Ka-mee-LAH! Ka-mee-LAH! Ka-mee-LAH! Okay, she so kicks ass this week. Syrus cannot be stopped. And yet he must be. So very soon. STOP HIM!!! Sorry.
An opening montage of numerous housemates inexplicably toting large bags of dirty laundry down the wintry Boston streets (Heh. "Wintry." I might as well have used the pointless adjective "cement" or "streetlike" to describe the ground below them, so self-evident is the cold-indicating modifier of "wintry") ends with the Somber Seven entering the Center for Center Center, those bags of laundry having been successfully dropped off at some out-of-context and shoddily edited laundry-washing sequence from any number of episodes that are definitely not this one. Inside the CCC, the soundtrack kicks into that folksy instrumental classic, the dour, "Woe Be it to My Maudlin Impending Back Story," as we are treated to any number of sullen and introspective shots of Genesis thinking, thinking, thinking. She impatiently taps a product-placed brown pump against the uncaring linoleum floor, until we cut to the interior of Poor, Poor Anthony's office, which Genesis has clearly mistaken for the confessional room as she prattles on, "Everybody here already seems to have experience with kids, and I have absolutely nothing to compare it to. I was never around kids. I didn't have a good childhood, myself, and I have nothing to look back on and reflect on [self-conscious cough] and take from that [even more self-conscious, mommy-was-too-drunk-to-take-me-for-a-polio-vaccine-and-can't-you-see-me-crumble cough] and apply it now." She doesn't know how to play any games. She doesn't feel that she can interact with the kids. She wanted you to know.
Slumping ever lower in his faux-leather desk chair and adopting that increasingly familiar "my social work degree clearly stipulates that the kids I should be babysitting will, in most cases, be YOUNGER THAN I AM" glazed-over glare of helpless despondency that consumes him whenever one of his seven charges deigns to move or speak, Anthony rhetorically (or so he thinks) volleys, "Did you have a childhood?" Genesis responds that she did not, and I'm bummed when the put-upon program director at the CCC doesn't just down a tall glass of moxie for once and hurl back, "No childhood, eh? Well, Sadsy McOldster, if you were really born a twenty-three-year-old lesbian with the self-esteem of a scoliosis-plagued seventh grader and the garish rouge-y red lipstick shades brought to New England from the southern debutante ball your mother still rues ever having referred to as your 'coming-out party' in the first damned place, I'd say it's possible you have slightly larger problems than not understanding the rules to hopscotch. You think?" But he does not say that, perhaps as a direct result of Genesis's continuing diatribe on her ignorance concerning children's games and toys. She tells Poor, Poor Anthony that she doesn't understand the [big quotes] "arts and crafts" that come so easily to her kid-friendly roommates and has never seen [bigger quotes] "these games" the kids all play, because she never played any games. Um, are we legitimately supposed to sympathize with her games-free, ignorant-of-contemporary-mores-plight, or is she just reciting verbatim dialogue from a recently aired segment of "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer"? Anthony muses for a moment and proclaims the situation as "tough." Genesis agrees that her life has, in fact, been "tough." I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, Genesis, but if Poor, Poor Anthony has one ounce of your self-indulgence in his whole body that you have in your little finger, I have simply GOT to believe that he's talking about himself. He actually dispenses an excellent piece of advice, telling her, "Just interact with children on an individual, one-to-one basis, and if you become a friend even to one child, you've succeeded." She seems convinced. She asks hopefully, "I didn't freak you out, did I?" He responds, "Nothing freaks me out," which means, of course, "Your problems are small and funny to me." Poor, poor Anthony.
Firehouse. The boys are preparing for a night on the town when Syrus's friend, who the hip white writing and corresponding arrow informs us is "Syrus's friend, Ed," arrives. I whisper a thank you to whichever fate inspired me to rent Sixteen Candles last weekend and reintroduce the essential physical description "oily bohunk" into my daily vernacular long enough to employ it in this most appropriate context. Cut to Sean, Jason, Syrus, and Oily Bohunk hitting the town and turning up inside of a snazzy dark bar that none of them -- NONE OF THEM -- could have gotten into without a camera crew and the express written permission of MTV. Okay, maybe Syrus could have. And probably Jason. And the Oily Bohunk guy. But no one else, really. That's right, Sean. I'm talkin' to you, Patagonia boy.
