"Thieves Like Us" by New Order chugs along in the background while we see the exterior of one of those huge expo centers, where something called the Ideal Home Show is taking place. "Look at those couches, man!" gushes Mike. Yes, folks, last week Mike found his "theatrical" side, and now he's found the furniture queen within. What's for Mike? Kiehl's products? A dog grooming license? Anyway, Sharon is selling tents again. Because if there's any story line on which you wanted closure, it's what happened with Sharon and the whole tent-selling thing. In an interview, Sharon explains that she was "going mad in the house," so she got a job selling tents. Oh, so is that why so many people work for a living? Because they're going mad in their homes? I had always thought that the jobs were a way to make money and therefore were the reason people actually had homes in the first place, but maybe things are different in England. Sharon is demonstrating tents when the Attention Deficit Manor gang drops by. Jay explains in an interview that Sharon had an hour for lunch, so they all went off to explore the rest of the Ideal Home Show. Lars explains in an interview that after a couple of hours, he started reminding Sharon that she had to get back to work, but Sharon kept insisting that she had more time. "You know, I was having a good time with my friends and walking around and the last thing I was thinking about was getting back to work," says Sharon in a voice-over, while we see her trying out furniture, telephones, AV equipment, and other home-show-type stuff, without a care in the world. Then Lars does an interview in which he does a hilarious impression of Sharon realizing she has to get back to work. Sharon runs back to the tent stand; her boss -- this scowly-looking Indian woman -- doesn't want to say anything in front of the cameras, but you can tell that Sharon is in deep shit. "She's not purposely being late and purposefully staying away for two hours," says Lars in an interview. "She just forgets," he continues ironically, getting all melodic and sticking out his lower lip just like Sharon. I am starting to like Lars.
B-roll of London at night. "Get yourself together, Sharon," Sharon's boss tells Sharon over the telephone. "I feel like bringing the phone down on you." Apparently, this is the third time this week that Sharon has been completely irresponsible. Sharon apologizes profusely and gets off the phone. "Tragedy strikes!" says Sharon sarcastically, shrugging the whole thing off and stomping back to her bedroom. In an interview, Sharon informs us that it takes her a long while to notice when she's angry or upset about something. Um, what about when people are upset and angry with you? When do you notice that?
The day, after some b-roll of London, we see Kat walking to school. She voice-overs that she's glad she's taking classes in London. For some reason they show a close-up of her student ID and (finally) we learn that she's attending a school called Richmond-on-Thames College. A visit to Richmond's website seems to indicate that Richmond is one of those barely accredited universities that exists primarily to cater to the mediocre American student who wants to spend her junior year in London and doesn't care where she has to study to do it. After all, everyone in the U.S. just assumes that any old British school would have to be really good, and since it looks like Kat was accepted the day she walked into Richmond's admissions office, I'm not exactly impressed. "I'm glad I'm taking some classes that deviate from my standard set of academic classes," says Kat, making excuses for the fact that there probably aren't any classes taught at Richmond that any decent American college would deign to include in its curriculum. One of these "deviations" is a class called "Postmodern Theory and Practice" which I suspect involves a lot of heated discussions about Madonna song lyrics and Brady Bunch episodes. She's also taking Modern Drama and Art. Kat explains in an interview that doing well in school is important to her because she's on a full scholarship to NYU and needs to keep her grades up. They show her studying at the dining-room table. Kat and Sharon walk somewhere together, and Kat makes Sharon help her go over some lines she needs to memorize for her drama class. In a confessional, Kat reiterates her need to do well in school. Okay, unless one is at Juilliard, since when does one stress out over a drama elective?
