2-3: I'd Like To Knock Bootz ... Senseless

I'm not sure if this episode was uniquely offensive on its own, or if we're finally seeing the results of Flav getting a producer's credit and, presumably, more input into the show's content. Either way, Flav is edging close to "Dead To Me" territory.

 

But at least he'll have company.

We start this episode right after elimination, when Flav decides he wants to spend more one-on-one time with the skanks. (Is it just me, or is the production schedule a lot shorter than last season? When are Flav and the skanks supposed to sleep?) However, Flav winds up spending his time with one skank, the accurately titled Krazy.

What's wrong with this picture? Everything.

Krazy says something like, "I didn't know how it would feel to be with you, but I never expected to be feeling this much." Translation: I am currently giving you a handjob underneath this blanket, and something tells me I may regret it. While Krazy and Flav are "feeling" away the time, the other skanks grow restless and decide to just go to bed... except for Bootz, who elects to hang out on the hammock on her deck and watch the action on the wicker sofa:

For some reason, the black socks make it so much worse.

When Krazy returns to her room, she and Deelishis chat about her time with Flav. Krazy tells the camera that she and Deelishis have become friends (wasn't this the plot of an episode of The Love Boat, where a dude dresses in drag to share a cabin with a woman he likes?). Deelishis agrees in an interview, but points out that those days are probably numbered, since this is a competition.

And since Deelishis is a dude.

The next day, the skanks receive notification of their next challenge, which will divide them into two teams of six. The first squad joins Flav at a soul food restaurant, expecting to partake of such delicacies as chicken gizzards and hog... parts. Instead, they discover that they're expected to work at the restaurant for a day to show Flav that they can earn their own money. (More on this later.) Like me, Toasteee knows nothing about soul food, so she gets to be the hostess. Buckwild, Deelishis and Krazy wait tables, while Somethin and Bootz are stuck in the kitchen. Dismembering of livestock ensues.

On the one hand, I question the wisdom of putting any of these skanks in contact with food for public consumption. On the other hand, Somethin and/or Bootz are the last people I'd want interacting with customers, given their belligerent tendencies. Buckwild, however, aims to please.

"In the soul-food hinda." God love her.

Making the customers happy in quite another way is Deelishis:

Well, she certainly has the body of a woman. But then, you can buy those. Jury's still out for me.

To nobody's great surprise, Somethin is fired from the kitchen for goofing around too much. Bootz "wins" the competition for doing even the most unpleasant fish-disemboweling jobs willingly. Her reward? She and Flav go...

...parking. Classy! The two of them talk aimlessly, with Flav saying something about her outsides and her insides and --

Damn. Yes, play your cards right, Bootz, and this could be yours! That prospect seems to delight her, though:

Whoa. That's the face you see as the axe descends, right there. Their date concluded, the two of them return to the mansion. But Flav can't get Deelishis's magnificent heinie out of his mind, so he asks her to "get yourself right" and come up to his room. I don't want to think too much about what that phrase might mean.

Krazy whispers an invitation to Flav, but he begs off, saying he's too tired. She takes this as a rather personal rejection, so while Deelishis ... does whatever it is one does in Flav's room (shudder), Krazy commiserates with Tiger over having been turned down. Of course, Tiger has her own problems with Flav. She phrases it as "being true to myself while still getting to know him," but I think she's racking her brain to figure out ways to stave off Flav's attention while continuing in the competition.

Bootz, from her customary perch on the hammock, listens to their conversation and somehow determines that there's something shady about the two of them. I think Bootz's default setting is hatred, frankly.

Shut the fuck up, Bootz.

Somethin comes down to join Krazy and Tiger and mentions (not with deliberate malice, I don't think) that Deelishis is up in Flav's room. This makes Krazy more upset; it was one thing to be rejected in favor of sleep, but to be rejected in favor of a possible dude with a jiggly ass? That hurts.

