Category: TV Time with Typical Jenn

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve about had it with Matt and Shelby and at this point I’ve begun cheering for the villagers, but before we pick up where we left off we’re first given the answer to a question nobody was asking (or at least I wasn’t): where the house came from. In 1792 an extremely wealthy man named Edward Pillipe Mautt bought the lot and had the house built so he could be alone with his art. Long story short his art was defiled one night so he threw a tantrum, punished his servants (who didn’t do it, obviously) by locking them in the cellar AND THEN the Butcher and her people kill him and the servants in the cellar die. So there’s that.

So back to the mob. Matt calls 911 for the 237th time to save them from the ghost mob but they’re out in the middle of nowhere so the cops won’t be arriving any time soon. The Butcher makes a reasonable offer: if they come out now she’ll kill them quickly. Since Shelby and Matt are selfish they come up with a different plan: Matt’s going to go outside first and create a diversion like a Saved by the Bell episode while Shelby and Flora run to the truck. So they go ahead with this sure fire plan but before they get to the stairwell a ghost girl that has taken on the mannerisms of a spider (I think it’s one of the Chen’s) grabs Flora and trots off. That’s not the only part of their plan that goes awry: the villagers have set Matt and Shelby’s cars on fire. The spider girl eventually sets Flora down, Matt and Shelby get her back but are now surrounded by the pig-man and the three hunters. They miraculously escape and make it to the basement. Anyone else would be dead by now but THEY manage to continue to flee.

Down in the basement they meet Edward who helps them escape via a secret tunnel, leads them into the woods and then disappears. So now Matt, Shelby and Flora are on their own but not to worry because their friends’ the Polk family kidnaps them. You remember them, the hillbillies who lost the bid on the house. Matt, Shelby and Flora are taken to the Polk’s home where they discover that Elias is alive and being used as food for the Polk’s. Look, there’s not a grocery store for miles so what exactly do you want them to do? Unfortunately for Elias he wasn’t very edible so they kill him by bashing his head in. Mama Polk then explains that she has a deal with the Butcher: she brings them victims to sacrifice and in return the Butcher leaves them alone.

Meanwhile Lee is wrapping up her 48 hours of questioning regarding her dead ex-husband and is finally out of custody. But while she’s jacking around at the police station Matt, Shelby and Flora are being driven to the Butcher via the Polk’s. Seated in the bed of the truck and with a rifle pointed at his face Matt comes up with another genius plan: he decides to wrestle away the gun from the Polk boy, which causes him to accidentally shoot the other Polk boy (who’s driving), which allows Shelby to kick the once gun-wielding Polk brother out of the truck, which allows them all to escape, but then they get caught by the not-dead Polk boy. Mama Polk is mad and to make sure they don’t run again she smashes Shelby’s ankle and delivers all of them to the Butcher.

While all of this is going on Lee manages to get an officer to drive her back to the house where she arrives just in time to watch everyone get whacked. She tells the officer to call for backup and in a wonderful display of nope he responds by driving off. Flora is first on the hit list but before they get a chance to kill her the Butcher’s son has a sudden change of heart and stops the killing by clubbing the Butcher and then grabbing her and jumping into their bonfire, killing them both, even though they’re already dead. Just bare with me, I promise this episode is almost over. So Edward reappears and unties Matt and Shelby, and then the pig-man charges at Flora but Lee found a car, hit him with it and they all flee. And they all lived and Shelby will never get over it and good God we’re only half way through the season.

We begin this episode with Matt’s one-man show of “I don’t remember having sex with that woman”. After an Academy Award winning performance Shelby believes him and starts to calm down. She heads to the bathroom to take a shower, opens the shower curtain and standing there, ready to attack, is the pig-man. It chases her throughout the house, Matt tackles it, then it chases both of them, and then a man comes out of nowhere and hits it with an ax. Surprise! The hero is Elias, the crazy guy from the tapes. The pig-man stands up, Elias yells croatoan and the pig-man disappears. They all settle in while Elias pours himself a tall one and begins to explain what croatoan means and who he is. So croatoan is basically a word of dark magic. Elias was the owner of the house and the only reason he never sold it was because he didn’t want anyone else to buy it and meet their demise. BUT, he couldn’t pay the taxes on it so it went into foreclosure and was eventually auctioned off. Matt thinks he’s a liar and begins to throw him out when Elias starts going through a list of things he knows about the house, the majority of which being occurrences that have happened to Matt and Shelby. To further prove he’s not insane, or trying to get the house back, he takes them down to the basement and shows them a book that serves as a log of all of the paranormal activity that’s happened in the house. Apparently this place has been making people disappear since the 1700s. A few of the stories include an Asian family, the Chen’s, who bought the house in the 70s, were haunted by pigs and the pig-man and were all eventually killed by the Butcher and her mob; the psychotic sister nurses, Bridget and Miranda, who in fact did not just up-and-disappear but were also killed by the Butcher and her posse; and then there were 3 hunters who stayed in the house and ended up blowing each others heads off.

