The Real World Recap: Season Premiere!

Johanna, a dark skinned beauty who claims to be from Lima, Peru meets Wes, solid Aryan stock from Kansas in the shadows of the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue near Auditorium Shores. Though Wes is shown in his flashback with a mohawk, he explains in his voiceover that he doesn't know anything about the world or about himself, which we think is totally awesome. Why would a white kid from Kansas need to know about the world? All he needs to do is oppress everyone around him, and he'll end up in the Whitehouse!

We cut back to Danny, who meets Melinda at the top of Mount Bonnell. Melinda is a blonde bombshell from Milwaukee who we see running across a beach with her top off in her flashback. Apparently, Milwaukee exists in a temporal bubble where it is still 1952, because Melinda shows off the promise ring that's supposed to keep her faithful to her boyfriend. We're pouring a shot now in preparation, because the travel to our timeline has caused a massive infarction in Melinda's brain, which explains why she thinks its appropriate to tell the world that "it's not going to be easy, cause I'm a nymph!" Wee!

Finally, we meet Lacey, a hairdresser from Ohio. She's the polar opposite of Melinda - dark haired, quiet, and, we find out moments later, a virgin. Oh, MTV! Your casting prowess has been proved once again.

The entire cast finally meets at their new house, which comes prestocked with cowboy hats and boots for everyone. Ask any Texan how they feel about non-Texans sporting this kind of gear, and we think you'll find out that the practice is not looked upon favorably. Sure, we share a national heritage of bovine wrangling, but Yankees ain't cowboys, and no hat can make them one. We'll let a real Texan explain.

It's only a matter of a few seconds before the cast has uncovered the stash of alcohol, and everyone strips to their skivvies and jumps into the indoor hot tub with shots of Jaeger for everyone. As a hot tub owner ourselves, we must express our concern for these young people. Hasn't anyone told them it isn't safe to drink in a hot tub? It leads to things like girls kissing one another, which Rachel and Melinda quickly do.

We'll take a shot of Jaeger ourselves, please.

After the hot tub, the entire cast piles into the shower together to prepare for a night on the town. Their first stop? Paradox, the cheesiest dance club in all of Austin. The cast takes turns dancing cheek to cheek with one another, taking special care to rub their genitals on their chosen member of the opposite sex in order to mark their territory. Johanna, drunk as a skunk, leans in and plants a sloppy tongue on Danny's tonsils. Take a shot!

Back at the house, Wes decides that everyone should lay their intentions clear. He gets down on bended knee and proposes marriage to Rachel, while his voiceover explains that he has absolutely no interest in her, whatsoever. The same is not true for Danny, who gets down on his knee and proposes to Melinda. We shutter as he spills his guts to her, followed by a nice voiceover explaining how perfect she is, and how much he likes her, intercut by photos of Melinda wrapped around her boyfriend.

But her boyfriend clearly doesn't have too much sway over her, because the next thing we see is Melinda flouncing around the house in a tiny pair of spandex ... things. She bends over and touches her toes for the camera, and we hear Wes saying that "She's going to probably hook up with everyone here. Not in the house. In Austin."

Oh, how right you are, Wes! How right you are! Though his statement that, "we're gonna own this town," is a bit inaccurate. He must not have been told that Austinist has already laid claim.

Danny is pathetically much less detached, as he again prattles on about how Melinda is his dream girl. Doesn't he know that a major television network is filming him? And that he'll be forced to eat his words in rerun after rerun. Poor, earnest boy! You can't have emotions on The Real World! THEY'LL BE USED AS A WEAPON AGAINST YOU!

The next night, everyone pounds shots again to prepare for another night on the town. Nehemiah has been put in charge of making sure that Johanna doesn't drink too much, because she gets crazzzzzzy and is unable to meter her own alcohol intake. Neither, apparently, is Nehemiah, as his first attempt to bring her a glass of water as she dances on the bar at The Aquarium leads to her exploding like a rabid cat out of a shotgun, thrashing at him and pulling at his clothes.

Nehemiah is smart enough to know that its virtually impossible for a large black man to win a fight with a drunken white woman, and bails on the rest of his roommates. A smart move on his part, as the punishment in Texas for doing anything is the chair, even for retarded children. Run, Nehemiah! Back to the house, where we're going to imagine you'll spend a quiet evening reading the latest issue of The Nation.

Meanwhile, Johanna, apparently also suffering from some sort of brain infarction, begins sobbing to her roommates that Nehemiah had been in a fight with "some guy," and that he'd run off. Wes and Danny rush out onto Sixth Street to find him and punish Johanna's imaginary male alter ego, but he's nowhere to be found, so instead, they start mouthing off to some of Austin's fine, upstanding drunks.

Egomaniacal drunks + Texas drunks + Austin's anti-corporate attitude = gang wars in the streets! Things quickly descend into chaos as Danny and Wes start throwing punches in every direction, and all the angry Craigslist posters who had been waiting since the announcement of this season for a chance to take a shot at one of the cast members come out of the woodwork and flood into the street with bats, clubs, and flame throwers. In a beautiful slow motion shot punctuated by an awesome theatrical PUNCH sound, we see Danny learning that he shouldn't mess with Texas as an anonymous fist crashes into the side of his face, slamming his head into the asphalt of the street.

Can we see that again, MTV? Oh hell yeah, we can! It's time for instant replay!

Back at the house, Danny, whose face has already swollen to the size of an elephant, finds Nehemiah and accuses him of causing the fight. Nehemiah has no idea what he's talking about - remember, he's been home reading The Communist Manifesto - and can't even get a sentence out before Wes and Danny have wandered off to lick their wounds. We know that documentary filmmakers aren't supposed to interfere with nature, but this isn't a documentary, and it sure isn't nature. Could one of the sound guys not have stepped in here to help a guy out? Where's the instant replay when an innocent man needs to be defended? Oh, right, just like the Jedi's stance on freeing slaves, it's not MTV's responsibility! How's that for a nerdy reference?

Rachel's military training kicks in, and she sets up for triage in the house. "Let me see your eye!" she screams, as she flashbacks to her days killing Iraqis in Baghdad. Danny can't even pull his eyelid open, so they rush him off to the hospital where a very stern and possibly sadomasochistic doctor informs him that his skull has been smashed in, and that he could lose his vision!

Holy crap! It's the first episode, and we've already got bone shards in someone's brain! Ominous music cues and shaky handheld camera shots at the end of the episode means that Danny has a rough road ahead of him. The poor guy gets off a plane not knowing anything about Texas, and two days later gets his ass kicked in a drunken brawl. Looks like Austin owns you, bitch.

Our predictions: Racial strife between Wes and Nehemiah, relationship strife between Danny and Melinda (possibly featuring Wes and Johanna as players), lots of girl on girl kissing, flashbacks to Iraq, and more girl on girl kissing! And possibly a few blurry background shots of this Austinist contributor buying shots for underage Wes. Oops! We swear, he told us he was 21!

The Real World: Austin is fresh every Tuesday at 9pm CST. We'll recap each episode the very next morning.