This episode begins with yet another montage of street scenes around Boston (to the soundtrack strains of my favorite guilty pleasure song of the last decade or ever, "Mmm-Bop." We love you, Hanson! We miss you, 1997!). Said montage features snow-covered trains riding on snow-covered tracks, snow-covered taxis on icy streets driving through miles of snow-covered backdrop, and a shivering bird practically frozen to a bare, snow-covered tree. Hey, is this stock footage from the "North, Miss Tessmacher" tundra sequence from Superman used in place of actual establishing shots of a New England winter so the camera crew didn't have to go outside during a season in which the temperature is measured exclusively on the Kelvin scale? Remind me again why The Real World chose never to chance a cold-weather climate ever, ever again after this season wrapped. It is, after all, so sexy and electrifying to watch seven twentysomethings in bulky college sweatshirts sitting around inside eating high-cholesterol comfort foods for five straight months. Let's go see!
Inside the firehouse, Elka stands in front of the stove, clad in a bulky college sweatshirt (Notre Dame) and preparing a high-cholesterol comfort food breakfast of pancakes for herself and Kameelah. She calls up the stairs to Kameelah that "it's still lumpy," and Kameelah, clad in a bulky college sweatshirt (Stanford? I think? It's a red sweatshirt with a giant silver "S" which looks so faux-tin-foil-futuristic that I think the "S" should stand for, like, "Space College." Y'know, the college in space? And, even more alluring, she's wearing matching red sweatpants to complete this provocative ensemble) bounds down the steps and chastises Elka for making such a "big-ass pancake." Elka flips the pancake and the two have a big laugh all about, well, flipping the pancake, I guess.
Across town at a diner of some kind called "The Paramount," Jason, Sean, Montana, and Genesis enjoy a heaping breakfast of high-cholesterol comfort foods, the mightily caloric results of which can and will be expertly concealed underneath, that's right, their bulky college sweatshirts and other various wool apparel. Jason kicks things off by commenting that "they didn't put any real big pain in the ass in the house. Well, besides me, of course." Nice work knowing thine own self for a moment there, Jason. Montana takes a stab and pronounces Kameelah's name the fourth or fifth incorrect way in as many tries, and I wish someone would just take her aside for a moment and let her know that it's pronounced 'Ka-MEE-lah,' and not 'Ka-MIH-lah' or 'Kar-MEH-luh' or 'KA-meh-lot' or some collective amalgam of all those, as Montana would have us believe. It's not like spelling the word "Channukah," honey. There aren't a whole bunch of choices and you don't get any leeway. Anyway, what she says about this mysterious Ka-MIH-lah is as follows: "I think Ka-MIH-lah [sic] has attitude, but as long as she uses that attitude for good and not evil, I'm all for her. And so far she's been using it for good." Like it's a superpower. Genesis shares with the group that she came out to Elka last night, but Genesis' life-long battle of coming to terms with her sexuality is quickly deemed, like, so last week's episode by both the cast and the Bunim-Murray-sanctioned editors alike, and the subject is quickly dropped. Montana sets up the entire un-dramatic non-tension for this entire half-hour with a retread of last night's clubgoing experience: "Sy was making tons of new friends last night." Overly loud protests to the contrary from Jason, Montana finishes her story by recounting a conversation she and Jason allegedly had, in which she wondered, "How come nobody's falling all over me?" and in which Jason supposedly sympathetically responded, "We'll go to the gym tomorrow." Ha ha... ha?
Back at the firehouse, Syrus and Kameelah flirt flirtingly and in a flirt-like fashion as they set up a game of pool on a floor of the firehouse I'm convinced didn't even exist until this week. Syrus tells us in a confessional that, concerning his first impressions of Kameelah, he "thought she was attractive. I was completely shocked that there was another black person living in the same house." Yeah, Sy, get in line. I guess the quota-o-meter over at B-M headquarters was unplugged when this season's inhabitants were chosen. How else to account for this aberrant development? Over in Kameelah's confessional, she admits, "I do like Syrus. He's cool," and then later, "I like very clean-cut men. Bald heads." Cut back to the pool game, where Kameelah tells a very clean-cut, quite bald-headed Syrus that "I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I think you like me." Syrus could not be more noncommittal in his response, and volleys her daring come-on line right back in her face by asking her just what kind of "like" she means. An unbelievably mature discussion about the nature of the word "like" ensues, one which will probably culminate with a tri-folded note reading, "If you like me, check this box" she'll slip to him tomorrow morning in homeroom. She falters when he asks if she means "as a roomie," and Syrus eschews any further attempt at her pursuing of romance with the wholly noncommittal, "You stick with me, you'll be all right, shorty." Which, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess here, was exactly the response she was not at all looking for.
