Rachel fills Johanna in on some fuzzy details about last night, during which Johanna blacked out, forgetting that she got violent and started yelling at some girls on their way home. Brokeface Danny tells Wes, while holding his own balls, that he doesn't want Mel as a girlfriend; oh, they're pool balls, by the way. Deluded Mel takes a break up letter Danny writes as a good sign. Danny gets another girl's number at a bar as Mel shows up with her boobs out and fully cockblocks him. Johanna tries to rob a hobo and gets arrested. I didn't make that up. Stee gets up for a scotch on the rocks (that's not really part of the show, but it's as important as anything on the air). Wes and Danny, drunk off their asses, go to try to get Johanna out of jail, or get themselves arrested to "visit" Johanna. Brilliant plan, numbnutters. Melinda sees the girls' numbers Danny has written on his hands and cries. Lacey intervenes because she has no storyline of her own. There's yet another relationship conversation with Danny in his stupid felt hat and Mel on the computer. Leo picks up Johanna from jail and then gives her some tough love about her drinking -- and then backs off from actually telling her anything because he loves her drunk ass so much.
Previously on The Real World...Johanna fucked with Neh at a bar, as Neh voice-overed that when Johanna drinks he can't deal with her. Good to see he wore his best wife-beater to the club. Hope he matched it with his very best Africa-shaped pendant, In Living Color-style! Danny told Melinda that he needs some time away from her vagina. Melinda cried. No comment, however, from her vagina.
Opening credits. This is the true story...of lies and half-truths created in the editing suite by people making illegally low wages for eighty-hour work weeks. This is the real world...of trying to work in Hollywood in your twenties!
Austin. Austin. Rachel and Johanna, the latter of whom is dressed like an Eskimo from Northern Exposure, eat food outside at some dive as Rachel tells Johanna about their drunken walk home from the bar last night; Johanna doesn't remember any of it. I'm not really one to be alarmist about people drinking a lot because I love booze, but homegirl has a When A Man Loves A Woman-level problem. Johanna was apparently picking fights, and she assumes it was with boys because that's whom she gets mad at when drunk. Rachel says that she physically had to hold Johanna back and Johanna laughs, privately making a mental note to get the addresses of all the people she's wronged in anticipation of AA step #8. Johanna wonders how she could have gotten into so much trouble on such a short walk home.
We get a lovely flashback from last night of Johanna indeed yelling, mostly incoherently, at some unseen folks, while the gigantor Melinda and combat-vet Rachel try to hold her back. "You're such a loser," Johanna yells at one point, but not to Wes, surprisingly. The flailing Johanna hits Melinda in the face. Hee. She's used to things hitting her in the chin.
Back to Hangover Restaurant. Johanna says that that's her "on vodka." Well, I don't mind the fighting, because that's sort of funny, but anything that causes her to make out on camera with Wes...that shit should be banned forever. Johanna says the "funny" thing is that she doesn't remember it. "Funny" isn't exactly the word I'd use. Rachel then camera-puffs that Johanna doesn't have the "in-between buzz" phase of drunk that people usually get to. Johanna then sets a great example for the youth of America -- and a high goal for herself -- when she vows only to drink wine tonight. Wow. Even on my worst mornings-after, I've at least "vowed," if totally disingenuously, "never" to drink again. Johanna can only vow to downgrade to something with a lower proof. Someone better call the good people at Intervention.
Austin. Austin. River. Austin. Warehouse. Danny and Wes play pool. Wes makes a terrible pool analogy/joke about Danny and Melinda's relationship and the tension between them. The relationship genius that is Wes opines that when people are in a relationship, it changes a lot for them, and for everyone else around them. Wow. That's some deep insight, Ghost Whisperer. Danny babbles about how jealous he'll be if Mel cats around on him, and how he probably won't find a better girl (at least certainly not someone who will fuck him so much, so soon after meeting him. Well, I take that back. UT is in Austin, after all). Danny's broken eyeball camera-talks that he can't see Mel as a girlfriend right now, and that though he's infatuated with her, he's very scared of the word "girlfriend." Danny fingers his (pool) balls and tells the wall that he's "trippin'."
