Costume Party Poopers

Props to Potes for the primer, and to Little Hills for overall adventures in freakocity.

Previously on The Real World: I've seen all of this season's episodes in preparation for this recap, but I've kind of seen them out of order. So, I think that previously on The Real World: that creepy guy Marc climbed into every bed in Vegas trying to pinch an inch that isn't his own, and then in the episode the roommates got a job working for a creepy guy named Marc who seemed like he might one day be up to no good. How am I doing so far?

We join Vegas already in progress, as a montage of lights, hotels, casinos, and a general sense of Cher-impersonating trashy glamour pervade the hallowed Strip. We cut inside to the elevator at the Palms to discover trashiness of a whole different pedigree -- in the form of Trashelle herself -- as she consults the mirror and tells Brynn, "I love that color." Brynn -- decked out in a silver tank top that makes her look like she's about to bust into a rousing chorus of "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" -- nods in an I'm-ignoring-you kind of way. God, that silver is all wrong. Brynn looks like she's from The Future. In a confessional, Brynn tells us, assumedly without irony, "I don't know that I really could be Trishelle's friend because I'm so jealous of her." Yes, Brynn, I can see how Trashelle's as-high-as-the-floor-they're-passing-IQ and her generally duck-like physical composition have driven so many women to Iago-esque bouts of crippling jealousy. The elevator continues its distracting EKG beeping as the floors tick up, and we're dumped out inside Ghostbar, where Trashelle quickly starts scoping out the menfolk and Brynn stands astride, tuning her second fiddle and looking generally unloved. And like the animal she is, Trashelle follows the scent to her first man of the night. And, as is so often the case with the men she seems to flock to, the scent she follows is that of Drakkar Noir.

Brynn's confessional continues on that "Trishelle has a really nice body. She has huge boobs." As if to put way too fine a point on Brynn's observation, PornoCam turns its gaze on Trashelle leaning way far over, because the general viewing audience of this show had never read What Are Boobs? An Owner's Manual or seen its illustrations cleverly marked "Figure 1-1: Huge Boobs." Thank you for the invaluable refresher course, PornoCam operator guy. Brynn's jealousy rages on, as she continues, "She's very sweet and cute and guys flocks to her." Trashelle, meanwhile, throws her split ends all a-flutter as she wails to Drakkar Noir, "Oh, I love Jack Johnson!" And who doesn't, really? Certainly not someone who needs to get laid to feel her inner worth who has just been asked the question, "Can I validate your damaged self-esteem by letting you tell me you love Jack Johnson?" Drakkar Noir asks Trashelle, "You wanna go with us?" The booze adds an extra four syllables to Trashelle's emphatic, "Yes!" Oh, my God. Jack Johnson doesn't get that excited about seeing Jack Johnson.

I love this show's establishing shots of the Palms. It makes it look like it's the tallest, only building in Vegas. We're outside the suite in what we're manipulated to believe is mere moments later. Brynn steps off the elevator alone and interrupts a conversation between Arissa and Irulan so boring that we're spared its wrath entirely. Brynn wouldn't care either way. She tank tops (it's so flashy an article of clothing that it somehow became an action verb) into the room and sits on the decidedly-one-person chair with Irulan (I think), who is wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up like we've interrupted her acting out the story of the Hurricane. Brynn laments, "Trishelle needs help. She's up to no good again." Irulissa nod sympathetically as Brynn moans on about Trashelle getting all up on the guys within ten minutes of walking in, while Brynn plays the wallflower (a band in many ways the antecedent to the work of Jack Johnson, I might stop and add here) for "three hours." Irulan employs the twisted logic, "I wonder if she feels like she has to beat you to the punch," which if nothing else confirms my earlier suspicion about boxing imagery and its relation to Irulan's hoody. Brynn notes, "If I could describe her in one word, it would be 'sweet,' but is she really that sweet?" And also, if you could describe her in one word, you wouldn't have just used seven. Six if you count the repeated use of "sweet." Arissa registers understanding in her big, mopey, heroin eyes, adding, "There's something there. It's like Sybil and Trishelle." Which I guess is a veiled way of saying Trashelle is the victim of a split personality disorder. Or that she was on Moonlighting.

Up on a rooftop clearly in a stratum of air above which human beings can string together coherent sentences, Steven and Trashelle stand perilously near the rickety, broken railing (in my deluded fantasy of how this scene should end, that is), dancing the Drunken Conversational Tango. Trashelle tells Steven, "People in the house getting up all in our business is not cool with me." Steven flails his arms wildly and I briefly entertain the notion that he's about to see if he can fly (go, Steven, go!), but he responds with equal drunken hubris, "They're just jealous of the fact that we're having sex." Or the fact that you're doing it five feet away from where they're sleeping. Or the fact that your relationship is a public, groping, junior-high-summer-camp game of "Seven Minutes In Heaven." In a confessional, Trashelle fills in the blanks: "Steven is a really good friend, but I want to go on dates with other guys." Back outside, Steven hugs her and explains it all, "I'm cool, you're cool, let's just keep that in our heads what's going on." Drunk talk. Sweet, beautiful, delusional drunk talk.

