The Real World: Back to New Orleans, Episode 05
“If he feels froggy and leaps, we will have an issue.” - Preston
I’ve got to admit, I’m running out of steam. Maybe it is because I used up my weekly quota of self-righteousness at Bridge Lounge’s weekly trivia night, ranting about what I perceived, under a cloak of frustration over my own intellectual shortcomings (not to mention about 15 High Lifes), to be a blatant antisemitic slant running through the evening’s questions. Maybe it is because the heat and humidity in this town is slowing turning my brain to mush. But it is probably because the most recent episode of The Real World was really lame.
Based on the previews I’ve seen all season, I recognize that this may just be a calm before the storm - we’ve still got ass-cigarettes, piss-brushes and Schedule II narcotics floating around the house willy-nilly - but that does not excuse wasting over one half of one hour on Jemmye’s decision to pursue a legitimate relationship with Knight over staying faithful to her “boyfriend” back home.
Clearly, the fact that Jemmye and Knight appear to be decent-ish human beings who care about each other was not good enough for the programming geniuses over at MTV. Instead of depicting the relatively straightforward pairing of a couple drunken twenty-somethings who enjoy above-average sexual chemistry, we were subjected to not one, but two insultingly contrived subplots. The suggestion that a girl with a tattoo on her snatch gives a rip about protecting the sanctity of her “white-boy virginity” is absurd. Same goes for all implications that this Kodi character is anything more than just some dude Jemmye happened to bang at some point before she arrived in New Orleans. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for her and Knight. But the path that lead to their relationship was not exactly beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
In other non-news: McKenzie is turning over a new leaf but probably not. Ashlee and Preston may eventually contribute something worthwhile to WWOZ but probably not. Sahar and Nick are still part of the cast but probably not. And Vincent might get in trouble after giving himself an ill-advised haircut but probably not. Wait, I think that last one got mixed in from a recap of a different show that chronicles the consequence-free inertia of a group of emotionally-stunted, entitled doofi.
I spied LePhare (again), The Boot (again), The Beach on Bourbon (again), the Sheridan New Orleans, Whole Foods, Chez Nous (exterior only), The Pete Maravich Assembly Center as well as my good friend Jerry (bossman of the Tucks float upon which the cast rode). In lieu of wasting anymore time trying to manufacture a reaction to an altogether pedestrian episode, I made a diagram:
