Previously on Road Rules…no previously. But instead, a "Up On…" Split screen shots of little parachuted airplanes. Some man is going to teach the kids to fly the planes. Kathryn is so scared she is about to urinate. Theo tells someone to "kick some atmospheric ass." Kathryn is flying, and teacherman, via walkie-talkie, says, "Talk to me, Kathryn," all dramatic and shit. And cut.
Yes, Road Master, we know that this time things are a little different. Thank you for telling us week after week in your intro. Intro's over, and the Shasta rolls as the Graphic of Stupid reads, "My Louisiana." Oh crap. Crap. We know who the "my" is here. It's Theo. "My Louisiana": incomprehensible statements, five-hundred "dudes" per minute, and mild bigotry. Seriously, B/M editors, are you reading this? If you are, please stop with all the multi-screens and the reverse-reflection shots of the Shasta driving into itself and shit. Please? I was impressed by those graphics on American Bandstand in 1986, but not anymore. Yes, of course -- the first shot is of Theo lying in the moving Shasta, reading something. (Here's a good example of the crack B/M editing: the establishing outside shot of the Shasta shows the thing driving at dusk. But now inside, we see that it is bright daylight outside. Seriously, not one post-production class and I know not to do that.) "I kinda feel like I'm my own family," says Theo. Judging from his inbred roots, he's probably his own grandpa, too. Floaty Theo goes on to say that his dad was older and died at age eighty-six when he was sixteen. Damn! His father had Theo when he was seventy. Okay, that explains a few things. Theo looks like he's writing poetry (maybe copying some Whitman down for Laterrian?) as a Scaryteeth, Blue Cheek-Starred Holly (she's back to blue, which is a good sign, yes?) floats that, "Theo was emancipated when he was fourteen. He had a family life that didn't satisfy what he needed." How much does this smack of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club? "My home-life…is unsatisfying." I half expect her to say, "You never know when you're going to have to jaaaaam." Theo babbles about having left his house without having a place to stay; he lied and made bad decisions -- like agreeing to be on Road Rules?
So in the one semi-seamless edit so far (Huzzah, boys!), we're suddenly in a restaurant, with the six eating and Theo continuing to talk about how his relationship with his mom is strained and how though she now says, "I love you," he doesn't feel that he really learned that from her. Laterrian says, "By the time, like, you got at the age that you could recognize…" and something about Theo's parents loving each other, and then licks the last of his rum and Coke off his straw, hoping to entice Kathryn back into the bathroom with his combo sensitivity/L.L. Cool J-type oral prowess, but it doesn't work. Theo continues to yodel about not being able to recognize or trust honest affection in relationships. "Somebody will tell me they love me -- that just doesn't make any sense to me." Doesn't make sense to me either, Theo.
Theo is now back on the Shasta in the shot from before, the poetry completed and waiting in an envelope under Laterrian's pillow. He looks at photos of himself and his girlfriend "Mandy," as we are informed by the Graphic of Stupid. She's quite cute, but the weird thing is that in the photos, they're both wearing beads. Yes, maybe the shots were taken earlier, as he is from Louisiana, but knowing the extent of the B/M time-continuum paradox, the shots could be from an on-"set" meeting that is technically still ahead of us. Does that make any sense? No? Yeah, me neither. "I always believe that it's impossible to keep a relationship, for some reason, forever. Like, I believe if you found somebody that was perfect for you, that for some reason it wouldn't work out." (Oh man, I hope not.) Theo is excited about showing the kids "[his] Louisiana," and them meeting his "baby, Mandy." Theo shows Msaada a bag of marbles Mandy gave him, with a different image from or thought about their relationship written on each one. This obviously means a lot to Theo, and it is pretty sweet. Floaty Msaada thinks Mandy must be pretty special. The marbles say things like "security," and "tears," and "remember all that is important to you, all that holds meaning, don't lose your marbles." Damn, that must be one big-ass marble. ["Maybe it's a shooter. You could fit a good paragraph onto one of those." -- Sars] Theo says he's never had a girl that cared about him before, and just when we're all liking the big lug, his floaty self swoops down and admits to having cheated on Mandy a few times. "Smooching" is the word he uses. Smooching. Theo is four. He goes on more about having never been loved so therefore he cheats cuz he doesn't trust love blah blah excuse excuse -- while the desperate B/M-holes try to find images to put under Theo's longwinded hick-a-logue.