Sane Light Of Day in the suite. The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction lets us know that Arissa is on the phone with "Marc, 9 Group Director of Marketing." Yeah, well. Not for long. In a confessional, Arissa refuses to leave the recapping to the professionals, recapping her job promoting at Rain. Frank offers a bit of new information, voicing over, "Good to be Bad is the theme of Thursday night's party." "Good to be Bad"? I guess the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance was already taken, then? At Rain, Marc explains to the group, "The other thing is to find a nice solid block on the floor interacting with the customers and then promoting." See, now he's not even drunk, and that doesn't make a lick of sense, either. But apparently it has something to do with...skiing? We cut over to Sometime Later O'Clock to find the members of the house putting on giant boots that attach to skis. The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction reintroduces us to "Jean, 9 Group Event Promoter," who I think is meant to be telling them and us what the living hell is going on here, because when you're already confused as all-get-out, what better way to clear things up for the viewing audience than plot developing in French? "Ahnd today we a-juss gontuh get-ay veel vor de motion," Jean explains, and I wonder after those subtitles they use in loud bars that are so helpful in the complex task of translating English to English. Where are they now, I ask you? Frank tries to clear things up in a confessional, saying, "When we need costumes or to learn choreography, he's the man in charge." Oh. Well, d'accord, then. I leave myself entirely in his however-you-say-"hands"-in-French. I think Jean might tell you it's "ahnds."

I still don't know why they're on skis, but they strap themselves in anyway as Jean implores them to "trah to greate duh smooth motion, dat eets...you know what I mean?" I think I speak for us all when I beg you to make that question less rhetorical, Jean. In a confessional, Brynn indicates that this "ski dance" is all part of the stage show for Thursday night's event, a dance she finds "sensual, sexy, fun." Everyone is practicing moving on the skis, and Trashelle falls over awkwardly, explaining in a confessional, "I really don't like the ski routine. I feel like I'm not as flexible as the other girls." She and Frank practice, looking like they're putting together a routine for Sparkle Motion's talent show, as Jean subtly scoffs and You're A Clumsy Duck-Like Idiot music plays appropriately. In a confessional, Irulan makes a boom-boom-ain't-it-great-to-be-crazy hand motion, spinning her index finger to her head and telling us, "She's not all there when we're practicing." Back at Rain, Trashelle is unstrapped from the skis that bind, and she sits on a nearby stool, sighing deeply and cracking open a big bottle of woe.

More montages of Vegas by day. I've been in that city three times now, and I wasn't even sure it existed during the day. If it does, it shouldn't. I've spent more time outside in the last five seconds of TV time than the roommates have cumulatively since they've been there. We're at a shanty little store called "Emerson Costume Dancewear," Alton excitedly telling us, "I'm gonna be an angel. It's gonna be nice." After a quick shot of Alton emerging from the dressing room dressed in a pimp-daddy outfit so loud and retro you can barely drown out the Good Times theme song that's started playing annoyingly in your head (warning: may only be true if you're me), we cut to him shirtless wearing a pair of angel wings and admiring himself as only I am admiring him. He tells us that he feels like "a complete idiot," worrying that the outfit is going to arouse some sort of free-floating "suspicion." Yes, Alton. I'm sure people will think you're actually dead.

Frederick's of Hollywood spends its product-placement dimes well, as we cut to all four ladies entering the store and loudly and repeatedly proclaiming, "I'm a shill for the whole fall line!" They hold up a variety of clothing items, each one doing nothing more for me than causing the occasional comment, "That too would probably not look bad on Alton." I can feel myself reaching through time and space just to make him uncomfortable. In the store, Brynn continues fretting that her roommates are all so sexy and blah blah blah, adding, "I'm sexy, but not in that...I don't know. I don't think guys think I'm sexy. I have no boobs and love handles." No love handles? Quoi? Help us out, Jean? Holed up in a dressing room, Brynn experiments with silicone implants and tells Irulissa that she can't try on a certain outfit because she's "too fat." Irulissa roll their eyes, in the process almost snapping themselves in half, they're so gaunt and scary. Arissa in particular. Jean steps disturbingly into the dressing room and assures Brynn, "Frahm men poinuv view, you loogreht. Ah dun't knoh what yo-aies zee, but my-aies zee good." Doesn't he have a handlebar moustache to twist in a sinister fashion and a damsel in distress to tie to train tracks somewhere? Brynn thinks about her her her as Trashelle attempts to create a cohesive character arc where none naturally exists, confessionalizing into the void, "Ever since Steven and Brynn's fight, I feel like things are changing between Brynn and I [sic]. I feel like we're floating apart, and I don't want that to happen." Oh, my God, that plot line is so over, Trashelle. So last week. We talked. We resolved. We hugged. We wrapped it up. We literalized metaphors and actually stuck a fork in it when it was done. Brynn isn't not talking to you because of you and Steven. She's not talking to you because she thinks you're kind of a waste. Now get back into the dressing room and put on that duck costume before...oh, wait. That's not a costume at all.