Here we are at episode 10, and I didn't think the show could get more boring. In fact, this episode exceeded all expectations of how boring the London season could get. All my drug jokes from recaps, all of the "medication" I supposedly required in order to pay attention to these episodes, are no longer adequate metaphors for the mind-numbing boredom of the London season. To make jokes about freebase at this point would be to trivialize everything I've gone through in watching this episode and finding something to write about it. I used to be scandalized by Bunim-Murray's obvious casting choices for other seasons with their psychos and/or drama queens who got abortions, slept around, hit each other, or checked into rehabs. It seemed that they were being picked just to make the show interesting -- something the producers never thought to do in season 4. Wanna know how far down the barrel Bunim and Murray's editing team had to dig to come up with this week's offering? Well, let me lay it down thusly. This week's episode is about two things: Sharon's pathological fear of microscopic fecal matter on surfaces in public bathrooms and, yes, the phone bill. The cathartic resolve? The playing of a Truth or Dare-style game in which nothing even vaguely sexual happens. It makes you want Mike's father to visit again.
During a typical Real World season, by episode 10, we're already gotten to know the housemates. There have been some hook-ups (except for the London season). Someone has been kicked out of the house (except for the London season). And basically there's been enough action to take us to Act II, so to speak, where the producers start having to send the housemates on vacations or Outward Bound-type trips just to spice things up. Traditionally, the tenth episode is often earmarked for the special "issues" episode. In L.A., for instance, Tami gets an abortion in the tenth episode, and each resident of the house has to discuss his or her view on abortion. In Boston, a gay slur occurs making episode 10 a meditation on gay defamation issues. In London, there is nothing to work with. No major issues have come up between the Americans and the Europeans except some pretty harmless culturally-based insults directed at Whitney Houston or some complaints about the shortage of Ranch dressing in London. And as annoying as everybody is, there are just no Amayas or Tamis or Ruthies in the London cast to give the show some much needed Girl Interrupted-style freaky realism. It's like the editors -- whose job it is to clean all of this up and make it look like stuff happened -- have honed in on Sharon as the closest possible thing in the house that could give them some L.A. Tami-style drama. Yes, Sharon is black like Tami and does the same sort of things that Tami does, but they're the really boring, politically neutral, less excessive versions. For instance, Tami gets an abortion, whereas Sharon gets her vocal chords operated on. Tami admits to not liking gay people. Sharon admits to not liking a dog shitting in her room every day. Sharon needs to shut her mouth. Tami gets her mouth wired shut. You see where the problem is.
Anyway. No b-roll of London. Just a pan shot of the outside of the house. "I think the honeymoon is over in the house," announces Neil in an old interview that they're trying to pass off as a new one. And what does Neil mean by "honeymoon"? Doesn't sex happen on honeymoons? Don't people have fun on honeymoon and go fun places? Never mind.
Jacinda wants to have a party, and the housemates discuss whether to have one. Sharon complains that she can't, because she has to work until 6 PM and everyone else is sort of apathetic. Jacinda complains that she only suggested having a party and everyone is acting like she thrust the idea on them. "People's desire to interact and get to know one another better has sort of worn off," says Neil, continuing his graduate-level Sociology lecture...I mean, "interview." Jacinda complains some more that no one is helping her plan the party. Mike bitches that it was Jacinda's plan to have a party in the first place, and she's already complaining that no one will help her. Someone -- Neil, I think -- screams and walks out of the room. Jay, in an interview, theorizes that everyone is getting bored with each other. Now that I think about it, how could the housemates not be just as bored with each other as their viewers are with them? I mean, at the very least, we're seeing edited footage. Just think what it's like to be there in the house. Jacinda complains some more that no one wants to help her put her plan into action.
Remember Kat? We haven't seen her since episode 6 in which she gave Sharon a makeover and Jacinda a reality check. She asks Neil if he really wants to have a party. 'Cause she's only looking our for her man. Neil says he doesn't "give a [bleep]," cause he's apathetic like that -- being a big fixture on the punk scene and all. Having a party? Not having a party? Not something a real punk gives any thought to. That's right. When you dye your hair blond and spike it, there's no room anymore to consider such trivial matters. Jacinda cancels the party because everyone is "making such a hassle about it."
