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At a big group rehearsal at Boom Shakalaka Studio, Diddy Bitch respectfully requests K-cup’s and Richy’s presence in her office and orders Lacee and Sarah to “clean up” while they’re gone. I’m assuming she’s referring to sharpening the dance performance and not waxing the floors, but who knows at this point.
Once they’re in the office, Diddy Bitch tells Kryington she’s fired, but alas, she’s just kidding. Apparently, K-cup and Richy get to stow away in Diddy Bitch’s checked Vuitton luggage and fly with her to London to prep Six-D for their first live performance. Laurieann and Kryington seem overly excited about the same kids they just saw a few episodes ago. Six-D wasn’t exciting then, they’re not exciting now … but perhaps K-cup will get some action, so maybe that’s why she and her boss are excited.
As they check into their posh hotel (with British flags hanging outside and everything!!!),
Wrong country, Laurieann. And shouldn't it be raspberry-colored?
Laurieann jokes with the desk clerk that she wants K-cup to stay in “the ghetto-est room” the hotel has. Don’t we all love making fun of the help? They’re poor! They deserve it! After ordering Kryington around through the unpacking process and giving her very specific instructions: she wants two wake-up calls, perhaps breakfast with Richy and K-cup, or maybe coffee alone, etc., Diddy Bitch offers K-cup a cheery “Good night!” Sadism is exhausting, I’m sure.
Back in L.A. at The Castle, a very lonely Sarah gets a call from her mom, who is “one of her closest friends”. Boy, Sarah’s mom must be honored to have that title. Side note: Where’s Paula? We never find out, but we don’t see Paulandroid this ep except at the initial rehearsal with a dumb Minnie Mouse bow in her hair – mayhap Droid Bot had a hot EMPLOYED blind date and stayed with him for a few days.
Anyway, Sarah and her mom chat about Sarah’s dad, whom Sarah hasn’t talked to in a month. I’m assuming Sarah’s mom and dad are split up, not just too lazy to yell across the room to check on each other's welfare. Sarah can’t depend on her father to be a good dad and feels helpless to change him. Sarah tells us she misses the other Gloommates and is lonely. Seacrest doesn’t show us the inevitable text to Ex-Paul, Jr. but I’m sure it occurred.
Leave a voice mail. Paul is banging another chick not available at this time.
In Jolly Ol’ England, Diddy Bitch and the Favored Minions of the Moment walk into a rehearsal studio to greet Six-D. Kryington is excited to see Kieran, but I am aghast at his hairstyle and can’t stop looking at it. It’s a combination of all the members’ of N Sync’s hairstyles circa 1998.
Kieran's hair inspiration. But Kieran wears high tops.
After hugs and Kieran’s offer to show Kryington the city later, they get down to work. Laurieann starts shouting, K-cup breaks out her notebook, pen and mournful looks, and Richy starts dry swallowing Zanex. The rehearsal goes terribly and Six-D starts looks pretty scared about fucking up in front of 16,000 Londoners tomorrow. Laurieann tells us the kids “weren’t connecting with their vocals” and that “their head sets weren’t fitted”. Or as we Yanks say over here in The Colonies, Six-D CAN’T SING – even after a day off from rehearsal to rest their voices.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Laurieann begins whipping her head around and spilling her Kahlua and coffee and yelling about taking days off before you’ve sold any records. She says the kids look like they’ve never ever been developed by Team Boom Kack. What does “developed” mean, Laurieann? You rehearsed with them one time in L.A., got them some stupid Kool Aid-tinged hair coloring and pimped them out to your assistant choreographers! If that’s artist development, sign me up. Kieran blames the problems on his awkward headset mike pack placement, so Laurieann tells Richy to “dazzle tape” the packs to their bodies, loss of skin be damned! I don’t know what dazzle tape is (I even googled it and couldn’t find it!), but if it’s anything like surgical tape, those kids are in for a real treat. I was still pulling that shit off my body (painfully) six weeks post-surgery.
Dazzle Tape is evil.
Laurieann breaks into inspiration mode (the alcohol must have kicked in now), telling the kids that they’re going to be great tomorrow at their performance; they’re going to “shift the planet”. I think the planet Laurieann lives on shifts all the time.
At the L.A. studio, Paul sits down with Sarah post-rehearsal to talk with her about her dad, but Sarah does not tell Paul or us what’s really going on. It’s weird: perhaps Sarah’s dad threatened to sue Seacrest if the show got specific about his issues, or maybe she’s just this vague about everything and that’s why Paul broke up with her in the first place. Sarah interviews that to “just be friends” with Paul would take a lot of work. You what would take a lot less work, and a lot less screen time to boot? Never talking to Paul again? What say you, PLR?
Kieran comes to pick K-cup at the hotel and they begin their sightseeing date by bonding over their mutual fear and respect for Laurieann. He starts showing her around and asks her if she wants to see Big Ben. K-cup thinks Ben is a person. You’ll never win Jeopardy!, Kryington.
This Canadian thinks you're a dumbass, too, K-cup!
At least she has the good humor to laugh at her own stupidity.
Is that Big Ben in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
They walk around some more and act like the awkward teenagers they are, and we hear Kieran voiceover-ask K-cup if she’s ever been with a dancer before while we watch them kiss in the shadows of the bridge. Guess someone else is going to need a wake-up call in the morning, Laurieann. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!
