The sounds of a dialing phone and an activating modem find Jason inside of the firehouse, sitting in front of the computer. Now, I don't remember the dominant styles and fashions of 1997 with any great clarity, but I can only guess from Jason's unmatching denim duds and wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat that "Gay Cowboy Chic" was the latest in de rigueur poser gear for at least one brief, shining moment that winter. Jason stands up and speaks into an attached microphone, "Sean, can you hear me?" We cut over to the CCC to discover Sean and Syrus, sadly not dressed in a cop costume and an Indian costume, and Jason is clearly disappointed that his two un-fun-loving roommates have decided not to go along with the whole "Village People Reunion Tour" thing he seems so hell-bent on cultivating today. They are in the process of setting up a computer program called "CU-SeeMe" (say it together, naturally...Lionel Richie, call your lawyers), which will allow people to see and hear each other with the help of built-in cameras and microphones, communicating in real time over this crazy new invention we know today as "The Internet Machine." It's like living in the future, really. But just at this moment, technical difficulties ensue, and Sean worries that "this thing isn't set up right." Oh, Sean, I'd say it's set up just fine. The reason you're having trouble accessing Jason's image on your monitor is because the computer is actually smarter than you think: it simply refuses to process the visual information of his awful, awful hat. I wish my television were equipped with the same technology, but then again, my work -- as is the work of this inconspicuous non-profit organization quietly nestled in a small Boston suburb -- isn't fully funded by MTV. Yet.
Over in The Most Extraneous Confessional Ever, Sean village idiots himself into his usual corner with the sentiment, "The CU-SeeMe software is pretty cool. When we're gonna be talking to people, we're gonna be able to see them!" Which is probably one of the primary reasons that the creators of said software ultimately decided to strike "NotCU-Can'tSeeMe" from their shortlist of applicable names for the program. I mean, duh. Suddenly the program seems to work just fine, as the lucky members of the CCC team can hear Jason's hilarious quip, "All I can see is Sy's head, and it's blinding me." Oh, ha ha. Try not to get too rich mining all that comedy gold over there, Smartass McCleverstein. Considering your own corporate co-branding between B-M and the gay rodeo, I would seriously reconsider calling attention to the area of anyone's head, lest ye yourself want to be harshly judged.
At a meeting with the Somber Seven at some indeterminate time before or after the scene we've just finished watching, Poor Poor Anthony speeches the group the he wants "to hook up another computer" using the CU-SeeMe software in another school. They cannot even muster the enthusiasm to pretend they care about any of this (and let the record show I know exactly how they feel), until Poor Poor Anthony continues that the school is in "San Juan, Puerto Rico. And that's where you guys are gonna head." And so there is much jubilant celebrating throughout the land, though it's after this pregnant, awkward pause I'm really surprised wasn't edited out. Genesis and Kameelah scream the conditioned scream of a generation who learned about winning by watching Showcase Showdown winners whoop and holler and jump and run and kiss Bob Barker full on the mouth, while Montana sits in her seat gleefully repeating, "Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico." Elka looks glum in a purely "oh, daddy is so hearing from me about this" kind of way, collects her things, and pouts poutily out of the room in a pouty fashion. Kameelah, for some reason, interprets that gesture as a personal offense to her, indicated by her talk-to-the-hand posture and snarky comment, "How can she be unhappy about going to Puerto Rico? Oh, we're not going to Ireland." And, in the elevator, Elka admits as such to Montana: "I guess I just had my mind set on going overseas." Yeah, because it sure would be a shame to be trapped on that landlocked, continental mass called "a tiny island in the middle of a significantly larger ocean" on their one free weekend out of Tundra Central. Outside the CCC, the kvteching continues, and Montana decides to put a stop to it right now by verbalizing her feelings for Elka's ungratefulness and laying them all out on the line...to us: "I was kind of upset with her that she was so bummed about going to Puerto Rico. How ungrateful. She should just go and have a good time." Elka clarifies for Montana that she's "not complaining...just kind of disappointed." She's bummed that she's traveling and still won't get to see her Walter. Kind of strange, current mood considered, that no one ever considered changing her name permanently to "Sulka." Maybe now's the time, then.
