B-roll of London at night. At the Notting Hill Gate Manse, Mike wants to watch the Super Bowl with Neil, Sharon and Jay so he can "show [them] about America." Maybe he forgot that Jay is American, or maybe he just figured that anyone into musical theater needed an update on "real" American culture as well. Neil decides to be difficult and starts challenging Mike on every last detail of the game, trying to get Mike to admit that American football is stupid by making fun of how one team is dumping water on the other team. "Why would they do that at all?" asks Neil. I don't know, Neil. Why do the English streak during their Soccer games and build crappy arenas whose stands collapse and kill spectators? Sharon has a sit-down where she explains that Neil is into pushing buttons and provoking people. That's a bit generous of Sharon. If Neil were really interested in having a stimulating conversation, why would he be "pushing the buttons" of the dumbest person in the entire house? I mean, can you say, "shooting fish in a barrel"? Neil explains in a sit-down that Michael "typifies the aspects of America" that he's "not too happy about." You're not exactly selling us on English people either, Neil.
This reminds me of these guests we had two summers ago on Cape Cod. When we lived in England, my father had an English colleague who I'll call Dr. Doolittle who became close friends with both my parents. His wife, Mrs. Doolittle, was a really sweet but frumpy woman who gave me piano lessons. After we moved back to the states, Dr. and Mrs. Doolittle got a divorce and Dr. Doolittle took up with an English woman not much older than I. I went home one weekend to visit my mother and my stepfather at their house on Cape Cod, and Dr. Doolittle and the new girlfriend were visiting as well. As soon as I arrived and got introduced to the new girlfriend, the new girlfriend pulled me into the kitchen to tell me how fabulous Dr. Doolittle was in bed. "Uh..." I stammered. "Mrs. Doolittle was my piano teacher." I really couldn't think of anything else to say.
Later that night at dinner with my step-grandparents (who have a house door), everyone had been drinking a lot of wine and having separate conversations. New Girlfriend, apropos of nothing, made everyone be quiet so she could ask us all a question. The question? "How do you Americans justify spending billions of dollars on a space shuttle while there are homeless people all over your country?" There was like ten seconds of silence -- not because we're all patriotic people who are horrified by this bit of information and never think about homelessness, but because we were just all having a nice dinner and all of a sudden this girl we barely knew -- who we were wining and dining -- was forcing us to defend the space program, which, as mere citizens of this country, we have very little to do with. I mean, it's not like when we pay our income tax we get to tell the government to feed the homeless with it and not use it for the space program. "Oh, that's right!" I said, buffered by about three glasses of red wine. "England doesn't have any poverty. That's because they take all that money they saved by not having a space program and they just give right to the poor." At this point everyone applauded and my stepfather turned to my mother and says, "time there's an argument, I want to be on Gustave's side." New Girlfriend didn't back down. I'm not sure what her argument was for why England was different, but she had one. Finally I was like, "Two words, New Girlfriend: Royal. Family."
Montage sequence of Michael walking throughout the streets of London wearing his usual frat boy outfit and baseball cap while "Lost in America" plays. "I love America," says Mike in a sit-down. "I mean, I love everything about my country and I'm proud to be an American and I brought my American flag and I'm dressing like an American...and...and...and I'm American and if they say I'm American then that's great." Mike, it's called obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It affects twenty-four million people worldwide and it can often be treated successfully with a combination of therapy and an appropriate dosage of a seratonin re-uptake inhibitor such as Prozac or Paxil. Speak to your doctor.
Neil mentions to Mike that he stands out on the streets of London as an American and English people are likely to notice and treat him differently. Neil, Americans treat Michael differently. How the hell is Michael going to notice that anything's wrong?