"Twenty-four hours a day with the same people, and you get sick of them, and they start to get on your nerves," says Mike, in yet another very old interview that's being passed off as new. "Jacinda," says Mike, standing on the landing with Lars. "You've got a dookie to clean up." We see a close-up of said dookie, and Mike remarks that the dookie is big for such a little dog. Jacinda, annoyed, picks it up with a piece of newspaper.
"The dog is Jacinda's responsibilty," says Sharon -- her usual cheery demeanor strangely absent. "She's the one who made the decision to buy him and bring him into our house." Montage sequence of Legend doing mischievous dog-like things around the house, like chewing on socks, pooping in front of a clueless Jacinda, and so forth. Lars comments in an interview that the dog has no idea where to poop. Neil comments in an interview that the dog is having a great time because it gets to [bleep] where it wants. Neil seems to be having a good time saying all those things that need to be [bleep]ed.
But then the episode really starts to kick it to the extreme when Mike, wearing a t-shirt that says "Big Johnson" on the back, notices that there's no dial tone. Lars tries the phone. Still no dial tone. Mike goes upstairs to check the other phones; they're not working. Jacinda notices that the phones aren't working -- and neither is she. Mike observes that they are able to get calls, but that no one is able to call out. At first, I'm psyched because I think maybe some crazed killer is going to kill everyone in the house, and that he or she has cut the phone lines so none of the housemates can call the British equivalent of 911. But unfortunately, that was not meant to be. Their phone service simply doesn't work. Apparently the phone bill hasn't been paid in a while. Jacinda then remembers that Neil has gotten several calls from British Telecom (or BT, as those in the know say). You know, Jacinda, you could be on to something there. I mean, in America, when the phone company calls you several times, it's not to chat.
Mike leaves the house, turning his back to us yet again so we can see the "Big Johnson" decal on the back. In an interview -- because this is all just so exciting that every development of this phone outtage needs to be itemized in loving detail -- Mike tells us that BT told him that their service should be working, and suggests that he check every phone in the house to make sure that one of the phones isn't, in fact, off the hook. Mike checks every phone in the house: the one by the pool table; the one on the landing by the ironing board. No dice. Mike walks back to the pay phone, giving us yet another view of his "Big Johnson." He goes to a pay phone and calls BT. In another interview, he explains that he told BT he had checked all the phones, and that he still can't dial out. BT now confirms that their calls have been shut off: "And I go, 'Oh, why didn't you tell me that five minutes ago when I called you?' and they go, 'Because we're stupid.'" Lars, who I guess has heard the same story Mike told in the interview, asks Mike whether BT told Mike that they were "stupid," using that word. Mike replies that the exact phrase she used was "mentally incapacitated." I'm guessing this is a joke, because I can't imagine anyone talking to Mike for more than a few seconds and admitting to being stupid. "Is that what she said?" asks Lars, playing, for some reason, with a roll of toilet paper. "'Mentally incapacitated'?" "That is what she said," confirms Mike. "'Mentally incapacitated.'" They are so desperate to use up footage, it's not even funny.
But then the plot thickens because, you see, other housemates realize that the phone isn't working. "Oh my God, I can't dial out!" exclaims Sharon, slamming down the receiver. And you don't want to be around Sharon if she can't make phone calls. Not that you want to be around Sharon otherwise. Neil and Mike are in the kitchen, and Neil is complaining about all the Americans in the house calling their parents in America. The American flatmates, according to Neil, are to blame for the latest phone fiasco. Mike puts peanut butter on a slice of bread and tells Neil that since the phone is in his name, it was his responsibility to inform the rest of the house about their service being shut off -- especially since BT called Neil several times. Neil admits that he is probably at fault, then, since he forgot to get back to BT. Wow. Neil admits he's wrong. To Mike! In an interview, Jay comments that he doesn't know who's at fault for the whole phone thing. Mike is then shown prancing through the house with a pissy look on his face, still sporting the "Big Johnson" t-shirt. Just in case we've forgotten lately what a big dick Mike is. And that will be the last time "Big" "Dick" and "Mike" will share a sentence -- I promise. He hangs up all the phones that he'd taken off the hook, and voice-overs that "no one else seems to care." What a meta-statement, that. "I am sick of living with these people who have no grasp of responsibility whatsoever."