Inside and sitting, Sean endears himself to Syrus as much as possible for someone who has repeatedly shared his family's rustic beliefs that the three-fifths compromise is still a widely-held political policy in certain parts of the country, defaming instead another entire cross-section of the world's populace in declaring, "I gotta straighten some things out in the house. Just about women." Syrus and Sean engage in the secret, anti-feminist handshake of the highest Stonecutters order and Syrus agrees, "All these women act so innocent. You know damn well, they're all witches. They all have witch sides." Um, witches? Are you kidding? Nice try, Syrus, but even thinking yourself unceasingly clever by employing your Police-Academy-edited-for-prime-time vocabulary doesn't remove the sexist overtones of the word you really want to use. Man, that Montana sure can be a witch, eh? That Kameelah can be on the witchy side herself, too. Witches, witches everywhere. At which point in the diatribe, Syrus turns to the waitress and orders himself a tall, cool frosty weer. I hear his favorite brand is "Wudweiser." That is, of course, unless he'd like to go for something a bit stronger, in which case I'm sure Syrus can order the table a nicely aged bottle of straight up, down home Jim Beam Kentucky Wourbon. That is, unless any of those witches show up and spoil the woys' wig wash. Geddit? I hope so.
Syrus voice-overs a recap of last week's entire plot in letting us know, and not for the first time, that "Montana brought up to Anthony about me dating parents at the social center," and Sean helps the first-time viewer of this wacky new medium called "television" that "Syrus was very upset again at Montana." Really? Oh. And then, "He didn't think that she had any right to tell Anthony what she did." What she did? Or what she told him? Huh? Shut up, Sean. ["And he's a lawyer now, folks." -- Wing Chun]
Under what we're supposed to believe is the darkest cover of late-night darkness (which, in Boston, means "any time after 2 PM or before 1 PM"), Oily Bohunk walks into the firehouse, dragging the inhuman grotto-dweller he clubbed over the head and dragged back to his cave while she was in the process, it seems, of knocking over a particularly well-stocked Claire's Boutique. Syrus's Jane is even Plainer than usual, and as they retire to the pool room, Kameelah spots the foursome on the monitor and astutely notes the presence of "more hoochie mamas." Yup. The phone rings in the living room at a time the editors would like us to believe is "2:00," as indicated by a non-sequitur singular shot of a clock that doesn't actually appear anywhere in the room. Montana and Syrus happen through the living room simultaneously, and Montana observes, "Tell them it's too late to be calling." Syrus: "Says who?" Montana: "Says me." Syrus: "Snarky comebacks ain't my forte. I'm a lover, not a fighter, oh ye Queen of the Witches." Um, no. Syrus doesn't really say that. But I might just have been able to fish out one iota of respect for him from my Sea of Hatred if he had, I'm sayin'. Instead, he blathers something about how he'll be "up until 5." Clearly. Over in the bathroom, Montana smokes and broods while Kameelah smolders and listens, as Montana vents, "I just think that's disrespectful. I would never call anybody that late." Man, if the producers had any real eye for the cycle-completing irony we ultimately came to see in this seasons's Syrus/Montana story arc, the phone would have rung again at 2:01, and it would have been for her. Maybe a single father calling from the center, telling her what a wonderful time he had on their date. Maybe he'd offer to take her out for a glass of wine. With his kids. Sometime. Wine with the kids. Sometime. Anyway, everyone's mad.
Meanwhile, Oily Bohunk and Claire snog round the place unchaperoned while Syrus and Jane have retired to his bed. Oily Bohunk and Claire choose the bathroom as the ideal locale for an expression of their stumbling, drunken love, but Kameelah shortly after takes off on an inadvertent nookie-spotting tour of the facilities. She walks from room to room whispering Genesis's name. She pulls back the curtain to her room, and discovers Syrus mid-banging in the three-person bedroom before finding Genesis in her (Kameelah's) bed. She then discovers Bohunk and Claire in the bathroom, and she leaves the door to that room open while walking fumingly around the house muttering, "Okay. Okay. Okay." So she takes refuge in the one room in which she knows she won't find carnal goings-on, as Elka seems to have mysteriously disappeared and Montana hasn't spent enough time with a camera following her around to interest anyone in becoming her boyfriend so far this week. So she sits on Montana's bed and marvels, "I go in the bathroom and there's someone doing it in the bathroom. No. NO." I guess the part about where she proclaimed the entire situation to be "okay," "okay," and "okay" has receded in the face of the spoken-in-conviction "no," yet another excellent indicator that the cranky, prone-to-mood-swings Kameelah is nothing more than the temperamental witch Syrus has labeled her as in the first damn place. Or, as the case may be in this particular situation, not. Not this week, anyway.
