Recap: Surreal Life: An Exercise in Maturity

This week’s episode of The Surreal Life Fame Games showed us that as long as you’re persistent, mature and calm, you can achieve absolutely anything in life that you hope to. This is a far cry from the rest of the episodes, where we’ve seen bickering over little things and people so deluded with themselves that they’ve lost touch with reality. Not this week though. This week was entirely different. Also, I would like to point out that I’m atrociously lying. It’s more of the same in the old Fame Games house, so let’s get to the action.

This week the episode starts off with Andrea Lowell complaining about how tired she was when she woke up today: mentally, physically and emotionally. It is really hard when you spend eight hours in one day on the phone, mixed in with some crying and a whole lot of whining. Her life is so hard. We should all feel really sorry for her. The rest of the cast is all pretty much in agreement that Andrea is basically on borrowed time right now, since she should have gone home after the last challenge. They’re not going to give her any more free passes.

Thankfully today there isn’t too much backstory before we get a message alert from Robin Leach. He tells us that with everyone back on the A-list, if there’s one thing A-listers can’t get enough of, it’s leisure time. So, with their eight-hour day yesterday, the house members have earned a day in the sun away from the Surreal Life house. This show is so much like real life. I often get a day of relaxation after a single eight-hour day of work also. And the work days are actually few and far between. And I don’t cook any of my food. And there is a porn star and a little person living with me. So many similarities.

Everyone is excited for a day of relaxation, but Traci isn’t really ready to let go of Andrea not losing the previous day’s competition. She’s talking to Ron about it, wondering why no one stood up to Andrea’s pandering for sympathy. Just to point out, she’s probably making a huge mistake if she’s looking for some sort of answer with any sort of meaning to it from Ron, so if she’s looking for some sort of closure, she’s terribly misguided. Well, Ron basically said that Andrea stuck around because, although she had the worst names, she argued for them. Chyna Doll didn’t do anything, so she went home. Then we see Traci come to the realization that if she wants to win, she needs to pull out all of the stops. Yes, Traci has finally realized that she may need to throw a tantrum to get ahead in the game. Something that she’s never done before. She’s never, oh, I don’t know, said that she wasn’t ready to play the Back to Reality game, forcing another team member to play who was ultimately eliminated. Nope, that’s never happened. Ever.

While the remaining house members are en route to a Vegas hotel, they’re all wondering where they’re actually headed. Andrea hopes they’re going to Caesar’s because they have a topless pool, which is why she stays there. Note to self: stay at Caesar’s when I go to Vegas. I doubt that Andrea Lowell is living it up at Caesar’s all too often though. But maybe that’s just me.

This weeks show, Traci’s crazy hat count: 2

The cast arrives at the Tropicana, which is nice enough (and also happens to be currently promoting K.C. and the Sunshine Band performing on St. Patrick’s Day only! Score!) I guess. Robin is there and he tells everyone that the pool has been closed off just for the members of the house, and there have also been some “guests” that have been invited as well. Seems boring enough, right? But then Robin, the sneaky devil that he is, tells us that the hotel is crawling with hidden paparazzi who are waiting to catch the cast in their most embarrassing moments, while the cast will have no idea they’re being watched. Then he says, “Ain’t I a stinker?” laughs evilly and rubs his hands together maniacally, all while hiding behind some sort of shrubbery. Oh Robin, you are QUITE the stinker. It kind of made me wish Tweety Bird had been hosting the show all along though. Now that’s a show.

We see various shots of people lounging around, and none of it is too interesting. At one point Andrea tells us, “Andrea Lowell likes to get her party on,” and if you somehow had any sort of respect left for her, it had to have just flown out the window. Seriously, she’s lucky she was allowed to have her way in the last challenge, but to refer to herself in the third person? Treadingonme does not like that one bit. Then she says she likes to get loose, and we see her with some random “invitee” to the pool sitting on her lap, and Andrea shows the invitee girl her boob. Watch out everybody, she’s getting loose!

After that we see Rob sitting on one of the chairs beside the pool, and he’s got a Playgirl that he’s looking at. Ok, I guess we won’t ask any questions about why he’s reading a Playgirl. I guess if you’ve got a choice between Playgirl or nothing, some people choose Playgirl, some people choose nothing. Anyways, another random invitee, this time a dude with long hair bearing at least some sort of resemblance to Fabio, comes up and sits in very close proximity to Rob as Rob is reading the Playgirl. There’s nothing strange about two dudes sitting closely together and reading a Playgirl, right?

Shortly after that we hear Traci talking about Ron Jeremy’s shorts. Apparently, not only does he swim in them, but he also wears them to bed and to breakfast. Traci says that she thinks those shorts should be framed and hung on the wall. I tend to think they should be in their own quarantine ward. Tomato, tomahto I guess.