Toting large bags of laundry and probably clad in some kind of NASA-approved moon cleats to keep from sliding all over the World of Ice that MTV has for some reason seen fit to strand these seven poor survivors in for the better part of winter, Montana and Genesis walk along, laundromat bound. Cue wacky clothes-washing montage, in which Montana reads Genesis' palm, Montana insults Genesis' gigantic pink undies, and both finish their entire chore in just about twenty TV seconds. Upon leaving, Montana continues a conversation to which we were not privy to the beginning in asking, "Do you want me to go buy you a Playboy?" Oh, come on, Gen. Playboy? Could someone from my rabid and loyal lesbian fan base please phone in and tell me if they have ever, ever, ever bought a Playboy magazine? Ever? It just seems like such a male fantasy, right on down to the alienating "Entertainment for Men" stamp just below the title. It seems to me that there would be hundreds of other publications much better suited to fit her needs. For crying out loud, I've seen more even-handed treatment of girl/girl action on The Howard Stern Show. I've seen more depth and subtext concerning the matter of female relationships on Laverne and Shirley. I've seen more... ah, forget it. I wasn't really going anywhere funny with that anyway. Daringly deciding to not heed my advice and deciding to solicit that publication anyway, the two head off on this new wacky caper, traveling away from the laundromat and giggling girlishly at the prospect that the proprietor of a convenience store will -- omigod -- think that they're a couple because they're on their way back from doing their laundry together and stopping in for a Playboy. Personally, if I were the proprietor of said store and saw the two of them together, I would perhaps be inclined to think a) "maybe you're buying it for a shut-in male relative who is a purveyor of glossy, high class pornography such as this," or, far more likely b) "gee whiz, I've never saw anyone buy one of these here before. Now take your damn camera crew and get out of the way so I can attend to the many other jerky, tobacco, and nudie mag needs of all of my other customers. And hell, save for the production team and the complimentary signed cast picture, maybe I wouldn't really be inclined to think anything at all. I so care what you buy. Stranger." If I were the store's proprietor, that is.
Upstairs at the firehouse, meanwhile, Kameelah and Syrus continue on with their spirited round of what Kameelah perceives as "flirting," what Syrus perceives as "hanging," and what I decisively designate evermore as, "Please. Stop. Please stop talking for five seconds. You're both driving me in-freakin'-sane. Really. Please. Really." Syrus is smack dab in the middle of telling Kameelah that he doesn't discriminate when it comes to dating, questionably adding that he will "do the whole rainbow." She tests this theory, asking him, "You've dated Asian women?" Syrus responds with the cringeworthy comment, "Yeah, I got a gang of Ninjas," and Kameelah pauses for a moment to scan the dig for personal offense before finding it clear and sacrificing her own ostensible feminism long enough to choke out a shrill laugh in the misguided assumption that she still might have a chance with him. Which she doesn't. For which she should -- and will -- thank her lucky little stars some day very, very soon. Not content to end this already lifeless conversation until Kameelah hears Syrus get down on his knees and tell her, "I'd stick it down a sewer pipe if you gave me the chance, but the one I really, really want is you," Kameelah continues the interrogation accordingly: "Would you marry a white woman?" Syrus pretty much speaks to his entire arc as a character in observing, "I'd marry anyone," in that way that really means, "I'd marry everyone, if only this pesky little thing called 'outlawed polygamy' didn't stand in the way of me giving each and every honey on the planet the good, good lovin' she so obviously desires from me." I'm not sure, Syrus, but I think there might also be a law in the books against marrying yourself, which would be a real tragedy, considering that's who you truly love most in the world. Guiltlessly tut-tutting his approach to interracial relationships, Kameelah quickly changes the subject to any topic other than Syrus' player ways, looking around her room and commenting, "Where's my comb? You see a comb around here?" She goes about the distracting business of curling her hair and Syrus tries to keep the conversation afloat and affable with some idle small talk (in contrast to all that riveting profound musing on God, life, and the meaning of all things in the universe we've seen until now) about how messy her room is. Don't you talk about my room that way! But it is messy! So is yours! Must. Shut. Up.