Elias then gives them the low down on the hauntings and killings: the spirits can haunt at any time but they can only kill during the first lunar cycle in October. From the first quarter moon to the blood moon it’s 6 fun-filled days of killing. Oh, also, the first quarter moon is supposed to rise that very night so it’s time to get the hell out of there. Because Shelby is an idiot she doesn’t believe him, and even though she’s seen just about everything he’s described she thinks he just wants the house back. Matt doesn’t want to leave either but only because he doesn’t want to leave Flora. In an attempt to comfort Matt, Elias responds with “if she’s with the Butcher she’s as good as dead.” Shelby tells him Flora is actually with Priscilla, whom Elias just happens to know so he takes them to her.

They arrive at a location where all the spirits hang out and Shelby still doesn’t believe him until… huh, what’s that over there Shelby? It appears to be a circle of dead people and a not-dead Flora running around in the middle of them. Matt recognizes Priscilla as the little girl who led them to the cellar, which led them to find the Elias tapes. You can see the wheels turning in Matt’s head as he tries to piece it all together, AND THEN! There she is, the woman Matt had sex with. Matt stands there, locked in a trance while Shelby starts to chase her. And of course, she gets lost in the woods… and here come the spirits. Just as the three dead hunters start making their appearance Elias grabs Shelby and they run back to Matt who is watching Flora play with all of the spirits. Matt tries to get her but since Elias is the chosen one he stops Matt so that he (Elias) can get her. Elias calls out to Priscilla and just as he begins negotiations a horn sounds drawing everyone’s attention. And then BAM! Elias gets lit up with arrows.

So Elias is dead, Flora is still with the spirits, and all Matt and Shelby can do is run to the house where they are greeted by Cricket. His monologue goes something like this: “Are you guys done fucking around because you would’ve gotten Flora back by now if you hadn’t made me look like an asshole to the Butcher by not leaving when you said you would, jerks.” Now that it looks like things can’t get any worse, Shelby is finally ready to do whatever she needs to get Flora back, to which Cricket replies “uh yea, the Butcher isn’t interested.” Thanks to Matt and Shelby Cricket now has to figure out another way to get Flora back. He heads back into the woods and returns hours later with even more reasons why they need to get the hell out of that place. His story is as follows: while out in the woods he meets a woman, a woman he says is stronger than the Butcher. This woman is Matt’s fling and also she’s a witch. She blows some mystical powder in Cricket’s face but before she can kill him he starts telling her everything he knows about her and, in a last ditch effort to get her to spare his life, offers her the one thing she’s been wanting since the last episode: Matt. This pleases the witch so she discloses the secret past of the colony. They begin to stroll down memory lane, literally. As in he’s taken back in time and sees it all for himself.

Here’s the deal: the house and the land is the site of the lost colony of Roanoke, except they were never really lost. When the Butcher moved them they were considered lost, or nobody could find their new location, or they became invisible, I don’t know. They just weren’t lost, OK? Anyway, the land was known to them as the “horn of plenty”, a place where there was never a shortage of food, they had everything they wanted and the place was practically perfect. Kind of like heaven except not at all like heaven because in order to maintain that bliss the Butcher had to make human sacrifices to.. well, I’m not sure who but she just did. Eventually her son got tired of being evil and turned the entire colony against her. I need to wrap this up. So the Witch tells her to condemn them to the land, the Butcher kills them all and then the Witch kills the Butcher and they’re all dead and stuck there the end.

Since Cricket and the Witch are BFFs now she also showed him a spell that would put down the Butcher and her posse, which either means that the script writers got lazy or it’s a trick. Armed with a plan Cricket takes an Uber back to his hotel room but they don’t get very far because Flora runs in front of the car and Cricket gets out to chase after her. Back at the house Matt and Shelby are still waiting on Cricket who’s now been gone for several hours. They both dose off and after a few hours Matt wakes up and heads outside. He hears someone in the cellar, investigates and discovers it’s his beloved Witch. She seduces Matt and this time he’s super into it AND remembers, but right before the do it Shelby wakes up, walks outside and starts screaming for Matt because she can see the Butcher and the villagers approaching the house. Matt snaps out of it and runs to Shelby where they both see that the Butcher has Flora. Flora’s about to get whacked when Priscilla hits the Butcher and Flora escapes. Matt and Shelby take Flora inside and ask her if she’s OK, but all she can say is “the man, the man”. The man she’s referring to is Cricket, and right before their eyes the Butcher disembowels him. Once he’s dead the Butcher points at Matt and Shelby and gives them a ‘you’re next’ look. The moral of this episode is don’t help Matt and Shelby.

