The opening moments of this week's episode are all but entirely drowned out by the sound of the folks over at the Intuitive Soundtrack Department (ISD) patting themselves on the back and engaging in general merriment as Montana exits the firehouse and walks through the rain-slicked Boston streets -- during a pretty substantial downpour, natch -- to the techo-for-Top-40-lovers-who-are-in-reality-terrified-of-techno-music-and-those-people-who-create-it beats of Madonna's -- who woulda thunk it -- "Rain." Wait. I don't get it. Gee, it's a good thing there was no such popular song in 1997 begging for a product-placement shot on an MTV reality program called "Montana Does Naked Jumping Jacks"; I quake in terror to think of how the ISD would have found an appropriate spot for that one. She makes her way down the street and up the steps of a T-station conveniently located just a quick, stylized cut from her home. Now inside the moving train, a voice-over (that at no point cuts to Montana in a confessional, I think as a means of communicating some kind of "this is what's going on in my mind right now" pathos...I'm sorry, is this Look Who's Talking: The Twentysomething Years?) accompanies a few exceedingly close-up shots of Montana's face, alerting us, "There are days when it just hits me and I'm just extremely depressed, still, at having gotten fired. It's something that will be really hard for me to get over." Meanwhile, across East Boston, some poor eleven-year-old is all up to step nine, apologizing to his piano teacher and the entirety of his Pee Wee soccer team for how he acted "like a child" back when his life was controlled by the devil's poison. But last week's boozehound "Jeffrey," it seems, wasn't the one lucky enough to sign the release waivers with Bunim-Murray and have his story told, so I guess we're stuck with Montana's side of things instead for a little longer, so boo freakin' hoo, Red.
Well, she traveled and she traveled, but it seems she was unable to escape from conversing with Sean regardless (what other reason is there for leaving the house, really?). Cut to the two of them inside of The Back Bay Brewing Company, Montana downing the largest glass of "Ale About Me" brand beer that has ever been dispensed via tap and rambling, "What do I say to my mom? What do I say to my grandmother?" Well, she could try, "Me, humiliating myself and besmirching our family's good name...live on the ten spot!" But her grandmother probably wouldn't get it. She continues that she left "without saying goodbye to any of them," and takes a drag off her smoke and notes, "I'm feeling low. I'm at a low point. I'm feeling low." You're feeling what way, exactly? Oh, that's right. Low.
Firehouse. Montana sits on some product-placed IKEA gear reading a book, one hopes in the process of perusing a fairly comprehensive volume of Roget's and letting her fingers do the walking to the page featuring the entry for "low." Which is how she's been feeling. By the way. Gotta learn how to read between the lines, people. No need to thank me. Sean confessionalizes that "it's hard for Montana to see [them] go to work every day, and she's not a part of that." A quick cut to the inside the kitchen of the CCC finds Genesis responding to the "aaaand ACTION" from offstage and launching in conveniently, "If anybody gets fired from here, should they stay in the house or should they move out of the house?" Elka believes that it's "tough to decide," but reminds us via a passive-aggressive confessional that "there's complete irony in this whole situation, because Montana was dead set on voting Syrus out of the house when he was supposedly going to be kicked out of the after-school program." Cut to a flashback shot of Sean, Elka, Kameelah, and Montana in the closing scene of "The Mother Load," aired here in ominous black-and-white in an attempt to imbue this damning retrospective with a sense of documentary-like authenticity, like it was dug up from pre-war newsreels to be used in the establishing moments of Ken Burns's History of Bangs. In the clip, Montana notes, "I don't think that he should be able to stay in the house," and we cut back to the CCC to find Kameelah tossing in her two cents (which, converted on the Kameelah Scale of Opinionated Everything," comes out to somewhere in the area of three or four billion cents), "If you want to kick somebody out so quickly, you should be subject to the same consequences." And then to a Syrus confessional, filmed in a put-on-your-3D-glasses tight shot, in which he smirks, "Lemme tell you, karma's a bitch, ain't she? 'Cause she came back harder than [expletive, probably "...I get during the 'Mommy And Me' program, if you know what I mean and I think you do," deleted]. Damn. I never noticed what a perfectly round circle Syrus's head is.