Over at the CCC, the housemates are finally involved in the lives of the children for five seconds simply because they know they stand to gain personally from it. How giving. They are taking Polaroids of the kids and writing down personal information such as their age and favorite color, so that they may toss it all in the ocean on their way to getting drunk and hooking up with strangers. Sean learns the kids, he learns 'em real good a-yuh, "Puerto Rico is a little island in the Caribbean, it's south of Florida," pointing towards the ground because that's where "south" is. In hell. Jason helps out, "When you pick your pen-pal, you'll be able to talk to them on the computer, and see what they're saying to you right there and then." One insightful scamp stumps the band entirely by asking how they'll communicate, seeing as they don't speak Spanish, and Jason adopts a genuinely confused aspect that implies the only Spanish words he'll need is whatever the translation for "duty-free rum" is. Kameelah jumps in with the save: "Maybe the people who don't speak Spanish can learn some Spanish. Maybe you guys can help them with their English. That's what this is all about. Learning."
Cut immediately to it being just exactly the opposite of "all about learning," as a series of housemate confessionals outline their hopes for the trip: Syrus looks forward to the "warm weather" and the "beautiful women;" Genesis intends to cultivate "a damned good tan;" Kameelah dreams about "no arguments;" and Montana puts waaaay too fine a point on it all in her dream for "a good cockfight," a frighteningly ethnocentric cultural assumption, mish-mashing the entire non-contiguous-forty-eight-states experience together into some "stuff it's not okay to do in civilization" speech that probably ended with her further assimilationist intents to "get me a box of Cubans" and "TP Fidel's house." Yeah, I know this entire paragraph was one sentence. Someone got a problem with that? ["Um...no. And it has nothing at all to do with the fact that, very shortly, you'll know where I live." -- niki]
Airport. The flight attendant runs Sulka's ticket through the ticket-taker machine, and Sulka snarks, "Oh, gee, thanks," like it's that poor woman's fault that Sulka fell in love with some pasty, fen-dwelling rock star named "Walter" rather than some bronzed-skinned, exotic rock star named "Ricky Martin." In which case Puerto Rico would be just the ticket, I imagine.
And we're south of the border. Faux-Latin music, compliments of Buena Vista Social Club's cheaper, non-union counterpart (The Hiawatha Lodge House Band featuring Some Fat Guy with Castanets?) accompanies an endless montage of tropical shots of palm trees and oceans and the like. I'm almost surprised that the editors didn't include a shot of a parka-clad old man shoveling, just by force of habit. There's tons of "oooohing" and an excess of "aaaahing" at the forgotten sight of unfrozen earth, and the trip from the airport to their lodging is implied to take, like, nine house, even though San Juan International Airport is, as you may well imagine, pretty close to the actual town of San Juan, but whatever. Suddenly, they are staying in a very large house, and the first tape of the marathon cuts out, officially marking the chronological midpoint between my pain and salvation recapping this show. The seven are then seen walking down a cobblestone street in San Juan, and Syrus asks a woman where to find "the bars." Um, Syrus? Don't you mean "the school-age program for installation of the CU-SeeMe software program to facilitate cross-cultural exchanges between youths in America?" Yeah, I thought that's just exactly what you meant.
Cut to later that night, when the entire house boogies down at an outdoor tribal dance, where a band made up entirely of drums provides the rhythmic island beats necessary for seven clueless Americans to get completely wasted and make total idiots of themselves. Not that I mean any seven Americans, specifically. Okay, yes I do. Sean explains it as such: "The first night in Puerto Rico, we all went out [actually, since we're respecting each other's cultures so much this half-hour, I should report Sean's actual more-Fargo-than-Fargo sentiments and phonetically tell you that he actually said "oot"] together, and it was the first time the whole group had been ootside the setting of the firehouse." Here at Episode Thirteen, mind you. Antisocial buncha freaks. Cut to Sulka and Montana running into the ocean, laughing and laughing, taking their shoes off, and wading while Sean yells, "I wanna go get naked with you!" which acts as a pretty good incentive for Sulka to keep the rest of her clothes on. Montana, however, seems unabashedly ready to share with the world the cornea-singeing mental image of her frolicking in the surf in only her bra (Weird. I thought she had sewn shoulder pads into all of her shirts, so imagine how surprised I am to learn that those are her actual shoulders.) and underwear that are so downright "functional" that I can hardly even hear their whooping cheers of firehouse liberation, so busy am I pointing at the screen and yelling, "Ha ha, Montana wears granny undies!" over and over and over again as we slide into a merciful commercial break.
