Previously on Road Rules…quick montage of Kathryn and shrimpy-creepy boyfriend Reed together as Kathryn voice-overs how much she loves Reed and how great he is. Theo then recaps for us: that Laterrian and Kathryn were flirting and then went into the restaurant bathroom together. Kathryn tells Reed and Laterrian during her big bullshit couch talk that if the "key players" of a supposed hook-up say nothing happened, then nothing happened. Camouflaged bucket-headed Theo looks on, uninvited, and uneducated. In the Shasta, Theo eggs Kathryn on about lying. Laterrian, also then egged on by Theo, spills the beans about the Great Bathroom Caper, saying that Kathryn was the one who grabbed him and took him to the bathroom. Kathryn, talking on the payphone of their hotel says, "Guess who's coming home?" Sweet.
Okay, so the Graphic of the Stupid dubs this segment, "Goodbye." Yeah, goodbye quality television. Hello Road Rules. Kathryn talks to boyfriend Reed on the payphone again, saying, "I think I'm going to be leaving the show. It's just, like, all gone downhill." She's the one who went downhill. Down Mount Laterrian. So we cut to yet another payphone receiver, lying off the hook, the title "Kathryn's Mom" coming up. Kathryn's mom is a telephone?! Oh, no, Kathryn's mom is on the telephone. Oh. Okay. So basically she's making her mom hold while she talks to her boyfriend. That's fucked up. Ha…now she tells Reed to hold on while she talks to her mom. Kathryn, extremely dramatically, with the whisper voice to let you know she's being all serious, tells her mom that she needs to "get out of here." Girl, the hotel lobby has a front door. Oh, get out of Road Rules. Um…go ahead. Bye. As I fantasize about Kathryn leaving the show and how B/M would then be forced to focus more on Msaada, I realize Kathryn is still talking to her mom, so I pay attention just long enough to hear, "What would you do if no one in the world believed you?" She should go ask O.J. They're both guilty and yet cling to the belief that they're innocent. And like O.J. she could start a website, www.askkathryn.com, where people could ask her questions. "So, did you fool around with Laterrian in that restaurant bathroom?" "You know, it's just so tiring, all this talk of something that obviously didn't happen and so just let it go. Actually, I've just launched a full scale private investigation in order to discover just who it was gnawing on Laterrian's dick in the T.G.I. Friday's bathroom." Kathryn is retarded, and not in the vaguely cute and compassion-eliciting way. Kathryn bitches when her mom tells her to stay on the show. "I think I'm losing my mind, and I think what you're telling me is that you just want me to stick it out…I'm just extremely upset right now. Like, have you heard me this way?" My guess is yes. Every day from age two to the present. Kathryn remembers that Reed has been holding on the other line for four hours and talks to him. Somehow, in Kathrynland, "I cheated on you. I'm so sorry. Can we work through this?" becomes, "I have a gut feeling if I don't get out of this, I'm gonna die." Man, even Holly could take hyperbole lessons from this girl.
"Do you think that they exist?" says some music cue, apropos of nothing I can figure out. Do we think that the B/M Road Rules creative staff exists? No. Most likely it's just an intern and one editor locked in a room somewhere, trying to craft compelling and coherent storylines out of thirty thousand hours of footage, and failing…miserably. Kathryn goes to Laterrian's hotel room (who knows where the hell they are anymore…what city…what hotel…what country…I have no idea) and says, "I'm not saying you were trying to get with me…that's my point." Uh…did I miss something? They did get with each other. Kathryn, who has a good deal of hair running down the side of her face, by the way, goes on to tell Laterrian that they can be friends but not "buddy-buddy." "Uh…can I still fuck you?" Laterrian is about to ask, but instead snaps back eloquently with, "I'm not…I'm not gonna…" Game, set, match to Laterrian. Kathryn rebounds that they were drunk and did "something stupid," and adds that she doesn't want to discuss it any further. Okaaaaaaay. So now she admits they fooled around. She is a liar. As little as it is of anyone's business, she did lie. For the record. Laterrian, looking sad, says something about never understanding each other, and Kathryn once again butts in and says, "We both screwed it up. That's the damn truth, we screwed up." No, Kathryn. You screwed up. You have the boyfriend. Laterrian is unattached. I can't figure out why Laterrian is being so droopy-headed and wimpy with her here. It seems uncharacteristic. Kathryn must have something pretty damn special under those Levi's to cow the playa like this. Maybe it can show movies and has a built-in MP3 player and shit. We fade to a swampy sunset behind a dual shot of floaty Kathryn and Laterrian, looking in different directions. It looks like the poster for Passion Fish II.
