Ouch! My nerves. I guess they hurt so bad because Vaj is on them so hard this week. And, oh yeah, I always hate Sean.
Under a typically slate gray Boston-in-the-month-of-every-month sky, Genesis, Kameelah, and Elka follow a map toward the ultimate destination of, as Genesis squeals, "the upside-down pink triangle." They are soon to stumble upon a street corner's worth of rainbow flags, and Genesis runs girl-on-girlishly ahead as Kameelah and Elka wave goodbye and watch her disappear. As Genesis walks alone through a few racks of magazines and a postcard stand or two inside of The Gay Store (that's not really what it's called), she tells us in a confessional, "I was so happy. I swear to God, I was like a damn child getting candy. Because you can't find that in Mississippi." What, exactly, can't you find in Mississippi? Books? This place looks to be just about the most pedestrian, non-kitschy, decidedly ungay manifestation I've ever seen at this point in the "I'm gay and this is how a well-trained panel of highly-paid producers -- I mean this is how I -- choose to explore my oft-discussed gayness" Real World gay character story arc. But hey, if Genesis is content to explore her burgeoning sexuality by thumbing through a three-year-old dog-eared copy of People with a cover story about Ellen's increasing mainstream appeal as she moves into feature films with comedically mismatched co-star Bill Pullman in what's sure to be the sleeper hit of 1994, go her. I don't have any idea of what Kameelah and Elka were doing all the while Genesis was in there (though I imagine the conversation to include Kameelah's asking, "We don't have to go in there, do we? I mean, we walked her all the way here, right? Going in there would make God mad at you, wouldn't it?" and Elka shooting back the hilarious God-fearing barb, "Yeah, smite back at you."), but when we join the three back outside heading home, Elka asks if Genesis is "happy now," and Kameelah celebrates that Genesis is "in her element!" Yeah, if you call several dusty copies of the unauthorized biography of Rock Hudson and the guitar charts to Classic Queen the height of lesbian emancipation, I'm sure The Gay Store did just the trick.
In a storyline of pointless filler concerning characters who pointlessly fill out a show that legitimized the good name of pointless filler to begin with, we are back in the firehouse to find Jason, Elka, and Montana speaking in poor British accents and informing us that they have started a British, Irish, Scottish rock band called -- and I hope you're all sitting down so there's less room to travel when you become doubled over -- Scotch Tape. Har. The three of them have glammed themselves out in glittery make-up and wrapped themselves in Union Jacks, and they dance around for their own, seemingly unending, merriment. As Genesis takes hilarious Polaroids of them, Jason takes this confessional moment to play either God or Dad (which is so sad, as those are the only two roles Elka has already cast in her life) in preaching, "There's a whole side to Elka that wants to let go, let her hair down, she wants to rage. She's nineteen years old. It's time." Later on during that TV night, Elka voice-overs, "There are certain qualities about me that no one else has. Other people have other qualities I wish I had." Is that, like, a palindrome? Or a Chinese riddle, perhaps? 'Cause it sure don't make that much sense from a linear perspective. But the visual punch line of Elka telling us that she feels that she is "adapting okay here in Boston" comes when the comment is juxtaposed against the image of an increasingly God-free Elka on the phone lighting a cigarette, all of which only goes to show that the fine folks down at B-M headquarters aren't taking any cigarette breaks of their own and lying down on the ironic editing job today. She's not fine. She's smoking!
