Uhf. I approached the reunion of Flavor of Love 2 like a stash of Halloween candy, but before long I had that uncomfortable feeling you get when you overdo it with the Twizzlers and Milk Duds. No matter how appealing they are at first, the squawking, trifling antics of the various skanks soon reveal their fundamental lack of nourishment and general health.
And then there's this guy.
Compared to the first season reunion show, this setup seems much less organized. Instead of bringing all the skanks onstage in order of their elimination, they've just bunched most of the skanks up on a few couches.
Bootz has new (bad) hair.
Nibblez has new boobs.
Tiger is still very pretty.
Beatuful is still beautiful.
Like Dat still has sunglasses nested in her hair.
Buckwild is looking mighty rough.
And I'm not sure if H-Town is indicating her support of the Texas Longhorns by giving the "hook 'em" sign or trying to throw up some gang gesture or what. Well, she's got a minor head injury; whaddaya want.
One thing that hasn't changed since last season's reunion is the weird audience. I swear, they all came straight from a Springer taping or something.
Is this guy actually doing the Arsenio bark? Maybe it's the trucker-horn gesture.
Just like last year, LaLa is hosting (and a big thank-you to Lauren B, who wrote to tell me who LaLa is) and wearing a camisole top that makes me wonder if she's been to visit Nibblez's surgeon. LaLa does the usual introductory spiel about how being on the show has changed the lives of the skanks. Krazy says that she's discovered how much she loves being in the spotlight, and that she just lights up in front of the camera.
I think by "light up," she means "crank the deadness in my eyes as high as it will go."
LaLa reminds us of the slugfest that erupted between H-Town and Sapphyri within moments of entering the house. She invites the two skanks to sit next to each other and talk about it. H-Town begins by saying that she was ashamed of how she behaved because she's not truly like that. "And I'm sure she--" and here she gestures at Sapphyri and I think, 'oh, that's nice, she's going to say that Sapphyri probably isn't truly like that either.' But I'm so very wrong. H-Town says that Sapphyri probably is like that in her day-to-day life. Nice.
Mind you, I'm not saying she's wrong, but it's just not the right thing to say, especially when you're sitting next to someone who clearly has no problem kicking the crap out of you while cameras roll. Sapphyri doesn't do much better, though; she insists that H-Town smacked her in the face with her flowers, even though the video clearly shows that she smacked her on the side of the arm with them (which is still not cool, but not the affront of a face-smack). Sapphyri goes on to say how much she enjoyed beating up H-Town and how much fun it would be to do it again. But since she's been to anger management and gotten a certificate, she won't.
The audience is kinda weirding me out here. A lot of laughter and applause accompany all the mentions Sapphyri makes of beating up H-Town. A substantial contingent of the audience really enjoys seeing H-Town threatened, too. I guess since Sapphyri has that anger-management certificate, they figure H-Town is safe, but I wouldn't be too sure.
As if to try to cleanse our palates from this, LaLa calls first-season favorite Goldie up to the stage. Goldie rightly chides Krazy for believing New York was ever her friend, and recommends communing with Jesus instead.
Eerily, I myself mutter "Jesus" a few times as Bootz, Like Dat and Buckwild revisit their awful dance number from the fourth episode.
I love how Goldie and LaLa look both amused and concerned as they watch:
Sooner or later, it's time to bring Flav out, and the crowd goes predictably wild. I meanwhile applaud the return of my dear Big Rick.
Flav rhymes randomly with LaLa for a while, then reveals that he's got a new CD out this week. Because, to review, the only person who should profit from this show (in Flav's mind) is Flav himself. He shows a clip of a video, and I'm not terribly impressed.
When I close my eyes, the song itself sounds okay. But the video is just way too busy (although I like the image of Deelishis as a giant pair of tapping, disembodied shoes). Then again, Flav has proven repeatedly throughout this show that subtlety isn't in his repetoire.
We revisit Buckwild's accent drop in her last episode, and while she insists that she's real and Flav says he believes her, his face as she turns away to walk back to her couch says otherwise.
Then it's my turn to make that face as Krazy is invited to sing live, to prove that she can. (She can't.)
The same audience that clapped for H-Town getting beat up again claps for Krazy singing, only not as enthusiastically. Again, I'm confused and a little unnerved by the audience. I find the skanks' response to Krazy's breathy, pitchy, crappy singing much more appropriate:
My thoughts exactly, ladies.
Some mention is made of Krazy's (utterly misguided) ambitions of a singing career. Beatuful asks her why she came on the show and Krazy starts rambling about not knowing what to do with her life and being 23 and -- Beatuful interrupts with "I didn't ask how old you were, I asked why you were on the show." Et tu, Beatuful? I'd expect that trifling crap from Bootz, but not you. That's it; you're off the Christmas card list.
While last year's "winner" was the last person to join Flav on stage, Deelishis is brought out next. We're shown a montage of precious moments between her and Flav, and there's something...
There's something that keeps cropping up in these clips...
