Real World: There Is A House In New Orleans…

Let’s call it the rising sun.

Will it be the ruin of many a drunken fame whore?

I hope so, because then we have won.

We start off in the snowy Wisconsin winter, where we learn why MTV has not gone there for a RW season:

Eight strangers picked to live in a cheese castle? Probably not a gouda idea.

 

But the real reason we’re there is to meet our first roommate: Knight, 23, from Kenosha, WI. Basically, since he lives so close to the northern border, he’s vaguely Canadian. This is evidenced by his accent as well as the fact that he and his friends are “playing some puck.” He loves hockey and being the most hated player on the ice. Will this translate to being the most hated roomie in the house?

He tells us about a shoulder injury that sidelined him from his favorite sport but also, more importantly, got him addicted to painkillers. Two minutes in and we have our first sob story. Excellent. His drug counselor is worried about him not having any support in New Orleans. My favorite part is that I read him described somewhere as “sober.” Yes, he is off the pain pills, but I’ve already seen this episode once through and (spoiler alert) his “sobriety” does not extend to all aspects of the word. He tells us he hasn’t taken pills in “half a year” (do they give “half a year” sober chips in Narcotics Anonymous?) which is not a long time, but he’s proud of it.

I’ll be proud of you if you can tell me how many months “half a year” is.

 

Now we head allll the way south to Mississippi (you know we’re in the south because there are cows in fields and crosses in the ground) to meet Jemmye, 21, from Starkville, MS. She has a HEAVY Southern accent, which she says causes people to assume she’s a good Christian girl, but rest assured: she loves tattoos and only needs men for their dicks. She has 6 tattoos and her personal favorite is her “vajayjay tattoo” which MTV has to cover up with a cartoon Mardi Gras mask. Sometimes, I don’t mind censorship so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newest mentally disabled character on South Park: Jemmyehhhh!

Knight is checking out ladies and hoping he meets a bombshell roommate when up walks McKenzie, 21, from Jupiter, FL. She’s a sweet looking girl from a small beach town and we don’t really learn much else except that Knight is the first person she’s met from Wisconsin.

Next up is Preston, 22, from Boston, MA. He tells us he has an amazing sense of fashion, which he proves by calling out to a stranger about her bag.

And moonlighting as an amateur umbrella model.

Preston meets Jemmye first, and his first impression of her is that she looks like a “complete” stripper. As opposed to a partial stripper, who gets down to her skivvies and then chickens out? Preston also channels his inner stripper and tells her he’s so excited he’s going to “explode like freaking glitter everywhere.”

A man offers them some of the “flavor of New Orleans” via some seafood because let’s not forget there was a time, not so long ago, when fish were able to swim freely through the Gulf without being suffocated by oil. Except these fish probably don’t care about that since they were caught and killed by fishermen. Anyway, Preston is a little shy but Jemmye learns the proper way to eat the fish: suck the head:

And the fish selling guy gets a new image for his Spank Bank.

Ashlee, 23, from Boston, MA: has lips the size of sausages. Seriously, Angelina Jolie’s lips are cowering in the corner. She went to Northeastern on a full Division 1 basketball scholarship, which is awesome for her, but I’m pretty sure she works at Home Depot now. They don’t explicitly tell us, she just does power tool demonstrations in an orange shirt, but I’m taking a shot in the dark.

Dunkin Donuts should hire her to walk around making this face all day so people crave strawberry frosted doughnuts subconsciously. I think DD is even based in Boston! I am brilliant.

Eric, 24, from Arlington VA, is an International Relations Specialist who travels a lot and does standup comedy for fun. He tells us he’s good, and I am just so sure. Also, his eyes are almost as distracting as Ashlee’s lips, but they are a much more welcome distraction if you ask me.

All good standup comics have dreamy eyes, right?

Sahar, 21, from Dearborn, MI is introduced with sad music because she is from a small place full of Middle Eastern Muslims. Oh… no? More importantly, though, she reminds me of Ruthie from RW Hawaii, who is awesome. Her hopes and dreams are to sing, which she apparently cannot do in Dearborn. Oh man, is this like a Footloose situation but with singing? That Footloose remake I keep hearing about is totally going to turn into the uplifting tale of Justin Bieber bringing the gift of song to the long-repressed residents of Dearborn, MI. You all read it here first. If it happens and I don’t get credit I’m gonna be pissed.

Also, SHE SHOULD TOTALLY DO A COVER OF “COME ON BE MY BABY TONIGHT”!!! That would be an AWESOME throwback to the original New Orleans season.

Ryan, 21, is from Tempe, AZ. He skipped college in favor of cosmetology school since that is his family legacy. People think he’s gay because of this, but rest assured he loves to call out rude or ignorant people.

A regular superhero, this one.

