I had a meeting yesterday with someone who used to be loosely affiliated with B/M, and in the corner of his office, he had a B/M stool (which just sounds so dirty). Actually, it was more like a chair because it had a back, but it was made of canvas, sort of like a director's chair. The logo was there, along with the logos for Road Rules and The Real World. What struck me about it was that it only had three legs. And I thought, how perfect. A three-legged chair sums up the entire B/M vibe so well: half-assed, unfinished, and still, somehow sort of cute.
"Previously..." Shane and Sarah got on the First Day Bus of Your Ticking Fifteen Minutes as Shane tells us that he didn't want to be known as "the gay one." Immediately, the kids asked if he's gay. Well, that didn't work out so well. He tried to backpedal and tell them it's not that clear-cut with him, but his gold sequined hot pants kept getting stuck in the chain. Cut to: Kendal saying, "He's gay." We see Shane dancing with girls and then kissing a girl, as Kendal adds that Shane says he's gay but she's only seen him make out with girls. Yeah, that's right. You can't pin Shane down. (Even though you'd like to, Eric.)
Credits. If you haven't seen them, just take your most amateurish home video of, like, your nephew playing on a swing set, and then find the worst rap song you can find and lay it over the video, and there you have the credit sequence.
Night. Moon. Shane on a pay phone. Shane is talking to his dad, while he tells us that his parents just found out that he is gay (well, you just told them, but I can imagine they had to have had an idea), and they're all trying to figure this thing out together. Shane tells his mom that he came out to the cast the first day. He adds that change is "never good" and that it's always scary. So is this show. Shane cry-talks to his parents for a little bit longer, and then hangs up.
RV. The kids make fun of Shane. Sarah is saying that Shane is totally gay during the day, but by night he is a "flaming heterosexual." The kids laugh. "What the hell are you?" says Sarah. Kendal says that the RV is filled with six sexually confused people. Darrell pipes up that he's not sexually confused. No, he's just confused. Notice, tellingly, that Eric says nothing here. Hee. Darrell then camera-bigots, boasting that he hasn't changed at all -- that he still won't be friends with Shane when the show is over, because he doesn't have gay friends. "That's just me," he says.
Day. Driving. Shane is crying. He tells us that it's all very emotional for him and that he's been crying for two straight days. (Well, not "straight" days.) Shane is weeping to Kendal that he doesn't owe it to anyone to explain that he's gay, and that it doesn't matter. He then tells us that he's loved a girl before and experienced everything with her and it was wonderful. He goes on to tell the girls (man, Darrell must be, like, riding on top of the RV by now after two days of this) that when he came out to his parents they asked him how he could lead his girlfriend on and blah blah blah fluidsexualitycakes. He adds that he didn't understand the relationship and the feelings, but it was still real. Rachel goes on to point out that they're opposite: "You fell in love with one woman, but you're predominantly attracted to men. And I fell in love with one woman, but I'm predominantly attracted to men." Rachel realizes she fucked up: "Well, the same, but the opposite sex we are," she goes on, butchering the English language to the point where even Darrell is like, "Bitch, learn how to talk right."
God. Shane babbles on about being out and vulnerable and a crab with its shell but almost and it's scary. Kendal rubs his leg, trying to make him go to sleep so they don't have to hear him whine anymore.
Driving. Day. The kids arrive at Southwest Texas State University near Austin. They see a crane hanging in the air. Everyone is excited, except Kendal. Sarah tells us that this is "exactly" what she's been waiting for so she can show her true colors and go "balls to the wall." I thought she already showed her true colors: cute but incredibly lazy. I'm confused.
The kids meet their Mayors on campus. They are Robert and Michelle. A flurry of introductions happen and then MayorRobert says they're going to call this the "Dean's List Bungee Jump." If they pass, they'll earn six-thousand dollars. ExpoEric says that there is a catch. ExpoSarah says it's not as simple as she thought it would be. (The one thing I will say about Sarah's acting is that she does seem to get it up during these post-interviews, where I'd be like, "Oh, yeah. Then there was this stupid bullshit they made us do. God, that sucked.") MayorRobert adds that each kid will have to find two people to jump with, from assigned categories of people. Lordy.
The first. An academic team member, and an athletic team member. Second. A student eating meatloaf in the cafeteria, and the cook who prepared the meatloaf. Third. Physics student. Physics professor. The student body president and the person they defeated. A librarian and someone with overdue books. And a student on the Dean's List, and someone on academic probation.
I don't have words for how stupid this is. There are no words. I'll make up one. Plootank. This is plootank. Totally. What suck. What totally suck plootanky bullshit. B/M should really pack it in. It's over. Move into topiary gardening or something. It's over. You don't care. How can we? How can we?!
