Ah, a new season of Road Rules. The danger. The drama. The poor editing, lame missions, and numerous examples of why our generation is regarded as materialistic, self-obsessed, and annoying. Let's get started...
We're in the red desert of Sedona as we meet our first cast member. ("Member." Heh). Theo is a nineteen-year-old hick from Blah Blah, Louisiana. (We learned from the Casting Special that he doesn't believe the races should mix -- and by "races," we're not talking the Indy 500 and the Tour De France, people.) Theo feels he's between like, lives, "part ghost and part human." He goes on to tell some random guy driving him to the desert that his father is dead and his mother emancipated him when he was fourteen because he needed "a lot of attention," and his mother couldn't provide it. Okay, dead father and neglectful mother: Now the latent racism is forgiven! Your slate is clean, Cletus. Random Man drops Theo off on the side of the road (much like his mother probably did) to meet Msaada, a pretty black girl who is proud to be from South Central, Los Angeles. Theo laughs at her name as Msaada prays there will be at least one other member of a minority group on the trip. However, at that moment (or five hours later for all we know -- damn that Bunim/Murray editing magic!), a striking blonde emerges from the scrub. Holly is a twenty-one-year-old adrenaline junkie with her shirt tied at the bottom, à la Ellie-May. Holly recounts a dream that she got to the "set" and discovered that the five other cast members were all Japanese. Theo busts out his chaw and banjo, and yodels, "Ooh, I can't deal with Asian people that much, I don't think." Racism: Yee-Haw! To her credit, Msaada, in a brief interview clip, says that she doesn't think Theo has been exposed to that many different types of people. Um, yuh think? Theo then negates Msaada's charitable spin when he tells the camera, "What in the hell is Theo?...I'm surprised as other people are at some of the things that come out of my head." Theo Theo Theo.
A house beat from 1993 kicks in and Theo breathes a sigh of relief as the cast member arrives, and is white. James is a twenty-year-old rugby player from -- "oh my god!" -- a small California town ten minutes away from Holly's small California town. James tells a B/M cameraman how pretty he finds Holly, adding, "Here it goes -- here's the engine starting up." I'll pretend he's talking about the RV's engine (even though it hasn't yet arrived), as I refuse to think about James's "engine". Holly wants some. The focus has been off Theo for fifteen seconds so he displays his red neck a bit more when Msaada talks about her recent trip to France: "Normandy's where they had that war, huh?" Yes Theo, the War of 1812. Very good. Now shut up and keep playing Bingo Was His Name-O on your hickory-stick mouth harp.
to arrive is the twenty-two-year-old, black, North Carolina native, Laterrian. Laterrian describes how there are two sides to him: the poetry-reading Laterrian, and the playa "T" who is all about "somebody's daughter's in trouble tonight." As hands are being shaken, Theo compliments Laterrian on his name: "It sounds like a turtle." Because...it has a "t" and an "r" in it? ["Possibly because it sounds a lot like 'terrapin,' which is a kind of turtle. Then again, it's possible I'm giving Theo far too much credit." -- Wing Chun] Holly and I both say "crap" simultaneously as another pretty blonde, Kathryn, arrives; (Holly because she now has competition, and me because blondes tend to blend into each other in my mind like Canadian Provinces, my co-workers, or NBC sitcoms). Kathryn is from Oregon and took great pains detailing her sexual exploits during the Casting Special. As she introduces herself to the group, she's a bit more low-key -- most likely because she realized how dumb she sounded talking about g-strings and duct tape. But then Kathryn disappoints as she also claims to have "two sides," much like Laterrian...except I imagine her wild side isn't named "T."
