Television of the Weak: "A Respectful Black Woman I Can Take Home To My Mother"

This week, it's Survivor, Lost and The Bad Girls Club

Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains - Martin Brown

The thing that's going to be make or break for the villains is how many have showed up to play, because it looks like at least a couple haven't. For the Villains' tribe to do well initially, they'll need to confront the Heroes' obvious strength advantage with sheer will. Someone like Courtney, who seems to have no real stake in the game, will drag them down. Tyson might just be there to preen. Gamers like Sandra and Parvati might just assume they're not going to get far, anyway; while players like Boston Rob and Russell might end up playing too hard for their own good--which tends to be a weird little liability in All-Stars seasons. All of this means that ciphers like Coach and Danielle (and probably Courtney and Tyson too) stand to do really well. In anticipation of Thursday's 2-hour premiere, let's take a look at each of the villains individually, and make some predictions.

CBS is promoting Coach Wade's involvement with Heroes vs. Villains as heavily as Russell's and Rupert's, which is interesting because he's not nearly as liked as those two. It may be a hint that he's going to be around for a while (it also might be a hint that he's an unstoppable quote-machine.) Most of the villains are known for dishonesty, but with Coach it's the opposite. If some enterprising player finds a way to use Coach's vote, they can probably get pretty far. And Coach is so unthreatening that he could probably avoid a vote, even deep in the game. I'm calling him as runner-up.

Courtney probably cares the least of any of the 20 returning survivors, which makes her prime real estate for some gamer's alliance. I have a feeling she'll sneak past the first couple of votes because, even though the villains will most likely lose the first couple of challenges, people will try to start taking out power-players and former winners first. Courtney will probably breeze through for a while simply because players will be concentrating elsewhere. I think she'll make it to 5th place.

In terms of characters, Danielle is easily the person that the audience cares least about. She made it to 2nd place of a fairly unmemorable season, and didn't do one thing of note the entire time. (Rumor has it, she thought for sure she was going to win, but only got 2 out of 7 votes.) Of course, this means that she'll probably also go far by aligning with stronger players along the way. In the end, I imagine Candace picking Coach over her to go with to the jury, landing her in a respectable 3rd place.

Jerri is one of the earliest Survivor villains, but I don't really think she's much of a player. She rolled over pretty easily in the first All-Stars season, and I remember next to nothing from her supposedly memorable first season. I think she's going to have trouble finding allies on her tribe, putting her out early - 19th place.

For my money, Parvati is one of the best actual players in this game, along with Cirie, Boston Rob, and J.T. But after winning Fans vs. Favorites season, she's going to have to completely overhaul her strategy to go far in this game. She seems to be aware of that, so I think she'll do well initially. However, I think there's going to be so many shifting dynamics, she's sure to become a target at some point. I think she'll be the 7th voted out/14th place.

Randy could do well in Heroes vs. Villains, because he's a strong player that will probably get lost in the shuffle. He knows it, too, and he plans to fly under the radar initially. He will run into problems socially though, and I think that'll be his Achilles heel. My guess is that he'll find himself on the outs after some tribe reshuffling and go out in 13th.

Boston Rob basically won the first Survivor season. By marrying his final-two-mate Amber, he reaped the benefits of running the game, without actually winning the vote. I suspect that not winning All-Stars will only help him here. His seasons happened so long ago that people will probably forget just how strong a player he is--at least, until it becomes an individual game after the merge. He'll go out squarely in 10th place.

CBS is doing a major publicity push for Russell, and he's got a major advantage in that none of the other players had seen his season when they started. Still, I don't think he's going to do very well here. The villains are going to notice him playing way too hard pretty quick, and his ego is not going to mesh well with the tribe. I expect an early departure, 17th place.

Sandra could be a hell of a player in Heroes vs. Villains, but she's coming in with three distinct disadvantages: 1) She won her season; 2) She's convinced she can't win this season, and 3) She's one of the older women. I'm pretty sure the villains will lose the first immunity challenge. As a result, I think she's going to be the first one out.

Of all the players, Tyson did the worst in his season. If Boston Rob--who wasn't even on the jury in his initial season--is any indication, however, that's going to be a huge advantage for him in this game. Tyson's not nearly as good a player as Rob, so he won't win, but I'm predicting a 6th place finish.

You can check out my predictions for the heroes in last week's TV column. For those of you keeping track (which I'm pretty sure is just me) here are my complete predictions for elimination order: Sandra, Jerri, Stephanie, Russell, Sugar, JT, Parvati, Randy, James, Tom, Rob, Colby, Cirie, Amanda, Tyson, Courtney, Rupert, Danielle, Coach, and Candace as the winner. Let's do this.

Lost: "What Kate Does" – Zeb L. West

It’s the final season of Lost! All secrets revealed! All mysteries unraveled! All dead characters get cameos! I can’t wait to FINALLY know the answer to the mystery! I may not remember what the mystery is, exactly, but I HAVE to know it! Let’s see… it had something to do with polar bears made out of black smoke… and a statue of a big foot that prevents women from having babies… and some lottery numbers that are causing an electromagnetic disturbance… OKAY FINE! So what if I don’t remember what it is I wanted to know so badly?!

What I do know is that Lost needs to pull off quite a trick this last season! And it’s not a trick that has anything to do with how Richard Alpert can live forever, or why any of the Losties were ‘chosen’ by the island, or any of the myriad unexplained plot points. It has to do with this damn story finally settling into a recognizable genre!

At a certain point, the writers will finally have to bow to the science-fantasy fanboys who need to be able to distill it down to a simple and unsatisfying statement like: “Oh, it’s just a _________ story. I knew it all along.”

“Oh, it’s just a parallel universe story. Typical.”
“Oh, it’s just the story about a handful of mortal pawns being toyed with by two ancient and moralistic forces. Ho Hum.”
“Oh, it’s just a story about an alien presence which has been trapped on an island by scientists who foolishly hoped to weld its power. How jejune.”
Or even…
“Oh, it’s just a story about scientists who, through their unchecked ambitions, create an abomination they are ultimately unable to control, which wreaks havoc on a handful of bizarrely interrelated, malcontent air-travelers. Meh.”

So, why is this such a hard trick to pull off? Because the revelation has to satisfy five seasons worth of frustratingly compounded mysteries, which upon scrutiny only dilate into further mysteries, which in turn unearth deeper mysteries which are themselves shrouded in thick, syrupy mystery. Until suddenly it’s clear that we have almost EVERY SINGLE SCI-FY/FANTASY TROPE IN EXISTENCE all slapped into one monolithic ABC show. Time travel, parallel universes, resurrection, biblical references, extra-sensory perception, numerology, monsters, immortals, gods, demons, polar bears! Once we can distill it down to a single dismissive sentence, will it really justify the waiting, speculating and head-scratching of the mid-to-late 2000’s? I can’t wait to find out!

So what about this week’s episode? I find the most boring part of any review is synopsis, so I’m going to try to limit my plot descriptions to two sentences this season:

Sayid returns from the dead, but The Others think he’s tainted because he revived a couple hours late, so they try to get Jack to poison him, and unfortunately for us all, Jack fails to even poison himself. Meanwhile, Claire has turned into Rousseau (symbolized by nappy-ass hair) and Sawyer is busy trying to win an Emmy.

The only thing I can honestly say I want to see this season is the reunion of Jin and Sun. They they’re the only couple I actually like anymore.

CONTEST! In honor of the final season of LOST, I’d like to have a small contest. Here’s how it works. Make a prediction in the comments section about a revelation that will happen this season. If you are spot-on with your guess, and I deem the prediction suitably significant (by my discerning standards), I will send you a small but extremely awesome LOST-themed prize! Good luck!

The Bad Girls Club: "Go With The Flo" by Tucker Stone

This episode wants to be about a lot of things, but at the end, it is only about one thing: Flo, Florina, or, as she was once accidently labeled by the producers in the first episode, Florian. Even in the face of an actual case of the swine flu, even when the show enters the precarious territory of an on-camera three-way, Flo is the sweltering leech pulsating on the throat of this Bad Girls Club episode. Need some proof?

The show opens with helicopter shoots of Flo going to the doctor to have a check-up on her foot. Roll that around in your mouth, ignore the taste: America's job prospects are stagnant. The ongoing culture war has infected Captain America comics. The creators of the Chuck television show are holding interviews to discuss fan reaction regarding a will-they or won't-they plot twist on a show that 14 people watch.

And the Bad Girls Club--the most successful television show on Oxygen, the network for women--have hired a helicopter to capture the sight of a manic depressive narcissist driving around in an SUV.

Enough with the doom. Back at the house, one of the girls admits that she dreamed about Flo the night before, and in the dream, Flo borrowed her underwear. And with that, the dramatic music begins. Cut to an overflowing garbage can. Cut to day old macaroni in a pan. Cut to Kate, coughing. Cut to Flo. Cut to the girls. Something is coming.

Make that two somethings--Amber is on the phone with her boyfriend. He is coming to see her in a week, although the show's producers will edit that week into what appears to be two days. He says many things to her on the phone, almost all of them gross, but none of them funny. The idea of boys puts Lexie on the prowl, and she explains to the other girls her desires--"a cute little tall country boy" without "fucked up teeth."

To kill some time, Nicole "from the Allure Dance Studio" has come over to the house to teach them how to use the stripper pole. (For accuracy, Nicole is the owner of Allure Dance Studio, and their website is poledanceallure, and they seem like a perfectly respectable--albeit niche--business, and one has to question whether it's best for their owner to be identified as a "friend" of Natalie's.) Some of the girls do well on the dance pole, but Flo doesn't, leading Natalie to say "Florina doesn't know how to be cute."

Although Flo doesn't hear those words, her roommates disdain for her is obvious, leading her to a confessional where she says "This is where I belong. I was meant to be here, and I'm not going anywhere." It's an intensely felt statement, one that brings into question how much involvement fate--or, if you will, the Lord--has to do with which chain-smoking bisexual from Staten Island gets selected to live in a house in Los Angeles for a short period of time during the final months of 2009. Has Flo been selected by a Higher Power? Are the other girls blasphemous cretins, questioning the wisdom of their Creator?

Returning to more earthy affairs, a coughing Kate is trying to call her ex-boyfriend Paul, who broke up with her due to a lesbian encounter in the last episode. In a surprising "I mean it when I say I don't care about reality television" twist, Paul has disconnected his phone and changed his number. In a tear-strewn conversation with Kendra, Kate explains that Paul isn't the kind of guy who breaks up and gets back together. He just moves on.

That night, the girls are at the club. Amber is dancing with a man who bought her shots. Her definition of "dancing" is grinding her rear end into the man's crotch, effectively giving him a standing lap dance. The gentleman eventually decides that he should give her some time to rest, so he picks her up and helps her grind into his crotch without having to stand up. The ensuing feast of visual pornography disgusts the other clubgoers, one of whom turns out to be the man's fiance. (This fact is first delivered in the classic bad-night-at-the-club line, "Bitch, I got a ring on my finger.")

While the fight that ensues isn't particularly surprising, it lasts much longer than these scenes usually do. Amber, Natalie and Kendra are all involved, with the fight eventually making it into the street, where the police and producers put an end to it with some stern words. (Along with the stern words, a lot of large men with large arms provide assistance.) When returning to the house, Flo is completely ignored due to her refusal to help any of the girls out, thus ruining her status as someone who "has your back."

At this point in the show, Kate leaves for the hospital. She will not return this episode, excepting for a short confessional where she is wearing a mask covering her nose and mouth. In a later phone call, she reports that she has been diagnosed with a strand of the swine flu. It's impossible to determine when this phone call actually took place.

And now we have the arrival of Rich, who will eventually go on to win a place in the hall of fame for performing a brilliant improvised dance sequence to the sound of Flo and Kendra screaming at one another. Before we reach that point, he will merely wander around making one feel uncomfortable, as he is a mildly unattractive man whose girlfriend feels the need to braid her hair before he arrives--which she has never done before, yet has now done in such extensive fashion that she appears to be his little white female twin. Natalie, in one of her rare literary moments, describes the two of them as "Predator versus the Alien. The two of them together are the oddest couple I've ever met in my life." Kendra attempts to ascribe their relationship as a case of "to each his own", but considering Kendra's own compulsions towards vanity, this seems mildly disingenuous.

Amber shows Rich the bathroom, refers to the bidet as a duvet, and explains that it is an object designed so that men can clean their penises. This is also when we first experience Amber's "baby-voice", which Rich seems to like very much, which no one else does, and which will be used off and on (but mostly on) throughout the remainder of the episode.

We return to Flo, who is repeating to herself "I will show you gangster" for some reason. Although it's never dealt with again, the producers insert a scene where it is revealed that Flo has been receiving stuffed animals and flowers from her friends back home. Natalie believes that Flo is lying, and that Flo is giving these flowers to herself. This sequence leads one to the sight of Flo writing in a diary (showing the viewer "gangster") about all the girls, what's "wrong" with them, and then she hands these pages off to Amber so that Amber can see what Flo "really thinks about her" because Flo "really cares about her." She then takes the pages and pastes them to the wall. Annie stops and glances at the notes in the hallway and, after noticing the innumerable grammatical errors, says "She's an idiot who doesn't even know how to write." Walking away, she looks back and says "You know, she's so inconsequential to me that I don't even care."

Although Annie will later reveal--in a priceless Team Annie moment if there ever was one--that she does, in fact, care, it's difficult to process what Flo has done here if one is incapable of remembering teenage girl fiction from middle school. What's happened is that Flo--in a desperate attempt to become relevant to a house full of girls who have tired of her so much they no longer even pick on her--has pretty much posted a photo negative of a MASH note. It's a good trick--Natalie and Kendra are too volatile to let something this aggressive slide, but even then, they find Flo's behavior almost incomprehensible. Writing notes about your roommates and posting them on the wall? That would seem immature in a college sorority house, and in a house full of 20-somethings, it's so comical that one questions if Flo was pushed to do so by the producers. (After all, has Flo shown any inclination to write in a diary since the show began?)

The first result of Flo's attack is that she is left at home while the girls travel to the club. Lexie's attempts to throw herself on the bartender end with him telling her that "she's a nice girl" and will probably find a man no problem, which he says over his shoulder as he walks away. Meanwhile, Kendra has started up a conversation with Marc, who the producers list as a "Simple Ohio Boy". How simple, you ask?

Marc: "I love...I love...dark skin."

Kendra: "I ain't dark-skinned!"

Marc: "You're very bronze, a respectful black woman I can take home to my mother."

Kendra: "You want to come home and kiss and hold me until I go to sleep?"

Marc: "I'm up for other things as well."

Now, you might think that Kendra was picking up a doughy country boy because she wanted to have sex with a doughy country boy, but that's probably because you've forgotten that, at heart, Kendra is a generous friend concerned about the lack of testicular interference during Lexie's stay at the house. After returning to the house, Kendra tells Lexie to put on her swimsuit and join her and Marc in the pool. Kendra and Marc head for the hot tub, where they make out a bit. Flo, who is watching poolside and chain-smoking, tells Lexie to give the two some privacy.

Kendra: "Lexie. Come get in the hot tub."

Flo: "Oh my god."

In the confessional, Kendra: "Lexie's an attractive girl, and when I've had a few drinks, I like to kiss attractive girls."