Neil and Michael fight some more about football and whether or not it's a "valid sport." Number one, who cares? And number two, who cares? Neil admits that he doesn't really care, he was just "trying to take the piss" out of Michael. I guess Neil's other challenging activities include wrestling with Christopher Reeve. "I enjoy intellectual games," says Neil. "Why bother living if you can't think?" If sniping at Michael is your idea of an "intellectual game," then hell, I'd rather play American football. Sharon, wearing that grey coat indoors, accuses Neil of being obsessed with power games because he's fundamentally very insecure. Go, Sharon! Now get back into your cage. ["You get back in your cage. Leave Sharon alone!" -- Wing Chun] ["I'm already in my cage: I'm recapping the most boring season of the The Real World ever. Sharon sucks!" -- Gustave]
Kat describes in a sit-down how she's trying to be friends with Neil but it's really hard to get to know him. "There's a physical attraction," she says. "But it's got to stop there because we live together." Yeah, not to mention the fact that Neil has a girlfriend and there are cameras recording your every move. Then we see a montage sequence of Kat and Neil wandering around London making puppy eyes at each other. They stop in an art gallery and roam around there, because art galleries are where intellectuals hang out and with Neil it's all about being intellectual. Furthermore, you can tell that Neil "gets" art because he stands at each painting for a long time with a serious expression on his face. Neil explains in a voice-over that Kat is "attractive, innocent and yet quite driven." He's scared by her youth and by the fact that he's involved with Chrys. He's going to try not to let anything happen between them.
After the commercial break, Neil has another sit-down where he explains that things between him and Chrys have been going badly for the last six months. Then to illustrate this, there's this riveting scene where Neil wants to get some fish and chips and Chrys is all passive-aggressively, "Get whatever you want" and Neil is like, "No, explain yourself." Whoa, if my parents had fought like that back when I was a little boy, someone would have called a child welfare agency. Then there are some other fights between Chrys and Neil where you can't tell what they're fighting about, and Neil explains in another sit-down that he tries to fix their relationship by himself and Chrys doesn't like that because "she'd rather [he] come and tell her everything straightaway." I believe this is boy-code for, "Chrys really hates it when I ignore her for a few weeks. What a bitch!"
Jacinda, Sharon, Lars, and Jay hang out in the kitchen and discuss Neil's upcoming gig. "I'm excited especially because he won't tell us what music it is," says Jacinda, yet again delivering that plot-driving dialogue. "I know I'm either going to love it or hate it, there'll be no in between," says Sharon who no doubt will tell us exactly what she thinks of Neil's music after she tells us how charming the club was where they played and how quaint the neighborhood was where the club was located and how nice it was of her flatmates to undo her shackles and take off her muzzle and allow her to get some air and go to Neil's performance. ["I'll muzzle you." -- Wing Chun] ["Until you realize there's no one else willing to spend their summer recapping RW London. I hate Sharon!" -- Gustave]
Neil explains smugly in a sit-down that he's in three bands at once in order to "keep his options open" and that one of the forms of music he likes to participate in is known as "Progressive Assquake."
"Progressive Assquake," Neil explains, is an attempt to play music at a frequency designed to make people's bowel's involuntarily open up. This raises the eyebrows of all of the housemates as word gets around that the point of Neil's gig is that they are all supposed to soil themselves. Frankly I could use a little Progressive Assquake about right now because Neil's speaking voice seems to be designed to tighten my bowels to the point of constipation. Between his faulty English and his general state of drug-induced confusion, Lars can't wrap his head around the concept of "Progressive Assquake." Sharon explains that Neil's music is designed to make him shit his pants. Speaking of pants, I think I'm also going to point out here that Lars is wearing tight jeans that he has pulled up over his hips so much that I can practically see the veins in his testicles. And it doesn't look sexy, it just looks painful. I mean my gentitals are hurting just looking at him. Why do European men always do that? I'm serious, email me if you know or at least have a theory. ["I've got no complaints on this issue. Tighter, Lars, tighter!" -- Wing Chun] ["Ow!" -- Gustave]
Yes, there's even more footage of Neil challenging his flatmates' intellect. Good God, will someone hook up, please? I swear I will get in a time machine back to 1995, get on a plane to London, borrow a pair of Lars' jeans, pull them up to my underarms and do it with Michael and Sharon at the same time if Neil would just shut up already. Neil picks a fight with Sharon over the artistic validity of Whitney Houston. Oh, what an astute reaction to American culture. ["Particularly since she isn't even American! Why should she have to defend Whitney Houston?" -- Wing Chun] I can't believe that Neil has seen right through the marketing façade of the woman who spent ten weeks at the top of the Billboard singles charts with "I Will Always Love You." There's no pulling the wool over this Brit's eyes. What is he going to say ? Meg Ryan is too perky? Neil, just wait five years and you'll see that Whitney was way more of a bad-ass than you'll ever be. Oh, and Neil? Two words: Kylie. Minogue. ["I think she's Australian so I'll offer this one: Lisa. Stansfield." -- Wing Chun] ["Step off Lisa Stansfeld! She's been around the world and she's gonna find her baby!" -- Gustave]
Sharon talks some more in a sit-down about Neil being provocative. Yes, we get it. Neil is provocative. Too bad he's not interesting. A fish dies in the tank so Neil makes everyone discuss when the fish ceases to become a fish. Shut. Up. Mike fights with him. Kat sleeps. "I need intellectual stimulation and I ain't getting it in this house," says Neil. Oh yeah? I need drugs to stay awake through this episode and I ain't getting them from my local pharmacy. New drinking game. Every time Neil says anything that has to do with the use of anyone's cerebral cortex, you drink.