Just as Holly and Kathryn are about to get into a huge cat fight with hair pulled and clothing ripped (well, not really, but a guy can dream), the "Shasta" RV arrives. (Note: I'm going to call it the "Shasta" because if I have to go through the hell of hearing another Road Rules cast call their RV by its dumb name -- like Winnie -- y'all have to as well.) The producers have built the interior to look like a bomb shelter -- but hip, you know? The kids run around marveling at all the neat gadgets. "A laptop!" shrieks James, obviously never having seen any of the eight seasons of the show. Suddenly, (well, as "suddenly" as the crack-head B/M editors can make any event seem...seriously, I've seen better editing in NYU freshman thesis films), a television, with a blue cop light attached, comes to life as the newest twist to the show is revealed: an "evil" character, played by a bloated (and semi-computerized) Jim Carrey wannabe, named The Road Master. Ooh, scary...I guess we're supposed to think. Seriously, I was more scared by Robert Downey Jr. in In Dreams. I just keep thinking about Max Headroom and wonder what ever happened to poor Matt Frewer. Anyhoo, the RM lays out the rules of this "Maximum Velocity Tour." Now, the rules are very very complicated folks: Each mission is worth points. The more points the kids have at the end, the more "handsome the reward." Hmmm, I think I'm following, but let me go blend myself another Smart Drink so I can be sure to stay up to speed. The cast laughs, but Theo looks genuinely frightened. I don't know if it's because of this hammy actor, or because they don't yet have television where Theo is from. An email tells the cast that they stand to split $100,000 at the end of the show, but less if anyone "chickens out" of any of the missions. $16,000 seems pretty damn cheap to me. I feel like I should get paid at least sixteen grand just for watching the whole season, and I don't have to live in a Shasta or jump out of a plane. ["Hey, you'll take your salary of Air Miles and empty cans, and like it, mister! -- Wing Chun] The cast all clasp hands and cheer as they go to a commercial and I go to the liquor cabinet.
At 4:30 AM the Kids in the Shasta are woken up by someone named Steve. A graphic says he's the "Mission Mayor," but my guess is he's just an unlucky Bunim/Murray production assistant made to wake up at that ungodly hour. Steve tells them they have to have their "wheels turning" by 5 AM. As James drives, he tells Theo that he likes rugby because it's about "brotherhood and camaraderie." Theo and I try very very hard to ignore the homoerotic subtext. A very awkward transition finds the kids arriving at daybreak at a huge desert clearing where two hot air balloons are being inflated. (So here, Holly makes a joke, wondering if the challenge is to see who's full of the most hot air; she says, "Theo, you're on my team." Get it? Seriously, do you? Because I don't. Honestly, I thought that type of joke was funny...but then I turned six.) James goes epileptic with excitement. I guess the brotherhood of hot air ballooning is getting to him. We catch a glimpse of "MTV.COM" painted on the side of the Shasta, in Sumner Redstone's desperate attempt to try to get the website viewed by people other than twelve-year-old TRL viewers voting repeatedly for Blink 182's latest video. The kids park and discover that the baskets of the two balloons are connected by a thin beam; their mission is to walk the beam between the two balloons. Holly and Msaada enter into their own impromptu competition, seeing who can run through the desert screaming "Oh my god!" more. The competition continues as we mercifully go to commercial. I am then shocked to discover I'm looking forward to the show beginning again after being forced to watch one of those Herbal Essence fake orgasm commercials. (Hey, if I wanted to hear a fake orgasm, I'd have sex with my girlfriend. Good night everybody! I'll be here all week.)
We're back, as we discover that James is afraid of heights. Hey, we would have heard on the news if he'd fallen to his death, yes? Damn. That's what I thought. "People could die if we do not do this right," says Steve, plainly lying since the fuckers are cabled into the baskets with safety rope. But, they will only get their "thousand-dollar coins" if they make it across without reaching up to grab the safety ropes. I'm still not impressed. Kathryn the math ninja helpfully informs us that if they all make it across, they'll collect $6000 towards their grand prize. Wow: That Oregon public school system must be something, boy. Holly, her hair now inexplicably in what can only be described as afro-puffs for white girls, tells us just how scared James is. The producers threaten to kick James off the show if he doesn't hammer this point across, so in an "interview," he once again states just how scared he is. James Is Scared. I get it. The audience gets it. Even Theo gets it, and Theo don't get much. As the balloons rise, Holly grammatically incorrectly informs us that, "there's definitely going to be a connection between James and I, just because where he has a weakness, I have a strength." But I don't hold it too much against her because the brief speech is so obviously spliced together that she could have been talking about pretty much anything. I hate them Bunim/Murray people. Can I say that again? Thanks.
