The kids go out to breakfast, leaving Paula at home to sleep. Svet tries to express concern for Paula, and Tyler makes fun of her for it. Meanwhile, Paula wakes up and goes out for a kayak. A shark considers eating her but he's too hungry. Everyone is very cool toward her as she tries to do damage control for last night and assures them (falsely) that she's not nuts (lie). Zach expresses worry about his weight to Tyler. Holy crap, this is a house of lunatics. Svet is nervous to go to a gay club because she pictures young boys there being hit on by older guys. Uh, yeah. There's a drag show at the gay bar. John gets onto the bar and dances. How 1995. John drags (no pun intended, seriously) them out of there to a straight bar, but Tyler and Janelle go back to the gay bar, and John is mad that he tried the gay bar but they won't try the straight bar. Sigh. Back home, John and Tyler drunkenly argue, and then John pulls Tyler into the pool. Well! During commercials, the TRL VJ wears a backwards baseball cap. Really? Really?! Janelle makes Tyler realize that John is right. More drunken talking. Then hugging. Then vomiting (me; well, and also Paula, presumably). Different night. Paula gets drunk. John is drunk. Paula admits that she has a disease. John convinces Paula to eat a wiener. (I'm not kidding.) Paula weeps again. Janelle tries to help her some more. This notion of Janelle being a bitch -- I'm not sure where it came from. I don't think we've seen it if it's true. More weeping. More Janelle trying to help. Fake Brokeback music plays as Janelle convinces Paula to seek professional help for her eating disorder. This show should seek professional help for its boring disorder.
We relearn about the roommates via Tyler's phone call to his friend, during which he ran down all the roommates in bold strokes, ending with "the anorexic girl." Paula freaked out in the taxi. Janelle was scared. Paula hyperventilated on the street. I fix myself a sandwich. I would pour myself a cup of ambition, but I ran out years ago.
Credits. Kids. Key West. Shoulder of future skin cancer patient.
Bridge. Key West. Key West. Water. House. Jew. I mean, Zach. The roommates go to breakfast, leaving Paula crashed out on the couch. Janelle camera-snots that they're all sort of freaked out now, having a roommate who gets so emotional, drinks, and hyperventilates. And only eats snacks.
The kids walk, while the emo-y goodness of Death Cab plays completely inappropriately. This is not "the new year." Well, it's true that "I don't feel any different." You know what would make me feel different? If they shot this bleeding horse and put it out of its misery. Zach asks an old black man sitting on his front porch where they should eat breakfast. The old man tries to lure them into his house to tie them up and turn them into a meal for his insane inbred Florida family-band of cannibalistic freaks, but they refuse and go to some outdoor restaurant instead. Boo. Svet babbles about Paula and how she's deeply, deeply, deeply saddened by something inside. Tyler snots, "I'm deeply saddened by your feigned interest in this stuff." Ooh, double snap with a twist. Svet rolls her eyes. Death Cab is still playing. Tyler incredulously asks if Svet is really hurting about this. Svet's giant Russkie boobs ask Tyler to stop teasing her, and Tyler says he's just joking and not being mean. If he said she was "ugly," that would be him being mean, he says. Wow. They go back and forth for a while. Tyler is funny, but sometimes I get the feeling he thinks he's permanently on some bitchy VH1 talking-head pop-culture show, commenting, rather than actually participating in life. (Sort of like what I'm doing -- yes, smart-ass.) Janelle says she got that vibe from Paula the minute she walked into the house. Janelle camera-boobs that they can't turn a blind eye to "it," and that she doesn't know if it's drugs or Paula's family life or what. Svet busts out like she's some minor-league Kant (she is a minor-league Kant!), wondering if it's something with her dad and that's why she falls in love so quickly. Tyler calls bullshit on her again and the girls all yell that Paula wasn't just drunk last night, and that more was going on. John says they're not going to solve it talking about it. No, but at least poor B/M will have something to actually cobble a show around if you do keep talking about something, anything. John obliges, camera-fratting that Paula's problems clearly go deeper than any of them are able to help her with. Clearly.
Paula. She's at the house alone. She camera-talks, in the confessional, that she acted like a "lunatic" last night. She camera-thins about being out of control and her insecurities coming out and says she hates doing that because she's twenty-four -- the oldest person in the house -- and she now already feels like she has to apologize to everyone. Wait, what? Tyler isn't, like, forty? Wow. A crap song plays as Paula rows out in a little kayak to drown herself, but she doesn't succeed, and we see her floating in the pool as the others come home. (The other kids, I mean. Not The Others, although that would be fucking awesome!)
