Valley Girl is on Comedy Central right now, and I'm having to choose between watching the My Chauffeur girl tearfully tell a slope-eyed Nicolas Cage that she can't see him anymore because her friends think he's gag-me-with-a-spoon, and watching Road Rules. That's a decision no one should have to make. The bright spot of my morning: my dream was wrong. I just had a dream that, with all the TV schedule shuffling between the attacks and the late World Series, Fox had a scheduling gap and was thus going to put on two never-aired episodes of The $treet. Whew, it was just a dream. Right? Right?! Ah, now Nicolas Cage is all drunk and talking to himself in a parking lot. Unfair.
Fuck it, let's go. So they don't even bother trying to pretend that any of this opening is "previously" as they show the kids at a dinner. Sophia voice-overs that Katie and Steve dig each other. She says that Katie "thinks she's gorgeous" and that Steve loves the attention. Katie licks Steve's face all over. ADDam dumb-overs that if he had a serious girlfriend back home, she'd be upset if he was sleeping in the same bed with another girl. Dude, if you had a serious girlfriend back home she'd be upset that she was dating you.
Opening. Desert. Different. Camels. Kids. Helicopter. Flying. Snakes. Soldiers. Naked. Crying. Lame. Booted. Ten. Done.
Day breaks. Or night falls. Day. I guess. Who can tell? Who cares. The RV drives on a high mountain road as it's raining. Simon and Notfunkle plays as HiSteve! and Katie talk in one of the beds. Steve says that his girlfriends are usually that darling combination of knowing-how-to- dress-up and also not-afraid-to- look-like-a-slob. You know, in other words, she's a human being. Katie agrees with Steve's dream-girl assessment pretending that she actually is that, even though she has no idea what her actual skin looks like without makeup. Steve now floats that Katie has many of the qualities he likes in a girl (a vagina, the ability to take his constant and vaguely tiring jokes) and would date her. So would Katie, but she tells us that she has a boyfriend and thus they're just friends and Steve does little favors for her. But not, we assume, the little favors Adam does for Ellen under the covers late at night when his ADD makes him occupy his mouth with something other than talking.
Night. Tioga. Steve is playing with Katie's toes. Ellen screams that Steve just sucked on Katie's smelly, sweaty, disgusting, drunk toes. Yeah, everyone is drunk. Ellen is blitzed, and she babbles that someone else on the RV needs to work some stuff out. Adam laughs, but then again, Adam would laugh at an episode of She's The Sheriff.
Day. Beach. Green graphics read, "0700 Hrs. Country: Spain. Location: Somewhere." Oh, what the huh? Last week obviously lied to us, since this is not going to be the tannery episode back in Morocco. B/M lied to us! Shocker! Adam sleeps. The Music of My Bitter Coffee That I Will No Doubt Keep Drinking All Morning Until I Make Myself Vaguely Sick plays as Ellen Burstyn knocks on the RV door. She hands a clue to Ellen and Steve and Katie look down from the upper bunk. The clue is obtuse, but maybe only because Adam is reading it, but it says something about the crest and teamwork and training. Adam then floats that Ellen Burstyn disappeared and they are now to travel to a supermarket parking lot. The Graphic of Stupid reads that it's 1100 Hrs. and En Route to Specia. I'm only going to bother with these a few times, people. The Tioga is indeed driving now. Oops, they're not going to "Specia." I had it on pause. They're En Route to Special Ops Training. Hee. ["Wait a second. Ellen Burstyn?" -- Wing Chun]
On the RV, Katie pulls down Steve's pants and everyone laughs. The B/M Crack Staff tiles out Steve's anus. What a job. Be proud of yourselves, boys. Shit, then again I have to watch this crap. Not much better. Ellen and Katie joke about whether Steve is a "giver or receiver" in bed. Steve says that he's a giver. Katie says that "two givers make it a lot of fun." Steve just stares, thinking, "Man, my girlfriend is so dumping me when this shit airs."
Adam voice-overs that they arrive at the supermarket to find an old guy "with more ear hair than [he's] ever seen." I hope I don't get ear hair when I get old. My grandpa had that. It's pretty fucking nasty. The old guy, Roland, vaguely explains -- in some odd accent I can't place -- that in their mission, they will have to do some sort of climbing; Blair then floats that Roland had climbing gear for them, and knew that they were going to do some more climbing. Wow! How did he piece that together?
