The Real World: Philadelphia - Episode 11 Summary

'Reprehensible' By Skiver

Is anyone still watching this show? For you, I have but one question: Why?

This week, I'm watching it too. But I have to. In what is increasingly looking like an act of purest, distilled, chill-filtered stupidity, I agreed to summarize every third episode of a show I despise, so now I'm stuck with writing about the dispiriting, distasteful actions of seven irritating morons one week in every three. And this on the heels of the election. I should just kill myself.

So let's see what fragrant crap they are serving up this week on this eternally shite show - but first, some background.

In case you haven't noticed, every Real World episode has four main components to it - or five, if you count the shite. Here are the four, in order:
1. The Set Up. This is where the editors lay the groundwork for the argument that's about to happen.
2. The Argument. Having established where two random house mates are coming from on some divisive issue, those same two now argue about it, call each other names, and complain about each other in confessional and to the other house mates.
3. The Filler. This is where the house mates get to indulge in some useless piece of busy work, to make it look like they don't spend all their time getting drunk and failing to get laid.
4. The Reconcilliation. Now that they've had a chance to cool down and engage in pointless, result-free work together, it's time for the two feuding housemates to hug and make up, resetting the show so that the whole thing can begin again next week.

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So now, in slightly more detail, I give you this eleventh episode of 'The Real Word, Philadelphia.

The Set Up

The argument this week is going to be triggered by the messiness of the house, so they begin by showing us shots of the kitchen and bathroom of the house that both look like a whoop of baboons have been occupying them for several generations. Landon and MJ are in the hot tub when Willie begins complaining about the mess. He claims that if it wasn't for him, the house wouldn't be livable. Evidently he figures that his mere fabulous presence is enough to compensate for the mess, because it isn't possible that he's been doing any cleaning.
“Six pigs,” he says contemptuously - and miscounting. “Six pigs that live in a house.”

Sarah then takes it on herself to clean the place. This is what they've come to. The screwed-up, permanently-baffled hound Sarah is the most selfless among them.
After she's cleaned bathroom, kitchen, steps, etc, she tells Karamo that she can't believe the house is clean. What did she think was likely to be the result of her brushing and scrubbing? Did she think she was just moving the dirt around?
Karamo asks if she's tired, and she says she's been cleaning for four hours. He then asks if she's going to sleep. Her answer is later shown to have much significance, and here it is:

'Yes'.

Remember that, folks. This is the set up phase, after all.

Meanwhile, Landon and MJ at the bar. Landon is wearing a t-shirt with 'Wingman' written across the chest. In confessional, still wearing the t-shirt, he says that a wingman is what he is. (He is also a dickhead and a scumbag, but I guess he doesn't often choose to wear either of those t-shirts) - and MJ is his wingman. “I'm there for him, and he's there for me. It's understood. That's just guy code,” he says. Yet if I understand that 'code' correctly - and I'm a guy, remember - that last statement just means they're gay.

The two gays - sorry, guys - return to the house. Landon microwaves some of that soup that comes in a plastic container, and burns his hand on the hot plastic. He yells and complains about the burn as much as if he'd poured the molten lead into his eye sockets.

Which brings us to...

The Argument

Sarah is woken by Landon's yelling, and goes out to the balcony to complain. The ball-headed jerk Landon defends his noise-making by pointing out that Willie and his friends were raising a rukus until five am on the previous morning, and he - the virtuous, moral Landon - had not complained. “It's just not me,” he says - though if it isn't him aggravating everyone else in the house and the million or so of the viewing public who are unlucky enough to be watching, who was it?
Landon then defends himself by saying that Willie and his friends kept him up until 5:30 the previous night. Willie complains that Landon said nothing about it at the time, but Landon again says that to complain is 'not me'.

Sarah begins her prepared remarks on the fact that she spent four hours cleaning that previous evening.

“That was your choice,” Landon says gratefully. “It doesn't give you the right to start bitching at me.”

MJ confessionals that Landon is very internal with stuff that happens around the house and lets it build up. This is his sorry excuse for the shitty behavior of his 'wingman'. He was too scared to confront a bunch of gay guys at five in the morning, so now - a day later - he's taking out on a girl. What a piece of work Landon is.

“Don't talk to me, ever,” says a frustrated Sarah (in more ways than one - and the trailer for next week's show, in which she is shown trying to bed a gay guy, seems to imply that the number of things that frustrate her will not be shrinking any time soon).

“Fvck off,” responds Landon. The word was beeped, but it's plain what he said.

Sarah retreats behind the curtain and goes off to commiserate with Willie.
“I don't know what man tells a woman to fvck off,” says Willie in confessional. “That's, like, completely rude!” You think, Willie? Perhaps you'd also like to remind us of the morality of stealing jewelry from penniless old ladies (“That's, like, completely unfair!”) or the rights and wrongs of murder (“That's, like, completely wrong!”) Still, at least Willie has some idea of morality, unlike the rest of them.

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