Okay, so, as painful as it is to leave that suspenseful plotline behind for a few minutes, we cut to Legend, who scampers through the house to Atomic Dog by P-Funk. More turds are shown lying around the house in Legend's wake. Mike complains in another interview that Legend will not go to the bathroom outside. "As soon as it came inside the other day it took a [bleep] after having been outside for an entire day," he says. "As soon as it came inside -- boom! It goes to the bathroom." Legend is shown pushing out yet another turd, which, according to Lars, stinks to high heaven. He calls out for Jacinda to do something about it.
Lars and Jacinda are playing with Legend. Sharon enters the room. "I've got the creamiest, fattest, most nah-sty-looking turd on my carpet!" she explains in the most sophisticated British accent I've heard since Madonna won her first Grammy. If she were holding a stiff drink in her hand and wearing a ball gown, this could be a Noel Coward play. But then, people engage in witty banter and sexual relations in Noel Coward plays, so maybe not. Jacinda doesn't really care, but is amused by Sharon's use of the adjective "creamy" to describe said turd. Another day, Sharon is yet again hysterical to find another dog turd in her room. "What is with your dog and my room?" she asks Jacinda, in comparatively good humor.
In an interview, Sharon reminisces back to the time when Jacinda was asking them permission to bring a dog into the house. Jacinda asked permission? I don't remember that. "My only objection," says Sharon, "was that she should get a house-trained one, because I personally couldn't live with the mess." Okay, Sharon? Dogs don't come in two flavors -- house-trained and un-house-trained. It's not like Jacinda was in the wrong side of the shop and failed to notice the "house-trained dog" section. I think the sentence you were grasping for was, "I wanted Jacinda to house-train her dog." Not to mention that having an objection to dog turd doesn't make you stand out from the rest of the human race in any profound way. Sharon finds it particularly "ironic" that Legend chose her room as his morning toilet. Oh yeah, because no one trained Legend to make stinkies in Sharon's room, or anything. More shots of Legend pooping and various housemates discovering said poops. Sharon complains that Jacinda doesn't exactly pick up the turds in a timely fashion, and fails to bleach underneath. Actually, just to add a pretty boring fact here, it's not good to bleach where a dog has gone because bleach has a similar pH balance to urine, and won't wipe out the odor that attracts the dog to "mark" there again. You want to use vinegar instead -- or better yet, Nature's Miracle Stain and Odor Remover, an amazing product that is available in all pet stores. I mean while we're all totally bored out of our skulls, why not throw in a pitch for Nature's Miracle? Sharon is shown cleaning her room and obsessively mopping while she complains that everyone in the house seems to think she's a clean freak.
So just in case you're really not quite grossed out or bored enough, the camera lingers for about fifteen minutes on a piece of sausage Lars is frying. The sausage is brown and about the same size as one of the Legend turds that have frequently appeared during this episode. Yes, I have a sick mind, but there is no way that I am the only person watching who has made that connection. Lars is then shown putting the sausage in his mouth. Everyone sits down to dinner together and starts eating sausage. Then there are these lavish close-ups of the housemates shoveling sausage in their mouths. Why? Are they trying to make some sort of artistic statement about consumption? Are they trying to do a Fellini's Roma, where everyone is having dinner and arguing with each other while simultaneously shoveling pasta into their mouths and the protagonist's aunt tells him an old Italian proverb which literally translates to "everything eventually turns to shit"? Sharon announces that she bleached her floors, but that the dog still goes in her room. Jacinda holds Legend at the other side of the table and whispers, "Good boy!" into his ears. No, I'm serious. That happened. Sharon nods patiently and agrees that Legend has gotten "better." Whatever that means. Neil then points out to Sharon that Jacinda probably praises him whenever he [bleep]s in Sharon's room. Sharon announces that she's "the only person in this house who objects to dog turd." Neil asks her what she means by that. Sharon, in an interview, defends herself against charges of being a clean freak. Did it ever occur to anyone in the house that maybe if some dog that wasn't your own were taking a crap in your room every day with no end in sight, you might just have a legitimate reason to be pretty irritated? I mean, I'm the last one to defend Sharon or anything, but bleaching a spot in your room where a dog takes a crap everyday doesn't seem like "neat freak"-ness to me. It seems like a really really good idea. I mean, maybe that's not punk-rock enough for Neil, but if wiping invisible dog turd residue off your floor with a rag soaked in Nature's Miracle is wrong, I don't want to be right.
