Hey, assholes! Want to come read my blog for jerks? I think you’re taking this all wrong! I didn’t mean it in a derogatory form! Just ask my little piglet friend.

This week, two new people moved into the house.

There’s Marcel, who’s pretty sure he’s a ladies man, who I’m pretty sure is just only pretty sure he’s a ladies man, if you get my drift.

And there’s Justin, who is married, so he doesn’t consider himself a ladies man. The thing is, they’re both from a rival high school (well, Justin went to the reunion class’s high school briefly, after he was expelled from his first high school) and they come to the reunion to, like, spray paint stuff and cut up flags from their rival high school. And I’m just imaging what a rival would have been like in my high school district (the vocational district, which included my high school – for science nerds – and the high school for marine biology nerds and the high school for medical student nerds) and I think it would be pretty sad. Like, “High Tech has WAY better computer systems!” “Oh, yeah? MAST can kick your ASS in aquarium-related tasks!” “Well, we here at Allied will gladly save your lives when you get in calculator accidents.”
Anyway, all of the classmates are sort of over-protectively defending their high school, probably since it was around 5:00 in the morning when Marcel and Justin showed up, but they’re all treating it as a friendly rivalry. Mostly. Except for Piggy, who’s probably just worried that the alcohol supply will run low with two more men in the house. And also Joe Basso, who is worried that Marcel will sweep Rachelle off her feet when he asks her out on his first hall pass. He doesn’t. At all. He also realizes why as soon as he gets home.

His other date with Elena goes equally well.

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Anyway, onto the good stuff from episode 3, season 3 of HSR, possibly called “Secret Admirer Racists” possibly called “Lori Finally Bones” probably called “Nervous Racist Demon Pigs”.

1. Finally It Has Happened to Lori

Lori’s got a secret admirer. She’s really excited.

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Like, really excited. Anyway, it turns out that it’s this guy named Mark, who she knew in high school and was friends with, and who has had a crush on her ever since. When he shows up she goes running over (screaming) and hugs him while he goes, “Right on, right on, right on,” and then later explains to him that her reaction to him showing up was “priceless”. But, then they make out for a year, so good for them. They have found love.

Back at the house, Elena’s all, “We couldn’t wait to see who fat ass Lori would bring back, because we knew someone who had a crush on her wouldn’t be of any interest to us!” I mean, shut up, Elena. I don’t think the Summergirls are really as mean as they think they are, but this was rooting around in the dirt with the Demon Pig, and that’s the last place you want to be. Plus, “we all” means Elena only (I don’t even think her friend was even paying attention), because everyone else there knew and seemed to really like Mark.

Anyway, when Lori and Mark get back to the house, this happens.

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As Salt N Pepa says, if Lori took Mark home to bone, it’s none of your business. But it kind of is, because you’re watching a show about them, so I can mention how funny it is that Lori and Mark totally missed everything else that happened that night (more on that in a minute).

2. Cyndi the OMG SHUT UP ALREADY

Hey, guys. Cyndi was a nerd. HEY GUYS. CYNDI WAS A NERD. Can you hear her yet?

While Eric may or may not be naked in the hot tub, everyone has a discussion about perceptions in high school and ONCE AGAIN, Cyndi points out to everyone that, no matter how bad you felt about yourself in high school, nobody in the history of the world felt worse than she. So, Antanus tells the group that he was considered a nerd in high school, despite the fact that he was a football player, because he got good grades. And, I mean, did these people see his yearbook picture?? He had Urkel glasses! And a retainer! Hell, yes he was a nerd. But, anyway, Cyndi shoots down his story, saying that, if you played football, you couldn’t be a nerd. He tells her that everyone considered jocks to be dumb, which was a stereotype he wanted to fight against, and also that all of this friends made fun of him for being smart. Because high school sucks. Cyndi then says that if you had A date in high school, you were not a nerd, which I totally disagree on. Because a lot of people in my high school went on dates, and they were all nerds. And also, there’s a phenomenon amongst groups of nerds that I like to call the Promiscuous Nerd. I knew a lot of them. A LOT. They’re creepy.

Anyway, once again, she makes sure that everyone knows that her pain was bigger than theirs and then tells a sob story about failing classes on purpose so people wouldn’t think she’s a nerd, and like HOW on EARTH did she think that would work, because if nobody paid attention to her, they certainly wouldn’t pay MORE attention to her when her grades were posted for NO ONE ELSE TO SEE. So, then Antanus is, like, “Holy shit, that is so embarrassing,” because it is. But not in a way where you could really feel bad for Cyndi. In the way where everyone in high school does really stupid things to be noticed. Like, everyone. Every single person.

So, Antanus gets a hall pass, and decides to ask Cyndi, because a) he feels bad for her and b) he thinks the world of himself. She spends some time feigning disbelief, because she’s effing Taylor Swift, or something, and Eric looks straight into the camera in congratulations. Then she primps in the mirror and blabs on about how she’s just a nerd and nobody liked her in high school, but this isn’t high school anymore, and she’s super confident but she needs constant validation from former high school non-classmates.