Sharon, Neil, and Mike are having another one of those philosophical arguments about war or something. Mike and Neil are both ganging up on Sharon, but we don't really get to hear the exact nature of the argument. Neil accuses Sharon of naïvely arguing that "everyone should just hang out and be nice." Sharon protests that she never said such a thing. "Sharon always has an opinion and always expresses it, which can be good," says Neil. "But when you're talking loud and saying nothing, maybe you should keep quiet for a while." No comment. Mike, in a confessional, complains that Sharon argues without "focus." So then we have one of those "train" sequences. You know how every time a female Real World housemate reaches the so-called end of her tether, the producers always illustrate this artistically by showing lots of shots of trains? Although I have to confess that I'm not sure why a breakdown is signified by a train. Trains are pretty sane methods of transportation. I mean, yeah, Freud thought that a train entering a tunnel signified something sexual, but that's really the only train motif I've heard connected to anything psychological. Anyway, we see Sharon in a close-up, and cut to a few shots of some trains. Then we see a flashback of that Slam game, during which Jacinda reads comments about Sharon and the fact that she can't shut up. A voice-over by Sharon explains that things are building up inside her despite her "bold demeanor." We see another flashback is shown: this one is that gyno-cam shot from Outward Bound when Sharon is trying to get across the ropes course and Jacinda keeps kicking the rope with her foot. Oh, wait -- Sharon is actually going somewhere on this train. She's visiting her friend Amanda who, according to a Sharon interview, was born the same day as Sharon and knows her "inside and out." Amanda greets Sharon at the train station and turns out to be yet another fat girl with an "exuberant" personality. They have a glass of wine somewhere; Sharon breaks down in front of Amanda and confesses that her housemates belittle her all the time. Amanda, who looks as if she's had a few more glasses of wine than Sharon has (and who can blame her?) protests that Sharon shouldn't be made fun of because she's not a fool. Sharon awkwardly starts to cry and Amanda is all, "Please don't be upset, Sharon, lots of people love you!" And apparently it's easier to love Sharon when you've had a few drinks. "People just don't understand me," moans Sharon.
After a commercial break, Lars is in the kitchen with Sharon, for some reason trying to unclog the sink with a knife. Sharon is in the middle of making spinach and potato soup and says she has to leave the room to "get some water." Funny, I thought the kitchen was usually where one "got some water." Sharon exits, walking straight past the water cooler and disappears. Hours later, Sharon's mess is still all over the kitchen and Mike comes in and starts complaining. Lars explains to Mike that Sharon doesn't feel well. Mike is not impressed. Kat realizes that something is terribly wrong because Sharon is "quiet." She feels cold but is running a fever. "I went straight to bed," says Sharon. "And slept right through Monday and Tuesday." But not before she grinds a little pity out of her flatmates by sitting meekly at the breakfast table wrapped in a sleeping bag, rocking herself back and forth.
So now that Sharon can't practice her lines with Kat, Jay offers to fill in. "It's a very female scene," warns Kat. "You have to be weeping." Jay asks Kat whether he may read it. Kat hands him the book, and he starts cracking up. Soon he is really getting into pretending to be weeping over the fact that his character lost her virginity. Lars walks past and gives Jay a strange look. But you see, it's not all fun and games. Kat explains in an interview that she can't afford to get a bad grade. She literally can't afford it, financially. Then we see shots of her walking the streets of London, a serious expression on her face, intercut with shots of her biting down on pencils while sitting at her computer. She enters her drama class and announces that she's doing a scene from No Exit. Okay, for some reason, there is literally a huge cloud of dry ice on stage as Kat goes through her monologue for her drama class. Anyway, not only is Kat's reading of this piece pretty sucky, but she also flubs her lines and stands around on stage for what seems to be several minutes with her head in her hands, trying to remember her line. In a confessional, Kat explains that if she lost her scholarship, she could end up back in Washington with no job skills. "So I get frustrated at times," says Kat, while we see a shot of her getting frustrated on stage. Her teacher tells her to take a deep breath and relax. Once again, since when does anyone stress out over a drama class? Especially over a drama class taught at a barely accredited English school that probably goes on your record as pass/fail to begin with? Kat starts the monologue again, but flubs her line again. Back at Attention Deficit Manor, Kat gulps down some hot chocolate and bitterly explains to Neil that her drama teacher told her she was "awkward and clumsy as well as large" and that she failed to "occupy a space with any presence." Neil chuckles. He's probably thinking, "I'd like to occupy her space, heh heh."
