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Did you also find last night’s episode of Real World: Brooklyn boring? After two weeks of fascinating and complicated character portraits, this week’s episode seemed painfully thin. There were four main storylines:
- Baya and Ryan are flirting
- Devyn and Scott are flirting
- Katelynn and strangers are flirting
- Ryan plays guitar
What’s surprising about these plotlines is how unsurprising they are. We’re on classic Real World ground here. It’s the kind of Abercrombie and Fitch-styled light teen romantic melodrama that has made the show such a summer bummer over the last few seasons. What’s been good about RW: BKLYN so far is how it hasn’t been about shit like this. Oh well. We’re about to find out what happens when people stop being interesting and start getting Real World: Austin-y.
We don’t even need to talk about Devyn and Scott. Their flirtation is such an obvious attempt on the part of the show’s producers to cook up some kind of interest between two duds that it’s not worth dignifying with a discussion. He slaps her with some raw chicken. She creates a “BFF-o-meter,” which I think measures how 12-years-old she is. Do you think they’ll hook up? Well then you’re thinking about this TOO MUCH. The only interesting thing to come of their flirtation occurs during an episode in which Scott’s friend Alex visits the house, which Devyn thinks is his attempt to make her jealous. That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the way in which Alex’s visit in some small way continues to further the complicated speculation on Chet’s cloudy sexuality.
“She’s a model, so obviously I’m attracted to her because that’s what I read in the book on Types of Girls That Straight Guys Are Supposed to Be Attracted To.” He really is something special.
Katelynn, meanwhile? Still transgendered! She is having trouble with her boyfriend who won’t call her or email her, so she begins to drink heavily on what appears to be a regular basis and flirt with as many guys as she can lay her hands on. Fair enough, but also boring enough. It just goes to show you: when you turn off the lights, everyone’s dating problems are categorically uninteresting. There are some issues raised on when it’s appropriate to tell someone that you’re interested in that you are transgendered, which would be interesting if they actually dealt with it, but they don’t really. So that’s cool. You wouldn’t want to waste too much time on an emotionally complicated issue like that when there’s so much by-the-book playground-ponytail-pulling going on between Ryan and Baya. We did learn another interesting fact about transgendered people this week, though: they go on dates to David Chang’s Momofuku Noodle Bar, too!
Ryan is the real star of this week’s episode, though. He continues to be the second most interesting person in the house (after Chet). He is so open and eager! This week he wants to pursue his music career, which seems like maybe it’s not that great of an idea. There’s a big difference between playing guitar for your seven roommates in one of the compound’s bedrooms because none of the neighborhood bars will let a camera crew in, and a music career. But OK! Team Ryan! He goes to visit with some record producer who calls himself Machine, which is his first mistake, and he takes Chet with him, which is his second mistake. Apparently Ryan never heard the expression “the early bird doesn’t take Chet with him to the record producer’s studio.” When Machine (seriously, Machine, you are an adult, time to go back to Dave, or whatever your real name is) asks Ryan for a song, instead of playing one of his heartfelt, obviously-cathartic Iraq War songs, which if not successful would at least be appropriate for the occasion, he asks Chet’s advice, which is his final and most painful mistake:
Woof. You never get a second chance to play the tampon song. Is there some way to make this emoticon frown harder 
? How about this: . Anyway, Ryan goes home and drowns his sorrows in a dull mixed-message flirtation with Baya (who wants to be a DJ this week? A natural progression from learning you’re a terrible dancer) that includes a Perfect-style co-ed pole-dancing class, and ends with Devyn offering to make Baya a “BFF-o-meter” of her own, because childishness recognize childishness.
Next week: Sarah gets a spooky phone call that brings her to tears, but the real question is: WILL SCOTT AND DEVYN EVER DO IT?
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This is the worst-written sitcom on television.
Please wake me up when these relatively earnest and innocent cast members are thrown into the desperation and GHB fueled fire of their first MTV Challenge. “Hi, I’m Katelynne. Nice to meet you Johnny Bananas.” ugh
I disagree that Ryan is the second most interesting person in the house (though you are totally right about Chet). For me it would be either Sarah (for her amazing abilty to feign sincerity) or Katelynn (yeah the transgender thing is over, but did you forget she can also DO KARATE!)