Montage of Putting On The Climbing Gear gives way to Montage of Climbing. Sophia tells us that this is Katie's first time rock climbing; on the face of the rocks, she indeed bitches, like she's talking about runny eggs or something, "God, I hate this!" She continues, "Put me down! I'm not doing it. I'm not." But she does. Ellen left-eyes that Katie is not doing so well, and they make her draw a comparison to Jisela to increase the non-tension. Higher up, Katie says that she's never hated anything so much, ever. On the ground, Blair stands back to back with some old lady, watching. Who are you, old lady? Ooh, it's The Mysterious Climber-Watching Old Lady Of The Spanish Forest. I've heard tales of her since I was a wee lad. Steve hugs Katie on the face of the rock and jokes with her as Roland laughs and jokes. Katie floats that the hug made her feel better. On the ground, Ellen licks her sleeves and wipes away Katie's mascara runoff. Ew. Steve jokes that he could have done that as Roland's ear hair reaches out and hands them their clue. Blair reads that they're supposed to go to a hotel. He then floats that they have no idea what their mission is. Neither does B/M.
Night. The hotel. The kids enter, and the Graphic of Stupid tells us that they're in the Hotel Tryp Gran Sol in Alicante. Bless you. They go up to their room, where all this gear is laid out. They breathlessly guess that they're "spelunking." Good thing it's not "spelling," because they'd fail that for sure. They find a tape recorder and hit play and it's all "Your mission, should you choose to accept it" and shit. They have to infiltrate the Castillo De Santa Barbara and steal their crest piece. They go out on the balcony and see the castle. The kids get dressed as the tape goes on to say that they have night-vision goggles and smoke cans and head lamps and rope and walkie-talkies to aid in their mission. Katie floats, no doubt talking about some totally different mission, that she's terrified. Commercials.
Poor Orlando Jones. With his constant crap movies, does he realize he's most likely going to forever be known as "The 7-Up Guy"? Well, him and that fat Jamaican dude from way back. That sucks.
We're back. "O Fortuna!" or whatever that massively-overused opera piece is playing as the kids get ready; Sophia jokes that her name is no longer Sophia but "Night Hawk." The tape continues to say that, in the castle, they'll find a well. Over a shot of the castle, we get a "Missile Command"-era graphic of a well with a light at the bottom. Seriously, the shit is like Tron. Basically, B/M gave them an Atari 2600 to do their graphics. So then they'll have to get the key to open the room the crest is in. Steve camera-talks about how psyched he is. The tape goes on to say that there is a laser-beam alarm system around the crest, and more crap graphics and more crap song and more crap talking and crapity crap crap. Blair and Steve stand against a wall all spy-like, dressed in the gear. Blair correctly predicts that this is going to be the coolest thing he'll ever do in his life as Steve tells us that while living in the box he played hours of "Tomb Raider" and thus he's psyched and ready. Shots. Guards. Slo-Mo flag.
Okay. So the kids have their head lamps and the map and Steve uses the night-vision goggles and first they have to scale a wall and Ellen is voice-overing about the guards and that they're all not exactly sure how they're going to do this. The first phase is climbing this rock wall outside the castle; they all get up, but Katie is last. They're just going to pull her up, but it doesn't work. Steve tells us he's worried that Katie is not strong enough. They bitch to Katie to help, and she tells us that she's scared and she's fucking up and music is ruining my life and she's screaming and the guards are, I hope, on their way to shoot them all. Katie finally makes it up the wall and Katie's scared and shaking but okay. Thank god! The kids walk on and Steve uses the goggles and we get shots of guards and they try to figure out where to go and they see a rope and they have to use it to traverse this gap to get onto the roof. They keep showing guards and we'll just have to ignore the inherent bullshit of all this because if the guards can pretend not to see the camera crews and hear the kids arguing, we'll try to ignore that fact, too. But then a guard ruins it by looking straight at the camera. There is climbing and watching and a guard and talking and now they're all on the roof and they find the well and we get another of graphic and they joke that Ellen should toss the key up first so they can leave her down there. So Ellen goes in and they make "Baby Jessica" jokes and Ellen gets the key and they pull her up the twenty-five feet. Well. Hm. I'll provide the tension myself. Internally. In my head: tension. You'll just have to believe me how exciting it is in here.
