A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: season 2, episode 4.

Here we are again, folks. I'm armed and ready: TT2 in one window, Blogger in another, and a huge cup of coffee at hand. I'll see you on the flipside.

6 guys, 6 gals, and Tila Tequila.

With the count down to 12, the game is getting more serious, and Tila needs to know everything about those who are left. So, TT kicks off the episode by leaving a questionnaire game in the living room for her remaining contestants to play. The game begins innocently enough with silly questions like "would you have sex with Tila in front of your parents?" and et cetera, but then begins to really delve into the deep end with "Do you believe gay marriage should be legalized?" If Chad doesn't get himself kicked off by the end of the episode, I'll know TT wasn't watching, but as this is reality TV and cameras are everywhere the contestants don't want them to be (incl. night vision on the giant shared bed, ala season 1) I find it doubtful that TT doesn't know everything that is going on in her house. She's the Ultimate Big Brother. Chad continues to dominate the conversation as Lead Asshole, with such brilliant insights as everyone and their brother will get married just to get benefits, and don't you think children deserve to have a normal upbringing, one with a mother and a father? Which pisses all the lesbians off, notably Lisa, who retorts that if Chad is the product of a normal upbringing, she hopes the whole world will turn into lesbians. As evidence of the Important Knowledge Passed Down from Father to Son, Chad asks if Lisa will teach her sons about basketball and football.

Let's review. Chad asks a question (don't you think children deserve a normal upbringing with a mother and a father), which although it pisses everyone off is--in and of itself--at the very least an interesting question. First of all, how necessary are the gender roles played by both a mother and a father? What affect does the absence of one or the other have on children? Second of all, is this something that gay parents should even consider when preparing to have a family, in that many children who are products of a heterosexual marriage do not even grow up in such an environment because of the rate of divorce in this country? Third, what is with America’s obsession with the fixed nuclear family of mommy, daddy, and 2.5 kids? Why is that the model that we should all look to for guidance? What about non-Western community-wide based models wherein a child doesn’t necessarily distinguish his mother and father from the generation-wide group responsible for raising him? What about more interesting, and recent, models even within the United States such as the extended nuclear families constructed by American couples who are gay, gay/straight best friends, straight friends but not in love, and so forth who have made the most important commitment of all: one to the child. What about the somewhat accidental superextended nuclear families constructed by Americans, in which spouses divorce, remarry, divorce, and remarry, until a child ends up with a mother, a father, a stepmother, a stepfather, and eight siblings (a mix of the biological, step-, and half-sibling varieties)? Can anyone actually prove that any of these models are superior to the others? Which brings us back to the Ultimate Question: nature or nurture? How would you even study such a thing when a child’s well-being (health, mental health, “success” in life) are determined by so many things, only one of which is the environment in which she was raised?

Instead of plumbing the depths of this at least somewhat interesting question, Chad undermines it by asking who will teach the children about basketball and football if men are abolished in the American family by lesbians. Ummm, I’ll take a stab at that: lesbians like Lisa who teaches softball and might even understand the intricacies of other sports involving balls as well.

Um. Do they pay these people to act like assholes, or are there really such ignoramuses living in the United States?

Anyway, back to the show …

Next up is the First Annual Backyard Bi-nanza. Two comments. First of all, we get it already, you’re bisexual. Second, when looking for love, is it bad luck to keep naming all your events “annual,” as if every year you will be hosting another quest for love? A Western theme is being emphasized: Cowboy hats and plaid shirts, a fake Western town, and a mechanical bull-riding competition. Teams are broken up by assigned colors (green and yellow) rather than gender, because the boys’ team has been losing at everything on the show—short of, I guess, the panty-raid. Perhaps the winning yellow team had a little extra help in that team-member Sirbrina actually rides mechanical bulls for a living?

The triumphant yellow team heads off for a saloon date with TT, including Samantha/Glitter playing bull to TT’s cowgirl. George gets some alone time, wherein TT tries to wade-through his sweetness and find his sexual side. But when she asks him point blank “Do you have sex?,” his mouth about drops open and he stammers, “W-what?” while blushing. Both Michelle and Sirbrina get some private time with TT, which involves a little bit of talk and a whole lot of making out.

Meanwhile the losing green team heads to the kitchen to cook her up a chili dinner, with Bo bossing everyone around. (Too bad they couldn’t just smuggle in some chili, because I guarantee that if Kyle brought some Zippy’s chili from Hawai’i, TT would have been toast.) Bo dominates the whole effort, including introducing the others as “sous chefs” and “managers” when TT arrives to eat their chili. Once the “good nights” are said, Bo also steals TT away from the rest by “escorting” her back to her room, which really means cuddling by the fireplace to “warm her up.”

