Previously: Eric and Kevin fought. Then we got to meet Eric's anorectic girlfriend.
Julie and Kevin sit on the couch quizzing each other from the "Do You Do It With the Lights On?" handbook. Kevin asks Julie a variety of questions, from whether she kisses with her eyes open to how she first learned about sex to if she's done it with more than one person in a week. When Julie asks Kevin how he learned about sex, he says, deadpan, "From the Flintstones. All I know is one day Pebbles appeared and they had to be doin' something."
All this is intercut with montages of Julie being cute, dancing, in a cab, et cetera, and of Kevin kissing a girl while Heavy D's "Is He Good to You?" plays in the background.
Julie refuses to answer whether she's on top or bottom during sex. Kevin refuses to answer if he pees in the shower, then confesses that he's had sex with someone and forgotten her name.
Ooh. Big question. Kevin, cackling, says, "How long do you think you could live comfortably without sex?" Julie says, sort of shyly, "So far, nineteen years." This floors Kevin.
Kevin's one-on-one is intercut with MORE scenes of Julie frolicking with her dog at her home in Alabama. We get it. She's frickin' adorable. Anyway, he says "Most men are dogs, so I think it is to Julie's advantage that she remains a virgin," and he goes on about the perfidy of men and how they say they'll love you and then turn around and leave you. I think Kevin's Cro-Magnon tendencies have a sweet impulse, but I do think he's got some weird issues going on around Julie and her hymen. Kevin says he'd hate to think of Julie losing her virginity one night to some guy and then that guy not being there one week or one month later or whatever.
shots: Julie's Big Date. She is dating some romance cover reject who has mistaken big Stonehenge-sized teeth and enormous blow-dried hair for sex appeal. I'm sure, if Fabio were in the area, he would feel very threatened. He's obviously in his late thirties and way, way creepy and saccharine. Blech! Obviously Julie (and the editors) think so too, because one shot prominently features Julie sticking out her tongue as far as it will go. Julie, throughout the date, looks like something nasty was caught in her craw. As soon as the guy drops her off at her door -- and no goodnight kiss -- she slams it shut and slumps to the floor, looking relieved and cackling. I guess Julie was lactose-intolerant after all.
The gang sits around and grills Julie like a cheese sandwich about her date. Now we get little flashbacks. Le Grand Fromage, as I like to call her date, meets-and-greets with Norman and compliments him on his art. Noman's one-on-one. He says, "Uh, Stockwell's a big guy," and goes on to say how he's a painter as well, and Norman felt a little threatened by him -- maybe because of the painter thing, or the guy thing, or because he was dating Norman's roommate.
Back to the grill session. Andre asks Julie what she ate at Lox Around the Clock. She says chicken and some other items and some kind of "pea or bean." Andre asks, "How was the conversation?" and Julie says, straight-faced, "Stimulating."
Flashback to Julie and Le Grand Fromage at Lox Around the Clock. She looks less than stimulated. Like, almost comatose. LGF reaches over to massage her shoulder and arm. Julie gives him the hairy eyeball and asks what he's doing. He says, "Checking for muscle content," and proceeds to tell her she has a sturdy frame. Julie sort of rolls her eyes and comments that she also has wide hips, so she'd be good for breeding. LGF chuckles. Then he checks out her hips and says she doesn't have sturdy hips. Then he makes her high-five him. Then he tells her she has a good tape collection and something else stupid that he obviously thinks is wildly flattering, and asks her if she wants to get married. Let me just say that this is the worst date I've ever seen or heard about. It may even top the date my friend Susan went on with the guy who showed her pictures of his three kids -- all by different women.
Back to the grill session. Norman remarks dryly that she's found quite a prize. Heather and Norman speculate how old LGF is. They say older than thirty-one or younger than forty-one. Julie squawks, "You guys are driving me crazy!"
Back to the date. LGF murmurs to Julie, "You have a tremendous capacity for someone nineteen years old." Yes -- a tremendous capacity for bile, going by how long Julie's been able not to throw up on his shoes. Julie tells him, "You're obsessed with that." LGF says, "Would you call me Dad?" and then starts cackling. Julie looks appalled and tries to keep eating, looking away and ha-ha-ing uncomfortably. Jesus! Why the hell didn't Bunim-Murray send her on this date with a taser gun? This guy should be put down as quickly as possible!
Julie's one-on-one. She snots at LGF and his dumb comments.
Back to the grill session. Heather sympathizes with Julie and says she doesn't like to talk about her dates, either. Norman says he wants to know more about Julie's "strapping young buck." Someone else -- I think Andre -- wants to know where they met.
Date flashback. LGF stands up, murmuring something about a wicked cramp in his leg, and leaves the table.