We pull up to a nameless hotel (ooh, B/M is losing sponsors left and right, man) along with the graphic "Your Town." The boys primp as James says the segment title, in reference to how Theo should know where to go that night for fun. A shirtless Theo says, "I don't think I'm going to go with y'all." James is shocked. Uh-oh. Theo and James in an argument? Watch out for flying "dudes"! "There's no pressure to hook up," says James, I hope talking about "with other women," rather than "with each other." "Man, I love being around chicks," says Theo, his grand defense coming down yet again to just not wanting to go out. This is a pointless scene, but we're used to that, right? Pointless scene number…what is it? Forty-eight? Oh, forty-nine. Okay, thanks. James and Theo stare creepily at each other until Laterrian comes in, totally missing the point, and says, "We gotta get you another girl, man." Now, this is very funny: Theo says, "No, I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried about whether or not I really feel like going [not even a beat] I think I feel like going, though." Hee. Theo justifies his change in attitude (the minute the shirtless Laterrian pressed him) by saying that he realized that "these are [his] boys now."
So in this bar called Blue Heaven, Theo and his "boys" are dancing, and Theo alternates between drunkenly telling the camera what a great time he's having in Louisiana and dancing with some chick. "This is what we do in Louisiana, dude." Laterrian then says to Theo, giving the "thumbs-up" sign, "Hers are…okay!" I'm sure he's talking about breasts, but I'd like to pretend he's talking about her shoe/purse coordination. More dancing. More drunken Theo talking to the camera. "Where I was three days ago was a game of Yahtzee [could this possibly be what he says?] -- where I am now is a game of pinball," he says, all meaningfully. (Meanwhile, I don't have a fucking clue what he means. Theo is the tilt. He continues babbling about the best possible welcome mat to the state of Louisiana, but I'm too busy laughing at the fact that the girl he's dancing with obviously isn't interested in dancing with Theo, but rather is smiling and looking into the camera as often as possible, as if MTV is going to watch the segment and be like, "That girl! That's our new VJ! She's perfect. Someone fire that Carson fucker. This one's gonna be a Superstar!"
New scene: Theo making a speaker-phone call in the Shasta to Mandy. New Graphic of Stupid: "Doing My Best." I'm doing my best to stay awake…I fail. I fall asleep for an hour -- constant nightmares of James and Theo chasing me, only saying nothing but "dude" like that scene from Being John Malkovich. I awaken to MTV playing some Third Eye Blind video, and I quickly hit play, Road Rules even being more tolerable than that. So Theo floats, talking about how Mandy is naturally suspicious of him ever since he cheated on her. So naturally, after telling us that it is understandable that Mandy doesn't always believe him, Theo yells at Mandy, saying, "Dude, you're, I think, I'm totally saying you're out of your mind by saying anything like that..." What an understanding (and eloquent) guy. (I love that Theo calls her "dude." I'm glad that if we have to hear it, she does too.) She goes on to say that Theo didn't tell her about the "water bras and penis pumps" from the earlier awful mission, and that the fact that he didn't mention it, not the mission itself, bothers her. Whatever, Mandy. The mission itself bothered me. I'm still mad about that one. Theo says he "forgot" to mention it and/or just didn't think it was important. It was important only in the sense that it represented a new low for Road Rules missions. That's all. Theo is sorry Mandy "feel[s] that way" -- that he was trying to hide something. Theo chaws that he is doing is best and Mandy busts back with, "You might be doing your best, but your best may not be what it used to be, you know?" That shuts Theo up.