It looks like Take Your Blatant Lyrical Symbolism To Work Day at the ISD continues on strong, as we cut to Montana lying on the couch in the otherwise empty firehouse as the we-miss-you-1997-but-not-really-that-much song "Inside" kicks up with the words, "Haven't done a thing today / I'm just sittin' around, wasting time away." Which is so crazy! Because Montana...well, she hasn't done a thing today! She's just sitting around! Wasting...oh, you know. Thanks, soundtrack. Tell Patti Rothberg I'll see her when I find her selling her complimentary Lilith '97 T-shirt on eBay for rent money. Which is a really good idea. That she probably stole from Joan Osborne. But I digress. Cut to Montana scrubbing those hideous cylindrical fish tanks, as Kameelah whines on, "It's not fair that she's in the house, chillin'. Like, who has time to clean all seven fish tanks at once? That doesn't make sense to me." Yeah, I know that after my killer sixteen-hour workweek, I can barely even lift a finger, much less a, um, giant cylindrical fish tank. Sorry. Just trying to relate. Can't. To the workweek or the fish tank, really.
Out in front of the firehouse, Kameelah asks Jason if she should be the one to bring up Montana's attempts to get Syrus fired, or if she should just rise above and leave well enough alone. Jason, of course, notes, "Me, personally, I don't give a crap." Ew. Of course you don't. Cut to inside the house, where we are to believe that Montana is simultaneously on the phone. She's talking to the aforementioned grandmother (or so we gather from her repeated use of the words, "I've never been fired from a job before, Grandma." The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction must be completely out of white ink after last week's Introductionpalooza), who reassures Montana, "Everybody has pitfalls in their life. It's how you work it out that makes you become stronger or weaker." Awwww. Sounds like it was Chinese buffet day over at Shady Pines, and Grandma Red is just getting around to the plastic-wrapped fortune cookies dessert. I'm beyond disappointment that we won't be around to hear the remainder of the conversation, in which Grandma also reassures Montana, "You will soon be going on a long trip" and "Your luck will soon improve," and, of course, that bastion of sage elder generational advice, "1, 2, 10, 12, 25, 26." Back outside, Jason once again plays a kind of contrived good guy so transparent that casual passersby believe Kameelah is standing in front of the firehouse having this conversation with herself, garbling, "I didn't stick my nose in about Syrus, and I'm not gonna stick my nose in about this." What. Ever. Somebody get that boy a tweezers and a ladder in case he needs some help extracting all those splinters from his ass should he ever decide to get the hell off the fence.
Smoking. Reading. Watching a TV with a blurred out picture, thus eliciting the through-the-coma-haze comment from this barely-conscious recapper, "Sure seems like a strange time to be surfing for scrambled porn. Oh, wait." Lurking in a corner for the first time in weeks, The Cat Of Vulnerability must have heard the Smashing Pumpkins on the soundtrack and come out to see who was feeling angsty. Cats have that extra sense, supposedly. In a turning-of-the-tide confessional, Montana is back on the phone, letting us know in voice-over, "Hopefully, I'll be able to volunteer somewhere else, do something good. Redeem myself a little bit." Cue montage of her tossing out some personal information, culminating with the explanation, "There was alcohol being served...samples of it. And I just didn't realize the implications of doing that." Meanwhile, the heads of volunteering at SADD, AA, and Common Sense International make some hasty, stonewalling excuse about not needing any further help in the immediate, oh, say, ever, and terminate the call in a hurry.
