The Real World Recap: Episode 5

Apparently, Rachel's boyfriend is aware of this rule, as instead of his ear or some lungs or the oozing head of his rival, he's sent Rachel an entire box full of cotton candy flavored ice cream. And while he packed the box chock full of wads of what we can only imagine is the most sickly sweet, artificially flavored goo in the world, he forgot to pack any sort of ice or insulation. Rachel takes the dripping mess and tries to "salvage" it in the refrigerator, because apparently she doesn't know that refreezing ice cream never works. Not surprising, as she is dating someone who doesn't know that ice cream will melt while it sits for days in the back of a hot mail truck.

"Ice cream is the way to get to my heart," says Rachel. "And he always lets me get dessert. He always encourages me to eat ice cream. It's so cute. He just tells me it'll go straight to my booties." We have news for you, Rachel. Your boyfriend is what we in the industry call a "feeder." He's encouraging you to eat lots of ice cream so that you get fat so that nobody else will love you! And that way, you will become totally dependent upon him for everything! Also, you have more than one booty? You need to see a real doctor.

Rachel calls Eric to thank him for the gift, and he claims that he put dry ice in the box. We don't personally believe that, but even if it is true, a cardboard box? How much does a styrofoam cooler cost? Use that highly trained military brain, Eric.

As we watch Rachel descend into baby talk with her boyfriend on the telephone, we're kindly treated to a clip of her in the confessional where she gives the girl version of the "why I can't date you while I'm on the Real World" speech, which is different enough from the boy version that we will have to summarize it here:

Baby, I love you. I love you love you. And because of that, we need to take a break from one another while I go prance around in front of television cameras. Why? I want to make sure that you are the one for me. Yes, this means I will be having hot, unprotected sex with anonymous boys in bars. But I will be thinking about you! And when its all over, I will come back to you and we will get married. Unless I meet someone better and find out that you aren't the one. But that probably won't happen. Probably. Teehee!

And how better to test your love for your boyfriend than getting wasted every night on Sixth Street while trying to hook up with every boy that crosses your path. It's easy for those whose egotism and selfishness are enhanced and supported by a camera crew and international syndication! The whole crew goes out for some irresponsible binge drinking (that's more than three drinks in one sitting, kids!), and Rachel takes the opportunity to list out all the people she has not hooked up with, which include "Jewish boys from New York who suck ass." They probably vote Democrat and watch Michael Moore movies, too! Assholes!

Wes and Nehemiah are not having as much trouble finding people with whom they can sow their wild seeds. "It's definitely a change from what I'm used to," says Nehemiah, "and as a man, I have to take advantage of it." He is, of course, correct. As a man, you are morally obligated to take advantage of any sexual opportunity that crosses your path, because, like our planet's precious oil reserves, one day, the well will run dry and all the remaining sex in the world will become super valuable and nobody but the ultrarich will be able to afford it!

(We'd like to take a quick break here while we eat a bagel and drink a cup of delicious coffee to complain that the backlight on our 5 year old Apple iBook is dying, and that we would love for Apple to sponsor this very popular feature by giving us a new one! Or really, anyone who would like to give us a new iBook. Seriously.)

Wes and Nehemiah bring Collin, who is a bouncer at Spill, which is a terribly cheesey club, back to the house. Rachel voice overs that she met Collin on the first night out on Sixth. This is to imply that Rachel might actually hook up with someone. She will not, because she is in love love. But while she sits next to him like an obedient puppy, Wes and Nehemiah compare notes on the women in their lives.

"I can find a girl prettier than Crystal!" says Wes.

"And I can find a girl prettier than Monica!" says Nehemiah.

"I think Collin is a bit out of my league!" says Rachel.

Rachel explains to Melinda that she hit on Collin on the first night in town. She thinks he's a nine, but she's only a seven, and there's no way they can ever be together. Melinda doesn't argue with her on this evaluation, and instead just smiles and giggles. "But you're a strong seven," we imagine her saying. "Like, a seven point five!"

In the kitchen, Nehemiah pulls open a drawer that is filled with small slips of paper. "The groupie drawer," he says, "is something we acquired coming here to Texas." This is a tradition in Texas that we will now explain for those readers who do not live here. Because women rain from the sky here, and because there are only a few brave men left in our fair state, adult males must collect the phone numbers of and then have sex with as many women as possible to ensure the continued blight of humanity upon this planet. Each night, you open the drawer and pull a name at random. Whoever you've picked, you go have sex with immediately.