Outside. Paula sits in the hammock, and Jose comes to talk to her and tries to make her feel okay about last night. He's very cool about it, and he doesn't even mention that he owns houses! Paula camera-bones that she feels doomed in the house because she thinks people have already decided that she's the "girl with issues." Correct. She tells Jose that sometimes when she drinks, she cries, babbling on that when she's sad, she's very sad, and when she's happy, she's very happy. She doesn't want anyone to write her off, and Jose lies that no one has yet.
Inside. Paula talks with John. He also lies that there is no reason for her to apologize, and everything is cool. Paula says that she probably has repressed anger, or it was just the situation of being around new people. Yes, and no. She then mysteriously camera-talks that her wrath fell upon John last night, maybe because she sees "potential there." Ew. Really? Poor Paula. She babbles on. John isn't "worried" about her. (In other words: not worth the date rape.)
Kitchen. Tyler makes a pizza. Zach says he's already lost weight being in the house. Now they eat outside in a cool little alcove, and Tyler bitches that they all have such issues with their weight and that the gay community is so judgmental about bodies, and that he doesn't want to get sucked into it. (Note to self. Stee: 'Sucked' joke goes here. Think of one before you turn in the recap. Also, remember to pay the mortgage today and get new wiper blades. And really, you should get off the couch today. At least once. C'mon. You can do it. Also, stop drinking. For an hour. Just try it. Also, what day is it? I should really know that. I wonder if Pamie has any spare Vicodin. I think she does! Okay, tomorrow, we'll totally get off the couch. Fuck the mortgage, let's get high.) Tyler is talking about how he doesn't want to get sucked into this (ha: I bet he wants to get sucked into that) (new joke, that's not even a joke, stupid), but then he says he woke up at 5 that morning and worked out really hard so that he could eat that pizza later. Wow. These people are train-wrecks. I love that about them.
Sundown. Night. Cars. House. House. The kids decide to leave at 10. They discuss going to a club that's having a "Studio 54" party that night. Zach camera-fros that he's never been to a gay club before, but that he's psyched, and sure it'll be awesome.
Bedroom. Svet whispers to the other girls that she doesn't want to go to a gay club. John walks in and bitches that if he has to go she does too. She whines, "Noooo." Svet's dead face camera-snots that she's picturing younger guys like her brother hooking up with older gay men, and that it freaks her out. She whines, learning that everyone is going. Commercials.
Oh shit! The new Fox sitcom Free Ride is hosted by MySpace? Well, why didn't you say so? Count me in. If it's anywhere near as tight, cohesive, and sophisticated an experience as going on MySpace is, I'm there!
Back. House. Svet bitches on. Paula says that Svet is disappointing her right now. See, for someone to disappoint me, I actually have to have high expectations for her, so yeah, that ain't happening with any of these snotrags. Svet says that if she sees boys hooking up, she's going to vomit. She adds that if they're all older men, that's cool, though. Svet's husky, damaged cigarette-and-cock voice asks Tyler if she can ask a question without his getting mad. She goes on to ask if it's going to be young guys who are just figuring out that they're gay and might be taken advantage of. Tyler laughs, and then squashes it, pretending to know exactly what she's talking about and assuring her that that's not the case here. God, Svet is annoying. She goes from bitching about this to whining that she's just trying to be honest to getting on Janelle for wearing the shirt she's about to put on. Oh my God, how many men have been taken in by the body and found themselves actually having to listen to that? Too many. Fallen soldiers, all. My hat is off and my 40 is poured on the ground. Also, why did I just pour Malt Liquor on my rug? That was stupid.
Kitchen. The kids all make a toast. Not: the kids all make toast. That would just be odd.
Taxi. Club. Dance club. Terrible club. "Aqua." There's a drag show, and John gets onstage and drunkenly dances with the "girls." More dancing. Someone slaps John's ass. The boys, minus Tyler, leave.
Tyler camera-bitches that "Johnny Bananas" decided he didn't want to be there anymore and peer-pressured everyone into leaving. Not how it looked, but okay. Now Tyler is walking down the street with Paula and Janelle, bitching about this. Outside an Irish bar, Tyler catches up with John and tries to yell at him for leaving, but John just hugs him. John camera-talks that they tried the gay bar and now they just want to go and be around some heterosexuals.
Heterosexual bar. John and crew drink.
Outside. Tyler leads Janelle back to the gay club. Tyler bitches about John.
Heterosexual bar. John and Zach talk. Zach camera-hippies that John is upset that Tyler left his bar without even trying it. Man. They should just get a room, these two. Such fragile little egos. Everything "hurts."