Oily Bohunk emerges from the bathroom to find the self-appointed Firehouse Enforcer waiting for him. Bohunk: "We're just chillin'." Hmmm. I see his logic and morality are both as slippery as his oily bohunkery, it seems. Kameelah doesn't slip: "No, you don't chill in people's houses, makin' out in every room. It's disrespectful." He doesn't quite apologize while he's busy excusing his actions with the two-pronged impermeable defense of being "drunk" and "chillin'," and Kameelah tells him that the upstairs (Sigh. Nine weeks in and I still have no idea how many floors this funhouse has) is off-limits to guests. Apparently, Your Honor, Oily Bohunk would like to enter a "Not Guilty" plea on the airtight defense that he was "just chillin'." Claire, finally having found a place in her ears for all of the clip-on costume atrocities that came jangling to earth when they came into contact with the lubricating natural oils produced by snails, slugs, and said oily bohunk, exits the bathroom as well, and Kameelah sends them both downstairs. She goes with them. The fight continues. Bohunk leaves. Bohunk waits outside.
Twelve places at once, Kameelah turns up in Syrus's room, with Syrus screaming something nonsensical about not giving a damn. She quite calmly demands, "First of all, I am not Montana. And you won't talk to me like you spoke to Montana." He offers the coldest of cold comfort in telling Kameelah that he was really starting to like her, and she smiles broadly and offers a fake-sincere, "Oh, really?" Because his teflon social cachet around the house is of the utmost importance to her these days. He expresses his feeling that he is "thoroughly upset," and we cut outside to Syrus finally telling it like he sees it, informing the unholy trinity of Bohunk, Claire, and Jane: "All my female roommates are bitches. Except for the blonde girl." Jane smiles. 'Cause curse words and being on TV are real funny, like.
Cut to the following morning in the kitchen of the firehouse where, under the harsh light of day, everything is, in effect, exactly the same. The central conflict having been resolved off camera for a change (Syrus: "I apologized to Kameelah this morning."), Syrus rather mildly apologizes to Montana and then calls her a bitch again in a confessional, and Montana accepts his apology and then tells us in a confessional that his apologies don't mean crap. So, now at the other end of this riveting conflict, Syrus awkwardly attempts to leap head first into small-talk, asking Montana, "Did you do something to your hair? Did you cut your hair? It looks different." And I know he didn't do it on purpose, but you've got to give Syrus credit for staring his Public Bitch #1 right in the face and pointing out, so inadvertently, that no matter how much his social reputation is being hitched to an ox cart and pulled though miles of shit during his perpetually deteriorating fifteen minutes, he will never, ever have spent five and a half months on nationally-televised cable television sporting those bangs.
Over the icy river and through the frost-encrusted woods, six subways, three buses and nine miles of uphill (both ways!) cross-country skiing through thick brush which only a native Sherpa can successfully navigate, to the CCC we go. Elka (who, astonishingly, disappears halfway through this scene) sits to a young girl named "Pilar," both of whom sit across the table from Genesis, Elka, and a girl with glasses named "Jessica." Pilar observes, apropos of nothing but the producer's most immediate whims, that "Michael Jackson is gay." Excuse me, did someone just bring up a hot button issue? Could it be that a Very Special Real World has begun? Let the healing begin! Jessica invokes Ellen's unholy name, informing the crowd that she used to be a rather big fan of her sitcom, but she is not allowed to watch it anymore. "But we do watch Home Improvement!" Wait. I thought it was her mother's intent to AVOID gays on television. Meanwhile, somewhere in Santa Monica, JTT looks worriedly up at the television, only briefly taking his eyes off the Christmas present for Danny Pintauro he's wrapping in old copies of every tabloid newspaper the poor kid had already sued by the time he turned eighteen. But I'm saying, y'know, maybe Jessica's mom will be requiring a more comprehensive screening process from now on in. Again, I'm just sayin'.
Kameelah takes the reins: "You used to watch Ellen before you found out she was gay. Now you know she's gay. What does that mean?" Jessica observes that being gay means Ellen is "in love with another woman." Yeah, tell that to a whacked-out Anne Heche, stumbling onto strangers' lawns and stammering nonsense on their porches like some latter-day Robert Downey Jr. doppelganger for the millennium. Jessica: "I don't like gay people. I just have a feeling that I hate them. My mother tells me not to hang around with gay people." Kameelah tells Jessica that they both know people who are gay, who they both really like (they do? I thought none of the kids liked Genesis), but she stops short of outing her housemate with the hypothetical, "What if I told you I was gay?" Jessica says that wouldn't stop her from liking Kameelah. Awwwww. Kameelah continues, "If I like girls, and I'm not trying to kiss you, and I just want to be your friend and color, why does it matter that I like girls?" Cue the Foksy Acoustic Guitar Strumming of Self-Actualization that indicates, much to the satisfaction and relief of Kameelah, Genesis, and JTT's otherwise steadily declining fan base, Jessica likes gay people now.