Okay. The Mayor chick goes on that the people they find have to be able to prove that they fit the categories, and they have to do all this in five hours. ExpoRachel tries to explain it, but we don't care.
Kids. On campus. Trying to find people. Darrell is just yelling "Anyone want to bungee-jump with overdue library books?" Hee. Very clear, Darrell. Now Sarah is trying to get this Physics professor, but he won't. She camera-talks, first digging her pinky into her nose for boogers, that she's having doubts about finding her professor. Commercials.
The kids. Still trying to find people. Shane and Rachel find a female basketball player. Ooh, a female basketball player -- one of their "team." Kendal and Eric find Dean's list and fuck-up. Drunk basketball chick yells at the camera that she can prove it, pulling out some pin or something. Darrell finds someone with an overdue book. Eric tells us that Kendal already found his buddies, but now Eric needs to find his president and loser.
Speaking of which, Shane is just asking people if they're "going to" eat meatloaf. This is such bullshit. I don't know why I'm mad, but obviously it's all fixed and bleh. Shane meets Miles, telling him which dorm cafeteria serves meatloaf.
Sarah and Darrell walk up with two girls who are going to jump. I'm about to jump.
Now Shane walks with Miles, getting the low-down on where the gay people like to dance nights. (Miles is gay, if you couldn't guess.) Shane adds that he wants to do something for him some night.
Eric. On the phone with the student body president. Oh, how convenient. He asks her to go bungee-jumping with him, introducing himself as being from "MTV's Road Rules," because Lord knows the name Road Rules itself carries no weight. Suddenly Eric is standing with President Melissa and Daniel, the dude she beat. Boo! Fix! Bleh.
Rachel and Shane are in the cafeteria. Miles gets some meatloaf and sits down to eat it, fake "mmmmm"-ing. Rachel finds the girl who "for sure" prepared it, Marcy, and asks her to come bungee-jump. She agrees.
Hall. Physics professor with a funny little voice. Sarah needles at him. He makes a crack about wanting to sky-dive but not bungee. Sarah then camera-talks, acting all high on something, that she doesn't want to get voted off so she's going to convince this professor to jump. He finally says it is his day off...he's going to jump.
Outside. Bungee area. Sarah is wearing a helmet-cam and being silly, opening her gigantic mouth to try to swallow the thing -- or maybe she's just smiling at us. The professor babbles about the physics of bungee-jumping as Sarah giggles. Sarah -- while we see her trying to eat her own hand -- babbles that she's going to prove to the group how brave she can be because she knows Eric and Kendal both don't like heights and don't like jumping from them, which is a subtle distinction I'm glad she made for us. Below, Kendal is nervous for them. Sarah and crew jump. The "crowd" cheers. Shane and his gay friend touch each other. Then they jump. Darrell now. He doesn't like this. They jump. Screaming. Rachel jumps up and down. Darrell shouts "West Coast!" then tells us he'll never do this again. Rachel tells her girl to "lean back." I'm sure she's told screaming girls that before. They jump. Now it's Kendal's team. They jump. It all happens very quickly, if you couldn't guess that from my description. Eric's team. One of his girls is scared. He's scared. They do it. Eric then camera-talks that they passed the mission and they get the "bling-bling," obviously not really understanding what "bling-bling" means. "Road Rules!" the kids chant.
The Mayors -- not reciting rehearsed lines at all -- tell the kids that it's time for some "bonus money." The kids act excited. Kendal tells them they're broke, and then camera-sluts to us that they've been broke and living off baked potatoes for a while. Shane then clarifies that they don't get the money they earn until the end, and so they need this spending money for the two weeks. The Mayors tell them that they have one hour to find a Dean at the school to bungee-jump with them. ("With y'all," he says.) They can find an Associate Dean for 75% or a Department Chair for 50%, or just a professor for 25% of the bonus money. He adds that school closes in half an hour, so they best git.
The kids find this Dean. She closes her door on them. They run into another building. They find an associate dean. He just laughs at them.
Jump area. Darrell and Eric show up with nothing, to find that Shane and Sarah are jumping with a professor of ROTC for 25% of the money. What? How did they fuck up so badly? They find they only have ten bucks a day now. Darrell starts digging through the trash for food. Hee. He goes on that they have a hundred and ten dollars for two weeks. Darrell keeps chewing his trash.
Suddenly, Shane runs up to the girls, saying that at the Boyz Cellar tonight there is an amateur strip contest. (Again, how "convenient.") He predicts ("dicts" -- hee) that Eric will win the $200, Darrell will win $75, and himself $50. What, are there only three contestants? And also, Darrell gay-stripping? I don't think so. The girls say that Darrell is not going to do it, but Shane says he already said yes. Jigga-who?
