The A-List: New York treated us to a beatdown last night. I mean us, literally. We were beaten down. The A-List: New York's dimwitted cast was Mike Tyson and our hard-earned intelligence was Michael Spinks. I'm spitting out teeth I thought I lost as an infant. Oh, and Rodiney got smacked around too, but his brain is still shaped correctly -- the lucky bastard. Let's pool our gelatinous, oblong neurons together and work to remember last night's A-List.
A-List thinks it's Jersey Shore this week (take that, Derek!), so we begin the episode as Ryan gives Reichen a haircut. But unlike anyone on Jersey Shore, Reichen cannot be paid to have a sense of humor about himself.
"I texted Rodiney," he explains to a not-so-captive crowd that includes Mike Ruiz, TJ, and apparent barber Ryan. "I texted him, 'Are you happy? I miss you.' And Rodiney texted back, 'No, I'm not happy.'"
Ryan raises his hand to offer comforting words. "Does Rodiney not understand? English is his second language."
That must be it. Rodiney confused the buttons and meant to say he was on top of the world. But not literally on top of the world, Rodiney. Careful. Wait, something just went wrong: We're forgetting to think about Reichen.
"The thing is, guys, I'm also hurting," he says, helpfully.
"Yeah," Ryan agrees.
"I mean, sure, I flirted with other guys!" Reichen exclaims proudly (?). "But that's because I was so sick of Rodiney thinking about himself. None of you sees that I'm the good guy here."
"Maybe you coddled him too much," TJ chimes in, hoping Reichen will just look at him. He doesn't know what "coddled" means, but maybe Reichen will be flattered by that word.
"Yeah! I coddled him too much! That's it!" Reichen shouts, throwing in a few Van Damme-ian neck pumps to emphasize his point. Egotism is this man's bloodsport.
Mike Ruiz sits at the edge of the room and says almost nothing, now gravely aware that he's surrounded by the kind of attention-starved gay people who ruined every revival of Match Game. Unfortunately, we can't root for Mike Ruiz either. After all, he claims to enjoy some of these people and his haircut looks like Rowlf from Muppet Babies. Seems like a nice guy, but let's stay a yardstick away.
Whoops, shhh, Reichen found time to talk again.
"Rodiney said he wouldn't stay with me unless I paid for him!" he insists. "Do you guys get that I love him?"
Now wait: Didn't Rodiney book those modeling gigs to help pay rent? Didn't he say repeatedly that he felt bad about not contributing more to household finances? This is the kind of thing that makes me believe A-List might be an objectively terrible show, because Reichen's coterie of twits believe that Rodiney is bad news, but we have no reason to agree. I want to understand! I want Mike Ruiz to borrow 90 seconds of screen time each episode to tell us how to understand, but maybe he doesn't know either. In fact, it's just like Inception: The more you begin to understand, the more you wish everyone would shut up and let Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Rodiney wear his tight little pants in sexy midair.
After that tragic scene, we flash over to Rodiney, who has momentarily relocated back to Miami.
"New York hard for me!" he explains to nameless straight people. "Do I look worse now? Check out abs of mine. 'Scuse me!" Then he shows his abs. The straight people have been told that Rodiney is The Situation of A-List, so they start cawing and juking and fist-pumping like jackasses. Fine, back to Reichen.
At Reichen's lonely pad in New York, Austin decides to drop by and bring over a friendly platter of strawberries and champagne. Platonic and subtle as usual. He sprinkles some baby's breath over the fruit to give it that asexual air. He unbuttons his shirt to allow Reichen full view of his rigid, asexual nipples. The champagne is roofied in a just-friends way.
Reichen starts wolfing the champagne and talking about his favorite Reichen in the room. "I feel sorry for myself," he claims. "Do you think... I'm a lovable person without having to support somebody?"
Austin sees that he's fishing for compliments and seizes the moment to agree wholeheartedly.
"I have very fond memories of being with you," Austin says, cozying up with him in bed and making a BJ face. "I guess, hehe, the only problem is that you can't stop looking at other hot guys. Heh."