The next day, TT decides to have a pool party to give everyone a break from all the competitions. TT cuddles with Chad—eww, yuck, and why?!—which includes him groping at her breasts and trying to eat her bikini bottoms, in front of jealous everyone else. Then, Kristy decides to get TT’s attention by flashing her breasts. Which leads to all the girls flashing their breasts. As Kyle appropriately puts it, “Once the breasteses came flying out, it was one heck of a party.” TT explains that the party became “this bonding moment,” where they all got to “feel comfortable” with each other. Translation: TT made out with three girls at once—Sirbrina, Kristy, and Brittany—while the dudes looked on, open-mouthed, until Jersey Jay sweeps in to make out with her himself. Which she excuses herself from to sit and cuddle and make out, instead, with Bo, totally bypassing and ignoring Kyle, who is directly to Bo’s left in the hot tub. (At this point, things are not looking bright for Hawaiian Kyle. I think he’s maybe a little too metro for her. And maybe his local-boy courting methods have rubbed her the wrong way, because I think he’s coming off too intense to TT.)

The final competition before elimination is the “Downpour Derby” in which TT intends to find out “who can get wet the fastest.” (My gawd the sexual innuendos are thicker and stupider in here than in all the eighth grades in America combined.) It involves one-on-one male-and-female teams pumping water on each other for the last two-on-one date with TT before elimination. Kyle wisely chose Lisa as his partner, and indeed with their combined musculature they got each other wet the fastest.

While Kyle and Lisa got along fine while wetting each other, once on the date TT reignites their animosity from the poker night date, in which Kyle kept creeping in on Lisa’s alone time with Tila. Lisa instantly latches back onto those feelings, rolling her eyes and calling him “creepy Kyle.” But Kyle does not exactly react well. There is a way to laugh off an insult and make the other person look like an asshole, or to even acknowledge one’s hurt feelings and keep it real in a moment. If he had turned to Lisa and TT in that moment and said, look I’m sorry that you felt I was horning in on your alone time in that date, but I’m not a stalker and I’ve been branded as such just because of that one stupid night. I’m just a guy trying to figure out which tactic will best win TT’s heart, and it seems to me that allowing others to have alone time with TT is not going to win it. And I am in it to win it. Is wanting to be near you any more creepy than Jay sweeping you out of the lesbian make-out session or Chad trying to nearly go down on you through your bikini in front of everyone? he might have saved himself.

Honestly though it just becomes painful to watch Kyle. After the awkward moment of anger and hurt between Kyle and Lisa, TT gives Kyle a break and takes him off a ways for some alone time. This would have been another great moment for Kyle to keep it real and make a great impression on TT before elimination, especially if he had used his time wisely and addressed the stalker comments. Instead, they sit on a swing and the first thing Kyle says to TT is “Have you ever done it on a swing?” TT tries to laugh this off, but it is a little weird. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle . . . when you have TT alone, you have to strike the balance of being sexy and sweet, vulnerable and domineering, and don’t ever make the mistake of playing one when she’s expecting the other. If he had only been vulnerable in that moment, he might have saved himself from elimination that night. But, no. Sigh. So TT trades Kyle in for Lisa alone time, and at the end of the date kisses Lisa instead of Kyle. At which point maybe Kyle could have gone after her. There are not many rules in reality television, and any person could see that Kyle (a) had bombed on that date and (b) was about to be eliminated unless he did something drastic to prevent it. But Kyle, ever the gentlemen, lets her go.

Now to elimination … On the chopping block are Kyle and George, Glitter and Lisa. Seriously how can TT keep Chad and Jay?! I would have sent them and the sniveling Glitter home first off, but instead TT keeps all three and eliminates Kyle and George, two of the nicest guys left. TT needs some serious therapy.

When George is cut, TT breaks down crying, exhorting the rest to be true to her and not make her regret eliminating George. This emotional scene is followed by Glitter breaking down in tears (big surprise), by Sirbrina sharing a tearful goodbye with George, who had been her best friend in the house, by Scotty joining that tearful embrace, and finally by everyone outside drinking and crying. George is angry that “nice guys always finish last” and that he was sent off with a “little sympathy hug I’ve been getting my whole life.” George adds that “I think its bullshit if you’re a nice guy, you do nice things, and you get fucked in the end, you get fucked now, and you’re going to get fucked the rest of your life. That’s been the story of my life and this just proves it to be true.” George says that TT made a mistake and he hopes she realizes it.

The episode draws to a close with Bo trying to comfort Sirbrina on her crying over George’s elimination. Everyone is emotionally exhausted at this point, but Jersey Jay cannot stop pushing people’s buttons and so begins interrupting Bo and Sirbrina’s conversation, even as the others exhort him to cut it out. This leads to shouting and masculine posturing between Bo and the tag-team of Jay and Chad. Everyone is separated and Jay and Chad head to the lobby to push each other around and blow off some steam, when Bo follows them daring them to start something. Chad headbutts Bo, and the screen cuts to blank with TT’s voice cheerfully saying, “Tune in to see what happens next week!”

The head butting and testosterone-filled fights pretty much highlighting the bad choices she’s made in her quest for love. Tila Tequila, just go gay already!