Living In Reality: 1/23/14

Jay

This episode we finally got to see more of Jay. Unfortunately, we had to see him deal with a devastating tragedy. It started with more of a garden-variety house problem; Jay’s list of phone numbers that he wrote down got ripped up by someone. He tried calling his ill mother, but as it turned out, he had been calling the wrong number. Finally, Jay was able to call and have a couple more conversations with his mother, who was facing another surgery.

Jay had a conversation with Arielle discussing his parents’ divorce and how he had to keep things together for his mother and brother. Later on, Jay’s father called with the bad news that his mother passed away. Jay became very emotional, noting that he hadn’t cried since he was five. All the roommates took the news just about as hard as he did.

Jay flew back to New York for the funeral. He met up with his family, but also with his ex-girlfriend Jenna. He credited his roommates for being supportive, but was also still ticked off about the person who ripped up his numbers and cost him some extra time to speak with his mother. Everyone of course denied that they did it. trust commitment

Jenny and Cory

The house went out for Jenny’s birthday. Jenny was definitely flaunting it out at the club and was partying big time (to the point where she puked the next day). Some random guy named Oscar started chatting her up, and she was receptive to his advances. That made Cory jealous, which led to another explosive fight back at the house. The next day, Cory and Jenny finally hashed out their problems and decided to just be friends.

Ashley

Ashley reflected on her dubious actions in the confessional and said she needed to act better. At that point, she was revealed to be the paper shredder, so to speak. Hurricane Ashley (as dubbed by Cory) made another appearance as she felt like the roommates should have been kissing her ass for getting them free drinks and VIP service at clubs. She had more drunken temper-tantrums, leading everyone else to keep their distance from her.

On another night, she went out with Francis and did not return to the house by the next morning. In fact, she called the house saying she was thinking about leaving. But she wanted the roommates to take a vote on if they wanted her to stay. Jay and Jenny voted yes, while the remaining four said no. The majority ruled, so Ashley and the rest house of the house mutually agreed to part ways.

A Meta Real World?

We’ve visibly seen the cameramen at different points of each episode so far. This latest episode, there was a moment when Thomas crashed for the night but ended up falling out the bed. That prompted one of the cameramen to be shown laughing. Later on, one of the producers called up Ashley while she was in the middle of searching for her lost purse. Just another example of the changes in the Real World franchise.

After-show

And we have our first official after-show! This go-around, it’s being hosted by Nessa from MTV’s “Girl Code”. The entire house was on at the beginning minus Ashley, who was coming on later. Most of the cast took their usual potshots at Ashley before she came on.

Ashley joined the show and said she left the house because of pressure and anxiety. Jay confronted her about Number-gate (Paper-gate?), but she had no real answers as to why she did it. She just does not ever remember what she does when she has been drinking.

There was a discussion as to whether Jamie violated girl code (meta alert!) by talking about Ashley’s relationship situation. There was still no love lost between the two. The on and off house relationships were discussed as well.

Towards the end there was a “What The Hell Was That” segment where they played an unaired clip. In this one, they showed Jenny picking up water bottle with her foot and placing it in the refrigerator. She even re-enacted the scene for the after-show crowd. The after-show ended with a sneak peek of exes coming into the house.

Final Thoughts

We’ve seen some Real Worlders deal with personal loss before, and it’s always sad to see. Jay seems to be handling his loss fairly well after some initial bouts of guilt. Even though Ashley probably was not malicious in ripping Jay’s paper, it was hardly a harmless thing she did. Imagine if Jay’s mother died before he was able to speak to her again. Hopefully Ashley grows up going forward and fully comes to understand that her actions affect other people.

On another note, the big moment is upon us. The exes are about to join in the shenanigans of the house. We’ve already seen a bit of some of the exes (Arielle’s ex, ironically named Ashley, showed up in this episode). This season has been plenty explosive enough without them; the drama level is about to get turned up to over 11 soon.