This week's snoozefest centered around Willie and his need for some straight up man loving. He ushered us into this installment with a desperate plea for booty. "I'm DYING for love," he complained. Somewhere, a disco ball went on. Unfortunately for the Willster, he's got this pesky tendency to be "faithful", whatever that means. Ranking as the second most offensive pestilence in the Real World house (behind scabies), fidelity has not treated Willie well. You see, his exuberantly bland boyfriend, Dan, is a personal flight attendant, which means he's globetrotting to Rome and Paris and Milan while Willie's getting slurpies at the 7 Eleven. And no, "slurpies at the 7 Eleven" is not a euphemism for "back alley sex" (although I'm more than happy to coin a phrase for the English lexicon).

Poor Willie. Instead of cranking up the Madonna and making sweet, fabulous love to his boyfriend, he's left alone in a house full of crazy women and jockish men whose homosexuality is only at the burgeoning, Greco-Roman Wrestling stage (Karamo excluded). Oh, and just to illustrate this point, Bunim/Murray ended this little sequence with three cutaway shots: a flagpole, a tall clocktower, and a banner for the ballet. It was the producers' way of saying "He's horny... and gay!" I'm surprised we didn't see a bunch of penises dancing on a rainbow.

The next morning, Willie arranged quite the lovely breakfast plate for himself as he voiced his sexual frustration to Sarah —  a.k.a. the bored girl reading US Weekly (I'm glad to see that the viewers aren't the only ones who don't really care about any of this). After Willie had clocked in a sufficient amount of babbling time, he later went out to Pure, which is apparently the only gay club in Philly. Nay, it's the only club PERIOD. Does anyone else realize how many evenings — gay or straight — wind up at this place? Somewhere in this episode there was talk of a place called "Shampoo", but surely my ears were deceiving me since no roomie except Melanie would ever venture beyond the safe confines of Pure, lest a wayward barstool find itself lodged in Landon's head again. Hmmm... Shampoo... Pure... and there's that famous gay club in NYC called Splash. Does anyone else get the feeling these owners are simply pulling their business names from Pantine commercials?

Anyway, welcome back from my tangent. At Pure, Willie, in need of some lovin' for his very own Willie, started making out with MJ. Wait, what? Did I just see that? Oh, never mind. No. That blonde curly mess of hair was simply Neil. Meet Neil, boys and girls. Neil was the latest in a long string of reality guests to grace a Real World cast, and this week he played the role of seductive other-man turned jilted lover (turned perm spokesman). Willie praised the guy's masculine presence, although truth be told, it's not very hard to seem masculine next to Willie. All Neil had to do was wear a non-sleeveless shirt to make Willie practically exclaim "He's like a young Clint Eastwood!"

Well, the two went on a romantic date and then decided to hit up the local bar scene, which in this case meant visiting Pure once again. Wait, didn't we just see this scene like twelve time already this episode? Maybe the producers have given up and are just recycling footage.

Later, Sarah, who just last week chastened Mel for being the most judgmental person EVER, passed, er, judgment on Neil. She confessed to Willie that she simply does not like the new ragamuffin, calling him boring and bland. Wait, was she talking about Neil or Dan? Or Both? Excuse me while I nod off.

Actually, Sarah lurves Dan. "Dan's fabulous!" she exclaimed in an interview, adding "And I mean that on all levels, sweetheart!" Luckily for her, the busy flight attendant put his wanderlust on hold and made a trip down to Philly just to visit his Chilly Willie. And what, pray tell, did they do? Why, they went to PURE. DAMMIT. Cut to their next meeting with the Philadelphia Soul: "We have a great idea. Let's build the playground in Pure! Actually, let's have the football games there too. Better yet, let's go on another STA Travel vacation... to Pure!"

Unfortunately, as the math geniuses out there may have already figured out, Willie had two boys, which was one too many for a monogamous relationship. Feeling the brunt of this was needy Neil who claimed he had no idea Willie was still in a relationship. I guess that whole cryptic "I'm seeing someone" line wasn't quite clear enough. And so the short-lived, vaguely tepid romance between Neil and Willie came to an end as the two bickered politely on the phone and bid adieu.

Elsewhere in the episode, the roomies tried to figure out the mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a do-rag known as Karamo. Employing a small army of euphemisms, people tried to say everything but "He's an angry, black male." Landon went for a vague description, remarking: "Karamo's just weird. Just weird." Sarah was slightly more empowering: "Karamo is unique." and MJ was succinct when he simply said: "Purple." Then again, MJ had apparently been saying "purple" for three days straight.

Posted by B-side on February 18, 2005 12:22 PM