Daytime in the firehouse. Montana tells Kameelah, Elka, and Sean that "a large part of relationships for me is the actual physicality of the person. Like how they smell." HOW THEY SMELL? Oops! Here comes my lunch! And there it goes. Vaj's smell. Romantic to Montana, Ipecac to the remainder of the planet. Save me. Over in a confessional, Montana rationalizes herself into a corner of truth and believability so remote it's difficult to even hear her when she says, "I don't have any problem being monogamous. I have a little bit of a problem being monogamous. But I still am monogamous when I'm in the same city with my boyfriend." And I'm monogamous as hell when I'm in the same bed as mine. Such justification does not a long-term relationship make. Besides, how big is Manhattan proper, anyway? Seven square miles around? Hoboken is a ten-minute train ride away should, by Montana's logic, she suddenly have a hankering for something a bit more, um, unpock-marked in the non-monogamy department. And can you really blame her? Elka and Montana agree that they "don't need to hear if girls are coming on to [their] boyfriend[s]." People! We're talking about Vaj here. So unless his face is like one of those 5-D drawings that changes to non-ugly, only you have to stare at with your eyes half-closed and all unfocused until you lapse into the early stages of chronic migraine because you've been staring at it for five hours while your friend sits to you shouting, "I see a spaceship! I see a spaceship!" and all you've been looking at is some mess of paisley and don't you just feel so inferior now? Wait. I don't even remember where that sentence was going. Oh, yeah: Vaj = ugly. Always. And this is the way it shall always stay. Anyway, Montana tells us for the four billionth time, "Vaj and I have agreed to see other people while we're in Boston," and Elka puts both of her feet on the floor (the better to stand in judgment, I suppose), and repeatedly asks, "Really?" Yeah, so you think Montana's a whore. Trust me, Elka. You're not the only one who'll think so.
Over in a confessional of her own, Kameelah tells us, "Men seem like they're such a small part of my life. But for some reason, they consume so much emotion." Cut to Montana and Kemeelah on their way to a grocery store they mysteriously don't make it to until much later in the episode, swathed in the USDA maximum allowance of tundra-bound clothing gear, as Kameelah reiterates her desire for "really, really dark-skinned men. I like bald heads, tall, highly, highly intelligent." Oh, and also the small issue of wanting someone who can pumice your feet after a hard day of sitting around whining about being alone, can turn water into wine and then back into water and then walk, as a deity might, on said non-viscous liquid, and can smelt the ore of precious metals from deep below the Earth's fiery crust and mold it into a shrine commemorating the astonishing wonderment of she who is Kameelah. No, really. Well, here's how she puts it: "I have a list of things I want in a man. It's, like, two hundred and something things." Montana correctly observes, "That's why you haven't gone out with anyone. Because no one's gonna be able to fulfill your list of two hundred requirements." Thank you, Montana, for this sad reminder that the only chance any of us have to be in a relationship of any kind during this thing called our entire lifetimes is to lower our standards to such indiscriminate levels that we finally find ourselves with someone, anyone, only to wake up one morning, roll over in bed, smile at our one and only companions, and compliment Vaj on his smell.
A shot of a snowy, blowing blizzard reminds me that Boston winters are cold. Hey, thanks for that. Or maybe it's a visual representation of the cold comfort I feel at finally having a boyfriend, and having it only be Vaj. Anyway, back at the firehouse, Montana reads Kameelah's exhaustive list of "two hundred things a man needs to be to date Kameelah," congressional filibuster style, to the attending housemates (everyone but Syrus). Anyway, since you're curious, here's a Whitman's Sampler of how to please your lady. If, of course, your lady is Kameelah. "Number 1: sings to me." Perhaps the new smash single by Scotch Tape will be enough of a wooing device. I do hope not, though. "Number 2: teaches me football and basketball." "Number 183: A good man is financially stable." And so it goes. We move onto her "Stuff that annoys me" list, about which Montana self-consciously claims, "I'm numbers four through twenty-one!" See? This is why I can't wholly commit to hating Montana. She's so self-loathing that we're all in the hating her game together. This auxiliary list also includes, "Long-winded," "Men with curls, perms, longer hair than me," and the almost-touchy "People who fish." Sean demands, "People who fish? YOU HATE PEOPLE WHO FISH?" Kameelah is quick to recover, "Like, fishing for compliments." Yeah, good save. But I wonder how she intends to talk her way out of "People who are self-righteous, log-rolling hicks who talk funny talk" and "People who are Sean." Montana again tells Kameelah to lower her standards.