Night. Warehouse. Austin. Warehouse. Mel tells us that Danny's caved-in skull wrote her a letter. The letter said, and she repeats seemingly from memory, "Please understand that I still love you with all my heart. I miss you every second, but it's something I have to do." A few things about this. One: they briefly show the envelope, and Danny's written Melinda's name with a label maker. Wow. Nothing says romance and gives that special intimate feeling to correspondence like a Brother P-Touch. Two: well, this really has nothing to do with the letter, but in terms of reading shit from memory, I have a question to the waiters and waitresses out there. Why do some of you insist on not writing down my order? Not only do you inevitably come back to ask if we'd ordered the Bass or the Newcastle, but also, you always, and I mean always, forget at least one salad or side order or special request. Is it pride? Are you showing off? Is it impossible to find a pen in a restaurant? Please, do me a favor. Take the extra second to write down my tuna melt on rye, fries, and Diet Coke with lemon. I promise, I won't think you're lame. Well, I might think you're a little lame, but only because you work at a place that sells tuna melts and fries. (Kidding! Kidding.) So Mel goes on to tell us that the letter was a total success: it made Mel feel like Danny still loves her...and will cause him to get to fuck her as often as he wants while still getting to mess around with as many whorey Sixth Street slutcans as he wants! That dood's a wicked good writah.
Wes and Danny go out. Wes, wearing his best camouflage shorts, narrates their walk, saying that leaving Mel at home was a little "rocky" for Danny, but that now that he's out, they have the potential for a great evening; moreover, going out to shop for hos, just the two of them without the girls, is a momentous occasion. Danny finishes Wes's terrible joke, saying that this night is a giant leap for "all the guys who are bitches out there." Danny's inexplicable boy-crush on Wes is really out of control. Someone needs to call a brain specialist, stat. Get House. I hear he's good, if a bit brusque.
Meanwhile, the girls (minus Lacey, of course) leave to go out drinking as well. Melinda camera-whores that with Danny pulling back, she feels she needs to pull back, too, so that she's not left vulnerable and feeling bad and snnnnnnnnore. The girls head into a bar.
At another bar. Neh is there now, and Danny and Wes drink, and Danny camera-doods that he's just trying to pahty and be himself. He looks extremely glum and bored. The Boys With Avids do a goofy thing where it makes Danny look like he's stool-dancing. Eh.
Dizzy Rooster. Johanna camera-drunks that they go out every night and then she lies -- while we see her chugging wine like Paul Giamatti after getting bad news about his book -- that she doesn't think drinking is a problem for her: "It's just how much I drink." The fuck?
Boys bar. Danny talks to a stupid, baby-voiced bim who writes her number on his hand, making him promise to call her dumb Smurf face. Suddenly, Danny sees the girls enter, and says, "Fuck," angry that his lame game is about to be ruined. Yeah, it really sucks that the hot, tall, busty, thin, beautiful blonde who will fuck Danny any time he wants is fucking up his play with fugly college girls who sound like Kristin Chenoweth. Sucks to be him.
Danny camera-skulls that he's usually really happy to see Mel, but not right now. They create a totally awkward and unbelievable scene where Danny "watches" Melinda dancing and having a great time and totally not crowding him in the slightest or even paying any attention to him, while he shakes his head like he can't believe the bitch is so up in his mack-daddy grill, and walks away. Mel then camera-lies that if Danny's going to pimp on other girls, she's not going to "wait around for him." Danny calls out to no one in particular that he needs a shot.
Now they're all in this weird outdoor part of the club, and Johanna slurs that there is "serious shit" going down and that she doesn't want to get in the middle of it. Ooh, Lacey does! Lacey does! Now Mel is talking to Danny, and immediately brings up some girl standing nearby who is obviously waiting to talk to Danny. But then in the middle of the inane conversation, Rachel runs in with even more inane news: Johanna just tried to take money out of a homeless guy's basket and he's yelling at her and she's going home. They all head out to try to find Johanna.
Outside. They arrive outside to find that Johanna is being arrested. "Are you serious? For taking a rose?" slurs Johanna. Rachel has her hands over her mouth in shock and they're putting handcuffs on Johanna's wrists as she explains to Danny out loud -- totally incriminating herself -- that she took a rose from a homeless dude selling them and tried to run with it. Hee. The cops announce they're arresting Johanna for "public intoxication." Shit, man. If you're actually arresting people for being drunk, you better just build metal bars around all of downtown Austin. Mel geniusly camera-talks that jail is not a fun place to be. Danny is yelling that everyone on the street is intoxicated. The police van drives away with Johanna inside. Hee. And commercials.