Oddly, the next time we see Deelishis, she looks quite female. In fact, she looks a little like Nibblez. Maybe that's the power of Flav?

Nibblez herself joins the remaining team of skanks for the next day's challenge. The limo pulls up in front of a mansion, and Flav tells the skanks that a friend of his had a party the night before, and that their task is to clean the mansion. That would be my exit line, right there. Flav says that he wants a woman who can "hold down the fort," which is apparently code for "clean my house like a damn unpaid scullery maid." The skanks are not exactly enthusiastic:

And good God, who can blame them?

Back at the mansion, some of the skanks are still talking about Somethin's pooping on the floor. Unfortunately, Somethin walks in on this, and for just a moment, her face registers a kind of weary hurt before she soldiers on. She essentially says that their opinion doesn't matter as much as Flav's, and besides, the poop made her stand out. (Wow. That's not a great argument, there, Somethin. If all you're known for is a stink and a stain, you've got to find a new gimmick.) Somehow, this leads to a fight.

I find that the heart on the wall makes a nice counterpoint. I have no idea why they're arguing, except that Bootz automatically hates everyone and Somethin is constitutionally incapable of walking away from a confrontation.

Buckwild finds Bootz's hatefulness entertaining, but I think that's just because Bootz hasn't put Buckwild in her crosshairs just yet. It'll get pretty ugly once she does, though. As ugly as, say, this expression:

Back at the mansion, the cleaning-skank team is tackling their task, with Nibblez taking on the bathroom, which is so vile they blurred a lot of it out. I don't want to know. Flav watches this from his limo, and is impressed. He also cackles as the skanks -- who had dressed to go out -- slip in the piles of mess in the house:

And this is where I kinda start to hate Flav. Like it's not bad enough to make a team of women who thought they were going on a date clean a putrid mess, he laughs at them? And while we're at it, how fucking double-standard-y is it for him to want a woman who's financially independent, but still willing to serve as his domestic servant? What, exactly, is he going to bring to any relationship? Money? What money?? Doesn't he owe six kids' worth of back child support? Fidelity? Of course not, but any woman who even mentions another man in "his" (read: VH1's) house is kicked out. Respect? Clearly not on the menu. If we're getting to see the true Flav this season, then not only Goldie, but Gitte, Hoopz -- even Pumkin and New York were too good for him.

The skank team is cleaning the house of Warren G., who apparently stepped out for takeout and a 40. He walks in to the cleaned house, and Like Dat immediately runs up to hug him. Ah, man. Honey, please grow some self-respect. "I cleaned Warren G.'s house!" she excitedly tells the camera, as if it's some honor, and not a $6.50-an-hour job.

Because she took on the nastiest job in the house, Nibblez "wins." Now, while I applauded Nibblez' ingenuity for putting a garbage bag over her outfit to protect it from the mess, I have to deduct points for leaving the house without a bra. In Flav's eyes, of course, this is not a fault but a bonus, and he unabashedly leers at her chest. (And my hate grows a little more.)

Back at the mansion, Bootz and Somethin are still fighting, and I have no earthly idea why.

Shut the fuck up, Bootz.

Flav and Nibblez sit down to eat a "regal" dinner, which involves a 30-foot table, harrassing an English butler, and a nightmarishly large lobster:

Sweet drawn butter, that's not a crustacean; that's a damn terrier with an exoskeleton! What do you cook that thing in?! Flav, perhaps feeling the need to dismember the terrifying lobster as brutally as possible, hammers at it while a nervous Nibblez looks on. He eventually shatters a foot-and-a-half-long claw, without flinging too much shell shrapnel at Nibblez.

The rest of the skanks eat outside, and someone tries to engage the group in the delightful, fun "game" of telling each other "how you really feel" (read: saying something awful the other skanks can tattle on you for later). Payshintz says that she doesn't have anything negative to say about any of the other skanks, but when pressed by Bootz, she jokingly says, "Okay, I don't like you because you're so loud." To which Bootz responds:

Whoa. Shut. The Fuck. Up. Bootz. That's just -- whoa.

