Charm School: Brought to you by Pepsi (and to a lesser extent, NyQuil)

Previously on Charm School: The remaining contestants faced their fears by ripping off a lame MTV show, Marcia and Kip continued to not like each other, and Tranny got sent home to do some more of those awesome internet videos that pay her bills. Welcome back to Charm School, where product placement is reaching Biggest Loser proportions.

Muchos apologies for the lateness of this recap. My roommate and I both got the flu this week and my house is currently a warzone of thera-flu wrappers, kleenex, and empty chicken noodle soup cans. Today’s the first day I could crawl out of bed and be productive, but I warn you that your recap is coming to you from under the blanket of a healthy dose of NyQuil that hasn’t quite worn off yet. Anyway, on with the show.

We open with K.O. telling 3bay about this time she got stoned and was sexually assaulted. C’mon, ladies, I’m trying to write snarky recaps here. Could you stay away from topics that I’ll go to Hell for making fun of please?

3bay says that K.O. is a strong person, but she’s never going to evolve if she keeps pitying herself. They share a tender moment where 3bay tells K.O. to stand up for herself and put a stop to all the bad things that are happening to her.

Then the producers give us this lovely outdoor shot of Charm School, which looks suspiciously like CGI to me.

The next morning Marcia is feeling like a million bucks. She says she’s feeling so amazing because she hasn’t been drinking, and I’m wondering if anyone has warned her about DT’s. They’re coming honey, cause you drink a LOT.

So after Marcia gets in a hearty workout of running up and down some stairs and jogging around the pool, Ricki gets on the intercom and calls the ladies down for their lesson. Stryker greets them with this totally awesome lesson plan.

Ricki tells us that the ladies are going to need a plan in order to get their lives on track, and to help them make a plan they call in this guy.

Doctor Creepypants tells the ladies that they need to decide who they want to be, and they need to decide right now. He says that to help them with the process he’s created a map, and then he flips this over:

So the ladies have to make their own “maps” ***ahemlistsahem*** starting with what is possible, then what their driving force is, and finally what their first step will be. I think I have the true maps all figured out:
What is Possible: Getting my own show on VH1
Driving force: Need for fame, desire to make money.
First step: Go on a few crappy VH1 shows and make a big enough ass of myself to warrant my own show.

I think most of these ladies have it down. Lesson over.

The doc asks the ladies to write down what they really want and what is possible for them. Brittanya stares blankly at her paper for a minute and then pipes up that she doesn’t get it.

I feel for the doc as he stumbles around trying to explain the lesson to Brit. When the assignment is something as painfully simple as, Write down what you want for your life, it’s hard to break that down into simpler terms. May I suggest trying to explain it with hand-puppets?

This little outburst of stupidity launched a heated debate between me and my roommate over who was dumber, Bubbles or Brittanya. I argued that Brit was way dumber but we just didn’t notice because she never talked. He argued that Brit was clearly smart enough to figure out she was an idiot and she shouldn’t talk, which meant she was smarter than Bubbles. What do you kids think? Who wins Morongate 2009?

Oh yeah, back in class Kip is telling us all that her ultimate goal is to be a nurse. Hey honey, I think they’re making a sequel to Night Nurses from Jersey if she’s interested. I’ve gotta say that I’ve had a good chunk of medical issues in my life and I’ve been attended to by many nurses, but if I woke up to Kip’s triple D’s looming over me I might freak the fuck out. And I love boobs, but damn!

Marcia gets up next and talks about her abusive father and how he beat her mom up a lot, and there is no way in hell I’m making fun of that either. She says she wants to be a better person to make her mom proud and I think that’s great. You go, Marcia! Even though I thought you were the most entertaining drunk on television, I support your decision to make my recaps less fun to write.

K.O. goes up next and talks about starting a charity for foster kids. She says that she was a foster kid and she knows that orphans don’t get much affection and she wants to help out. Doc Creepy asks her what she’s gonna tell the kids and she gives us this gem:

“If you can do it, I can do it!”

That doesn’t seem all that motivational for the children, K.O., but hey, whatever makes you happy.