In case you were wondering, pieces of Flora were not in her sweater. I promise. The episode began with the police (who at this point have become main characters) retrieving the sweater from the tree. Lee confirms the sweater is Flora’s and the cops are completely over this family so their reaction is pretty much “cool” and now Lee thinks the cops are in cahoots with the hillbillies. Matt, Shelby and Lee continue to look for Flora and eventually come across more traces of her; they find Flora’s doll, er, the body of her doll with a pig head in place of the doll head. I take back what I said earlier; dead pigs are now main characters in the show. Anyway, they keep searching and eventually arrive at a house with a welcome mat made up of a decapitated pig with Flora’s doll head in place of the pigs head. They search the house sans any sort of weapon; luckily, with the exception of dead animal parts, flies and maggots, the house appears to be abandoned. They begin screaming for Flora and get a response that is coming from a nearby barn. The trio walk into the barn and find two young boys drinking milk from a pig. If you think reading that was gross you should’ve seen the actual scene.

The kids are taken into custody and the social worker tries to get the boys to talk by feeding them candy. Unfortunately for her this method doesn’t work as the only word the kids can say/scream is croatoan. Mason shows up at the police station and they all go back to the house where he then accuses Lee of hiding Flora in an attempt to run off with her. They squabble, Mason pushes Lee and then he leaves. The gang, minus Mason, tries to get some sleep but the entire property is haunted, a fact that they’ve yet to accept, and of course, Matt is awakened by a phone call. This time it’s the cops calling him; they inform him they’ve found something and he should probably head over to their location. Matt wakes up Shelby and together with Lee they meet up with the cops where they’re treated to a visual of the charred remains of Mason. After heading back home Matt notices a missed notification from his security system; it appears that when Mason left the house Lee followed behind him and didn’t return for 4 hours. Soooo….. After watching the video Shelby believes that yoga-hating Lee killed Mason and expresses her feelings to Matt, naturally Lee walks in just in time to hear her. The three of them begin to argue which prevents them from being aware of the little man who has let himself in the house. He introduces himself as a medium named Cricket and says that he was sent by a spirit to help get Flora back. He walks through the house and stops at Flora’s hiding place, telling everyone that Flora is alive and is with Priscilla. Later that evening they perform a seance to try and reach Priscilla but instead they get the Butcher.

The Butcher tells Cricket that the land is hers and she needs to protect it so everyone needs to piss off. When he tries to tell her the land isn’t hers she responds by blowing out the windows in the room, to which Cricket responds by yelling croatoan and then the Butcher disappears. Oh, the Butcher is the woman in the old-timey clothing that tried to kill Shelby, and is also the woman Shelby hit with her car. Anyway, he tells the gang that the spirits have Flora, he knows how to get her back and can retrieve her for the low, low price of $25K. They call him a fraud and kick him out but before he leaves he whispers to Lee “Emily says hi and she wonders why you quit looking for her all those years.” So get this, Emily was Lee’s first daughter whom went missing years prior. Her ex-husband is dead and she’s managed to misplace two daughters, nothing suspicious about that.

The next day Lee pays Cricket a visit and offers up the cash to get Flora back. He lets her know that it won’t be that simple because this Butcher character is no joke. Here’s the story on the Butcher: apparently back in the day she was married to the governor who put her in charge while he was away and a few guys (including her own son) didn’t like it so they conspired against her and put a metal cage over her head and left her to die in the woods. Just as she’s about to get killed by a wild pig a woman appears out of nowhere, kills the pig and then gives the pigs heart to the Butcher for consumption. The Butcher eats it and turns evil. She heads back to the camp and starts killing the men who betrayed her; the ones she doesn’t kill pledge their allegiance to her and she moves the entire colony to the area in the woods that the house was eventually built on. And THAT’S why the land is hers, Cricket!

So the Scooby gang convenes in the woods and Cricket once again tries to conjure up Priscilla. Instead he gets the Butcher only this time she came with a posse. Cricket tells the Butcher that if she gives Flora back everyone will leave the property and Lee chimes in with an offer to burn the house down, which makes Shelby lose it. Lee tells Shelby that her and Matt decided on burning the house down, Shelby is about to yell at Matt but he’s conveniently disappeared. Shelby searches for him and catches him having sex with the woman who turned the Butcher evil. Shelby runs back to the house, followed later by Matt who arrives to find cop cars and and a pissed off Shelby. She questions him about the woman and he responds with “whhaaa, I don’t know what you’re talking about”. Typical. And then the cops take Lee away, Matt asks Shelby “what did you do?”, to which Shelby replies “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. (Drops the mic) The end.

So, did the suspense of last week’s episode keep you on edge? Did you lie awake, night after night, wondering just what was going to become of Shelby? Did she escape? Did they catch her? Worry no more because here’s what happened: She ran. That’s right, she turned around and ran, the coward. She ran and ran, right into an area of the woods where the mob – the same one that surrounded her – was now gathered around a man who they were preparing to burn alive. This man just happens to be the man we know as the pig-man. Anyway, they light the guy on fire and then Shelby is seen and another chase ensues. Shelby manages to run her way out of the woods only to nearly get run over by Lee.

Lee takes Shelby to the hospital where she tells the doctors and cops what she has just witnessed, to which they respond by drug testing her. Matt joins them at the hospital and tells Shelby, “NOW we can leave”. But now it’s Shelby’s turn to be a dumb-dumb and her response is “well even though I can’t explain what I saw and there have been numerous paranormal occurrences around the house, I think it may just be the hillbillies yanking our chain so we’re going to stay”, or she said something like that.