Ryan is a total guitar douche.
“She’s a model… and I’m Chet. DUH!” hahaha! they should give him his own show. kinda like Joe Millionaire only his would be Chet Straight.
I’m sorry, but Ryan, if you want to be a PROFESSIONAL musician, shouldn’t you want to see a PROFESSIONAL music producer?? Ryan=tool of 09
I haven’t watched RW since it was good (I’m 29, so I think we can all agree that means RW:SF) I also don’t have cable so still not watching it but between you and Rich, I feel like I’m right there. Thanks you guys!
btw, i’m loving that spread eagle pose ryan’s got going in that first pic. sooooo hot!
So. Here’s my thing. I don’t think Chet is gay. I don’t know this for certain, but I don’t think he is. Sure, he displays some of the outward markers we associate with gay dudes. But beyond that? I’m not really seeing anything. My conspiracy theory: people want Chet to be gay because people like to think that people of fundamentalist faiths are all closet cases.
I bet the blurred-face dudes who made out with Katelynn are damn happy they didn’t sign a waiver now.
Ok, but to be fair, technically he didn’t want to play the tampon song.
What makes Ryan different from all the guys who play guitar and sing their “own material” at my campus coffeshop hangout is
I keep waiting for Katelynn to undermine JD’s paternalistic “I am a beacon of tolerance and respect” shtick by telling him to stop cornering her. I actually cringed when JD asked Katelynn whether or not the guy she had dinner with “knew.” Uh, JD, when Katelynn tells people she is trans, she’s volunteering something about her life experience, not “revealing her true identity” or something.
With JD policing her interpersonal reactions, Chett/Ryan disrespecting her female identity and Sarah’s patronizing “you’re being a total girl about this” nonsense, I can see where Katelynn’s insecurity comes from.
In defense of JD he asked if “Mike” knew, Mike is Katelynne’s (sp) bf from back home (wherever that may be), that she was going out with someone else.
My 8 cents
Baya – *raised eyebrow* Seriously? Dancer/DJ?
Devyn – BFFometer…*sigh*
Katelynne (sp?) – *blah*transgender*blah*sexual*blah*mumble mumbleZZZZZZZZ
Scott – Who?
Ryan – Best one liners/expressions bar none
Chet – defies logic because he very well maybe straight (even though i don’t believe that)
Sarah – meh
JD – psychotic break waiting to happen, I identify with JD but he seems like a powder keg of emotions just waiting to explode…am I alone in thinking this? Also am i the only one who cringes when he says he’s just building a new family? Something in that anal lube and extra large condom is just not clean is all I’m saying.
Admit it. Even when this show is boring, its still interesting. I mean these are “generally” real people dealing with “generally” real issues and that’s always captivating one way or the other… Also, is it just me or does Scott also come off as of the homo-persuasion, lol. I know its hard for straight people to think of All -American masculine guys like Scott to be so, but they exist whether society acknowledges them or not. The way he flirts with Devyn in the house is the kind of “I feel comfortable around you is all” kind of flirtation that girls mistake me (a masculine gay guy) of being sexual flirtation. And then he has that model of a best friend who says they’ve never had a fling and Scott’s like a brother to her. That’s fishy. Plus he kept jumping into her and Devyn’s convo like “What did you tell her!?!” …lol. Me thinks that pixelated girlfriend of his is a cover up and thats why he failed to mention her before.
why in god’s name would you give your pitch to a producer without a budget? did he plan on paying for that with his veteran’s pension? or with the show’s money? or what? i’m so confused, yall…
There may be truth to your “Conspiracy Theory” Captain Awesome but you gotta admit that Chet IS giving us viewers plenty reasons for us to think him a closet case. I mean, aside from his clothing “style”, questionable interest in a gay man’s penis, and awkward dealings with “supposed” female interest, there’s still that time where he sung that lyric of his, “I think he (Scott) is cute”. If that doesn’t SCREAM bicuriosity, I don’t know what does. It was totally out of left-field and then awkwardly covered up with “Wait…what?” which was like the icing on the cake.