Bubbles comes up next and her and the doc share a mildly creepy stare.

Bubbles has a LOT of goals. I mean a whole lot. They include: Making her mom proud, finishing school, being a social worker, being a teacher, doing cartoon voices, getting her brother to go back to school, etc. Could you imagine having Bubbles as your teacher? Or your social worker? That’s almost as scary as the idea of Nurse Ashley.

Up next is Risky. She wants to learn to open up and let people in. Not like that, you sickos! Get your minds out of the gutter. That’s about all we get from her, and can I just say how sick I am of hearing that? Oh, you’re scared that if you let someone in you might get hurt? How unique and tragic. Please stand in line with every other person on the planet for your pity party.

3bay is up next and she tells us she wants to be a singer and an actress. Doc Creepy has her sing a few lines, and Ouch! That chick cannot sing at all. I think maybe she forgot the first step on the unmap, which was, “What is POSSIBLE.” You being a singer? Not so much possible.

And with that the ladies hop on the short bus and head into a slightly crappy part of town. They pull up to a daycare in the hood and are given the rules for their challenge. Stryker babbles some nonsense about making a plan and staying on course if you want to achieve your goals, and then we find out that the ladies will have to finish assembling these jungle gyms

Looks like all the hard work is done already, so this should be a piece of cake, right? Haha! Clearly you haven’t been watching this season of Charm School. What this should be is hilarious.

They introduce us to this fine specimen of womanhood:

Lizette has been running the childcare facility for thirteen years, and today her charges are going to get some new toys. Okay, quick question to all the parents out there: Would you allow your child to play on a jungle gym that was assembled by these people?

So the ladies are to be broken up into two teams, and whoever finishes construction the fastest will make the Deans List. Brittanya tells us she’s nervous cause she, “Can’t build nothing at all or read directions that well.” Yeah, well, I’m sure when you can’t read it becomes difficult to read directions.

Bubbles and Marcia are the team captains, and I’m really starting to wonder why Bubbles keeps getting to be a captain. Is it because they’re scared she’ll cry if she gets picked last? I don’t get it.

Ricki says because there’s an uneven number of hos left that Bubbles has two options. She can either pick two girls and give Marcia the three that are left, or let Marcia pick two girls and then she’ll get the three that are left. Seeing as how all these girls are pretty much equally useless, I would go with the extra set of useless hands.

Bubbles decides to choose her team, and goes with K.O. and 3bay, which leaves Marcia with Kip, Brittanya, and Risky. Let the battle of the incompetent whores begin!

We start off watching the girls all struggle pathetically to put on their toolbelts.

Everyone eventually gets suited up and then they have to read their directions, which is equally sad and funny.

Marcia comes up with the brilliant idea of tearing out the pages and having each girl work on a separate part of the swing-set.

The next ten minutes is a painful collection of clips that make me wonder if everything I learned in Women’s Lib 101 was a complete lie. I mean seriously, Bubble is trying to hammer in screws. K.O. almost brains 3bay with a power-drill, and then puts their support beam in the wrong place. It’s so sad. I’ve never been so ashamed to have ovaries in my life. VH1 provides us with this helpful graphic.

Eventually it starts getting dark and the judges are forced to call it a draw. No one wins, and everyone is going to detention. Stryker says that if any of the kids jumped on those swing-sets they’d be sent to the hospital, but it’s okay because they have professionals coming in to finish the job. I hope they’re sanitizing everything as well, because we don’t want a bunch of toddlers winding up with the clap.

So, with a half-finished job left at the daycare, the ladies take off to go have dinner with Ricki. Ummm… Weren’t we supposed to be learning to follow-through and accomplish our goals? How does letting them work for a couple hours and then go out to eat teach them that? You know what I’ve learned? If you’re incompetent enough you can just go have fun and someone who knows what they’re doing will finish your work for you.

So back at Charm School the ladies are all dolled up for dinner and Ricki says they’re free to ask anything they want. 3bay asks Ricki what childbirth is like because she’s terrified of dying during delivery. K.O. says that’s what happened to her mom, but she never was told what actually killed her. That’s gotta be rough.

