Asp Burger
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3 hours ago, Black Knight said:
Well, after we found out after the original season how Julie worked to keep Melissa and Kelley from being close, my theory then was that she didn't like that there were three women in the house (there are people who feel very insecure about that number because they feel it's going to be two plus one), and because Kelley was a white blonde woman like herself, and also the most conventionally attractive woman, she wanted Kelley to be the outlier.
Fast forward to 2022. Not only is Kelley still the other white blonde woman and most conventionally attractive (though I prefer Melissa), she's since married an actor who, while not A-list, is well-known by their generation for being on one of the iconic teen TV shows back then. (And Scott Wolf has aged very well, to boot.) She has a business and a book deal and a public profile.Julie was insecure and jealous back then and even more insecure and jealous now. Hence her targeting of Kelley.
Kelley was also the most obviously anxious, the least at ease...certainly of the three women, probably of all seven. She didn't lightly decide to participate. Maintaining her poise and not doing anything that would embarrass Scott or herself was important to her. Julie, being a kind of bully, radared in on that as bullies do. Of course she'd be peppering with Kelley with masturbation questions (and the like). And seeing that it made Kelley uncomfortable would make her do it more.
Also, if Kelley's quote of "How does it feel to be the dumb one? How does it feel to be the idiot?" is accurate, it's very revealing of things Julie has held onto about her Real World experience as the house ingenue.
Reading that part made me think of how when she was on the Extreme Challenge, she worked herself up into a rage to combat the fear of crossing a tightrope. She was shouting "No one thinks I can do anything! But I can! I'm a big girl!" It was pretty embarrassing. (And it didn't work; she fell off.) But I think it was a glimpse of some real anger we've seen come out in other ways.
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The last two parts of Melissa's story make me sad for what the season might have been. The Homecoming was a demonstration of that old saying about one bad apple.
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Daniel D'Addario calls the season "genius reality TV." Although I soured on this Homecoming in the back half, I did enjoy his piece. A quote: "If Danny, Melissa, Kelley, and Tokyo were portraits of how lonely and isolating it can be to grow up, Julie — as the self she presented on-camera — is a portrait of how much one loses when one tries to fight the process. [...] Julie presents as someone trying to reclaim something she once had; while, for others, the conversation has moved forward, Julie continually reasserts that she belongs at the center for the noise she can make, the havoc she can cause."
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/why-real-world-homecoming-orleans-140036698.html
Variety has the same piece, so pick your link.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/columns/real-world-homecoming-new-orleans-1235286804/
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Here's the post from the Redditor who tried to put together the real timeline using outfits, hairstyles, and other context clues. It's eye-opening and probably very close to accurate. The events presented in a more honest sequence would have made for a better season.
https://www.reddit.com/r/therealworld/comments/v69vhn/organized_timeline/
I knew I was seeing creativity with the chronology, because it's Bunim/Murray and it's what they do, and some things caused my buzzer to go off. Like Julie in her hot-tub call (the one Melissa and Kelley overhear) saying she had tried to flirt with the guys there and she just didn't have the stomach for it. The only thing we'd seen from her that might qualify as flirtation at that point was her asking Tokyo to shower with her. Her statement makes more sense when you know the hot-tub call with Spencer followed her conversation with Matt (the "Why didn't you like me in 2000?" one) and her numerous attempts to do whatever she was doing with Jamie. She "flirted" with all three straight guys within the first three days.
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2 hours ago, Bastet said:
(I can only see one thing on the left, the introduction to the story, her "Continued from slides" post on the right, and several replies to that.)
There's a hard-to-spot arrow (light gray on white) to the right of that first slide you see. I don't think you need an IG account to click through to the others. But in case I'm wrong, someone on another forum captured her whole story in streaming form. It's good.
Now I'll be back after the last episode. I hope it's somewhat redeeming. I was loving this season so much (even with Julie) until it went toxic at about episode 6.
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10 minutes ago, choclatechip45 said:
I re read Kelley's slide where does it say she wasn't there for Paul's visit?
It's kind of confusing. There's a series of slides, and then she finishes with a long comment. At first I thought there was only one slide. You have to click through, and the white-on-white makes it hard to see the arrow to the right.
