Real World: Brooklyn (Episode 1) Recap

Welcome to the Real World: Brooklyn. This is season 21. Holy crap, that means that there are at least 148 psychopaths on the loose not even counting replacements. This season we move into Brooklyn. With so many seasons they must be running out of real places to live. I’d feel gypped if I was on this season while other people got to live in Paris, Sydney, San Diego, Las Vegas, hell, even Philly. Now lets meet some truly awful human beings.

Spoilers after the jump.

Ryan- 23- His first and second kiss were on the same day? That’s revolutionary. In a barn? So this guy’s the hick of the group? It should be interesting seeing him deal with Iraq. Perhaps he’ll do so by singing shirtless in army pants. I have a feeling that he might not have quite moved past that yet as evidenced by his apparent rage issues.

Katelynn- 24- OK, I was about to comment that she was manly looking, but never mind. A transgender in Montana, how’s that working out for you? I’d pack up and go to Brooklyn too.

Chet- 23- Sewing? So is he the gay one? Or wait, Blayne is that you? How clever of him to go on another reality show with a different name. This guy is afraid that he’s going to get shot in Brooklyn. Well, the neon color clothing isn’t exactly camouflaging you in.

Devyn- 20- She’s a beauty queen... does not bode well. This one is only 20, but how will she party? Now, Devyn said, “You have better chance of getting into heaven than getting into Devyn.” I’ll try to believe you but I have a feeling heaven is about to get a little fuller, wait, or hell? This is so confusing!

Blayne and Devyn are the first two to meet. We find out Blayne is Mormon, could have seen that coming since he’s from Salt Lake City. Blayne said it was a breath of fresh air to meet Devyn, and I’m not quite sure what that even means, nor do I want to.

Baya- 21- For a girl named Baya (Baya, seriously) she seems pretty normal, must be some crazy under there. OK, just saw her dancing, and now understand exactly why she’s here.


Baya and Ryan meet up and Ryan admits that he assumed that Baya was Mormon because she’s from Salt Lake City. Thanks Ryan, I agree, that’s why I (correctly) assumed Blayne was Mormon. In conclusion, Baya’s lying, everyone from Utah is Mormon. Ryan has already asserted that Baya “gets him” after meeting for 5 seconds.

Sarah- 22- Tons of tattoos, yuck, bad first impression. Wait, she said that she was the complete opposite… of tattoos, what does that even mean? All those tattoos are a complete waste because she would be a cute girl without them.

JD- 22- JD tells us that part of the reason he came onto the Real World was to try to get a family from the experience. Good luck buddy.

Sarah and JD meet up next and oh boy, JD trains dolphins. Wow! Thank you, God. I wasn’t sure if there was something to make fun of about the guy because he seemed normal. Real World is the best…where did they find this guy? An arrogant dolphin trainer… that’s rich. OK, bad first impression of Sarah but if she wants to help victims of abuse she can’t be all bad, right? According to Sarah this is the first guy she’s dated after only dating girls, and he’s “the one”. I hope she enjoyed the Gay Conversion Camp her mom sent her to. And JD’s gay too, which Sarah is very excited about! This is the gayest Real World I’ve ever seen; even a (supposedly) straight guy sews.

Scott- 23- “I work in a gym” were the first word from his mouth and I already know exactly what kind of guy he is. Plus he’s from New Hampshire and because (and only because) I don’t want to offend anyone from New Hampshire because they scare the shit out of me, I won’t comment on his accent. Actually, screw it, I hate New Hampshire accents.


So now Scott and Katelynn (who, by the way, obviously chose her own name and thus has no excuse for the stupid spelling) meet up. I hope people are OK with the fact that Katelynn is transgender but I get the feeling this might cause some awkward talks, particularly with Mormon Blayne or Hick Ryan. Scott and Katelynn seem to be getting along well enough, but we’ll see after he finds out.

So who gets to see the house first and get the best rooms? The winners are… Blayne and Devyn. Cue the montage of the house. They seem surprised that the house is huge. Really? Have they ever seen the show before?

Time for awkward questions! Devyn admits she thought that Blayne might be gay and Blayne thinks it’s really funny because he’s definitely not…. uhhh. Ok.