So back in the Shasta now, the blue light goes off, signaling the arrival of our be-hated Road Master. Funny thing is, the blue light has been ripped off the TV and swings by its cord off the side. So the Bloated One comes on, and Holly smiles, once again eating. Always shoving something in her mouth, that one. Man, that girl must be pulling some Paula Abdul bulimia thing, or she just has the metabolism of a hummingbird on crystal. I think Holly has a weird Daddy-figure crush on the RM, the way she gets excited whenever he comes on. Or maybe it's just a unconscious reaction for Holly whenever a man speaks to her in a low, grumbly voice. "Ladies, so obsessed about body image," says RM. As we get shots of Msaada looking nonplussed, he says that tomorrow's mission might play into that fear. But, he adds, "whatever happens, remember -- Road Master loves you." Holly cackles as RM disappears. She says, "Holly's insecurities about her body. Let's see, okay. Big feet, no tits, and body hair." She laughs. Okay y'all, I'm not going to say this is charming, because I now feel stupid. I want B/M to make her unlikable again. Please? James mentions that they're going to a gym at Florida Atlantic University, so we at least know what fucking state they're in. My god are they doing a bad job keeping us oriented as to where the hell the are. Chronology is for pussies. "Nighty-night," says James, receiving twenty bucks and a copy of The Men of Rugby from B/M for trying to pimp the Road Master's lame-o catch-phrase. Is it sweeping the nation yet? Anyone have a line on that?
So the day they drive, and arrive at the university gym. And speaking of the phonetic "gym," guess who is waiting for them as new Mission Mayor? Funnyman Jim Breuer of "Goat Boy" and Half Baked fame! What a gig for Jim. Poor Jim. I guess that Pesci impression didn't really take him as far as he'd hoped. James, meanwhile, reacts like he's meeting the Pope and Holly shakes his hand, mannishly. Man, Jim looks tired. I guess Jim always looks tired, but he looks especially tired here. So, TiredJim explains that the kids are doing a competition against another team, and that the event is worth twelve thousand dollars. Jim goes on to say that their competition might look intimidating, but not to let it scare them. So out from the back of the room comes their competition: It's the Playboy Extreme Team! Six former centerfolds who do extreme sports in some retarded Playboy Enterprises marketing ploy. (We see split screen shots of the Playboy ladies doing crappy sports, one of which I swear looks like Competitive Getting Fucked From Behind In The Water.) The look on Holly's face as they introduce themselves…she's going Scaryteeth all over the place with the grimace, and as the girls explain how they make their retarded living, I suddenly realize how fucking sleazy and mean it is of B/M to have the Road Master talk about body image and then to throw them in front of centerfolds. Women have such massive problems with body image already, why the fuck would MTV, which is supposed to be all "Youth Power" and shit, play into that? ["Because MTV's idea of 'Youth Power' is Britney 'No, They're Real, Really, I Swear' Spears, maybe?" -- Sars] There is no redeeming lesson from this mission. It was just something fucking stupid that the B/M "writers" came up with for RM to say to introduce the mission. Pardon my soapbox, but I hope the girls firebomb the B/M offices when the show is done, strip Bunim and Murray naked, and have the dancers from Sisqo's Shakedown rate their bodies. The hos do a little bit of shit talking, as the two teams' trainers, Christine and Abby, come out. This sequence makes very little sense. As they talk, it seems like these two fairly pretty girls want the kids, and us, to think the mission is stripping. But they're not trying very hard. Jim occasionally tries to be funny and say something, but no one pays him any attention. Neither does Hollywood.
So for a brief second we get eight split screens and my Quasar starts smoking. I think eight is a record so far. Man, that's some good producing! Really gives the show a "look." It's the "Ow, My Eyes, My Fucking Eyes!" look they teach so much about at TV school. Thankfully, we cut away to a shot of everyone being led out to a swimming pool. Here, they are told that the event is actually Synchronized Swimming, marking a nearly undetectable improvement from Babysitting as a mission for this here Maximum Velocity Tour. It is the Maximum Velocity Tour, is it not? Thanks, I just forgot there for a second. The trainers tell everyone that they'll be judged in two categories: I Don't Care Enough To Rewind The Tape And Find Out, and Somebody Bring Me Some No-Doz Please For The Love Of God. They'll also have to wear the assigned swimsuit, and one of the playmates complains, "My boobs are not going to fit in here." Maybe you should have thought of that before you had bags of saline liquid surgically implanted inside them, hmmmm? The boys hold up their required suits and everyone has a good laugh: they are little blue Speedos. So Jim Breuer was apparently quickly sent away as the kids and the hos begin training in the gym, learning routines on dry land. Kathryn keeps correcting everyone and the boys look annoyed.
