Tatum

She physically gave them a cup of wine? Or she just basically said she wouldn't stop them?

Is she using a technicality here...if I recall, she did not physically give a kid a cup of wine, the kids asked her for one and she said something like, just don't let me see you take it, and literally and figuratively looked away while they were doing it. Maybe she said it like, I better not see you doing that, which is a bit more open to interpretation? I think it's the former, but the actual exchange was not caught on camera so Montana could probably finesse that one. I am 99% sure in the book it was more like, I'm telling you no (wink, wink), but if you take it behind my back, I guess that's on you. think it was stated in another thread that the remaining 6 only want to do the show if it's all 7 of them, so it's not that they aren't able to do it without him, it's that they don't want to- but I can't remember where exactly I read that.

Interesting. I wonder if she meant she found him gross as far as some of the comments he made about women, which I would have to agree were off putting, or she means he was physically a turn-off to her. I thought Jamie in 2000 was pretty good looking, but I remember a lot of people on the forums didn't care for him. ETA: Also, has it been the case with previous Homecoming casts that they have to share rooms? Acceptable in my 20s, but now, on the cusp of 40, I would share a room with no one that I wasn't related to by blood or marriage (my own, and even then it's dicey) and certainly not with a man I haven't seen in 20 years. Julie is weird.

I agree, but I am glad for it. Also, was there a running Julie/Jamie flirtation? I vaguely remember one episode where they kissed, but it didn't seem to be a running theme through the series that I remembered. I thought it was more Jamie/Kelley and Jamie/Melissa. But I didn't watch that closely. ETA: I watched the original premier of New Orleans and Julie just seems so likeable. It's hard to reconcile episode 1 of Julie with how she acted in subsequent Challenge appearances. I mean, she was wholly obnoxious on ALL of them.

I do not believe either of these for one second. I believe she thinks she has potential to make more than the offered salary for the hybrid show, but she is not remotely relevant anymore. But keep going with the hubris Kail, I salute you.

Oh. Well I stand corrected then.

Banned is probably the wrong word, but I am sure she will never be invited back. Tonya accused two cast members on the Challenge of raping her during filming, and sued the production company and Viacom. The lawsuit was settled and the terms sealed. ETA: the above is an extremely condensed version of the whole incident. You can google Tonya Cooley sues viacom and get the whole story. It's pretty disturbing. ETA again: While MTV/Viacom/Bunim Murray has yet to comment on this directly, the accused perpetrators are banned for life as well.

Even if Tonya wasn't banned, I can't imagine Keri and Kyle would ever do a reunion. Kyle is embarrassed by his association with reality TV and Keri seems like she also wanted to distance herself from the show. Chris and Cara would probably be hard sells as well. A little surprised Boston said no- obviously Sean would, but who needs him? I think they could still do a show with 5-6 people. If they are strict on 7 people, I can't imagine we will see much of the earlier casts. That would be really hard to get 7 people (who presumably have real jobs and families) to coordinate 1-2 weeks. Especially in casts where there were a lot of hard feelings or embarrassing behavior.

His words did put the onus on Melissa and Danny to at least give Julie some kind of direction of what they wanted to hear from her, when they had already been quite clear. How about, Julie, clearly Melissa and Danny do not believe you had nothing to do with these letters. I suspect no one in this room believes you had nothing to do with the letters. If you are going to keep denying any wrongdoing and reverting to straw man arguments (you're calling me racist?), you're going to be sitting here arguing with yourself for the rest of the evening, because the rest of us are going to go eat. I would have respected that.

Road Rules Islands and Europe are both intermittently available on Youtube. I don't see them now, but they'll be back up at some point. The video quality can be pretty poor, but it's cool to hear all the original songs playing, a lot of them I'd forgotten about. I heard years ago that the Road Rules was sold to some syndicate in the late 90s and it's not clear who currently has the rights to the early seasons of the show.

Erika and Sean made out, I don't think they had sex. They could have, but I kind of doubt it. I don't think Kameelah and Genesis were very possessive of Sean; they both pretty much hated him at that point. I am drawing a blank on that episode; I don't remember the groups being hostile to each other but each cast had really mean things to say about the opposing cast. I read it in my Insider's Guide to RW: Season 7 back when I was in middle school :).

Agreed, although Julie did say at some point that Melissa won't take her calls, which I can totally believe. But in regards to Danny, here is how we know Julie is a liar. So, he confronted her back in the early 2000s over the letter (the one he referenced, not the one she insists), and she ghosted him. If, playing devil's advocate, Julie truly didn't write any letters disparaging Danny as some of amoral sex fiend who was going to try and corrupt teenage boys, and had no knowledge of anyone on her "team" that did, and she gets a call from a close friend asking why she'd write such a horrible letter, wouldn't she have tried to get to the bottom of what happened? Wouldn't she maybe ask around, call Danny back and try and explain? Danny said Julie never contacted him again. Yet here she is now, acting like the letter Danny's referencing is the first she's heard of it. But yeah, she doesn't care about reconnecting as friends. Why would you be so desperate to be friends with people you haven't said a word to in 22 years? If I ran into my best friend from high school who I haven't seen in about 19 years, sure I'd be happy to catch up at like, or lunch or something, but I wouldn't be all like wow, now we must be friends just like we were when we were 18. Julie only cares about not looking like an asshole, which has basically been her default setting since Extreme Challenge.