Wes and Nehemiah have done well for themselves, as they're drawer is overflowing with the names of women who they can barely remember. "Shelly?" says Wes. "I don't want her to come over if she's ugly."

"We can kick her out," says Nehemiah.

"You and me are gonna come off as such assholes," says Wes.

"You know what?" says Nehemiah. "I don't give a damn!"

Decision made, the boys head over to use the phone to order some hot action. Unfortunately, Lacey is already using the one telephone in the entire house to talk to "the love of her life who she does not have sex with," and she doesn't want to give up the phone so that crass donkeys can use it to commit wild acts of hedonism. "You can't even tell them apart on the post its!" she says.

The guys eventually get their way, and begin calling up their lady friends. The inability to clearly remember who they're talking to seems to go both ways, as we are treated to a montage of the guys calling up and getting confused, hungover responses. When someone finally does remember who they are, Lacey comments that she didn't seem like the brightest star. "We don't want bright stars!" says Nehemiah. Everyone laughs, because its true! Why would you want to hang out with someone smart, who will like, want to talk and stuff? Dumb girls just like to screw!

Back from commercial, the whole gang is lounging around in the in-house pool when the doorbell rings. Wes pitter pats down to the door and lets in a gaggle of generic Sixth Street girls in. You know the type - tight jeans, black jackets, black shirts, glazed looks on their faces, carrying a case of beer and looking for a good time. The housemates watch in horror as neither Wes nor Nehemiah put any sort of move, smooth or otherwise, on the women. Nehemiah comments that Wes has no game, then Melinda comments that Nehemiah has no game.

The next night, or the previous night, or some other night, or heck, later that night, we don't know anymore because all of these nights are blurring together, even for us, the whole gang is once again out on Sixth Street. Let us just saw right now that its sad that we haven't seen the cast doing anything else in our city - not a single rock show, no shopping, no trips to the LBJ Library to see the awesome animatronic Johnson that spits fire while doing the river dance. Come on guys! Live a little! They haven't even eaten a single breakfast taco!

Whatever.

Rachel finds her way to Spill and into the arms of Collin, who tells her that he'd been in a fight the night before, and was thus on a break from working the door. She explains in confessional that she likes a strong man, a tough man, a man who can protect her even though she's done things like crawl through barbed wire and shot a gun, because those are the things that really toughen a person up. Apparently Collin is up to the task, because we see a nice montage of Collin grabbing her ass, Collin having schmutz picked off of his face by Rachel, etc.

Back at the house, Rachel tells Johanna all about her crush on Collin, and how they held hands, and how there was a spark! OMG A SPARK! Johanna looks as bored as we are about the whole thing, and immediately takes a giant crap on Rachel's happyness by mentioning that Collin might have a girlfriend. Why would she want to let Rachel think, even for just a second, that she is attractive enough to land herself a boy? That would totally get in Johanna's way, or something! We don't know! Girls are crazy!

But he doesn't! He doesn't have a girlfriend at all, and he invites Rachel out on a date for sushi. We'll wager they go to Sushi on Sixth, because like, it's on Sixth! And then, a montage of blooming flowers and baby birds!

Lacey flat irons Rachel's hair for her, which is nice of her, as she's a professional hair stylist. Johanna comments sarcastically that she's never seen her take so long to get ready. And its sad that she did, because Collin shows up for their big date in a suit jacket, yes, but also a WHITE BASEBALL CAP! The ultimate in cheese!

Oh smack, Collin takes Rachel to Kenichi, which is at least a little bit better than what we expected, but it's still no Uchi. They do enough sake bombs, the classy choice of drink to go with sushi, to make the four block stumble home a serious health risk, especially since Rachel finds herself able only to ride on Collin's back while biting his neck. "My feet hurt!" she says.

Seriously, how did this woman last as long as she did in the military?

They return to the house and do some snuggling. Collin has stripped off his suit jacket and is down to his Arizona basketball jersey - a totally appropriate thing to be wearing as an undershirt on a date. But he's confused now, because Rachel has a boyfriend. "I'll just let you call the shots," he says - the standard move from a guy trying to have sex with someone who already has a boyfriend. It looks like it works, because Rachel's first decision is to drag him into the bedroom and into her bed where she demands that he take off his shoes and get in so they can "talk." But, as we fade to commercial, we see them getting it on underneath the watchful eye of the MTV cameras.

