The Shortest Spring In The History Of The American Northeast ends abruptly a mere four TV hours after Boston's last significant snowfall, as Sublime's see-how-Broadway-musicals-don't-automatically-make-you-gay cover of "Summertime" accompanies aerial shots of a verdant park under blazing sunshine. The camera, apparently affixed to the non-Earth-facing side of Mir, captures shots so damn high off the ground that they almost entirely obscure the California license plates on the slew of passing convertibles and the reality that this instant summer is, in fact, nothing more than the opening moments of a free recruitment film sent to high-school guidance counselors and scholarship athletes considering a collegiate stint at UC Santa Barbara. Because this don't look like no Boston I ever seen. Down on ground level, Montana and Sean are splayed across blankets on a patch of all-weather artificial turf and taking pains not to slam accidentally into the two-dimensional blue screen haphazardly labeled "Tahiti at high noon during draught season in the [scribble scribble scribble] I mean, 'Boston,'" lazing around in their tropical finery of sunglasses and shorts (put those things away please...both of you), basking under the hot, life-giving "floodlights." "Sun." I meant "sun." So, I guess it's summer now. Seems when the time finally comes for B/M to product-place the Club Monaco cruise line, all bets concerning that which involved the linear passing of time are permanently off. For a change.
From the horizontal position on the grass, Sean holds a piece of paper, from which he slowly reads aloud, "'Montana's crazy. Sean's childlike behavior...' What do you mean I'm acting childish?" Heh. Poor Montana. Inarguably crazy. We cut from Tahiti to a confessional, where Sean, clad in an actual ski parka (oh, yeah, it's sweltering, all right), plays Exposition for the Prosecution in letting us know, "I found a note written by Kameelah. And on the note was [sic] a few things -- or, or a few thoughts -- that Kameelah had in relationship [sic] to some members of the house." Way to get the point across there, Counselor. He holds the note up to the camera and deems it "Exhibit A," because his formal legal training at the "Perry Mason Institute For Crossword Puzzle Legalese" clearly served him well is his one day of matriculation before taking off for either a four- or five- or six-month stint on MTV.
On their way back to the firehouse, the two stop into a store of some kind containing a photocopy machine, Montana bitch bitch bitching, "She left it face-up in the bathroom for, like, three and a half hours." They put the note face-down on the machine as Sean assuages his own guilt that he won't feel when he sells the only remaining copy of said note back to MTV Books to be included in the glossy pages of Cold Discomfort Farm: A Boston Real World Retrospective along with Kameelah's list and a print-out of Genesis's boyfriends when he rationalizes, "She wanted to leave it there on purpose to see what we'd do with it." Looks like y'all picked the most mature available response, for a change. As they exit the too-cash-strapped-to-product-place ambiguous photocopy locale, Montana decides that Kameelah's actions are "pretty passive-aggressive." And for once I'll actually forego pointing out the hypocrisy here, seeing as calling attention to the ludicrousness of one person in that house noting another's passive-aggressiveness would be roughly akin to me feeling really proud of myself for discovering that a man has a toaster instead of a head in the "What's Wrong With This Picture" drawing on the back cover of Highlights For Children magazine. Because, come on.
The Synth Rumbling Of Illicit Epistolary Intrigue (of course that's an actual song...check the discography in the back of the aforementioned book, people) rages on as we're back in the firehouse, Sean sitting in the living room and holding a copy of the note, announcing to Kameelah, "I wanted to give you your note back before anybody else found it and read it." Because that behavior isn't at all passive-aggressive. Oops. I mean: "That guy's head is a toaster!" Kameelah notices what it is she's left lying around, and asks Sean whether he read it. Sean cops to having "glanced at it," and Kameelah follows up with the obvious, "Did you show it to anyone?" Sean pauses for a length of time that actually makes me believe he's not being a guy with a toaster head, but rather has genuinely forgotten since the last scene whether or not he's shown the note to anyone else. Actually, what note? Man, he's dumb. When his almond-sized brain is eventually able to wrap itself around the question, he coughs out, "Montana and I took a look at it." Kameelah tears out of the room all incredulous, as if the unrefined papyrus mulched itself into white, lined paper, wrote itself a list of odious qualities about Kameelah's roommates in a ridiculously close approximation of her handwriting, and left itself completely unattended smack in the middle of probably the firehouse's most public and trafficked spaces. Poor, guiltless Kameelah. She walks into her room whispering, "I don't understand you people," and then repeats it a bit more loudly upon Sean's request to do so. He responds, "I don't understand you leaving notes like that around, Kameelah." The tension builds: "I didn't mean to leave it around, obviously." Or obviously not, considering that Sean wouldn't have even been able to crack the code of what language it was written in had Kameelah not included helpful illustrations of Sean standing on a chair trying to get over himself with an accompanying glossary of tough-to-pronounce words like "Sean" which included a separate copy of the note written out phonetically. Because Sean can't read, people. Head. Toaster. Got it.
Kameelah retreats into her room muttering, "I hate this house," and is greeted by Genesis, who responds with the most excellent, "That makes seven of us." Heh. And the world. Which hates the seven of you as well. Kameelah recaps the early-goings of the episode again, pulling out a pretty admirable Sean impersonation in reiterating, "Kameelah, found this note. You might want to watch where you put things." It is, on the whole, a very apt rendering of the listening-to-Sean experience, right down to the impressive adherence to exclusively one-syllable words. Why, I could almost close my eyes and convince myself that...zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, damn. Shouldn't have tried that at all.
Firehouse. Later. The Squiggly Hip Font Of Character Introduction alerts us that Kameelah is on the phone with a friend named "Yacoo." Perhaps she should come to Boston and replace either Jason or Sean in the firehouse, thus upping the sky-high "I'm-sorry-your-name-is-wha?" factor, which is already deep enough into the red zone as it is. Kameelah calls Sean "the whitest white boy I've ever met," and she resents being his roommate. As she puts it, "I don't think it's fair for me to have to live here and be his roommate, and spend all of my time teaching him about black people and blackness." She's "tired of being everybody's teacher." Oh, whatever, reigning Queen of Didactica. Heaven forbid the cruel universe should offer you the opportunity to express your opinion. Meanwhile, out on the darkened corner of My-Life- Hasn't-Been- A-Walk- Down-Easy Street and right near the cul-de-sac of Call-Me- When-The- Story-Arc- Stops-Going- In-A Circle, Sean informs Jason that Kameelah has loudly expressed an overarching ideological belief that "blacks are the king and the queen of society." Jason, perpetually preparing for his upcoming role in the Streisand-directed sequel The Jason Has Two Faces, acts all incredulous and takes up against Kameelah with his reply, "That what...she said that?" Sean backs up his airtight defense that he heard Kameelah says something to Sean -- probably "I like black comedies" or "pass me the Black & Decker" or "if Sean were the only other human on Earth, we would be smarter than all white people" -- that he translated in the spirit of reverse racism and passed along to Jason in the spirit of reverse interesting story arc. Sean then totes his Doe-Eyed Stare Of The Oppressed Not Really Oppressed into a confessional, where he elaborates, "If I said that the white man and white woman were the king and queen of humanity and the king and queen of society. Oh my God, I would catch major hell for that." Not that he said that. Back outside with Jason, Sean cops to not really hearing these words come from Kameelah herself (Syrus, in a haywire game of interracial "Telephone" that forced brother against brother and the succession of nations, was the one who passed that "verbatim" message along), a point of view that Jason determines is "asinine." Sean makes the point that this mode of racial supremacy hearkens back to the Civil War, and I'll agree with him insofar as to state that the issues they are currently discussing would have made for some really hot-button television back in the '60s. The -- cough -- 1860s.