Or rather, B/M shuts Theo up by cutting away to a shot of the blue (dammit) siren going off, signaling (dammit) the return of the Road Master (dammit). How do the kids always know to be on the Shasta when he talks? More B/M manipulation or…no, of course it's more B/M manipulation, what else? B/M: we put the M back in Manipulation! (Cuz for a while there it was just "anipulation.") Never mind. Another odd thing here is that the blue siren light, which was broken and swinging before, is now fixed. So, either we have more B/M chronological manipulation, or…yes. That's exactly what we have.
Shot of the kids smiling. Holly smiling the most broadly, obviously not yet over her crush on the Bloated One. More split screen crap showing the same shot of Holly smiling as the RM says, "Fears. Everybody has one. Kathryn, what is it about airplanes that panics you so? Is it the fear of height, or is it the ultimate terror of the ground rushing up to meet you." Theo immediately guesses again that they're doing something with horses. (No, not really.) Everyone is smiling and laughing, and I'm pretty sure they're showing the kids an old tape of Cosby stand-up or something to get shots of them smiling like they are. The RM finishes and Laterrian bounces up and down, everyone excited, thinking they're going skydiving. Meanwhile, Kathryn is not all that happy. Holly says something I can't understand, and then Theo guesses, for no reason whatsoever, that maybe they're going to pilot fighter jets. I wouldn't let Theo look at a picture of a fighter jet, let alone fly one. The kids check their orange iBook, and get their iDirections for their iMission. (Theo is an iIdiot.) Floaty Kathryn gets all mellow on us as she describes once being on a plane for an emergency water landing which "freaked [her] out." A special helpful graphic tells us that we can read the whole story on MTV.com. Really? An essay in terror by Kathryn from Road Rules. Ooooh, can I? In actuality, I do find making Kathryn face a fear brought on by this kind of trauma kinda mean, but I guess the "Maximum Velocity Tour" has to try to earn its name somehow, and it sure isn't doing it with Babysitting and fucking Synchronized Swimming. Multi-shots of the Shasta driving as fake Beck plays. The kids see the little airplanes flying around and begin to get excited. On a field, a guy named Tim lands a plane right by the kids. Tim is the new Mission Mayor. Jim Breuer gave up the post when it conflicted with an audition for non-union Raisin Bran commercial. Theo refers to Tim as "Tim from heaven," which is creepy on numerous levels. The kids are dumbfounded when Tim informs them that he's going to teach them to fly the planes, called Powerchutes.
Inside the training center, the kids go through paperwork and read instructions as floaty James opines, "We might be walking into certain death, but I'm going to have a good time and I'm going to remember this." In other words, if I die, I'm going to make sure I have fun, like, dying. Floaty Kathryn then takes over, saying, "If you're going down, you're going to die." After the Laterrian bathroom incident, "going down" might not be such a great choice of words for her. Tim, with the help of various floaties and voice-overs, explains that they'll be flying solo, trying to drop paint-balloons onto a target on the ground from no less than one hundred feet up. Everyone who actually flies will get a point (worth, I guess, one thousand dollars.) Plus, the person who gets the most target hits wins a special individual award. Not a "handsome" reward?
Probably a pretty crappy award. Like a pin, a certificate, or a date with Tim. Kathryn starts floating about how there is no chapter on landing in their handbook, nor does Tim talk about it. "I am deathly afraid of flying." Wasn't James afraid of heights during the first mission? He hasn't mentioned it at all yet this time. Maybe he's not afraid at all. Maybe B/M realized their first mission was going to suck, so they needed to jazz it up a bit with the scared-of-heights thing. Now, suddenly, we're outside again as Kathryn explains that she read that inexperienced pilots are not supposed to go up in winds stronger than five m.p.h., and it's now eight. "Safety first, y'all," says Theo, then babbles something unintelligible. (As opposed to his usual, just plain unintelligent.) "You're gonna die," jokes James in the background, which makes Kathryn jump, which in turn makes me laugh. In front of another reflection shot that this time catches someone halfway in the shot, making them look like they're hovering in the air (stop it, B/M!), Floaty Kathryn says the line I've been waiting for: "I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of crashing and dying." I'm not afraid of watching Road Rules, I'm afraid of falling asleep while watching Road Rules and dropping my laptop. And…commercial.