I guess, "what is the path towards healing" could have multiple meanings. I took it as Matt saying, how can the relationship heal (between Julie and Melissa, and Julie and Danny), because I don't really see what else needs to heal. Danny and Melissa don't want to be friends with Julie, but that doesn't mean they lie awake at night, unable to get over what Julie did to them and nursing horrible grudges. The fact that they don't trust or like Julie doesn't really mean they are holding grudges. She was a nasty person back then and it appears she hasn't changed much, I can't blame them for not liking her and not wanting to be her friend. It's like Melissa said- she's drawing a boundary. She can be civil to Julie. She can live in the same house with her for 1-2 weeks and not start any confrontations. And honestly, Melissa talks like she's been in therapy, and I would bet she actually has forgiven Julie, if only to give herself some peace. But that doesn't mean she has to want to be friends with her. Julie isn't entitled to anyone's friendship. So in my opinion, Matt was jumping in trying to solve a situation that had already been long resolved. It wasn't resolved the way Julie wanted it to be, but that's fine. Whatever demons Melissa and Danny may have, Julie isn't one of them. Wow, I had no idea.

That was really frustrating. I would have been fine if he had said, 'we're going in circles here, let's just table this for now' like someone else (I think Tokyo?) did. But what he basically said is, how can we all be friends now? like, Matt, are you deaf? Julie is flat out denying she did anything wrong, and is crazy deflecting (now you're calling me a racist??), and not being at all sincere in her non-apology, and you're asking Danny and Melissa how they can move forward and be friends with Julie? They don't have to be friends with Julie! They don't have to like her. They were perfectly willing to be civil to her and let the matter stay unresolved; Julie is the one squawking about Melissa not remembering that Julie lived in LA. What Matt really meant was that he felt sorry for the crying woman, and the whole situation made him uncomfortable, so Danny and Melissa should just tell Julie it's fine so the rest of the house doesn't have to suffer through the tension. I am also sure that to Matt, it's simply a matter of a $1,000 paycheck (or whatever it was) that never materialized 20 years ago, and it's really not worth still being upset about. He can't imagine the nuance of Danny feeling like his trust and faith in people was completely shattered, the challenges of being an openly gay man in the late 90s whose morals were always questioned by virtue of being gay, and having someone he thought was his friend say those things about him just so she could get a few bucks, or Melissa feeling like she's been painted as the Angry Black Woman for the last 20 years for confronting Julie while Julie sat there calmly snickering the whole time.

Haha she’s delusional if she thinks she’s coming off well. Even if someone had never heard Melissa’s accusations in the early 2000s and never watched Julie make an ass of herself on every subsequent challenge, I think they’d still be convinced she was a liar and self serving the way she reacted to Danny and Melissa in the first episode. I rolled my eyes so hard when she started crying about how sorry she was that she didn’t know what it was like to be Black or gay. Julie, no one is mad at you because you’re white and straight and no one accused you of being either racist or homophobic. You purposely sailed right over the points everyone was making to deflect the attention away from what a shitty person you were and still are. Eta: let me jog your memory Julie- didn’t you pee in Coral’s bed on purpose? I’d start there.

Yes, I am 99% sure Coral also accused Julie’s mother of this- either she said Coral wouldn’t do it for $XX, but Julie would, or she found out what Coral had already booked somehow and called up the school and said Julie would do it for less. I think Julie referred to her and Jamie as having unfinished business and she also said she never entertained having a crush on Jamie because she felt he was way out of her league. I find it pretty shocking she would be so frontal about this so I do wonder if those two comments were taken out of context.

What is really frustrating is that if Julie just said, yes, I wanted all the speaking engagements I could get because I didn't want to get a real job at that time, and I knew I could discredit you and Melissa pretty easily, so I did. There is not a day that goes by that I am not ashamed of what I did, I was greedy and selfish and it honestly never even occurred to me that this would have lasting consequences to you other than the missed money opportunity, because I was not only greedy and selfish but completely out of touch with what other people's lives are like- I think Danny would forgive her. Melissa, maybe not, but I think it would still be good for Melissa to hear. But Julie continues to cry and deny it, making herself out to be the injured party. And her face just lit up when David told her, even if it was someone on your team, you are responsible for it, and you can see the wheels turning in her head, like, yes! I can apologize on behalf of someone on my team without directly admitting I did anything wrong! And she wanted to repeat David's words verbatim not because he was so damn articulate, but because she thought that's what would get her past the awkward stage with Danny and Melissa. I thought it was very telling when she asked David if he thought they'd ever be friends with her again. It's pretty clear she isn't remotely sorry for what she did, she just wants to not be the bad guy and have people dislike her.

