B-roll of the back of a charming set of London row houses. We see Jay talking to his beard...I mean, "his girlfriend." They are both excited that Jay is coming home to Portland a week from tomorrow. So Jay explains in an interview that he wants to get his girlfriend "a nice little thing that would just be cute...and something a soccer player would wear." A jockstrap? Shin guards? A nice oversized rugby shirt with dirt and grass stains on it? Jacinda takes Jay to this place that she says is the "trendiest lingerie shop in all of London." Jacinda leads Jay into this storefront. I can't make out the name of the shop, but the interior makes it look like a poor step-cousin of Victoria's Secret. It's sort of a sad little store with all these racks of underwear bursting forth from the painted particle-board walls amid framed photos of non-supermodels. Does Jacinda have a friend who owns a lingerie shop and has nude photos of Jacinda he's using to blackmail her? Seriously, I can't get over how much they're hyping this bad lingerie store yet not letting us know the actual name of said lingerie store. So then Jay does a little comedy -- you know, since his performance a few weeks ago just awakened the performer within. He walks around the store looking sheepish and yet simultaneously draws attention to himself by laughing like a maniac as if to say, "Oh my God, I'm in a lingerie store! Where is my mommy? Where is my daddy?" Jacinda follows him around and tries to coax him into telling her what he wants to see on his girlfriend. It's not stage-y or belabored at all. Except for the stage-y and belabored part. Jacinda is acting like Annie Sullivan to Jay's Helen Keller, awakening Jay to the vast world of women's underthings. Jay nixes one piece because he doesn't think his girlfriend would wear anything "clingy like that." Jacinda laughs sweetly but condescendingly and explains to Jay that "underwear is supposed to cling!" Upon discovering the lost city of clingy underwear, Jay jerks around some more and laughs maniacally. They discuss a lace slip that Jay doesn't think he has the courage to buy. "I can't deal with lace...because I like it," says Jay -- a little too ironically, if you ask me. He explains in an interview that he's "not exactly a lingerie connoisseur" and praises Jacinda for helping him buy lingerie. "I'm proud of you, Jay," says Jacinda as they leave the store with their purchase.
But then, this is all in a day's work for Jacinda. Apparently, not a day goes by in which Jacinda doesn't do something impish and almost sexy. "She's always pushing buttons," says Sharon. To illustrate this charmingly contrary behavior, Jacinda is shown goosing Sharon and then later wrapping a scarf around Neil's head which gets him really angry because he can't breathe. One night she dares Kat to take off all her clothes and run naked around the block. They are shown running outside with coats on over their bare legs. A far away shot (on a misty night, mind you) reveals that Jacinda has torn off her coat and Kat still has hers wrapped tightly around her. If you squint really hard, you can kind of see Jacinda's butt. Mike mentions, in an interview, how astonished he is over the girls' reckless behavior. But wait, there's more! Jacinda explains in an interview that she and Sharon were bored one day, so they prank-called a random guy. Jacinda acts like this desperate, clingy, teenage girl. She tells the guy that they've met before, but he just doesn't remember. She also tells him that she's got these scabs. "But they're not herpes," she says, putting the phone under a pillow so that she can crack up. "Because I've had herpes once." Finally, after scaring the shit out of this poor confused man, Jacinda "realizes" that she has the wrong number and hangs up. That actually was pretty damn funny. And it was sort of sweet to see Sharon enjoying Jacinda's meanness for once instead of being a target of it. I guess now that Sharon is giving it back, Jacinda has developed some respect for her.
Jay and his steady Alicia are having problems. Jay just can't understand why Alicia is freaking out just because he told her that he didn't know how he'd feel about her when he got home. God, Alicia! You are such a wuss! Don't you know that when boys say that, that's just their way of making sure you know they're going to dump your ass really soon? It's no big deal! Jacinda is lounging on her twin bed in a t-shirt and jeans while Jay sits in front of her on the bed wearing one of those little-boy t-shirts and whines that Alicia doesn't appreciate the fact that he was "just being honest." Jacinda, in an interview, astutely points out that Jay feels this gap between Alicia and himself because of all he's "experienced," yet he hasn't really made much of his time in London. Jay tells Jacinda that he's scared he'll never write again. He fears he'll just go home, get back together with his girlfriend, and never write another play. Jacinda, trying hard not to fall asleep over Jay's artistic issues, tells Jay just to go home and "see how it goes."
