Indiana: River Valley Drive

MPDP strolls toward the camera on a barren suburban playground in the Subdivision of the Damned. Specifically, she is on the basketball court. I have to admit that when I saw that the show was in Indiana, I was rather concerned about what M-Pun-D-Pun would do for jokes, so I'm relieved to see that she has found a solution. She explains that they're in Indianapolis, where "basketball is a way of life." Not that this will, at any time, have anything whatsoever to do with the episode, but that's all right. She's fortunately wearing a relatively inoffensive purple and pink t-shirt today, but something bad has happened to her jeans, resulting in a fair amount of damage. She may have been attacked by a mountain lion. I wonder if the Trading Spaces liability insurance covers that. Of course, if it's not set up to pay compensation for the decorating in this episode, I doubt it will pay for anything as relatively harmless as a mountain lion attack. At any rate, MPDP makes a dismal "nothing but net" joke (God, is there any other kind?) and attempts a blind over-the-shoulder shot with the basketball that some helpful offscreen chum has thrown to her. The shot misses the basket, the backboard, and quite possibly the city of Indianapolis. Even she is impressed by what a truly appalling shot it is.

In a large, empty arena, Doug, Gen, and Amy Wynn dribble basketballs in Pacers uniforms. As with the soccer balls in Philadelphia, Amy Wynn is the only one who looks remotely at ease. Gen tries a header with a basketball, which looks (and sounds) like it probably hurt. I'm assuming you can make your own "hmm, sounds hollow" jokes. Doug comes over and kisses her on the forehead, starting hearts fluttering in certain circles of which I am not a part. Elsewhere, the four homeowners are allegedly fishing in one of those dirty little ponds that subdivisions put in for drainage that do not contain live fish unless those fish were dumped there five minutes ago. It took me two times through this sequence to figure out that the joke here is that the wives have the husbands on the ends of their lines and are reeling them in. Wow, that Andy Capp sure is funny. Not satisfied with her dead-on-arrival basketball jokes, MPDP unleashes some low-end fishing jokes at the expense of the homeowners before taking us inside to see where we're starting with the rooms.

Brad and Donna have redone their living room three times, and are about to become the poster children for a national PSA campaign called In The Name Of God, Quit While You're Ahead. They're cursed with one of those silly high ceilings with the funny angles that are good for nothing except growing cobwebs, but other than that, this really looks a lot like an "after" room on a decorating show, not a "before." They have comfy-looking green furniture and a pretty white fireplace which, while boring, is hardly objectionable. Perhaps it's because it's the weekend before Thanksgiving, but this golden-tan color on their walls is making me think, "roast turkey." Donna and Brad complain in their interview that the room isn't well-coordinated, but I don't agree. I think it looks quite pulled-together and lovely. Brad says that they keep changing it, so they need someone just to come in and tell them what to do. The only things they can think of to say about the changes they're looking for are that they don't like bright colors, and that she would like more seating. It looks like they currently have one chair and one couch, so I can understand that, I guess. And going on television was presumably easier than, you know, buying another chair. They also say that they hate Country. I always think it's sort of funny when people say that, because I think a lot of them don't even really know exactly what they mean, beyond not wanting painted geese or furniture made of wooden crates. But at any rate, I think Brad and Donna are about to learn that you're much better off redoing your living room one time too few than one time too many.

And then our running theme is introduced, as Donna explains that she has this thing about feet. She has a generalized foot phobia, and she's not happy about the fact that Gen does her decorating projects in bare feet. It must really suck to have a fear and disgust of something when you have two of them attached to your own legs. Can you imagine? It's like if my fingers were spiders. (Heh, that would be cool. They'd call me Lady Spiderfingers.) Donna says there will be "feet on the walls" and "footprints on the ceiling." I'm sorry, but Gen doesn't actually walk on the walls or the ceiling in her bare feet. You may find her feet unsettling, but she does tend to comply with the laws of gravity.

The other homeowners are Genevieve and Craig, and they like everything their neighbors hate -- quilts, country, and primary colors. At home, Frank weeps into his bowl of popcorn that they never give him the really good homeowners. And then he paints another fish on the coffee table. GenHO and Craig's living room walls are painted one of the world's many inoffensive, nondescript medium blues, and they have red-slipcovered sofas and a navy blue ottoman. Wow, yuck. There are also some overly self-conscious "country" touches, like the completely out-of-place pie safe to the television, and -- yes, really -- a big goose on the top of the entertainment center. They have also, as many people do, taken "Country" to mean "anything you can make from things you have under the sink is fine," because they've improvised window treatments by hanging shower curtains from twine that is attached to eye hooks in the ceiling. No, seriously, would I kid you? I'm telling you, there's a row of eyehooks screwed into the ceiling above the window, and then there are six inches or so of ratty brown twine hanging down from each hook, holding up the curtains. The shower curtains, that is. You know, I don't consider myself a great improviser of home solutions, but I have to think I could have done better than that. That looks like it came out of a photo album labeled Our House, Six Hours After The Tornado. As disaster relief, I might find the twine kind of spunky. As permanent decoration, it makes me think they need professional help, and I'm not just talking about a decorator.