Back outside with Genesis, the Smut Brigade of One finds herself a slightly seedier convenience store than that of the prim elegance of the Maxim-only 7-11 over in their part of town. At least some people this season are going to get all down, dirty, and naked. Even if those people are centerfold models who only exist in two dimensions. Genesis tracks down the necessary contraband and returns home, dumping it on her bed to display that this is a "Special Issue!" Has Christmas come early this year or what? The issue features stories including the sporting, "Sex and the Super Bowl," the uncleverly titled but effectively arousing, "The CIA Spy Who Took Off Her Clothes," the retrospectively bittersweet, "A Revealing Look at John F. Kennedy Jr.," and a story about a guy named "Lawrence Something or Other," who I have a sneaking suspicion none of us really had any need to see naked in the first place. Syrus looks on and announces, "I've had enough," so Genesis takes the mag upstairs and shows it to Jason, informing him, "Anybody's welcome to look at it, I just don't want anyone's bodily fluid on it." You mean like when I use it to slit my wrists and spill blood all over those color glossies of poor, vulnerable-in-his-nakedness Lawrence if I am subjected to but one more moment of this turgid, non-developing episode? Seriously, show me one other season where "we sit around and read a magazine" signifies the dramatic high point of an entire thread of plot development. Never. It would never happen. Oh, okay, maybe London.
Suddenly, it appears, it is the middle of the night. Montana needs to wake up early the day for some strange reason, and wouldn't it be such a gosh-darned inconvenient coincidence if someone were to suddenly come along and disrupt all of her sleepy good times? Hence, the mics are cranked up real loud when she asks Kameelah, "Would you set your alarm for 8:30?" But before we can hear her answer, Syrus appears at the top of one of the house's numerous flights of steps with two women clad in tight jeans and fishnets, respectively, so made-up they practically lapse into the fictitious (see what I did there? Pun on "make-up?" Damn, I'm clever), who work those tight Contempo jeans and teased-out Glamour Shots haircuts in strutting around for his pleasure. After a quick walk through the upstairs, they are gone once more, Syrus obviously taking them out to show them a good time. So let the record show, when the other members of the house start to complain about him not pulling his weight around the house, that Syrus was the very first member of the Boston cast to so helpfully offer to take out the trash. Clever again, I am. And so he does, bidding Elka and Kameelah barely a goodbye before we cut to Kameelah's confessional, admitting, "I'm not even sure how to describe them." Trashy? "They're..." That's right, trashy. "Groupies, I guess." If, by which, you mean, "trashy as a sanitation strike at a trash factory." In any event, I agree wholeheartedly with her assertion that she doesn't "like that at all." And Syrus is again gone. Kameelah calls through the house, "Montana, could I have a hug?" And we cut to girlish bonding in the face of a Real World participant who doesn't respect his other roommates' private space. Gee, where have I heard that conflict before? Too bad there should have been so much trash just flushed through the house in a season that is otherwise so content with excessive amounts of recycling. Get it again? Damn. Me. Clever.
Earlier that same evening (sorry, Real World, but you're snagged. They're all wearing the same clothes as they were that morning at breakfast, only no one is making overtures to go to sleep. And there's Syrus, sitting right there in the living room. And since I've watched this season, like, four billion times, I also know now that the reason Montana asked Kameelah to set the alarm clock for 8:30 tomorrow morning is because the time the sun rises, they start work at the children's center. All of which should inspire me to make some blisteringly clever comment about the non-reality of watching this show at its most minutiae-obsessed level. But I don't have one, so I advise you all to check out Joanna's "continuity errors in real life" rant from her first Survivor recap. Then pretend I said it right here at this moment in my recap), Sean, Montana, Kameelah, and Syrus engage in a panel discussion on interracial dating. Oh, wait, Elka is there, too. Sean, wearing an increasingly ubiquitous rumpled cowboy hat I guess he won at a Crocodile Dundee Nostalgia Convention, reports that he "went to a small college in Minnesota. No black people." He asks Kameelah her feelings on interracial dating, and she tells the group as follows: "I personally don't appreciate it when black men date out of their race." Syrus responds with a penitent nod, quick to latch onto Sean's argument that she shouldn't limit her options. Which is his decision to make for her, of course. Kameelah tells Sean, "You're attractive to me. But just in terms of being comfortable, I would be with him [Syrus] first." Which is a well thought-out point. Except for the part about Sean being at all attractive. Sean takes this as a cue to vamp for the camera, standing up and walking to the couch where Kameelah is lying down, positioning himself on the floor to her and saying things like, "But I can satisfy all of your emotional needs, ya know, I'm there for you. I'm your daddy, baby." Kameelah fake laughs in that self-protective "I am morally opposed to everything in the world that is you, Sean" kind of way, even tossing in a comment about how he has no chance with her as long as he's got "that hat on." I'm your daddy, baby? Oh, Sean. How I so hate you. You're that guy who gets all defensive when people accuse you of being ignorant about the complexities of race relations with a justification like, "Look, dude, I'm not racist, ya know. I like Will Smith movies." Aren't you that guy?
