Rock Of Love Charm School - Episode 7 - Potential Realized

Ever since Bret Michaels asked a group of girls if they were “ready to rock the halse” in July of 2007, everything that has happened in the Rock of Love saga has led up to this point:

It’s like the second coming, but more…salivary.

OK, class. We have a lot of material to cover, so we’re just gonna plow through it. Lacey and Brandi C., are doing what they do:

They decide it will be Heather.

She has no idea. Or if she does, she doesn’t care. She’s got more important things to do, being A-list and all. More on that in a sec!

The girls get a note suggesting that they’ll be dealing with men today. Unlike Dallas, these girls are not ready for the penises. And they only have an hour to get that way! Horrors! It’s time to turn the curling irons up to the “scald” setting and wash only the necessary parts, namely tops and tails.

Commandment!

Helping the girls today will be this female firecracker:

She asks which girls are single.

They all are. How telling.

Donna’s main points unfold like this:

I know that these are real words in real sentences and everything, but superimposed on this show and directed at these girls, it’s like experiencing hieroglyphics. Does not compute. Heather agrees with No. 3, saying that she’s been “burnt” in the past literally, and she’s not referring to her crimping iron.

She means the tattoo she got of Bret’s name, which first of all was not branded, and second of all was entirely of her own volition. Bret totally encouraged it and had the ego-boosted woody afterward to prove it, but in the end, it was Heather’s own fault. The way she spins it amounts to pricking your finger on a rose’s thorn and blaming it on Poison. It’s just so weird, ’cause, like, we all saw it, you know?

Anyway! There’s also this:

We should add an, “…especially if you’ve had a restraining order on them” clause. Thank god these girls are just learning this crap now. I can’t imagine what either season of Rock of Love would have been like with a pragmatic element.

And speaking of pragmatic, Brandi C., brilliantly recaps with…

“Basically, I’m listening to this lecture, and all it boils down to is: don’t be a slut. But being slutty is kind of fun!” Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new motto.

To put some of these good/not-good-for-TV lessons to use, the judges have called on a team of make-up artists and special-effects wizards to give the girls make-unders. If you don’t know what that means…

…now you do. The results of the transformations follow:

Kristy Joe is particularly good-natured and funny about the challenge, as is often (yet always surprisingly) the case:

The whole ordeal is kind of like Mama’s Family, but with worse wigs. The girls will attempt to sell their personalities to three bachelors of varying hotness:

“Varying.” Slippery slope. Whatever.

Basically, the whole point in this speed-dating exercise is that the girls are not allowed to just get by on their looks alone. Highlights include “Gerturde” naming the kazoo as one of the instruments she’s versed in (what a hummer!) and John asking “Hortense” if she goes by anything for short. If anyone’s feeling unfresh, you’re in luck, because it looks like we have a full douchebag on our hands!

Sharon and Daniella, who are watching on a closed-circuit television, note that the girls spill their dating nightmares almost immediately.

“I’ve had my vagina removed,” mocks Sharon. Hey there, missus — you can’t knock these girls for what the make-underers did to them!

Oh!

Look at how backwoods mutant Brandi M., looks. The hills have eyes…and they’re alive with prosthetics.

Brandi C., meanwhile flirts with John.

If only she were drunk and we could blame it all on beer goggles.

Flies swarm as Kristy Joe talks to Charlie…

…it just couldn’t be more appropriate. Kristy Joe interviews that, “For the first time in my life, I realized that I’ve always kinda relied on my looks, and now I’ve got nothing to talk about.” That’s exactly what this lesson was supposed to teach and the fact that KJ would even admit to being that mired in superficiality is admirable. KJ for the win…except not of this challenge, because she asks Charlie, “Why are you single?” which is not only putting him totally on the spot, it’s also kind of accusatory. Why not be single, you know? Being slutty is kind of fun. Did you learn nothing from Brandi C., KJ?

The speed-dating ends and Sharon goes over the results with the girls. Or, at least some of them. In addition to not seeing a second of footage of Heather on her speed-dates, we get no indication of how she did. Let’s hope if tattoos were involved, they were temporary. Anyway, Brandi C., tried to find common ground, Lacey was wishy-washy and Kristy Joe was a bad listener.

She doesn’t get extra points for her ability to mug effectively in a fat suit, even though she should. In the end, Brandi M., is chosen by Charlie and John as the girl they’d most like to go on a second date with. Ace picks Destiney. That means that Brandi M., is the winner. She gloats like backwoods mutants only can. For her prize, she’ll get to go on a date with the eligible bachelors. And she gets to pick a friend. She chooses “Jorge.”

She means “Hortense” aka Destiney. I guess she too got confused with all the names for which “whore” can be short. Surprising but plausible. The rest of the girls will be going out as well, they just have to stay in their ugly costumes. They are not happy about this.

Heather takes it particularly hard, which is strange for someone who tends to have a decent sense of humor about herself.

She actually starts crying!