More roommates come in, including an overexcited Baya who might have had some sort of attack. Ryan has never met a “Chet” before and also thinks that he’s gay. Ryan thinks Scott looks like him but “not ripped or anything,” but Ryan can’t really keep a straight face for that line. I think I just might like Ryan. “My first impressions of Katelynn: There’s something definitely different about her.” How right you are, Ryan!

Sarah and JD show up next and Katelynn brilliantly figures out that there’s 8 roommates. She’s so good at counting. Ryan, the oh-so-observant one, thinks that JD is “well-kept looking” which must mean he’s, gasp, metrosexual.

First real confessional of the season goes to Sarah, who, in a shocking twist, is excited. She continues on to wow me with this one, “My book of life has such dynamic new characters. It’s going to be the best story ever written.” Well, you’ll have to be the one to tell that to The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift screenwriter, bitch.

Baya and Scott are roommates because Scott prefers to room with a girl since they’re cleaner, but, Scott, did you forget that JD is “well-kept”? Katelynn and Devyn room together because Devyn claims they clicked from the beginning. An airhead beauty queen and a down-to-earth transgender, it’s a match made in heaven, which incidentally is easier to get into than Devyn. On second thought, maybe they bonded over their penchant for putting Y's in places they don't belong, specifically, their names. The next roommate set is Sarah and JD, who actually did seem to click from the beginning. Finally, we’ve got Blayne and Ryan rooming together. Ryan says he’s glad that Blayne’s his roommate and I’m not very surprised by this pairing.

As the roommates are unpacking, Ryan throws out this little gem about his girlfriend (who I can only assume based on past seasons he’ll cheat on) “Her name is Michelle, but I call her Belle because I’m a big Beatles fan.” OK then. We find out Blayne’s a virgin. I don’t think we’ve had one of those on the show since Lacey from Real World: Austin. And that was six seasons ago. This one is a rare gem.

Scott happily tells everyone that he won a Best Abs on the East Coast Contest. Seems prestigious. I’ll be sending my congratulatory flowers later. Dervyn thinks Scott’s the hottest in the house, and I disagree with her. First of many disagreements I’m sure. For the record, it’s Ryan.

Ryan correctly guesses that Katelynn is transgender but the rest of the housemates are shocked that he would say that and screech, screech I tell you, “NO!” I’m sure Katelynn herself wouldn’t have been so offended, although I’m not sure transgenderish is the look most transgender people are going for.

Hot tub time, a first episode of Real World classic. Ryan can’t look Devyn in the eyes because he’s looking straight into her boobs. He asks if fake boobs float differently and she shimmies and bounces her breasts. Wait, isn’t Devyn harder to get into than heaven? Blayne, the virgin, says that she is just asking for someone to touch them. God’s definitely OK with that as long as you don’t have sex with her.

Some of the guys now discuss how there’s something different about Katelynn. All of them but Blayne think she’s transgender, and Ryan is inordinately proud of the fact that he was the first to call it, as if transgender spotting is some sort of game (unlike Sight the Lady of the Night, which is). Blayne just thinks that she’s a manly looking girl and quips “Dude, she played with my nipple.” Wait, that was OK when she was a girl? Is this going to be the whole episode because, um, boring? Katelynn you clearly have a man voice, just tell people the truth so we can move on.

We get some great shots of group bonding, such as playing Rock Band (Published by MTV games, get yours for only $139.99) and doing gymnastics moves, just the usual.

It comes out that Katelynn has had a fivesome and she explains the downsides such as having to “worry about what goes where,” that there’s always “something that’s not being attended to,” and “it’s just a mess. I’ll consider myself warned. Classic reaction shots from Ryan. Now where in Montana is Katelynn from again?

Katelynn calls her mom and comments that she’s “sort of” the only LGBT person there because she clearly doesn’t understand what LGTB stands for. I mean, she goes on to describe Sarah as bisexual. Isn’t that the B in LGBT?

Ryan is talking on the phone with his girlfriend Michelle ma Belle and she asks him if it’s split 4 girls 4 guys. His response is “sort of”. Ryan just can’t seem to get over the Katelynn thing. I must reiterate, Katelynn, everyone knows, just say your transgender. If this drags on for more than one episode I will not be a happy camper. I can only take so much of this. I would be fine with watching people’s reactions to the fact that Katelynn is transgender, her dealing with their reactions, her own emotions, or anything else possibly related to the fact that she’s transgender, but this will she, won’t she tell them thing has gotten old.