Edit: But the part about Paul is in the long comment. "For those of you who are new here and have discovered the misleading timeline, you are correct. I had already left for the visit from Paul, the swamp tour and much more."
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If I Stop, Will You Stay? sounds like the title of a very turgid Lifetime movie about abuse, doesn't it?
That's revealing information from Kelley about the manipulated timeline. I remember being a little surprised that she wasn't there to interact with Paul at all, because other than Danny, she was the one he knew best. The three of them went out to dinner and stuff during the original season.
The biggest giveaway that things are in a weird order is Jamie's hair. It was buzzed on the sides when he first walked in in episode 1, and it's been all over the place on the long/short spectrum since.
Now I'm going to avoid this thread until I see the finale.
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7 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:
I'm mildly concerned that this season has been nominated for awards, were the other seasons nominated for anything? I guess I see awards as encouragement for Julie's antics and I fear the effect that will have on future seasons.
The New York version of Homecoming was nominated in the same two categories in 2021: Best Unstructured Series and Best Ensemble Cast in an Unscripted Series. It did not win either. The awards went to Deaf U and RuPaul's Drag Race, respectively.
Los Angeles Homecoming wasn't nominated for anything (by that awards group), but it aired within the same eligibility period as the New Orleans one.
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She reads as riled up herself.
Production "built" the club? I believe Danny said in an interview that it was Oz (it was either Oz or another well-known Bourbon Street gay bar), and that it had been closed but they reopened that night for them. Julie seems persistently to take things up or down a level to serve whatever narrative she's pushing.
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Interesting post from Tokyo. "We all understand the reason I shut down and stopped sharing, but I’d like to make it up to you." Kelley has the first reply.
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The obvious swap there would have been Holly (future wife of Chadwick) in New Orleans and Kelley on Maximum Velocity with James, Theo, and the gang.
Kelley's own preference to the side, I'm glad we didn't get that. Not a Holly fan.
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30 minutes ago, lyric said:
I love that you know the album! Yes, my favorite band on the planet and works perfectly in this context to boot. Just don’t bust me for copyright infringement ;)
I'd never. That album wouldn't make a bad soundtrack for this Homecoming season. "Burned Bridges." "Out of My Mind." (And "Asshole," for that matter.) "Hard Times" (for Danny). "That's What You Taught Me" for an inspirational close.
Other topic: On social media, Tokyo ended any suspense about something in the finale. I'll tag it, just to be on the safe side.
SpoilerKelley does depart early. The most frequently seen promotional photo of the seven of them for Homecoming -- the one with Danny in the middle, Melissa resting a hand on his shoulder, and Tokyo flashing a peace sign -- was taken after she had left. She was pasted in.
Tokyo: "This photographic moment in its current iteration exists nowhere in this universe. There was no original. There never will be."
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Yeah, I've wondered if Tokyo had some eyebrow mishap.
@lyric, your avatar is the cover of an album I love and very few other people seem to have heard (Living Colour's The Chair in the Doorway). I don't know if that's the only place the image has appeared, though, so I don't know if the reference is intentional. It definitely works for a TV site.
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A Julie observation: It's hard to sort out what's real and what's contrived for cameras with her, but something that appears genuine is that she's really uneasy about being past 40 now. It would be interesting to go through the six episodes and count how many times she has made comments about the cast acting "old" and how she's the exception to it. "Senior Acres." They go to bed too early. They didn't want to stay at the club longer. Matt takes naps (horrors). Kelley is compared to her grandmother. When Julie was drunk and even less guarded, and Melissa said "We're old as fuck," that triggered her to a furious denial.
Some of the things that get her most excited are childish. Building forts, Nerf wars? And the person she's getting along with best is Jamie, who's acting the most childish of the other six. The difference between them is that I think Jamie's got his own number. He has no illusion that he's other than a middle-aged dad for whom some of the youthful dreams didn't pan out. He's looking at this as a break from his reality, in which he leaves his adult responsibilities for a while and acts like a twentysomething again. I don't think Julie has the same self-awareness.