Our first floaty of the evening (can that be true?) is Holly, who regrettably now has the Red Star of Death on her cheek, which means she's literally days away from death. Poor Holly. Anyway, floaty dying Holly says that Kathryn is in a bad mood because of the whole Laterrian situation. Laterrian goes floaty and says, "Like, there's just something about a shrieky voice of a girl who has no athleticism and is trying to tell me about mine, that kinda gets on my nerves." Hee. B/M shows us more shots of both teams practicing, manipulating it to seem that the Playboy girls are doing great while our kids are a mess. James takes Laterrian aside and tells him to ignore Kathryn's bitching and just concentrate on the task. James' advice centers around the words "dude," "smile," and "relax," which, come to think of it, is pretty much the entirety of James' vocabulary. Man, he really shot his wad on that cheer-up session. Floaty James then expands the vocab somewhat when he explains that the team is tense; he thinks it's an "ambush" and that the Playmates are going to win. I hate to break it to him, but a desire to put your vagina on display does not necessarily translate into athletic ability. The two teams put on their suits and head into the water to practice. (We see that the Speedos have the boys' names written incorrectly on the butt.) Random shots of bad Synchronized Swimming practice. Cheering. Splashing. B/M spends a few dollars on an underwater camera. It doesn't make things look any more exciting. In the water, Kathryn and Laterrian get into a fight about staying in a line or something, during which I can make out about three words. Kathryn is doing the white-girl neck shake as she scolds Laterrian and, man, I don't advocate violence against women, but he should probably make like Stephen and Irene her ass. (The Real World: Seattle reference there, by the way.) We get a shot of the ho team watching the fight and smiling. The tension and yelling reminds them all of their upbringing. Theo voice-overs nonsense about people hiding things and not facing up to it and blah blah blah everyone should admit who they kiss and how because it effects me so much and I'm a nosy hick and you ain't seen nothing yet and why don't you go to commercial finally. So we do. Finally.
Whoa. There's a very creepy commercial for an already creepy K-Mart brand of jeans called Route 66. But this commercial features the kids! Our beloved Kids! The kids get in an elevator and Holly tells the elevator man, "Route 66, please." All Scaryteeth and shit. And they run off the elevator, whooping, and Holly grabs the elevator geek, who is suddenly transformed into…well, still a geek, but now a geek with sunglasses and mousse in his hair. Running. Jumping. Smiling. Hello Theo, all up in the camera. They get on the Shasta. Ew. Creepy. I'm almost looking forward to the show starting again…I said "almost."
Okay, so now we get a nighttime establishing shot of "Embassy Suites." Yes, HoJo's is out. Hello Embassy Suites. A step up? Yes! What did they do to deserve it? Absolutely nothing! The Graphic of Stupid reads "Swallow It," but I'm not going to bite at that obvious attempt to get me to make a blow-job joke. I would never stoop so low. So Holly and Kathryn rehearse their routine in the room, practicing "snake arms" and asking, "How cool does this look?" The rest of the kids watch as Laterrian, the source of this current tension, is on the phone. Strangely, Kathryn is wearing a t-shirt for the enemy Playmates. I wonder what she did to get that? Holly asks Laterrian to get off the phone, which he does. Now they all launch into an argument, Laterrian saying that they've been working on this "shit" all day and they probably aren't going to be able to do this stuff in nine feet of water, and he'd rather spend his time trying to reconcile his stuff with people at home. "I don't appreciate that (beep) getting in my ass when I'm on the phone." Ew, who was in Laterrian's ass? Scratch that. I don't want to know. So basically, Laterrian is complaining that they've been working all day to possibly win twelve thousand dollars? What a work ethic. James pipes up now, saying that Laterrian and Kathryn need to contain their feelings because otherwise they'll lose. Kathryn says, "Whatever," and bails. She heads down to the Shasta to write some poetry or do some little light sketching. The Graphic of Stupid now reads "Sold My Soul," and that's exactly what floaty, crying Kathryn thinks she's done. But sold it to Satan, specifically. As opposed to selling it to the guy down the street. "Nothing in the world is going to make things better…I was in the compromising position, but that doesn't mean I was going to sleep with you," she says, switching abruptly to the second person. "That's a dangerous assumption." Sniffle. B-O-O-H-O-O, Kathryn. Jesus. A different floaty Kathryn, now suddenly reborn, says that she "misbehaved" with Laterrian, and since it's affecting the group dynamic, she needs to do something about it. Man, if B/M knows anything, it's pacing. Brilliant transition, B/M. Go buy yourselves a sandwich.