Back to Lee. It’s her weekend with her daughter, Flora, so her ex-husband Mason drops her off. Out of everyone in this bunch Flora-the-kid is the only one who has a look of nope on her face when she sees the house. So Flora and Lee hang out for a bit and while Lee is making her a snack, Flora runs off. Lee searches the house and finds her talking to an invisible girl named Priscilla, and by invisible girl I mean ghost, except Lee doesn’t know that yet. Flora tells Lee that Priscilla said she would make Flora a bonnet if they would help her, and then…. Crash! They locate the cause of the loud noise and Lee discovers a vase has broken and there is an 1800s looking bonnet lying next to it.

Back to Matt and Shelby who are discussing sticking it out in the house until they can sell it, when suddenly they hear something outside. They go investigate because they haven’t been tormented enough and find a pig on a cross and lots of burning meat, or probably human flesh. Once again they call the cops and the responding officer decides to have a patrol unit park in front of their home, primarily to shut them up. Later that night Matt hears the house phone ring and… yes, a house phone. It’s like a cell phone only it’s attached to a cord and it’s not mobile and it has actual buttons. Anyway, he answers it only to find it’s unplugged, and yet he can hear a woman in pain on the other end. He peers around the corner into the dining room and watches as two nurses shoot an elderly woman in the head, then begin to spell something on the wall using spray paint. Surely this is real and not at all paranormal so he runs outside to wake up the officer. The cops investigate and find nothing. NOTHING.

The next day Mason arrives at the house to pick up Flora but Flora has a fun game of hide and seek going and Lee hasn’t found her yet. So Mason and Lee search the house and find Flora in a tiny closet talking to her dead friend Priscilla. What were they talking about? Oh, Flora was just trying to offer Priscilla her doll in exchange for not killing anyone. You know, kid stuff. Unlike the others, Mason has a logical response and him and Flora get the hell out of there. As they leave he tells Lee that Flora is never going back there, which then causes Lee to fall off the wagon.

After putting his wasted sister to bed, Matt heads to the kitchen where Shelby has summoned him. She asks Matt to look out of the window to see if he can see what she sees, which is a little girl standing in their yard. They head outside to talk to her but instead of finding her, they find a cellar.

Meanwhile Lee wakes up from her drunken stupor to find the two nurses standing over her bed, staring at her. She gets up and begins looking for them but instead finds pig extremities on the wall and then sees the pig-man.

While Lee is busy losing her mind, Matt and Shelby are investigating the cellar. They find VHS tapes… yes, VHS tapes. And an old school video camera. They watch one of the tapes and the footage is of a professor named Elias who took residence in the house to write his true crime novel about the two nurses. Here’s the low down on them: the two women (who were also sisters) were nurses at a nursing home where they first began their killing spree. When staff members became suspicious the sisters opened their own nursing home (in the house) but only accepted patients based on the first letter in their name. They would then kill the patients in order of the spelling of their favorite word, MURDER. After murdering a patient they would spray paint the letter of their first name on the wall, BUT they never finished their work. Instead they vanished and after a while the bodies of their victims were eventually found by police, and after some clean up the house was put up for sale. Matt, being satisfied to know he’s not crazy and did not imagine the women, runs to the dining room, tears down the wallpaper and wouldn’t you know it, there is the nurses unfinished masterpiece. They go back to the cellar and finish watching the tape. Elias doesn’t think the sister nurses fled, he thinks something stopped them. And not for the good of mankind like Dexter.

It’s dangerous times at the “farm” house so Lee decides it’s the perfect time to kidnap Flora, which she does. Shelby calls Mason to tell him that they have Flora, then Shelby and Matt get mad at Lee, and then Flora sees her dead friend and follows her. Lee heads to the living room to say good-bye to Flora but since she’s no longer in there Lee just believes she’s playing hide-and-seek, prompting another search. The three of them search the woods and eventually Lee finds evidence that her daughter is somewhere lost in the woods: she sees her sweater hanging from a branch of an incredibly tall tree.

How she saw it up there is beyond me but she did and that’s the end of episode 2. I’m sure it’s going to start picking up in episode 3, I’m sure of it. Please, Christ.

I’ll admit, I used to be a huge fan of the show 16 And Pregnant. At 27 the show absolutely terrified me and I figured it would have the same effect on teens. Finally MTV was making a show that could possibly help society as opposed to say, The Jersey Shore. I was equally as enthralled with Teen Mom, the follow up to 16 And Pregnant, right up until Season 2 came out and I noticed that all of a sudden the girls went from struggling to pay their bills to buying new cars, houses, and were constantly going out to eat. I don’t know about you but when I was 19 I worked as a waitress, drove a ’91 POS and nights out included going to my friends house to watch Sex and the City. But I guess when you’ve agreed to share such an extreme situation, and the events that follow, with the world you’re entitled to some sort of compensation.