Meanwhile, Sharon still languishes in bed, her body consumed by the crazy mysterious Sharon illness. She peeps out like a zombie behind her giant forest green comforter and milks it for all it's worth. Kat comes by for a visit and tells her that she's "scaring the whole household." Whereas before she was just annoying the hell out of everyone. Sharon manages to tell Kat that she can't swallow. Kat offers to call a doctor. Sharon doesn't even respond. Lars calls a doctor, who tells him to bring Sharon in the day. Unfortunately, Sharon can't move. She squeaks that she has earaches and nosebleeds. Lars tells her that the doctor told him that if it was just tonsillitis, she'd be able to move. The housemates get even more worried. Lars calls another doctor who actually gets concerned enough to make a house call. Neil explains in a voice-over that, in England, they have the National Health Service, which means that "if you're really sick, you can get a doctor to come to the house." Funny, I had always heard that having the National Health Service (i.e. socialized medicine) meant that you had to wait forever in a nasty dank state-run waiting room to see a doctor. ["Doesn't that happen at HMOs, too? I'm just saying." -- Wing Chun] I'm not being critical of socialized medicine. It's a lovely idea and I'd be thrilled if we could get something like that in the U.S. But given that you can't even get a house call from a registered nurse in the U.S. even when you have private insurance, I don't understand how Sharon is getting a house call from an actual M.D. that's being paid for by the state. ["I have lived with socialized medicine most of my life, and while I think the standard of care is pretty high here, I've never heard of anyone getting a house call." -- Wing Chun] I mean, there's a legitimate reason that ex-pat Madonna fled the U.K. as soon as she went into labor and had her second child in an American hospital. It's called "getting what you pay for." Anyway, the doctor enters the house, goes up to Sharon's room, pokes around in her throat for a while, and diagnoses her as having a "nasty case of tonsillitis." Sharon is all, "That's what I thought I had." The doctor writes her out, like, nineteen different prescriptions for antibiotics and such.
Bunim: [looking over the dailies] Fuck, shit, bitch, piss, doody, sissy, crap!
Murray: Mary-Ellis? Are you sure those diet pills are really such a good idea?
Bunim: Jonathan, I'm serious. Get a gander at this doctor!
Murray: Jiminy Cricket! That women is homely!
Bunim: Hey, Paula Poundstone called, she wants her self-loathing dykey attitude back!
Murray: In generations past we'd have called her "plain." Now she's just a freak. Who let her on the set?
Bunim: I'm told they had to let her in the house despite her camera unfriendliness because apparently Sharon was sick or something and it was an emergency.
Murray: Oh, I hate it when that happens.
Bunim: I think I'm going to distribute a memo to the production team. The time someone is sick, have the hospital send over a selection of doctors, and have them meet us outside the house so that we can take some Polaroids and make a casting decision. Jesus H. Christ! Where did she get that blazer? Today's Man? That Jimmy is a helluva production manager but sometimes he just panics and doesn't think too hard y'know?
Murray: It can happen to the best of us. Have some more coke.
So you'd think Sharon would have taken some pleasure in suffering the nastiest illness anyone in the house has had all season. I mean so far, Lars's flu/head injury combo doesn't hold a candle to Sharon's tonsillitis, seeing as there wasn't no homely doctor making a house call for Lars, not to mention the fact that Lars was well enough to get up and crack his head open. Sharon can't even do that. Since Sharon's firmly in the lead, you'd think she'd get a little lazy, rest on her laurels, and stop to smell the flowers but it's just not enough attention and drama for Sharon. No! Sharon is going to ride this illness for all it's worth, so get ready!
Okay, has anyone else watched Traffik, the U.K. version of Traffic? I can't stop recommending it to people. It's just so amazing. Anyway, there's this scene I will never forget in which this Pakistani woman makes a deal with this drug lord to serve as one of his "mules" in return for him paying to have her husband released from prison. She has no choice but to co-operate because she just moved to the overcrowded city Karachi from the countryside where she and her husband were simple poppy farmers until their farms were destroyed by the government. Now that there's no work to be found in Karachi, her husband had to work for a drug dealer. So the scene that really creeped me out was in this doctor's office where the wife is being instructed on how to swallow the balloon filled with heroin. Her two kids are sitting to her and the doctor is yelling at her because she keeps gagging on the balloon and can't swallow it even after he dipped it in some honey. Finally after, like, five minutes, she gets the thing down; she gets up to leave and the doctor is like, "Where are you going?" and explains that they wouldn't pay for her ticket from Karachi to London if she were only carrying such a meager amount. He hands her the rest of her "stash," which contains what looks like at least two dozen more balloons, and that's the end of the scene. Anyway, Sharon is giving some Pakistani Woman In Traffik-style action. She can't keep any of her medicine down because she can't swallow it. The house pulls together to help Sharon swallow her medicine, but she can't. Instead, she spits it into a napkin and sobs hysterically. It's gets so bad, even Jacinda gets concerned and explains in an interview that Sharon couldn't even swallow her own spit. Jacinda calls the doctor back and they tell her to "attend Casualty," which I assume is like going to the emergency room. ["I believe you are correct." -- Wing Chun] Kat bundles Sharon up and puts her into a cab. "I couldn't go with her because I had a class," says Kat in a voice-over. "But as soon as she was gone I wished I had gone with her." Sharon checks into "Casualty" and has a seat in the waiting room. I guess we're supposed to feel bad for Sharon all alone there in this big bureaucratic hospital, but I'd just like to remind everyone that the camera crew are there for Sharon. I'm sure they kept her company.
