The Real World Recap: Episode Twelve

Episode Eleven of The Real World: Austin opens in our favorite bar, The Dizzy Rooster, where girls dance on the bar cause they want to. Wes is downtown, doing the one thing gives his life meaning, which means that he is pounding shots of jaeger without showing his ID. While out, he meets a young woman of the local variety, a raven haired beauty with a pierced nose and the face of a teenager. Her name is Wren. Wes is immediately smitten.

Wes and Wren head back to the Real World house. On the way, Wes stops her and says, "I'm telling you right now, I'm not a nice guy." He goes on to explain that what he means is that he's a perfectly nice guy to men, but to women, he is a dick. This is the sort of brutal honesty that we always think will work with women, but which always, always backfires.

"I feel like I wanna be a nice guy to her," he says. "Maybe a girl like that can bring out the best in me." Like, maybe she can inspire him to do something other than sleep and booze!

Wes and Wren arrive at the house, and Wes coyly invites her in without actually inviting her in, which is another technique we have used. It goes something like this:

Boy who does not want to face possible rejection: So, if I were to say that you would be welcome to come into the house, how do you think you might respond, in that totally hypothetical situation?

Girl: Are you asking me in?

Boy: No, I'm just guaging your reaction to a hypothetical situation that might, at one time, arrise.

Girl: Ok, well, in that case, sure, I'd come in if you asked me to.

Boy who has now avoided rejection: Great! Want to come in?

Girl: Coy!

Wes makes the foolish decision of bringing Wren into the kitchen, where the alpha females in the house are lurking. They sit at the kitchen table and talk drunkenly to one another while, behind Wren's back, Johanna makes big, broad gestures of disgust and disapproval. We are familiar with this behavior, as we also have bitches living in our house. (1) When you bring a strange bitch back to the house, the bitches who live there get all upset and defensive. They lash out. Sometimes, there can even be violence.

While Wren is off camera somewhere, possibly snorting gigantic lines of cocaine in the bathroom - this is pure conjecture, obviously - Wes babbles that "every instinct in my body tells me to get rid of her."

Johanna comments that Wren looks like she is 18, and that she might have to leave early so she can make it to homeroom on time. In our mind, the difference between 18 year old Wren and 22 year old Johanna isn't much, especially if she can still remember that such a thing as homeroom exists. Doesn't that end in like, 5th grade?

Wes babbles to Wren that he thinks its really great that he met her so early on in his time in Austin. This will allow him to have sex with her regularly for at least 3 or 4 months. He says that he doesn't have the urge to conquer her like he does all other girls. There is something in her eyes that gives him the feeling that he will be with her for a while.

Prediction: We will see Wren once more, in the background, and then she will fade away forever.

In an effort to transitions moothly from the Wes and Wren plot into the Rachel and Nehemiah plot, we will recap the entire plot of this season, so far.

Seven strangers come to live together in Austin and see what happens when things get real. Danny immediately falls in love with Melinda, who dumps her boyfriend and falls in love with him. Johanna is a binge drinking slut, who gets in a fight with Nehemiah, which then causes Danny to get his ass beat by a thug on Sixth Street. Rachel's boyfriend sends her melted ice cream. Lacey's boyfriend doesn't have any legs, but isn't held down by that. Wes likes to have sex with young blonde girls, but doesn't have much luck. Danny's mom dies on Valentines day, and he spends like 12 years sobbing about it, and doubting his feelings for Melinda. Everyone is drunk, all of the time, and they do nothing but eat at fast food burrito joints within walking distance of their house. Danny has sex, Melinda has sex, Johanna has sex with Leo, Wes has a little bit of sex, Lacey has never ever had sex. But does Nehemiah have sex? And what about Rachel, who is experiencing life as a single party girl for the first time? Do they have sex?

Rachel is on her way out for a night of xxxtreme drinking at The Dizzy Rooster. She is wearing a short skirt and a tank top of some variety. She asks Wes how she looks, and he explains to her that he feels that she is like a sister to him, and that he wouldn't want her to be dancing up on a bar in the outfit she is wearing if she were his sister. Because she looks like a ho. Lacey agrees, and says that 5 out of 7 people will think youare a slut if you are dancing on the bar.

"I'm not a slut!" says Rachel. "There's acting slutty, and there's doing slutty!" MTV leaves it up to us to decide which particular version of slutty Rachel is partaking of.

Wes says, in voice over, that he wants to take Rachel under his wing and teach her how to be less annoying. Good luck.

Rachel goes out to Dizzy, and we are treated with a montage of Rachel dancing on the bar, Melinda dancing on the bar, Rachel and Melinda dancing together on the bar, and finally, Rachel making out with various and sundry young men of the night. This is the afformentioned "party single Rachel" which proceeds the inevitable transformation into "depressed army wife Rachel" when she marries her boyfriend Eric, who she met while deployed in Iraq. We all know how that kind of relationship turns out.

