Real World New Orleans Cast : Photo: MTV
It’s finally Fat Tuesday this week on The Real World which signals the end to all the Mardi Gras celebrations. Jemmye’s boyfriend comes to town causing her to make a tough choice between Kodi or Knight, meanwhile McKenzie meets a nice boy who opens her eyes to her drinking problem.
By : CHAD KENNEDY
It’s finally Fat Tuesday this week on The Real World which signals the end to all the Mardi Gras celebrations. Jemmye’s boyfriend comes to town causing her to make a tough choice between Kodi or Knight, meanwhile McKenzie meets a nice boy who opens her eyes to her drinking problem.
Preston and Ryan are still hating on one another this week, though we haven’t yet gotten to World War III. They do have voodoo dolls of each other that they keep stabbing. Ryan just needs to admit that he’s bi and cut the sexual tension. McKenzie jokes that she used to be a gypsy and may or may not have killed someone. Is she telling the truth? No one is quite sure. Jemmye and Knight attempt to take a romantic bubble bath together but that’s not about to happen in a house with eight people. Sahar needs to blow dry her hair and then there is Preston who decides he’ll hop in the bubble bath too. At first he’s wearing his underwear but then strips those off while he’s in the tub. Knight laughs that he feels violated.
The group goes to yet another Mardi Gras parade but this time they get to be on the float. They make the mistake of not bringing a lunch so they have to bribe random people along the way to give them food in exchange for beads. They end up getting everything from pork sandwiches to pieces of chicken. Not such a bad deal! After the parade they start to party and, per usual, McKenzie doesn’t know when to stop. She ends up trashed, flirting with some old guy. Preston nicknames McKenzie’s drunken alter ego, “Mary.” They end up having to pull ‘Mary’ away from the old guy. Ryan and Preston end up drunkenly coming to a truce, though they both admit that they won’t be friends.
Real World New Orleans Cast : Photo: MTV
Back at the house, Jemmye shows Knight a letter that Kodi, her boyfriend back home, sent to her. Later Jemmye calls Kodi and he doesn’t say a whole lot, he actually sounds like he’s drunk. Jemmye confesses to the cameras only that she isn’t sure whether she’s on Team Knight or Team Kodi.
The next morning, Ryan and Knight go for a walk to grab breakfast. Ryan tells Knight that the whole truce thing with Preston was fake and that he still hates Preston. Knight tells Ryan that he doesn’t ever see himself dating Jemmye, he more or less just says that she’s a friend with benefits. Since when do friends with benefits take romantic bubble baths together?
Jemmye calls her mom and talks about having feelings for Knight, though like Knight she is still reluctant to actually admit it. She is clearly having some serious feelings for him though. That night they go to a club and Knight ignores Jemmye to flirt with another girl. Jemmye tries to act cool for a little while but then she gets pissed and goes to the bathroom, she comes back and tries to talk to Knight but he tells her that she’s ruining his game. McKenzie meets a nice boy at the bar named Travis. He’s a small-town guy just in New Orleans for spring break.
After they get back to the house Knight calls Victoria – the girl he just met at the club – and invites her to the house. He then has the balls to ask Jemmye to help give Victoria directions on how to get there. Jemmye slams the door of the phone room in his face. Knight ends up hanging up on Victoria to go talk to Jemmye. She drags him to the confessional room where he finally admits to her that he has feelings for her. He tells her that he enjoys her but that she makes him feel like shit because she has this other guy back home.
Speaking of the guy back home, he’s in Baton Rouge to play a basketball game, so Jemmye and Ashlee take a road trip to go see him play. Kodi never once acknowledges Jemmye during the game, not even a glance her way. Then after the game she surprises him at the back door and gives him a hug. He gives her a half-hearted hug while making a snide remark about the headband she’s wearing. I already hate this douche and we just met him. It turns out Kodi’s entire family is also at the back door and they are not happy seeing Jemmye and him together. They don’t know anything about Jemmye in fact. Kody’s oldest sister comes up and asks Jemmye how well they know each other and Jemmye lies saying they’re just close neighbors. The family already doesn’t seem to like her, presumably because she’s a white girl. Jemmye gives Kodi one more hug before he leaves and once again it’s not much of a hug and he has his iPod speakers in the whole time. Dump his ass!
Jemmye crawls into bed with Knight once she gets back to the house. She admits she has a much deeper connection with Knight than with Kodi. It looks like it’s Team Knight for the win!
McKenzie goes out again with nice boy, Travis. He tells her that he recently had a streak of blackout nights after drinking too much so he doesn’t drink much, and therefore neither does McKenzie. He says he realized he’d rather stay sober and actually remember his nights than get trashed. She completely agrees with him and it opens her eyes a little to the fact that she’s wasting her nights blacking out. She brings Travis back to the house and they continue talking until he has to catch a cab back to his hotel. He’s leaving New Orleans the next day so this is the final goodbye. Figures McKenzie meets a good guy with a good head on his shoulders and then he has to leave. Preston tells her that maybe Travis just came into her life to open her eyes to her drinking problem and to overcome it.
The next day, Ashlee and Preston go on a search to try to find the tape recorder for their radio station job. They did interviews at the Mardi Gras parade the other day and are supposed to turn them in but once again they come up empty-handed. Preston has to call their boss and explain that they lost the recorder now. Their boss is surprisingly nice about it and says these things happen during Mardi Gras. That’s now 0-2 for Ashlee and Preston with their job; they better get their shit together.
That night is Fat Tuesday and the crew hits the wildest place in town – Bourbon Street. Sahar says that it is “the craziest things I’ve seen in my life.” Once their back at the house Ryan decides to go skinny dipping in the hot tub and invites Sahar and Ashlee in too, no one joins him. No surprise there. His over the top personality is probably just to make up for having a small _____.
Jemmye tells Knight about an abusive past relationship which really hits Knight hard. He says his biggest peeve is a man putting his hand on a woman, he can’t believe it happened to Jemmye. He says “I love this girl” to Jemmye in the confessional. She tells him that he’s the only person she feels she can tell about this, she feels safe with him. Aww!
Next week, Ryan and Preston take back the spotlight when World War III begins. Their fights gets ugly this time around and the cops are called. Will someone be going to jail or better yet, will someone be going home?
