A light and breezy soundtrack ditty featuring synth-y drums and a lush "doo doo doo laa" choral arrangement masks the lead singer's horror at finding out his band was being passed up to pen the newest Mentos ad campaign and would instead be product-placed in that mirage of the Fame Desert known as "The Real World!!!! (final episode of the Boston season)." A pan of the firehouse under absolute darkness ensures that no other sense is engaged but that which forces us to listen to the latest of vaguely European cheese pop bands that briefly came to power here in the late '90s, pumping out record after identical record exported from that ambiguously international location known as "Foreignia" and into record stores, each band with the approximate shelf life of the amount of time it took me to process and learn the lyrics to the aforementioned "doo doo doo laa" song. They were cute and fluffy for a while, until suddenly one day "ABBA without the heady intellectual investment" mysteriously stopped being a respected musical genre unto itself and a world of artistic dabblers actually remembered something called "musical instruments" had been invented. Just ask The Cardigans. If you can find them. Doo doo doo laa, indeed.
And...action! We're inside the firehouse, where the non-photogenic four of Sean, Montana, Elka, and Syrus discuss arrangements for a final house dinner. Sean sits on the couch, partial custody of The Ill-Fitting White Wifebeater his responsibility tonight (at least this means Jason will be forced into something in a "sleeves"), querying, "Let's talk about Saturday night. Are we all gonna go to Artu?" Elka sits to him on the couch, an eleven-gallon cowboy hat threatening to Venus Flytrap her entire head off, the contrived final reminder that her forgotten "Down-home, Brownsville, Look Paw, No Maw!" character the editors worked so hard to piece together remains somewhat continuous, at least from a headgear perspective. In regard to Artu, Montana notes from somewhere off-camera, "I'm hip!" Oh, and you so are [cough] "hip," Montana. In that way that "hip" hasn't been used unironically (except when referring in crossword puzzles to something grandmothers have replaced) since the early days of American Bandstand, back in the 1950s when Montana was just a teenager. CGI Syrus, spliced into the firehouse for the first time since February, smiles a smile that's less of a non sequitur when you realize he's reacting to the conversation for which he was present back in February. And then Sean pipes up again, and look out! Run, Chicken Little! Exposition is falling from the dark Fargo skies! Sean outlines his plan for the night: "We'll do our thing, go to Artu, hit some of our spots, talk about some of our moments, relive a little bit of our experience." Um. Isn't that what you just did?
Let it go, Sean. Let. It. Go. Over in a confessional, he prattles on about wanting to end their experience on the show just as it began, making sure eateries around town get their product-placed dime's worth, again mentioning this so-called "Artu." By the way, in his confessional, Sean is wearing a navy blue button-down shirt with the collar so far up that he looks like he's taking his final exam at The Elvis School of Fashion: The Unfortunate, Later, Puffy Years. And I'm just sayin': A+. He says it again: "I'd like to leave my last night here the way we spent our first night together." Sing along if you know the words: "And that would be at Artu." Put the collar down, porn star. Actually, he looks more like The Count. "One! One pathetically calculated attempt to manufacture a cohesive thematic arc at Artu. Ah! Ah! Ah! Two! Two million times Sean will replace the words 'the,' 'and,' and 'a' with the word 'Artu.' Ah! Ah! Ah!" And so on.
Outside on the dark, dark Boston night, Kameelah and Genesis walk into a deli of some kind, Kameelah barking, "Why do we have to relive this nightmare?" Heh. Point. Counterpoint. And given the choice between the loser and the bitch, I'll always pick the bitch. Always. And watch out for concealed ice on the sidewalk, ladies. After all, it's only June!
Montana notes to the aforementioned three, "Kameelah. I don't like you. But dammit, we went through the exact same thing together. I will remember you for the rest of my life." Kameelah isn't even there. I see it's role-playing drama exercise time. Maybe she'll do the one where she "trusts" Syrus enough to fall backwards into his arms. But he's already gone. Sleeping with my mama. Shut up, Montana. See? Loser.
Back outside, Kameelah lays it down: "I'm not going." Genesis says that if Kameelah isn't going, she isn't going either. But then Jason won't go either, "and that's gonna piss off the other four." Kameelah, suddenly throwing a ball up in the air (where'd she get that? I guess I didn't hear when she was all, "Come with me to the deli! I really need a ball!" The hell?), responds, "And I care because why?" See? The other thing.