There's kind of a theme that I can't help but notice...
Flav talks about Deelishis and her ass, then brings them both out onstage.
This is apparently their first reunion since the Belize show, and while Dee seems a bit shy at first, she soon warms up to Flav. I remember seeing a preview of her daughter meeting Flav, but that footage doesn't appear in the show. Which makes me wonder if Dee's babydaddy might be planning a custody bid. After all, he has "money, over money, over money" and all she has is Flav.
Flav and Deelishis discuss their relationship, and the other skanks generally approve. Now, while you might think that might be a "better her than New York" mindset (which I would totally respect), Nibblez offers the following endorsement:
You know, I just plain like Nibblez. Seems like a very sweet girl. Clearly, New York is to be the final guest, and her appearance is preceded by a video clip that includes her snarking on Deelishis's mom's hair. Which was a major misstep on New York's part. See?
Big Dee is not happy. That look could blister steel.
And in walks New York -- wait a minute.
Even has the same damn moose-y pout as last year. Buckwild is first out of the gate with...
... a flung shoe. It looks like it zings between LaLa and New York, but it actually goes wide of New York and flies behind her head. LaLa points out to Buckwild that the shoe could've hit her (LaLa) and that it wasn't cool to throw it. (I kinda like the implication that it would've been just fine to throw the shoe if New York had been alone on the stage.) LaLa absolutely has a point, but she goes onto this weird tangent about respect and... I don't know, something. When even the host gets trife, the show is beyond repair.
New York blathers for a while about how great she is and how rotten everybody else is. It's nothing new; the words "fabulous" and "haters" come up a lot and she strikes this pose quite a bit:
While New York is vamping as only a reality-TV version of Baby Jane Hudson can, Deelishis changes into some extremely practical footwear.
(Ya know, she's a talentless nitwit, but Krazy has adorable shoes.) We soon see why Dee changed into sneaks as the inevitable melee erupts:
It just gets more and more unbelievable: Bootz jumping and being caught in mid-air by Big Rick; someone (New York, maybe?) grunting, "I'm gonna kill one of them bitches"; Sapphyri walking toward the stage, her anger management certificate clearly forgotten; and Bootz's final, surprisingly fast, dash backstage. Wow. It's like a race to see who can disgrace themselves the most quickly and effectively.
But we soon have a winner in that regard. After the break, we are informed that most of the combatants have been asked to leave. New York is still on stage, and Flav comes out to join her. I guess all that stuff she said in Belize about him never touching her again wore off faster than a cheap-champagne hangover. Flav talks about how New York totally blew her chances on the yacht when she started acting like her mom. Then he goes off about how he wears the pants, not a dress and -- just like that, Flav's dead to me. (And the audience applauds Flav's knuckle-dragging gender-role stuff. Who are these freaks?)
Deelishis is brought back into the audience, and she apologizes for going off on New York and they compliment each other and it's all really weird and fake.
Even weirder and faker is the "via satellite" bit with New York's mom. Flav, having apparently been possessed by a 10-year-old, draws on the screen and hits the mute button and the audience (I've decided they're all drunk) eats it up. I roll my eyes.
And then... the unthinkable happens. New York announces that since she hasn't landed the deadbeat troll of her dreams, she's going to have her own dating show, "I Love New York." All my brain activity shorts out momentarily as I attempt to ponder: Who? Who on earth? Who?
Who?
Who would volunteer to interact with New York? No, I mean in terms of straight men. (She's become a minor-league gay icon, for reasons that utterly elude me.) What group of heterosexual men would possibly be attracted to her? The mentally ill? The legally deaf? The Carl Weathers Fan Club?
Not even my love of trainwreck television can supersede my endless hatred of New York, so it pains me to say that I think I'll have to take my leave of this franchise. Damn near nobody has come out of this smelling like a rose (even my beloved Goldie made some nasty slurs about Asians when she first met Red Oyster during the first episode, shown on the Season 1 DVDs). Honestly, unless the men vying for New York's affections are wearing white coats and carrying butterfly nets, I don't think I can stand to watch one moment of I Love New York.
Finally, this harrowing reunion ends with Flav and Deelishis making out. And yes, his hand is exactly where you'd expect it to be.
Speaking of Flav's parts being where you might expect them to be, he didn't let any moss grow on him between Seasons 1 and 2 of Flavor of Love. There's a seventh Flav Jr. on the way, by a woman who hasn't appeared on the show. So good luck with all this, Deelishis! And Flav ... stay classy.
Yeah, what can I say? This wasn't just a train wreck, it was the Titanic.
I think that the audience consisted of Springer Stepford Clones that Jerry Springer had made specifically for his show. They'll cheer, clap, or boo on command.
That Flav is indeed a classy little troll!
Hah!
He's probably the biggest skank on the show!
Why couldn't he and New York just have hooked up. Seriously. Who deserves each other more?
Posted by: Cheesemeister | November 03, 2006 at 04:05 AM