Back at the CCC, The Vindictively Napoleonic Complex Formerly Known As Poor, Poor Anthony (oh, wait...that's not who it is. It's actually some guy named "Anthony, Director, After School Program." Thanks as usual, Squiggly Hip Font) pulls Syrus into his office with a "Sy, I need to talk to you, man." When did "Sy" become your "man," um, "Tony"? May I call you Tony? No? Well, then, I guess you're seeing my point. Syrus sits down, and Anthony hands him a piece of paper, adding, "I hope this doesn't kill your morale." Close-up on the piece of paper. Ugh. Y'know, it's at this point in, like, every other Real World season that hook-ups or fights are reaching their dirty little climaxes, and here I am with a shovel and a sack of rock salt, digging out from underneath six months of snowbound sameness, recapping scraps of internal paperwork for mightybigmemo.com. Fine. Here goes: "Syrus, During your orientation on March 11, you were informed that I needed to be notified if you were going to be late or absent. Tuesday, April 22, and today, April 24, you were absent without notice. In the future, if you are going to be late or absent, I need you to contact me no later than 11:00 AM." Anthony's name, appearing on The Scrambled Porno Network right along with Montana's I'm At A Low marathon, is signed below. The letter is dated April 24, 1997. Okay, first of all, they've only been working at the CCC for five weeks, even though we're three episodes from the end of the run and they first started showing up there back in Episode 4? Have we been watching the escapades of these people blatantly ignoring the welfare of defenseless children in real time, or what? If I had known this season went by the underground title of Time Code: Boston, I might have reconsidered the whole signing on thing to begin with. Kameelah finds someone to blame: "The day we got back from the Philadelphia trip, Syrus and Sean did not go to work. They had a barbecue." Cut to a few random folks outside the firehouse, enjoying some food on a hibachi. Wasn't that the day they were told not to come in at all? Oops. Sorry. My blasé attempt to inflict some internal logic over the time frame of this show has opened up a tear in the time-space continuum, and all of the unlucky Somber Seven have gotten sadly sucked inside. So weird, how no one's exactly making any kind of concerted effort to help them get out. Die, suckers. Die!
in is Sean, who is just relieved that Anthony told him he could come back to the center. This leads Sean to what his confessional refers to as a "revelation," in which he tells us he realized, "If I don't make something happen right now, in the couple of days, I'm gonna give these kids nothing and my time in East Boston is wasted." Cut to Sean on the phone, offering up that rallying cry, "I need a log by Monday!" He continues that he has to make this "happen for the kids," or he's "a total turdball." Dude. No comment. Suddenly, we're product-placing the Hard Rock Café (sorry, but no human being not from some farming village in Kurdistan has walked into that eating establishment without checking a suitcase full of irony at the door since, well, ever), as Sean and Syrus sit at the bar and enjoy $14 pints of beer, arguing about the nasty turn their six cumulative minutes at the CCC have taken. Sean: "What did I give the kids? Not a whole lot. You said you were going to give the kids a basketball program, and have you done that? Not yet." Syrus defends himself on the basis that "the situation is not what they drew it out to be. Period." He was expecting, maybe, more titties and beer? At an after-school program for elementary-school children? Sean removes a dollar from his wallet and throws is at Sean, yelling, "Quit passing the buck!" and leaves in a big huff. Ah! The currency-oriented hijinks of it all. When will it end? No, really. When, already?
Some countrified electric guitar song that even now the Black Crowes are anticipating covering and passing off as their own composition should they be invited to perform in public ever again accompanies Sean walking out of the firehouse wearing his Lay It Again, Sam hat and carrying an axe which, if he hasn't brought it with him to hack that hideous piece of leather into bits and somehow reconstruct the poor cow who needlessly gave its life for the unfashion of its creation, its purpose has been sadly misdirected. Sean approaches a red pick-up truck and pronounces them "ready to roll," as Jason's voice-over fills in the blanks that "Sean rented a truck." Thanks. Oh, more? Talk on. "Me, Syrus, and Sean are all gonna jump in this truck, for four hours, all the way up to Maine, and pick up a log." ["There's not one log in Massachusetts? Come ON." -- Wing Chun] Sean is ridiculously proud of himself when he lets us know, "We have a pool, and I'm gonna teach the kids to log roll," adding, "I think the kids will see my excitement for the sport, and also get excited about the sport." Which I'm sure is true, provided the slight alteration in form is allowed to occur, by which the word "log" is changed just a smidge to read "Pokémon" and the word "roll" morph just ever so slightly into the words "Game Boy." Other than that, hitch up the wagons, maw, we're goin' to Hicksville, USA! Yee-ha, Pickachu! Er, I mean, "log rolling."