Key swap. Nap till it's over, because you won't miss anything. Just more foot-talk from MPDP, and her promise that this is all going to be "hilarious." She is lying.

Brad and Donna approach Craig and GenHO's house. The first sign of Craig and GenHO's affection for silly items is that on their porch, there's a wee little chair, perfect for a wood nymph or a talking raccoon or any one of a number of playful figments of your imagination. Man, I guess it's more understandable that Brad and Donna would say they hate Country, if they're getting their impression of it from GenHO and Craig. Inside, Brad and Donna find Gen cutting down the twine window treatments. Gen tells them that as much as she admires the ingenuity of the shower curtains and everything, she's taking them down. Gen comments that Craig and GenHO love primary colors, so she'll be sure not to use them very much. Well, she doesn't say that, but that's apparently what she's thinking. She says she "love[s] people who love color," which she is apparently taking to mean that they like as many different greens in the same room as possible. Gen claims that she's bringing in neutral colors to "balance out" the love of color, so expect to see some dull greens as well as some bright greens. Gen also says she's getting rid of their blah entertainment center. "I hate those things," she says impatiently. They clear the room. As usual, Gen frolics girlishly on the furniture as it is removed. Sometimes I think that without girlish frolicking, Gen wouldn't have a lot to do.

Craig and GenHO run into Brad and Donna's house, where Doug...is clipping his toenails. You know, I could have sworn it was considered rude to clip your toenails in someone else's living room, but come to think of it, I think that's only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Doug asks Craig and GenHO what they have planned for the room, not that he cares. They want to "brighten it up" and "change the armoire." I think this is HO-talk for "We actually have no idea why they would want to redo this room." Now Doug is picking his toes with a letter-opener or a knife or something. Oh, I'm loving the foot theme so much already. This is pretty much the most entertaining theme they could have come up with, aside from insurance sales. Doug explains that he just got back from Brazil (get used to hearing that phrase), and that was his inspiration for the room. For one thing, no one wears shoes in Brazil, so bare feet are part of his inspiration. He's doing a big art piece that will be a big giant decorative foot. Yes, in the house of the foot-phobic lady. Won't that be fun? Oh, that Doug and his wacky, wacky ideas. He says they'll be taking the fireplace up to the top of the pointlessly high ceiling, slipcovering the sofas, and doing a variety of other things that don't seem necessary. Oh, and he's stenciling the walls, of course. It's important not to miss the forest of large-scale disaster for the trees of minor missteps. Doug has Craig and GenHO clear the room while he sits there and picks his toes. There is actually a shot in here of Doug biting his own toenails, and if you can't bring yourself to think that's gross, or particularly if you think that's enticing, I just don't want to hear about it, because I have enough fodder for nightmares as it is. Doug apparently manages to avoid doing anything to help clear the room, and he actually makes them drag him out of the room while he's still sitting on the ottoman. I guess one of the themes of this season is the Jerkweed Doug plot, but honestly, I've had about as much of this as I care to. I get the need to create drama, but they now seem to be going way out of their way to have him act like a schmuck, and it's not really all that entertaining anymore, at least to me. If I want to see a decorator act like an ass, I don't doubt there are any number of studios in Minneapolis I could visit, and it would at least net me a few paint chips.

Gen starts talking to Brad and Donna about how they're going with "neutrals" for the room. This makes me think that Gen and I have very different notions of what's "neutral." Gen removes the existing red slipcovers to reveal couches with an ugly large plaid in a dull moss green. I think all large plaids should be sent to penal colonies and burnt, and I don't like this muddy green, so you can imagine how much I do not enjoy this upholstery. (By the way, if that's not technically plaid, I have to tell you honestly that I don't care, so please don't email me. It's a big, blocky, plaid-like pattern.) Gen doesn't understand why Craig and GenHO ever covered up this upholstery, although she's heard that there might be some rust spots. She chooses, I guess, not to consider the possibility that the fact that they've already covered up these couches once might mean that they don't like them. I have to think I would really hesitate to return to something the homeowners have already gone to the trouble of concealing. "Remember this sofa you hated? Here it is! I based the whole room on it!"

MPDP strolls into Doug's house, wearing an orange print sarong wrapped around her head and a red-and-white print around her waist. She looks cute in the skirt, actually, but I could live without the wacky headdress. Doug threatens to pop the sarong clean off her, and MPDP giggles and keeps him from exposing her undies or whatever it was that would have occurred, had this sequence taken place in the mind of the show's underserved fifteen-year-old boy demographic. As it turns out, the fabric of the MPDP sarong is going to be the basis for the stencil pattern for the walls. MPDP is dismayed at the notion that the walls will be stenciled. She explains that although Doug is saving time by not changing the base color of the walls from the existing roast turkey color, he's going to spend an awful lot on the stenciling. This would seem to be particularly true given the height of the ceilings. She also points out that stenciling leaves and flowers isn't a particularly Doug-ish thing to do. "Paige, I'm the designer. Let me work it out." Is it a rule now that Doug has to point out that he's the designer in every episode?