Cue shot of a snowplow not able to bulldoze through the drifts of crap that have buried this episode in its craptastic wrath and caused the widespread closure of area schools. Elka, Kameelah, and Montana freeze their way to the supermarket. They shop. Predictably, the action is riveting. Over at the checkout line, though, some action may be stirring up indeed. Kameelah tells us in an intercut confessional that she has "a hard time meeting guys," only to shoot us right back to the supermarket, where Kameelah spots a man who fits at least her repeatedly stated initial criteria of being dark-skinned, ostensibly over 190 pounds, and bald. So she goes marching right up to him because she's not a brave, liberated woman but she plays one on TV, and asks him his name, his age, and where he lives. The poor kid looks terrified. His name is Eric, he's nineteen, he lives ten minutes outside of Boston. And just as it seems Kameelah is well on her way to Big Bucks in her brave and impromptu game of relationship Press Your Luck, she pops the pivotal "got a girlfriend" question, and receives the soul-crushing "Yeah, why?" No whammies, no whammies, no whammies, stop! Drat. A whammy. Please place your dwindling stash of pride on the produce scale and proceed to the checkout line. Walking out of the supermarket, Kameelah informs Elka and Montana of her experience with poor, unsuspecting Eric, incredulous that this total stranger would dare to go and have a girlfriend right in front of her. How dare he. Shut up, Kameelah. Whammy. Stop.
Later that evening, a generic local tavern is packed to the gills with gawking BU students who heard that the Real World cast was there drinking. Montana enjoys a giant, frothy Foreshadow brand beer in telling Sean that her boyfriend "isn't real jealous." She continues that "it's hard for [her] when no one's there, you know what I mean?" No. She also expresses a desire to "go live in the rain forest, man. I want to go take my clothes off, and wear a little belt made of beads, and live among the Yanomano." And truth be told, I don't have a clue what that means, either. But between a naked Montana, a smelly Vaj, and an in-heat Sean, my appetite stays lost, my cupboards stay full, and my food budget stays way, way down. And if I have to find satisfaction in something this week, that's pretty much all I'm currently able to conjure. Anyway, Sean manipulates Montana's vulnerable, soul-bearing confessions of loneliness and manipulates them for his own misguided (read: drunken) amorous needs. Pretending to be anything but the mouth-breathing, lecherous primate he so obviously is, he encourages Montana to "experience other guys. And I think that, because you've had that feeling, you should do it. Because if you don't, you're gonna regret doing it if possibly you could." Sean tells us in a confessional that "once you get to know Montana, she becomes more attractive." The gone-but-not-forgotten Syrus (no, actually, completely forgotten), who randomly turns up in a confessional, all decked out like he's spent his last three AWOL weeks searching for the right Beau Brummel bowler's cap for his full-scale tap dancing rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz," thinks himself the authority in informing us, "If two people hook up in our house, it's gonna be them two." He continues, "You can only flirt with a person so much." Which, for someone whose entire idea of foreplay includes the exchange, "My name is Syrus. Nice trailer park you've got here," doesn't ring with the greatest modicum of integrity. General flesh-crawling flirting ensues.
Back at the firehouse, we are treated to further shots of Sean's too-tight-jeans ass, standing at the stove making Ramen in the middle of the night. Montana sits on the counter, her whore boots planted on the opposite counter near the sink. Ugh. Turn off the Cooter-cam, please. She wants Ramen. He pretends he is not going to give her any Ramen. They flirt in the most lurid, drunken way available to those pretending to remain members of the human species. No, really: "Have you ever watched Jane Goodhall's films? The female monkeys, I swear to God, will lay down and masturbate in front of the male monkeys to get them to give them oranges." Hey. I have about seven different flavors of Ramen in my apartment right now. And sadly, not one of them is Maalox-flavored. Guess how much I don't want to eat any of them?
All hands on deck the day (well, except Syrus, whose apparent understudy in the firehouse is a skinny white boy who appears to be a pool-playing friend of Genesis. My, what a convincing decoy). Kameelah tells Sean she thinks he likes Montana "in a sexual way." Kameelah calls up thirty flights to the pool table, asking Genesis, "Did you hear something about Sean wanting to have sex with Montana?" Genesis claims that she heard Sean wanted to have sex with her, Genesis. It was a joke, Sean. Put Mr. Mojo away where we can't see him. For one second. It might require investing in a new pair of jeans, perhaps the ones down in the "baggy" aisle you probably didn't even know existed. But trust me, you'll be doing us all a favor.
