TVgasm Recaps

After six months with nary a sex scandal in the news, Paris Hilton made her way back to Fox with portly sidekick Nicole Ritchie cackling by her side in The Simple Life 2: Road Trip. Unlike the first season which saw the two girls tramping it up at a little farm in Arkansas for a month, this installment takes its act on the road with a pink pickup and a behemoth trailer set to terrorize every bucolic community along the Gulf coast. Normally I would feel bad for all these random hicks who are routinely mocked by our carrot and squash duo, but I kind of get the feeling that this time around, the joke's on the gals. After all, we've now witnessed the glorious sights of Nicole having to don a spectacularly dumbass turtle costume and Paris being trampled - literally - by a horse, leaving her with a new brand of lipstick - manure.

Tonight's episode of The Simple Life 2: Road Trip reacquainted Paris Hilton with her least favorite pasttime: gettin' naked in public. Okay, cheap shot. Sorry, Paris! The sex tape comments are old now; so I'll try to keep the puns to a minimum. Nevertheless, Paris and Nicole continued to out Florida as a bizarro cultural wasteland by dropping in for a day at Caliente Resort & Spa, a peppy nudist colony whose chipper clientelle seemed significantly less tragic than the eyesores Dave Atell usually introduces us to on Insomniac. Paris and Nicole seemed genuinely shocked to see so many, uh, physically unfit people waltzing around nekked, and to answer your question, no, they did not participate in the fun.

Poor little rich girls. After a season and four episodes of treating everyone around them with little or no respect, Paris and Nicole finally learned what it's like to be on the receiving end of a condescending remark. Last night's episode of The Simple Life 2: Road Trip brought our divas to the Skinner home in rural Mississippi where they met yet another family that talked about laying down the law with these girls, but in reality only rolled their eyes and politely ordered them around. Well, that was the case for most of the family. Turns out eldest son James Skinner hasn't developed the polite sensibilities that dominated most of these innocent bystanders to the Paris and Nicole road trip. And God bless him for that.

I really wish there were something new and interesting to say about Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Yeah, there's the usual junk - spoiled, dumb, staged, obnoxious - but we already know that. Oh well. I guess I'm feeling a little uninspired because last night's episode of The Simple Life was just another routine exercise in watching the girls abuse a poor family, make a mockery of some sap's business, and then waltz away as if they had been the ones through the ringer. If there's anything we've learned from the ouevre of Bunim/Murray Productions, it's that formulas are meant to be used... over and over and over again. And in this case, Paris and Nicole are happy to oblige.

Last week, I complained that The Simple Life 2: Road Trip was becoming too routine, too staged. Thankfully, last night's installment did an about-face and finally provided us with an episode that let the comedy develop on its own without the help of any obvious staging, and surprise surprise, the show was actually good. Paris and Nicole were funnier last night with their snarky comments than they had been all season long in their workplace sabotages. I just hope that Bunim/Murray finally realizes the key to this show is not the outlandish pranks the girls pull, but their city girl attitudes and inside jokes - the types only friends can have on a silly, Fox-sponsored road trip.

It's a sad truth, but The Simple Life 2: Road Trip is shaping up to be a formidable guilty pleasure. The episodes are getting funnier, the interactions more normal, and the staginess less prevalent. After last week's impressive installment, Bunim/Murray seemed to top themselves yet again, although they did stumble in an awkward, if not amusing, segment at the ballpark. Still, it seems like the show has finally found its groove, and amazingly, we have the two gals to thank for it.

Question: If you had back hair - and lots of it too - would you ever go on national television to get it waxed? I think most of us would answer no, but contrary to popular intuition, this seems to be a trend on the rise. And guess what? I don't like it. I really don't know where this public backhair exorcism trend came from, but I imagine Kyan Douglas from Queer Eye for The Straight Guy had something to do with it. After seeing the grooming specialist coo multiple victims into the waxing chamber with urgings like "It'll be great, brah" or "Dude, it's awesome", I imagine hirsute fat men across the country decided they wanted in on the action. Maybe that would explain why the hell anyone would subject themselves to an unruly waxing from hell, courtesy of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on last night's The Simple Life 2: Road Trip. I mean, let's just forget about the back waxing trend for a second. If there's anything we've learned from pop culture, it's this: Never put your health, appearance, or general sanity in the hands of Nicole and Paris.

We here at the Gasm aren't really known for our speculation or suppositions and I am not about to begin throwing accusations .

Some news orginizations have reported Nick Carter beat Paris Hilton which lead to their break up. While some have said Paris Hiltons bruises were caused by a Rolling Stone S&M photo Shoot.

I personally think either is a possibility, but both are hard to believe. At what point in a photo shoot does a photographer think he has the empowerment to punch an heiress in the face? And in what world do we live in that I can easily believe a backstreet boy is capable of physical abuse?