At twenty-five-hundred feet, Laterrian gets ready to go. Theo gives me one of the few genuine, unironic laughs of the episode when he says, "Dead man walking." James pees in his pants. Laterrian says, "I cannot fall because I'm supposed to set an example for the five." He indeed does not fall, which disappoints me because falling would have set a much funnier example. Theo, wearing a camouflage bucket-hat, makes it. Kathryn earns $50 on the side from the producers when she asks, "Is this Road Rules extreme?!" Yes Kathryn, it is very extreme. (Extremely annoying. Extremely stupid. Etc.) Now shut up and do your damn balloon walk. Oh boy, Kathryn is one zen chick, as she says, making the requisite hand gestures, "I let that fear hit me for a second, and then I just pushed it out." Is it bad that I hope she falls? Well, she doesn't. Grasshopper makes it, while what sounds like the Run Lola Run soundtrack plays. Holly is , but seriously, at this point the producers can't get it up anymore to make her walk seem dangerous, so Holly gets to the other side in about three seconds, Bunim/Murray time. Msaada is , and she's the only one I find myself genuinely worrying about. She almost seems to fall, but makes it to the other side with class and élan. Theo tells the freaking-out James that "it's just like rugby." Um...how is it just like rugby? How is it at all like rugby? Theo? Hello? Theo doesn't answer, as James steps out onto the plank. James is seriously scared. Hee. Big pussy. After a false start, James completes his walk, safely. Dammit.
The kids scream and congratulate each other as a funky Beck track plays. Holly engages in some serious conjecture as she waxes egotistical about her and James's connection: "He needed some major strength at that moment." And Holly is "major strength"? My, we have a high opinion our ourselves, don't we? A graphic tells us that the kids now have six points, as Steve and his whatever crew hand out six "point" coins and a piggy bank...you know, for the coins. Oh Jesus. Now the kids head over to a campfire where a kindly old Native American named Hollow-Horned Bear greets them. I'm not fucking kidding here, people. ZenKathryn informs us that HHB has a "demeanor that's very calming and very soothing." Thank you for that, Kathryn. The way you lower your lids as you say that really hammers that "soothing" message home. Hollow-Horned Bear, meet Hollow-Brained Blonde. Msaada loses major points when, in an interview, she begins crying about how emotional it was to talk to HHB and learn about his culture. I mostly just wonder whether his tribe really approves as HHB delivers a prayer for the Chosen Six. As he brushes feathers across the kids' bodies, I look around for Oliver Stone, but I don't see him. Jim Morrison doesn't stumble through the camp looking for peyote buttons, so I think we're safe on that count.
In an Ancient Indian Ritual, HHB helps Laterrian tie the ceremonial horned skull onto the front grill of the RV. For his part, Laterrian feels very much part of the tradition of the past eight casts. And what a deep and distinguished past that is. At this point, I feel the spirit of Piggy and all the former Road Rulers coursing through my veins and I weep tender tears, thankful that I can somehow be a small part of the deep tradition that is Road Rules. HHB sends the Chosen Six on their way, informing them that they are now "a tribe," and I wonder if that means they can open their own casino. Okay, B/M needs to really chill with the special effects. It's like someone got hold of a cable-access television studio and started going buck wild with the split screen and weird background effects. As someone tries very poorly to do some Eddie Van Halen arpeggios on the guitar, James, in one of these selfsame annoying floating-head blue screens, basically does an ad for the segment: "If this is the first mission...man, I got no idea what's coming ." Luckily, what's coming is a commercial, and I go take a bath to cleanse myself.
Back on the road, a helpful graphic tells us that the section of the show will be "Scar Stories." Thank you. And indeed, James and Holly do a scene from Lethal Weapon 3, comparing their various scars -- only it was more comprehensible and ten times sexier when it was Mel Gibson and Rene Russo doing it. James is trying very hard to compete with the daredevil Holly's stories, but quickly loses to the woman who, during the Casting Special, confessed to having broken almost every bone in her body. It's like:
Holly: I jumped a dirt bike off the Grand Canyon. My head came off when I landed and the handlebars stabbed me through the heart.
James: Um...once I scraped my elbow playing kickball.