Well, Verne was just hanging out on the side of the pool, basically talking to every single girl there, as is usually the case from what I understand. At one point Rob, apparently finished studying the nuances of the male body, came up and said, “Let’s go Verne.” This just seemed to come from nowhere, and Verne, surrounded by a group of sexy ladies, said he couldn’t go. So Rob said he was just going to leave because, as he said, “I’m just so over this dude…this is gay.” Well, what better way to get his point across than to throw a lounge chair into the pool for no apparent reason? Even Ron Jeremy was sympathetic for the crew that had to retrieve the chair for the pool. Thankfully though, Rob’s tantrum was enough to get everyone kicked out of the Tropicana. The baby gets his way, and everyone is happy. And by everyone I mean Rob.

After everybody got back home, Pepa decided that now would be a good time to tell everyone that she was clairvoyant. Traci and Andrea totally bought into it (surprise!). Traci even goes so far as to say it’s similar to “No-tradamus,” leaving the first “s” out of the pronunciation. So, I think if there’s one thing we can all agree on, Traci knows her visionaries. Thankfully though, Pep tells us that she doesn’t take advantage of her situation at all. It’s good to know that she hasn’t needed to cheat to get to where she is in the competition. That would make me very sad.

Later that night they get a message from Robin Leach that he’s arranged an evening at the Palms for everyone. I wondered if this came as a result of Rob’s jackassery that got everyone kicked out of the Tropicana. Verne chose to stay home because his wisdom teeth were causing him an extreme amount of pain.

VH1 comes within 2 millimeters of becoming the best of the Viacom Networks

Everyone went to Ghostbar, and they were all drinking of course, and then we saw, again, the rubber chicken shots. Ok, seriously, the first time I was like, that’s weird, the second time with the rubber shots I was like, I guess that’s cool, but now it’s just really, really weird. And annoying. Please get rid of the rubber chicken shots. PLEASE.

And now, a series of bad rubber chicken jokes. . .

Nevermind, too easy

Learn from rubber chicken, after locking lips with Traci Bingham,

rinse thoroughly with alcohol.

This would been a vicious cock fight were it not for Traci’s well done cock block

Not the first time Van Winkle has been attacked by a cock from behind.

On the way home, we saw that Traci had gotten much drunker than everyone else. Andrea chose to get all uppity and wonder how anyone could get that drunk on national television. Thankfully then we were treated to a shot of Andrea being ridiculously drunk on her season of Surreal Life, when she actually had to be cut off. Traci was crazy drunk, which is my personal favorite. After everyone went to bed, she went into Verne’s room and slept in the same bed as him. Then Surreal Life encountered one of its more awkward exchanges. . .

TRACI

What is her hand doing back there? Does she know something I don’t?

The next morning, Verne was telling Ron that Traci came into his room last night wanting to snuggle. Ron was like, “What?!” to which Verne responded with a laugh that sounded absolutely like the laughter of a child. I don’t mean that in an insulting way at all. I think he was so proud that he had retreated to child-like excitement. I thought maybe I heard something else the first time I heard it, but later in the conversation, he did it again! That was the high point of this episode for me. How very depressing.

Shortly after that we saw Robin at the house. If there’s anything we learned from last week, it’s that if Robin shows up at the house, and it’s not for Back to Reality, then you’re in for some sort of surprise. The surprise this week was obviously that the paparazzi had taken photographs from yesterdays relaxation at the Tropicana. Chris Wilson, introduced by Robin as a writer and a gossip-monger, was the judge of today’s competition. Basically, he was just picking the three people whose photographs were the most scandalous and hurtful for their career.

Pep’s photos were of her adjusting her swimsuit, Verne was giving one of the ladies at the pool a ride on his scooter, and Traci was adjusting her microphone pack. The first three were boring. Then we got to Andrea, who had a girl on her lap and her top to the side. Then there was Ron, who in one picture had a plumber’s crack and in the other appeared to be playing a rousing game of pocket-pool. Finally, there was Rob’s picture, with him looking at the magazine (you couldn’t tell it was Playgirl), but the Fabio-like character was extremely close to Rob. Chris says it could be a huge gay scandal for Rob, but Rob didn’t seem too pissed about it.

Is it just me??

I dont think this photo would cause the same scandal for Ron. . .

..that this one did a few years ago

How is this scandalous for a girl who makes her living doing this, this, this, this, wow this too , this and this?

Dear Google, These photos are NSFW since they are naked and or topless photos of andrea lowell from Surreal Life Fame Game

We found out that Verne won the competition, basically because he didn’t do anything besides talk to the ladies at the pool. Unfortunately, going to the Back to Reality competition this week were Ron, Andrea and Rob.