I cannot come to any conclusive decision, thusly, I once again leave it up to you the TVGASM reader. Here are the photos, do you think the personality we have all seen in THE SIMPLE LIFE and other videos would allow a photographer to let a shoot get this out of hand? Do you think Back Street Boy, Nick Carter, could cause such damage?

Arizona and New Mexico: you suck. At least that's what The Simple Life finale suggested. After who knows how many episodes in Texas, the show quickly zipped over 1,200 miles worth of Southwest territory, conveniently omitting any sort of silly drama that might ensue in AZ or NM. What's with the snub? Were there not enough kooky people willing to participate in a staged reality spectacle? Surely in Roswell there were a few looneys up for fun. Think of the possibilities! That sound editor would have had a new array of theremin tones to fool around with instead of the usual violins and boings. And let's not forget the crazy desert insects. We know Paris and Nicole have problems with moths. Just imagine them with scorpions and tarantulas and lizards. Oh Bunim/Murray. How could you have squandered this golden opportunity?

It's President's day, and if you're lucky (or unemployed), you have the day off from work. What to do with all that free time? Well, fortunately for you, Paris Hilton has provided us with yet another nifty scandal. Looks like her Sidekick (the very same one she uses to IM Snoop Dogg, Big Boi, and Molly Shannon on those T-Mobile commercials) was hacked into over the weekend. As reported in Duuh.com, Paris-Hacked.com, and Defamer (among many, many other places), Paris's entire contact list —  and a few tasty phone pics — are now available to the public. Most of the celebrities have probably already changed their numbers, so it's no use publishing them here. Besides, it's kind of, you know, illegal (for the record, Snoop, Big Boi, and Molly Shannon were NOT in her rolodex, despite what T-Mobile would have you believe). The upside to all this, however, is a prank call to Nick Carter which will probably leave many wondering how turned on he was by this week's Desperate Housewives...

Personally, my favorite part of this entire mess are Paris's reminder notes. They range from the mundane ("Call Maroon 5") to the argumentative ("The only reason I didn't go to Vegas was because I wanted to see you. How am I disrespectful?") to the personal ("Get birth control kill pill") to the gossipy ("Tell Ken about Jess trying to bone JT"). It's hard to derive any narrative from these random blips and phrases, but there is a certain Dadaist flow to it, and by the time I reached the cryptic line "A1 Eli Manning 24", I found myself snapping my fingers and saying "So true. So true."

So enjoy, everyone. There's nothing like completely violating someone's personal privacy to bring America together.

The great thing about having a television weblog is that people start giving you tips and rumors. While there are many bogus rumors out there, we do have reliable sources. One of those sources tells us that Nicole Richie is being fired from The Simple Life. TVgasm hasn't commented on this show much since it's second season, but ever since the producers rid themselves of the pretense that anything on this show is spontaneous, it actually became enjoyable to watch.

We are still waiting for word on a possible replacement for Ms. Richie. Although we are all sure that Paris knows how to take care of herself solo, TVgasm wonders if perhaps it will make the show more enjoyable if she has a different partner each week.

UPDATE: More details of the split after the jump

Jokes have been made that the self-love of Heiress Paris Hilton could never span beyond her own reflection.

But that’s just the jokes. The truth is, after years of it just being Paris in love with Paris, Paris finally found someone else to love, and that man was (heir) Paris. For five months Paris and Paris dated and could be seen kissing one another in displays of awkward passion. So now Paris has learned to love more than just Paris by falling in love with Paris up to and including the inevitable, Paris proposed to Paris and Paris finally got to say "I am so in love with you Paris," Paris then looked away from her MAC compact mirror and looked up at Paris and said "Yes Paris, I will marry you." And the heavens crashed in. The couple then celebrated with a carwash for two.

Videotape will, no doubt, be available soon.

Click on Paris to play (You Will Need Flash Player 8).

And check back on Thursday for our exclusive interview. Yay self-promotion!

We never thought the worlds of TVgasm and Paris Hilton would ever collide, but in Hollywood, anything can happen. Case in point: this week we were provided the opportunity to interview Paris, and honestly, who were we to say no? I mean, it's Paris Hilton. Unfortunately, J-Unit and I were slammed with TVgasm junk (we're working on a little re-design, FYI); so we sent madeyoulaugh to tackle this interview. He was quite the lucky man. Not only was a professional camera crew provided, but madeyoulaugh got to meet with Paris in her swanky Hollywood Hills digs -- something that apparently no other media outlet on the press junket was privy to. As you can imagine, we were very excited.

Anyway, because it was part of a Simple Life press tour, we had to keep our questions on the straight and narrow. But the good news is that we managed to get some exclusive plot details about the upcoming season, and we'll have those up on the site in the next few days. Yes, like many a lame network, we're milking our Paris footage for all its worth. Think of it as the Deal or No Deal of TVgasm. And for those of you wondering, the answer is no, we're not about to get all "P-Side" on you. Please, even we have standards. Anyhoo, time to go brag to a bunch of people on the street...

The Simple Life, 6/11/06, E!