So James, the one who is so deathly afraid of heights, volunteers to go first as Tim deals with a tiny glitch in the headset James wears. Kathryn voice-overs that Tim reassured her that he's never lost radio contact with someone up in the air. Okay, now we're back to James, problem fixed, about to fly, making me wonder what the hell that Kathryn thing…oh. I see. Kathryn's radio is going to go out when she gets up there. Watch. Very clever, B/M. "Sweet, baby, let's do it. Let's get on with it," says the terrified-of-being-up-high James. As James takes off, Kathryn asks if there's seatbelt, and Laterrian freaks when a spooky old instructor man refers to them as being "brave." "Don't hit the power lines," Tim suggests to James via radio. Good idea. James drops his two balloons (Tim said they have ten balloons to drop. Even if that's split between them, that doesn't work out. Stupid-asses), missing with the first and getting eighty points with the second. "It is hard, man…that wind was just making me its bitch," says James, after having landed. Kathryn freaks, wondering what the wind will do to her much lighter self. Kathryn suggests Laterrian go and he flies fine, also missing with the first (Theo is lying on the target, which makes me so wish that Laterrian had hit a bulls-eye) and getting eighty with the second. Laterrian lands and says to Tim, "Thank you so much," very enthusiastically. Fine, he gets one point for the politeness -- that was nice. Kathryn gets no points by saying, "My fright level: I'm about to urinate." Well, I guess her fright level technically, then, could be at least one degree worse, which I'm glad it's not. "I'm afraid of take-off, and landing," theorizes Kathryn, pretty much covering the bases. Okay, now Tim and company can't get her headset working either. Right. I told you. Here we go.
So, they get the thing working and Kathryn takes off. Kathryn flies. Everyone waves. She waves. Now she voice-overs what we knew was coming, "Well, guess what? I'm up in the air, Tim is not in my headset -- there is no radio contact whatsoever." My question is this: why did B/M foreshadow the one exciting part of the mission so blatantly? My second question is this: how much you wanna bet they planned the radio going out? It just seems too convenient. Then again, I imagine if Kathryn freaked out and kamikazed the plane right into the Shasta, there might be a bit of a lawsuit to deal with, so perhaps the drama gods were simply on their side today. Anyway, as the B/M editors try yet another new trick, having the split screen multi-shots not be exactly in sync, Tim tries the radio again and again. His calmness here makes me think it is indeed all bullshit. Similarly with Kathryn's calmness. Kathryn voice-overs that she decided to go ahead and drop her bombs, so she does, also getting eighty points. Msaada and Laterrian remark on how well she's doing. "She's doing so well," says Laterrian, echoing what he said to himself in that T.G.I. Friday's bathroom the other night. Floaty Kathryn says that she knows she has to land, and that she remembers reading that you have to land into the wind, lest the plane flip over and you are "drug [sic], like an animal." I do have to say she is doing pretty well not to freak out here. Thumbs-up, Kathryn! You're aces, baby! Anyway, she starts to land, and Tim is yelling ineffectually into the radio and it's all very dramatic…and we cut to commercial as I'm still thinking two things: that being "drug" like an animal makes little sense, and that it actually kinda sounded like she said "enema," which makes me giggle straight into the break.
Ah!!! No!!! The Route Sixty-Six Jeans elevator commercial featuring the kids. I love how Holly says, all crazy Scaryteeth, "Sixty-six please," with the kids all smiling and nodding in the background. And then they're all running across the dunes towards the Shasta and Kathryn doesn't get a close-up and it's all very "lively" and "fun" and it absolutely cements the fact that, while I wouldn't in the first place, I absolutely shall never purchase jeans from K-Mart as long as I live. My new favorite RR commercial comes on also, and that's for Priority Records' compilation album, "Nuthin' But A Gangsta Party." In stores now, y'all. In stores now.