After a commercial break, a fleet of better-looking doctors look Sharon over and decide that she needs to spend some time at the hospital. A chubby but cute Indian intern explains to Sharon that they're going to give her penicillin intravenously as well as some fluids. Apparently Sharon is legitimately dehydrated. She's not in rehab or anything! Hey, remember Sharon's fear of needles? No? Well, here's a reminder. They're hooking her up to an IV drip, and she squeals like Sally Field in Sybil when she's forced to listen to Dvorak. In a voice-over, presumably from the future after she got better, Sharon explains that she could have died if the infection had spread any further. The gang comes to visit her in the hospital, and unlike the time she had her throat surgery, when she wasn't supposed to speak, she really can't speak this time. Sharon's mother explains to Jacinda and Jay that Sharon had an abscess, which the doctors said was the largest one they'd ever seen. Sharon glows with price while her mother describes how the doctors had to slit her throat to lance it. Jacinda explains in an interview that Sharon was acting "excited and happy" while she was in the hospital. "She was just like Sharon," says Jacinda. "But without a voice. Oh wait, I guess you can't be Sharon without a voice." Meow.
Back at Attention Deficit Manor, the gang discusses the fact that Sharon will be back on Sunday, and that her bout of tonsillitis was the worst case of tonsillitis the doctors had seen in years. Oh, and Mike hates hospitals. But he goes with Lars to visit Sharon anyway. By now, Sharon is able to speak, but she sounds like Linda Purl playing Shaun Cassidy's retarded girlfriend in that 1979 made-for-TV movie Like Normal People. Sharon describes the lancing of the abscess to Mike, and he's clearly disturbed. You walk about with that haircut and you're grossed out by an abscess? In an interview, Lars basically repeats what Jacinda said: that Sharon was "happy and excited" in the hospital. Sharon, in an interview done after she gets her voice back, says how "happy and excited" she was when her housemates came to visit her.
Unfortunately, Kat is not "happy and excited." According to a confessional by Jacinda, Kat feels lousy about herself. "Everybody in the house gets that feeling about Kat -- that she needs someone or something to love," says Jacinda in an interview. Not that any other interviews with the housemates indicate that they, in fact, agree that Kat needs someone or something to love. Why would Jacinda make up something like that? So she can buy Kat a kitten and not be the only housemate with an inappropriate pet, that's why! Jacinda drags Jay to the home of some old lady who has kittens for adoption, and selects a black one. They go home and surprise Kat by throwing the thing into her bedroom and holding the curtains closed. Thankfully, Kat is touched by this gesture. If someone gave me a kitten as a "surprise," I can't say I'd be quite as delighted with the responsibility thrust upon me against my will. Oh, and I just have to say here that in spite of the fact that Jacinda has brought yet another animal into a house that can barely take care of the dog the housemates already have, you have to be made of stone not to be moved by the sight of the kitten and Legend getting along right away and sniffing each other's butts. This is the stuff that kitty posters are made of. A slightly disturbed-looking Kat confirms in an interview that she had wanted a kitten, but adds, "It's not like I expected anyone to go out and get me a kitten. I wasn't dropping hints or anything." We hear "Atomic Dog" again and see a montage sequence featuring Legend and the new kitten frolicking together. Kat claims that the new kitten has changed all the men in the house "into big softies." Because, you know, before the kitten arrived, the house was just jam-packed with testosterone. In fact, I heard a rumor that Jay left the toilet seat up once.
It's time for Sharon to check out of the hospital. She packs her things and moves back into Attention Deficit Manor. In voice-overs, Neil and Mike explain that Sharon was acting "different" after she left the hospital, as shots of Sharon acting uncharacteristically sassy are shown to illustrate said difference. "She seems a bit more cynical," says Neil in a confessional. Mike enters the kitchen and finds Sharon doing dishes; he makes a comment about what a rare sight that is. "Could someone please come up with an original joke, please?" says Sharon. Later on she corrects Lars's manners. "Usually she just sits and takes it," says Mike in an interview. "But now she gives it out." In a confessional, Sharon admits that she's become "hard" after all she's been through. "I can honestly say now that I really have some real friends here," says Sharon in the confessional. Then we see her cheekily pulling down Jacinda's skirt in the kitchen. So the lesson learned this week is this: if you are annoying and inconsiderate and pissing off all of your friends, get really sick and they'll feel so sorry for you that they'll be your friends again. The end.