While Teen Mom had its unintentional comical moments, for the most part it seemed a little sad and the fact that everyone else in the world was making fun of them (please don’t act like you never laughed at Gary and his inability to wear anything but baby tees) kept me from writing about them, until now. I picked back up on Teen Mom OG and Teen Mom 2 in their previous seasons and discovered that it was no longer a show about the struggles of a teen mom but rather a show about twenty-something-year-old women and their drama, and they happen to have money. It was as though MTV made a Twilight Zone-like Sex and the City prequel to give viewers an idea of what their lives would’ve been like if they’d all got knocked up in high school and would’ve never met.

Anyway, it wasn’t their new homes, expensive cars, unlimited clothing budget or their book deals that made me decide to include Teem Mom in TV Time with Typical Jenn. Nope, it was watching Mr. Love Line himself, Dr. Drew, explain to a couple of the cast members that the reason it was important to keep Farrah Abraham on as a cast member (of Teen Mom OG) was they needed to show the struggles of being a teen mom and the extremes they go through to survive. Interesting take, especially since it isn’t true. Now, I’m aware that there are teen mothers out there who have taken to dancing in order to take care of themselves and their child, but I’d bet my car they’re not raking in $500,000 like Farrah did when she danced at an Austin gentleman’s club. That “explanation” gave me an idea of just how much money MTV is willing to throw into this franchise for the sake of ratings and an even bigger financial return, because there’s no way anyone in their right mind would believe this show is still about the hardships of being a teen mom. There are women in a far worse situation than divorced parents and being pregnant at 17, but you won’t see all of them on a talk show promoting their new book. How many 24-year-old mothers of first graders do you know who can afford to get a brand new car every couple of years? Do you remember how much money you got for losing your first tooth? I bet it wasn’t $600 like Sophia (daughter of Farrah) got.

Now, if MTV really wanted to have a profound effect on young women they would pick 4 girls from every season of 16 And Pregnant and then film them afterwards to make a new Teen Mom and show what it’s really like. Not film the same girls every year and millions of dollars later. But I get it. People are wrapped up in their drama and you want to see how it unfolds. The only problem is, from what I’ve seen so far, they’ve run out of drama. Now MTV is just filming their everyday movements. To liven it up they’ve broken the 4th wall and now you’re able to see how the cast interacts with the crew, and every so often the cast will speak directly to the camera. Yup, like they’re talking directly to you. Geddit? It’s like you’re in their living room right there with them! Not in Farrah’s, though, you can’t afford it. So, without further ado, I bring you the latest in this MTV money maker.

So here’s what’s happening on this season of Teen Mom OG:

A whole lot of nothing.

I’m serious, this show is running on fumes.

Farrah is still making money doing tons of random things, her mom is still crazy but more so now than ever, and Farrah still has her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Simon. If you watch the show you’ll notice that Farrah and Simon are practically trying not to kill each other on camera, and if you look hard enough you can almost see the producers in the background waving Simon and Farrah’s checks at them while they’re filming their scenes. At first I thought the producers were paying this guy to be Farrah’s boyfriend and conjure up something to film, now I think their goal is to make her go as insane as possible, throwing tantrums so unbelievable the season finale will include a scene reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs where she’s being taken away in a straitjacket and mussel after she’s eaten the face off a producer, thus launching its next spin off: The Dangers of Crazy featuring Farrah Abraham. That’s MTV for you, always with the spin off’s.

Maci quit her job as a radio host, is focusing on her and Taylor’s clothing line, and her big drama is she just found out she’s 5-months pregnant, and by “she just found out she’s 5-months pregnant” I mean WE just found out she’s 5-months pregnant. Her fake reaction to the news suggests that she’s known far longer than her and the show are letting on. But she needed a story line and we’re expected to go along with it even though it’s ridiculously staged, but also these are reality stars, not actors, so what do you expect. On last week’s episode we were treated to a scene of her and Taylor discussing the wedding, and if you managed to stay awake through this incredibly boring exchange you were then treated to a few equally boring scenes of her trying on wedding gowns. In fact, the only people who were excited were the saleswomen and I suspect that was only for the cameras, as the looks on their faces resembled that of one of those lunatic mothers from Toddlers and Tiaras. You know, the ones who are practically performing on stage with their 5-year-old.