Sleepy, sleepy morning around Boston. Sean opens the front door of the firehouse to see Poor, Poor Anthony (note to Real World trivia buffs: this is the first time he has not been identified by The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction this entire season) shepherding a gaggle of CCC kids in the front door. The Sneaky Theme plays while they walk silently up the steps and assemble in some kind of formation in the living room. Jason asks them if they're "ready," and the song "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" roars to life. A choreographed dance ensues. Oh, my God. I've had this exact nightmare dozens of times. Except with me, they're midgets instead of children, and instead of hastily constructed similar costumes, they're all wearing really elaborate clown suits. And the song is "Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons Project. God. That song scares the shit out of me. ["I had this bizarre fascination with that song when I was a kid! Seriously. My best friend in grade three -- Joelle -- and I for some reason decided it was our favourite song and every time one of us heard it on the radio, she would phone the other up to tell her. I don't remember why." -- Wing Chun] Um. Anyway. The kids run and laugh and dance and joke and frolic as kids should, and the housemates all unthankfully climb their sorry asses out of bed. This includes the literal ass of Genesis, who inadvertently shows her upper thigh to the camera upon her bed dismount; said thigh shines brighter than the seven suns of the Planet Lesbia, infecting all who dare to stare directly into its rays with a lifetime of same-sex taboo. And that Jessica girl thought she had a chance to escape from such an imminent danger unscathed. Sorry, but that's not how it worked out, L'il Ellen. We learn from a Kameelah confessional that Anthony and the kids stormed in at "about seven in the morning," and she and Sean agree in separate confessionals that everyone thought it was "great." Everyone. Oh! Everyone except for Montana, who doesn't get out of bed. She hopelessly tells us in voice-over, "It was really hard. I didn't want to lie to the kids." Poor, Poor Anthony faces his nemesis, asking Montana where she's working. He listens long enough to make sure that none of the Sting Operation Keywords of "children" or "halfway house" or "recovering addicts" are mentioned before telling her that they'll all be downstairs having breakfast. That's too bad. When it's called "brunch," you're allowed to have mimosas. And isn't that why the kids are there?
Final, redemptive, Montana volunteering plot line. Back at Shelter Inc., Montana meets the haircutters whose help she employed last week. Sadly, Sassy Sam from City Salon is not among them. Too sassy? Montana reminds us, "I was just really pleased that the people at City Salon were so willing to volunteer their time." Because if giving yourself over to the volunteer cause is about one thing, it's delegating your responsibilities to stylists. Ska In Decline beefy horns kick it large on the soundtrack during a haircutting montage. Oh, sorry. I wasn't aware that someone had ordered up the Mighty Mighty Bangs Trim.
The clock ticks down to zero at the CCC, where sad, sad children write cards to the volunteers, and Poor, Poor Anthony suggests that they say some "final goodbyes." Elka speaks into a microphone, "My time here was very special to me. I'm gonna remember all of you. I hope you guys learned from me. Because I learned from you." Awwww. Cut to shots of kids lamenting the end of the Somber Seven's tenure. And they're crying. Not melancholy tears of time passing and things changing. This is, like, wailing. Hugs and tears and crying. A confessional from Syrus tells us, "The whole importance of this whole thing is so deep that I don't think people understand it." And then he leans out of the camera's range and starts bawling. What the hell is going on? Jason tells us, "We had to grow up a little bit. To do the job well." Well, that's speculative. A little girl asks Syrus, "Who's gonna live in the firehouse?" Syrus laughs, "The where?" And then he collects himself and posits, "I don't know. A bunch of firemen, maybe?" Yes, perhaps on an upcoming episode of B/M's new reality special, Making the Burn Victim. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. That pole doesn't provide the necessary traction to slide down when it's swathed in an Ikea throw rug and a dozen order-in menus from Artu. ["Where? Oh, Artu. I didn't hear you when you said Artu the first time. Go on." -- Wing Chun] Sean hugs a kid with giant, ill-fitting glasses, noting, "This is my twin." Heh. Close. Except the kid is nine and weighs one pound and still wears a tank top. So maybe that line was scripted for Jason. Said kid asks Elka, "You coming back tomorrow?" Elka says she is not. "How's It Gonna Be" plays on as Anthony shakes their hands and tries not to look too gleeful. I've never seen a man not about to get laid so happy.