But then it turns out that Sharon does, in fact, have a strange fascination with unseen bacteria. But then, don't all the great divas? She admits to her dining flatmates that she habitually rips off a piece of toilet paper and holds it in her hand before she flushes the toilet so that she doesn't come in contact with the germs on the handle. For some reason, the gang finds this fascinating, like she's just announced that she's a fundamentalist Muslim and loves to wear the chador. And as any large-ish group of people who don't have a lot to talk about amongst themselves, they all start asking Sharon questions about her shit phobia like she's Pedro back in San Francisco, and they're asking what it's like to have AIDS. Sharon asks everyone at the table whether they wash their hands after "going to the loo." Everyone says no. Although I strongly suspect that Kat, Jacinda, Neil, and Lars were just fucking with her...and that Mike and Jay really and truly don't wash their hands after they go to the bathroom. Mike explains that he doesn't "pee on his hands," so he doesn't have to wash them. This gives Sharon justification for her shit phobia. She explains that so many people like Mike don't wash their hands; they touch the toilet handle or the door knob of the bathroom, and this freaks her out. Mike asks her how she exits the bathroom, without touching the door, after she's washed her hands. Sharon says that she waits for someone else to go out, and then follows her out the door. Everyone laughs openly at her.
Sharon explains in an interview that she understands the "nature of that particular conversation" was friendly non-malicious ridicule, but admits to being overwhelmed because it was "six against one." Sharon is then shown, still at the dinner table, asking in all seriousness whether the other housemates actually touch things like public hand poles and whatnot and without washing their hands as soon as they come into the house. Everyone laughs at her some more, and then Lars and Neil start touching her, just for the fun of watching her freak out. Everyone else joins in, and soon Sharon is losing it. "You're touching loo doors!" she screams.
"How could an individual be slagged off for two hours by six people?" says Neil in an interview. "She's a human being," he says. "It's got to be building up somewhere." Well, if it's building up somewhere, I'm going to put my money that it's tucked in her hair behind her bun. At this point, I should point out that, in this interview, Neil is wearing an uncharacteristically pimpish suit, with a tie and everything. Okay, maybe it's not exactly pimpish per se. More like something a salesman at a Toyota dealership would wear. But to be perfectly honest, I've never felt Neil was attractive at all until right now, when he's wearing this Botany 500 George Jefferson suit with a floral necktie. You can just smell the Old Spice. I'm lost. I want to move to the suburbs with him. I want to have dinner ready by the time he gets home from a long hard day of work as I whip off my apron seconds before he enters the house so that he doesn't associate me with the drudgery of housework because after all there are pretty girls at the office and you never know when you'll be replaced by one of them according to those Burt Bacharach songs I listen to on the Hi-Fi while I scrub the toilets, my home-manicured nails protected by a pair of carnation pink latex gloves. That suit is ruining me!
