode: "I don't think he should use the after-school program as another way to pick up women." Amen, sister. Kameelah the strong opinionated woman stays rock silent, while her henchwoman Elka is forced to propose, "What if they get in a fight or something?" Which doesn't make quite as much sense as it did in the context Kameelah in which presented it a few scenes back. Montana proposes, "I was thinking of asking Anthony what his policy on the whole thing was." Wow. Now that's kind of a snaky, underhanded bitch move borne exclusively of a personal vendetta, wouldn't you say? Oh, Montana, if only you knew how badly you needed to curtail those levels of self-righteous blathering on this particular issue. Right now, you are drunk with the power you have over Syrus in all matters relating to the children's center. Later on, when just "drunk," won't it pain you terribly to watch those powers get washed away in a tide of cheap red wine?
On the long stretch of walking from the two trains required to travel from the firehouse to the Central Center in Centerville (I blame Syrus for cheesing out too, but you do have to admit that this trip is kind of long. And where the hell is Jason, anyway?), Genesis and Sean (were they ever friends?) discuss the matter even further. Genesis thinks that if people have what to say to Syrus, "They should go to his face and tell him what they think." She then adds knowingly, as if just recently having stumbled over an educational pamphlet entitled The Basic Precepts of Human Nature For Dummies, "You know what, though? They won't." Speak, oracle!
Once inside the Center of Central Centeromics, Elka (whose hair, incidentally, has come along remarkably since leaving Brownsville. By the way) speeches Sean, "Don't say that we're wrong for talking about him behind his back if you're gonna come asking us what we think about the situation. Because it's the same thing." Sing it, sister. Proverbial straw grasping reaching an unwieldy fever pitch, Sean sputters back, "I'm not saying you're talking behind his back." Except you have said that. To Genesis, in the last scene. And like a thousand other times. Montana volunteers that everyone talks about everyone, and she should know. Because she's doing most of it. Montana finds Anthony and asks to speak with him privately. Elka tells Sean she won't stick her nose in anyone's business as, from behind the closed door of Anthony's office, Montana bemoans, "One of the parents was at our house this past weekend." Anthony tells her it's against agency policy, and Montana responds, "Then you'd better have a talk with Syrus," at this moment officially involving herself so overwhelmingly in someone else's business that I fear she'll lose verbal capacity of her p's as well as her q's, so capriciously did she forget to mind them.
A bevy of unsupervised schoolchildren detonate firecrackers and engage in rampant recreational drug use (why? Because no one is watching them, is why) while the five remaining members of the house run around and talk about themselves. Montana reports her conversation with Anthony to Elka truthfully -- proudly, maybe even -- in recapping, "I just asked Anthony if they have any policy on people dating parents of the center and he said yes they definitely did and it's strictly prohibited. And I said, 'Then you'd better have a talk with Syrus.'" Cut to Elka relaying this story to Kameelah, and Kameelah expresses a great deal of disbelief that Montana mentioned Syrus directly. Then cut to Kameelah telling Genesis and Sean that Montana mentioned a name of a housemate, and Genesis reporting that Montana told her explicitly that she did not name names, causing the reaction, "I guess there's nothing like being lied to by your own roommate." Sean VOs that he didn't think it was right of Montana to mention it to Anthony. Oh, really. Do you really think that? Meanwhile, Montana is briefly depicted as the only roommate who interacts well with the kids, setting up numerous important dramatic conflicts to come. Have I mentioned recently just how damn clever all of this is? Over in the kitchen, Kameelah comments to Genesis, "She hates him." Kameelah tries to distance herself from the badness surrounding them all in reporting that though she does not like Syrus, she'll let him do his "own thing." Uh. Huh. Kameelah thinks that Montana wants Syrus out of the house. Genesis thinks that Kameelah wants Montana out of the house. Not so, Kameelah attests, lecturing, "I don't want anyone to leave. Okay, it's confirmed. She's a troublemaker. But still, that's one aspect of her personality. The other is she's really good with kids. And that's what we're here to do." Oh, naive Kameelah. When will you learn that what you're "here to do" is act reprehensibly in a nationally aired forum and set yourself up for the perpetual passing of judgment on your every move for our constant amusement? Now kick off those goody two-shoes someone soddered on and let's go piss off some roommates! Yeesh.
