The Real World Recap: Episode 10

Episode Ten of The Real World: Austin begins with Johanna and Wes, still embroiled in a feud, though both of them seem to be doing it purely for the attention of the cameras. Johanna says they aren't speaking, and won't speak for at least 2 weeks. "We're still mad at each other," she explains.

Rachel, always a fountain of insight, comments that, "you'd think everyone would learn something from the death of Danny's mother and that maybe you shouldn't get so worked up over petty things and not speak to each other." Her comment, though seemingly insipid, captures the theme of this entire season so far, which is: If you don't talk to someone, they will go away forever.

1. Danny didn't talk to his mom. She died.

2. Nehemiah hadn't talked to his mom, and was afraid she would die.

3. Melinda's boyfriend accused Melinda of not calling him, and then he got dumped for Danny.

4. Lacey can't keep her mouth shut about anything.

5. Rachel did not die, even though she went to Iraq and had sex in a helicopter.

The theme obviously breaks down after point 1, but we think you'll agree that there has been an aweful lot of talking about who was talking, when they were talking, and whether or not the talking was appropriate, timely, and life-saving.

Sadly, Johanna has not learned the lesson of Danny's mother. "I guess we're not gonna talk for the rest of our lives! Pfft!" She struts down the street with Lacey on her arm. "Which is fine by me!"

The girls end up at the classiest joint on Sixth Street, The Dizzy Rooster. Melinda snuggles up to someone described with scribbly letters and an arrow as "TJ," but does nothing but babble about how wonderful Danny is, and how one day, TJ will be lucky enough to find a Danny of his own. Everyone should have a Danny in their lives, because the tragedy of his existence makes living your mundane life easier!

Melinda comments, again, that it is going to be really hard for her if Danny chooses not to return to Austin for the remainder of the season because all she wants to do is spend time with her. Hard like, she won't be able to do nothing but cuddle in bed and have sex in the shower. Unlike Danny, who, were he not to return, would have a hard time living his life in constant sorrow while carving his mother's name into the skin of his leg over and over and over again.

Not to let reality get in the way, Melinda puts on a cheery face and begins leaving little reminders of her deep and meaningful relationship with Danny all over the house. She puts a picture of him next to her bed, and sprays her sheets with his cologne, which she is careful to point out was done with Danny's permission. She even carries a little picture of him with her to the dinner table, so that she can pretend that he is eating with her.

"Hello Danny," she says. "Are you enjoying this lovely meal?"

The picture does not respond.

"I love you too," she says. Lacey gives her a look of concern, but then quickly scurries off to tell the rest of the housemates that Melinda has finally lost her last marble.

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Here is a scary thing for all of us to consider. By MTV's count, this is episode 11 of season 16. Season 15 had 26 episodes, meaning that we have not yet even reached the halfway point of this season. Are you as terrified as we are? This means that, if we keep up the pace of our writing through the rest of the season, we will have written almost 100,000 words about The Real World. Someone needs to get us a book contract.

Back from commercial, the kids are practicing their camera techniques in preparation for their jobs as documentary film makers during SXSW. It seems that in a self-referential twist, the cast members have been given an assignment to film one another talking about themselves. While being filmed by MTV camera crews. While talking about filming themselves. Curiously, nobody ever mentions the irony that they've been given cameras and told to film themselves, which we suppose is probably a little bit too meta for the target demo of this show: 12-year old girls.

We wonder what it is like for these cast members to see themselves now, on the television. We wonder if they see themselves and think that they seem clever and deep, or if they are embarassed by their own stupidity. Then, we start imagining them watching the episode with their cellphones in-hand, waiting for a call from their agents who will have an offer for them. They hope it's an offer for a lucrative modeling contract with Abercrombie and Fitch, but it's just another offer to be on another reality show.

"You've been invited to be on a show," says the agent, "where you will live in a house with a bunch of other reality tv stars."

"Cool," says the Real World cast member. "What's the catch?"

