Welcome to the big fundraiser for A Good Cause, every Charity Enthusiast’s Favorite Charity! No within a few minutes Whitney mentions the charity once — no lower third, of course. I think she said “Falling Whistle,” named after what Sara did last night on the street outside of HauteBootyJuice.
There’s a little “everyone’s going to the party” montage, wherein Francine still can’t believe it’s butter, Cori & Kacy reference having sex earlier that day, Romi’s got no pants on, Claire’s gagging  herself with a toothbrush, Sajdah’s being dorky and Whitney’s just bein’ Whitney.
Kelsey’s on her way too:
So are these strange kids:
Kelsey says it’s weird to not be with Romi anymore, and she’ll probably always love her, but you know the thing is:
Claire’s bringing her friend Mila along so Mila can be a human body shield.
Claire:Â “When I see Francine it’s like I know you so well, I know you like inside and out, I know every crevice of your body, it’s just awkward… I loved her for so long and to now not even be like hey, how’s it going, it’s just sad.”
Furthermore, Claire sees her hottie with a new body and delivers the following eval:
Claire, re: Khristianne – “Oh my god I can’t watch that. I have puke in my mouth a little bit… .she’s not necessarily my total type, you know, I’m like a little bit more selective!??! Like… it’s mind-boggling!”
Let the games begin, motherfuckers! The first game, “Role Reversal” Relay, deconstructs our understanding of the gender binary and was heavily influenced by Judith Butler.
Challenges include:
+ Throwing plates from a bucket to a teammate in yellow gloves standing in front of a bucket (this is how Pants would do the dishes if Pants did dishes, obvs)
+ Tying a tie
+ Applying fake eyelashes
+ Doing a three-legged race in underpants and stilettos
+ Stuffing your face into an aluminum pan filled with broken eggs, whipped cream and afterbirth
Whitney & Romi conference at the pool to talk about themselves —
Whitney:Â “What makes you pumps?”
Romi: “Well I just cut up my shirt into nothing, I have a pink bathing suit on with matching lipstick and I’d rather be laying out right now than playing sports. What makes you pants?”
Whitney:Â “What makes me pants is I have dirty baseball pants on and I would prefer to get tan while outside doing activities.”
AHEM. No. It’s this:
Romi: “There’s a chemistry between the two of us… bla bla bla”
Other activities include:
+ Cori beating Kacy with a giant foam stick, talking crazy about Kacy being the mother of her hypothetical baby
+ Thinking long and hard about Scarlett being a top
+ Cori & Kacy sneaking off into the bushes to have sex, which I found to be the most relatable scene of the episode and Jess thinks was totally fake.
Kacy:Â “We had a little fun, loosened up.”
Cori:Â “You were really loose!”
+ And, of course:
Fill ‘er up:
Whitney:Â “I see Pants & Pumps Throwdown possibly spreading across the nation.”
Whitney: “Year Two we’re making it a little sweeter.”
Claire: “It’s hot out, nobody told me it would be this hot”
Because nobody on this show can use words properly except for Francine’s Mom, Rachel wraps up her storyline with this doozy:
Rachel: “L.A. has turned out to be my saving grace, it really gave me a moment to clear my mind and see that I need help.”
Whitney talks about herself:
Whitney: “Jaq…We’re very compatible, we have a lot of things in common. But you know, distance is hard to deal with…”
At some point in time later or earlier, Romi and her partner are hitting up the Love & Pride Room for Love & Pride’s third product placement spot, starring this swarthy vaguely European man who talks fancy and describes Love & Pride as a “jewelry destination for the gay community,” which makes it sound like a mall or something, which would be wild.
Gaston says that they’re “extremely talented, extremely original” and that he’s “really excited and want to work with you and I want to see you fly because you have beautiful ideas and beautiful talent.”
Then we get this silly flashback montage heavily influenced by the editor who just discovered the Watercolor Filter wherein Romi again calls Kelsey an alcoholic and reflects on her era of self-reflection.
Cori & Kacy are at the gynecologist’s, talking about sperm and ovulation. Here are my notes for this scene:
“here comes my old friend Mr.Probe”
OMG CORI IS OVULATING LET’S SHOOT HER UP WITH THIS SHIT
I was born to be a Mom
The gyno probes Cori’s uterus for signs of ovulation and certifies that she’s good to go while everyone aahhs at the sonogram they showed in last week’s preview to make us think Cori was having an immaculate conception.
Cori and Kacy reflect on the strength of their partnership and it’s really genuine and cute:
Cori: “This is five years in the making of really hard work and honesty and building trust. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
This empty uterus is a big surprise considering we saw these premiere photos before the show even started airing:
Back at, I believe, Chanel’s monochrome chateau, the duo is packing for Chanel’s annual pilgrimage to Jamaica where they can muse over the many colors of the sunset and have sex on the beach and pick up that journal where it left off.
Sajdah’s packed “three t-shirts, three shorts, three underwear, three socks,” which is idiotic, and Chanel’s packed 16 t-shirts, a dress for sitting at the pool, a dress for sitting at the beach, a dress for a formal dinner, 2 prs shorts/skirts for the pool, a hoodie if it gets cold at night, five comfortable thongs, one thong that looks super-sexy but is uncomfortable to wear for more than a few hours, regular panties, heels, flip-flops, wedges, a racerback bra, a regular bra, capri pants, a straw hat, costume jewelry, a sarong, a baby frog, a flashlight, and 7 cans of Diet Coke.
Sajdah: “What are we gonna do in Jamaica, let’s practice!”
Chanel: “Practice what?”
Sajdah: “Whatever we’re gonna do there.” [starts poking at her]
Chanel: “No, stop.”
