The Real World: Back to New Orleans, Episode 08
“I used to work for the phone company.” - Ryan
While not as dramatically charged as the presence of narcotics in the home of a recovering pillhead, one of this season’s important subplots is the continued and curious absence of Eric. Ashlee isn’t exactly getting a lot of press earlier, but what is going on with Eric is more confusing. Ashlee is trying to get her licks in - she drives the roommates around, is quick to sit by the computer and offer her judgmental two cents, and has no problem loaning a hoodie to a roommate who is too lazy/tired/drunk to put on some g-ddamn clothes already - but I just can’t bring myself to give a rip about anything she says or does.
The situation with Eric is different. Other than a few minutes chronicling his topical, boring and ultimately unsuccessful courtship with Sahar, he has been almost completely absent through eight hour-long episodes. Obviously pissbrush-gate and white-boy-virginity-gate and I-don’t-know-how-to-work-or-keep-track-of-this-audio-recorder-gate gave the producers plenty of celluose with which to work, but one has to believe that there is something else to blame for his lack of screen time. And is it a coincidence that the last time we saw something like this - a character truly falling off the face The Real World - was the last time the show was set in the Crescent City?