A totally necessary montage of subways, subways, subways serves to remind us of the many modes of transportation available in the period which existed before the human race acquired the power to fold their arms and blink themselves to another location, and we cut to Kameelah and Genesis walking into a greasy-ass diner of some kind. Inside, we are mid-meal with Kameelah, Genesis, Poor Poor Anthony (thanks again, Squiggly Hip Font), and Token Random Silent Guy. Anthony vies for face time: "You and Sean get along well, huh?" Genesis cracks up because she's still shaking off the Jack Daniels buzz she's had since a particularly wild period of her past doctors solemnly refer to as "the mother's pivotal second trimester," and Kameelah is nothing if not narratively groundbreaking (wait...she's actually not even that) in explaining, "To Sean, I'm, like...black woman." Oh. And Sean, like, white man. More from Kameelah? Well, then, pipe down, Earth! "The issue is Kameelah not liking Sean, not Kameelah not liking all white people, y'know? He never wants to look at himself and say, 'Maybe I'm the problem.'" I know how he feels. I never want to look at himself either. The rest of the table sits through this incredible example of how Kameelah doesn't wish to spend all of her time teaching others about black people and blackness, exhibiting just how taxing it is on her delicate constitution to be everybody's teacher. Poor Poor Anthony is not the first outsider to note that the Somber Seven is, by all accounts including their own, a bunch of sullen idiots desperately in need of a dose of reality, but he is the first person in Real World history to note that everyone in the house is in need of "an enema." Augh! At which point, the once unbesmirched Anthony takes his final climb up the nine flights of steps to his third-storey office, steps to the far side of the room, cracks open the window so that the chilly Boston air rushes in and sends haughty letters of termination and forged permission slips for interstate travel all a-flutter, steps gingerly out onto the windowsill, and jumps the shark harder and longer than any Real World pointless extra since all of their creepy significant others' combined. I mean, ew. We're at lunch here and Anthony is talking about Sean and then the prospect of two-directional traffic heading in and/or out of Sean's ass, and it's time for Anthony's immediate removal from the planet. Token random guy thinks that Anthony is hee-larious.
Back at the firehouse with Kameelah, Genesis, and Elka, a ring on the doorbell reveals a totally "unplanned" "surprise" box filled with t-shirts reading "Martha's Vineyard" and sheets of paper detailing instructions for a trip we learn they'll be taking there this weekend. They model their shirts and squeal with excitement. They're happy to be getting away. What with the sheer exhaustion of rent-free living and twenty-hour work weeks finally catching up with poor, poor them.
And, over at the Paramount, Sean and Montana each indulge in yet another go-round of the greasy Red Cross Ration For The Entire Third World egg special (I guess the complimentary Crisco Shake they've finished enjoying is only one-per-customer), discussing the impending trip. Montana is dubious about the entire trip, noting, "We're all gonna be in one house together." Sean responds, "Like we are here." Good work, sleuth. I see you've played Housey/Spoony before. Sean continues, "We'll bring a gun for Kameelah and she can play Russian Roulette." A stock footage cut of Montana looking stern and silently judging (like, she's wearing different clothes. And she's in her apartment in New York. Oh, and she's seven) is followed up with her increasingly controversial belief, "I don't want her dead." Actually, Red, I think the gun was for Kameelah. To make you dead. Oh, wait, it's just the first half of a joke. Because y'all love to laugh, here's the rest, "I just want her to go on a little vacation. To Hell!" Montana cracks herself up with the ribaldry of it all.
Jason, Kameelah, and Genesis walk down that one street in Boston with the windy roads and the brick buildings and the clock tower and the reactionary, Puritanical beliefs about everything. Jason, rigorously trained in the history and culture of all things Martha's Vineyard by that life experience known the world over as "growing up in Colorado," informs the girls, "The best way to get around that island is hitchhiking." Even her friends think a "roulette" approach to ending Kameelah's life is in order.
"We're leaving" montage. The Somber Seven are dragging their bags onto a shuttle called "Community Shuttle," and Kameelah and Jason share a meaningful moment at the front door, in which Kameelah mumbles something the five-year-old tapes don't pick up, inspiring Jason to respond, "Either that, or we're gonna kill everyone." So obviously Kameelah's former volley was of the "let's tell them that grizzled truckers who pick up hitchhikers like to be referred to as 'fairies.'" Kameelah and Jason hug and hug. A travel montage and the flaring of tensions between Jason and Sean over who carries a case of beer lends the necessary drama of me scaling the outside wall of my apartment so that the smashing into the ground can remind of what really hurts.
A time-burning travel montage acts as an introductory training film for those who are curious about how people respond to seeing long fields of dead, monotonous grass when they're on TV (Omigod! Grass! Verdant! Rolling inner monologue! Thank you, care of B/M and the Martha's Vineyard Bureau of Tourism!) versus when they're not (chirp, chirp, chirp...one more fucking inch of country road and I swear to God I'll...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Elka grunts her satisfaction with her surrounding aesthetics, providing a reaction of Nell-esuqe "unnnngh" that's as close as she's come to a line of dialogue in the past six episodes.