Rachel comes home and tells Lacey about Johanna. Because she has nothing better to do, Lacey calls the cops to find out how to get their friend out. She gives up really easily and gleefully says, "She's going to be in there until noon tomorrow!" Lacey loves this shit. This is the best day of her life. Drama that she's not involved in is her catnip.
Meanwhile, Dumber and Dumberer (Wes and Danny) decide to take a drunk cab down to the jail to try to get Johanna out. Danny tells us that they might even try to get arrested so that Johanna's not alone in there. Yeah, I'm sure Wes would fare very well in prison. I do believe if you squinted hard enough and put a mop-wig on his head, he'd make a really ugly, but semi-believable, girl. Wes is, meanwhile, trying to get a girl's number, and when Wes gets into the cab, he has Danny write the rest of the girl's number on Danny's hand. Danny brags that he got three numbahs tonight without even trying. Wes thinks it's fate, and that Danny was meant to be single.
By the time he and Wes arrive at the courthouse, Danny has realized that this is probably a bad idea, but Wes is sure of himself, and they drunkenly weave toward the line of cops standing outside. Smaht, dood. Real smaht. They head inside.
Warehouse. Lacey and Rachel are still sitting around, trying to decide whether to call Leo, Johanna's bartender dude. So Lacey calls Leo (WTF, Lacey?!) and tells him about Jo's getting arrested. So Leo says that he'll show up at the courthouse tomorrow, and Lacey then says she thinks Johanna is going to be mad and embarrassed that Lacey called Leo and told her. Then why did you call him, Moon Pie? Lacey camera-talks that Leo loves Johanna and will pretty much take whatever she dishes out. So, wait. Still. You called him, why? Man, go make some friends of your own, Lacey.
Night. Austin. Night. Cars. Night. Wes and Danny arrive home like the drunk morons they are, saying that they tried but that they couldn't get Johanna out. Man, this is like Prison Break but for retahds. ["So, like Prison Break." -- Wing Chun] The boys look over the numbers on their hands...as Melinda watches, upset. Yikes. She camera-talks that she saw all the numbers on Danny's hands and got upset immediately. Hm. I'm starting to have second thoughts about being on Mel's side in all this; she really is sort of a pain in the ass. But I'm not changing my mind about Wes being a ghostly tool.
Austin. Rain. Night. Oh, Jesus. Melinda cries in bed as Lacey and Rachel try to comfort her. Something tells me that Melinda finds herself crying in bed a lot...but probably usually while a guy gets dressed as fast and quietly as he can. Rachel and Lacey give Melinda meaningless advice about Danny being in a selfish place right now. Lacey's Flock of Seagulls hair and Robert Smith lipstick camera-talk that Mel is at her breaking point with Danny. Melinda bitches that, with the last guy, she promised her guy wouldn't make her cry like this. Yikes. Melinda then camera-talks about how much she sucks. Well, not really, but it's more of the same and I don't feel like writing it down. She then gets sorta mad and bitches about how dare Danny write her that letter and then treat her like this. Danny just happens to be standing right there in his stupid felt hat and he butts in, telling her that he didn't dance, kiss, or come home with any other girl. He says that the letter wasn't bullshit, so Melinda bitches about the phone numbers. He tries to claim that the numbers are for Wes, and they go back and forth, and Danny says that another number is for Neh and he's just lying out of his ass now. He clearly knows that Mel is such a pushover that it doesn't even matter what he says. Finally, knowing he's busted, Danny pushes the angry card even farther and says, "Big waste of time this last fucking month." Then in lieu of having a door to slam, he angrily throws back the frilly white curtain and stalks off. Hee. Very tough. Commercials.
Night. Austin. Rain. Rain. Austin. Puddle. Austin. Warehouse. Drunk Danny bitches out and furiously washes all the ho numbers off his hand. We get a pointless flashback of the Smurf giving him her number outside the bar as Danny's fracture-stitches camera-talk about how maybe it was wrong to get that one girl's number, but that he did tell Mel that he needed to "branch out." Well, he had better put his branch back in his pants very quickly, or Melanie is going to keep her sap away from him forever. Or something. Danny stalks through the house ranting, turning it all around and yelling that Mel just wants to throw this away over something stupid, so obviously he was wrong about her. Melinda sits in bed listening, crying and picking her fingernails off one by one. Yikes. She makes Kim Basinger look balanced.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Danny whines to Lacey. "It's not even my numbah." Lacey -- because her biggest boy drama is finding a movie theatre with a ramp -- butts in and advises Danny's dumb felt hat, telling him that he scares Mel because she is totally in love with him and she reacts too quickly to shit he does. Lacey does Mel no favors whatsoever by painting a psycho picture of her, talking about how she cried every day while Danny was home burying his mom; Lacey adds that if Danny cares about Mel, he should "try." Danny puts his hand to his forehead, trying to hold his eyeball in his mangled head.