day, the Mariachi Band from Hell continues to hold the soundtrack hostage as the Somber Seven travel to a building marked "The Boys and Girls Club of Puerto Rico." Thank you for saying just exactly what you mean, non-CCC building exterior. And while we're treasuring cut-and-dry clarity over intriguing cast developments of any kind, we cut to a Sulka voice-over, in which she tells us AGAIN, "We had to inform the children who we were and what we were here to do. Which was to set up the pen-pal program with the children in Boston." Back to El Boys and Girls club, where Sulka quickly proves to be the group's most valuable resource, seeing as she's the only one who speaks Spanish with any real fluency. The rest of the group, it seems, operates under the misguided notion that Kameelah speaks the language, as well (Sean voice-overs, "The only two people who speak Spanish in our group are Kameelah and Elka."), but we cut back to Kameelah attempting to communicate and not understanding a child who asks, "Cuál es su nombre?" (What is your name?). Isn't that, like, the most fundamental, basic, first thing you learn in introductory Spanish in seventh grade? I took French in high school and I still know how to tell someone we're totally going to the beach ("On va à la plage."), and my sister taught me helpful Italian sentences for when I went there in high school ("Ho bisogno di francobolli," which translates directly to "I am in need of stamps." She also painstakingly taught me, "Please do not press this with a hot iron, it is polyester," but damned if I remember how that essential communication goes), but you're not going to find me telling the planet that I "speak" a language just because I've "heard" it spoken to me on the subway, or that I "know" Spanish because I've seen Pulp Fiction enough times to know how to ask for directions to the shoe store. Anyway.
Elsewhere, frustration has set in, as The World's Most Entitled Americans actually complain to each other that no one speaks English. On a primarily Spanish-speaking island. As a commonwealth of a country which has no official national language, by the way. Over on a basketball court inside of El CCC, Syrus bitches to Sean that it's going to be "so hard." Hey, Syrus, remember back in the day when this was all about the learning? Yeah, I barely do either. Genesis thumbs curiously through an English/Spanish dictionary looking for ways to communicate, but she is unable to find any close approximations of, "Even my mother believes I am a dilettante bisexual," and, "Which is the way to the bar of titties?" in her non-native tongue, and is rendered silent for the rest of the weekend. Syrus plays basketball. Elka chats it up with the smallies. Jason poses (from the root word "to be a stank poser," of course) as a technical genius with the CU-SeeMe software, Montana takes picture of the kids, and Genesis keeps right on flipping. Jason and Sean are experiencing the same exact problem with the software that they were experiencing in Boston, and Poor Poor Anthony's face finally appears on their computer monitor, inspiring Jason to encourage, "That's ma boys! That's them." I'm sure it would make Anthony feel infinitely better about how miserable you are about to make his life, if only he knew he was one of "your boys." Crank up those CU-SeeMe mics and show your love, Jason.
And, in short order, it is time for the Somber Seven to take their leave from El CCC. Everyone experiences a sudden self-righteous pang of good-deed-dom before taking off for a night of cheap flowing liquor and hot sweaty island sex. Kameelah tells us, "I think the kids really were excited about communicating with the children in Boston. But we need to think of a creative way to keep this going." You mean, like never, ever mentioning it again for the rest of the season? Sound plan, that. Genesis chimes in as well: "Even though I couldn't talk to them, the kids were very, very sweet and they were very affectionate. And that was so comforting. I had a very good time there. Nothing could ever replace that experience." Awwwww. This week, on a very special...oh, you know. The seven walk outside to discover that it is pouring rain, and everyone takes cover except for Jason, who stands in the middle of the parking lot repeating, "I love the rain, man." Of course you do, Jason. It's the only thing out there more drippy and changeable than you are. Shut up, Jason.