She pleads with Sharon to not make her go. This is so weird. America’s already seen her looking like Aileen Wuornos’ trick, so what’s a few more jerkasses sitting around a bar? Get a grip, girl! Embrace your cartoonish butchness!

Since Sharon’s making her go, Heather does what she can to cope:

She gets sauced. I guess she figures that since she looks like s***, she might as well get s***-faced. She’s not problem-drinking, she’s just being thematic!

Brandi C., does her part to make sure she’s similarly dissociated from her pseudo-self.

Mission accomplished.

While Destiney and Brandi M., dress normally and board a limo for their “date” with the three dudes…

…the uglies are confined to the shortbus. They are seriously torturing these girls. Vagina removal may not be far behind, after all.

While Heather wallows at the bar, the other girls have what looks like a fun time…

Why wait till Thanksgiving to enjoy stuffing?

Or turkey, for that matter? Brandi C., openly and forcefully makes out with John. He kisses her neck at one point, to her great delight.

If she did get her vagina removed, it’s nice to know that she could still have plenty of fun.

By the time they get out of the bar, Brandi C., is wrecked.

She has this…incident with a pole on the bus, and is otherwise preoccupied…

She describes her state at this point as “Heather drunk.” That’s, like, off the charts. Witness her interaction with some hair that has entered her mouth:

The experience seems to mystify her entirely. You’d think she’d be used to it by now. And speaking of Heather drunk…

…yeah, that’s pretty bad. Oh, also, so begins the motif of attempting to shove pizza down drunk people’s throats. I know the idea is to get something in their stomach besides alcohol, but this seems like a recipe for greasy, tomato-chunky throw-up to me.

Lacey, meanwhile, has a recipe for vomit of the behavioral variety. She says the circumstances have given her an idea. She pulls Brandi C., aside and asks if she remembers the other night when she was drunk and Heather was yelling in her face. We flashback to something we didn’t see during the episode in which Megan was eliminated…

Lacey plays Brandi C., like a kazoo, telling her…

“[Heather] needs to understand what it feels like when you’re drunk and someone’s screaming in your face!” Oh, so look who’s a moralist all of a sudden! Hey, Lacey, VH1 already has a show that’s anchored by a maniac who does worse things to bad people. It’s called Scream Queens.

Speaking of screaming!

After being led to the room that isn’t theirs by Lacey, Brandi C., screams in the face of an ailing Heather.

Those who are of sound(er) minds attempt to break up this wholly unnecessary tiff.

As the Brandis argue, Heather bares her teeth like a shi tzu.

Possibly the best thing about this whole disaster is that Kristy Joe has her fat neck still on and is, like, mugging.

Brandi C., is told repeatedly to get out of the room. Destiney yells at her to leave. In lieu of doing that, she spits in Destiney’s face and Celebreality history is made yet again.

And this is no wimpy runny Pumkin-esque saliva. This is a thick, stew-like, beige loogie.

It’s so tactile, it takes multiple wipes to remove.

It is marvelously disgusting. In the midst of Destiney’s flailing to clean herself, Brandi C., sort of leans back to admire her work.

Show-off!

Destiney responds not with violence, but with words…

“Get out of our room! Get out now! I’m asking you politely to f***ing get out of our f***ing room!”

While it’s funny that she’s qualifying her use of blood-curdling screams and the word “f***ing” as “polite,” she isn’t wrong. Considering that she just had actual human mucus on her face, I think Destiney’s reaction is nothing less than civilized.

As if she hasn’t been ridiculous enough, Brandi C., makes sure to note on her way out…

Well that makes it all better, now, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, Heather’s, like, throwing up what is undoubtedly greasy, tomato-chunky vomit…

…and asthma-attacking…

…but when she hears that Brandi C., spit on Destiney, she springs to action.

Responding to Heather’s confrontation, Patrick Bateman, I mean Lacey, says, “It’s about time to learn what it feels like when people are coming down on you in your weakened state.”

She also makes fun of Heather’s slurring (which, you know, is fair enough)…

…and then, seemingly out of nowhere, says…

…”You think you’re a f***ing A-list celebrity!” To which Heather responds…

“Iyaaaaaaaaaaam, bitch!”

Oh dear.

Here’s one case where Lacey’s reaction is wholly justified. Seriously, Heather, please pretend you don’t believe stuff like that, even if you do. This breaks up mercifully soon and as Heather stomps back to her room, she says…

“I’m having an asthma attack, and there’s whores in my face!” You need an inhaler, and instead you get a whore in your face. It’s like from a lost verse of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.” But really, as long as Heather’s turning out lines like this as a matter of course, she’ll always be on the A-list of my heart.

And this whole thing doesn’t even end there! We see a shot of Heather talking to her mom in the phone booth with what is quite possibly her most authentically 80’s hair yet.

Heather doesn’t want to be here anymore. Nor does she want to talk to her mom, apparently, so she calls for Jessica who scurries up, saying…

“I’m comin’, sweetie. I’m bringing you pizza!” What the hell is this pizza propaganda? Why is it being peddled as the cure-all? Pizza is to black-out, fame-inflating drunkenness as club soda is to stains, apparently. I wonder if it helps with cancer, too?

