Episode Report Card Stee: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Horror. The Horror
By Stee | Season 9 | Episode 13 | Aired on 09.10.2000
As the kids enter the shop to make a Mooti call, Charlton Heston runs across my screen screaming, "Mooti is made from people! It's people!" Charlton Heston is quickly replaced by a scrolling graphic informing us that Msaada, Theo, and Holly are going to be doing a live chat after the show tonight about this episode. I guess MTV is trying to make this their "Very Special" episode, like the "Bicycle Man" episode of Diff'rent Strokes (Dudley's such a little slut) or the "A, My Name Is Alex" Family Ties. Suddenly, the aforementioned large woman (I think her name is VuVu, but we'll just call her Vu for short) busts out of an alley, smiling, wearing white eye paint that makes her look like the Hamburglar or the Lone Ranger. In a very thick accent she says, "I've been waiting for you. Your ancestors already arrived in my dreams. They told me that you are coming so that you can become traditional doctors. We are going to throw bones, we are going to divine and throw bones. I'm going to train you." Shots of the kids looking stupefied, as opposed to their usual just-plain-stupid expressions. Theo can't even get his mom to visit him at college and alla sudden she's hanging out with Vu? That's cold, yo. Suddenly, James floats in four separate boxes -- two reverse images. (Dear B/M Editors: I hate you. Love, Stee.) Butchering the English language, James says, "Our mission is to become traditional healers and to go through the training that we have to go through." And this kid got into UC Berkeley? Bet you a dollar it was on rugby scholarship. Wait, do they even have rugby scholarships? Come to think of it: What the fuck is rugby? The thing the limeys play that's sort of like the old, offensively named "Smear the Queer"? Naw, no way they give scholarships for that shit. James' dad must, like, own Chevron or something. A double-screened reverse-shot floaty Holly trivializes Vu's entire sacred belief system in one fell swoop by telling us that throwing bones is like "fortune telling." Hand gesture. Smile. Smile. Scaryteeth. That's my girl. Holly already knows a lot about throwing bones. Vu says, "So we are going to the village," and James gets all excited because he's never been to the West Village before and he's heard that there are really friendly bars like The Monster and Stonewall, but he's quickly disappointed to learn that she means her village here in Africa, and not the one in New York. It's hard watching a dream die. But then again, my dream of a pleasant evening dies every Monday. B/M is killing me loudly with their show, killing me loudly. Meanwhile, my cat is staring at one of the forty flying ants that have chosen this blisteringly hot day to invade my living room. Ooh, maybe the ants will fly at me and drive me out of my house, making it just darn impossible for me to finish this recap. I look over, and they're all mysteriously gone. They must have seen what was on TV and just been like, "Oh, hell no. C'mon boys, we're going next door. I heard they're watching Seinfeld."
Fast-motion traveling shots. Creepy music. Short bus. Overlaid shots of goat and cow heads. Traditional singing over drum-and-bass Casio shit. Vu sits in the short bus, singing as the kids look on, transfixed -- especially Msaada. Vu does indeed have a beautiful voice; I hope she charges the kids to listen to her sing. Or makes James and Theo close their ears. Uh, okay -- she starts explaining that the song she's singing is telling people to go tell their parents that they're with Vu and that she's training them to be traditional doctors. I don't know man, where I come from a "traditional doctor" is someone who asks you for your HMO card, grabs your balls, and looks annoyed when you ask questions. So now everyone is singing back-up as Vu starts riffing, and it's pretty and nice and a good time is being had by all in the short bus, except Laterrian has to ruin it by giving the stink-eye and pouting. Even the driving Holly is singing and having a good time and pretending to understand Vu's thick-as-Theo's-skull accent and indecipherable-as-Road Rules's-just-announced-renewal mutterings. So the very patient and good-natured Vu says something about "one person" not singing. We freeze-frame and Laterrian does indeed ruin everything by going floaty and saying, "I'm not going to really believe, like, in the whole voodoo, like, being a traditional doctor. I don't believe in connecting with my ancestors. It's just not something I'm going to take away from this." What does that mean? Laterrian refuses to visit his grandparents at Christmas? Msaada then asks about the role of a traditional doctor, and Vu explains that people come to the healer with problems. "Sometimes problems with boyfriends, husbands, cheating...." We have that in America too: It's called Cosmo. Incidentally, when Vu, prompted by Msaada, brings up cheating, Msaada touches Kathryn's shoulder pointedly. Hee. Vu talks about throwing bones and we see someone indeed dropping a bunch of bones from a little pouch. Kind of like Yahtzee! Kathryn then mentions that she's heard of people using stuff made from humans, and Vu says that she's talking about "traditional witch doctors." You know, I think everything is "traditional" with her. Right now they're riding in the "traditional" short bus. Kathryn's wearing the "traditional" baseball hat. And Theo is thinking about taking the "traditional" piss into a bottle. Vu explains that she is a traditional doctor or healer and that she would never have the power to kill anyone. I wonder if she has the power to cancel Road Rules. Boy, that would traditionally fucking heal my ass real quick.
The kids get out in a little remote village and Vu says, "I want you to be serious, because we are going to start the training now." She goes on to say that if at any point, any of them doesn't want to do something, he or she should say "no" before even starting, so as to not "waste [her] energy." She smiles. Shot of Laterrian. Shot up from James's feet. Weird sounds. Kathryn. I love the use of silence in this episode. I say that because it's very effective. Not because it means tons less "like"s and "dude"s to transcribe. You people have no faith. So I guess no one objects right now because, well, no one objects right now, so Vu leads them over to a hut where their faces are painted white. Blue Man Group music plays and the editors slow down a shot or speed it up to continue the carefully crafted "What the Fuck?!" vibe they've been going with this week. Ha. Glam shot of James staring "soulfully" into the camera during white-paint application. The cameraman is in love with James. Cut. Villagers watching. (Other villagers hot-wiring the short bus. I'm kidding -- but I totally would be doing that right now. What a bitchin' scam that would be!) Singing. Old women smoking pipes. People carrying Mooti in cans to the fire. The kids around a fire, wearing white. Enya shit plays in the background. Forty-five-minute-long pan across villagers watching, obviously tired of having to introduce rich white people to their rituals, very much not smiling. Music getting creepier. Holly and Laterrian hold the leash of a white goat. Oh, man. That looks like the goat that was just a head earlier. Only now there's more than just a head -- there's a body. Later: no body. This isn't looking so good for Mr. Goat. In fact, it's looking downright "Ba-a-a-a-a-a-d." Ah, crap! Motherfucker! A flying ant just landed on my head. Jesus. Okay, this is getting ridiculous. It's one hundred degrees in my apartment, I'm watching Road Rules, and being kamikazed by fucking flying ants. Could things get much worse? Ooh, shot of big long knife being unsheathed. Okay, I'll just concentrate on being glad I'm not the goat. Vu, now wearing the lampshade thing on her head says, "Now, we are going to sacrifice the goat." Yup. You know, technically, it doesn't really seem like that much of a sacrifice. I mean, she doesn't seem all that attached to the goat. Laterrian says, "Oh my God," not having been able to put goat and huge knife together previously. Vu expl