The rest of the cast, meanwhile, is either smart enough not to get in the middle of this Mating Ritual of the Stupid, or were just edited out of the segment. "If I had to choose a sexual partner, it would be Holly," James tells us. What, is he an elk during mating season? But horny Holly feels the same way, confessing that James has many of the qualities she looks for in a man. Yeah, like a penis and a heartbeat. Theo, once again provides a good laugh when he leans down off the upstairs sleeping compartment and twangs, "That sounds clumsy to me, to have all those injuries." But the Mating Ritual of the Stupid will not be interrupted and they completely ignore him, and Msaada laughs. Laterrian tells us that if he had to bet on two people getting together, he'd put his money on James and Holly. Then, and I really can't believe they're doing this, we see two mirror-image graphics of the Shasta, coming straight for each other, so that it looks like the RVs are about to have some hot Shasta-sex. And at this very point it becomes crystal clear that the good folk at B/M are so furious about the success of Survivor that they don't really give a flying fuck about Road Rules anymore (as if they ever really did); they have thus handed the show over to their janitorial staff while they figure out ways to one-up CBS (Eight strangers living on a bus! Ten monkeys living in a New York City Penthouse! The Real World, but in a Crack House!). I haven't seen such confused production values since Degrassi Jr. High.
Now someone asks about interracial relationships, and pretty much everyone has had one, except for Theo. James was with a Hispanic woman but not a black woman. "Although, like, I could have," brags James, as Msaada falls to the floor laughing. Seeing this, James bitches, "I totally could have, dude." Msaada jumps on this and mocks him. "I could have, I swear I could have!" Ha. I like Msaada again. The kids then riff on white folks' claims that they're down with the brothers and sisters. "I have a black best friend." "My uncle's roommate's black." "My dog's black." Okay. I sense the Comedic Rule of Three in effect here, so I wonder who's going to bring the conversation to a hysterically stupid halt? Of course, it's Theo. "My gardener is black," he says in all seriousness, totally having missed the Shasta-wide joke, and I swear, the producers bust out with the sound of a needle being suddenly yanked off a record. Okay, that's kinda funny, B/M, you scamps. And just when I thought you didn't care....Theo, feeling like a jack-ass, decides to put his foot even further in his chewing tobacco-stained mouth by saying, "I'm sorry, I thought this was Get On The Bus," a statement which takes me aback for two reasons: (1) I'm surprised he's heard of that relatively obscure Spike Lee "joint," and (2) when you think about it, the statement doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Theo further clarifies by telling us, "Just being who I am, sometimes, no one will understand me." Hmmm. That's a friggin' shocker. We see a shot of him looking sheepish and I actually feel sorry for him for a second. But then I quickly pour a cold beer over my head and snap out of it.
The Shasta pulls into a HoJo's because nothing works up an appetite like swappin' scar stories and racial humor. James and Theo then do a dueling-conversations bit on the pay phones inside, making calls home. James tells someone -- presumably one of his rippling, manly rugby brothers -- about Laterrian and Theo, saying, "They're both pretty sweet guys, dude." Theo mumbles something about not being able to explain how he feels, and how it's all "so insane." James now: "I thought I was just going to dominate...like get on the show and just be like, dude, all right, sweet, I'm winning every prize, I'm winning every single, like, mission...and it's not that at all." James is apparently working already to cushion the shock when he's sitting around watching the first episode with his "buddies" in six months and they see what a puss-boy he was on the balloon stunt. As James keeps saying "sweet" and "dude" with a few other words thrown in to mix things up, Theo leans back in his chair...and crashes to the floor! James cracks up as Theo says, "Mom, yeah, I'm okay," and just stays seated on the floor. This Theo is rangy, man. He can do topical comedy, prop comedy, and physical comedy! The fact that it's all unintentional aside, this kid's really going places! Theo is sort of feeling like an outsider and goes and wades in a "crick" behind the restaurant. The others prove him right by talking shit about him over burgers and what look like margaritas. "He's a good kid, or whatever," says Msaada. "He's just out of control." Meanwhile, Theo does push-ups, lamely wades, and complains to the poor cameraman who has to follow him around while everyone else is eating and getting drunk, that everyone laughs at him when they first meet him, and he can't figure out why. Yeah, Theo, I have no idea either. You just continue wading in your crick.