Heather tells Jessica to talk to her mother and Jessica gets on the phone, all…

“Hi, Mom.” Jessica is so adorable, I want to put her in my pocket. No wait. I wanna put her in a pizza pocket.

While Jessica is talking to Heather’s mom, Heather sits outside the phone booth. Lacey comes up, saying that now Heather knows how Brandi C., feels. Like an A-lister? Heather, in response, chucks the plate (and pizza!) that Jessica just handed her.

Now she’ll never be cured! Lacey calls her weak in response. She seems to have her mouth full. Probably of pizza.

The next day, Brandi C., sits out by the pool.

Jessica tells Brandi of the spitting, at which she says she’s horrified. Jessica also adds that in her opinion, Lacey played Brandi C. Jessica urges Brandi to talk to Destiney about this matter. It ends with a sisterly hug.

Jessica is like pizza delivery for the soul. Love. This. Girl.

Destiney and Brandi C., eventually talk about the night before.

Much to Destiney’s credit, she’s calm yet assertive. Much to Brandi C.’s credit, she’s remorseful and doesn’t even attempt to make excuses for herself. At one point, she interrupts Destiney and then backs down immediately. I’m glad it took a vile thing like spitting to make these girls communicate like humans. Saliva for all! Destiney tells Brandi C., that she turns into a monster when she drinks and that Brandi C., reminds her of herself at a really tumultuous point in her life. Again, it ends with a hug:

Meanwhile, Heather’s freaking out about the plate-throwing incident.

That’s a flattering angle, though. Thrower’s remorse does a Heather good. So, Heather goes in and talks to Sharon, saying that she’s doing well and she’s not a bad person, but oh yeah, she almost decapitated Lacey with a flying plate, purely accidentally.

Oh dear, part 2: electric bulls***.

Elimination!

Brandi M., again gloats about her win. Big whoop. That feels episodes ago at this point. Unless you assaulted someone, you really can’t claim relevance at this particular point in time.

Sharon brings up the plate-throwing almost immediately, saying that Lacey worked Heather up to the point where she felt that she could only express herself by throwing a plate at the wall.

Lacey corrects her, by saying the plate was aimed for her head. Rikki knows of none of this, so he asks Heather to explain her side of the story.

“I came upstairs…and then…I’m here, I’m learning and I’m cleansing!” Well, you know what happens when you cleanse: crap leaks out. It just usually doesn’t leak from your mouth. Heather’s a special girl! She panics and says she’s having trouble breathing.

Heather asks if Jessica can tell what happened. As someone who was sober and who seems to be sensible enough to align herself with the truth, Jessica is an invaluable source. She says that Heather just launched the plate and that it was not aimed at Lacey’s head. Lacey takes issue with this and interrupts, but Jessica shoots this down…

“This is my time right now, so I would like to use my time to explain what I saw!” snaps Jessica earning her a “You go, gurl!” from Sharon and an eerily approving smile from Lacey.

Aw, the kid’s all right!

And also: unfinished. Lacey talks about her argument with Heather, especially that whole A-list thing. Heather seems shocked.

Is she really that surprised that she said that? Surely, she must believe it to have said it. Sharon’s response is absolutely perfect: “Hold on, what is this famous s***? You bitches are not celebrities, OK? I’m the f***ing celebrity!” Stunning.

Heather must feel backed up into a wall because she blurts out, “She spit on her!”

Now it’s Brandi C.’s turn to be shocked. But really? Brandi C., knows that Heather knows exactly how this machine operates and so of course she was going to play that as a trump card if she felt threatened. Sharon asks who spit on whom and Brandi C., raises her hand.

Let that raised hand work as a reminder that she really is a kid. She explains that she spit on Destiney, adding, “I feel that what I did was the utmost worst thing I could have ever done in my entire life.” It’s not an exaggeration when it’s done for poetic effect; it’s hyperbole. Sharon asks Destiney if she thinks Brandi C., should be eliminated and Destiney says that Lacey goaded her into doing it. Destiney’s opinion apparently counts for nothing because Sharon gets super pissed. Like off-her-mark, out-of-the-light pissed. She admonishes the girls for taking “two steps forward and four f***ing back.”

Since what Brandi C., did was illegal, Sharon says f*** it about an expulsion ceremony and justs asks for Brandi C.’s pin.

Sharon tells her, “You’ve let everybody down. Most of all, yourself.” Brandi C., agrees completely.

And with that, she is gone. Say what you will about the spitting titmouse, but she was clearly remorseful for her actions and she made an hour of truly spectacular TV. When she’s gone, Sharon tells Lacey and Heather, “Enough. Boring.” To which I say: I BEG TO DIFFER, lady. Most exciting episode ever!

Related content
Rock of Love Charm School show page
Charm School videos and extras

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am