RW: New Orleans (2000)

[Black Knight]

I wonder if Julie and Alan are still close or if she's annoyed him into becoming distant.

I also remembered from watching the compilations what a strange affect her father had. Granted, Julie was yelling at him a lot and maybe he didn't want to give the cameras a reaction. But if that's just how he always is, I could kind of see some of the roots of Julie as a person there.

[Asp Burger]

On 4/23/2022 at 1:34 PM, Black Knight said:

I also remembered from watching the compilations what a strange affect her father had. Granted, Julie was yelling at him a lot and maybe he didn't want to give the cameras a reaction. But if that's just how he always is, I could kind of see some of the roots of Julie as a person there.

The father gave me the creeps. Some of the things they were saying to each other, especially when they got quiet and covered their microphones (which never works), were sounding alarm bells. Julie had seemed uncomfortable in his presence from the start. There was some kind of unhealthy dynamic there.  

It was interesting that Alan, the brother, was so much on Julie's side. He told Julie that the father tries to make it seem everything he does is for his kids' benefit, but it's really about control, and that he was trying to get into her head and make her think she was a terrible person. He obviously was talking about his own experience as much as Julie's. 

I wasn't a Julie fan at any point, but her family's two-part visit was definitely the "Puck's eviction" or the "Stephen's slap" or whatever of that season. The dramatic peak of the second half.  

Edited April 25, 2022 by Asp Burger

[ljenkins782]

19 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

The father gave me the creeps. Some of the things they were saying to each other, especially when they got quiet and covered their microphones (which never works), were sounding alarm bells. Julie had seemed uncomfortable in his presence from the start. There was some kind of unhealthy dynamic there.  

It was interesting that Alan, the brother, was so much on Julie's side. He told Julie that the father tries to make it seem everything he does is for his kids' benefit, but it's really about control, and that he was trying to get into her head and make her think she was a terrible person. He obviously was talking about his own experience as much as Julie's. 

I wasn't a Julie fan at any point, but her family's two-part visit was definitely the "Puck's eviction" or the "Stephen's slap" or whatever of that season. The dramatic peak of the second half.  

Yeah, Alan's carefully chosen words were interesting. And her dad creeped me out, but I can't tell if it was just the David Koresh-ian metal frames (which are sadly making a comeback) and terrible haircut. 

I just watched the episode with David's stripper show, all the credit in the world to Matt and Kelley for ad-libbing that "fashion" show and especially to Matt for smoothly talking over that stripper falling in her plastic heels while Kelley giggled and everyone in the control room lost their shit.

Also saw the episode where Julie played the trick on Matt and it just tickled me that a "guestbook" featured so prominently. It's so funny to look back on those early dot.com days.

I keep putting the show on and then either getting distracted by work or falling asleep, but there are definitely some weird episodes. Some of the Jamie/Kelley stuff seems to come out of left field, and yet I'm not sure it's a product of editing because the scenes seem real-time. It strikes me as each of them making some assumptions about the other, like Jamie assuming Kelley was mean to him only because she liked him, and Kelley being furious that he thought she liked him because she's used to being pursued.

The goofy boxing episode was hilarious, Danny's wry "this girl really wants to beat the hell out of Julie" and Melissa's incredulous "her name is SQUIRREL" were priceless. Julie is such a dumbass.

 

[Black Knight]

I saw the boxing thing in one of the compilations and did feel semi-sorry for Julie. It was obviously just supposed to be a goofy fun thing and instead this girl was really going after her. It was pretty jerky on her part, and perhaps really another of those incidents we've heard about where in some seasons locals were pretty nasty to RWers to the point security was needed, etc.

Then I remembered Julie picking at Veronica's harness and my sympathy vanished.

[Asp Burger]

8 hours ago, Black Knight said:

It was obviously just supposed to be a goofy fun thing and instead this girl was really going after her. It was pretty jerky on her part, and perhaps really another of those incidents we've heard about where in some seasons locals were pretty nasty to RWers to the point security was needed, etc.

Yes, when she yelled "Welcome to the real world!" it removed all doubt that she had a Real World grudge.

Squirrel was friends with the guy, Baxter, and worked with him at a restaurant. There was an earlier scene in which she seemed to be discouraging a showmance between Baxter and Julie by telling Julie he had multiple girlfriends. Then I think she saw her opportunity to have a big scene and come off as a bad-ass.

That season had several "camera moths": Squirrel, Frat Matt (Melissa's date who got in the hot tub with her), Kelley from the 735 club (who came over and played pool with Matt but clearly wasn't interested in him). 

I was thinking that while Kelley (Limp) got all the criticism for never being home and being a waste of space in the cast, Matt was the one who would have lifted out most easily. Kelley had a significant relationship with a local and got very close to Danny, and she was always a big player in the NOA-TV scenes. Matt was more like someone who won a Real World fan contest. He just hung around the house and commented on the other roommates. When they tried to focus episodes on him, it was dull. He came in adamant about not drinking and not having sex before marriage, and he stuck to his principles, which is fine, but...imagine how little he'd be remembered if Julie hadn't had the one-way crush on him.

[urrutiap]

currently watching  the New Orleans season on Paramount.

 

That Melissa was just a weird gal