It's time for Jay to get ready to fly home. Wearing a baseball cap, he packs his things while he moans about Alicia some more, in a voice-over. He explains that he needs Alicia to remember what they had together. Or at least that's what I think he's saying. Honestly, I don't know what he's talking about. I've stopped paying attention. He keeps referring to "all [he's] been going through," and I have to wonder what the hell he means because other than his play, he hasn't "gone through" a damn thing. Jay takes the train to the airport and gets on his flight.
After a commercial break, Jay lands in Portland and gets off the plane. Alicia and what seems to be Jay's entire extended family are there to welcome him home. Did Jay grow up in a large household really close to an airport, or are there some serious media whores in Jay's family? Because if even one person comes to the airport to meet my tired, stressed-out, and otherwise non-camera-crewed ass as I step off a plane when I'm travelling, it's a rare and joyous occasion. Jay hugs everyone in his family so that everyone can have a little camera time. Pictures are taken. Finally, Jay gets to Alicia, and hugs her for an extra-long time. A little Blues Traveler harmonica comes on over the soundtrack. Oregon's Tennessee Williams is back! May the townspeople of Portland rejoice and roast a wild boar in the town square! "The first thing I thought when I was giving her that hug was, 'This is, like, a human being,'" says Jay in a confessional. "It had been so long since someone with a heartbeat got close to me." I guess he's conveniently forgetting his cornholing sessions with Mike. Back at Jay's family's home, the clan has dinner and peppers Jay with questions about this thing the kids are calling MTV and why exactly he's in London being followed around by these people wielding newfangled devices called TV cameras. Jay tells the tribunal council about a brave new world he's seen outside the kingdom where the adults bow to unemployed teenagers and you can sleep until 3 PM in the afternoon without being nagged. The court bursts into peals of merry laughter and lifts goblets to its returning young prince. But Jay is deaf to all praise and chooses to stare into Maid Alicia's eyes instead. In an interview, Jay talks some more about wanting to spend some time with Alicia so that he can "communicate" what he's been "going through." They drive around Portland and park somewhere by a river. I guess Alicia puts out or something, because they seem pretty relaxed and happy together all of a sudden, and Jay's stopped talking about what he's "going through." They roll around on a couch and Jay moans that it's "been so long."
More Jacinda hijinks. Jacinda tells Sharon she's got a phone call, but it's really her on another extention playing tunes on the push button phone using Legend's paw. Sharon screams for Jacinda to leave her alone! Jacinda giggles. Neil, who is sitting to Jacinda and Legend and trying to read a book, seems embarrassed for her. In a confessional that, judging by his haircut, looks like it was made very early on in the season, Mike tells us that he feels ambivalent toward Jacinda. "Sometimes I like her and sometimes I can't stand her," he says. Mike and Neil have a pint at a swank-looking pub and discuss their favorite supermodel-in-residence. They both agree that Jacinda can be great one-on-one, but that once she has an audience, she becomes a total bitch. Neil tries to justify Jacinda's behavior by pointing to the fact that she's "never had a normal life" because she started modeling at the age of fourteen. Oh yeah, as if someone pointing a camera at her at the age of fourteen was her biggest worry.
"I'm going to see this play at my high school," says Jay in an interview. "But it's turned into this community event." I hear the same thing happens to Madonna when she comes home to Michigan. Apparently this is going to be a big deal for Jay, because this is the first time his high school has put on a play "without" him. Yeah, this must be just like Shelley Long watching Kirstie Alley's début on Cheers or something. Jay goes back to his high school and stands alone on the empty stage while his voice-over ruminates upon how much this place meant to him for the last five years. Jay? It's called "high school." Move on! Ah but Jay isn't exactly alone on stage. Bruce, the queeny drama teacher who came to visit Jay earlier in the season, is there to share the moment with him. "The thing we need to thee on this thtage is you thtarring in a mee-ooh-thical by you," says the queeny drama teacher who is already at work on a show-stopping song and dance number for Jay's musical called "Bottoming for a Barely Legal Boy."