"You will have a colony of africanized bees living in your colon," says the agent.

"What?" says the cast member. "That's insane!"

"Hardly," says the agent. "The winner of last season's Survivor will have a full grown monitor lizard living in his ass. Plus, the bees are trained not to sting!"

And then, on the show, there will be a scene where the Real World cast member complains about the bees in his or her ass, and one of the other cast members comments in the confessional that he really complains too much about the bees. "I mean, I've got problems too! I've got a monkey up my ass, for God's sake."

Oh imagination, you are so amusing.

Amidst a montage of shaking handheld video shots of Rachel's cleavage and also Melinda's cleavage, Wes busts out with a non sequitor about how everyone thinks he sleeps in too late every morning. His justification is that he wakes up with plenty of time to do "the only thing he cares about doing," which is partying on Sixth Street. Awesome!

One of the clips is of Rachel, talking about her flight to Iraq, and how she had her 9 mil locked and loaded at her side, ready for action. Lacey says that she wanted to interview Rachel because she's so loud, and she wanted to do something that shows that there is more than just "voice level." If we were trying to emphasize something other than Rachel's big fat mouth, we'd have done something other than videotape her big fat mouth flapping with an extreme zoom. But hey, we're not pretending to be a documentary film maker.

The housemates go to the "Doc Motel," where Paul "Stek" Stekler works for a lesson or a meeting or something where everyone sits around the table and says, "yup," a lot. Stek reviews their raw, unedited footage, which must have been akin to having hot bees shoved into his skull, and gives them some feedback to the crew.

"Yeah, that's good," he says.

"That's an interesting shot," he says.

"My brain is eating itself and I blame you," he says.

Stekler's assignment to the crew for the upcoming week is to spend some time editing their footage down into something that won't cause people's optic nerve to erupt out of their heads. They return to the house with one of their training helpers and are lead down a secret hallway that, mysteriously, no one has thought to explore, probably because they were too busy getting drunk and having sex with one another. At the end of the hall is a full on Avid video editing bay. Everyone is really excited because they'll be able to ... do work ... from ... home, or something.

The next morning, Melinda is on the phone with a friend identified only as "Marcel." Marcel and Melinda speak briefly about when he will be able to come to Austin for a visit before Melinda sees something exciting on the gigantic flat panel screen next to the phone which mysteriously shows a live video feed from the front of the house. One wonders if this was installed to let the cast members peep outside before leaving the house in order to avoid having their skulls crushed by angry Austinites. Or maybe one doesn't. Regardless, what Melinda sees on the screen causes her to squeal and call out to God while rushing to the front of the house.

OMG! OMG! OMG! Danny is back!

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Danny is back, and the era of constant sobbing has finally come to an end. Lots and lots and lots of hugging has replaced the endless parade of tear soaked idiocy. Even Wes, who only gets out of bed to get into drunk, gets out of bed to give Danny a big manly hug with no homoerotic undertones whatsoever. It's an awesome day for everyone! Except Danny, who has no mother.

Danny says that he hopes he can pick up where he left off, and not feel "like something bad is gonna happen every time the phone rings." He's forgetting that bad things can also happen to him when he's walking down the street, or when he's sitting quietly at the dinner table, or in bed with Melinda. Disaster can and will strike Danny at any time, and he must be constantly vigilant from now on to avoid falling prey to cruel, cruel fate.

If only he hadn't been drunk!

To celebrate Danny's return from Boston, Wes wants to go out and get really drunk at The Dizzy Rooster. However, because of his feud with Johanna, he doesn't want any of the girls to come. In addition, Danny is once again feeling conflicted about his feelings towards Melinda because he is 22 and on reality television and it is his duty to the audience to be indecisive about things.