Sajdah: “Like pretend you’re in your swimsuit.”
Chanel: “No!”
Sajdah: “Pretend like you’re changing into your swimsuit.”
Chanel: “Pretend I already changed and I’m wearing a dress over my swimsuit.”
Sajdah: “Okay well, let me see your swimsuit.”
Chanel: “You’re nasty, stop.”
Sajdah interviews that she and Chanel really really love each other and that’s all it takes, which is inaccurate yet adorable. Sajdah wins the show for having the hottest girlfriend at the end.
This reunion is a big surprise considering we saw these premiere photos before the show even started airing:
Back to Whitney’s Chemistry Couch, where Whit’s confessing her love for… OH MY GOD I WONDER WHO IT’S GONNA BE?!!!
Whitney:Â “Jaq is great and we’re good friends but we don’t have that chemistry, honestly I’ve tried it with other girls and the fact is that they’re not you.”
Whitney: “I love you.”
Sardaaah:Â “I love you too.”
Whitney: “You’re such an asshole.”
Saraharahanti: “You are!”
BALSBALALABABLBLBLALA bla bla bla
So the season’s over and we’ve got a truckload of metaphors for how Whitney [the character] feels about Sara [the character] — there’s intense “chemistry,” she’s “addicted” to Sara and Sara is a “big bag of heroin,” Saritney have “magnetism”— but nobody ever got a Get out of Rehab Free Card for saying “I can’t stay away from heroin, so it’s probably meant to be.” And, when an addict is explaining their addiction, they usually mention “the high.” What’s the high, Whitney? Is it just sex? ‘Cause you have “intense chemistry” with every brown-haired tattooed tanned white girl on the West Coast, so that’s not something only Sara can provide.
“I can’t deny the chemistry with Romi.” – Whitney
“Every time [Jaq and I] see each other there’s definite chemistry.” – Whitney
“I would love to hook up with Whit because we have really amazing chemistry.” – Rachel
Ultimately the emptiness of this final scene circles back to my primary complaint with this show, and maybe with all reality teevee shows. Who ARE these people really? Why have the most interesting aspects of their personalities and relationships been extracted from the show? (Although it does make cast interviews more interesting.)
Whitney’s journey stayed almost exactly the same as it was last season, swapping out Tor and Romi for Jaq and Rachel.
Do Sara and Whitney make each other laugh? Does Whitney bring Sara her coffee in bed and does Sara know that when she said two sugars actually she meant three? Has Sara ever left Whitney a surprise cute note in her bag? How do they do on long drives, long flights, long weekends? Does Whitney pump the gas and take Sara to the dentist? What are their private jokes?
The thing this show failed to do AGAIN is fill the vacuous holes of these riotous relationships with actual meaning or connection — I’ve still got no clue what Romi and Kelsey had in common besides tequila or what Francine and Claire ever saw in each other besides the abstractions chocked into their frankenbitten interviews about love/connection/chemistry.
The only genuine chemistry we saw on screen was between Cori & Kacy — and they’re also the only ones who never TOLD us they had chemistry, magnetism, or one of the other causes of lovesickness transmittable by toilet seat in the West Hollywood metro area. They showed us, just like my creative writing teacher told me to.
When Dana left Alice, I cried. When Tina left Bette I cried, when Cherrie Jaffe left Shane I cried. I cried when “Lonely Lonely” played while Bette and Jenny stared sadly out their windows, I cried when Jenny told Shane “it’s you, it’s always been you,” I cried when Shane left Carmen and every time Carmen cried, I also cried. Even at the end of one of the worst television episodes of all time, I managed to cry for Tasha coming back to Alice. Because we knew these people — not all of them, of course, which’s why less-developed characters like Helena, Max and Jodi didn’t make my list. As a viewer, we literally enjoyed seeing Dana with Alice, we found it entertaining. I don’t think anyone could say the same for any of this season’s matchups, save Cori & Kacy.
When I had lunch with Nikki & Jill a few months back, one of the things that struck me right away was their compatibility — they have this really mature way of agreeing to disagree and giving the other person space to be themselves. Like we knew they were happy together, and loved each other and had shared interests, but we didn’t know that they actually go above and beyond all those things in actual life. They have chemistry, is what I’m saying, but all we saw on the show was exaggerations, disagreements and distance, most of it manufactured in the editing room.
But maybe I’m expecting too much, wanting all this flesh and bone underneath the archetypes and one-liners and repetitive storylines. Maybe this is just what reality television is and that thing is not my thing. What about you? Was it your thing?
However.
Ultimately these girls are one very important thing and that thing is, more or less, happy.
They love themselves (to a fault, some might argue) and they’re cool with being who they are, even when that person is chopped up into pieces, processed through an editing machine and then ruthlessly devoured by various internet writers. Even that’s okay with them. That’s just how much they love themselves. And I’ll be damned if there isn’t at least one Deb in Idaho who could learn a little bit from this show. About self-acceptance. You know what I mean. It’s okay to be gay, it’s okay to be yourself, it’s okay to stand up in front of the world and be exactly precisely who you are. These girls are doing it. You can do it.
For a lot of people out there — maybe even you, dear reader — these people remind you of yourself, only more comfortable about their sexuality/personalities and probably more traditionally ‘good-looking’. So this is just you on blast!.
I bet you’re wondering — how can I repay Riese for sitting through all these things three times just to make me laugh and smile and feel good about being a lesbian in America in 2011?
Well, if you’ve enjoyed these recaps, feel free to throw some change in the jar!
So, to summarize:
When you cancel Showtime tomorrow, don’t forget to tell ’em why you’re mad.