“It all just got really real there for a second.” – Eric
The final episodes of The Real World seasons, much like the first, are typically boring. Final storylines are wrapped up in short order before moving into teary goodbyes and the slow and interminable trickle of roommates out of the house while everyone wears I-can’t-believe-it’s-all-over-so-fast looks on their faces.
The show producers looked to shake up that dynamic big time by bringing back psycho OCD roomie Ryan on the flimsy excuse of bringing him in for a “photo shoot.” Never before that I can recall has the show broken the “fourth wall,” so to speak, for the purpose of filming the gang doing publicity for the very reality show they are already on (this is common on many other shows, of course, from Hell’s Kitchen to Top Chef to The Apprentice), though we have seen cameramen and producers in the past, typically when members of the house are in the process of or about to beat one another to some manner of pulp.
Even that move couldn’t alter the final episode trajectory. Ryan came in, caused a brief amount of deeply annoying but not quite sinister havoc as per usual, and then was off again, leaving the weepy music to begin tuning up. Even with Knight’s strangely elusive personality, the “problem” this season is that the non-Ryan members of the house bonded particularly well, which has the result of leaving a deep void in the drama department, Real World style.
Still, Knight and Preston and even Ryan (for all his almost creepy tendencies) were watchable and occasionally compelling characters, and New Orleans provided a scenic backdrop to the reality action.
More thoughts on the season finale of The Real World, New Orleans:
* McKenzie plans on continuing to date Grant, the dude she ended up with in the French Quarter after wandering around drunk
* “Somewhere along the way I caught feelings.” – Preston on boyfriend Marty
* Sahar finally looks like she’s dumping her dumbass boyfriend Pablo
* Knight, Eric, and McKenzie complete their work with Habitat for Humanity and bond in process.
* I think again that Eric got the least screen time as he seems to be a pretty normal and well adjusted dude… not Real World material, in other words.
* “We’re hanging out, pretending nothing happened, but deep down they know they’re douchebags.” — Ryan, on the rest of the house
* “It all just got really real there for a second.” – Eric
* Ashlee and Preston and do a local radio show on New Orleans food called NOLA (never oppose Louisiana’s appetite). I didn’t quite get during the season that they “interned” at the station – it seemed more like they messed around with a portable recorder every seventh episode or so.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.