However, the girls want to celebrate Danny's return by going out to a big group dinner. "So we hit a snag," says Wes. "A couple of them. Some huge ones." The boys scheme to go out to dinner with the girls, but then to ditch them and go get crunked up in a bar full of sycophantic girls who will do anything to get on camera. Rachel tries to pry details of the evening's plans out of Wes while she gets ready, but Wes doesn't want to hand out details. He tells her that Danny really wants to spend a night with the boys, and that the girls should not plan on being included.

Danny and Wes leave the house together, and Wes tries to give Danny advice about his situation with Melinda. Wes finds himself in a difficult predicament. On one hand, he wants to advise Danny against getting too committed to Melinda, as there are lots of will of willing sex partners in Austin for him to enjoy. On the other hand, he doesn't want to betray his roommate Melinda by telling her boyfriend to dump her. What a quandry! Wes solves this sticky situation with aplomb -- he tells Danny to ditch Melinda and have sex with other people.

Classy!

Danny confesses that he really likes Melinda and that he is glad to be back, but on the other hand, his life is totally like MELINDA MELINDA MELINDA all the time. He just got back from burying his mom, you know, and all of a sudden his girlfriend wants to spend time with him and hav sex and stuff. That's a lot of pressure for a guy who wants to have a lot of sex with other people. He doesn't know if he can rally commit to Melinda right now because of his mom, but also because of the enormously large number of vaginas in Austin, known as the live vagina capital of the world.

The girls defeat the boys night out plan by showing up at The Dizzy Rooster, a clever move on their part that was strangely not predicted by the guys. Melinda finds Danny at the bar and comes up to give him another hug. However, Danny, perturbed about the sudden appearance of a woman whose vagina he has already sampled, decides to play hard to get and totally ignores her. As in, she whispers something into his ear, and he pretends that he didn't hear her. Zing!

"It's kinda weird," says Rache. "Cause he just got back."

Yeah, that's why it's weird.

The evening wears on. Danny sits at the bar, staring straight ahead so that he cannot see that Melinda is also in the bar. He tells Nehemiah that he feels weird about getting attached. Nehemiah gives him no advice, so Danny continues to wallow in his self-imposed self-pity.

Eventually, Melinda is overcome with the need to know what the hell is going on with her boyfriend. "All of a sudden," she says, "he's just not the same person." She approaches Danny and asks him if there is anything wrong. Danny ignores her pleas until she gets frustrated and leaves the bar with the other girls.

Melinda and Johanna and Rachel go across the street to The Blind Pig. Melinda mumbles to Johanna that she wants to "do tequila." Rachel goes on record that, though she wants to support her friend, she does not want to do so through the process of getting incredibly inebriated. Johanna, on the other hand, is perfectly comfortable providing a boozey support system for Melinda, and the proceed to pound gigantic shots of tequila.

"Wnat to take another shot, right away?" says Melinda.

Johanna does! And they do! And then, another! And, another! Etcetera1

"I am very frustrated," she mumbles in between shots, "by the way that Danny is acting." Shot of Melinda drinking. Shot of Melinda stumbling. Shot of Melinda taking off all of her clothes and dancing on the bar.

Melinda and Johanna leave the bar. They stumble into the street. At the same time, Danny and the rest of the guys leave Dizzy. The two groups run into each other, and after a tense moment, extremely drunk Melinda confronts Danny.

Melinda: Why are you acting weird tonight?

Danny: I'm not.

Melinda: You're not. You are! Well, I hope if you feel weird or if something's wrong, you would tell me.

Not much of a confrontation, we know. Come on, MTV? Couldn't you have fed Melinda some speed or something? We expected an explosion, here. Enough of this "giving everyone all the space they need" stuff. What happens when strangers live together and things get REAL? This isn't REAL, this is polite!

"It's hard to deal with Mel and it's difficult to be back and not feel whole again," says Danny. "It's tough to get through the day without crying or being upset."

Back at the house, Melinda rants drunkenly about how she shouldn't have to deal with Danny's behavior because she hasn't done anything wrong. She cries in the confessional for a few minutes, then goes to bed alone, like someone who is selfish and blind to the pain of their paramour should.