He asks Sahar about her romantic situation and she tells him that she met someone a month ago but they decided to put it on hold since she was leaving. Not a terrible idea. McKenzie tells Knight she has no boys, which pleases him. Jemmye and Preston both reveal that they don’t do the whole boyfriend thing, although Jemmye reveals via confessional that she talked to a guy before she left. They’re both allowed to do what they want. Dreamy Eyes is single, and Lips had an on/off relationship all through college but has been single for awhile now. Apparently those Dreamy Eyes are psychic, because he correctly guesses that the on/off guy was black, which delights Lips.

Just to illuminate the glaring difference between this season and the last: The only two quotes I remember from DC’s opening credits were “You are so much drama!” and “Our voice WILL be heard.” Two example quotes from these opening credits are “Are we having sex?” and “Gimme your testicles!”

Preston tells Jemmye about Mardi Gras being a penis-throwing parade, and she is delighted. They pull up to the house first, and I remember at this point every season why I sort of wish I could be on the Real World:

I want to go to there.

Preston’s description: “Not only is it beautiful, it’s MASSIVE!” TWSS

The first bedroom they find has a massive walk-in closet, which causes them both to cream themselves and immediately claim it before exploring to see if they want to move. They hear more roommates outside and pose in front of the doorway.

Eyes and Lips have arrived, and Eyes describes the house as Fantasyland. Close, dude, but the area of Magic Kingdom you’re looking for is New Orleans Square. Jemmye introduces herself and claims her name is pronounced the same as Jimmy. That doesn’t make any sense, but in her defense it’s probably difficult to pronounce words since she seems to have some sort of paralysis of her lower lip/chin.

Eyes and Lips choose a room with a balcony, and if you ask me balcony trumps closet by a mile. Starfish and Meathead are next, and they buck the trend by not rooming together. They’d both rather room with members of the same sex. Ruthie Jr. and Hair arrive last, and he’s like a kid with ADHD babbling and running around. Preston hopes Hair is gay because he thinks he’s cute. But how cute exactly?

Approximately 3X the normal font size cute. Thank you, MTV!

The Ryans meet each other, and Hair is baffled by Meathead’s introducing himself as Knight. Because using a last name, especially when in the presence of someone with the same first name, is just ridiculous.

McKenzie grabs Sahar and asks her to room with her, which just causes more screeching from Hair. This is going to get old fast. Actually, it already has. Pandrew annoyed me in the season premiere last season, but I liked him a lot more after that. Something tells me that’s not going to happen here. Hair does NOT want to room with Meathead, because they are as different as… well… (K)night and day. Yeah, I went there. Deal with it. Also, Meathead’s apparently in the worst room in the house, so that does not help matters.

Eyes is willing to room with him, but he has to convince Lips to move downstairs. He does this by misusing “literally” a few times and in the end he probably just annoyed her into agreeing. Now he must convince Meathead to room with a girl. He does this by jumping into his arms and muttering words like “Ashlee… night… cuddle.” Meathead wants to know who Ashlee is. Hair runs around screeching a bit while Meathead and Lips are just relieved he’s out of their faces. They both agree that they’re “more chilled out than hyperactive.”

Hair starts flirting with Starfish, and she’s a little taken aback and shy, not that that stops him or even slows him down at all.

Oh man, they have a self-playing piano! That is cool.

Jemmye sits on Lips’ bed and comments on her not putting it to use. Lips uses this opportunity to tell Meathead that if he gets lucky, she will be a good roomie and sleep elsewhere. Jemmye says there will be no cockblocking in the house, a rule I agree with both on reality television and in real life. Jemmye tells us she likes Knight and thinks they’ll get into trouble. I can only hope she’s right.

Seriously, though, what is up with her lower lip/chin? Did she have a stroke or a just a dentist trip gone horribly wrong or what?

The virginity conversation comes up, and Hair decides to tell the roomies about his purity ring that he wears because his first girlfriend emotionally abused him. And in case you haven’t picked up on it, he is a very emotional/sensitive person. Like, he probably owns every Nicholas Sparks book ever written and aspires to live a life that could inspire his next novel. Preston tells Hair he doesn’t want to go to a gay bar with him because Hair will get all of the action. Haha, so true.

At dinner, Hair asks if anyone has done drugs. Meathead has a brief Deep Internal Struggle before casually revealing his addiction to pain pills. Hair goes into full on Odrama mode and makes it all about him, talking about how he popped Xanax to deal with his crazy ex-girlfriend. Meathead lets it slide and just talks in the confessional about how Hair has “female… emotions, or brains.” This suddenly turns into a brief fight in which Hair accuses Meathead of not having emotions and not being on his level, and Meathead saying he just does what he has to do and doesn’t mope. The editing jumps all over the place, but that’s the gist of it. Hair says he’s good, but he does it with this look on his face:

That meathead is just like Shane West’s evil friends in A Walk to Remember. He’s totally going to make someone jump off of something and photoshop an innocent girl’s head onto a slutty picture. Oh, and mock a poor Christian girl’s sweater. That BASTARD!