Melissa, Tokyo, Kelley, and Matt didn't approach Homecoming as an opportunity for regression, and she's not clicking as well with them. Danny didn't either, but he's being more indulgent of her.
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Kelley applied hoping to get Road Rules, which was a little unusual. Most applicants hoped for Real World, because it was always the more popular and buzzed-about show by a mile. That was especially true before the Challenge really took off, and specific Road Rules people started to have bigger followings.
In my opinion, Kelley appeared more relaxed on the Battle of the Seasons Challenge than she was on either the original New Orleans Real World season or the Homecoming. And I agree with the comment upthread that she's always shown pretty significant anxiety signs. I actually think she masks better now than she did in 2000.
I have the New Orleans book, and I don't remember anything about her going to the movies before meeting Peter, but I'll look through it again. In the producer comments on her, Jonathan Murray says he thinks she would have enjoyed working in production more than being on the show, and Andrew Hoegl says he really likes her but she frustrated him with being guarded and trying to control her portrayal. He says he felt like they got more of the "real Kelley" after the group returned from South Africa.
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2 minutes ago, DearEvette said:
Obviously Incoming Messages are crafted to provoke conversation on some uncomfortable topics that the roommates might not have started themselves. Since they'd already brought up Tokyo's past with the roommates and his issues with he he behaved in the house organically there was no reason to rehash.
That's what I was thinking. The David-to-Tokyo transition has been covered in other ways. When Tokyo called his own present-day house meeting over Julie, we got flashbacks to the house meeting about him in the next-to-last episode of the original season. We saw Jamie calling him an asshole, and Melissa saying there's no point in talking to him because he doesn't understand adult communication, We also saw the earlier scene in the Yukon in which he told Julie he wasn't going to be stagnant for anybody, and she got angry and slammed the car door.
So an "Incoming Message" sit-down for it would have been overkill.
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That was a brutal takedown by Danny's standards, re: Julie. "The world is already awash in reality television full of vanity, broken souls, manipulation, ego-driven antics, shallow platitudes, and mindlessness. We didn't need to add to the stew..."
When they were discussing the in-season schism between Melissa and Kelley, Julie got off lightly. She wasn't entirely responsible, but she played a big part in it. Melissa and Kelley both have talked about it publicly in the past. But I guess neither of them wanted to go there, since "Julie is held accountable for stuff and evades/denies/cries/apologizes" is so five episodes ago.
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2 hours ago, choclatechip45 said:
Didn't the reunion air the same night as the 2000 election?
The season finale (really the final two half-hour episodes stitched together) aired the night of the election, November 7. The reunion came the following week.
TV Maze has the right dates. Wikipedia's are all off by a day, and would have the show airing on Wednesdays. It was definitely Tuesdays in that period
https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/991/the-real-world/episodes
On Tokyo: I'm not buying into this line about how "Come On, Be My Baby Tonight" was intended as a way to reach out to his roommates and help them understand him better, and it was rejected. Maybe he talked himself into that view later. For starters, he was singing and scatting over footage of himself shirtless, talking on the phone, standing next to nice cars and gesturing at the cars as if he owned them. If he were trying to connect with anyone, it was New Orleans women who might be watching public access. The housemates understood that side of him very well from the first week.
Second, their reaction to it had nothing to do with his musical ability. He just hadn't followed a very clear assignment, and he wasn't the episode's producer. Later, when he was the producer (twice), he was dictatorial about being in control and everyone doing what he asked of them. No one ever gave him a taste of his own medicine, although they would have been justified.
I remember watching that episode when it was new, and I thought it was hilarious. I had never laughed so hard at anything on The Real World, and I wasn't laughing "with" him. How could one, when he was so earnestly full of himself? But as was said last night (maybe a little overstated, by Melissa), it became a great moment in the history of The Real World.
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I don't fully understand what's going on emotionally with Kelley, but it does seem the experience peaked for her at some point, and then she stopped being comfortable in the house, even with some close friends there. It reached a point where there was a pall cast even over relatively innocuous things.
I don't think Spencer was "just" shirtless in Julie's screensaver photo, FWIW.