Montana knows what I'm talking about. She, Elka, and Jason (and where the hell is...right, never mind) are in the kitchen of the firehouse when the phone rings. Montana grabs it and reports that Syrus is not home and would she like to leave a message? Several dozen girls on the other line strive to speak over each other, but the 1-800-SYRUS-CHAT hotline has simply too many participants on it this evening and Montana can't hear a word. ["I think that's '1-900-SYRUS-CHAT,' actually. Technically." -- Sars] So she grabs a pencil and starts writing in thin air, pretending to take down names before the line gets real static-filled and she just plain hangs up. Jason and Elka crack up. I know she's a lunatic and all. But at least that was a far more entertaining rendition of what a Real World cast in any other season is, in reality, "here to do." Tell Kameelah.
Jason again turns and stabs the back of whomever dares to turn away from him, as he and Kameelah inhabit the firehouse kitchen and discuss the Montana/Syrus debacle in even more exhaustive detail. He thinks the two are going to have trouble living together. Gee, you think? He says that it's "not so difficult to get along with people" and that he respects other peoples' opinions. Oooooh. Go, you. I'd take some time to congratulate you on the landmark accomplishment of being a Typical Member of Polite Society, but it seems you've got the self-congratulating duties pretty much under control. Jason. Grrrr.
After yet another montage of ice hockey and the glacial joys it brings to the young people of Boston metro (with deference to India, of course), we see only the backs of Syrus and Sean, walking slowly away from the camera (Oooh. Shot from behind! They're so elusive! Do we really know them at all?). Sean brings Syrus up to date on the details of the last half-hour for the nine billionth time. Sean VOs that "there's a possibility that if Syrus keeps dating this woman, he'll be fired from the after-school program for kids. OH, REALLY? Sean tells Syrus that he doesn't think it was Montana's place to bring that up to Anthony, and Syrus accidentally foreshadows by several months, "If I get a chance to take her down, she's going down. Any little thing I can do." Apropos of nothing, Syrus seems to be walking without any problem now. I guess we can all breathe a small sigh of relief that there will be no foot or hand removal that would only serve to enhance Syrus's already incontestable social skills. Tiny Tim is all better, even without the operation. God bless us, every one! Except Montana, of course, vindictive tramp she no doubt is.
And there, truth be told, is where the episode should have rightfully ended. But without enough sheer human drama to be spread thin over the course of an entire season, much less one episode, we are pinned to our chairs by the most tacked-on subplot in the entirety of, well, this otherwise one-note episode. Genesis stands at the door of the break room at the Central Center for Centralized Centerosity, watching what seems like thousands of kids going hog wild. The pumping electric guitar tells me that they are rowdy as all hell. She tells us that she's "not going out there," and we cut from here to Anthony's office, where she burdens him even further: "I don't, I still don't know some of the kids' names, I have nothing in common with these people" and blah blah blah crippling-juvenile-phobiacakes. Anthony wants to know what they can do to correct this. Silence. Cut to Genesis and Kameelah in the bathroom, where Kameelah tells her that she knows Genesis can do it, and Genesis counters, "I don't want to." Did I mention that this entire sequence has been intercut with shots of every other housemate playing happily and effortlessly with all of the other kids? Manipulated terribly yet? Yeah, well, you should be.
Montana, Kameelah, Sean, and Elka are out to dinner at a fine establishment called The Lizard Lounge. Kameelah opens the discussion with her assertion that "Syrus is really close to getting fired." Again, how dare he date a mother. Again, he's not bringing anything to the program. Montana tells the crowd that she thinks Anthony is "watching him." She smokes with unbelievably self-righteous pretense. She puts words in Sean's mouth in telling him that he agreed with her in her conviction that if Syrus were to be fired from the Centralized Center for Centered Centrality, he should be booted from the house as well. As such, Montana delivers the following homily from the big book of foreshadowing. Got a pen, folks? Write this down: "You wouldn't kick him out for getting fired from the center? You'd let him just, like, live there and sleep late and party all night because we have to be at work the day?" Sigh. Would you like your foot with that greasy-ass burger you're cramming down your throat now or later, Montana? Kameelah echoes these sentiments in no uncertain terms: "If Syrus gets fired, he needs to leave the house." Montana nods violently. And then later: "There's no way he is gonna come in, live rent-free, and not work." The collective whole of the show's first five seasons shoot guilty glances across the room. But before this conversation progresses one syllable further, Sean cries out an almost ebullient, "Hey, big man!" Syrus approaches. The electric guitar rages anew. Syrus leaves. Doubtlessly, the anticipated drama once again ultimately failed to materialize. Syrus leaves. The. Yawn. End.