Tonight’s venue is the Salty Goat and they’re there for about a minute and a half before Logan shows up. He’s slurring, he’s standing in Kortni’s physical space, he’s threatening to braid her hair, and she is getting tired of his clingy bullsh*t. In other sick-to-your-stomach news, Kirk takes one shot too many and pukes all over the bathroom floor and Nilsa then steps in it. (And now I’d like to take this brief opportunity to address the editors of this show. You guys? I know you have a very difficult job on your hands. You are tasked with whittling down 24/7 footage of pure insanity into something that makes narrative sense. But if you ever f*cking show four close-up shots of the same pile of vomit again, I will arrange to have GatorJay231SouthsideGawd show up at your editing suite and first I will mandate that he recite the entirety of Shakespeare’s canon of work – without subtitles! – while you are forced to listen and I will then make sure he dates every single one of your sisters. These are not idle threats. Do not test me. Xoxo- Nell) Anyhoo, since Kirk puked all over the establishment’s bathroom and didn’t clean it up, the group is asked to vacate the place immediately. Candace, Jeremiah, and Codi work hard to get Kirk into the car, but he is still drunk and he’s stupidly belligerent – and this is getting f*cking old already. I get that this is an MTV reality show, but is it maybe possible that these people can have one night out where they don’t cause a total scene? It’s starting to seriously bore me.
They finally shove Kirk into a van and they arrive back at the house without any further incident – which is a f*cking miracle – and Kortni picks up the crocodile phone to call her mother. It’s three o’clock in the morning, but she wants to tell her mother about the questionable pregnancy test. Having already suffered a prior miscarriage, Kortni lets her mom know that she’s not smoking or drinking until she knows for sure, but she is extremely – and understandably – emotional. It’s nice to see such a close mother/daughter relationship on a reality show. It would also be nice if Kortni makes the choice going forward to use protection when she has sex, especially if she’s sleeping with a controlling rage creature who spits when he speaks.
The next day it’s beautiful outside so they all – well, not Aimee – head to the beach. Kortni and Gus take a walk and she confides what’s going on and how she’s not sure about Logan. Gus is a good person for Kortni to talk to for a few reasons:
1. He’s sane.
2. He’s kind of wise.
3. He’s not the one in the house Logan is so threatened by, so whichever bluff Logan is currently perched upon with binoculars in his hand for his daily dose of stalking his girlfriend, seeing Gus with Kortni will not enrage Logan as much as it would if he spotted Jeremiah with Kortni.
After the beach, they head to the bar. Kirk chooses to stay in and have a much-needed chill night, but my guess is the rest of them won’t have anything quite as relaxing. See, Logan calls Kortni beforehand and extends the awesome and romantic invite of watching him get f*cked up on the beach. Kortni tells him they’re going to Ugly’s and he can join her, but only if he’s sober. And since such a thing will never happen, it’s clear we’re being set up for some, um, sobering footage that will make scores of us consider joining a convent just so we never again have to live in a world where there’s a chance we could bump into a guy like Logan. (And should one of you eventually become my convent roommate, please bring your own flatiron. I do not like to share.) Logan shows up at the bar fully trashed – which means I’m either psychic or he is too predictable for words – and Kortni is over it. We shall get back to that misery in just a moment, but first we should probably talk about how Gus’ hair stylist is in town with her friend and that friend is interested in Jeremiah and the feeling is mutual. It’s so mutual that Jeremiah doesn’t even refer to this girl as a “to-go box,” so he either really likes this one or he finally read an article about how it’s not adorable anymore to be a proud misogynist. Either way, this girl is coming home with them and their coupling makes Nilsa want to find someone, too. She searches high and low around that bar and not one guy piques her interest. Then her eyes land on Gus. She sees his chiseled biceps. She sees his humungous swoop of hair. She sees the reality that he could very much be her sure-thing since they share the same kitchen anyway, so she saunters over to him and makes a deal that the two of them should be cuddle partners for the night – and Gus is wasted just enough that he agrees.
All that about Nilsa and Gus? That is f*cking romance compared to what Kortni’s going through. She just wants to be away from Logan and his creepiness, so she grabs her friends and books out of the bar while Logan, eyes blazing, tries to follow her. She manages to maneuver her way home without him where takes another pregnancy test hoping to get a clearer result. Just as she’s about to find out, we hear foreboding studio scoring start to rise. Now, if you thought that all of a sudden Jason Voorhees had emerged from the ocean and was currently heading towards the house with a machete, you would be forgiven because that was the tone this music cue was meant to give off, but it’s not Jason and his hockey mask arriving in Panama City Beach. It’s Logan. You didn’t think he’d respect his girlfriend’s wishes and give her some space, did you?
Men like him don’t do that.
After bounding up the stairs, Logan asks if he and Kortni can talk and Jeremiah stands just outside of his field of vision in case he has to jump in. Scarily enough, Jeremiah is not being dramatic here. Even Kortni says that Logan looks like a crackhead sitting in front of her as he blathers on about how he sacrifices everything for her and that’s why he didn’t buy a motorcycle – and that’s probably the prototypical example of the inane kind of sentence you really do not want to hear the possible father of your possible baby say. But still Logan rambles on about the respect he’s owed and finally Kortni tells him that she doesn’t like the way he speaks to her. Backtalk? From a woman, no less? That’s not something this lunatic will tolerate, so he stalks out of the house while Kortni sits calmly. She just lets him leave and she breathes a sigh of relief, but it turns out Logan is more like Jason Voorhees than we’d originally thought. Because just when you think he’s gone, he will pop up again for what I’m guessing will be the scariest f*cking sequel any of us will ever see.
Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon.com in paperback and for your Kindle. Also be sure to check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.