Well, as Robin and Chris are leaving, Rob throws yet another tantrum. He throws his coffee cup at the board, rips down his pictures, and then goes into his room. He’s so pissed off, he’s packing up all of his stuff because he’s going to leave. His reason is that the show is disrespectful to his family, his wife and everybody else. Seriously, has he not seen anything VH1 has ever done before? The only thing that’s making him look bad is how he’s going into a tirade over every little thing that absolutely everybody else is going through. So, this is like his third in 3 days. To think he started off as the voice of reason when Verne wanted to leave.

Ron decides to go talk to Rob, and even Ron isn’t quite sure why he did it. If Rob goes home, then Rob gets to stay automatically. Andrea is also there trying to talk Rob out of leaving. But all I remember is her whining and crying and saying that Sherman Helmsley is really influential. Ron and Andrea don’t want to win by default (actually, Andrea probably would love it), but they’re points are quite coming through to Rob. Rob uses this “crossroad” metaphor to explain where he is to everyone as he’s packing. So now he’s not sure if he’s going home or staying. But, luckily, just in case we missed the crossroad metaphor the first time, he basically says the exact same thing to us. Glad he’s working on his creativeness. However, he tells us that he remembered what Erik Estrada said: “Wipe your ass with that.” That made Rob decide to stay, and not only is he going to stay, he says, “I’m gonna do it for you,” and I can only assume he means Ponch. I do things for Ponch a lot too, so I guess I can see where Rob is coming from.

The show cuts to the most depressing commercial ever,

which makes the fame gamers lives less sad in comparison.

Very clever VH1, very clever.

After Rob decides he’s going to stay, suddenly everyone is wondering why they didn’t just let Rob leave. He’s obviously the best competitor out of everyone. One of the most regreattable things about it is that Andrea has realized that this is a competition, and I think Rob has too, but pretty much nobody else who is remotely likable has.

As everyone is getting ready for the Back to Reality game, Pep is getting one of her premonitions. She doesn’t want to give away anything, but she brought up to everyone that she has a feeling. After some more cajoling, Pep tells Andrea that she’ll be safe after tonight’s competition, which leaves Andrea feelings so much calmer, especially since Pep is never wrong. Are we getting set up for a misdirection here?

THANK GOD, IT’S INGA!! I was so worried about what her life had become since she wasn’t in the show last week. I was actually afraid she might be found behind some dumpster, OD’d on crack, naked from the waist down. At least one more week until that happens. Inga tells us in her terrible accent this week that we’re playing Gourmet or Garbage. Each contestant will get two portions of a meal course; one will be the gourmet brand, and the other will be the cheap stuff.

Right away, Andrea tells us that her palate is very refined. I can’t really disagree with her assessment of Ron being a garbage disposal, so she may be safe this week.

First course is champagne. What everyone realizes off the bat, except for the VH1 producers obviously, is that without any dividers between the contestants, everyone can see what everyone else is selecting. Also, each portion had a different colored ribbon on it. Right away, Andrea looked at what everyone else selected and then made her selection. Well, everyone was right. Next was caviar, and Andrea chose incorrectly after being called out on cheating by Ron. The competition was actually really boring, so I’ll spare the rest of the details. Ultimately, Rob was safe and it came down to a tie-breaker between Ron and Andrea (Andrea cheated on the final selection between two cigars). The tie-breaker was the price of the meal they just had. Ron got it right, so, finally, Andrea was eliminated.

WELL. Andrea didn’t lose the attitude after losing the competition, luckily for all of us. She was pissed Ron won, even though she cheated off of him like 3 times (at least). Again she said that she had the most refined palate of everyone. I just don’t understand why she won’t admit that she DOESN’T HAVE THE MOST REFINED PALATE. Sore loser until the end. Also, we see that Pepa was wrong in her vision of seeing Andrea win, so hopefully we won’t hear any more of that nonsensical jibber-jabber.

As Andrea was packing, Ron came in and asked how much she put for the champagne. She said something like $250, and Ron said it’s not that much. Then she said, “I don’t know, I’ve never bought it. People buy it for me.” Then she tells us, “I’ve dranken [sic] Dom before but I’ve never paid for it. I’ve eaten caviar before, and I’ve paid for it once or twice. True A-listers don’t pay for that shit.” OH, excuse us, you’ve dranken Dom before. How dare we question your history of fine fermented alcohols that you’ve dranken many, many times before. Also, I want to point out that she seriously does consider herself a real A-lister.

In case you still haven’t gotten enough of Andrea by this point in the show, as she’s leaving, she mentions that she could have used the money. She needs a car, and instead of being able to buy a Lexus, she’s going to have to buy a Hyundai. Because, you know, so many A-listers are driving around in Hyundais.

So what did you think about the episode? I know you’re glad to see Andrea leave, but are you sad we can’t hear any more of her delusions of grandeur? Can Pepa read all of our minds?