Charm School Finale! It’s Like Getting a Real Diploma, Only Without the Whole Learning Thing

Greetings Gasmii. Have you ever wondered why it takes me so long to get my recaps up after a show has aired? If you guessed that it’s because I’m a lazy procrastinator with a mild to moderate drinking problem then you’re only half-right. Allow me to paint a picture for you of my writing process. First, let’s set the scene: It is currently hovering around 100 degrees outside most hours of the day here in Reno. I have air conditioning, but it’s in the living room. My computer is in my room, so if I don’t want to have my room turn into a sauna I HAVE to keep the door open at all times. When my door is open my cat is free to come and go as he pleases. This is what I have to deal with the entire time I’m trying to recap.

The sad thing is, I think Dante (that’s the cat) is right. Staring at him is way more entertaining than watching Charm School.So our final episode of Charm School 3 opens with a recap of Kip locking Pornstalk in the bathroom and shoving hotdogs under the door for her. The edges aren’t blurry, so clearly no one is currently remembering this happening. Then we see her call Bubbles retarded. Twice. Funny thing is, Vh1 bleeps out the word “Retarded” now. Seriously? I get that it’s a fucked up thing to call someone, but since when does Vh1 care if they offend us? And why don’t they care that they’re offending my sense of decency AND my intelligence with every new show they produce.

We get the obligatory series of clips of Kip saying she wants to be a better person, then being a bitch, then saying she’s really changed, then being a bitch… Lather rinse repeat. No one cares.

Up next is this fine specimen of charm and grace:

The word tequila is said something like seven times in ten seconds, and then there’s a nice montage of Marcia drinking, burping, drinking, yelling, drinking, and eventually jumping naked into a pool.

Thank god they’re showing us this recap of the season because apparently Marcia quit drinking. I had no idea. It’s weird how they never mentioned that on the show…

Risky is up next, and I honestly don’t remember her ever being all that bad. They try and make her out to be a thug or something by showing her screaming at Porn Stalk, but come on! It’s fucking Porn Stalk. Gandhi himself would have punched that bitch in the throat if locked in a house with her for ten minutes.

We see Risky learning to open up and talking about being afraid of being judged or getting hurt. I already made fun of this once this season, but seriously, who on earth isn’t? This isn’t a break-through, honey. Not even if you cry while you’re saying it.

So this is it. It all comes down to this. Who will it be? The bitch? Haha, not likely. The ex-drunk? Hmmm… Maybe, but it’s a longshot. Or the girl with no real major personality issues who was so boring I never even gave her a nickname? Yeah, I think you know where my money’s at.

Are we done watching crap we’ve already seen yet? Awesome. I know that people have short attention spans and need to be reminded of everything all the time, but re-recapping the same scenes kinda makes my head hurt.

In New Orleans, the ladies are packing up and getting ready to head back to L.A.

It’s now morning-time in L.A. and the girls are all sitting around talking about how stressed out and nervous they are. Stryker saunters in and tells them all to put on their uniforms and be down in the lecture hall in ten minutes. In a misguided attempt to build suspense, Vh1 plays a soundtrack of a heartbeat while everyone is getting ready. I guess it’s supposed to symbolize nerves or something, but it just made me feel like I was back in the womb. Honestly, if you’re going to do something that lame with the sound, at least make it a heart that’s beating fast. Slow heartbeats don’t strike fear in the heart of mortals.

So everyone does the death march down to the lecture hall. Stryker is waiting for them with their final commandment: Thou Shall be Fully Charmed.

Stryker tells them they’ll be reacquainted with people from their pasts, and in walk Risky’s mom, Kip’s boyfriend and son, and Marcia’s mom.

There’s bonding and tours of the school and lots of crying for the next ten minutes or so. That ten minutes of my life is already gone, but there’s no reason to drag all of you down with me, so let’s just skip over that boring crap.