So back to the fecal contamination of Sharon. Jacinda tells Sharon that she always "takes" what they give her. Sharon shugs it off like it's no big deal, but admits, in her interview, to being "sensitive," explaining, "I can take things to heart, but I won't say anything." Then they show her primly ironing while wearing a pink bathrobe. 'Cause you know when someone is ironing, things can't be rosy. Maybe they're repressed. Geddit? "I don't know," Michael later tells Lars and Jay. "These past few weeks, Sharon just started to, like, get to me for some reason. You just want to walk over to her and push her over." Well she is sort of a Weeble. Lars admits to "bitching at her a couple of times this week, but it just bounces right off her. She never gets angry or sad of anything. Someday she's going to break down." Then Lars and Mike laugh at the prospect. Sharon is then shown sitting in bed with the covers pulled around her. She's got this uptight expression on her face like she's waiting for the nurse to come by and give her a Fleet enema or something. They've left the laughing of Mike and Lars on the soundtrack so it seems like Sharon, still pouting in her bedroom, is listening to them laugh at her and withdrawing into herself. Then, although I have no idea why, there's this close-up of a lit candle being blown out so its flame is replaced by the glow of the smoldering wick. I think they have eight shots like this on Charmed every week. Are they trying to imply that Sharon is a goddess of the black arts and that she's going to bring a pox on Lars and Mike? Like, we just don't have a goddamn place to go with this story line. Let's work in a witchcraft angle. People like witches, right?
It's the day, no one is cursed, and Neil is shown walking down the street. He comes to a pay phone and makes a call to the phone company. He explains in a voice-over that BT was concerned that a new user was running up a £530 phone bill within a month and a half, so BT cut the roommates' service off. They show Neil getting through to BT and bitching them out for not notifying him sooner that they were going to cut off their outgoing service even though they have, in fact, been calling him for weeks. I guess they remind him of that, because all of a sudden his attitude's changed and he's asking them where he can make a payment. Apparently they won't turn the service back on until he pays the whole amount in cash. Look how long these past two paragraph are. I am still writing about a late phone bill.
But there's even more. The bill is finally opened, and it's about as thick as a porterhouse steak. In an interview, Neil gravely announces that they all have to cough up some cash. Geez, what nasty bureaucrats those utilities companies are -- extorting money from their customers by turning their utilities off for non-payment. You know, in a punk co-operative, bullshit like this never happens. Anyway, Mike lies on his side on the couch and grinds his pelvis into a mauve throw pillow to him and announces to the assembled house that they need to figure out how to pay the phone bill. "It's not a question of what they can and can't do," says Mike. "We need to get this phone bill paid by tomorrow." He exposits that Jay and he can get £200 each from their respective ATMs, leaving £145 left to raise by 5 PM the day. Non-sarcastic props to Mike for being useful and organized! Jacinda announces that she'd help out, but that she lost her wallet and won't get a replacement ATM card for two weeks. Sharon has £40. Lars has money in his account to cover the rest which, he feels, entitles him to dress down Neil for letting this go on for so long.
"The phone bill's dumb," says Kat in an interview. "Not because I don't think people should get their money, but I just think we need a better way of organizing it." Kat then demonstrates her contempt for disorganization by defiantly admitting to Mike and the rest of the house that she doesn't have any money for the phone bill, despite the fact that she seems to call her mother at least eight times a day. Apparently she, too, has lost her wallet. When she lets this be known, the boys start trying not to laugh. Kat is all, "What?" In an interview, Lars confesses his befuddlement at the coincidence of Kat's and Jacinda's losing their wallets at the same time. I have to say it's odd that if the cameras are, in fact, following Kat and Jacinda everywhere, there isn't some footage of Kat or Jacinda either losing their wallets or at least telling someone that they lost their wallets earlier. Bunim-Murray don't seem to be backing them up. "Nobody really knows what's going on," says Jay. "Just hopefully everyone will pay and I'll get my money back." Before we cut to a commercial, there is a close-up of said phone bill while "Violet" by Hole plays, and Courtney just happens to be singing, "Go on, take everything, take everything, I dare you to..." Another close-up reveals an ominous note posted on the fridge announcing that they need to pay their phone bill by 5:00 PM that day.