Outside the Hojo's, Holly runs away from a fountain, squealing, "I just stole a quarter!" like she just made her first doodie in a toilet and she really wants her mommy to see. Her mommy, in this case, obviously, is James, who slaps the quarter out of her hand and back into the water. "That's somebody's wish!" flirts an inexplicably red-faced James. "Didn't you ever see Goonies???" I saw it like nine times when it came out, but I don't even remember that part. Obviously James has watched it a bit more recently. Maybe James and his rugby buddies get together every week and have Corey Feldman movie nights. The two then play-slap and call each other names. "Slut." "Whore." Such wit! Such verbal jousting! It's like Taming of the Shrew, only not...well, watchable. The moon comes out as the kids sit in the Shasta, stopped somewhere on the road to Flagstaff, Arizona. (Hey, anyone know the statistics of fatal rattlesnake bites in the area? Just wondering....) The siren goes off as Max Headroom comes back on the screen. "Have you ever been so embarrassed, that you wanted to cry?" he asks, in a line-reading somewhere between William Shatner and Harvey Fierstein. Ooh man, the RM is very fruity, I just have to point this out here. He suddenly gets all Breaking-The-Fourth-Wall on us by speaking directly to Laterrian. "Did your mind just go back to that night you were locked out of the house...completely, buck, naked!" Cheesy soundtrack screams make the whole experience rather like a high-school-gymnasium haunted house on Halloween, but without the chance of copping a feel in the dark. "If you think that was embarrassing," huffs the RM, "you might just want to stay in bed tomorrow." At this point, the camera gets a bit too close and we can see by the stains on his teeth that the RM is a heavy smoker. He thankfully goes away, telling the kids that they once again have email. The kids have to be at a radio station the day. "We have a job to do," says Kathryn, "because we need some money."
Kathryn gets a little screen time as she tells the driving Laterrian that she grew up on a farm growing cherries and apples. "You must have loved being a kid then, you know," theorizes Laterrian because, well, what kid doesn't love cherries and apples...I guess. Laterrian finds Kathryn "extremely attractive" because her attitude is "incredible." Is this Laterrian talking, or "T"? I wish they would tell us because his two personalities are so distinct. Meanwhile, in the back, James and Holly talk about their first times. James reveals, "I haven't had that much exposure to the whole sex thing." He goes on to say that he's only had sex with one person, his last girlfriend. Ah...Mr. Big Shot revealed. I guess he was too busy playing rugby to notice the opposite sex much. James then asks Holly when she was "picked up by the Candyman," which both confuses and grosses me out but seems to delight Holly. Holly first had sex at sixteen and goes on to tell us in an interview that she's a "self-proclaimed nymphomaniac" -- a statement on which I don't feel like commenting. She was de-virginized by her twenty-three-year-old boss, which makes James's penis shrink up into his body. James tries hard to laugh when Holly recounts how her mother told her, "You come from a long line of horny women," but it's obvious that he wishes he could take back that statement to his friend about "dominating" because he's clearly outmatched here.
DJ Scribble does some scratching as the Shasta pulls into the strip-mall headquarters of KFLX, "Northern Arizona's BEST Rock!" because, you know, Northern Arizona really is a hotbed of radio stations that rock. The kids crowd into a studio smaller than my living room as a bad DJ tells the fifteen listeners in the Greater Flagstaff Area that the Road Rules cast is in the house to test out some "mystery products." The requisite small-radio-station-blandly-pretty-brunette-intern Samantha, the new "Mission Mayor," tells the kids that they're going to "each split yourselves up into two teams," which doesn't make any sense --- unless she means that, for instance, Laterrian and "T" will be facing off against each other. (Incidentally, I wonder who has more power, the Mission Mayor or Mayor McCheese -- you know, in the whole fake-mayor world.) Kathryn explains the mission, which is quite a step down from the balloon walk: Each team will get a product. They will get people on the street to then test the product and fill out a survey. They will earn money based on how many surveys they collect. This honestly has to be the low point in the entire history of RR missions. The two products are the "Daddy Nurser" -- a big bra with lactating nipples that lets men feel what it is like to breast-feed, and the "Water Bra" which women wear to enhance their breasts. "Luckily" they are right near a college campus, so off the boy and girl teams go to get this lame-ass mission over with as quickly as possible. Kathryn saucily sucks on the nipples of the bra while a boy wears it; Holly convulses in laughter in the background, collapsing to the pavement and going into septic shock. The kids then pose the survey questions to the testers, such as, "In a state of emergency, would you drink from your water bra?" and "have you ever yearned to lactate?" Kathryn's floating head lies to us hard-core, saying that the questions on these surveys are "really funny." Yes Kathryn, if by "funny" you actually mean "so painfully unfunny I want to stab a fork into my eye, pour Tabasco sauce into the wound, and then look directly into a solar eclipse."
