Part of a humorous weekly recap of MTV’s Real World DC featuring cast member and Denver queer Mike Manning.  These recaps are not meant to substitute for watching the actual show but rather provide humorous commentary about that week’s drama. Full episodes are available on MTV’s website here.

In reality TV there’s fun, silly, over the top drama that makes you laugh and then there’s drama that’s so boring you just beg for a commercial break hoping the show will change course when it returns.  This week’s episode was the painful kind of drama and it all revolved around Ashley.

The episode kicks off in typical fashion with the housemates getting invited to a lavish party of some sort without any explanation provided because, well, they’re the real worlders and that’s what they do.  Andrew (leaving his panda hat at home) meets a girl and in typical fashion moves WAAAAYYY too quickly and scares her off.  I’m beginning to think Andrew would be better off if he were gay since many homos would enjoy his lets-get-down-to-business-ness.  Plus Andrew is pretty damn cute and has a nice body, I wouldn’t mind if he played for our team.

Then Mike and Ashley go to church.  It’s strange to see the housemates in a setting other than 1) their house or 2) a bar.  But that segment is maybe a minute long and then it’s back to normalcy.

Later (that evening?) the cast goes out to dinner and gets heckled by some drunk fools.  I’m not sure if it’s always the case but there seemed to be a fair about of displeasure in DC regarding the filming of a Real World there with one unhappy Dupont Circle neighbor going so far as to set up an anti-RW website.  Ok but back to dinner, while most of the cast tries to ignore the harassment, Mike does a great job of chatting up the guy and in the process defusing the situation.  Mike and heckler get all buddy-buddy and Mike invites the guy to join them at the table.  This is where my jaw hits the floor.  This makes Ashley uncomfortable and the whole thing blows up into a fight on the walk home and eventually degenerates to Ashley passive aggressively accusing Mike of not being comfortable in his sexuality.  This was one of several Ashley fights this episode that made me beg a commercial break was coming.

Thankfully something entertaining happens in the show next.  The house-boys find a gift certificate to a local sports bar in their mailbox for a place called “Nellie’s.”  Not bothering to research what this Nellie’s is about the straight guys of the house trek across town to enjoy some libations.  (We never get an explanation of why Mike doesn’t join.)  Only after arriving do the boys notice the bar is a total sausage-party and the artwork is somewhat homo erotic.  Andrew by far has the best sense of humor about the fact they inadvertently went to a gay bar.

Even more hilarious is that some mid-afternoon drunks at the bar come over and very creepily hitting on and feeling up and kissing the straight housemates.  When the boys get back to the house they run to the nearest female roommate (Emily) and apologize for all the times they had ever been creepy and overly forward when hitting on girls having just been the recipients of such attention themselves.

Prompted by Andrew’s pool party shenanigans the girls decide he needs to attend charm school and the show moves to a cute montage of advice being dispensed by various house mates, including Mike who teaches Andrew how to remove a bra with one hand.

Next the roommates play a party game called “never have I ever” and in response to a question on public sex Mike asks if having sex in a ski gondola counts as public sex.  Oh Colorado boys…  ::wink::

But the fun of this episode is too good to last, Mike somehow manages to anger Ashley yet again during “never have I ever” and the drama comes roaring back to life, and I take this opportunity to run to the kitchen.

Thankfully when I return from the kitchen the show has moved on to Andrew who is putting his charm-school knowledge to work on some high-pitched-voice girl Allie.  Andrew gets at least two or three dates but alas, still no booty for Andrew as Allie breaks up with him before they progress beyond spooning.

The episode ends with Mike and Ashley patching things up and doing a confessional together, aww how cute.

All photos are from MTV’s Real World photo gallery here

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 10:16 am and is filed under Just Gay, tv / movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.