A smattering of vaguely approving groans (awwww, you guys are too, too kind) meets their approach to the Kennedy-compound-esque house in this, the most Kennedy-compound-esque spot on the globe that isn't the rest of Massachusetts, some of California, certain parts of New York, all of Dallas, and the greater portion of Oliver Stone's estate. Jason wants to let us know he sucks, thanks: "My first thought was get upstairs and find a phat room." He bursts into each room of the place, and comes upon the enormous master bedroom. Elka is allowed to walk in for exactly one second, mutter a word about the room's general largeness, and be relegated back to The Dork Dungeon with the rest of the non-journaling misfits below. Kameelah lets us know in a confessional, "Jason found it first, and I just cramped his style and said, 'I'm sleeping with you.'" Outside now, Kameelah tells Genesis that she and Jason "got the dopest room in the house." Genesis, second-generation style-cramper and The Girl Most Likely To Note Sexual Chemistry Between Two Of Her Roommates And Still Not Give A Crap, volleys back, "I'm there." While the three of them lie in the bed inside the bedroom, the other four mess with a tangled volleyball net. Kameelah, meanwhile, thinks hypocrisy is important, doing a much worse job with the volley than the four losers outside, "I just think people in this house feel the need to always be talking. Just because you don't speak doesn't mean the world is coming to an end. I need silence, I need to enjoy my own world." She stops. There is now silence. See how this works?
Downstairs in the living room, Montana, Syrus, Sean, and Elka play a loud and wacky game of charades, while Jason sits upstairs looking silently judgmental. They're actually going out of their way to make Jason look like the cool one this episode. Did he cut these scenes himself, I wonder? Kameelah walks into the room and slams the door, and we cut to mid-depth, her telling Jason, "If anything, I know what I don't want to be. Just seeing Montana and Elka and Syrus and Sean, I know more clearly what I do not want to be." An unbelievably rude and unsubtle cut takes us downstairs to Montana in the middle of acting out Animal House, waving her ass right at the camera in a rather unflattering way which, truth be told, could only have been vastly improved if not for the waving and the ass and the camera.
morning in the Kennedy Kitchen, Kameelah pointedly asks in Jason's direction, "Where's Gay Head?" Heh. Gay. Head. Jason registers a look of, "Shut up, you...jerks!" before turning around and realizing he's not in junior high, this is not the locker room and that Kameelah really does seek some actual geographical guidance. Good thing he knows all: "The opposite end of the island." Genesis says that she wouldn't mind biking it, but in learning that it's fourteen miles away, she responds to the again-raised hitchhiking question, "I don't want to get raped and killed." Outside now, Jason assures them in a vague stab and self-parody, "You guys are overlooking my obvious masculinity." Genesis believes that he was "the fag" when they first moved into the house. Whatever. The line forms to the left. We've spent twenty-one episodes on this. Move. On. While they're continuing their efforts toward the center of gayness, we test the boundaries of what "gay" really means when some Ye Olde Player Piano music meets us back in town. The Four Horsemen are walking into a store, which Sean capsulizes as such: "Oh my God, this is gonna be sweet, let's go take an old-time photo!" And so they do. And so they do.
Back in Coolsville, Jason, Genesis, and Kameelah take in more Gay Head than they though possible, taking pictures and laughing all the way. Jason voice-overs, "For the first time, I felt like I truly knew these people. Like, having true friends." And, ew, we cut back to the three in the master bedroom, where Kameelah wakes up a screaming Kameelah after a shot of him walking out of the shower with his towel firmly tied around his, I guess, ankle. Naughty bits are seen and screams quickly screamed, and Kameelah chases him into the bathroom as Sean voice-overs, "I know it for a fact to be true that Kameelah does like Jason. There's some sort of tension, sexual tension between them." Back in the room, Jason is lying in bed in some hideous boxer briefs (I thought that Underoos circus pattern was only sold in children's sizes...oh, wait), and Genesis indicates that she herself has never "seen a guy's penis before." Ugh. Bawdy lesbians: 1, FCC: O. Kameelah throws the covers over their heads (heh) and Jason pulls out the prize all over again. Kameelah philosophically notes that it was "three friends, one body part," which sounds a whole lot like the tagline for the wacky spin-off about Genesis, Kameelah, Jason and the horny romp they shared on Gay Head. Did they edit out people's retarded comments about that place? Because they can't edit out mine. What a dumb episode.