I have to give a shout-out to my friend Mary, who loaned me her tape of this episode when I got screwed by Daylight Savings Time.
Previously on The Real World: Julie played a joke on Matt, but Matt wondered if it was a joke, or if Julie was jealous that he liked another girl. David said everyone was "hating on [him]" because he's brilliant. I guess that's what he tells himself to make it through the day. Then he told Julie that he couldn't give her five minutes, or he would become "stagnant." Julie got really mad and slammed the car door. Really hard! Because she's mad! And she's not going to take it anymore! And later in this episode, the roommates will confront David, and we are all very excited to see that. I hope it's the opening scene!
No such luck. Julie, Matt, and Melissa are riding in the Yukon. Julie says that she had a big argument with David yesterday and hasn't talked to him since. Melissa wants details. Matt wants me to take issue with his dorky hat. No, he really does! I can't think of any other reason why he would wear it. Julie explains that David feels people resent him because he does everything "phenomenably." Maybe that's a special Mormon pronunciation. Julie says she told David that she resents him for being "arrogant as hell." She tries to give it the old one-finger-in-the-air-bobbing-the-head thing, but white girls from Wisconsin just shouldn't do that. I think there's a law on the books in Wisconsin. Someone should call Sean from the Boston season -- he's a lawyer in Wisconsin now, right? Maybe he could tell us. Then again, it's Sean. Probably not. Melissa encourages Julie. In an interview, Melissa says that it takes "time, effort, and balls" to get David to understand. Matt and his hat say that if you "throw your fists up to David, he'll throw his up stronger." Julie doesn't think that David is stronger, and after their conversation in the Yukon, she walked away feeling like she "had made a point, and he had not." Well, of course she felt that way. I'm sure David feels exactly the opposite. All this conflict must be leading somewhere. I bet the confrontation scene is coming right up! In an interview, Matt travels back to the Roaring Twenties with the infamous raccoon coat. He says, "Twenty-three skiddoo! I don't like when people talk about the six of us, thus inferring [sic] that David is the odd man out. David is the bees' knees! I am the cat's pajamas!" Julie continues her "guest on Jenny Jones" speaking style when she says that David needs to "learn that he cannot always function that way because no one is going to like him." Doesn't that imply that some of them like him now? I don't think we've seen evidence of that in any recent episodes. Maybe Matt. I'm not saying I blame any of them for disliking David -- he certainly hasn't been peaches and cream to them.
David and his "friend" Deanna are eating at the Trolley Stop Café. David says he doesn't get any support from the house. Deanna says, "You get no support from the house?" In a confessional, David says that if the roommates want to hate him, they can, and he'll move on. David demonstrates moving on by continuing to bitch about his roommates to Deanna, saying that if his roommates aren't going to give him support, he can't care about them either. What support? Are his roommates Miracle Bras or something? I don't understand what kind of support he is looking for. Deanna reads from the script that David prepared for her, basically repeating everything David just said. So, in case we didn't get it when David said it (because of his communication issues), now we get Deanna repeating it. It's nice that David hired an interpreter for this scene. David says that if no one else will applaud for him, he will stand up and applaud for himself. He demonstrates said applause. Wow, they are really gearing this conversation to the mentally deficient. David says that he's "hated," and the subtle strains of "Hate Me Now" by Nas and Puff Daddy start up in the background. That foreboding music tells me that the confrontation scene must be up .
Hardly. Cut to a recording studio, where David is singing some Boyz II Men rip-off into a microphone. Luckily, there is one of those screens on the microphone, and it covers his facial manipulations. David voice-overs that he was given a gift for singing. He doesn't have any money, not even a credit card. Not even a credit card! That is un-American! Doesn't he know that he is supposed to rack up thousands of dollars in debt before he even gets out of college, and then not be able to pay it off and ruin his credit rating forever? I know that's how it works. I saw a story about it on Dateline. David explains that when he wears his headphones, he's not trying to cut off the world. He's trying to "make a dollar out of fifteen cents." Didn't he just say that he doesn't have any money at all? And now he has fifteen cents? He needs to get his facts straight. In a confessional, David says that he's trying to take advantage of his experience and not regret a single day. So, to recap: David wants to get rich from singing. He's using his time on The Real World to make that happen. How, exactly, I'm not sure, since out of the handful of musicians that have been on the show, none of them have exactly struck it big. But I'm sure David will applaud himself all the way to the top. Now must be the big confrontation.
"Where My Girls At" by 702 starts up. Danny looks out the window at the assembled strippers out front. Some ladies in bathing suits hang out in the bathroom. Melissa spies on them and looks disgusted. David hugs a stripper in a leopard-print bikini. Okay, I don't know if all of these women are strippers, but David said that they were, and until someone tells me differently, I'm just going with that. Melissa walks out of the house with a bunch of stuff. Melissa, Kelley, Danny, and some random girl leave the house. In a confessional, Melissa says that this is going to turn into a "sleazy, dirty rap video." Some of the partygoers get into the hot tub. In an interview, Danny says that he's up for a party, but if it's going to be all about hanging out with a bunch of strippers to make yourself look cooler, he wants nothing to do with it. David is hanging out in the hot tub with a bunch of people -- there are two other guys and about twelve women, and various other people assembled around the outside. In a confessional, Melissa says, "I just don't understand this necessity to be Mr. Bling Bling." If I didn't know this was recorded months ago, I would totally say that was a shout-out to our forum posters, who were doing some hilarious variations on that phrase this week. Okay, now that the party is over, I'm sure the big confrontation will happen. Come on! I've been waiting for this all week!
Matt and Julie are in the kitchen. Matt wants to know how old Jacob is. Julie says, "He just graduated." From junior high? Julie asks how old Brandy is. Matt says she's "eighteen, going on nineteen. She's like eighteen and three-quarters." Hee! Julie nailed him. Danny, who was practically falling asleep on the couch nearby, looks over and laughs. Matt thinks that Jacob probably just turned eighteen. Age is just a number, baby. Julie asks if Matt realizes how rude he was when he met Jacob. Matt says that he realizes it could have been seen as rude, but he calls his "friends back home punk-ass and gutter punk all the time." Oh, okay then. Clearly, it wasn't rude. In a confessional, Julie laments that she and Matt cannot communicate. Didn't we already see this storyline? Does anyone care? Quick poll of the audience...nope. No one cares. Get to the fight!
Julie goes out to the patio, where suddenly there is a rabbit in a cage. Where did this rabbit come from? Who does it belong to? No one knows. In an interview, Julie says she is writing a letter to Matt because he doesn't understand why she has issues with him. Julie thinks if she "write[s] it down, in word form," they can have some closure. I'm glad she isn't going to draw him a little cartoon, or perhaps do an interpretive dance of their problems. And thank GOD she isn't going to write a song about it. We hear a little bit of Julie's letter, where she says that she doesn't feel better about herself when she's around Matt. Julie concludes that this is either going to make the situation better or a whole lot worse. Who cares, as long as it makes it over, and they get to the part where they all confront David?