So, the kids have a meeting on the hotel patio. Oooh, Kathryn certainly isn't as together as the floaty her seemed to indicate because she whips out of the room and says, to Msaada (who isn't even on screen, those B/M bastards), Holly, Theo, and James respectively, "Why is anyone the way that anyone is? Because I want to know about your mom and I want to know about your dad and I want to know about your parents' divorce and I want to know about your ex-girlfriend and why you dumped her on her ass right before you left. I want to know all those things but I'm not asking you and I'm not judging you on your things because it's your (beep) business." Um, I actually think I maybe follow her logic, but then again it's late and I'm so tired I think Laterrian has his hand on his dick this entire shot. Oh, he actually does. Never mind.
So now everyone starts yelling. James says he doesn't care about her pathetic little affair, but goes on to say that it's ruined the group trust, and Kathryn hasn't done anything since the beginning of the trip and he wishes she would tell the truth. Theo chimes in, complaining that he's getting different stories from everyone and "things just don't match up." Holly, winning more of my respect with one line than she's earned in the whole season so far, says to Theo, "You're over here playing the gossip columnist." Theo tries to cover, saying that it is none of his business, but once again pulling that bullshit about having been asked to lie about it. I don't know, but I think Theo is more bothered by the race thing than anything else. Or he's just a damn busybody. He's like that lady who hangs out the window on 227, all up in everyone's shit. So everyone busts out with convoluted logic, trying to get Laterrian to spill the beans. Even Msaada urges James to lay out what he knows. James is the most heated here. Theo second. Holly says something about a family needing to tell the truth to each other, and Theo actually jumps up, he agrees so vehemently. He puts a few "dudes" on the table too, just in case the point has not been made. Now all six of them start talking at once, and I stick lit cigarettes in my ears in effort to block out the sound. "There was no oral sex. There was no (fucking)," says Kathryn. Now Laterrian says he'll "lay it out." Everyone agrees it's a good idea. I think a nap would be an even better idea, personally.
Honestly, this whole thing is stupid shit right here. This is a new low. This is like Rashomon -- everyone dissecting this one event over and over. Who cares? Okay, well, fine, I do a little bit. It's certainly more interesting than the running-from-the-law mission. Laterrian says that he laughs whenever people say they just kissed. James starts yelling, "Tell them what you told me!" James is all up in his shit. Damn, LT should bitch-slap him. A bunch of expletives are tossed around as James and Laterrian yell and the screechy-tense music is turned up and Kathryn rubs her forehead…and we go to commercial.
We're back, with many different screens opening and closing like Windows98 crashing your Compaq. Theo yells, "Spit it, dude! Spit it!" Msaada asks James just what he thinks he knows. This is weird, though, because they keep showing little bits they've already showed in the argument. I guess B/M couldn't figure out a way to stretch a mission and a big fight into twenty-two minutes. Yeah, that's twenty-two whole minutes they'd have to try to fill. Fuck it -- why not just repeat footage? Who really cares anyway? Finally, Kathryn tells Laterrian -- well, and the four others -- that she wasn't going to have sex with him in that bathroom. Laterrian admits that he thought differently because his hands were "at [her] panties" when Theo knocked. Kathryn comes back with the lamest line, "And you know what, like, my thoughts were 'whoops.'" "Come true, dude!" says James, moving slots up on my Annoyance Ranking with every passing second. So Laterrian says that he had Kathryn's dress down and was taking off her panties when Theo knocked. "Yeah, I had my bra on…" "No, your bra was off. Your bra was off." Kathryn thinks, "Oh. Yeah." Ha. Stupid-ass. (Dude, Kathryn and Reed are so over.)
Weird music. Uncomfortable glances back and forth. Crazy time jump. So later, I guess, because Kathryn has her sweater zipped up now, Kathryn drops the act and confesses. "I lied about, um, I was wrong to ask you guys to try to hide Laterrian and I..." blah blah blah "…I didn't mean to. I lied about the whole thing in the beginning, but I've come clean." Yeah, I heard she does. That was either a typical weird B/M transition or Kathryn is really kinda schizo. Or both! Shot of a full moon. Stupid music. Kathryn on an outdoors payphone to Reed. "We had another drag-out, knock-out Kumbaya session," says Kathryn, stealing a page from Theo in terms of nonsense. Floaty K says that she's told Good Will Stunted about the whole situation. "It's weighed very heavily on our relationship, but it's something we'll work through."