What's that? You say Kameelah isn't afraid of approaching guys and telling them exactly what's on her mind? Eh? You don't say. Good thing, then, that we're seeing it in action all freakin' over again. After an interminable silent travel montage, Genesis and Kameelah step off a T train. Walking down the platform, a man whistles at Kameelah, which is apparently shorthand for "give me a pointless speech about how women need to be respected. Got that, perfect stranger?" And so she gladly obliges.
Over in the same exact laundry sequence from Episode 3 (the cracks begin to show when you watch every scene forty times, Bunim and Murray. I've read your book, you magnificent bastards), Genesis sits in a monosyllabic stupor as Montana preps us that Vaj is coming this weekend. Oh, good God. Montana says, "I wonder how he's gonna respond to being in the house." Silence. Genesis: "You're kidding." More silence. Hey, throw those cameras back toward the drying laundry, would you? I feel like there's a better chance of something happening over there.
Dear Vaj: WE KNOW YOU KNOW YOU'RE ON TV. You can meander from your hilarious prepared material ever so slightly now. It's killing me. And, for time immemorial, in the history of American culture and the future of our society as we know it, it's killing you, too. And here he is. He immediately pegs himself as doomed to die a slow, character-assassinated death in front of the remaining awake viewers of the Boston season as he walks into the firehouse and seals his fate with the entire production team who will in turn make him look as bad as possible, commenting upon looking at the house that "it's kinda small." And so speaketh the giant five-foot man. He puts his bag on Montana's bed, and Montana's confessional admits, "I think I was feeling a little uncomfortable. A little nervous." Cut to five seconds later, where Vaj lazes extraneously around the house while undertaking the unachievable chore of making Sean look better than somebody (he succeeds, with strident bravado to spare). Vaj shows off a tattoo of, like, a giant dripping hand (I don't write 'em, I just recap 'em), and when Sean feels forced to indulge him in conversation, he asks about its origins. Get a load of this I-memorized-this-jocundity-on-the-Greyhound-bus-up-here reply: "I got one of those big, industrial size Cracker Jack boxes. And those have extra big prizes in them. And this one was, like, a big tattoo. So I just pressed it on. And the damn thing won't scrub off." Ha. Ha. Ha? Sean's confessional tells us that he thinks that Vaj is "on the outside limb of the tree." Is that a log-rolling metaphor? I think I missed it. Speaking of which, Vaj asks if Sean and his log-rolling compadres "have cool lumberjack nicknames, like Rolling Sean and Scalin' Joey?" Again, ha. Sean tells us in a confessional as such: "I don't dig Vaj at all..." Well, Sean I couldn't agree with you more if... "...and I think that Montana can do better." Whoa, there, lumberjack. Slow down the ol' confessing and give me a chance to agree with something you say for once. Cut to an unflattering shot of Vaj laughing like a hyena. Oy. The cutting room floor called. It's wants Vaj's entire visit back.
Montana and Vaj are on their way to a restaurant. When they arrive in an Italian bistro, Vaj needen't much encouragement to continue to riding the front float on the idiocy parade. Montana: "I was afraid that I was starting to get over Vaj." But his wooing words and the tall glass of red wine that sits in front of Montana eventually convince her that as soon as they started talking about old times, she tells us that she was "like, oh yeah." Ah, the poetry of their love. Montana stirs tension by telling him that she hasn't hooked up with anyone in Boston since she's been there, and Vaj tells her that there is "no need to even discuss this." Back at the house, Vaj tacks up a poster of -- is that Che Guevara? -- and Montana says, "I like it," because she thinks it's one of the Marleys or just wants to shut him up or something. Obligatory Polaroid product placement photo-taking moment. in this ribald sequence, they make a hastily handwritten sign reading, "Gone Sexin' / Back in three days / If the curtain's a-rockin', don't come knockin'." Noooooooooooooooo! That was one 'O' for each meal that just came roaring back up my throat to haunt me following the smacky kissing noises to follow. Plus, like, ten billion more 'O's.