Oh, yeah, and then they go on the date and she tells Antanus she’s married. Married! Happily married! As in, not in need of the validation that comes from former high school students who you didn’t even profess to have crushes on asking you on dates in front of cameras which will broadcast your non-sob story to a whole nation of people (only two of which are actually watching, but still).

I think the thing that annoys me the most about Cyndi is her smugness. She’s got such an attitude about coming far from her high school days, in spite of the fact that these people SPECIFICALLY apparently did nothing to her. She doesn’t have real grievances about them (probably since she graduated, like, five years after them) beyond, “I would have liked to be in the popular group but you never noticed me.” Did you want to date Antanus because you thought he was hot or because he was popular? Did you want to be friends with Elena because she seemed cool or because she was popular? Did you want to be Jodi because she seemed like a nice girl or because she was dating Joe Basso? I mean, I’m not saying that most teenagers don’t want to be popular simply because it seems like the best way out of all of your problems, but she could be a little less self-righteous about her crappy high school years. She wanted to be popular. So do a lot of people. She was made fun of for something she couldn’t control (her physical appearance) and for her academic abilities. So were a lot of people! She’s now been told by Traci about her crappy time in high school (for being totally school-spirited and in every club, but totally not popular), by Jodi about her crappy time in high school (for being the girlfriend of a guy who treated her like crap, and the laughing stock of his friends), and by Antanus about his crappy time in high school (for being teased by people who were supposedly his friends because he happened to be smarter than they were). Yeah, these people also had good things in their life. Sure, the good times may have even outweighed the bad times. But, enough whining about how much worse you had it. Everyone hated high school in some way. Even the Summergirls probably hated themselves plenty in high school. Everyone’s picked on by someone. GET OVER IT.

3. John, the Racist Racist

I’m debating how I feel about the fact that John is like a big toxic slime oozing over this whole reunion and how he should probably go home. Because, on the one hand, yes, he’s the worst. The worst! He should not be allowed to vacation for free with unlimited alcohol and opportunities for fun. But, on the other hand, it’s tv. I would have far less to recap if John wasn’t around spouting off bullshit bullshit bullshit all day.

But, really. In spite of my knowledge of this incident from every commercial for this show ever, it was still kind of amazing how little of a grasp this guy has on reality. So, a few of the girls decided to vandalize Marcel and Justin’s room in much the same way that they vandalized the whole reunion house in the beginning. So, the guys discover the damage and poke their heads out the window to ask who did this, and, I know that this clip is long, but aaaaaaall of this happens.

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Obviously, John is disgusting. Obviously, his whole story about “his boys” (to which Sally said, “What, we’re supposed to believe black people would be friends with this guy?”) and them calling each other the n-word as a term of endearment is total backpedaling in an attempt to not get beat the eff up. Plus, his assertion that Marcel is not black (he says his dad is black) and therefore can’t be offended, brought to mind the following exchange from The Office:

Trudy – Why is it that only black people should be offended by racism?
David Brent – You’re right. That’s the first smart thing you’ve said all day.

And, while the word is bleeped out each time, Marcel illustrates pretty succinctly why his use of it was racist and not colloquial.

I mean, there’s no question that John is totally wrong. And also drunk, and MAKING ANOTHER DRINK during the argument. The thing about John is that he says things that make people upset all the time, but then chalks it up to them feeling the same way as he and repressing those feelings. Like, You know you were all thinking of using racial slurs and threatening to kill people with baseball bats, so let’s just get that all out in the open! I’m actually pretty impressed with what a cool head Marcel had about the whole thing. I can’t imagine how no one’s head exploded each and every time John tried to tell them that there is nothing racist about that particular word and the only people who think it’s racist are liberals. I mean, the word doesn’t mean anything else. It’s not like it also happens to mean ice cream, so they misunderstood him, and he was just trying to ask Marcel out for some soft serve and the egg’s on their faces for jumping to conclusions.

But, anyway, no matter what side of the debate you’re on (and if you’re on John’s side, you’re obviously just John, so, Hi, Piggy!), I think we can agree that four very funny things came out of this whole exchange.

The first was Jodi’s totally misguided analogy about calling people Nazis, as if Nazi is a negative term applied to people who are generally not out to cause harm to others.

The second was the phrase, “Own up to being honest!” which is like looking at a mirror pointed at another mirror, and John’s comeback to Marcel (as if he hadn’t been insulting enough), “You’re a little bitch and you have a mouth and that’s about it.” I love that having a mouth is part of the insult. Not even, like, “You have a mouth on you.” Just “you have a mouth.”

Third was the totally uncomfortable and lackluster response to Antanus and Cyndi returning from their date, like, “SCREAM LOUD THE BLACK GUY’S BACK!!!!”

And also, this.

I don’t know what they’re agreeing to with that handshake, but I’d imagine that Joe Basso is saying, “That’ll do, Pig.”