Morning. Austin. Trash truck. The phone rings at the warehouse. Lacey answers, natch. It's a recorded call from the police station. Johanna comes on the line. (Dirty.) She whines that she just wants to come home. And instead of asking her anything about jail or trying to make her feel better, Lacey immediately launches into Mike Walker mode and gossips about Mel and Danny and the saga of the whore numbers on his hand. When Lacey stops talking for one fucking second, Johanna rightly asks, "And no one cares that I was in jail?!" Hee. Then Lacey tries to save herself by saying that she called Leo, making it all about herself in retelling the story, of course. Johanna says that she's going to cry and she's really touched that Leo wants to come rescue her and her Blade Runner hair. Lacey says some more stuff about her role in the situation until Johanna finally has had enough and has to go.
Night. Lake. Clouds. Day. Stop sign. "Deadman's Hole" street sign. WTF? Suddenly, we're back at the house, and Danny's dumb hat and broken face are talking to Melanie's silicone about last night and how much they both hate drama. Lies. Danny wonders why it's like high school with them, and Mel says it's because every week Danny says the same shit to her about needing space. Melanie camera-whores about Danny and Danny and whatever. She bitches on to him that he's the one who questions shit every week, which causes mistrust. She says she's just stuck there. She cries a little, and Danny comes back with nonsense like she needs to protect herself from him and he's not making any sense and then he touches her face and says he's not going to hurt her and then he camera-talks about how he doesn't want to be the one to make Melinda cry and then she apologizes to him and then they hug. And then I thank God I'm not twenty anymore.
Day. Austin. Courthouse. Johanna is released. She has to do community service and pay a fine. She walks out, and Leo picks her up. Johanna tells us that she thinks Leo does care about her. Cares about her = wants to get laid. Johanna comes back to the warehouse, and she and Leo go upstairs to the pool room, already drinking, and she disingenuously whines, wondering, "Why me?" She tells us that she took the flower in a "jokingly [sic] manner." She just keeps justifying and says that her roommates are always drunk and fighting people and why should she be the only one to get arrested? Well, sort of good point, and also: denial is a very sad thing to witness this close up. Leo starts to tell Johanna that when she gets drunk she's like a bomb waiting to explode. She jokingly wonders what she's supposed to do now: "Not drink? That's not going to happen." Yikes. She camera-lushes that she was only going to drink wine and ended up having two shots and look what happened. No, yeah, Johanna. We totally understand. You're the victim in all this. I can't believe you got in trouble for trying to roll a hobo either. Totally unfair. You should call the ACLU. Leo now tells Johanna that it's not the end of the world. Enabler. Johanna baby-talks to us that she doesn't want to go to jail again, ever, and then says that she's disappointed in herself.
Wes comes home and sees Johanna and Leo lying down in the pool room on the bean bag chairs and says, "Only Joey can pick up a guy in jail." Wes says that they have endless amounts of shit to give her. Then Danny comes in and everyone talks and Wes wonders if Johanna got arrested for "Grand Theft Carnation." Man, Wes made a funny. I feel dirty now. "You stole from a bum!" yells Wes. Neh comes in and they keep giving her shit and that's it. Well, at least it didn't end on Danny and Melinda blathering on about their relationship. How's that for the bright side?
week. Johanna dances on the bar and then invites Leo over to the house and tells us that she gets excited when Leo plays hard-to-get. Warehouse. They crawl under the covers on top of the bean bag chairs. Man, they sure like the action on those things. The roommates are going to have to get them reupholstered soon. Wes watches the hanky-panky from the room and then camera-tools that Leo is going to make a mistake one of these days with Johanna and that Wes will be there waiting. Vomit. Wes then takes out his pale frustration on a plastic chair, throwing it into the hot tub. Hee. And...that's it! See ya.