The night wears on, and Rachel ends up making out hardcore with Dizzy Rooster bouncer, Matt. We have met Matt on several occasions, and he is an alright guy, so on this, we must offer our congratulations. Way to go, dude! You got on TV!

Rachel goes back to the house, and ends up telling everyone that she just hooked up with Matt, the bouncer from Dizzy Rooster. "I just hooked up with Matt," she says, "the bouncer for Dizzy Rooster." Lord, the free advertising that place is getting.

Nehemiah does not approve of Rachel's behavior. "She has a tendancy," he says, "to hook up with people who are hookin' me up." MTV kindly illustrates his point with a split screen of Matt vs Collin, subtitled "MATT VS COLLIN." What Nehemiah is referring to, of course, is that these young men are ID checkers at various bars in Austin, and Nehemiah does not have a valid over 21 ID. Thus, "hookin' me up."

Naughty!

As Nehemiah expresses his dissenting opinion, Rachel stares at him with a look somewhere between surprise and total disgust. Her eyes bug out as she stares at him, and it seems almost as if she is fooling around for a minute, that she is expressing mock disdain. However, after a few seconds of intense eye bugging, she explodes and starts screaming cuss words at Nehemiah. Nehemiah has to keep the fuck out of her life, and also Rachel fucking hates living with him, and Rachel really wannts to fucking fuck him up. Rachel storms out of the kitchen, screaming, and tears her shirt off like the Hulk. Nehemiah giggles and continues to sip on his tasty beverage.

Commercial!

Back from commercial, Rachel's furious anger has not been calmed by 4.5 minutes of advertisements for American Eagle and a show about people who are forced to live as if they are in the 1970's, and she is still screaming holy murder at Nehemiah. "I don't want to talk to you for the rest of the time I live here!" she says. As she storms around the house in little circles, like a shark circling it's prey before finally closing in for the lethal blow, followed by the feeding frenzy where the shark and all of it's friends will bathe in the blood of the victim, soulless black eyes rolled back, Racehel hurls epithets at Nehemiah, calling him, amongst other things, "a week little film student."

Nehemiah laughs and laughs, and then laughs some more. His mother is a bellicose drunk / drug addict! He's heard a lot worse than "you aren't worth my love, and I regret giving birth to you," which, like, Rachel can't even come close to. We love the way Nehemiah laughs. He's a nihilist. Hoo hoo hoo, yeah girl, ok! Hoo hoo, sure you're going to "kill me dead like all those Iraqi babies." Hoo hoo!

Rachel calls Nehemiah a slut. Nehemiah tells her that she's the slut. Rachel takes a left turn from reality, and starts screaming "Come on! Hit me! Hit me!" and rushing at Nehemiah, who is still sitting calmly at the table. Again, he's seen worse.

"I'm gonna tell all your friends about you!" says Rachel. She screams in fury at the gods as Danny and Wes hold her back from attacking Nehemiah. Seriously, like a pissed off wolverine.

Everyone else in the house stares at Rachel like she is totally insane. Which she is. Danny carries screaming and incoherent, over his shoulder to the bedroom.

Wes and Nehemiah giggle in the kitchen. "Rachel paints a big bulls eye on her face," says Nehemiah. "The army didn't do that to her. Her childhood did that to her."

In the bedroom, Melinda and Johanna hold Rachel to the ground so she can't leap up and try to claw Nehemiah's eyes out. "Please let me get up so I can hit him and go home!" she says, a reference to the several people who have come before her on The Real World who went nuts and slugged someone and had to be sent home. We live in the 21st century, people. But not Rachel. She lives in a world where people settle the smallest of personal differences with intense violence. "I wish you would have an aneurism in the middle of the night and die!" she screams.

The other girls huddle around her and paw at her face, telling her to shut up and stop wishing death on people.

The next day, the boys are out for a nice lunch together at Chipotle, the best burrito place within walking distance of their house if you don't include anything not owned by McDonalds. Wes stares dreamily into space, and a little thought bubble appears with a mini-flashback of Wren.

"Wes is a sucker for love," says Nehemiah.

Wes explains that he isn't even thinking about sex with Wren. he just wants to be with her, a sentiment that reminds us too much of Danny and Melinda's sick fascination with one another. Come on, MTV. Your writing is getting weak.

MTV: What scares you the most about Wren?

Wes: That I don't ca...

MTV: Could you state that as a full sentence?

Wes: What scares me the most..

MTV: Could you start it with, "I think..."

Wes: I think what scares me the most is, with every other girl, I just think about how fast I can gether pants off. But not with Wren. I just want to be with her.

MTV: That's what we need!

OK, what is going on here? Does the rest of the world have different definition for "being with" someone that does not involve having sex with them? When we say, "I really want to be with that girl," we mean, "I really want to have sex with that girl, and also spend some non-sex time with her if necessary."

Danny puts his arm around Wes and says, "Now you know what it is to feel true love." Then, Nehemiah vomits into his burrito, then starts laughing at Wes and Danny, who are totally pussy whipped.