Julie's one-on-one. She says she knew things were not going well when her date got up to go stretch out at the bar. She says, "I knew I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Back to the grill session. Julie asks Norman, "Is he big, Norman?" Beat. Norman: "He looks it." Julie rolls her eyes. "I'm talking about height, Norman!" Everyone cracks up. And somehow, I think not. You know what they say -- the bigger the hair, the smaller the blowdryer.
Kevin, Heather and Julie stroll the streets of NYC. In Kevin and Julie's respective one-on-ones, they talk about how much they like one another. To Julie, Kevin is like a brother, who's teaching her so much. To Kevin, Julie is someone very innocent and special, whom he hopes doesn't get corrupted by the Big, Bad City or the loft residents. Umm, Kevin? Mickey Rourke called, and he wants his bad-boy complex back. Get over yourself!
Kevin at Penn Station, picking up his girlfriend. They kiss as "Love Will Never Do Without You" by Janet "Miss Jackson If You're Nasty" plays. His girlfriend is really pretty. Her name is Kasimi (sp?), I think -- and Kevin says he loves her very much, and how they have a lot in common, both being interested in the arts. He also talks about how she's really open about wanting a family, and since he's only thirty (at this point, writing appears above his head that says, "He's only 26!") he wants to start thinking about that too. Anyway. Blah blah blah strong womancakes. Kasimi yap yap yap. Kasimi's a strong woman like Kevin's mom. But Kasimi can open up her sensitive side more, unlike Kevin's mom.
-- in a supreme example of super-subtle Bunim-Murray editing -- we get a montage of Kevin's mom being silent, her rather sterile kitchen, Kevin sitting and looking muy uncomfortable, and unused pots on the stove top.
Kevin talks about his dad. His dad and mom weren't married, and he showed up occasionally until Kevin was eight, and at that point he essentially disowned Kevin and told his mom that Kevin wasn't his son. Kevin says that's marked him and made him ultra-aware of being as responsible as possible.
House meeting. Julie tells the house that the point of this living experiment was so they could learn about one another, and that it worked the first few weeks, but everyone's taking off their own separate ways, and maybe they need to just sit down together and have some enforced get-to-know-ya time. Kevin almost gets a nose bleed from his high horse as he informs Julie that they all have their careers and bills to worry about after this living experiment is over, and that she's the only one with time to worry about this kind of thing. Julie very kindly does not chuck a lamp at his head, which would have been my first response.
Then Eric Nies gets all Sensitive New Age Guy and confesses that he'd like to get to know them all better, but he's scared it'll pull him "away from what I'm really trying to do with my life." Huh. Why do I get the feeling Eric's been listening to those "Living, Loving and Learning" audiotapes again? Andre suggests they have a set dinner time together, maybe on Sundays. Kevin says he's down with that, and that he'll even cook the first dinner. Ruh-roh. Izzat foreshadowing, or what?
scene. The caption "Unseasonably Bad Weather" appears as we see Andre, Julie, and Norman frolicking in the snow to the market. Then -- BARFORAMA -- we see Julie licking a big snowball. She tells Norman cheerfully, "When you think about it, it's just like a big sno-cone!" Norman, very seriously, tells her, "Don't. Eat. The snow. IN NEW YORK." Julie: listen to the man.
Julie's one-on-one. She talks about how that Sunday dinner no one wanted to leave the loft or go to the store, and that going to the store with "these people" is the biggest ordeal imaginable. More boring shots of them in the store, bickering like they're all married. Oh, by the way -- everyone hates Eric. At the cash register, Julie does a good job of faking Norman out by telling him she's only got three dollars on her.
Uh-oh! Norman's one-on-one. He says part of the deal with them going to the market is that the crew at home would tape Star Trek, but as it turnsssssnoooooooooooore. Oh. Sorry. Anyway, his one-on-one is intercut with Heather telling Norman that Star Trek wasn't on when he said it was, and Norman saying yes it is, because look, duh, it's ending right now. I think we've got Trouble with a capital T, that rhymes with P, that stands for Pissed Off. Norman is pretty upset. He admits he is obsessed with Star Trek. Andre tosses Norman a Twinkie to placate him with sugar. Eric suddenly reinserts that icicle he keeps as a rectal thermometer and snits at Norman, "Hello -- we're about to have dinner! You shouldn't be eating a Twinkie before we have dinner." Norman ostentatiously shoves the Twinkie in his mouth. Eric gets even snittier. It's pretty funny, watching him turn into Donna Reed. There is a very visible pall hangin' over this dinner crew.
Eric: "Becky was cooking. Andre was cooking. Kevin...I don't know where he was." Yeah, so much for that "responsibility" crapola. Julie reiterates what Eric just said in her one-on-one, but tries to excuse Kevin by saying he had a lot on his mind and the dinner didn't rank very high. Becky's one-on-one. She's pissed. And bummed. Shots of the boo-hoo-me-too crew sitting around the table, looking glum. Eric tells us how since Kevin didn't show up for dinner that night, they decided to all play a joke on him. "And...it worked."