Kip tells her boyfriend she thinks their kid is gonna be gay because he loves jewelry and pink and purple. Neither one of them seem to have a problem with it if he is, so that’s nice. I’d way rather have an accepting mom who takes her clothes off for money than a respectable one that can’t admit she has a gay child.

Once everyone is all caught up with their loved ones they all head down to the lecture hall to talk to that annoying fear doctor. We see a clip of her the last time she was on Charm School, but the edges are blurry and that confuses me because I have no idea who’s memories I’m looking at.

Fear Quack pulls the families into her lair one at a time to get them to really “open up” to each other and begin the healing process. Risky and her mom go first and play some convoluted shrink game called T.A.G. See, T is for truth, A is for Amends, and my guess would be G is for Graditude. Today’s show is brought to you by the letters T, A, and G, and by the number 12.

During the truth portion Risky tells her mom that she doesn’t blame her for the bad things in her life. During the most evasive and vague apology ever from Mama Risky, Ricki manages to figure out that Risky’s step-dad is the one that molested her as a kid and it put a strain on their relationship for a long time. Yep, not making fun of that. Sorry. Move along, nothing to see here.

Moving along our fun little acronym, it’s time to make Amends. Risky tells her mom that she’s sorry for blaming her for her own bad decisions.

The doc pries a little and Risky tells her mom she’s sorry for letting the situation with her step-dad go on as long as it did, for not telling her until it was too late for her to do anything. Her mom says, “I forgive you” and I suddenly want to punch her. You don’t fucking accept an apology from your child because your husband touched them inappropriately. You tell them to stop apologizing, that you’re the one that’s sorry, and that they didn’t do anything wrong. Bad parenting. Bad!

Now it’s Risky’s mom’s turn to make an apology.

Risky and her mom cry and hug, and Ricki makes her patented concerned face.

On to Gratitude. Yeah, not much to recap here. They tell each other thank you for being awesome and wonderful and made up of sunshine and rainbows. Session over.

Kip and her boyfriend James are up next. You may remember James as the “Ex” that came to Whore Bus during Ex-boyfriend week. Apparently the ex part was a little bit of a stretch. Doc McSuckerson tells them that they’re gonna play a little game. Called T.A.G. And then explains the rules. Again. Is this the only method you have doc? You’re on television for fucks sake! Hows about a little variety?

During the Truth portion of the game we learn that James has cheated on Kip. A lot. She doesn’t think he loves her the same way that she loves him, and that scares her. Generally when guys cheat on you all the freakin time it’s a pretty good sign that they don’t love you, but you enjoy your little cloud of denial there, hon.

James swears that he would never cheat on Kip again, and then does some lame guy thing where he says that it’s not right that she says he doesn’t love her and much as she loves him. If he weren’t being all macho and stupid he would have just told her he loved her more than she’d ever know or something cheesy like that. He’s kind of a douchebag, and his facial hair makes me want to throw things.

I guess we’ve moved on to the Amends portion without an official announcement, but James apologizes for cheating and Kip apologizes for being a giant bitch sometimes.

We don’t actually see the Gratitude portion of their session, so it must have been really entertaining, because Vh1 only edits out scenes that would make you want to actually tune into their shows.

Marcia’s turn! They bring in an interpreter, which confuses the living hell out of me. I know the doc doesn’t speak Portugese, but Marcia speaks both languages just fine and could have easily translated for her mom. Vh1 is so bloody weird.

We’re in for another rousing game of T.A.G. Woohoo!

Marcia cries and stalls for a while, but eventually admits to her mom that she’s an alcoholic. Some asshole in production made Marcia speak to her mom in English while the interpreter translated, and that’s just lame. I know Americans don’t like to read, but I think we can handle three minutes of subtitles so that they can share a touching family moment. Jerks.

Ricki tells Marcia that she’s a very strong woman, and Marcia says her dickhead stepfather made her strong with his constant beatings. It is so evil step-dad week on Charm School. Single moms, heed this advice: Never remarry.