Look. I was enjoying myself, laughing at the kids' wacky antics, ridiculous attempts at flirting, and pratfalls. But now that the neglectful, Survivor-obsessed Bunim-Murray overlords are ruining my fun, I'm getting angry. Theo tells a girl who very much looks like a man that he thinks her breasts look bigger in the bra, and does she agree? She deadpans, "No." The girls continue to suck on the man-bra's nipples while the guys make girls wearing the bra hug each other. Wow. This is so "wacky" and "risqué" I can barely keep my eyes open. The worst part is that the camera-idiot keeps doing these sleazy close-ups on the female college students' breasts. I swear, the production duties of this entire segment was farmed off to the AV department of a local "special-needs" high school. The bad questions, split-screen antics, and tit-shots continue, but there's really no need to go into it further. It sucks. It really really sucks. Suddenly the whole cast is wearing shirts bearing frat and sorority Greek letters, but I'm too disgusted to ask exactly why. I disliked frat boys in college -- I dislike this cast. Works for me. The boys finish getting seventy surveys so they climb on top of the Shasta and chat about the opportunity to get laid by random women on this trip just because they're going to be on TV. Or as Laterrian gracefully puts it, "Do you know how many women would own our nuts just for the hell of it?" Theo says that it's actually "journeymen" in them. What? Seriously Theo, what? Theo, if you're reading this, could you please email me and tell me what the hell that means. Please? Laterrian is similarly confused because he testily tells Theo, "Nooooooooo."
Three sorority chicks lure Laterrian (or is it "T"?) down and leave poor James up on the roof with Theo. James quickly regrets his decision not to go with Laterrian as Theo immediately begins babbling incomprehensibly about this journey giving him the opportunity to get to know himself because he's had too much outside influence from females. Huh? Like your mother, who ditched you when you were fourteen? When James miraculously doesn't leave, Theo keeps talking, prattling on about being a "bunch of Band-Aids" inside and then something about the wound not healing. James literally does not say a word, or look at Theo, or respond in any way. Pause. Pause. Theo babbles on, repeating himself, desperately trying to get some semblance of a response of James. James gives none. The cameraman swivels up to the clouds because even he is bored at this point. The boys and girls meet back at the radio station, handing in their surveys and collecting their $1500. Thank god this hideously boring mission is finally...wait...what? Oh crap. Samantha has that look on her face. She's going to say something else. No kids. Don't listen! Run! Get in the Shasta. Drive away now!!! Ah, hell. Samantha is giving all six, working together, the opportunity to make five hundred more dollars if they get just five people to try another new product. "It's time for the penis pump, people," says this lackey at Northern Arizona's Best Rock station. Oh. A penis pump. Saucy! The kids show their first good judgment of the season as they don't display the B/M-anticipated glee at this "racy" contest. The boys all decline to try it, Laterrian boasting, "I couldn't fit in that thing anyway." Then he says something about a crooked penis, but I shut my ears. Theo says, "The penis thing is not really my thing." Mine neither, Theo. James, demonstrating his disgust and extreme manliness, throws a bottle of water onto the cement outside. So, looks like they'll need to find five takers. Ooh, they have to find five frat boys willing to try the pump? Frat guys will stick their dick in anything. Frat guys would stick their dick in a bee hive if you promised them a six-pack of Schlitz afterwards. And...we're on break. Commercial for The Lyricist Lounge Show, promising "dope rhymes, good times." Word.
Back to Northern Arizona University go the kids, where they head straight to frat row. Of course. Holly's scary disembodied afro-puffed head tells us that they need five guys to try the pump and fill out the questionnaire. After promising that no cameras will be filming the actual penis enlargement process, predictably, a whole gaggle of frat boys "step up." (Is it a "gaggle" of frat boys, or a "pride" of frat boys? I don't remember from my zoology classes.) Msaada explains that so many frat boys were willing, they had turn them away. I told you. In various dorm rooms, the kids send the horny frat boys into bathrooms with the pumps. Answering the question of repeat usage-cleanliness that's swirling in my head, Holly says, "You've got to use a condom," which I imagine is a phrase she's said a lot in her life, in much the same tone. She hands the first boy a ruler, instructing him to measure before and after. "You want it hard, soft?" asks the boy. "It's up to you, dude," says Holly, again repeating a phrase I'm sure she's uttered in many a frat house. Laterrian puts his ear to his boy's bathroom door, before walking away saying, "Take your time, yo." Yo. Another boy reads the instructions, which include the ominous phrase, "...to avoid having your scrotum sack sucked in the tube." Ouch, yo. Holly yells to her boy through the bathroom door to hurry up, saying, "you're not pumping for, like, maximum results": yes, once again, repeating a phrase I'm sure she's told many a frat boy.