Amber is still with her conman of a fiance´. Last season they began flipping houses, a business venture they appear to still be involved in, although a new viewer of the show would believe their actual employment status is “getting paid to film and not doing anything else except this isn’t going to last forever so you better develop some skills before you’re 30 and broke.” Not having a real job or plans for her future is about as dramatic as it gets for Amber. To remedy this she (or MTV) has found a man who is equally as unambitious and, SURPRISE!, has kids all over the country, far and wide. He’s the deadbeat dad version of the now cancelled Duggar’s show “19 Kids and Counting.” If you’ve watched any of Teen Mom OG, or have read the gossip sites, you know that prior to reeling in Amber he tried getting the attention of Farrah, and when that didn’t work he tried Janelle (from Teen Mom 2), and then finally settled on Amber which, in turn, landed him a paying gig as a supporting character on the show, which then prompted his baby mama’s to start coming out of the woodwork. Look, I’m no fugitive, but what I do know is if you’re on the lamb getting yourself on a reality show probably isn’t your best option when trying to lay low.  Regardless, Amber continues to deal with the stories and the continuous flow of women claiming Matt IS the father. Listen, if Amber wants to keep this going so she can have a story line and continue to not work that’s her business but if I were Matt I would quit buying Amber “I’m sorry” rings and start saving money for the impending wage garnishments. Gary (Amber’s baby daddy) is still around, and with his Amber drama put to rest his story line consists of him talking, about nothing. In fact, we’re 4 episodes in and I can only remember one scene of his because he says the same thing over and over again, “Yea, Amber and I are getting along better and I’m glad the custody agreement is settled.” That’s it. And the only person he repeatedly says this to is his wife, who could only look more bored if she were talking to two of him.

Finally we come to Catelynn and Tyler, the only 2 with a story line that has some actual substance, kind of. While Tyler is struggling a bit to find his place in the world, Catelynn is struggling with postpartum depression and has reached out for professional help. In addition, Tyler’s dad is living with them after serving his 5-year prison sentence, and the couple is also trying to work through the fact that Brandon and Theresa (the couple who adopted their first daughter) no longer want anything to do with the show. Their story line isn’t so bad, HOWEVER, I will say that watching Catelynn chew her fingernails down to the nub makes me wish she had hooks for hands. I get that it’s probably a nervous tick but dear god when she does it, which is just about all the time, I have to look away. Watching someone chew their fingernails in person is bad enough, watching someone do that on TV is 147 times worse because you can’t smack their hand out of their mouth. It’s equivalent to watching someone run their nails on a chalkboard, which Catelynn can’t do, because she’s just about chewed her fingernails down to her knuckles. In fact, I would like to see a one hour special where Dr. Drew addresses this issue and attempts to cure her. They could bring in a hypnotist to trick her into thinking that her fingernails were actually her baby’s head. She may never paint her nails again or she might fuse her hands together behind her back so she’ll never be able to look at them, but at least she’ll be cured. But based on the severity of her nail-biting issue she’d probably just take to chewing on her toenails. Now that’s entertainment.

Tonight delivers a whole new episode of nothing and as fun as it is to write about them I just can’t do this every week, it’s too boring. How boring? Well here’s what happened on the last episode (episode 4):

• Catelynn bought a $3,000 pig and Tyler got mad. Tyler’s dad dressed up as the Easter Bunny for Nova (Catelynn and Tyler’s 2nd daughter) but put the bottoms on backwards making the tail look like a penis, hilarity ensued.

• Farrah was a dick to Sophia. Farrah was a dick to Simon. Farrah is crazy.

• Amber got sick, and also got a cat.

• Maci went from not knowing she was pregnant to looking like she’s due any second. Maci plans a wedding, then she tries on dresses. And if that sentence alone was boring to read you should try watching the episode. If you asked me the tone of her story, my answer would be monotone.

And that’s it, that’s what MTV films all day long. How they manage to stay awake is beyond me so you can see why I can’t write about this every week. It’s like watching fake grass grow. It’s like one of those old time comic strips that have been around for the last 30 years but the scenario is still taking place on the same day.

So I’ll update you again when their day is over, in 3 months.

Sadness and all things horrific seem to be the theme of 2016. I mean really, you can’t watch the news without having to get drunk or feeling the need to take a Xanax afterwards. Every news outlet appears to be in a competition of Who Can Make The World Appear More Bleak? The only thing that rivals the news is social media. “Tom Anderson just ate 5 gallons of Neapolitan ice cream, LOLOLOLOL”; gone are the days when you could read a post like that and think ‘who cares?’ The trendy thing now is to be a depressing, politically correct know-it-all who finds the saddest news from the darkest part of the globe, adds their take on it and shoves it down all of their Internet friends’ throats, consequently invoking a war of words between other know-it-all’s, each knowing more than the other, making us all despise the evolution of social media, the Internet, and mankind. Our only escape from this reality is the couple of hours we’re in a movie theater where everyone is forced to put their phones down and shut up. And what options has Hollywood given us to escape the madness? Horrendous remakes and sequels to movies that were brilliant two decades ago, bleeding a film franchise completely dry until all that’s left is its corpse depicting our lack of creativity and inability to go out on a high note. The list of death blows to classics goes on but today I’ll be talking about the newest Independence Day, almost an exact replica of the original only this one is painful to watch.

