Lars lies on his bed looking really strung out. "Right now I can't think of anything better to do in London than doing club promotion for Kiss FM," says his voice-over. Think harder, Lars. Every Kiss FM all over the world is known for playing a lot of Puff Daddy and Britney Spears, and I'm sure that Kiss FM London is no exception. Then we see Lars calling Kiss FM and asking a secretary if he can speak to Gordon Mack, some grand poobah for Kiss FM, London. Lars explains that he "knows the boss of Kiss FM, Berlin," and he faxed Gordon and told him that Lars would be coming to town and would like a job with Kiss FM. Oh yeah, "the boss of" Kiss FM. Is that the same guy that is referred to when someone says, "you're not the boss of me"? Looks like this Gordon Mack guy wants a Real World walk-on. Lars makes an appointment with Gordon Mack's secretary to meet with him in the offices of Kiss FM, and then he explains that he's happy not to have a job right away because he needs time to find out what the scene is like in London. By the way, this segment was brought to you by Kiss FM. Tune in the time you're in London or Berlin.
Michael talks about how cool it is to go to clubs with Lars because "Lars was, you know, like this, shaking his butt back and forth." Michael then treats us to his own interpretation of what Lars looks like shaking his butt back and forth. Ew. What Michael neglects to say is that the real reason he loves going to clubs with Lars is that if he weren't Lars' plus-one, he wouldn't get past the velvet rope at Denny's, let alone a London club. Sharon talks about how fun it is to go out with Lars because "he's going through a house and garage phase," whatever that is. Kat, in a rare appearance in this episode, talks about how much Lars goes out clubbing, and how important that is for Lars since it's his career. Lars tells us in a sit-down that the London club scene is very different because it's more professional. My own experience in Berlin this past February confirms this. Daisygirly took me to a club in East Berlin that was essentially someone's apartment. We walked in and helped ourselves to some free beer and wine, and then we partook of the food that was in this dingy kitchenette. It wasn't finger food. It was this big pot roast that I actually had to hack at for a while with the communal serving spoon in order to get Daisygirly and me some portions. So then we went downstairs carrying these dinner plates and wine glasses and entered this basement that looked like something Anne Frank's family would hide out in. As soon as we found a couple of wine crates to sit on, we settled down, ate our (really excellent, by the way) pot roast, drank heavily, and listened to Britney Spears and *N Sync tunes while I caught Daisygirly up on all the she'd missed while out of the country. There was no DJ, no laser lights, no snazzy-looking coatcheck girl covered in body paint, and no pierced ecstasy dealers. You pay when you leave, so when we left we gave the owners ten Marks each ($5).
After a night of clubbing, the gang, sans Kat and Neil, piles into a station wagon to drive home, and they get very lost. Lars blames Sharon's sense of direction. Sharon blames Lars for ignoring her directions. Even though they get home safely, they discuss this forever afterward. Will someone just have sex already? Lars and Sharon spend quality time together, they claim, because they both love music. We all know, though, that Lars has plenty of drugs in his system to dull the pain of having to talk to Sharon, and that's why he's often stuck talking to her. Of course, no one actually says that. However, to bolster this assertion, Sharon and Lars are shown singing along to "Deep Deep Down Inside" in Sharon's room, which I believe is one of the least sing-alongable songs to be released in the nineties. The vocals sound like a car alarm going off.
Sharon explains how music is the focus of her life. She listens to a tape of her singing with Jacinda and Lars, who marvel at the quality of her voice. Sharon goes onto explain that she's a singer/songwriter, which is something you can't learn how to do in college but rather through life experiences. Oh, so that's why Jewel lived in a trailer. We see some shots of Sharon singing with her jazz/funk band.
Oh wait -- could this be foreshadowing? Sharon stops the rehearsal to drink some hot water. "I need some hot water," she says, tapping her upper chest grand-diva style. In a sit-down, she explains that she has been losing her voice a lot lately. Sharon, that's because you keep trying to talk through that gag your roommates put on you.
Hey, what's about eight inches long and always in Sharon's hand near her mouth? Sorry, gentle viewers, it's the telephone. The telephone! A montage sequence shows Sharon jabbering on the phone while her roommates yell at her to get off. Sharon, of course, doesn't think she uses the phone too much, "People just seem to want to use it when I do." "The problem wasn't one phone, seven people," says Jay. "The problem was one phone, six people and Sharon."
More phone problems. The gang has to elect someone to put the phone in their name. It has to be an English resident, so Neil and Sharon are asked to do it. Neil suggests they put it under a made-up name so no one can trace it. Wow, Neil, how anarchistic. Must be all that punk rock you listen to. Sharon refuses because it's too big a responsibility, and is quite a bee-otch about it considering that she uses the phone the most. She keeps saying, "I don't want the responsibility." Mike offers to do all the "adding and multiplying" when the bill comes, but Sharon still refuses, and everyone admits that they're pretty pissed at her. Finally, Neil volunteers, supposing that they'll never find him once he leaves because he doesn't live in London. Um, I don't know how phone connections are set up in non-US countries, but if the phone isn't in someone's name, how come they have one. And if the housemates, and not MTV, are responsible for the phone, why can't someone put in a second line so Sharon's endless jabbering doesn't prevent everyone from getting or making important phone calls? And is there absolutely no footage of anything more exciting than a fight over the phone bill? Again, I ask, could someone please get it on with someone else?