Sharon explains in a sit-down that they have a "House Motions" list up on the fridge where the housemates can write down any concerns they had or anything they wanted to discuss at the house meeting. "One of Neil's suggestions on the list," says Sharon. "Is that we 'get intellectualized.'" [Drink!] At their house meeting everyone basically flames Neil for making such an arrogant suggestion. "I tried to discuss philosophy with you," says Sharon. "I tried to discuss football with you," says Michael. Neil picks at his eyebrows. In a sit-down, Neil tells us that he's got to leave the house to get a "dose of reasonable debate." Michael points out in a sit-down that Neil made a total fool out of himself by making that suggestion and by trying to prove his own intellectual superiority over the house, he made himself look stupid. Wow, Michael actually said something intellegent. That's gotta hurt.
Neil leaves the house and is shown sullenly walking the streets of London in a black baseball cap and a black leather car coat in search of intellectual stimulation. He ends up at a rehearsal for his gig and sings a song that is in a key way too low for his voice. You know how you're trying to sing along with "Ol' Man River" and when you get to the line, "You'll get a little drink and you'll land in jail" and your voice cracks because you can't get down that far? That's how Neil's voice sounds throughout this song. The song also has this sort of bouncy folky tune like an Irish Spring commercial or one of those songs they make you sing at summer camp while you're on the bus home or you all have to walk eight miles to the archery center. I'm sure Neil thinks it's quite a bad-ass statement, but I don't think my mother would even tell me to turn it down if I were blasting it in the car. Oh yeah, and the lyrics are quite special too:
I care for no one
They're all a bunch of wanks
I strike them once
I strike them twice
and then I'm on my waySo you can just fuck yourselves and all of those like you
Because I have thousands of ways to dislike you.
So you can just fuck yourselves and all of those like you
Because I have one thousand ways to dislike you.
A thousand ways, huh? Shocking! I just crapped my pants having to type that.
Okay, then there's this scene where Neil and Chrys are on the phone and Chrys tells Neil that she's going through a "dissertation panic," and Neil tells her that he's going to leave her alone because she's in a "dissertation panic." I have no idea why they showed us that scene other than to show us that Neil is a self-absorbed brat (which we already know) or that things aren't going so well in Neil-and-Chrys-ville (which we already know) or that Chrys has a lot of school work to do (which we didn't already know but weren't all that interested to find out).
So one day it's Valentine's Day and Jacinda gets roses from Paul, her model boyfriend. Okay, that was nice, Jacinda. Now get out of the way because this episode is all about Neil, and you're intruding. Chrys sends Neil a pig's heart with a nail through it. She includes a note that says, "This is 'The Real World.'" Have I mentioned yet how much I love Chrys? Neil, wearing a sweater panda that makes him look like a Panda, explains that he was quite disturbed by the gesture and attributes his feelings to his "current state of psychotic paranoia." Neil, paranoia is a psychosis, there's no need for you to classify your current anxiety as "paranoia" let alone to qualify "paranoia" with "psychotic." I just thought you'd like to know that, since you're an Oxford Psychology student. Love, Gustave, an American who's never studied Psychology. Neil goes to her job and confronts her. Chrys is all, "It was a joke, calm down!" He gives her a barbed-wire valentine. They make up.
More Kat and Neil walking around London frustrated by their inability to hook up.
The gang, including Chrys, shows up at Neil's gig. Okay, so, remember that craptastic song the lyrics of which I reprinted above? A shirtless Neil takes the mike and sings that song and dedicates it to the mother of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and to his flatmates. I'm happy to report that the housemates aren't really insulted; they just look really confused, except Jacinda who totally cracks up. Chrys just looks like she wants to run somewhere and hide. The song ends with Neil lying on stage in all his leather pantsed glory. And just think! When Whitney does the very same thing, everyone thinks she's on drugs.