Back at the firehouse, Montana continues with Operation Hangover, reporting, "It's a little bit frustrating. Nobody's really getting back to me. I keep playing phone tag with people. I set up appointments, people cancel them, and I'm very anxious to get this new volunteer thing underway." Wonder why that would be. I'm sure if you just press on using that tone of voice and informing people that you really don't care who you help as long as you can close the book on this whole "volunteer thing," that any number of like-minded individuals will throw down the cotton they'd been using to swab sores on AIDS patients or lay down their ladles once employed for the purpose of administering soup into the cupped palms of the poor and bowl-less and help to make sure you don't lose face with the 18-34 year-old demographic when the show about you living rent free in a fully furnished apartment airs. Charity is charity, after all.
A way-too-girly cry of ebullience (the castrati timbre mostly compliments of, duh, Jason) accompanies the pick-up truck crossing the border into Maine and riding into a town called "Ellsworth," and in a flash we're pulling into a large plot of dead, wintry earth with a welcoming sign reading, "The Great Maine Lumberjack Show." Nobody seems the least bit curious that the words directly underneath that homespun sign reads, "See you in 1997!" Which, as we learned a few short television moments ago and also a few short months from now, is that it's been 1997 for the better part of four months. Maybe they just haven't taken down the sign yet. Silly, silly hicks. We meet Sean's friends, Tina and Bill, who help load a "twelve feet long, seventeen inches in diameter logging log" onto the back of the truck while Jason stands aside like the diva princess he is, cultivating his usual look of, "Yeah, I know it says 'barn jacket' on the inside lining of the coat, but in the Abercrombie catalog no one actually goes near a barn...all they really do is play touch football with each other and tussle shirtlessly a bit. Which, quite frankly, I wouldn't much mind doing in this coat at all." Or something. Did I at least make it clear that he wasn't much for helping? An axe-throwing competition briefly ensues. Jason throws like a bit of a girl and goes way wide of the target. Because they didn't do that in the A&F catalog either.
Okay. We're juxtaposing. We get it. Back in Boston with lonely Montana, she's mid-interview with a woman named "Laura" from the Red Cross, which we learn in voice-over would involve "doing things at blood drives, blood banks." Montana admits to Laura that she "can't look" at blood, and Laura doesn't roll her eyes and spit because all volunteers are inherently good of heart. Juxtapose. Back in Maine. Logs rolling. Axes throwing. Jason, confined to the sidelines now, looks on as Sean and Syrus stink up the pure Maine air with the fetid reek of secreted testosterone. Jason stares at the tight-jeans, machismo spectacle and has to look away and think about baseball. Er, women's baseball.
Back at the firehouse once more, Montana finds a woman named "Andrea," the volunteer coordinator at a project called Shelter, Inc. In a confessional, Montana celebrates, "I really felt like this is something I could definitely do, and I just got a really good feeling about it." Back on the phone, Andrea tells her to come in and see if it's a place Montana would like to work. Montana thinks that's "great." Shut up, Montana. Where's Jeffrey with that giant jug with the three "X's" across it? I gotta follow me the scent back to the good stink of moonshine.
Man's ultimate triumph over log culminates in front of a nondescript square brick building (is there some aesthetic ordinance which stipulates Anthony is not allowed to enter a building that doesn't fall under the umbrella of nondescript, square, and brick?), as the pick-up truck pulls up. Anthony is now on board to help unload the log, and the assemblage carries it down a long hallway and into an indoor pool that looks appears to be a far more exciting after-school option than a half-empty box of Jenga pieces and a rousing Syrus-organized game of "Guess Mommy's Bra Size And Phone Number." Also a pretty good deterrent from turning back to the ol' sauce. Eh, Jeffrey? The log is suddenly in the pool and the kids are suddenly there and Sean is suddenly shirtless in a manner far more detrimental to my projected future mental health than countless pulls off Jeffrey's Jug could ever hope to be (I'll do an Extra on that one day and report back. The things I do for the love of my work). Anthony attempts to look on approvingly at the sudden interest his volunteers are taking in the children, but this slippery hunk of lumber in a cement pool has him gazing in horror, like maybe a little drop of alcohol wouldn't be the bigger insurance liability after all. But no matter. Sean is suddenly mid-demonstration, showing the kids that they have to be super-careful because there's nowhere to hold on (what about those big-ass handles right there? Oh, sorry. Those are just Sean's love handles and oh ha ha ha because really I'm so perfect) and that they have to maintain balance at all times. Sean's voice-over really speaks for his character on the whole: "I see the excitement of these kids, standing on a log." Sure, it's funny now. But y'all wait until Jesse Ventura becomes President and the Super Bowl is cancelled in lieu of this revisionist national pastime. These kids love it. Minnesota: don't let it happen to you.