Here’s a quick, and hopefully less painful, recap: former president Bill Pullman gets mentally invaded by the aliens and discovers their plan to attack earth – I was under the assumption that attacks came without warning but clearly the aliens are more sophisticated and polite than us humans. So Bill tries to warn the president (a woman) who, at the time of his revelation, is having a big celebration in honor of the 20 year anniversary of the defeat of the aliens. He interrupts the event only to be shooed away; then, long story short, the aliens attack. Oh! Remember the scientist from the 90’s Independence Day, the one that we thought died after the alien strangled him in order to speak through him? Well he survived, turns out he lapsed into a coma FOR 20 YEARS. And to make it more believable, upon the aliens newest attack he springs to life as though waking from a light nap. That’s correct, fully awake and ready to get back to science. He remembers everything from 20 years ago as well, and leads his scientist friends back to an alien that was captured way-back-when and has been stored at Area 51. Now, it’s not one of those aliens you understand, but a different kind. Think Glenda the Good Witch of the South in the shape of a large white globe that looks as though it was designed by Apple. So after waking the iAlien it proceeds to tell them they’ve pissed off the aliens, there’s an even bigger queen coming for them, same rules apply as last time because this is essentially the same movie, only this one could have been a straight-to-DVD. And even though we attacked and captured her for no reason, SIRI says she’ll help.

In between all of this nonsense new characters are introduced and random things happen: Vivica Fox dies (in fact her part in the movie is so small you’ll forget she was in it by the time you leave the theater), Jeff Goldblum goes to the moon (humans work up there now, FYI) and fighter pilots attack the aliens. And after some poor decision-making and failed attempts to kill the aliens the president either gets killed or leaves the planet because at one point the US General becomes president. Not to get all School House Rock on you but we need to take a step back. I’m assuming the scene that explains the need for the US General to become president happened during a restroom break because I was very confused when I saw him getting sworn in. The US General isn’t even in the order of succession – I think the janitor gets a shot at being the president before the US General does. In order for him to acquire that title it would mean that everyone died; if you were at the White House sorry, you died. So to recap: former president Bill Pullman managed to survive the White House invasion 20 years ago when there was no social media or smart phones to provide aide or warning, but the woman president dies along with her entire cabinet in an age where we know what’s happening before it happens.

Anyway, here are some more things that happened. Jeff Goldblum and a new character, a woman he used to date, discover that everyone who’s been having alien visions draws a symbol, not just any symbol, but a symbol that closely resembles the power button on Apple products. At this point the movie was starting to resemble a subliminal Apple ad. The only thing missing was the spelling of the movie: iNDEPENDENCE DAY. Next there is the need for someone to sacrifice themselves by flying into the mothership and blowing it up, so Randy Quaid Bill Pullman volunteers, and NOW all of the aliens are dead (or at least we hope so). The end. Thank Christ.

But Jenn, your recap made absolutely no sense. Yes, I know. Neither did the movie.

But Jenn, I saw the movie and that’s not exactly how it happened. You’re probably right but you have to admit that this was the gist of it.

Look, I get it, great scripts are hard to come by especially when our generations’ screenwriters are busy Instagraming photos of their work space rather than writing. But there has to be a better way, there has to be a good book that would make an incredible big screen adaptation. It doesn’t all have to be remakes, and for god’s sake leave the cheesy sequels to Sharknado.

Not very long ago I stumbled upon a Buzzfeed article titled Why Parents Hate Caillou – a cartoon (advertised as educational) that features a 4-year-old boy who apparently is a complete asshole, with his tantrums and piss-poor attitude and such. From what I’m told this is the general demeanor of any 4-year-old yet parents are convinced that if their child watches this cartoon then Caillou will infiltrate their child’s mind like a subliminal message and subsequently posses them with behavior that probably already exists. I’m not convinced that this is how it works but if you believe that your toddler will become a monster by simply watching this cartoon then by god don’t let your tween and/or teen watch Vanderpump Rules – it’ll have you convinced that your child will remain mentally locked in their teen years for the rest of their lives, thus directly contributing to the demise of our world. And it’ll be All. Your. Fault. (No, no, it’s OK that I watch it. I’m a for real grown up with bills and responsibilities and everything! It can’t turn me!)

Vanderpump Rules does a better job of showing what a 30-year-old with high school problems looks like than the 90s version of Beverly Hills 90210 ever did. But Jenn, maybe it’s the producers plying them with alcohol and getting them drunk in an attempt to instigate drama? Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why they continue to be stupid while sober. Then again, I can’t quit watching the show so what do I know. I’ll tell you what I know: I’ve been watching the show since its debut a few years ago and unless my TV is out-of-date I’m pretty positive that quite a few of them are nearly unrecognizable. If they were actual teens I would chalk it up to aging but in this case it’s 30-year-olds who are combating aging with the help of their plastic surgeons.

Take Jax for instance: A former model who looks so different that if it wasn’t for his inability to quit lying, stealing and womanizing you’d think he’d been replaced. In addition to a new face, this season he has added theft charges and extreme narcissism to his resume´. Not that he wasn’t full of himself before, but this year he’s brought in an arsenal of conceit that I can only surmise is a side effect of his latest nose job, and can only hope will result in a scenario that’s something out of a Tales From The Crypt episode where he becomes so engrossed in himself he wakes up one morning to find that every last person in the world has morphed into a heightened version of himself and upon discovering that his new nose is the culprit behind this debacle, hurries to see his plastic surgeon only to find that it was no plastic surgeon at all, but instead a satanic wizard who’s taken the form of one Stassi Schroeder.