While Jay gets a blowjob in the passenger seat of Bruce's 1983 Honda Civic, the housemates of Attention Deficit Manor have dinner back home in London and discuss Jay's talent and the fact that his potential is being wasted. "If I had that ability," says Kat, who is clearly on Valium, "I'd just like...ah!" Sharon theorizes that Jay is experiencing a level of success that is scaring him. Kat and Mike think he shouldn't be going home to see a high-school play. "He should be thinking about what he's going to write ," says Kat. Mike has decided to part his hair in the middle. It's really scary-looking.
Back in O-State, Jay gets ready for the big performance by putting on some "nice" clothes. Alicia helps him pick out an outfit while she herself is wearing a dress with a Peter Pan collar that would look more appropriate on a Christian prepubescent girl; freakier still, it's made of fabric that is an exact match for the pattern on Jay's bedroom wallpaper. Jay walks into the auditorium with Alicia, fights his way through a mob of groupie townspeople, and takes his seat. Before the play starts, someone announces that Jay Frank, Portland's resident teen playwright, is back from London. The audience bursts into applause. Jay says, in an interview, how great it was to go back to his roots. The play begins, and I can't tell whether they're doing Fiddler on the Roof or Oklahoma!. It's definitely something where the women wear headscarves and shawls. Jay goes backstage and the cast, all of whom look way too old to be in high school, give him a hero's welcome. After the play is done with, Jay spends his days frolicking in picturesque natural Pacific Northwest settings with Maid Alicia. They discuss breaking up in this really calm, almost cute way. Jay gives yet another interview during which he talks about trying to communicate with her about what he was "going through." They resolve to do something about their relationship. I have no idea what, but it sure involves a lot of making out by waterfalls.
Where the hell has Chrys been? That's what I'm wondering while Jacinda and Neil are shown comfortably lying to each other on a blanket in the park on a shimmering spring day. Neil, despite his quest to have nothing to do with the bourgeoisie, is hanging on Jacinda's every word. He's fascinated by her tales of modeling and wants to learn from her since she's "been a student of the world for so many years." You see, if Jacinda weren't hot, she'd be "uneducated" and therefore unworthy of Neil's time and energy, but since it's modeling that's made her vapid, she's a "student of the world." "I've kind of decided to get my tongue pierced today," says Jacinda in a confessional that she delivers with her head at a forty-five-degree angle while she twirls her hair with both of her hands. She brings Neil along with her because he is, after all, a punk. Oh, and he had something jammed into his tongue not more than a few episodes ago, so he knows how it feels. "I want to see you get poked," Neil tells Jacinda as they head out the door. "I think it will feel real good after it stops hurting," says Jacinda as they wait for the train. They get on the train, and for some reason, Jacnida feels compelled to stick out her absent-mindedly. It's like her unpierced tongue is getting a final soliloquy now that we'll never see it again. She gives an interview in which she says she's always done things her way, and this is just another example of how free-spirited she is.
Neil and Jacinda arrive at "Patrick the Piercer's," which is in a neighborhood that Jacinda thinks is shabby. She starts to get a little scared, but Neil explains that Patrick the Piercer is legendary. In an interview, Neil proudly explains that Patrick has a colorful past as a "highly educated" soldier in the South African army, is a leading piercing expert, and even teaches classes on S&M. Neil seems to think that Patrick and he go way back but Patrick, who resembles an obese Russell Crowe, is keeping his distance from the bleached-blond toff from Oxford. Jacinda lies down; Patrick gives her some anesthetic and pierces her tongue. Ew, that was hard to watch. I hate needles. After a commercial break, he replaces the piercing needle with the tongue stud. Jacinda is afraid to look in the mirror, and everyone has a big laugh over how spaced out Jacinda is. To give you an idea of just how spaced out she is, the Real World cameras make lots of jerky up-and-down motions in order to simulate Jacinda's post-piercing disorientation. That's how spaced out she was. She is told to rest for a while. She lies back while Neil strokes her hair. Finally, Patrick hints that she should get out of the chair and leave so that he can see his appointment. Jacinda and Neil walk out of the piercing parlor with their arms around each other. "I'm glad you came with me," says Jacinda. Neil, in an interview, says how proud he was of her. Yes, Neil, piercing one's tongue is quite an accomplishment, isn't it? They ride the train home with Jacinda's head on Neil's shoulder. "You've got a bony shold-ah," says Jacinda. Back at Attention Deficit Manor, Jacinda covers her new piercing with her teeth as she talks to a shirtless and capless Michael. Michael wants to know why Jacinda is talking funny. She shows him her piercing and he freaks out and runs to the bathroom as fast as his bony legs can carry him. "I think it's kind of disgusting, personally, and I think it's kind of ridiculous," says Michael in a very old interview where, for all we know, he could be talking about back fat. "Do you want me now?" asks Jacinda, posing "seductively" on the banister in front of Michael. "I want my women tough, but not that tough," says Michael, who actually likes his "women" to have a five o'clock shadow. He clutches a curtain and giggles like a girl.