Stock Footage Homeless Guy pushes his Metaphorical Cart Of Sorrows And Recycling, acting all the gatekeeper for the baaaaaad part of town as Montana walks up to the front door of yet another nondescript house (at least they're being careful not to glamorize the volunteering experience), informing us in voice-over, "Shelter, Inc. is a house that has about sixteen homeless people staying there, basically trying to get their lives back on track." Oh, cool. It's like an impoverished version of Survivor. But without Probst. A parting gift for which I would take the very same vow of poverty, by the way. Inside, we meet an "Andrea," who is introduced via The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction as "Volunteer Coordinator," who tells Montana, "Shelter, Inc. was started in the '70s by volunteers." Montana listens with that dewy-eyed glaze of contractually obligated do-goodism, musing all idealistically that this place is going to work out perfectly, all, "The '70s! They wanted to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony!" She reports that she thinks Andrea is "super-cool." Cue quick tour of the environs, a house that actually looks like a slightly downtrodden version of the house they're going to end up using when The Real World makes it to its ninetieth season and the producers have no choice but to resort to Real World South Hoboken because all of the cool cities (and Boston!) have already been used and destroyed. Montana tells Andrea that she's "very excited," and she hopes they can work together. Andrea is the first person I've seen since Stock Footage Homeless Guy who deals with people in a way that makes it obvious she doesn't give a crap she's on television. I like Andrea. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is what I said about a certain non-poor Anthony I might take the time to mention here.
Back in the shallow end of the pool at the Insurance Liability Recreation Emporium, a few more bizarrely fetishized shots of kids on logs and Sean doing a razor-kick into the pool (from behind and underneath...am I atoning for sins I don't even remember committing?), Sean asks for a volunteer, and a girl -- who the careful observer will remember as Jessica-the-gay-hating-metaphor in "This Is So Gay" -- raises her hand and wants to go first. Syrus (damn, that is one round noggin right there) jumps in on a voice-over to let us know, "I grew up playing basketball, homey grew up log rolling." Cut to a public park with about a thousand kids in tow behind Syrus, followed by a montage of kids throwing basketballs and Syrus yelling at them. Another voice-over tells us that now that he's gotten "off [his] ass," the kids seem to be enjoying themselves. He wishes he could have challenged himself with something besides basketball for once, but at least this is a sport that's played by, like, actual people. Log rolling. Phffft.
Inside the "T," time takes a holiday once more as Syrus notes to Sean and Jason, "That's gonna be weird without her there, now." Sean has masterminded (well, "feebleminded") a plan by which he would pretend that he was the only one who wants Montana to stay in the house. Cut to inside the firehouse, where Sean and Syrus sit in the living room with Montana, Syrus kicking things off by asking no one in particular, "Did you tell Montana about the meeting?" Montana leans against the couch and asks, all resigned, just what that means. Syrus expositions, "Like what happened to me earlier? That came up again." Sean leans in for the kill, sitting up in his chair and looking directly at her: "They don't think you should live here." Yup. I still hate him, but that's his best line of the whole season. Syrus cracks up and actually hugs Montana. She can't react or storm off in anger, what with her no leg to stand on, and she smiles again. In a confessional, she calls the whole scene "a good one." Yeah, sister. From that side of the glass, maybe.
Meanwhile, Andrea rings back and tells Montana that she's going to get started on Monday. Then she's walking there in the rain, telling us, "It was kind of nice to have some time off. But you can only have so much." And then she's working like crazy, carrying boxes and generally being helpful. Cut to her eating breakfast with Sean, who tells Montana that his log rolling program is "today." Well, I hope that works out well for him. Oh, and huh? Back in Andrea's office, she tells Montana that she thinks things are working out really well, adding, "I'm excited to have you here." Because if there's one thing we know in this crazy world, it's that the homeless don't need a lick of help in tracking down liquor when the need for it should at some point strike.