Eyes is hitting on Ruthie Jr. by the computer. She seems somewhat receptive, but she’s also emailing her “situation” back home. She tells us she’s officially single, but apparently she doesn’t totally feel that way. Also, he’s a Christian. But how did she meet a Christian in her tiny Muslim town?! She must have met him in some dirty 1920′s speakeasy where rebellious residents of Dearborn, MI go to do their scandalous SINGING.

Eyes gets on the phone with his brother and specifically mentions how sexy Ruthie Jr is. They kind of are the two prettiest roommates.

Hair tells Jemmye that her slutty outfit means she’s asking to get raped. Preston, the resident fashion expert, assures her that she’s fine. Also, her hometown is the closest to New Orleans, so she’s probably aware of the culture.

Starfish mentions that she blacks out really easily, and Hair takes this as an invitation to crawl up into her grill. Figuratively (so far).

And now the drunken debauchery begins.

No amount of sterilization could make me get on that bull next.

She then starts grinding on Meathead, and Eyes tells us that they are destined to make out because they’re two of the sluttiest roommates. Hair is also trying to put the moves on Starfish, but apparently she’s not feeling it. Hair gets really offended that middle aged men are hitting on 21 year old girls, because apparently he hasn’t been to a lot of bars? I don’t know, I see it happen all the time but apparently the fact that this occurs is shocking news to him.

The roomies head to the gay bar next, and everyone’s enjoying it while Hair is indeed getting hit on. He interrupts Starfish’ conversation and then gets really offended for no apparent reason and walks away. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all I’m seeing is him buzzing all around her while she tries to have conversations, but that causes him to call her a waste of time. Cry me a river, dude. It probably wouldn’t take you very long.

Outside, Hair reveals that a guy kissed his neck. He starts twitching and wiping at his neck like it’s rabies or even worse, COOTIES. Preston tells him he has the gay cooties now.

But only 1.5X regular font size. Which means it’s more a cry for attention than a suicide attempt. Because this guy is more addicted to attention than Meathead was to pain pills.

Preston rightfully calls him out for being harsh, and Hair unsurprisingly gets RIDICULOUSLY defensive when he doesn’t feel like talking about it. Way to say something rude and then get all self-righteous when the person you offended wants to take 5 minutes to cool down, idiot. The roomies all yell in the street for a while and then Preston walks away and tells Starfish that Hair is a drama-filled little bitch. Amen, dude. I’ve watched this a few times and I seriously cannot figure out what his problem is, other than being a HUGE GODDAMN DRAMA QUEEN.

He even applies chapstick with more intensity than Jack Bauer on a mission.

Preston tells Jemmye that he wants to like Hair, but the bleach went to his brain. Hair, who is creeping in the doorway, hears this and lectures Preston for saying such a TERRIBLE thing and therefore ruining their friendship. Jemmye laughs at the utter ridiculousness of it all, and Hair then turns on her, accusing her of blacking out on some dude and being trailer trash. The former of which is probably true, and the latter may as well be, but both are irrelevant. They all start yelling until Hair finally leaves their room and we mercifully go to commercial.

And then we return and he goes BACK into their room, telling them this discussion cannot wait until the next day and it is now or never. Preston is infinitely more patient then I am and says they can squash it right now. Apparently those are the only words Hair needed to hear, which makes NO SENSE, but I am already so over him that I’m just relieved he’s going to shut up for five goddamn seconds. Oh wait, not yet. First he needs to hug Preston and give a completely insincere apology speech that is 85093285 times longer than it needs to be because this fool is EVEN MORE in love with the sound of his own voice than freaking Odrama.

Preston tells us that he has a bond with Hair and most of his friendships started with a catastrophic fight. They go outside to bond over cigarettes and Preston tells Hair that he’s been on his own since he was 16 because his mother is insane and his father has never really been in his life. Hair tries to liken that story to him getting picked on and decides that they can be best friends. Just to be clear, they’ve basically crossed the entire friendship spectrum in the past 2 minutes. Hair tells us that in order to be truly happy, you have to forgive both yourself and others. They make a coffee date and hug it out.

If I start spiking everything you eat/drink with Ritalin and sedatives, will you forgive me? Sweet.

The season preview is basically the same trailer we’ve already seen. It looks pretty good, but there is a lot of Hair in there, and I am already finding him at least as annoying as Odrama. It should be a good season though. What did everyone think? First impressions of the roomies? Anyone else find this season’s resident drama queen as irritating as I do? And did the fight seem as nonsensical to you as it did to me? And seriously, can we start a petition to have Sahar do a cover of “Come On Be My Baby Tonight”?