The Surreal Life 2 - Episode 2 Summary

'What Are You Talking About, Willis' By Devious Weasel

We see Erik pine for his family. We see Traci enter the shower. Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke. (I’ll be typing that sentence a lot.) Ice, aka Rob, aka “Johnny Rocket”, makes himself some breakfast but can find no salt. So he breaks into the pantry to get some. Trishelle has the money quote when she says that “Rob says he went to anger management classes, but I think he needs to get his money back.” I’m betting that what Rob really said was that he saw “Anger Management” and afterwards demanded his money back. And who could blame him?

Just then, the Surreal Times arrives. The housemates are told they will be running a restaurant for the afternoon and that a manager will soon arrive. Cut to the door, and a conspicuous shadow approaching. Erik says he knew right away who it was. Well, considering the size of the shadow, it’s either Verne Troyer or Gary Coleman. Since Verne still has too active of a career for this show, it has to be Gary. And it is! Everyone greets him happily, except for Rob, who comments on the cheese factor inherent in everything involving Gary Coleman.

Gary is all business. Gary takes himself seriously. I suppose if you’re Gary Coleman, you have to take yourself seriously, cause nobody else is going to do it. Gary interviews them, trying to determine which job they would be best at. Of course, he gives them the jobs they are least qualified to perform. Gary makes Erik busboy because he can see Erik’s muscle. Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke. Ron and Rob are cooks, Traci is dessert chef, Trishelle and Tammy Faye are waitresses. They go to Mel’s Diner. Unfortunately, it is a real restaurant, not a time travel journey to the set of Alice.

The cast puts on their uniforms, and Rob sticks a banana out of his pants. Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke. The sexual tension between Rob and Gary is obvious from the start. Tammy Faye says they were all serious, except for Rob who had the banana out of his pants “in a bad position.” So, Tammy Faye, what is the good position to stick a banana out of your pants.

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Commercials. I’m not getting into what they are. You don’t care. I know you don’t. Maybe if I were Landru, but not plain old Dweeze.

The staff train the cast. Gary becomes Captain Queeg. Erik takes it seriously, Traci and Tammy Faye and Trishelle seem to want to take it seriously, and Rob and Ron have fun. Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke. We have a brief montage of training shots. We also have Rob trying to deep fry Gary. The heat between the two is obvious.

The shift starts, and Erik works hard. No one else is capable of hard work. Except for Ron, of course. Ba-da-dump! Tammy Faye can’t write a ticket or price an order to, well, save her soul. Ron is constantly eating in the kitchen. (Having spent about thirteen years off and on in the restaurant industry, I can safely say Ron isn’t the first one to do this.) Ro again threatens to deep fry Gary, and Erik comments that he didn’t think Gary liked being picked up. Rob says Gary is lighter than his six-year old. Trishelle says Gary turns into Lucifer. A very short, chubby Lucifer, but Lucifer nonetheless. Customers sit waiting to be waited on, waiting for food, getting the wrong orders, and suffering from bad service. In other words, business as usual at Mel’s Diner!

More commercials, with previews of what’s coming next. I’m not writing about the previews, either, cause then what would I write about when the previews become the show?

Back at the Diner, Gary starts to lose it. Traci tries to feed him a fry, but he doesn’t want it. Gary yells at her, at Rob, at Trishelle. The customers start to get angry. Erik babysits for a customer. A customer makes Gary take an order back because there is bacon on it and he asked for no bacon. Trishelle goes off on the table, yelling that they never told her no bacon. Wait staff around the country yell her name.

Then Todd Bridges comes in. Rob wants Gary to say the line to Todd. Gary fires Rob, and Todd takes his place in the kitchen. Rob keeps at him, but Gary says if he says the line, then he no longer has any credibility. I’ll pause to let that in. Erik tries to talk Rob out of it, but Rob keeps persisting. Gary finally walks out. Taking a cab home instead of saying “Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis?” I just want to know if Rob would have wanted Gary to say the same thing if the star of “The Sixth Sense” had come in. The cast tries to talk Gary out of leaving, but he goes.

More commercials.

The cast comes home, and reads the comment cards. The cards they read all mention something bad about Ron. Someone says Ice is still hot. The cast, tired, goes to bed. Well, some do. Traci, however, turns into my six-year-old stepson, doing karate kicks around the house with no discernable talent for it. Ron comments on the fact that he can’t hit Traci back. She throws him onto the bed and jumps ontop of him, breastesses first.

The next morning, Erik is awake early, so he decides to wake everyone up. That goes over about as well as his post-CHIPs career. The Surreal Times comes, and the cast has orders to bake brownies and deliver them around the neighborhood. The women bake, the men talk. The gentleman at the first place they go to is very friendly, welcoming them in and making jokes as he does. Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke. Ron asks him what he does, the man says he does nothing, and Ron asks him how he knows when it’s time to go on vacation.

At the next house the door is answered by a woman with a German accent who says “I no like celebrities.” I don’t know why she said it to this group. Rob curses her out the whole way down the street, saying words that make Rob blush.

More commercials, and I break my vow about not commenting on commercials to talk about the Butterfly Effect. More specifically, on behalf of all Iowans, I apologize for giving Ashton Kutcher to the world.

Back to the show, the rest of the brownie deliveries go well. When they get home, they talk about the woman who didn’t like celebrities. And here is where it gets serious. Rob feels humiliated, and they all get together to talk about it. Rob doesn’t appreciate looking like a big dork on tv, and hates that they will use the footage to make him look cheesy. He talks about his career as Ice, about the cheese of Gary Coleman, and how he is trying to show America the real Rob. And you know what? I feel for him. I really do. If this summary doesn’t have all the snarkiness my summaries usually do, it’s because of this speech. The whole house talks about it, Erik talks about how they just reduced Ice to a money-making machine. Rob talks about how much Erik has helped him stay at the house.

Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke.

More commercials.

We come back to a house dinner, where everyone plays the part of another person in the house. Rob and Erik play each other, Traci and Trishelle play each other, and Ron and Tammy play each other. Everyone has fun. Booze is consumed. Traci chases Rob, then tries to see Ron’s Cheney. Rob comments that if he were Traci’s fiancée, he would ditch her.

Cut to previews for next week’s show. Since next week’s show has already happened, I’m not going to talk about them here.

And Ron makes a vaguely lewd joke.

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