Later, Wes calls Wren to see what she's doing. She tells him that, duh, she's going downtown to, duh, The Dizzy Rooster. Wes tells her that he has already made plans to go out for a guy's night with Danny, and Wren immediately hangs up on him. Zing.

Wes runs to Johanna's bed and flops down next to her. He explains what has just happened with Wren. "She seems really sensitive right now," says Johanna, which means, "Yeah, I agree she is totally a bitch and I am offering you an opportunity to take advantage of all that God gave me."

Johanna decies that she doesn't have to be mad at Wes anymore for having sex with someone else, because she has realized she still has his testicals on a keychain, and that he will always come crawling back to her when he has no one else. "I really love his company," she says.

Rachel, who seems to have regained some of her sanity for a brief second, explains that there is a lot of sexual tension between Wes and Johanna.

Wes and Johanna leave the house without Danny and run to The Dizzy Rooster hand in hand. They dance the dance of the forbidden night, which involves Johanna rubbing her butt against Wes' crotch while Wes looks awkward, but also gropes Johanna's inner thigh. Johanna turns to Wes and suggets they start making out. They do. We pity Leo, who must have taken a single night off to have a nice night at home, thus breaking his vigilante watch at Dizzy Rooster that had, until then, kept Johanna's always moist panties on her ass.

Wes is like, "You gotta do it, because you may never get a chance to do it again."

There is more making out. More sexy hottt xxx dancing. Johanna pushes Wes up against the wall with her tongue. Wes grabs her ass. We think we've seen pictures of this on the internet.

Commercial! And a cold shower!

Back from commercial, Johanna tells Lacey all about her and Wes making out at a bar, because girls can't keep their fucking mouths shut. Hey, I'm a ho, but guess what? SO IS WES!

Lacey is, of course, floored. This is because she has no idea how normal people interact with members of the opposite sex, and that yes, it really does all come down to sex. Her reasoning: Johanna is so far out of Wes' league!

Flashback! Wes explains his plan to punish Johanna for not immediately returning his affections. Should she ever succumb, he would immediately pull back from their first kiss, walk away and say, "this is what you could'a had!"

Wes and the boys, also very drunk, sit together on a big beanbag chair and gab. Danny doesn't believe it happened, but is very happy to hear that the possibility of it happening has arrisen. They hug for a little while and mumble about the joys of having found your soul mate.

Nehemiah interupts their moment of mutual masturbation and says, "I lost respect for both you guys. Wait, not you guys. Johanna, mainly." Nehemiah wants Wes to penetrate Johanna's vagina with his penis, post haste.

Wes is being coy, so Nehemiah and Danny hit him with pillows. They roll around together on the giant bean bag chair, giggling and having a gay old time. Nehemiah calls out that Wes has to "hit thast peruvian shit," or else he will be "a little bitch."

"Please," says Nehemiah. "For me."

"For America!" says Danny.

"America!" they say together.

Wes stumbles into the kitchen and sits down next to Johanna. In a brilliant strategic move, he tells her that he likes to make out with her, but also likes to make out with Wren. Johanna tells him that she likes to make out with other people too. They make an agreement that they can make out with whoever they want to, whenver they want. In one swift move, Wes, the ugly one, has managed to score himself an open relationship with Johanna, the hot peruvian one.

Meanwhile, Rachel calls her dad. "My roommate called me a slut!" she says. "Like, a real slut."

Her dad tells her to say, "Shut the fuck up and get out of my life," which is pretty much what she did say, which proves that Nehemiah was right -- it was her childhood that made the into the insane monster she is today.

"I don't understand why I got so angry, or why I freaked out," says Rachel. She thinks it might be PTSD - that's post traumatic stress disorder, for those who don't know, and for those who want more information, MTV kindly pops a little bubble into the corner of the screen with a web link to mtv.com's special PTSD awareness page. From the war, of course. Where she was in the shit.

Danny takes her out for a walk along town lake, to talk about Iraq. She's been talking a lot about it, explains Danny, but nobody ever listens. He's going to take the time to listen for once, instead of just dismissing her as a slutty nutball.

They sit down by the lake, and the tells Danny her tale of woe. The worst thing, she says, was being scared 24-hours a day. There is "not one second where you feel safe," she says.

Danny tells her that he secretly has an American flag tattooed on his ass, and has an "I support the troops" yellow ribbon tied round his balls, and thus is very proud of what she has done, and that he respects her experiences.

"Danny and I have a brother / sister relationship," says Rachel.

Danny encourages Rachel to tell Nehemiah about her experiences, but she doesn't want to. "I don't think nehemiah is worth the time or the effort," says Rachel. "Because he's black."

The episode comes to a close over a montage of Rachel looking furtively at Nehemiah as he shoots hoops. Rachel stares, Nehemiah shoots. Hoo hoo hoo, he says. Rachel stares.

Fin!

Footnotes:

1. Two bitches live with us at our home. One is a lab, and the other is some sort of strange Australian Shepard mix. Their names are Lola and Bowie.

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.