Jay takes the train back from the airport. The first housemate he sees is Jacinda, who just happens to standing outside for some reason. She greets him like a southern belle whose husband has returned from the civil war just in time to protect her from being ravaged by post-bellum poverty and manhandled by carpetbaggers. Seriously, it's a fucking Dorothea Lange portrait or something. Kat escorts Jay inside; Sharon comes down in her robe and gives him a big hug. "Same old Sharon!" pronounces Jay. Who does he think he is now? Harry Dean Stanton? Jay explains in an interview that although it was great to be back in the house and have everyone excited to see him -- which they then illustrate by showing each person in the house giving him a big welcome-home hug -- he eventually started to miss Alicia. They illustrate him missing Alicia by showing him dejectedly walking about the house with the waist of his jeans literally hanging down on the bottom half of his butt. But before anyone gets too excited, he's wearing briefs under the jeans, and they hide any parts of Jay that might be too much for TV. They also show him sleeping while the camera pans to a picture of Alicia on his dresser. Apparently he spends a lot of time sleeping because, down in the living room, Mike complains to the rest of his housemates that Jay's been home for three days and he's barely seen him. Mike hugs his knees to his chest as he rocks back and forth. He's visibly anxious to spend some private time with his cornhole buddy Jay playing a special game of theirs where they act out their favorite scenes Bridges of Madison County. It's Mike's turn to be Meryl Streep this week so he's been looking forward to this for a while. "He's just waiting to go home," says Mike, as we see Jay sleeping some more. "He was just getting used to his life back in Portland," says Mike in an interview. "But then he comes back here and he's stuck without it." Yeah, but wasn't Jay supposed to go away to college anyway? I mean what does Jay want to do here? Go back to high school? Be one of those creepy guys who graduates but still lives at home and goes to high school parties like Wooderson in Dazed and Confused?
Sharon and Mike have a little intervention for Jay. "No one has as much natural talent as you," pleads Mike. "So everyone in this house is disappointed." Sharon reminds Jay that they have high expectations for him. It's not Ruthie being forced into rehab or anything, but it's way more drama than the phone bill episode. Jay's not too happy to have to listen to this. He says he knows it looks bad that he's sleeping in all the time. Sharon reminds him that he's had five months at his disposal. He should have been writing. Jay gets sort of angry. "I want to say this just to end this," says Jay who is almost slurring his words Garland-style. "No one in this house has written a play except for me, and to come into this house as the only playwright is a [bleeping] joke!" Aw! How cute! Jay actually thought his Real World housemates were supposed to create a nurturing environment in which Jay could hone his playwriting skills. Yeah, and the army's just a resort where you learn how to fly a helicopter. But then we should cut Jay a little slack, here; it's only the fourth season of The Real World at this point, and he probably hasn't gotten it yet that no one succeeds artistically while on The Real World. It's like the Miss America pageant, or Playboy magazine. People are always posing for Playboy, entering beauty pageants, or going on The Real World thinking the experience will be a stepping stone to superstardom, and it never is. I mean, what does it tell you that the only Miss America to achieve anything remotely close to "stardom" was Vanessa Williams, who lost her crown thanks to those Penthouse photos? Jay explains, in an interview, that he just wrote one play and never actually meant to be a "playwright." But people wanted him to write more and he just never felt the desire. Ah, don't worry, Jay. I never wanted more writing out of you. Jay goes is shown playing basketball with some kids back home while he voice-overs that he's just going to "go home and be just as happy as [he] was back when [he] left." Why? Because you'll be more popular than ever in high school as a second-year senior? Or do you know you'll just love your job at the local 7-11? Jay and Alicia have yet another phone conversation about nothing in particular. After they say goodbye, Jay tells Alicia that he loves her and that he can't wait to come home.