So K.O. keeps talking and talking and talking, and the other ladies are clearly getting annoyed.

So Ricki asks all the ladies, if they could pick a winner right now, and they couldn’t pick themselves, who would they choose. Risky and 3bay both pick K.O. because she’s been through so much in her life. Marcia picks Bubbles, Brit picks Kip, Kip picks Brit, K.O. picks Risky. They don’t show us Bubbles answer, which leads me to believe that maybe she didn’t understand the assignment.

After dinner the drinking begins, and Marcia looks like she’s having a rough time. That is kinda fucked, isn’t it? Would you drop a crackhead in the middle of a crackhouse to try and detox?

So after a while of drinking and laughing and whatever else those girls are doing, K.O. tries to get Marcia to drink her vodka cran. She says she was just kidding, but Marcia does not look amused. Actually, no one looks amused. Probably not a smart move on a week where you don’t have immunity there, K.O.

So they head back up to their rooms and K.O. is slurring about how she has a bad heart and her mom had a bad heart and slur slur fall down. Now some of the ladies think K.O. is full of shit, and some of them believe her, but either way, doesn’t everyone hate the one drunk person at the party who brings up heavy shit while everyone’s trying to drink and have fun?

So in the morning K.O. decides to go to the hospital because she’s having chest pains. This gives all the other girls a great chance to talk shit about her offering Marcia alcohol and faking a heart condition for attention. Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea for any of you ladies to leave the other ones alone ever. They will all turn on you.

3bay decides to have a meeting with Ricki. She tells Ricki that she thinks K.O. has some serious psychological issues because none of her stories add up. Then she tells her that she feels like she’s progressed enough to leave Charm School, so she’s willing to go home so the other girls can keep on learning. I don’t know if she said that just to get on Ricki’s good side, but I have five bucks that says it’s gonna come back and bite her in the ass.

So later that night K.O. comes home from the hospital and no one’s talking to her. She seems confused, but she clearly hasn’t learned that a group of mean girls will immediately turn on the absent mean girl as soon as she’s not around. C’mon, honey, I learned that in middle school.

So it’s detention time and there are five votes for K.O., one for Marcia, and one for Risky. Hey, Kip’s not on the carpet! Woohoo! I mean, I’m not really pulling for anyone to win at this point, but it’s always nice to have a little variety during expulsion.

So, it’s time for expulsion, and my Nyquil has worn off enough that I feel like death, so my apologies if this recap is losing some of it’s snark. It’s really hard to be clever when you can’t breathe through your nose and it feels like your brain weighs fifty pounds. At least we’re almost done though. Follow me, if you will, on a journey through elimination and me trying to keep my eyes open.

Ricki asks K.O. what happened in the hospital, and she tells Ricki that she has a cardiac block. According to Wikipedia: A heart block is a disease in the electrical system of the heart. This is opposed to coronary artery disease, which is disease of the blood vessels of the heart. While coronary artery disease can cause angina (chest pain) or myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart block can cause lightheadedness, syncope (fainting), and palpitations.

Meh… Nothing about offering booze to recovering alcoholics listed in the symptoms, so I think K.O. is in trouble.

Ricki notices that the mood amongst the ladies is different and asks what’s wrong.

Marcia calls K.O. out for offering her booze, and K.O. cries a lot and apologizes. So K.O., Marcia, and Risky head down to the carpet, and Ricki says that this is an impossible decision to make. I’m thinking 3bay is about to really start regretting her offer to go home.

So there’s some crying and blame-storming, and finally Ricki decides to ask 3bay if she’s still willing to give up her spot for K.O. 3bay says yes and walks down and hands Ricki her pin, but then K.O. stops her, gives 3bay her own pin, and says she’ll leave.

And with that we are to be continued. The trailer for next week doesn’t show 3bay or K.O. at all, so I guess we’ll have to wait till Monday to find out who eventually went home.

I promise your next recap will be more timely and far more coherent. Goddamn nighttime sniffling sneezing braindead can’t write a recap cause you keep losing your train of thought medicine.