The bumper to commercial features Gen jumping up and down, for those of you who can't wait for the end of The Man Show.

Gen shows Brad and Donna the greenish-gray paint she's chosen for the walls, in keeping with the color of the ugly large plaid on the couches. Seriously, the idea of basing the new room on the old furniture just frightens me.

Over at Doug's house, he's explaining that his room will be based on MPDP's ass. Well, he's actually explaining that the wall stencils will be based on a portion of the fabric that's currently stretched across MPDP's ass. I've heard of pulling a design out of your butt, Doug, but this is ridiculous! (Rimshot. Thank you, I'm here all week. Try the chicken.) He goes on to explain that he bought a bunch of cheap sarongs in Rio de Janeiro, and he's making them into throw pillows and the like, which he thinks will look swell with the white slipcovers. Ah, yes. White furniture -- the final frontier of unlivable dcor. Slop your coffee? Time for a new couch! MPDP offers to let Craig wear the sarong on his head, because no one wants to listen to Doug prattle about the fabrics anymore. Doug keeps talking anyway as MPDP wraps the sarong around Craig's head, but she does a poor job of twisting it at the top, so it's no great surprise that when he flips his head back and it falls off. MPDP thinks this is hilarious. The laws of physics, ho-ho-ho!

Gen now shows Brad and Donna a little can of paint that she encourages them not to overreact to, because it's just "a thought" at this point. It's a very bright green-yellow that doesn't look to me like it has much to do with the rest of what Gen has going on in this room. And although it's bright, it's far from a primary color -- it's a neon color, and an ugly one at that. She puts the lid back on. Unfortunately, I suspect the closing of the can isn't permanent. If that's a thought, it's not a very good thought. I think for the homeowners, though, it's like whatever Bill Gates does with Windows to ruin your life -- whether it's a bad thought or not, you may find yourself stuck with it, so you'd better be ready to pick up the phone and call for help.

Doug takes a very, very long time to explain to Craig and GenHO that when you stencil, you can spread the stencils out on the wall however you want. Craig's job is to mark out where the vertical segments of stenciling will be on each wall. Using the total length of the wall, and the principles of division, that is. Get it? (Yeah, sorry, I took too long to explain it, too.)

We've now gone about three minutes without returning to the theme of feet, so Gen has to bring them up again with Brad and Donna, who have started painting the walls. (Donna, you'll recall, is the real foot-hater in the group.) Gen points out that she and Brad are barefoot (as she says, "freewheelin' it"), and only Donna remains a shoe-wearing stick-in-the-mud. Gen walks over and rubs her bare foot on Donna's leg. Hey, I don't make the news, I just report it. Donna does not like having her leg foot-fondled, which is just the effect Gen is looking for. Gen lectures Donna on how great it feels to walk around with no shoes on. What do you think are the odds that if I write to the show right now, they can still cancel this foot-related "subplot"? Not very good? But I can write fast. You still don't think so? Yeah, I was afraid of that. Oh, well.

Doug and GenHO are tracing the leaf stencil from the fabric. Doug says again how cheap the sarongs were. He asks GenHO how Brad and Donna would have reacted if he had done something "wacky" (unlike, say, the big foot on the wall he actually has in mind). GenHO says she thinks Brad and Donna are expecting wacky. Too bad all they'll be getting is the disembodied foot and the Wall-o-Hairballs, then. The part of the sarong that Doug is tracing seems to me to be completely ill-suited for stenciling, because it's all internal shapes, as opposed to a strong basic shape. Short of doing about forty steps with different colors of paint, I don't understand how this stencil could possibly look anything like the way I think it's supposed to look. It is my suspicion that Doug is off the rails already, and very nearly irretrievably so.

Donna gives in to peer pressure over at her house, and takes off her shoes and socks. She has perfectly normal feet, and as Gen points out, she even has a little toe ring. Why would a person with a foot phobia who thinks feet are dirty emphasize her own feet with something like a toe ring? That is completely bizarre. It's not "why gild the lily?," exactly...it's more like, "Why gild your toes if you're afraid of them?" Gen tries another approach. "Your feet kick my feet's butt!" she says. You know, I generally feel like I need schematic drawings to keep up when Gen is talking, and that remark is no exception. I have to admit that I've always liked Gen, sort of in spite of myself. Gen agrees not to touch Donna's feet, but can't resist putting her toes right up to Donna's, wiggling them, and saying, "Hi!" Because she's Gen, and underneath it all, she's a wacko.