Reichen stares.
"THAT'S NOT MY PROBLEM," he yells back, spitting champagne all over the room like a possessed gargoyle. "Secure people don't mind when I check out other guys! You ass! Just ask Rodiney, my devastated ex!"
Austin scurries to the other side of the bed and his whole body clenches, accidentally squishing the baby's breath hidden in his ass.
Speaking of Rodiney, it's time to barge in on him doing another swimwear shoot. It's kind of boring, but a nice 2(x)ist publicist sent me these photos, and I have a Woodwardian/Bernsteinian obligation to post them.
That was germane, we can agree.
Next, Derek, Ryan, TJ, and Reichen meet up at a long-abandoned cafe and argue over whether Austin's ass is beautiful. Is it pert and personable, or is it a drippy omelet bundled up in a clever way? Derek objects with badger sounds. Reichen contributes by bringing up how depressed he is, but TJ luckily interrupts by announcing, "If Austin gave me an apology and just let me plow his ass...!" and he doesn't end the sentence because Reichen just needed to be shunned. Well done, Carrot Fop. You may advance to a spinoff series, Amen (for Gay Men) co-starring Carson Kressley and Sherman Hemsley.
Mike Ruiz makes one last stab at screen time by calling Rodiney and demanding to know if he'll be in New York for his important photo shoot. Rodiney says he's not sure he'll ever return to the city, but that doesn't make sense since that's where the camera crews are. Mike hangs up the phone, ignores Rodiney's verblessness, and suspects he'll be back in 25 minutes. This Mike character is on the right track.
Lo and behold, Rodiney is told that the Miami modeling world is dead. He heads back to New York and schedules an important non-fight with Reichen. After Reichen musters up gigantic Reichen-shaped tears, they decide to stay together. Good, it all makes sense now.
While they're at it, Derek and TJ make up with Austin because it turns out the producers lost their fake-fight storyboard episodes ago. They quickly choose to be longtime best friends who once triple-kissed at David Geffen's dog's loft in Encino or something, whatever.
"I'd rather have sex with you than a war of words!" TJ hollers at Austin. A grim Chekhovian silence descends on the room. TJ misreads that as approval and continues screaming.
In the episode's last act, Reichen invites Ryan, TJ, Derek, and Austin together to tell them big news. Derek thinks Reichen's going to announce that he's been cast in another play, but that's because Derek is a lonely rodent prince with wrong ideas. Nope, they're all here to learn that Reichen and Rodiney are back together!
"I don't see you two together!" Austin shrieks, apropos of nothing. "You're kidding."
"I'm asking for your support," Reichen says. He needs the support because he's dating a bad person like Rodiney.
"Not happening," Austin says. "What is it you feel you have to fight for?"
"Honey, you don't need to understand us," Rodiney interrupts. "You know what's love? You know what's love?"
"This isn't love," Austin retorts with all the finality and drama of a domestic abuse PSA starring Elizabeth Berkley and Elizabeth Berkley. (She also plays the husband).
Austin and Rodiney start screaming at each other. Austin is upset, but Rodiney is just trying to remember how to make sentences in the middle of all the noise. Finally, in a moment of pure syntactical chaos, Rodiney lunges at Austin and tries to punch him in the face. Bad news: Austin fights back and sort of knocks Rodiney down. Reichen scolds Rodiney for initiating the fight, but it's too late: TJ and Derek are already congratulating Austin on his big-time Roberto Duran moves.
"You made my nipples hard!" TJ says, maybe for the eleventh time today.
"That was vagenius," Derek adds, seriously for the third time this episode. He is a dickiot.
Rodiney closes the episode with the following anecdote: "My dad used to say to me, 'If someone fights you, don't back down. If you came back crying, I will come and spank you.'" Now that sounds like a show I can watch with pride. Tune in next week when this show is inevitably renamed Come Back and Spank Rodiney, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, and we all get a chance to smack Rodiney's rear at a quaint southern eatery. TJ, you are not allowed to play the spank-friendly proprietor. Sit now. There, there. Stop hyperventilating.