B-roll of London's diverse work force. A guy sells newspapers. A couple of barristers (that's "English lawyers" to you and me) hurry off to court. A hippie smiles wide-eyed at the camera. Some teenagers frolic. And an old man walks around looking confused. Mike skates up to Lars and Jay; they go to an ATM and withdraw money. Mike then counts the money and they go to the bill paying center and pay the bill. Oh, but just when you think the subplot is over and we can go back to Legend and his excrement, the woman behind the desk counts the money and then and only then is their bill paid. I'm starting to think that if Bunim-Murray had been the makers of gay porn classics like Pizza Boys, They Deliver! we'd see the pizza actually being made. They'd show the dough being rolled out, smoothed out with olive oil, covered with sauce, mozzarella and preferred toppings, and then placed into the oven where the pie would be shown baking for fifteen minutes in real time. Then they'd show the pizza boy carefully driving to the hunky customer's house, getting lost a couple of times, and knocking on his door. When the hunky customer answers after fourteen rings, the pizza boy would hand him the pizza and tell him how much he owes. The hunky customer would find a sturdy, heat-resistant surface on which to place the pizza, so that he could dig through his wallet, notice that he only has large bills, and make a remark about this during an interview. The pizza boy would have change, and he'd slowly and carefully count each bill into the hunky customer's hand. There'd be a huge close up of George Washington on the bill. When the hot action finally starts, they would carefully hang their respective outfits on clothes hangers, remove their shoes with shoe horns, and store them on pine shoe trees. Then they would have a ten-minute discussion about who is doing what to whom and how many condoms that would require. Meanwhile, a voice-over would discuss the ethical issues involved in seducing a man to whom you are being paid to deliver pizzas on company time.
So the phone is back on, and who are the first ones we see using it? Jacinda, Sharon, and Kat. It's like caveman times with the men going out to hunt, gather, and pay the phone bill while the women remain back at the cave sitting on their fat asses, eating the brontosaurus steaks the men brought for them and discussing their vaginas like the S&TC girls. But let's not dwell on that, because soon everyone in the house is shown talking on the newly restored phone service, smiles on their faces. Lars, in particular, talks to an unknown caller, and although he's relieved the whole episode is over, he vows to get his own phone line so that he doesn't have to deal with everyone's ineptitude any longer.
But it's still not over yet. "Mike, Jay, and I paid the phone bill two weeks ago," says Lars in an interview. "And we still haven't gotten our money back." He asks Jacinda several times for the money, but Jacinda pleads more cash-flow problems due to her missing cards, which her bank still has failed to replace. Finally, she tells Lars that she has the money, but she waits a week to give it to him. Lars is pissed because it seems that Jacinda doesn't have any consideration for the fact that he needs that money, or how it feels for him to beg her for his money all the time. "Thank you for being understanding for having to wait for the money," says Jacinda to Lars one day in the kitchen. Her lovely wrists peek out from the unbuttoned cuffs of her baby blue men's oxford cloth shirt as she adjusts a magnet on the fridge. The room goes silent and Kat really slowly and smoothly walks off-camera so that she won't get caught in the middle of the oncoming explosion. Sharon chuckles, remaining in the center of the storm. Jacinda smells resentment and carefully says, "You didn't get upset or anything, did you?" Lars admits that he did get upset. Jacinda asks why, and Lars tells her that he resents the fact that she promised to get him the money as soon as she had it, but then waited a week to do so. Jacinda leans on the counter and applies lip gloss while she explains to Lars that she only got the money out recently, even though she had her cards. She's been busy flying and he was away all weekend. Lars explains that ATMs are open twenty-four hours, but Jacinda doesn't get it. She keeps pleading that she doesn't have time to go to an ATM. "Anyway, the point is, it doesn't matter," says Jacinda, pseudo-blissfully. "It's like the point of money is so stupid anyway." Oh yeah, I love those people who try to convince you how right-wing and unspiritual you're being for wanting a loan repaid. Funny how they never see it that way when they're begging you to borrow that money in the first place. In an interview, Jacinda expresses her shock at Lars's attitude. "It's like, 'get a life!'" she laughs.
We see a montage of the house members going on about their business, while Lars voice-overs that he has two problems living in the house. The first problem is that everyone is younger than he is: "And then another thing is being ignorant, not caring about your flatmates." One evening, while the gang is sitting around the living room, Lars enters the room and announces that he is extremely pissed off about something. "I have an £800 bike that got stolen, and no one seems to give a [bleep] about it."