Romantic!

Back from commercial, however, we see Rachel ushering Collin out of the house, as she tells us that she didn't want to make out with him too much because he was so drunk. Which never stopped her before. But now she's got feelings of inadequacy to avoid, so she needs an excuse of some sort.

Lacey and Wes discuss what has just transpired. Lacey thinks that Rachel has made a big mistake and is treating Collin poorly because, instead of hopping into the sack with him, she told him she was too tired and wanted to go to bed. "It doesn't matter," says Lacey. "That's not how you treat people!"

Yeah, that's right. It doesn't matter if you're too tired, or too drunk, or just haven't made up your decision about someone. If you've invited someone into your room for some snogging, YOU HAVE TO HAVE SEX. Everyone knows that. Especially people who have never had sex.

Our affection for Lacey, which was previously riding almost as high as our affection for Nehemiah, has just plummetted.

The next night, the kids are discussing their plans for the evening. Johanna explains that she and Wes have made a bet. "I get to pick a girl from the 8 to 10 category. Wes has 15 minutes to make out with her for 10 seconds. And if he doesn't make out with her in 15 minutes, then I get to pick the ugliest girl at the bar!"

"I said a five or a six!" says Wes.

"Wes has a big head," says Johanna. "We all kinda want to prove Wes wrong, that he can't get with any girl he wants."

Downtown, Johanna picks a girl whose parents hated her and named her Reesa. Wes sidles up to her and asks, "Tell me one thing about you that is individualistic."

Apparently, Wes' mangled English confuses Reesa as much as it would us, as her answer is, "I'm from Houston!" Yes, her individualistic quality is that she is from a city of millions of people. She is truly a beautifulesque uniquey kinda girl.

Wes, having made a strong entrace with his bold question, goes for the gold. "Here's what I have to do. I have to kiss each of you. And then, I will decipher what to do."

"I'm just not that kind of girl," says Reesa. "Sorry!"

"Honestly, that's not a line at all!" says Wes. But it doesn't work. Because it is a line, and the cheesiest at that! Wes loses the bet, and gets only a friendly hug from Lacey.

The next morning, or, well, it's the morning after Rachel's near brush with Collin's weiner, Lacey and Johanna give Rachel a little street corner speech about her responsibilities to Collin's male ego. "Explain to him," says Lacey, "that you were really drunk and your actions were inappropriate! Take the fall!" Because, in Lacey's expert opinion, someone must be blamed for Collin not getting his rocks off whenever he wants to. Seriously, for someone who looks as with it as Lacey does, she's totally not with it.

Wes gets a call from his friend Crystal, who is hot, but not hot enough for Wes, who tells him that Collin is dating someone else, and isn't that into Rachel. Wes then runs as quickly as he can to Rachel and tells her more details than necessary to make sure he drives home the point that she is unlovable and that everyone hates her. "The wording that was used," he says, "to distinctly underline was, 'I'm going after Rachel because I can.'" Which, honestly, doesn't seem all that bad to us. He could have said, "I'm going after Rachel because I want to have sex on television, and she seems to be the easiest target."

Out downtown, Rachel sees Collin out with his girlfriend. Lacey, in confession, says, "I had a bad vibe about Collin. Turns out, I was right and he is an ass." See, that's what good friends are for - to tell you that you've fucked up your chances with the only man who will ever love you when really you think he is a sleeze ball. "Hey Rachel, as your good friend and roommate, I just want to once again remind you that the problem here is you. You couldn't even score with a jerk like Collin. GOD, what is WRONG with YOU? Good thing you have me here to support you!"

On the way home that night, Rachel says that "his penis isn't that big, and neither is his heart."

"That was so poetic!" says Johanna.

Rachel gets home and, with the thought of Collin's cock still on her brain, calls up the ol' standby at-home boyfriend. "I was just calling to say that I loved you," she says. And the episode ends with photos of the two gun toting lovebirds together. TOGETHER FOREVER. Until, probably, last night, when Eric saw his girlfriend in bed with another man and flipped his lid. This morning, we imagine that Rachel is sleeping at her parent's house in a pile of tear soaked tissues.

Hopefully, Rachel has learned her lesson, and next time will respect the needs of her male companions, thus avoiding the pains of rejection and lonelyness while raising all of her fatherless children. Sex is love! Lacey knows best!

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