And from here, nature takes its course. All clothing is removed, the three attempt to kiss in a way that will allow each individual tongue a chance in each individual mouth, and Flo eventually goes inside. (After Marc makes it clear that it freaks him out how she keeps staring.)

The next day, Marc is sent packing--"not much of a conversationalist, but a really good kisser". Lexie feels a bit of post-evening regret, but Kendra talks her down from the precipice. The day speeds by, leading up to the massive Flo fallout. It begins with Flo attempting to speak to a lights-out, bedridden Annie (at 1:45AM), and Annie responds by screaming at Flo to "get the fuck out of here". When Flo tries to continue the conversation, Annie makes herself clear: she's not going to have fake conversations about "how she's doing" with people who write fucked up mean shit and post it on the wall. With that, she sacks out, and Flo finds herself at the heart of a fight. Natalie tries to calmly explain that Flo's intentions--which were, supposedly, to help--have made all of the girls incredibly angry, and that Flo has to accept some of the responsibility for those reactions. After Kendra gets involved--ridiculing Flo's vocal inflection and behavior--Rich performs his dance, and it's an incredibly strong piece of clowning, the sort of thing one might expect out of a young Bill Irwin. There's a hip move he throws in, a snakey pump of the hips, and it hits right when Flo yells "Flo is the realest bitch in here." Excellence personified.

As the fight continues, Amber and Rich depart for sexual intercourse--he yells "We're about to have sexual intercourse"--and while we can't see them when they hit the mattresses, we do hear the following exchange:

Rich: "I want you on top."

Amber: "But it makes you kind of carsick."

The fight continues unabated. There's a lot of "Fuck you bitch", repeated at varying intervals into faces, and while Flo eventually starts pushing Kendra, the fight never moves into fisticuffs. Lexie, in her attempts to separate Flo and Kendra, finds herself in a shoving match with Flo as well. This is around the time that Flo's anger switches to performative insanity, the portion of the show where she yells "This house got the devil in it." (Again, there's a theological question here. If everyone you live with doesn't like you, is it because of your behavior? Or is it because Satan is real, and he lives inside the house with you?)

As Flo begins angrily packing her suitcases, Lexie starts giggling. Flo turns on her--why is she laughing? What's so funny? Don't laugh at me.

Lexie: "I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing because I farted and it smelled bad."

In another room, Annie: "Flo, I don't care. Just pack."

The girls find their water balloons.

Flo is leaving the house, she has a canvas bag that says "Love is..."

The girls are throwing water balloons at Flo as she exits the house to a waiting SUV. They miss her for the most part, but one of them hits the "Love is..." bag.

Flo gives chase, doesn't catch them. She's gone.

The girls hold hands in prayer. And there's the answer.

God was in charge all along.

Next week, somebody is getting arrested.

-Martin Brown, Zeb L. West, Tucker Stone, 2010

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

"Make a prediction in the comments section about a revelation that will happen this season."

I predict that the smoke monster is actually the angel of death (or at least AN angel of death), and Jacob is the (entirely human) biblical Jacob. I think that's a sufficiently significant prediction, but it won't definitively be proven true or false until the series finale.

Posted by: Mory Buckman | 2010.02.12 at 05:00

Eko returns.

Posted by: Aaron | 2010.02.12 at 09:23

With the description of Rich's dance, I've never wanted to actually watch this show more. That's okay, I doubt it will live up to the image in my head.

Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2010.02.12 at 13:10

Lost prediction: Walt is Jacob's replacement.

Posted by: Scott | 2010.02.12 at 17:27

Vincent is actually God. LOST.

Posted by: Zebtron A. Rama | 2010.02.12 at 23:19

LOST: Locke turns out to be that fucking ghost in the rocking chair.

Posted by: Chris Jones | 2010.02.13 at 04:32

The Loligor were us all along

No it's all the story of Ecco the Dolphin returning home trough the Tides of Time

It's an island you see, water

Posted by: AComment | 2010.02.13 at 10:35

Aaron: Hasn't that already been confirmed? If so, that's cheating.