Over in the bathroom, sexual acceptance by way of latent strains of homophobia rears its "yeah, but chicks are hot" head. Sean, Genesis, Jason, and Syrus (for someone who allegedly left the house two scenes ago, he sure is pulling down a surprising amount of screen time tonight) discuss the following enigmatic Chinese riddle, brought to us by Syrus: "People say you're a product of your environment. I think the environment. Is a product. Of the people." Ooooh. Thanks, Oracle. Damn, I love those pauses that he tries to pass off as dramatic, when in fact he has completely lost his train of thought. Genesis asks if Syrus thinks she's a product of nature or environment, and he attempts to condense hundreds of years of social psychology into one empirical statement: "There was Adam and there was Eve." Well, that's all the information I needed. Oh, goody. The "just like it says in the Bible" defense. So topical. But he's quick to excuse Genesis' godless sexuality on the basis that two women are "beautiful to me, because women are beautiful when you get together like that." In contrast, he indicates Sean and comments, "If you asked me to look at his hairy ass over there, I'd throw up." Okay, then. So let's recap, shall we? Lesbians represent an acceptable form of eccentric sexual behavior because it never fails to start up Syrus' libido, and is thus deemed okay. But two men together don't make his cut of an acceptable expression of love, a little because you'll be smited for your sins according to the dictums passed down by thy Lord our God, and a little because two men together is, y'know, a little bit icky. At least Syrus isn't keeping a low profile about this whole "him being God" thing.
More pool. This time Sean and Jason cue up, and Sean whispers that he thinks "Genesis is hot as crap, man." Oh, he's such a Casanova. There's some wooing words for you. I'm sure he could stand at her window under the cover of darkness, whisper into the night, "Genesis, you are hot as crap, man," and wait for her to throw pennies and rose petals over the balcony before inviting him in for a long night of satisfying, heterosexual lovemaking. Because if anyone can show Genesis what it's like to be with a real man, it's Sean. Incidentally, Jason shoots pool first and breaks, failing to sink one ball. Losers.
And over in the living room, the four girls discuss Genesis some more. Kameelah announces that she "very rarely see[s] feminine lesbians," and Genesis expresses some surprise that they're not "all over the place in big cities." Montana registers what is perhaps the first intelligent comment on this subject with her assertion that "the reason you say you very rarely see feminine lesbians is because you don't know." But then she shoots down her whole, proto-humorless-liberal-rhetoric thing with the following story: "I knew this lesbian couple, that one woman was inseminated with a turkey baster, and the kid was born on Thanksgiving." Ah, yes, from the old "I knew this lesbian couple who" collection of urban myths, including, "I knew this lesbian couple, and one of them ate Pop Rocks and drank coke" and "I knew this lesbian couple, and one of them owned a pet store and the other one was a nurse, and the first one sold Richard Gere the gerbil, and the other one had to get it out." Kameelah fake laughs for the hundredth time in this episode, this time barely concealing her developing trademark eye-roll.