The whole "Asian dudes" thing arose from the stripper-pole bus trip. After the blindfold challenge, a drunk Payshintz had rather crabbily said that if a black man wouldn't treat her like a princess, she'd go back to Asian men. Payshintz's racial heritage is black and Asian, so I kinda forgave her the "Kung Pao Flavor" remarks she made. Hell, that's her own people she's snarking on, I figured. But Bootz interpreted this as some kind of disloyalty (???) to either Flav or black men as a whole, and has held it against Payshintz ever since. Because Bootz's first choice is always to be hateful.

Later that night, Payshintz tells Bootz that she likes her and all, but that the racial comments were just too far. Which they were. Bootz, of course, starts yelling something about -- I honestly don't know. She seems to think that Payshintz should choose to be black and black only, which is thoughtless and ridiculous, but hey, that's Bootz. Payshintz has just plain had enough of the yelling and the crap, and says that she's going home that night.

In one of the great moments of this episode, Payshintz and Nibbles chat out on the veranda. Nibblez asks Payshintz how to say "I'd like to eat your egg roll" in Chinese, and Payshintz obliges. She then goes on to spill her thoughts on the other contestants in Chinese, while a delighted Nibblez repeats her new vocabulary word. It's awesome.

Flav allows the skanks some one-on-one time with him before elimination. Bootz -- imagine! -- takes this opportunity to tell him why he should get rid of Somethin, Krazy, Tiger and Payshintz. The obvious delight she takes in this makes me want to throttle her:

When Flav asks Payshintz what's going on, she just tells him that she and Bootz got into an argument and that if he's unsure what choice to make, to just follow his heart. She tells the camera that she's had enough in a way that screams "Japanese animation character" to me:

All that's missing is a cartoon panda with huge eyes.

At elimination, Flav picks Krazy (despite his worries about her jealousy), Beatuful, Deelishis, Like Dat, Buckwild, Toasteee, Buckeey, Nibblez ... and Bootz. He tells Somethin that her time is up and --

 

Okay, maybe that's the face you see as the axe descends. Somethin is surprised by her elimination and annoyed that Flav couldn't get past the poop on the floor. She stomps off into the night yelling, "Guess I'm too real for Flav. Ain't that about a bitch."

Tiger sheds some tears at her elimination, but I bet they're mostly tears of relief. So Payshintz is selected to stay, but when Flav asks her to accept her clock, she refuses (and a cheer goes up from my sofa). She says she doesn't want to deal with the drama in the house, and hugs Flav goodbye. Many of the skanks are surprised and saddened to see her leave:

 

(This is Beatuful, by the way. She seems very nice. I hope I don't grow to despise her too.)

 

I'm really starting to like Nibblez, and her tears at Payshintz's egress just affirm my fondness for her. That said: wear a bra, woman.

Of course, not all the skanks are sorry to lose Payshintz, so to speak:

 

But I'll let Payshintz have the last word, even if it is in Chinese:

 

So while I urge all the other contestants to run for the hills, run away from this little troll-like man who'll put them to work outside and inside the home while laughing and leering at them, run as fast as their inappropriate footwear will take them, Bootz? You stay put. I'm beginning to think that you and Flav totally deserve each other.

Comments

[TiaMaria]

GNC -- you are hysterical!! I can't bear to actually watch this show, but I LOVE reading your recaps. Thanks for the laughs!

[LurkerNan]

Another devine recap !

And Yes, Bootz really is a dirty whore.

[cheesemeister]

Bootz is simply a straight up bitch. I wondered what bothered me about Delishis. I thought it was a superior attitude but you clarified it for me. She looks like a drag queen!
Can't wait to see what you have to say about the Toasteee elimination.

[Marc]

What the hell . . . ?