Things Got A Little Too Real...

I sort of stopped watching The Real World: Austin as the season progressed. I’d catch it here and there, but Danny and Melinda and the lame job assignment, coupled with stuff going on, slowly lead me away from it, leaving the last two seasons I watched in their totality being San Diego and Hawaii, although New Orleans was certainly entertaining. Philly and Paris? Not so much. I also realize that Miami was good, but I honestly didn’t realize it was going on.

Anyway, I caught a majority of the finale and was filled in on the rest of it, and we’re to the reunion show last night. You’ve seen your typical MTV Reunion shows: You hear about hook-ups that you didn’t see, somebody blows up on somebody and two people from the show are now dating. It’s pretty formulaic, but it’s generally entertaining because of the overreactions from the crowd and random VJ host.

The Austin reunion went according to plan for most of the show. Some entertaining stuff, like Danny and Lacey flipping out on each other, was sort of predictable, but still enjoyable. The revelation that a smoking hot Johanna was now going out with Wes made me finally settle on the fact that Wes was indeed the man, because Jo was making me look smart for deciding she was hotter than Melinda waaaaay back at the beginning of the season. It was also pretty interesting to see Rachel nearly complete her toad transformation and to have it revealed on national TV that some random company paid for Danny’s engagement ring to Melinda. Plus, there were a bevy of fat jokes to make about Mel, who appeared to be pushing 300 pounds on the finale.

So all-in-all, we’re forty-five minutes in and Chad, Barcus and myself have all been decently entertained after a slow start. Rachel is talking about how some people in the cast have drifted apart or changed, and how that’s sad, and before our enlightened host, Susie, can say anything more about it, Nehemiah slaps the table and goes into a rant about Danny.

This came out of nowhere. Granted, Nehemiah went from a Jacques level of cool to legitimately crazy over the course of the season, but his yelling with Danny about his ego was maybe the realest thing on the Real World in some time. It sort of makes sense, because the show did revolve around Danny, not that it was his choice. The fact that Real World: Austin turned into Real World: Danny would have contributed to anybody’s egotism, but this claim was coming from Nehemiah, so we had to take it with a grain of craziness.

But then Rachel quietly stated that Danny had sort of changed, or else he’d been fake on the show, which led to Danny misunderstanding the concept of what she was talking about and screaming back at her about who was nice to her the entire time. “That’s my point”, she replied, and one smarmy comment to Susie later about “this being a little different from TRL” left me wanting more.

A lot more, actually. I want a True Life or an extended Entertainment Weekly piece or an entire website dedicated to the fallout of the Austin roommates, specifically whatever Danny is doing to the point that caused Lacey and Nehemiah to nearly fight him, Rachel to nearly cry and for Wes and Johanna to just ask Nehemiah to be quiet when bringing it up.

So that’s my request of you. AIM me the links you find or gossip you hear, because I’m really intrigued by this, a lot more interesting than the entire season at least. And, thanks to the geniuses at TVGasm, we’ve got Danny’s modeling pictures, where he still doesn’t take that stupid f-ing hat off. Enjoy folks.