Eric. Mid-camera-talk. Shane runs up and lays out the gay stripping. Eric smiles very excitedly. "I might. Do you think I should?" he says, all happy. Eric says he'll do it. He titters like a schoolgirl. Or like a "straight" man getting to live out a fantasy but still having an excuse. Shane then camera-talks that they need the money and why not earn it from a gay club? He says they've been to so many straight clubs where he's been "under-appreciated." (Dude, you're the only one who's been getting any!) Shane adds that he's bursting to strip it all off and be the "inner slut" that he wants to be. Okay, okay. That's enough out of you, missy.
Eric pretends he needs a little more convincing, but still agrees to do it. Shane jumps up and down. Eric smiles lovingly into the camera. We sashay to commercials.
RV. Night. Darrell takes it back. I knew it. He's saying that if there were girls there he would strip and he wouldn't care if he lost, but with gay dudes... "That's not me," he says. Yes, Darrell. We know: you are not gay. The girls sorta ask why he said yes at first, and he starts hemming and hawing about how when it was first presented and bleh blah bloo but now it's not "in [his] nature." Shane camera-talks that Darrell and Eric now have backed out. Darrell is just a bigot. I can at least understand his motivation, as wrong as it is. But Eric. He's just a big follower puss-boy.
Club. Kendal is decked out. Shane is not. Shane is dancing and he camera-talks about how much he missed this and how these are his people. Darrell finds a girl, who asks him what he's doing there. He says, "It's the time in the year for new things..." but then he quickly realizes how that sounds and corrects himself.
So now the Ugliest Drag Queen since Drew Carey donned a dress addresses the crowd, introducing contestant #1, Shane. Shane starts dancing to "Hella Good," and then tells us that instead of being sensual and "good," he just ripped his clothes off. Shane does the ripply gay dance we've seen him do in every single episode already. He's in his underwear and dancing. UgQueen says she doesn't hear any crowd noise. That's because Shane sucks. Rachel runs up and slips Shane some money. He's done. UgQueen gives him a fake kiss. The crowd lethargically cheers, only getting hyped when they discover the camera is on them, because gay men love them some press. Shane then tells us that the other contestants dance very well. We see them. Yeah, this one guy at least is better than Shane. I smell an MTV.com-type fix.
Then Kendal tells us that Darrell has decided to do it. Shane camera-talks that he didn't even know Darrell and Eric were there, and suddenly he hears UgQueen announcing Darrell. Darrell dances, terribly. Awfully. Man, it's pretty funny, and also, as Kendal tells us, he brings all these girls up there to dance with him. If he could, he'd have them lie on the ground and spell out "Not Gay" he would, but there just aren't enough of them. Shane says that Darrell is going to win, no doubt. Darrell then camera-talks that the only reason he's doing this is because he's broke. We. Get. It. Not. Gay. No likey dick. Got it. UgQueen tells Darrell she'll pour barbecue sauce on him and work him like a rib. Darrell laughs.
Then it's time for the announcements. UgQueen announces the first-place winner. And she says it with this face: "Total bullshit, but B/M slipped me some money, so whateva." It's Shane. He looks shocked. He should be. Darrell is in second place. "The Ghetto-Daddy himself." Kendal says that Darrell would have been pissed if he hadn't won.
Now Shane dances with some dude, and they're making out. Kendal is camera-talking, all calling pots kettles as she's acting shocked by Shane's behavior. I'm not so skeeved by watching the boys making out as I am confused by this Band-Aid Shane has on his shirtless arm. What the hell is that about? And is that sanitary? The making out continues to "Get Ur Freak On." Shane begins to tell us that he was wearing his underwear and was a little too excited. Bleh.
After. Shane and Darrell walk. Darrell is drunk and all jazzed still, talking about the money he won. He then camera-talks, telling us that now he is going to be friends with everyone afterward, even Gay Shane. (That's not what he's saying now, on his blog, but whatever.) He asks Shane if he had fun, dog. Darrell says Shane looks sad, like he fell in love and had to leave it. They keep walking, as Kendal talks about what we're seeing -- that Shane is more than just gay and Darrell is starting to realize that. (Yeah, right. He's just drunk and happy.) Shane camera-talks that he's not bisexual and he's not straight, he's gay.
The non-lovers walk, still chatting. And that's it.
No week. Better things to do than waste possible commercial time advertising week when no one is going to watch anyway. I feel you.
But not in a gay way. Later.