More talking. There's the door and the girls go to open the door and they wonder if there's a guard there and the key fits and they whisper and finally they get into this dark room and using the smoke cans they see the lasers guarding the crest. More crap graphics as the kids crawl and duck under lasers. They get to the crest, and there is a frame on which this laser network works. They let Katie try to work her way through, but she gets stuck straddling a laser as the kids keep killing the ozone layer with the constant spraying. Katie's pants are going to ruin it. She should really take off her pants, but instead she goes back. Katie floats that Blair and the boys decided to lift the frame around the crest, figuring the laser grid would lift, too, so they could then climb underneath and get the crest. They lift. Lifting. Lift. Twice, they play Sophia saying, "I don't think it's a good idea, dog." And, Bam! The alarm goes off! Man, they're fucking stupid. Commercials.
So again, Sophia says her "dog" warning and the alarm goes off. Someone grabs the crest as we see guards running, and the kids book out of there. Guards. Running. Guards. Running. Helicopters. Police car. What? They run through the hills and get to the RV and they go inside and say, "We did it. That was awesome!" and they hug and the Graphic of Stupid tells us that the Mission is Complete. How!? They fucked up! Man, how I hate this show. Steve then camera-talks that after playing all those spy videogames, he ended up just tripping the laser. Blair camera-talks that he grabbed the crest piece and they ran. Ellen says that she feels like an agent and Blair puts his arm around Steve and jokes that after seeing what a good thief Steve is, he knows why he has nice clothes and assumes that he makes just as quick an exit from the mall as he did from the castle. Man, Blair, you are no Theo. Steve jumps in front of the camera and says, "You didn't see me, did you? Neither did they!" Huh? I take it all back; I sort of liked it more when Steve was always in the background.
Anyway. Driving. Teamwork crest. Bleh. Moon. Morning sun. Hotel. Sophia and Katie hold this dope little digital camera and say they're going to go find out just how sexy Steve really is; they bust into the bathroom and pull back the shower curtain to reveal Steve and his Kibbles and Bits. They laugh and joke and Steve is laughing because finally the fucker is getting some attention. They leave the bathroom, and Blair is sad that no one is trying to see him nekkid. The girls go back in, and Steve warns them, and they pull back the curtain and Steve is there with the shower massager and that device is actually for once used for something other than female masturbation as he sprays Katie and Sophia. They scream and run out, soaking wet (heh). Adam then floats that Katie and Steve are closer than they let on. Now Sophia floats about "connection" and "energy" flowing back and forth. Lisa Loeb crap plays as now the kids are in the RV and Katie asks Adam whether he thinks something could happen between herself and Steve. ADDam says that he thinks something has happened. "Oh, please," Katie lies. Sophia bitches something to the effect of "center of attention," but everyone ignores it as Ellen starts babbling that the other night, she was reading in bed, and then she woke up and she felt the RV moving and she looked over and Steve wasn't in his bed and....Katie covers that she was "tossing." Blair tries to make a "tossing a salad" joke, but no one hears or understands. For once the RV was rocking and it wasn't Ellen. That's a first.
Katie floats, concerned, that the "thing" with Steve drives her crazy and that there is "no Katie and Steve," and that she doesn't even want talk about it. Now she and Ellen walk down the street and Ellen says that she does flirt but that Steve finds it fun and everyone just....You know what? I don't even know what Ellen is saying. At all. Katie busts in, in heavily coded language, that she has a life to which she has to return, and that she has a boyfriend and doesn't want this to ruin her relationship. Ellen tells her to not worry, then. Katie floats, lying through her privileged teeth, that the flirtation between her and Steve did not develop into a romance because she's not single. Shots of them hugging and lying on each other as Katie says they had a bond and lots of deep conversations, but that she has a life when she leaves here and doesn't want to jeopardize her relationship and there are lots of shots of hugging and lots of Steve trying to kiss her and now HiAlreadySteve! voice-overs that he's not going to dwell on what might have been and he can't predict the future and we get shots of them holding each other and holding each other and A Band That So Wants To Be Massive Attack plays as we limp to the final credits.
"" is the same as last week's. It's a tannery and Katie almost pukes and if you want to read about it go to last week. Goodbye! I'm sorry this show sucks so much. It's not my fault. I swear. Later.