Okay, we're back, and Kathryn plummets into the ground and explodes into a giant fireball which ignites Theo's jacket and Holly's white girl Afro-puffs, and everyone but Msaada dies a hideous screaming death. No, of course not. (And nor would I want that to happen, sillies!) So, Kathryn lands, at one point nearly flipping over, and doesn't scream or cry or anything -- to her credit and my surprise. Could you imagine the same thing happening to Amaya? She fucking freaked and made them call the ambulance when she inhaled a little exhaust. Okay, Kathryn did well. No, Msaada! She says, "You were high, dude!" I told you, Msaada is catching the "dude" disease, which is probably worse than the Blue Cheek Star disease in purely medical terms. They all talk about how scary it was, and Kathryn voice-overs that it was her biggest fear and she overcame it well. "So," she says to the camera. "Road Master: suck my (beep). Ha! Okay, that was great. Kathryn is cool again. (Yes, just like that. I'm fickle. Sue me.) Holly takes off, and for some fucking reason they've let Theo have control of the walkie-talkie on the ground. That's like letting a monkey drive a bus -- which would be pretty funny, actually. The monkey would be all honking the horn and flipping you off and shit. "Is there anything close by that you might have a chance to hit?" says Theo. Holly gets nothing, then forty, and is quickly shown landing. Why is Holly suddenly getting no play whatsoever? Does B/M just hate her now ever since her blow-up at the cameraman? And if so, why are they instead making her appear charming and cute and friendly in her lessened screen time? B/M, you mysterious bitches! So Theo yells his Theoism from the opening section as Msaada takes off. Theo tells Msaada that he can't understand her on the walkie, fucking around, as Msaada proceeds to drop her balloons. Wow. She hits two bulls-eyes for a hundred points each! Damn. I will not say it. I will not say it. I will not… You Go, Girl!!! Damn. I said it. Msaada lands, and Theo shows her a little hoe-down. (Hey, when Kathryn finally landed she was a "ho down." Boo, I know. I couldn't help it.) So it's Theo's turn to shine, and on the ground James and Laterrian do some high concept comedy, imitating the "Waaassaaap!" guys via the walkie-talkie. Theo throws his first balloon, splashing Holly's face with purple paint. To her credit, Holly just smiles and wipes it off. (Inside Stee's head: "Do I make the joke about Holly being used to wiping stuff off of her face? Nooooo. Better not.") Theo voice-overs that due to the team's low score, he thinks his best shot is to "bomb the citizens of this field, here." So he throws his second balloon and Msaada looks up, paint on her face, looking lovely and laughing. Theo lands and hugs Kathryn. Timmy comes over and presents the kids with their six coins (what was the point system about, exactly, since the goal was simply to get all six flying?) Oh, it was for the high score, and for that, Msaada gets her reward: a plastic trophy. A plastic trophy??? A fucking plastic fucking trophy? Msaada says thank you and smiles, but what she should really do is jam the plastic piece of shit in Mayor Timmy's eye. The kids walk off, thanking a suddenly huge number of people, and drive away in the Shasta.