In an interview, Lars recounts coming down the stairs one morning and discovering that his bike was missing from the front hall. Apparently, one of the housemates had left the door open, and someone came inside and stole it. You'd think one of the cameras would have picked up on the intrusion. "What I expect at the least," says Lars to his flatmates, "is that someone should say, 'Hey, I'm sorry about that.'" We see reaction shots of the housemates looking very uncomfortable, despite feeling completely unconcerned. Jacinda asks him what they could possibly do, since no one knows who left the door open. Lars sputters some more, his voice trembling with repressed emotion while he goes off some more to the effect that no one stepped forward to try to console him in his loss. Everyone gets even more uncomfortable. "Even though I told them how mad I was and how much their ignorance hurt me," says Lars in an interview, "everyone just kept quiet and didn't say anything." B-roll of a single car with blaring headlights, prowling the otherwise empty street in front of Attention Deficit Manor.
It's a lovely spring day, so Jacinda, Neil, and Kat walk Legend in some botanical gardens in the park. Jacinda voice-overs some meaningless drivel about apathy in the house and how important communication is. They stop for cake and coffee at a café and discuss "the game." Jacinda thinks they should play it tomorrow night. Neil agrees, hoping that it will "kick things up in the house." Kat voice-overs that she had suggested that they all play this game called "Slam! A Game of Mutual Abuse." "It was more of a joke," she says in an interview. "I wasn't expecting Neil and Jacinda to take me seriously." Back at the house, Neil explains the rules. There are seven pieces of paper. Each one has a different housemate's name on it, and is divided into two columns. In the right column, you write something nasty about the person whose name is on the top of the page. In the left column, you write something nice. Then you fold it over so that no one can see what you wrote, and pass it along to the person until everyone has been "assessed." The fun begins when everyone's page is read aloud to the room. Sharon looks really horrified, like a gigantic piece of poo is holding her at gunpoint. Everyone else giggles nervously and anticipates the oncoming shit storm. Sharon tries to move that everyone write "as politely as possible."
Jay doesn't want to play the game. "You guys can write all you want to about me, and if you want me to read it, that's fine," says Jay, much to the disappointment of his housemates. Neil, in particular, is vocal about his disappointment in Jay for not taking part. Jay explains in an interview that it all seemed wrong to him. "And it all seemed like a cop-out, in a way," he says. "If there are things about me that bother other people, I don't think it should be as easy as putting it into a game." "Jay's just a wuss," says Neil in an interview of his own, wearing that suit again. "He can't handle the truth."
The game begins as Onyx tells us to "SLAM! duuh duuh duuh, duuh duuh duuh! Let the boys be boys!" Everyone fills out the forms. Remarks are made about the tension on the air. Lars lights up a cigarette after he finishes. The forms are collected and read. Everyone thinks that Neil thinks he's way too superior. Kat is described as over-sensitive, attention-starved, and boring. She's also described in the positive column as "cute in the morning." As soon as that is read, she hits Neil in the hairdo. Jacinda is said to be self-centered, inconsiderate, and not very smart. Mike is singled out for being "too anal about [his] cleaning," and a wuss who is clueless about his effect on chicks. Hey, didn't "Anal" Mike just champion his philosophy about the unimportance of hand washing in public toilets? Sharon is, of course, told in no uncertain terms that she needs to shut the hell up sometimes. In an interview, she explains that she felt that those sentiments were pretty harsh and "could have been expressed in a more delicate way." Um, I seem to remember many people politely telling Sharon to pipe down, and that it hasn't helped. Lars is said to be vain and arrogant; one commentator complains about his bike-loss speech. In an interview, Lars is particularly insulted by this comment, since it confirms that no one truly cares about his bike. Once read, the pages are thrown in the fire and the gang applauds their own bravery. Everyone agrees that the game was fun and cathartic. Neil then explains in an interview that a couple of people have come up to him and expressed their doubt over the appropriateness of playing that game: "There were a few little barbed comments that will have stuck in the flesh and hopefully will begin to fester. That's good; that exactly what I wanted." Oh, shut up! More footage is shown of the playing of the game while rapid drum beats suggest tension. Kat, Neil, and Mike sit on the couch together in silence. Neil plays with his necklace. No one has sex.