Huh?

This week, Traci got a hall pass for everyone to take a trip to the beach.

Where Marcel desperately tried to hit on absolutely anyone.

And there may or may not have been dead seals.

Also, Eric wore yet another Urban Outfitters novelty t-shirt he found in some college student’s trash.

But onto the meat of the sandwich in episode 4 of season 3 of HSR, possibly called “Novelty Racist T-Shirts”, possibly called “Fake Proposals and Fake Crying”, probably called “Demon Racist Beached Whales”.

1. Antanus’s Diversion Tactics

Antanus has been making a big deal about the fact that he has a gf (OF FOUR YEARS) back home who he’s not ready to commit to. So, he gets a detention, where he meets his two best friends (and former classmates) Tracey and Treda, who are married and think that Antanus should be, too. They present him with an engagement ring and tell him to go down the hill to talk to his gf and, hopefully, propose already.

I think the whole, “PUT A RING ON ‘ER ALREADY, SON” deal is really lame, because if a woman reeeeeeeeally wants to get married to the dude she’s dating, she should probably bring it up, and when he hems and haws, she should probably just dump him. Like, do you really want to get married to the guy who needs to be tricked into marrying you? But, in this case, I think it very likely that Antanus makes a lot of marriage proposal sounds and, while Lakoiya seems to be fairly laid back (from what you can gather in the five minutes she was on screen), she also seems like she probably wouldn’t mind marrying him and maybe didn’t know that he was going to Hawaii to his class reunion to see if there were any girls there that he liked better. Tracey and Treda want Antanus to “man up” and contract Lakoiya as his bride, but they seem to be missing the point that Antanus accepting a ring he didn’t pick out or pay for to, under duress, ask his gf to marry him with, is the exact opposite of “manning up”. So, while their hearts were probably in the right place, I think it’s pretty lame of Tracey and Treda to be so invested in a decision that should be made between Antanus and Lakoiya. Also, even if/when they get engaged, Lakoiya is probably not gonna be too happy to be cozying up to her fiancee on the couch and watching him flirt with other girls specifically as new-gf prospects, and then flip his shit when faced with the very idea of proposing to her.

That said, Lakoiya is really excited to see her bf, and hang out with him in Hawaii.

But, then Antanus spends the entire time pretending to cry and hugging her a lot so he doesn’t have to look at her face. It’s very romantic.

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He also doesn’t propose, natch, but does make Lakoiya totally confused.

“Why does my bf keep crying and covering that giant bulge in his back pocket with his hand?” Anyway, he brings her back up to see Tracey and Treda, who are disappointed that he didn’t propose, and actually blame themselves. They don’t blame themselves for pushing and forcing someone into doing something he should be doing himself, but for not doing enough or possibly failing him in some way to prevent him from proposing. Oh, Treda. Did you ever think that your friend Antanus, solid guy he might be for taking care of your family when your husband couldn’t, is just a really shitty boyfriend?

It doesn’t matter, though, because Antanus and Tracey and Treda, and even Lakoiya, get to partake in their favorite pasttime:

2. John, the Racist Racist: The Fallout

We pick up where we left off last week, with Antanus walking into the fight over John’s use of the n-word. Antanus takes it in stride, the same way Marcel did, and basically tries to reason with John for an hour. He also makes everyone cry by telling stories about his grandfather and/or great-grandfather and/or people who say that word (?) getting “beat dup up”. John still insists that his intentions should overshadow any perceived slight, even after Cyndi makes the well-spoken argument that you can’t control how other people are gonna take your racist jokes, so you should just not say them. He also gets in a few zingers like, “Why don’t you sit there like a pompous bitch, with your hat on,” and “But, who was pouring water on people, huh??” Jodi, whose Nazi analogy failed last week, tries to settle everything by getting to the heart of the issue by just asking John if he’s a racist, and he says no. But, when she asks him if he’s a homophobe, he hesitates, and then tells her that that’s bullshit. So, things are actually less solved than they were before.

Hey, you know who’s still in the Fantasy Room? Lori and Mark.

John clutches at straws through the entire argument by continually asking everyone in the house if they really think he meant it in a negatively racial way, but he seems genuinely shocked when they say yes. I think it’s because he’s drunk. I mean to say, I know it’s because he’s drunk.

I don’t think he’s racist because he’s drunk. I think that, because he’s drunk, he doesn’t realize that other people can tell he’s a racist.

Also, it’s pretty great that he changed the whole story from saying, “I’m gonna get my bat, n***er”, to “What’s up, n***a?” when Antanus demanded a retelling. And later, when Joe Basso retold the story to Tracey, he said that John’s words were, “You! Fucking! … I can’t even say the word!”

Tracey was not amused, btw. And his wife Treda was surprised that people still “practiced bigotry” in this day and age. I’m not saying I disagree with her. I’m just saying that “practicing bigotry” is funny phrasing. Anyway, the to-be-continued is Tracey (who seems to be wearing a pair of pajamas?) cannot abide racist remarks and slowly makes his way into the house presumably to confront John. The thing is, though, I don’t think any amount of reasoning with or yelling at John is going to change him.

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However deeply John’s personal intolerance pool runs, at this point, like the wounded little piggy he is, it’s about self-preservation. He’ll just squeal until no one can talk over him.

3. Demon Memories

I would imagine that the hardest thing about John being such an asshole is that, for most of the people in the house, they actually remember being friends with him in high school. According to Elena, Joe, and even Antanus, John was funny in high school – annoying, but funny – and, while some of his jokes made in high school were definitely off-color, he has now apparently regressed more into asshole teenage shit at the same time that the other classmates have grown in age and also tolerance. I was curious why they were trying to make him see reason or get him to admit that he was wrong when it was so clear that he doesn’t think he is. But, I guess it’s hard to imagine that someone they used to call a friend is just such a dick. Like, what does that say about them?

I would argue that it says that they’re not in effing high school anymore, and they owe no loyalties to someone who was a dick in high school at the time when they were probably dicks, too, and that they don’t have to try to change a person who doesn’t want to change just because they’ve changed and now don’t find the same gross bigoted jokes that teenagers tell funny anymore.

Eric’s solution to the problem is to just cross his fingers (he doesn’t want his novelty t-shirt collection to be affected in any way).

But Marcel’s solution is both more and less proactive: he says that the other classmates should just ignore John until the reunion is over. They agree, but it doesn’t stop any of them (including Marcel) from hanging out with him asking him the same question over and over: “Why are you such a dick now when you were totally cool back in high school?”

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John is just that guy. The guy who berates you for not drinking, when he’s almost 40 and peer pressure is embarrassing and pathetic. The guy who thinks that dislike=intimidation. The guy whose racist, homophobic, misogynistic jokes made you all laugh in high school when you were drunk for the first time, but are grating to you now that you’ve lived in a world with (and, in some cases, are) the objects of his disgust. John’s a tool. Get over it.

I do like, however, Jodi’s total rebound from her Nazi analogy by defacing John’s high school picture.

There must be a lot about John that we don’t know, since she made sure to take him down by including drawn-on chest hair.

And a light switch on his crotch. There was no reaction from John, because this little piggy was probably sleeping off a hangover.