Night. Montana and Sulka have perfectly recreated their dysfunctional-firehouse-roommate situation inside of El Ambiguous House, the place they're staying that we found out all about while I was switching tapes in the VCR. Elka holds a ringing phone to her ear while Montana primps in the bathroom and muses, "I can't believe you're calling London from Puerto Rico." She's calling Walter, natch. Montana tells Sulka and the camera and us, "Elka, honey, we're going out on a date in fifteen minutes. You need to get ready." Once Walter picks up, Montana obnoxiously attempts to throw everyone else's emotional life into the same peril in which she constantly lives, yelling practically into the phone, "Get off the phone with your boyfriend so you can out on the date." Elka tells Walter that she's going out with "this guy here," whose name Sulka clearly does not know. Outside El Ambiguous House, Sean and Jason gripe about going out, worrying, "The biggest thing is you can't even talk to them because they can't understand you." Sigh. I assume by "them," Sean is talking about "women," and them not being able to understand what he's saying is not "the biggest thing" keeping them away, I am sure. Sean proposes that he try out the pick-up line, "You? Me?" and then he slaps his palms together in an ugly simulation of what Sean envisions to be a satisfying sexual experience. And that right there, Sean, is "the biggest thing." A language barrier can do nothing but help you.
Suddenly they're out, and a resurgent Syrus attempts to chat it up with clothing models from the Caribbean retail-fashion store, El Maxx de TJ. Man, he could seek them out anywhere, couldn't he? But the three boys quickly become frustrated, seeing as, "No one can understand us, we can't understand nobody. So what now, fellas?" Well, what's one desperate step past "rejected by trashy hookers"? All they have to do is figure that out and they're golden for the rest of the night.
I actually really like the cut that brings us back inside of Elka and Montana's room, as it features Montana suddenly lying on the bed on the phone with Walter, incredulously repeating his last question, "Who have I picked up NOW?" Then she cracks up, because it is kind of funny. She continues, "This fine young gentleman offered to show us around the city, and far be it from me to deny him the right of showing me around." She continues on that Sulka is only coming along as protection, and Sulka nods the relieved nod of staunchly maintained virginal sanctity. Walter must be satisfied with this reasonable explanation, because the conversation is suddenly over and Sulka is rushing Montana out of the room fighting about whether Sulka is spoiled. Roommate hijinks abound.
I ignore the surging tidal wave of jokes concerning the feeling you get when someone goes, ahem, "south of the border," as Montana expands her potential datable cross-section of the population by AN ENTIRE ISLAND. Folks, meet Rafael. Sulka and Montana walk down an otherwise empty cobblestone street (good thing big strong Sulka with her pulled-back hair and sensible pumps is there to "protect" Montana from this large, hulking man they know absolutely nothing about) with this Rafael, a black-clad native with an unsightly growth of facial hair just under his lower lip that renders it impossible to look directly at him. Well, I guess without bizarre facial blemishes of the oddest kind, he couldn't really be considered for boyfriendhood by Montana. Y'know? Montana voice-overs that she met Rafael "in the hotel," and defends this entirely unsavory situation with the rationalization, "I guess you could say it was a date. But I mean Elka was there as my chaperone." Um, yeah? They come upon a cemetery that Rafael tells us contains "all the great characters of Puerto Rican history." Montana "loves cemeteries." Gee, maybe that's because she hasn't spent vast amounts of time at one in the last few months for a little event called "her mother's funeral." So she makes this huge-ass deal about wanting to go in and see the cemetery, never thinking of Sulka for one second. Which, truth be told, is cruel. And thoughtless. And bitchy. We learn from Sulka in a voice-over, "It was kind of eerie walking into the cemetery. Now a cemetery has a little more significance to me than it did before, since my mother passed away." Cue sequence of Montana being the most thoughtless bitch in friend history, as they approach the gate and find it locked. Sulka observes, "I'm not in for this jumping over the wall thing," and we cut from that comment to her, well, doing just that. Montana moves a concrete slab away from an open grave and pulls out a plastic bag, observing, "So that's what happens to do when you die. You turn into a plastic bag. Finally, our questions are answered." And in general, I don't hate Montana nearly as much as the average committed viewer of this season, but at this moment of supreme inconsideration, I detest her to previously unheralded can't-even-make-a-joke-about-it proportions. Mean, mean bad girl.
Hey, look! It's the Lowest Moment in Real World History! Why? Three words: Spoken. Word. Poetry. Syrus, Genesis, and Jason are hanging out on the roof of El Ambiguous House, and Syrus claims that he wants to hear Jason "free verse." Nooooooooo! Genesis provides the subject matter, "Love Sucks," and Jason launches in: "Love sucks 'cause one day I was walking down the street I met this beautiful woman she said hey how's it goin' I said pretty good we fell in love she broke my heart and I hate her to this day. Love sucks." Yeah, that's not the only thing that sucks, Allan Cringeberg. Genesis then makes the mistake of handing the creative development off to Syrus with the topic "Men are dogs," and he launches into the most painful reggae thing I can't even quite describe and wouldn't even think of imposing on you nice people relaxing in your homes and places of business. It's called "dance hall." WTF? Am I out of the loop? "Who knows how to live this life?" Y'all don't. Y'all don't even come close.