For some awful reason I am currently at a loss to discern, the women of the house descend upon Montana and Vaj's brief coital interlude the following morning. Disturbed by this interruption and perhaps somewhat cognizant that even he would not want to be a voyeur to his own self, Vaj snarks "So much for the conjugal visit!" Laughs are spliced in during post-production to make Vaj's visit seem palatable to someone -- anyone. Montana's confessional tells us, "I don't think that I could find somebody better for me than Vaj. We know each other so well. I feel confident that we'll weather this time apart." Elka lingers too long with that forlorn "I think I used to sleep here...once" look until Montana forcefully suggests that it might be time for her to go. I stifle a dozen or so aforementioned callback cross-references to Vaj's smell. Thank me later.
Over at a building that that funky font with the arrow tells us is the "Alpha Phi Alpha House," Kameelah voice-overs that "Boston is sorta, kinda starting to become more familiar to me. I'm starting to meet people that are kinda more like me and think like me." Continuing on: "I really enjoy the strength of the unity between African-American fraternities and sororities." Cut to a montage of said Alpha Phi Alpha, which appears to be an African-American fraternity where Kameelah has been spending bunches of time as of late. Walking, dancing, hugging montage. Cut back to the firehouse, where Kameelah runs to answer a ringing phone to discover her friend "Crystal" on the other end. She heard that Kameelah had hooked up with some Alphas. She has hooked up with a few guys, she admits, one of whom was "very nerdy cute," who offered to take her around Boston. Cutting to the chase, Kameelah tacks on two more requirements from her well-established list, "Forty-seven: has a name with more than one syllable." Wait. Is that from the requirements list or the peeves list? Failure to find out would force me to abandon my purpose in life, which has clearly become to cater each word I say and action I undertake to model myself after Kameelah's ideal of a perfect man. And I was so close. Until the hundred-and-ninety-pound thing. A Kameelah peeve she tacks on: "Number 32: men who can't get the hint." Wait. I don't know how that relates. Dang. Now that's two shortcomings in a row.
Cut to Kameelah on a date with an "Aaron," who is either the perfect man or quite the opposite, depending on Kameelah's syllabic ramifications concerning one-syllable names. "Aaron." Ew. One of the major points on my peeve list would be "people whose names start with two of the same letter in a row." Sorry to break your collective hearts, "Lloyds" of the world. But I am, as of this moment, off the market. Anyway, things with Aaron don't seem to be going well either. She looks bored. She wants to dance. She dances. He sits back at the table looking uncomfortable. She voice-overs "Number 50: can definitely dance." D'oh. No love for Aaron. Back at the firehouse, she fields a call from and turns down an offer for another date with the ill-fated Aaron, under the dubunked-when-it-airs premise: "I have to work." Yeah, well what about the other three hundred or so hours of the week? Montana steps into the confessional once more just to let us know that "one of the reasons Kameelah hasn't had a boyfriend is she's very easy to just write somebody off." Out on the street, Kameelah tells Genesis that "Aaron is not gonna work out." Genesis tells her to "dump his ass."
The deep, reflective, Counting Crows-esque piano jam tells us the Pathos Parade is reaching ticker tape proportions. Oh, God. Vaj is leaving. What have we done to deserve the tears? He says goodbye to Genesis, who regards him with a curious "Wait, THIS was the smell she was talking about" aspect. Elka tries out some of that cool girl material that automatically comes when you start smoking in telling him, "Check you later, babe." Ew. Check for what? I would posit some snarky possibilities, but I keep missing the pause buttons, the recapper's best friend, and letting this scene run into the sequence, where the lip mics crank to a decibel level we haven't been treated to on MTV since the Headbanger's Ball went belly-up some years since. Vaj and Montana part at the door. And so they kiss in close-up. Please. Stop. Montana tells us in confessional that she feels stuck between two worlds. And in the final moments, Vaj tells Montana on the phone that he has "sappy stuff" to tell her, and then proceeds to nourish the parched craters on Planet Face by weeping copiously on the other end. She cries too. And then she says, "It's hard. Like, I always feel worse after I talk to you." Sigh. No comment. "So I'm gonna try and not call you for a few days." He optimistically suggests a week. Ouch. But no, she bargains him back to a few merciful days of smelly respite, the precise amount of time that she could misspend pining for her pock-faced lover so many miles away, or can start on that list of her own, outlining her own requirements to snag herself a man, beginning and ending with the endlessly essential, "Is not Vaj."