Much to the nonsatisfaction and decided unrelief of the entire staff over at the CCC, we cut to an indeterminate time later, during which all of the housemates and a number of center employees discuss the dialogue between poor impressionable Jessica and the loathsome lesbian overlords who tried to convert her to their godless ways. Or at least that's kind of how it is being depicted, as Elka pipes in, "I've gotta say I see a lot of myself in Jessica and her relationship with her mother, and I know that if my mother would have known that I was going to an after-school program and they were talking to me about this kind of stuff, I would have been taken out right away." Another CCC worker tells them, "I think you said a lot of great things, but it went on for a long time, and I wanted to make sure she was okay, and..." but the camera keeps cutting people off right in the middle of their sentiments, offering a sense of total inauthenticity to the proceedings. I feel like this conversation was from a simple wrap-up meeting of some kind they probably had every day after their monumental four-and-a-half-hour work day came to a close, and this was some snippet that Genesis and Kameelah sat at home watching when the series aired and thought, "We were that boring that they had to include this scene? How unfun can it get? Man, we were even gayer than we'd originally anticipated."
Over in Poor, Poor Anthony's office, the CCC's designated martyr talks to Syrus about his improper relationship with the mother at the center, deeming it "unprofessional" and "a huge conflict of interest," worrying that there could even be "a pending lawsuit here." Syrus tells him that common sense told him that he wasn't doing anything wrong. Anthony offers Syrus an ultimatum, telling him that he can either continue seeing the mother or keep his job at the CCC. Syrus exits Poor, Poor Anthony's office and finds Sean. He tells him the deal Anthony is willing to strike, and Sean helpfully reminds Syrus, "If you lose your job here, there's going to be problems for you in the house." They laugh about the ease of making this decision (I'm sure Luetta was laughing right along at home at that hilarious quip), and Syrus turns and reenters Poor, Poor Anthony's office less than a full time-elapsed minute later. He begins his speech thusly, "Basically, I just want to say that, being a minority, I'm used to getting into stuff I don't agree with." Way to play the race card in this obviously fueled-by-bigotry scenario. Oh, no, wait. It's not about bigotry at all. So don't try to make yourself look like the victim, okay? Or, even more shockingly, the good guy: "I'm just gonna save all this pressure and all this time," and then he agrees to "take care of it." Anthony laughs at his "record time." Anthony possesses latent snarkitude after all. Go, Anthony.
Back at the firehouse, Genesis sits in front of the computer and complains to Kameelah: "I don't want to be gay anymore." Kameelah practically tut-tuts her right down one of the firehouse's many flights of steps in lecturing, "That, that what you just said right there, is why gay people have a hard-ass time in this country." No it's not. It's because the Bible says that God hates gay people. Duh. Everyone knows that. Ask Elka. Anyway, Genesis is sick of being stereotyped. Kameelah tells her, "It's what God handed you," as the soundtrack cranks up with its first actual lyric of the last half-hour, barking, "This is the waaaaaaaay God made me." At which point, a delicate-looking, underfed and never-seen bird in a cage marked "SUBTLETY" escapes the shackles of his cage and glides out the firehouse's window, only to be presently demolished by a fast-moving crosstown bus. Bye, bye, subtlety. This is the waaaaaaaaaaaay God made The Real World.
Firehouse by night. Syrus calls Luetta to break it off, but she has apparently already spoken with Poor, Poor Anthony about "the bullshit" being propagated by the CCC. Syrus wants very badly for Luetta to know that he was "forced to" sign the papers, and we cut to four -- count 'em, FOUR -- confessionals of various members of the house (Jason and Elka are the only two not featured) offering variations on the theme of, "Blah blah blah relationship ending ethical problem and blah." The ceaselessly moral Syrus then asks Luetta is she would like to have dinner that night, and as the strains of the Indigo Girls (a soundtrack perhaps better suited to the trials of one "Genesis" character, but now I'm just being nitpicky) classic "Shame on You" pipe up, we see Syrus pick Luetta up, and then lying in bed with her, fully clothed, inside of her apartment. Shame on you, Syrus. Shame on you, oh vanquished subtlety. Shame on you, Real World. Shame on you, indeed.