Cemetery. Montana and her latest facially challenged boytoy are actually CLIMBING on a statue of a famous virgin of some kind, and Montana rubs it suggestively and turns to her Catholic "friend" and asks, "Have you ever stroked a virgin, Elka?" Disgusting pig. Really. Must look away. Walking through the streets again, they come upon a beach. Sulka voice-overs, "It was so nice of him to show us the town, but once Montana and him started talking about 'underwater archaeology,' I knew I was about to become the third wheel." Sorry, Sars. That's what she says. And "underwater archaeology"? Why is this Bizarro Real World all of a sudden? Sulka watches the two frolic in the ocean and start tearing their clothes off. Kissing ensues. Man, even used disparagingly, I still can't believe Montana was able to so much as conjure the word "virgin" or identify its one meaning.
At the end of the night, Montana grapples with her keys to the front door of El Ambiguous House, as Rafael stands aside and asks if she wants to see him again. She's shady and standoffish. Back inside, Sean and Jason propose that the three of them "drink beer," and we cut to them at an outdoor café. C'mon baby, let the soul-bearing roll: "I've never met my real father," Montana begins, apropos of nothing. "When I was eight years old..." Oh, here we go. She launches into her prepared speech about a letter she wrote to her father that was returned unopened, and she has legitimized her father's absence in her life, she says, by seeking "acceptance by dating, through men." She admits that the coping tactic is "sick," claiming that she is "a feminist" and "a strong person." No father, she claims, has led her to feel that she needs a man in her life at all times. Dude, your Intro Psych textbook called. It wants its heinous misreadings of all of Freud's teachings back. Shut up, Montana.
We learn that the Somber Seven have reached their final day in Puerto Rico, and they are being rewarded -- again -- for all of their work not done, with a boat ride and a whole lotta beer. Let's free verse the crap out of going on a boat in rough surf, an activity which many of us have - thanks -- actually experienced before. Jason? "It was scary, but it was like...being alive!" Dude, Montana's cigarette didn't even go out. How scary could that have been?
Sean has his personal camcorder out on the trip back to the mainland, and we learn from Sean, "All of the [sic] sudden I see Montana, looking at me like she's gonna unzip her vest and show me her boobies." Again with the boobies, oh stunted man-child? And while we're talking, I actually used the word "cooter" in my lastRoswellrecap, and I am holding Sean personally responsible for corrupting my language in such heinous ways. I blame him exclusively. Anyway, Montana immediately hops on the defensive, claiming that they "could not" see anything, but sure enough, we cut to the shot from Sean's cam, and I utter a brief thanks for the advent of the "blurrycam" technology which spares the nipples and spoils not my appetite. And I remembered this being a much bigger deal than it really turns out to be. Nipples. Feh.
That night at dinner, the seven (plus their host, I guess, who they familiarly refer to as "Jan" with no sympathy for the changing-tape problem I experienced in the early goings) discuss the usual tacked-on, late-in-the-ep, hot-button issues such as affirmative action (Kameelah: "I had someone tell me I got into Stanford because of affirmative action," while Sean says, "I have a strong feeling if I was gay I would have gotten in, or if I was a black male."). Jan tries to act as the voice of wisdom in telling them, "I think you're all being too intense," and attempting to set herself up as the proto-Souna elder antidote for Real World's chronic self-seriousness. But it doesn't work, man. Because she's gone even before Souna was. No ukulele or anything.
And, in the final seconds, a car carries the Somber Seven back to the airport. Sean tells us that their time together was very bonding for the whole group, and Montana gives a big ol' inadvertent shout-out to the generous folks over at B-M with the recap: "I was hoping that I would get to be in the sun, maybe meet a couple of cute Puerto Ricans, drink some rum, walk on the beach. All my expectations were met." Stock Footage Plane not really carrying them takes off, and the Somber Seven are on their way back to the cold, slate gray skies of a winter that keeps on showing them what "somber" really means. I, for one, am really looking forward to it.