Laterrian walks a guy through the survey, asking him his penis size before and after the pump. The guy says that before it was four and a quarter inches, and after it got to over ten inches. What? What!!! Ten inches!?! Where can I get one of those things? Jesus. At that, Laterrian creepily touches himself. Cut to the girls, where their guy says that before, it was two and three quarters, adding, "I just want to put that on record." Why? Does he think that's good? Is he proud of that? When asked width, he doesn't know, so Kathryn holds up her fingers, indicating about the circumference of a magic marker. He says yes. Poor guy. That first guy should lend him some. Other various guys answer various questions about discomfort and one "wacky" B/M question about having a desire to scream out, "Who's your Daddy?" That's a zinger. Laterrian thanks his guy repeatedly. He is really thanking this dude, like he's going to cry. Weird. Ew, then his voice dips into Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs range as he says, "Thank you so much." He disappoints me, however, by not telling his boy to put the lotion in the basket. The kids are back in the Shasta as a group of co-eds come entice James briefly out of the RV. Smoke literally pours from Holly's ears as she yells, "Dude, you guys, we really have to go." For a "self-proclaimed nymphomaniac," Holly is very jealous and insecure. Tone it down, OJ. Jeez. Okay, they're really going crazy with the Radio Shack visual effects board as they're now showing the Shasta in a triple screen shot of the kids driving back to the strip mall radio station. Samantha gives the kids, who keep saying "sweet," $2000 to last them for two weeks, two days. That's about twenty-one bucks per person per day. That's not too bad. When I was twenty I could have lived off that easily -- well, as long as I had a whole separate $20 per day for beer.
On the road once again, the kids listen in confusion and mild disgust as Holly reads a sex survey from Jane magazine. "Why would you go to a sex shop?" asks Holly, indicating that there are much saucier places to get sexual devices. As Holly prattles endlessly about getting handcuffs at the Ren Fair (what?), we see that James is seriously overwhelmed and/or repulsed by her transparent nature. Laterrian helpfully tells us that James is intimidated by Holly. Staying at a HoJo's motel in Provo, Utah for the night (obviously we have a product placement deal going on here), the kids all decide they want to go for a work-out, so they head to Gold's Gym. A work-out? Motels are about porn and cheap beer. Not work-outs. Gimme a break. As the kids all pump iron, Laterrian's floating head explains what we see -- that the boys all meet a bunch of "cool girls" and make plans to hang out with them later. Holly, doing some bar dips, shoots daggers at James the Innocent. I don't know why she's so worried. He's the one who's only slept with one person while she has more notches on her bedpost than Scott Baio. Later, a blonde knocks on the motel room door, only to come face to face with Holly. Holly testily informs her that James is not there and she has no idea where he went. But as the girl spies Theo a few doors down, Holly commences brooding. In an interview she tearfully tells us that she "expected a lot more from James." More what? A nympho (her word, not mine) being "disappointed" in someone for trying to hook up? Please. But when we cut back to the scene at the motel door, the pure dejection on her face makes me feel a bit sorry for her. I said "a bit."