Shasta. Hawaiian music playing, incongruously. Theo says, "I want to introduce y'all to the great taste of Louisiana." Luckily, he doesn't unzip his pants as he says this. Theo floats that his insides are "stirry, kinda," because Mandy is meeting him in Lake Charles and he hasn't seen her in a while. Many shows up at some hotel room with a rose, and the two kiss and hug. She is quite lovely and sweet. Theo floats and Theo-rizes something about a person coming into your life and looking through a peephole. He and Mandy kiss on a bed, and they babble about stuff and kiss and she says, "You're here, and it's like, I know that like, you're Theo and you're my boyfriend." She goes on to say that he's changing and "sometimes [he'll] say things and it's like, God, I wouldn't have thought he'd say that." Yeah, join the club, sister. More stuff about feeling distant and how she's opening up her heart, and Theo soothes her masterfully with, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. That's just the way that things are." Oh, you Lothario. Lothar-Theo. The morning (I guess, whatever), James and Theo are in the Shasta, and Theo says that his brother is in a rehab center and he wants to visit him. He's been in there for eight months without a visitor, he says. Jesus. Eight months. Even Robert Downey Jr. had, like, Todd Bridges and Stephen Baldwin and shit visiting him. Theo voice-overs that his brother did too much drinking and was sent by the police to a rehab center as we see a sign that reads, "Cenikor. A Chance For Change." Theo shows up at the sterile Cenikor and says "Wassup?" to his brother, who looks creepy in a tie and suspenders. From his audition tape, Theo talks about how mean his brother used to be to him when he was drinking. The two sit on a creepy sofa and have a creepy conversation about stuff as Theo creepily eats. Theo says he's going to Alabama year, and Drunkbro asks why Theo keeps moving around. Theo explains that Mandy is going to Alabama, and that she cares about him even though he was bad to her and smooched other girls. So Drunkbro gets all Drunkcounselor on him and starts questioning creepily if he was drunk when he kissed the other girls. Luckily, Theo doesn't pick up on the bait and that creepy line of questioning creepily dies. "I'm just trying to give you some advice," says Creepydrunkbro, trailing off into I'm-Sober-But-Miserableland. "I know you are, dude," replies UncomfortableTheo. Theo voice-overs that it's good to see Zef (?) even for a few hours because it gives him "a few more pieces to work with." The Creepybrothers hug creepily at the door and say "I love you" to each other. Creepybro then says, walking away, "We'll go fishin'." Woo-hoo! Fishin' with the Creepydrunkbro. Awesome.
The Theo family reunion is over as the Graphic of Stupid reads "A Long Way To Go" over a shot of the Shasta driving at night. Theo talks to James, "dude-ing" him about how he "smooched" other girls and lied his "balls off," and that now he's suffered the consequences and has a long way to go (hence, the title!) with Mandy in terms of trust. Now for some reason -- and maybe someone can explain why, other than they forgot to get a usable reverse shot -- when they show James listening, he's in slo-mo.
Morning. Theo and Mandy hug and press their heads together, and Mandy opens a gift from him as he voice-over-babbles again about having "smooched" other girls and that the look in her eyes changed him. The gift is a cross that "feels good in your hand, like, if you hold it." As opposed to it feeling good in your hand if you're, like, not holding it. They hug again, and Theo says that he'll miss her and feels bad that he hurt her. We get a slo-mo montage of cut scenes of the two hanging out in the Shasta and at dinner as Theo waxes redneck about how, "It's people that work with you that help make you stronger." Theo and Mandy hang, wearing beads, as Theo says that he wants to have four or six kids. "Four or six?" says Mandy, obviously wary about the prospect of Theo reproducing at all, let alone with her, let alone six times. Theo hangs out of the Shasta, kissing her, and we freeze on them puckering their lips to each other, "smooching."
week on Road Rules…the kids are all on stage in front of an audience as the kids' parents come to the stage, surprising them. James freaks, happy to see his mom. Theo and his strange-looking but sweet-looking mother talk awkwardly as Theo voice-overs that he and his mother have an "estranged relationship" and that they haven't seen each other in over a year. They are then outdoors somewhere and someone tells them that their mission is to bungee-jump. But the twist is that they have to convince their parents to jump with them. Theo's mom looks nervous, remembering that she has a pot of vittles on the stove...
Over the credits, Theo and Mandy sit on a beach-overlooking balcony as Theo babbles about life being a "funny, funny, funny bag of tricks." He equates life to a jack-in-the-box where sometimes you turn the knob and a scary old bastard pops out. Or a clown that might make you laugh or cry, or a beautiful girl might pop out. And "some people turn that damn thing forever and never get jack." (A pun!) "…Except for, like, some type of burn on their hand, from turning. And that sucks, then they gotta go blow three or four bucks on ointment, and that's pretty much their life story." Theo is a fucking trip. You almost gotta love him. Almost.