The boys return from their evening to find Johanna still awake and very drunnk. She's standing in the kitchen, talking about how drunk she is, a sure sign of being very drunk. Nobody ever says, "wow, I am totally relaxed from my two glasses of wine, and am having a wildly responsible early evening at home!" No, it's always, "Oh god, I drank soooooo much, and now I need someone to hold my hair back while I pray to the porcelein god. Like, right now!" Why is that?

Anyways.

Wes speaks up and tells Johanna that he doesn't want to talk to her when she drinks hard alcohol, because it makes her into an annoying slag. Johanna's response is that she wasn't talking to him in the first place, and that he should butt out of her drunken business.

"Fuck you," says Wes.

Wes confesses that he cares about Johanna, but that when she's drunk and beligerant, she's unattractive. And everyone knows that you cannot care for someone who is unattractive, and that being attracted to people is the only way to identify with them. But who cares, really, because Wes is the ugly one, and Johanna is dating Leo, and they're totally not a dreamy heart throb couple like Danny and Melinda who have the exact same problems, but still manage to have sex with one another.

While Wes and Johanna battle it out, and by battle it out we mean scream and giggle and chase one another around the house in their socks, eventually falling onto a giant beanbag chair together for some Real World-style making up, Danny goes into Melinda's room and tries to wake her up. He has trouble waking her up, and Rachel informs him that she has passed out from drinking too much. This, we imagine, brings up all sorts of pleasant feelings for Danny, who you may remember is the guy whose mother the drunk just died from being drunk while he was drunk and passed out. And he didn't even have to pick up the phone.

"Seeing her in that much trouble," says Danny, "makes me realize how much I love her." Clearly, due to recent events with his mother, Danny has become emotionally confused and now thinks that "disgusted by and filled with pity for" is the same feeling as "in love with." This sometimes happens when a drunken parent passes away, leading the lonely children to date people who can fill the void of alcohol abuse in their lives.

Danny picks Melinda up like a knight in puke-stained armor and carries her to the bathroom, where she vomits up dinner, half a bottle of Cuervo, and a mystery condom. He carries her back to the bed, and they snuggle drunkenly for a few minutes.

Danny tells Melinda that he came back to Austin for her, which we're sure made Melinda happy. From her POV, all of this mess is really about her not having constant access to Danny. However, just when she's become the center of the world again, Danny goes and ruins it by devolving back into a sobbing retard, blaming himself once again for missing out on his last chance to talk to his dying mother because he himself was drunk.

You'd think that, after all of this sobbing and constant expression of his guilt over drinking too much, he'd stop drinking. That would make sense, right? He learned a serious lesson about the repurcussions of alcohol abuse, right? Right?

Wrong.

And because he didn't learn the lesson, neither should we. Drinking is fun and awesome, and getting drunk makes you cool and attractive. Also, there is nothing else to do in Austin! Duh!

COME TO THE AUSTINIST HAPPY HOUR TONIGHT AT THE DRAUGHT HOUSE.

In the confessional, Danny says that he doesn't think he can continue being with Melinda. She deserves someone who can make her laugh and laugh and laugh, not cry and cry and cry. It's not fair to her, he says, that he has to, *sob*, he has to ... *splutter cough* ... has to, *sob*, cry all the time. He has no pity for the viewing audience, of course, who finds it unfair that it has to sit through the "should I date Melinda" debate for the nine thousandth time.

Sigh.

The end of this episode comes quickly after Danny's drunken and emotional confession. He goes to bed and passes out from a night of drunken emotional trauma. Ironically, he misses his last chance to call this episode and tell it how much he loves it, and it ends while he sleeps off his hangover.

Read Austinist's recaps of previous episodes of The Real World :Austin!

The Real World: Austin is fresh every Tuesday at 9pm CST. We'll recap each episode the very next morning. Or sometime the next day. Or maybe later that week.