I went back and finished the first episode, and I don't think my blood pressure can take any more of Julie. I was willing to consider that maybe she's grown up in the 15 years that she's been away from TV, and she clearly hasn't. She's still denying any wrongdoing, still blaming phantom people, crying when she's called on her bullshit, and then leaping over any semblance of logic to apologizing for the general struggles marginalized classes feel, rather than admit she exploited this marginalization for her own gain (ie telling a school that was already wary of hiring openly gay men to speak that he would be inappropriate with the students). I can't tell if she's being willfully obtuse or not. She's just an awful person. It isn't enough that Melissa just be civil- Julie needs Melissa to reassure her. The victim has to go out of her way to assuage the discomfort her perpetrator feels! She is a complete garbage person.

I've tried watching Boston a few times on YouTube. Boston and Chicago (2002) were the only seasons I watched in entirety. Elka was my favorite, probably because watching it I was a sheltered 13 year old white suburbanite, and Kameelah was my least favorite. I thought she was a total bitch. Watching it as an adult, it's amazing to see what I didn't notice at 13. Because Elka was polite to people's faces (most of the time), and non confrontational (although all the roommates agreed she was the biggest shit talker behind people's backs), and Kameelah was just so straight forward all the time in what she said, I thought Elka was the kinder of the two. They were both 19, so really, a lot can be forgiven, but it's a very interesting contrast. I remember in the Real World Boston book, Anthony said Elka was nice to the kids for the most part but spent a lot of time gossiping, while Kameelah was a doer, not a dreamer, and the only cast member he would have hired of his own accord. That said, all five Road Rulers unanimously agreed during their meetup that Kameelah was unpleasant. I think Vince called her an evil ball breaker, Kalle called her a snot, and Erika said all the women of RW were some of the most unfriendly, rudest women she had ever met.

I remember Veronica was in tears after that incident, and Julie kept acting like Veronica was such a drama queen and did that thing where she made a pouty face to the cameras and rubbed her eyes with fists, mocking Veronica for crying. It may have been true that Veronica was never in serious danger of falling out of her harness, but she's 20+ stories up and she's clearly frightened and everyone is frantically yelling at Julie to back off, and Julie felt no guilt at all. Then in a later season, when Julie is doing her talking head about coming back and running into Veronica again, Julie said she's "over" Veronica's histrionics and if Veronica "can keep her legs closed this time" they won't have any problems. Um, how does what Veronica is doing with her legs impact you any, Julie? Oh it doesn't, you just want to call her a slut to deflect what an asshole you are, Julie.

I had to turn off the episode after Julie walked in. Just so uncomfortable. And I agree with Danny- she's apologizing right off the bat, putting him in a position where he has to either like, reject her apology, or tell her it's okay, and it's really not. And while I can kind of understand not reaching out in 20 years (first, you're too embarrassed about what you did, and then, you feel like your reopening old wounds apologizing when the other person has likely moved on), but if I were Julie and I knew I was going to be on the show with someone I had wronged 20 years ago and never apologized, I would not have gone about making the apology the way she did. Danny was absolutely right, it was totally self serving. I wonder how many more of these we will see. I wonder if they have just gone down the line and New Orleans was the oldest cast (in terms of when the show aired, not their ages) that would agree to do it. I'd like to see Boston and Seattle. I am assuming they'd have no shot of assembling Chicago, which is another one I'd really like to see.

The flashback episode was 3.6. Beth also says when she's threatening Jamie in the S4 finale that she'll tell Rip that Jamie aided her in getting an abortion and "cut his child out of her".

No, she just told him when she got home that they were over. I don't think they were ever "together" again until the series started, although Beth still liked to crook her finger and see if he'd come running, which it's implied he pretty much always did. I think Beth assumes he'd hate her if he knew, but based on what we've seen of Rip, I think he could have absolved her of that guilt a long time ago. I honestly don't think he has much interest in raising a kid now, let alone when he was 16 and a ward of John's (who likely would not have been happy to hear Rip knocked up his 15 year old daughter).

Oh darn, didn't see this one and posted all my thoughts in E8 thread. It doesn't surprise me when there is a large difference between the book and series in general, but when the author is involved in the series I assume the main points will carry over. The show got most of the bare bones of the storyline jammed in, but really sacrificed the most interesting parts of the story (and the characters) to do so.

Hee, Joe Dempsie was pretty foxy when he was on Game of Thrones in the early seasons, but he is not aging that well. I think he's like 35. I don't think the actor has gained a lot of weight but for some reason his face is so much more bloated now than when he was first on GoT.