After a series of shots featuring trains rocketing through the Boston night, we time elapse our way back into the firehouse and Montana nauseously saying, "I can't believe he just flashed us." Genesis tells a completely disinterested Kameelah, who is trying to have a normal, non-Sean's-butt-oriented phone conversation, "Did you see Sean? He just pulled down his underwear and showed us his white, hairy butt." Shot of Sean walking away from this camera, clad in just his boxers. So Genesis and Montana mastermind a brilliant plot to "go pull his covers off and pin him down... If he's going to show us the back, he's going to show us the front, too." Ooooh. Wacky capers ahoy. And so the two of them get up and make for Sean's room, as a spooky mysterious theme, akin to the moment when you obtain a warrant for the criminal's arrest on the Commodore 64 version of Where in the World in Carmen Sandiego, begins to play. Genesis frets on the hike to his room that if they violate Sean sexually, they could get "thrown out." Hey, you think she's seen this show before? But not to worry, because this is the Boston season, in which a potentially explosive experience brings with it only the chilling ramifications of Genesis and Montana crawling into bed with Sean and just, well, cuddling. BO-ring. Is there anything else on? Oh, no, wait, it's 1997. Summer reruns of Ned and Stacey, the Florida Marlins buying their way to an embarrassing World Series victory, or in-decline episodes of Seinfeld, like that one that takes place in India where the entire episode runs in reverse. Fine, then, I'll stick with this. But one more reference in this episode to Sean's ass, Sean's hairy ass, or Sean at all, and I'm turning this season around and taking them all back home RIGHT now.
Over at a club called Axis, the downright Tarantino-esque time structure of this episode catches up with itself as Syrus shakes his booty with what he describes as "a variety of women." Damn right. Cutting back and forth between the house and the club, he's making time with pretty much anyone who's ever been introduced to the manifold aesthetic improvements of AquaNet and spandex. Kameelah, meanwhile, talks on the phone about his escapades, correctly deeming them "disgusting." Yessir. As he fondles some extraneous piece of ass. In the bathroom. With the door open. Ugh. Sadly, Kameelah undercuts her own argument with her rueful admission, "Well, he don't want me, so..." Deep sigh. Cut to her lying on the couch, eating Tostitos and feeling very, very sorry for herself.
Hey, look! More naked Sean! What did we decide about that? Remember? Genesis actually deigns to touch Sean's, like, skin, in giving him a back massage and talking about how she gives her girlfriend back massages. Her girlfriend, "Tammy," is twenty-eight. Sean suggests that he "pretend like I'm Tammy." Yeah, fun game. But first let's pretend that you have clothes on, m'kay? See how this make-believe game can actually work in our favor? Cut to Genesis on the phone with her friend, "Shane," who is either nervous about knowing his voice is on television or he is just kind of boring. Genesis tells Shane that she's been around straight people for so long that she's afraid that she's starting to become straight herself. She reports on the phone that Kameelah told her, "You have to find your people and I have to find my people." Feh.
House party! Cut to that really, really late moment in the middle of the night just before it starts to become early again. Syrus is escorting another cavalcade of women on the Harlot Hour Tour, and this time Sean and Genesis are along for the ride. They're singing and talking and drinking both upstairs and down, generally infuriating Montana and Elka, who are attempting to sleep. Kameelah enters the kitchen and confronts one of the girls sitting at the kitchen counter, marching right up to her and inquiring, "Who are you?" The girl shoots the same question right on back at Kameelah, and suddenly we're back in a confessional, Kameelah fuming, "I don't appreciate that chick questioning who I am in my own house." Cut to later that night, I guess, where the house has hastily assembled a meeting, which Sean begins: "Personally, my opinion is that we should be able to bring anybody to this house that we want." Montana adds that "girls can't be coming by at three in the morning ringing the bell." Jason adds that no strangers should be going upstairs. Elka (remember Elka? Yeah, I barely do either) chimes in that she doesn't want this to be something called a "freaking Visa" to bring home whoever they want. In a private subcommittee, Genesis, Montana, and Sean congregate for cigarettes in the bathroom after the main meeting is over, Sean covertly observing that Kameelah "has a problem with black guys dating white women." Sorry, Sean, that is so not the issue right now. But the producers obviously think it is, and we cut to Kameelah moping around the house, swathed in blankets in what we are supposed to swallow is a "woe be it to the future of my race" exercise in self-pity. Personally, I blame Syrus for everything. That doesn't have to do with Sean.
Oh, finally. This episode ends with Montana, Elka, and Kameelah sulking in the living room, discussing how "alienated" Kameelah feels from Syrus, adding that they have nothing in common. Elka thinks he's alienating himself from the house. Kameelah says that one of her primary fears in coming to Boston was being the only black person in the house, and now that Syrus is pulling away, she still feels like the only black person in the house. Cut to that exclamation point shot of Syrus leaving once more, off to scrape the last remaining debris off the bottom of his shoe, prop it up in tight jeans and a sequined sweater, hose it down in cheap perfume and cheaper values, and show it what a night out in the tundra really looks like.