Morning swamp shot. Bossa-nova beat. Floaty Kathryn. She and Laterrian will never be close friends. She continues that they made a dumb mistake and chose to do it and blah blah blah. Behind her we see little flashbacks of Reed and Laterrian and the helpful neon "bathroom" sign from the infamous restaurant. Either these are to help us follow the story, or to give us something to look at as Kathryn babbles. She keeps saying how "stupid" it was for "them" to do, but not really. He was just trying to get some. He's single. Hey, here's a girl asking me to go to the bathroom with her. Let's go! Not many men would stop and express concern over the boyfriend back home while the hands are slipping into the pants. I'm just saying. And anyway, I think Laterrian genuinely was interested in her. Jesus, now back to another meeting, called by Kathryn to "share something of herself." Ick. She talks about, even as a kid, having always taken things personally, and Msaada busts her, saying, "Sometimes you're trippin', Kat. Sometimes people aren't even fussing at you." Laterrian shakes his head so hard he grows hair. Kathryn goes on say, "I'm my worst critic." Um, I'm going to have to disagree with that. Check the MBTV boards, honey. I couldn't follow her logic with a pickaxe and a forty-thousand watt bulb: she says that when Theo called her a liar, she couldn't take it. I don't get anything anymore. Suddenly, Laterrian gives a big speech about how brave it was of Kathryn to call this meeting and how glad he is that she isn't leaving (damn!), and if she ever thinks that she wants to leave, she should come talk to him. We're something. We're friends. Blah. They actually, here, have the balls to show shots of nearly all the kids, smiling. Ah…we're all so happy and honest and everything is right as rain again in Shastaland! Puke. Vomit. Ick. Musical cue says, "Never the same," and I'm trying very hard to catch that oh-so-subtle comment on the scene, but my frontal lobe falls out from the strain.
Jesus! The show is nearly over and they're just now getting to the event? I thought this would definitely be a two-parter with the competition week. Okay, this must have been the worst event yet, if they're going to cram it all into one minute. Heads are rolling at B/M. Okay. Let's do it as quickly as they do. Shot of swimming pool. Somehow B/M have gotten a "crowd" together, and all I can do is wonder how much they were paid to cheer. The Playmates are introduced, followed by the kids. James mugs to the camera. The hos go first. They couldn't be less in sync. (I hate that stupid boy band for making me forget how to actually write that correctly.) This makes me actually long for real Synchronized Swimming. The hos finish and cheer, and one of them yells, very seriously, "Kick ass!" So the kids start their routine, and it's lame and awful and the crowd chants, "Theo." The B/M fuckers try very hard to make the thing look even slightly better than the speed-skating mission, but they are even less skilled at this. It looks more like that old SNL skit about Synchronized Swimming with Martin Short than actual Synchronized Swimming. Hee, at one point the boys lift Msaada about an inch out of the water, and the judges laugh, "That's the lift," and write horrible things on their score sheets. Things like, "Why did I choose to be a judge for such a horrible sport," and "Dear God, what have I done with my life," and "Ooh, I think k.d. lang has a new album out." The Playmates whisper and laugh, and the routine ends with the boys taking off their suits and waving them around and the crowd yelling. The judges give the hos a thirty-four. Our kids get a thirty-five. They win. Ah, suck! The kids cheer and jump into the water and Holly does a scary little victory dance with her butt all out. The Playmates pout, but they really shouldn't be upset. The kids only have this -- this is assuredly the highlight of their lives. The Playmates can always go back to showing their vaginas to strangers for money. There is actually a medal presentation, but neither I nor the crowd stick around to see it.
Back at the hotel, Kathryn voice-overs that Theo was right, and that she wanted to leave because Theo's impression of her was so bad. Oh. My. God. She bought into it. Maybe Theo is smarter than he looks. Gawd! A shirtless Theo talks alone to Kathryn about how mad he was, and she thanks him for setting her straight, and his voice is all husky, which is very scary on many levels, and they hug…and then Kathryn asks him if he wants to go to the bathroom…
, on Road Rules…finally, an action mission, as the kids have to fly little lightweight parachute-y planes. Kathryn is going to pee in her pants, she says. She's scared. She's flying. She's maybe in trouble. End.
Over the thank-god-finally credits, we get even more Kathryn as she talks to her parents on the Shasta's speakerphone. She tells them she's okay. Her mom offers some sage-ass advice, telling Kathryn that she dealt with the situation as she should have. "You take that lemon, and you make lemonade out of it." Man, that's a great saying! She should really patent that...