The roommates go out to explore Brooklyn, see some crappy live music, and dance together awkwardly. Devyn that she announces that she has a crush on Scott in case we hadn’t picked up on that yet. Apparently he’s a sweetheart, but I guess MTV is sneakily hiding that side of him to us. At this point Ryan get totally wasted. JD handles the situation really well and has his back without being self-righteous about it. He even got him to drink water, not such an easy thing to do, trust me.


Sarah and Ryan had a really nice talk about Ryan’s time in Iraq. From what he says, he’s dealing with it pretty well, but you can tell that there are some issues that he still has to work out about it. Ryan shows her the book transcript he wrote about his experiences. I didn’t even know that any of these people had the capacity to read. Despite myself, I have to admit, that was actually a nice moment. I guess that was the human interest part of the episode.


Back to the fluff. Blayne plays guitar and Ryan coincidentally also plays, and luckily for my eardrums, he sings too. So, maybe he should stick to just guitar. Blayne agrees and politely tells him he should pursue a career in songwriting, smooth. Now Blayne and Ryan write a little ditty about the 8 roommates. Probably the highlight of the show. Scott’s song consist of his love of working out and eating (healthy food only) with lines including “Scott ate roast beef, and cut off the fat.” Next they cover Blayne’s latent homosexuality which Blayne describes as metrosexuality that is “not a sin”. Girlicious!

Now back to the drawn out story line that should just end already. Ryan looks to check if he can see Katelynn’s balls in her pink underwear. I suppose one of the many, many reasons why I will never be on the Real World is that I would never prance about in my underwear 2 days after I had met people, package or not. Katelynn is worried about telling the roommates because she thinks Blayne and Ryan wouldn’t be very accepting. I can’t imagine why she would think that. JD invited her to dinner and I can only assume he is going to come out to her and hoping she will reciprocate. I would like to point out the great editing job by MTV. A shot of JD ironing while Ryan says something is off about him, subtle. Ryan thinks he has amazing gaydar which is going off hard-core when JD is around. Blayne says he doesn’t have gaydar, which might be why he doesn’t realize that he himself is gay.

At this point we get to see Ryan, Blayne, and JD discuss Katelynn and Ryan calls her “it”. Definitely not OK, with me or JD. While Blayne is showering, he tells a gayfaced Scott about JD and Katelynn going out to dinner and Scott still doesn’t think Katelynn was born male. Really? She has a man voice, is muscular, taller than you, and recently went to Thailand. Let’s put 2 and 2 together Scott, c’mon!


JD and Katelynn have a nice conversation in the cab about their lives. JD had a rough childhood, and Katelynn didn’t have it much better. As predicted, JD comes out and Katelynn tells him she’s transgender. Cue the crying and warm embrace. This is sweet and all but… ummm… when are they going to go party? Isn’t this the Real World? If someone would just scream “You don’t know me!” at someone else while being held back by another roommate I would feel a lot more at ease.

We end with montage of the divided house. Team LGBT (Katelynn and JD), Bigot City (Blayne and Ryan), The Neglected (Baya and Sarah), and Dumbassville (Devyn and Scott). Let the bloodbath begin.

Core Four
Now, I have to start out by saying that this is the Real World, and though there’s an extra person on this season, eight is slim pickings with these people.


JD: Besides his hilarious profession, he seems to be the most normal castmate. He took care of drunkass Ryan and handles the Katelynn situation like a pro. Not too bad for a Real Worlder.

Sarah: She’s not yet been annoying and actually seems like she might be a decent human being. Now, if she would just get those nasty tattoos removed.

Baya: It’s not so much that we like her, but more that she’s had about 40 seconds of screen time. We’ll reserve judgment until we actually hear her speak.

Katelynn: We’re so sick of the drama about whether she’ll tell people she’s transgender, but she’s not an idiot (Devyn and Scott) or homophobic (Ryan and Blayne), so she seemed the natural choice for the Core Four.