A handy graphic tells us this section shall be dubbed "The Parvo Girls" ["'Parvo' and not 'Provo,' pretty much as a dis on Theo, who gets the name wrong later in the episode" -- Wing Chun] as our three boys and the "girls" congregate in the parked Shasta. Man, how lucky are these dudes? They get to sit in a cramped RV with a bunch of Mormon chicks in a motel parking lot in Utah? Color me jealous. The Parvo Girls looks massively uncomfortable as the boys woo them by talking about how the RR girls have no right to be jealous. Man, that's hot talk. Meanwhile, the girls brood in their motel room, using the fact that the guys are hogging the RV as cover for what's really going on -- that they feel completely dissed and rejected. They hypothesize something about what would have happened had they hooked up with a group of guys and wanted to use the RV. "They're guys," quips Holly, having apparently calmed down a bit. Or maybe the pressure on her skull from the white girl afro-puffs are just making her sleepy. Meanwhile, in split screen, we see that the guys and the Provo Girls have slipped into the motel hot tub. The RR girls keep babbling on about how they don't feel rejected or dissed -- their protestations getting less and less convincing the longer they go on. The guys eventually bid their Mormon charges adieu and retire alone to their room. "All right," says Laterrian. "Two nights. A hundred girls. No action." I guess they left "T" back in Arizona by mistake. James and Laterrian battle the girls for Most Self-Deluded Conversation of the night as they justify why they couldn't score. Theo looks on in creepy awe, his disembodied head (with a little star sticker on his cheek!?) tells us that he feels very accepted now and that things are going well. James reveals that one of the girls told him, "you don't get any in Provo." James is angrily babbling about not getting any, as if Mr. One Sexual Partner would have known what to do anyway, and he inexplicably turns to Laterrian and says, "You're my dude, dude." Dude, could you tone it down with the "dudes"? No? Okay then, never mind, dude. They then start talking about someone named "Nathan" and I fucking give up trying to piece together what's going on. If the B/M morons are going to keep in some inside joke from earlier in the night, could they be so kind as to clue us in as to what the hell they're talking about? Man alive.
It's morning and shots of beautiful snow-capped mountains disappointingly dissolve into a shirtless James visiting the girls in their room. James packs his backpack as Holly teases him for not getting any. A very not amused James hands Holly a bicycle pump, telling her that it is not a "true guy" but it will "help her out." Holly looks as confused as I am by his lame attempt at a sexual joke/put-down. "If I wanted to get some," says Holly, "it wouldn't be a problem." That's true, but c'mon...almost any woman in the world could walk down to their local bar right now and go home with someone. Holly then pulls a fourth-grade maneuver by claiming to have "Daryl" waiting for her at home. James expresses surprise that her "single" status has changed so suddenly and dramatically: "It doesn't sound like the Holly I know." "You don't know Holly," says, um, Holly -- "What the [beep] are you talking about?" Holly goes on to say she's been, like, talking to this Daryl on the phone a lot in the past two days, you know, and things have, like, um, changed. Msaada just looks sympathetically in Holly's direction. "Mmmm, girl," she seems to be thinking. "That's just sad, right there." James's floating head is also unconvinced by the display. The kids dine on what looks like nachos and water in a family restaurant as ZenKathryn informs us that Holly has a soft spot for James, but is unforgiving. Holly poutily brings her food over and initially refuses to sit with the others. Kathryn, choosing not to quit while she's still making sense, goes on: "It's not a hate/love, but it's pretty darn close." The dinner ends with the B/M crack (with a capital "C") editing squad discovering the slo-mo button.
In the morning -- or some morning, who the hell can tell? -- the Shasta is cruising and Theo tells us how cool it is the way life can whip you around like "leaves in the wind." Leaves in the wind. Hm, thank you, Walden. I wonder how long it took him to come up with that. Some masochistic urge drives Msaada and James to tell Theo to sing "the lonely song." And His Redneckness, still wearing that stupid star sticker on his cheek, busts out with some backwoods ditty about the cab of his truck and some or other side of life. Theo's head waxes "poetic" once again about the journey and how he's excited to learn more about himself. "All I have to do is just, like, strap on my seat belt, keep it, you know, kind of loose, and just, kind of, enjoy the ride we're going on." Kind of...You know....
Well put, Theo. Well put.
week: The Road Master does his awful schtick before we see a montage of the fun in store for us ahead: Stunt-flying. Luging. Modeling. James yelling at Holly, "What Are You Going To Do!!!???" Laterrian naked, posing in the shower. Holly telling the cameraman, "Get off me, please!" Sailing. Walking down a hall. Standing in a police line-up. Ski-jumping. Monster-truck driving. Playing congas and dancing. Bungee-jumping. What might be Theo's ass grinding in Msaada's face. And NotSoZenAnymoreKathryn talking on the phone, saying, "If I don't get out of this, I'm gonna die."
And over the credits, the Mating Ritual of the Stupid between Holly and James continues. But James pretty much gives up when the only childhood injury left for him to talk about is his brother once hitting him with a frozen Butterfinger. Game, set, match, Holly. Me, I'm going to go lie down.