It'll be a bummer if she isn't there to walk out with the others (and the "next week" clips were cagey on that), but maybe she felt she had done what she set out to do. The relationships that are good aren't going to be affected by her being there for, say, 12 days instead of 14.
I'm still hoping Danny, Melissa, and the others can talk her down, and this will be the season that breaks the curse.
I enjoyed the studio session and much of the rest of the episode.
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I think they searched for keywords, such as "gay" and the name of a former POTUS, on his account.
Also, he's saying he deleted things, but he may not have been as thorough as he had believed.
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My sense of the way the Homecoming seasons work is that we will get some scenes with all seven people together and some with smaller groups, and that's just the way it unfolds. I hope I never see Tami Roman on television again, but when she decided to stay behind at the house while the rest of them went on Outward Bound: The Middle-Aged Version, I was okay with her decision. She "showed up" plenty in the rest of the season, and people could feel how they felt about what she added.
Whether Kelley noped out on the bar because she didn't want to be around drunken shenanigans, or she had a deadline, or she was on a hot streak with what she was writing and didn't want to interrupt the flow (ha!), or drag isn't a favorite entertainment form of hers (probably not that, since she participated in Anthony's show during the original season), I don't have a problem with it. She did say yes to the season, and so we're all getting something to talk about. If she'd said no, maybe we'd be watching or choosing not to watch Real World Homecoming: Austin.
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15 hours ago, Zizzlezazzle said:
She was there for *one week*—this was pure avoidance.
They were there for two weeks.
Maybe she was in the middle of something and she didn't want to lose the thread. I've written before, so I know how that can be. Anyway, I'm sure when all the negotiating was going on in trying to get the whole cast back together (something that proved impossible with several casts leading up to theirs), she said she was going to be working on a book and she'd participate as much as she could. She and Melissa were the two last to sign on.
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That 2001 special was very scattered and had so many pieces joined together. There was the photo shoot. There were small-group discussions in a studio (Jon, Elka, and New Orleans Julie made up a "Christian virgins" panel; Kevin, Neil, and Kameelah made up, I guess, a "smart, argumentative people" panel). Puck was getting a lot of solo time to talk about what he thought of each season, and they were showing clips while he was talking. Then there was a "red carpet" segment of arrivals to a club, with Miami Dan as emcee, and that was followed by a dance party with Dan going around interviewing people. They had a confessional set up at the club for the Real World alumni (some of whom were getting smashed) to go in and say whatever was on their minds to the camera. We had segments with Eric and New Orleans Melissa doing a countdown of the greatest RW moments, as well as a preview of the Back to New York season. Plus John Norris as "anchor" in the studio, providing newsy narration of the show's history and obvious highlights (e.g., Pedro's influence).
I think the party segments were cut for re-airings.
All these parts obviously had been filmed at different times, because people had different looks. Neil had black hair when he was talking to Kevin and Kameelah, then his familiar white-blond look when he was being interviewed by Dan in the red carpet/party portion.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying it's hard for me to say who was there, because I'll remember people attending, but maybe they were at the party but not the photo shoot, or vice versa.
There were definitely people who missed every part of it. New York Julie. Dom and Aaron. Irene and Janet. Colin and Matt. Jay came to the party but not the photo shoot. Jacinda, I think, was a total absentee.
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We saw them taking so many photos at that shoot that I was expecting a coffee-table book to be published within the year. Nothing ever followed, to the best of my knowledge. Some of the groupings we saw them photographing were weird and random.
Puck, of course, was being "Puck on 9," as he might put it. He got into separate squabbles with Nathan and Kameelah. We didn't hear what was said in either case, but people were having to hold Kameelah back. She was really going to go after him.
Then Puck was going to pout off, but his mother was there, and she gave him a sip of beer and told him to get his picture taken. I couldn't make this up.
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RW Homecoming: New Orleans (2022)
in The Real World
Podcaster Jess Rothschild asked Danny if the Spencer visit was as producer-contrived as the Paul visit. Per Danny, Spencer really was traveling for some conference, but he didn't want to participate in the show and didn't want to be on camera. Julie insisted.
I wish I would hear something that made me dislike her less.