Later, at dinner, Sharon reveals that her voice has been giving her trouble and she may have a nodule on her throat. While she talks about the ramifications of having a problem with her voice and what that could do to her career, the gang sips wine and listens, each probably thinking to him- or herself, "God, I feel sorry for her, but maybe now she'll shut up." Sharon gets confirmation from the hospital that she's got a nodule and she has to get it removed. "As a singer, my profession -- basically, my job -- is being put on the line by this operation. The slightest slip or misjudgment and my voice could go. I may never be able to sing again." Yeah, right, Sharon. Hey, did I ever tell you about that splinter I had removed from my left big toe when I was four? I swear, if my mother had slipped with those tweezers, my career as a funk-aerobics instructor would have been ruined forever! In the kitchen, Jacinda, Kat, Jay, and Michael, four characters in search of a plot of their own, do their best to pretend to be concerned over the outcome of Sharon's operation. Oh, and Jacinda gives us yet another plot-forwarding dialogue by announcing that Lars has the flu.
Okay, yeah, that's how desperate Bunim-Murray is to fill twenty-two episodes. Lars has the flu. This is actually going to be explored as a plot line. Jeez, couldn't he at least pretend it was heroin withdrawal or something? So then they show a montage of Lars coughing while various house members feel his forehead and ask him how he's feeling. "I was really ill," says Lars. "I had a cough and I had to sneeze and I had a fever and I had a headache and I had to throw up. It was just really bad." Thank you for sharing, Lars, but I do know what flu symptoms are. Now, when you're better, do ya think you could get it on with one of the house members? Thanks.
Oh, but wait. The plot thickens. Michael says in a sit-down that Lars claims that his flu is due to clubbing, smoking, and drinking. "But I don't know," says Michael as the five or six people who are still watching this season lean in for a scoop. "It could be the weather or something."
But what's really important here is not what caused Lars' flu, but rather what Lars' flu is doing to Michael's social life. Michael is upset that Lars won't take him to clubs anymore. Lars is annoyed that Michael keeps bugging him to go out with him. Oh, and then Lars gets dizzy one day and bumps his head on a kitchen counter, leaving a nasty gash above his right eye. Jacinda cleans the wound for him and then they have hot nasty sex on the kitchen table. No, sorry, that doesn't really happen, although she did really clean his wound.
Okay, back to the most important operation in the history of the world, ever! Sharon checks into the hospital and speaks to her surgeon, who assures her that there is little risk. But lest you think everything is going to proceed smoothly, Sharon reveals to her doctor that she's terribly scared of needles. They wheel her into the operating room and give her a tiny injection, which makes her squeak as if she is actually a rubber tire that is being punctured. A gas mask is put over her face, which causes her to lose consciousness and actually stop talking for a few minutes. Um, could we have one of those for the house? ["Um, could we have one of those for everyone on staff here at MBTV?" -- Sars]
Anyway, the operation goes smoothly despite Bunim-Murray's best attempts to inject some contrived suspense into the situation, and Sharon comes back to the house with her mother and is forbidden to speak for a week. Does she follow the advice of her doctors? Hell no! The roommates find it very funny that Sharon of all people is not allowed to talk. "You know the big problem with you is you like to, like, explain everything with lots of words," says Jacinda to Sharon because Jacinda, being a supermodel, has learned how to communicate effectively through gestures, facial expressions, and sashays down the runway.
Between Neil's yammering, Jacinda's teasing, and various well-wishing relatives calling her on the phone, Sharon does not go for more than twenty minutes without opening her mouth. Perhaps someone wants her to lose her voice forever?
Lars gets better and goes in for his interview with Kiss FM, London and explains in a sit-down that working for Kiss FM, London has been a "dream [he has] always had." Those are some pretty feeble dreams, Lars. Let me guess. You grew up in East Berlin. Am I right? Gordon Mack turns out to be one of those aging hipsters who has dreadlocks despite the fact that he's white. They're probably extensions he had put on that morning in anticipation of the MTV crew showing up in his office that day. Anyway, Lars and Gordon have this interview which basically becomes an acting exercise for both of them. Lars is trying to imply that he has club promotion experience without actually having to outright lie. Gordon is trying his best to pretend that this interview would normally be worth his time even if camera crews from MTV weren't in his office. "What I can offer and bring in is my experiences from Germany, my experiences in Italy and...and...and then the connections I have from Germany and Italy," says Lars, reaching really "deep deep down inside" himself for a way to parlay that roadtrip he took during university to pick up some crystal into some actual job experience. Gordon advises Lars to "get into the environment," in order to see how things work in London. In other words, be an unpaid intern.
Lars is then shown performing various duties as an office intern, a lot of which involve shaking hands with various promoters in front of the Bunim-Murray camera crew while he talks in a sit-down about how he was sure he'd score a paying job and how disappointed he is. "We'd like to work with you," says a nameless promoter who is having a mentoring session with Lars. "We'd like to do something with you. We're just not sure what." In other words, "Lars, we'd love to have you around the office with your camera crew so you can stand around in tight pants and bring publicity to the station, but we don't really want to give you any responsibility, because you look like you'd try to reheat a corned beef sandwich in the Xerox machine."
Lars is all forlorn that his career as a London club promoter hasn't progressed as fast as he'd like. "It's not that easy," he says, now that he has to worry about earning money, since the internship is unpaid.
Back to Sharon recovering from the most important operation of her entire life. Sharon is shown jabbering on the phone; then we see more reactions from the roommates who want to use the phone, getting pissed with her. Thanks Bunim-Murray, but I think we got it the first time. Sharon's not even whispering at this point. In a sit-down, Sharon says her roommates were patient with her, and she feels badly that she let them see her caught up in one of her nasty habits. "Verbosity was always my vice," she says to Jay in the kitchen. "It's so hard for her because...she's so alive," says Kat. Raise your hand if you find that statement kind of ominous. "She wouldn't shut up," says Jay. The episode ends with the gang sitting around the kitchen and fighting over how hot each of the solar system planets are. Sharon thinks that Mars is the hottest because it's red, and this is discussed for many minutes until mercifully, this episode ends.