In real life Stassi is back: not as a satanic wizard who preys on Jax, but as a satanic wizard who preys on everyone. After quitting SUR and telling everyone to suck it she found her self friendless, jobless and homeless, so naturally she conjured up her magics to weasel her way back in. Her comeback was a very humbling one as she kicked off her return by apologizing/groveling to Lisa and freeloading off her once arch nemesis Kristen Doute. She then used her special wizard powers to make Schwartz believe she’s no longer an asshole. And finally she used her last ounce of power to win over Katie and with all of her powers drained her story line became boring and who cares.

And then there’s Kristen, who managed to keep her job on the show by turning up her crazy by about 5 notches. At least once a week Kristen made sure to mention she was in therapy and tried her best to convince America that she was totally and completely, 100% sane. If you watched the same show I watched (which shut up yes you did) then you’ll notice that what therapy actually did for her was give her a level of self-confidence that manifested itself into some sort of mild form of turrets which caused her to constantly say “suck a dick” and made her head – whole upper body, really – sway and twitch non-stop whenever she spoke, although the twitching could just be the shakes from always being drunk. Who knows. What I do know is after a while it became pretty painful to watch. In addition to her role as The One Most Likely To Have a Psychotic Breakdown she’s also the proud owner of a t-shirt line. Never heard of it? Well I took a moment to look at her product and, well, how should I describe it? You know those annoying posts that annoy you on Facebook and have now been turned into pictures by self-proclaimed poets and show up in your Instagram feed by people who probably need a bit of counseling? You know the ones: they say ridiculous things like “today is now, tomorrow hasn’t happened yet, so don’t worry.” And then idiots reply with things like “OMG, so needed to read that today.” That’s what her t-shirts are like: every annoying post on Instagram turned into a walking billboard. They’re awful.

Speaking of annoying, did anyone else find Scheana unbearable this season? I mean, more unbearable than usual. At first it was just her voice, which I hope is just an affectation she developed after moving to LA. But this season she really brought out the big guns. In seasons past Scheana got her attention by showcasing her ability to channel other personalities and make them her own: first she channeled Tammy Fay Baker with a focus on her makeup skills, then she channeled her inner T-Pain when her songs had to be extremely auto-tuned to mask her undeniably cringe-worthy voice. This season she took a different approach and used a new attention grabber: crying, sympathy-garnering crying. Shed a tear as she cries while downing a bottle of wine, explaining that she is fortunate enough to not know what it’s like to have an addiction problem so she simply can’t understand what’s wrong with her husband, so she berates him like a child. Pour one out for the demise of her friendship with Katie – a situation that she completely made up in her head because she didn’t want to be left out now that Stassi was back. Grab the tissues and try to hold back your tears as you watch her shed her own because Ariana basically told her she needed to quit her shit. It’s tough being Scheana; all of the crying she did this season has resulted in an influx in her need for Botox. Scheana 2.0 is awful, I’d like her to bring back T-Pain Scheana – the one that created terrible music but really didn’t care what anyone thought. At lease that version was tolerable.

As for the rest of the cast, either they were just extra boring this year or everyone else’s heightened bullshit overshadowed them. Tom Sandoval (Tom 1) has a band, Ariana is sick of everyone’s bullshit.

Tom Schwartz (Tom 2) and Katie Maloney are still together and, after some coercion from Katie, now engaged. Katie spends her days working at SUR, planning the wedding, and writing her blog. Tom spends his days hanging out with anyone who isn’t working and sprinkling in an audition here and there. While it may appear he’s the most immature, he actually appears to be the most level-headed. I like Tom 2 and I believe he’s on the show so the producers don’t cause everyone to completely lose faith in humanity.

And last but not least, this season we were treated to some new people: one James Kennedy and one Lala Kent. James is a busboy by day, DJ by night and a tantrum throwing alcoholic full time. Lala is the new hostess who is also the new Scheana, i.e., the one the girls pick on for no apparent reason. Both are in their early twenties and when liquored up, both are equally ridiculous. They fit in perfect. Side note: James used to date Kristen, then moved on to Lala after he and Kristen broke up. Kristen hates Lala because of this which makes Lala hate Kristen, which makes Lala act crazy around her, which is how Kristen used to act around Ariana who is dating Kristen’s other ex-boyfriend, which means that Kristen now has to deal with her very own Kristen. What goes Kristen, comes back Kristen. Don’t be Kristen.

So there you have it, what it looks like to be a 30-year-old with first world problems and a teenage mentality. Does it make you nervous? Is it your worst nightmare realized? Don’t worry, the show will be back for another season so there’s plenty more where this came from. Except next season I’ll write after each episode so you get a weekly helping of paranoia. You’re welcome. Now off you go, enjoy the weekend while you can.