So the doctor lady pries some more and tries to get Marcia to tell her mom how much she hates her step-dad. Marcia decides she’d rather protect her mom than listen to the shrink, and that’s the end of their session. Damn, that was quick.

The moms and the boyfriend and the kid head back to their lives and the ladies sit around discussing their therapy sessions. Hey, you know what’s more boring than watching people cry and tell each other the truth? Having to watch those same people talk about it ten minutes later.

Marcia cries a lot. Like a LOT. She’s super worried that her mom is disappointed in her for being an alcoholic. I think that if you marry an abusive man and make him a part of your daughter’s life then you’re probably gonna be able to forgive your kid for mainlining tequila. Let’s keep things in perspective, eh?

At lunch (or breakfast or dinner or whatever meal corresponds with whatever time of day it is) the ladies all talk about how much they love that doctor lady. Ricki comes in to remind everyone that someone will leave with a hundred thousand dollars, cause I’m sure those ladies got so devoted to making a change in themselves that they totally forgot about the money. So, much like all previous seasons of this stupid show, Ricki tells them all to go write a speech about what they’ve learned and how they’ve changed and why they deserve to win. Marcia is not pleased.

Marcia tells us in confessional that she’s no good at writing “Spitches.” Haha, I love bad English when spoken by bilingual people. Oddly enough, bad English when spoken by English speaking natives rather frequently drives me into a blind rage.

The girls all get evening gowns to wear for the night, and they all act really surprised that they got dresses. Do none of these people ever watch the previous seasons of the show?

Kip can’t figure out how to spell Ricki’s name, which is so awesome.

Ya know, I’m not generally a cheater, but if I were going on a show where a hundred grand were on the line and I knew I was barely literate and would have to write a speech, I would pay one of my really smart friends to write it for me before I started the show and then just add a few specifics when the season ended. That’s probably why I’ll never be on any of these shows.

Time to face the firing squad and make a final plea for the cash. Oh, did I say cash? I totally meant made-up diploma. That’s the true prize.

Kip reads her speech first, and tells us she’s very very nervous. We get pretty much what we expect. When she got to Charm School she just wanted to party, but then she realized she wanted to be a better mother **cry for effect** and make her son proud. She was proud of herself for the first time in New Orleans when she helped out the less fortunate. She says she’s not a mean girl anymore and gets back in line.

Risky is up next. She says she’s changed and she wants to win so she can use the money to help out kids who’s dads are in prison. She cries a lot, and then reveals that her brother is in jail for beating up her step-dad after he molested her. She cries even more, says it’s hard for her to open up but she’s opening up now. She swears she’ll be a Charm School graduate with honor.

Last up is Marcia, with her “spitch.” Hehe, that’s my new favorite word. Marcia thinks she should win because she stuck to her pledge not to drink, and then opened up to her mom about it. She disappointed her mom and now she wants to make her proud again. She says she’s already a winner, and I vote that we make that phrase an automatic cessation of any available prize because I’m so goddamn sick of hearing it.

The judges discuss the speeches. Lala tells the skanks that they’re her heroes, and then Ricki walks up to give out a diploma. Who will it be? Before we find out Vh1 treats us to a bunch of back and forth shots of everyone working on their sad/concerned face for about three minutes. No really, Look:

Ricki says it came down to the speeches, and then announces that the winner is Risky. Risky cries a lot while accepting her diploma, Ricki cries a lot while giving it, and I bash my head into stuff until I realize I’m done with this show after this.

So blah blah, you broke down your walls, blah blah you’re brave, blah blah I’m proud. There’s hugging and congratulating and Marcia and Kip pretend like they’re happy for Risky.

That’s it! NO MORE CHARM SCHOOL!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

So I was supposed to be taking over Tool Academy next week but it has magically disappeared from Vh1′s fall line-up, so I’ll be recapping that show about the two lesser Kardashian sisters moving to Florida and doing stuff. Maybe sell clothes or something? I’ve never actually seen an episode of the Kardashian show.