Kevin's one-on-one. He says he forgot about the dinner, because he had a poetry reading that same night. Some painful shots of Kevin essaying a few lines of poesy. Gag. Me. Shots of Kevin walking home through the city.
Back to the Little Rascals. Becky explains: The Big Joke they decided to play is that they would all switch personalities on Kevin, and videotaped the process so Kevin could see it after the joke was done. Julie would become a big tramp, Andre would be an innocent country bumpkin who likes "Tammy Wynette and Peggy Lee." Eric would be a nerdy queen (no comment) and Norman would be a hippie-kleptomaniac. Julie, vamping it up, squeals, "I get to be a whore!" Wow. These kids are totally amateurs. They need to talk to Sal Mendez, who I went to elementary school with, and once made us all cupcakes and frosted them with Ex-Lax. Now that was a practical joke, kids.
"Goody Goody Two Shoes" by Adam and the Ants plays as we see endless shots of Julie getting ready -- fake tattoos, big hair, the whole bit. Eric slaps on a little pancake, and Norman puts on some necklaces.
Kevin enters the loft, looking confused. The caption "The Joke Begins" appears as Norman enters the bathroom, where Eric is showering. He calls, "Eeeric, are you done washing?" Kevin watches in disbelief as Eric calls out for Norman to wash his back. Norman pretends to do so. Norman tells Kevin, "Look! He's hung like a horse!"
Eric: "Kevin was horrified." Kevin: "I had no idea Eric was gay. I sure knew Norman was, though. And then I saw Norman pinch Eric's butt." Eric: "Boy, was Kevin horrified!" Tee-hee!
More Adam and the Ants. Julie slaps on about a pound of foundation and Andre braids his hair. Andre bears an uncanny resemblance to Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls in these scenes.
Julie, still en dishabille, floats down the stairs and smiles at Kevin as Kevin jokes, "What were you doing up there? You and Andre, huh?" Then Andre, in overalls, braids, and bare feet, comes down the stairs. Kevin and Norman play pool as Norman eyeballs Kevin's necklace and asks him several questions about it.
Kevin: "Norman's always been strange to me, but in a good way, but then I noticed that he was wearing other peoples' stuff. But then Julie -- Julie really took me out."
A few moments later, on the couch. Kevin asks Julie if she's trying to change her image. Julie, deadpan, her hair in curlers, tells Kevin that Sex Sells.
Eric: "Julie was the best, she totally blew Kevin's mind, tee-hee!" He says: "Her hair was all curled, she had red lipstick on, she was straight out of Jersey City." Julie, at the dinner table, does indeed look like an extra from a Bon Jovi video. She's also eating seductively, which involves fellating a fork, and Kevin keeps looking up and getting freaked out. Eric has his hair slicked back and is wearing an open vest over bare skin. He looks like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals, if Alfalfa grew up and became a bottom. Norman is wearing a top hat, assorted plastic necklaces, and some various batik-print skater clothes.
Kevin keeps mumbling, "This seems sort of abrupt." Andre tells him it's been happening for a while, he just hasn't been there to see it. Kevin keeps asking Julie when/how/why this happened, and Julie drawls something she ripped off of some Marlene Dietrich movie about feeling "overwhelmed...the rain...the seasons." Kevin shakes his head and tells her he thought she was the last sincere person on the planet. She smiles enigmatically and says, "Well, we're the last of a dying breed, you know."
Kevin, thinking he's being discreet, mouths at her, "Are you still a virgin?" across the dinner table. OKAY. Someone. Please. KILL HIM. What the hell?
Julie smiles smarmily and shakes her head no. Norman pipes in, "Fourth date! He was a big, strapping young buck." I think Kevin should take his concern with Julie's secret garden and shove it up his ass -- when did he become guardian of her hymen? He looks appalled. Close-ups of everyone eating. Everyone then leaves the table. Then Julie seductively turns her gaze to Kevin. He gets uncomfortable and asks if she's really changing her image. He tells her it's not her, and that if she's not true to herself, she can't be true to anyone else. She tells him, "It's still me," and that she has to grow up sometime. Cooing, she says, "I'm still nice. I'm nicer." Julie is definitely doing the best of anyone with her dialogue. She gets up and says she has to change clothes.
Kevin talks about seeing other people move to the city and totally change their personalities, but seeing Julie do a 360 [sic] freaked him out, and he had to leave. So he does. Norman calls out, "Kevin's leaving!" and Julie runs after him, dressed in tap pants, a blazer, and a bra. Apparently Becky has been loaning out her wardrobe.
week: the joke backfires, and we deal with endless Eric Nies re-enactments.