Back home. Pool. The kids drunk swim. Can't be safe. John and Zach wrestle in the pool. Tyler comes home and starts bitching. John interrupts him, saying that they went to a "homo club" -- yeah, as opposed to the super-straight time you're having now wrestling in the pool with Zach? Tyler and Janelle start interjecting. Janelle says she's upset that they tried to convince her to leave the gay bar (and succeeded). John makes a snotty comment about being "convinced" to go hang out with homos. And then the yelling starts -- as if you needed me to tell you that. Yelling. Yelling. They talk about past bars they've gone to and Tyler is in John's face and then drunk John pulls Tyler into the pool. Hee. Tyler immediately hops out. "Dood!" yells Tyler. Dood, indeed. Commercials.
Back to Pool O' Drunks. Now Tyler is in the pool in his swimsuit. Tyler and John yell at each other about bars and compromises and the "Straight Agenda." John camera-talks about how his going to a gay bar is way more of a deal than Tyler's going to a straight bar. Shoving guacamole into her face, Janelle asks them to stop fighting. They refuse. She soothes herself with more pureed Kermit.
Later. Another outside area of the house. Hammock. Janelle tells Tyler that her friends don't like to go to black clubs with her, and that it doesn't bother her. Tyler agrees that, back home, his straight friends won't go to gay clubs. Janelle was surprised that these straight boys went to the gay club in the first place. Tyler tries to argue but suddenly sees that Janelle has a good point and that he should be more gracious about their having come out at all. Tyler drunkenly slurs, "You're making me be a bigger person than I want to be right now." Good line. Tyler camera-talks that he's thankful to Janelle for giving him her perspective.
Tyler goes back to John and tells him he's sorry and thanks him for coming out. (Not like that; that won't happen for years. John's not ready.) John says he had a good time. John pulls Tyler in for a drunken, shirtless man-hug.
Day. Paula lies on the hammock. Meanwhile, inside, Svet and Janelle talk, discovering that Paula takes diet pills and no wonder when she drinks she gets crazy. Janelle wonders why Paula's doing this to her body. It's "stupid," they decree. ("The More You Know!")
Night. Bar. Weird slo-mo montage of Paula on stage drinking and laughing with the band, while her roommates laugh and point. It looks like an American Eagle commercial. Oh, yeah. It is.
Back home. Paula lies on the ground laughing. The boys wrap her in a rug and jokingly take her outside to the cabana. Drunk, John and Paula end up talking. John asks her to eat every time he eats tomorrow. She says that she can't. Paula slurs that she knows she has a disease, that she'll never be "okay" with food. But, she goes on, she doesn't want to be "pudgy, fat, single, alone forever." So she vomits and makes herself look like a ghost and makes her brain chemistry flip out whenever she has a drink. That's a sure-fire way to keep you a man! John calls her on this shit. Paula claims that while boys might find her too thin, girls look at her and are jealous. John says that she's wrong ["I saw her pictures on the MTV Real World site, and she is definitely wrong. Eeesh, the Auschwitz arms" -- Wing Chun], and then says that they're going to have to agree to disagree. John convinces Paula to go inside and have a wiener. Why, she could just stay and have it out there.
Kitchen. Paula eats a wiener, but without the bun. Heh. She voraciously licks mustard off a knife. Ew, now.
Day. John asks Paula to say something positive about herself. The kids are all there, and they start talking about her, and suddenly she says she's really uncomfortable and starts crying. Paula's giant popsicle-head tells us that she doesn't want to cry again, so she leaves the room, crying again.
Other room. Paula stands there crying. Janelle comes to talk to her, and Paula talks about being out of control. Paula says that she doesn't want people to know about her and judge her, because then she can't hide. She feels like a snake who is having a layer of skin peeled off. She tells Janelle that she feels ugly all the time in this house. Janelle is very nice to her, and she camera-talks to us that she's concerned about Paula and her well-being. Paula says that she used to think she could handle her problem, but that being "thrown into this" (or, you know, choosing to go through the long audition process and wanting desperately to be on TV, whatever), she now feels like she's back to square one. Janelle asks if Paula wants help, and she weeps. Paula camera-talks that she's tired of "living," and wants to wake up and be normal like everyone else. Janelle gets Paula to agree to get professional help. Paula nods. While MTV is jizzing all over itself about having found this basket case to put on its show, it assuages the guilt by showing graphics that read, "Learn more about eating disorders." Paula says she can't live like this forever. Neither can I, homey. Sad music plays. Happy credits!
On the ...Svet bitches about the kids opening an art gallery. Janelle scolds her for not having etiquette. Svet cries that she's an outcast and she doesn't want to be here. Get in line, fat tits.