On their way to supervise Six-D’s sound check, Laurieann tells us Six-D’s record label and management are showing up to the performance tonight so it’s a big deal. Why are they showing up, Laurieann, when you so obviously have this handled? They don’t need to worry, right?
It’s all good, squirrels.
Moving on, Diddy Bitch asks K-cup if Kieran gives her the “woolies” in her stomach. Richy clarifies that she means “butterflies”. It's a simple mistake: butterflies don't exist on Laurieann's planet. K-cup denies any excited romantic feelings, which confirms that they DID do it the night before and he didn’t perform well in the bedroom either.
In L.A., Sarah’s at Paul’s house having dinner with him, and they have an uber-boring convo about her shitty dad and how Paul’s not her dad even though Paul reminds her of her dad. Eeewww! So your dad looks like the Prison Break brother? AND your dad’s dating you?
We have another brother? Did he dance his way out of prison?
You know you agree, Gasmii: see, the female doctor character was even named “Sara” and the actress’s name is Sarah in real life. See? See? No? Okay, I’m grasping at straws, but so was Seacrest when he created this show, so I’m in rich company.
Anyway, Paul wants to “make this work” even though he’s gone a lot. Sarah plays hard to get by making out with him so I expect this train wreck to continue over the remaining episodes of this show.
In London, we see Six-D passing by and signing a few autographs for screaming teenagers while entering the arena for sound check. I think those girls showed up for the headliner, JLS, but we’ll pretend that Six-D is that well-known, at least until we see the concert footage later and realize no one in London knows who Six-D is. Backstage, Laurieann and her Dr. Zhivago hat threaten the kids with death and dismemberment if they fuck this up.
Let’s give Laurieann this outfit. She’ll need it outside later.
We see them going through sound check on the stage, where Six-D practices in front of some black curtain that Laurieann says will be their set for their performance, because that’s how everyone starts out, with no production value. Really? I’ve only been to one concert (sad, I know), and it was at the Missouri State Fair, and the opening act was Blake Shelton. There was no black curtain, so I’m in the dark about this. Richy tells one kid to watch out while she’s dancing because there’s a car directly behind the curtain and he doesn’t want her to bump into it. Seriously? They’re going to perform on the six feet of stage in front of some lame-ass curtain hiding a car and who knows what else for the headliner’s set? That’s ludicrous (although the JLS show probably would have been cool, with a car on stage and everything).
When we were an opening act, we had a gold lamé curtain.
The stage manager tells Six-D their practice time’s up and they need to leave the stage. Laurieann jumps right up, “coffee” in hand, to go back behind the curtain and tell the stage manager that he owes them 20 more minutes. She tells him they are owed more time for their “technical rehearsal” (as opposed to the non-technical rehearsal, I guess) and he blows her off. She walks down the stairs, telling Richy she “almost cold-cocked that muthafucka”. The stage manager says, “Excuse me?” and she walks up and gets up in his grill. It’s awesome, for about 10 seconds. She tells him to be nice and not to talk to her that way, but she walks off his stage just the same. She must be desperate for the money the music label’s giving her or otherwise that dude would no longer have his man-parts (at least that’s what I tell myself as I stare at the Laurieann poster in my home dance studio and cry).
Diddy Bitch walks back to the prep room and five minutes before show time, security walks in and asks Laurieann to leave the building. She leaves willingly, but not before telling us that it’s like when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Hold your fuckin’ horses, Torontonian. Maybe I’ve got my black history mixed up, or there’s a Canadian Rosa Parks who DID go right to the back of the bus after refusing to do so, since YOU ACTUALLY LEAVE THE BUILDING, LAURIEANN! I am insulted on the American Rosa Parks’ behalf.
There are no words.
Laurieann and her hat and sunglasses leave the building while a very scared and confused Six-D take the stage to perform. Laurieann wasn’t lying about that black curtain thing … they really have to perform in front of it and I am humiliated for them. It’s also weird that five out of six kids are performing dance moves in sync while Chantelle does her own thing off to the side … I guess that one day off from rehearsal affected her more than the others ... or perhaps her Dazzle Tape is ripping off her mike pack and she’s in serious pain.
The editors try to convince us that the audience loved the show by cutting in audience screaming/clapping shots with shots of Six-D’s performance on stage, but we all know the cameramen just waited around to get audience members’ reactions to JLS’s appearance. Anyway, Richy gives out high fives to the Six-D kids after their performance and K-cup gives Kieran a hug good-bye. They obviously did the do the night before and he definitely sucked at it. At least she didn’t high-five him.
Moving on.
Since Laurieann got kicked out of the building, our last scene of this ½ hour will not be the typical post-performance lovefest that Laurieann always offers her choreographers and “artists”. Instead we’re treated to high tea at the hotel and an exceptionally awkward exchange between Laurieann, Richy and Kryington. Laurieann tells her “children” to stick their pinkies out while sipping their tea, but my internet research tells me that the pinkie should be curled under while drinking tea, and that an extended pinkie indicates extreme arrogance. Well played, Laurieann, well played.
During this scene, we learn that K-cup’s step-father is not her favorite person, and because I watched another scene they cut from this ep, I know Laurieann’s dad died last year and that Richy’s mom died when he was young. With all the emotion in the air, K-cup makes the mistake of asking Laurieann to help her with dance and with life … we’ll see how that pans out.
All I wanted was to dance and be famous and have people like me.
To lighten the mood, Laurieann tells K-cup to deep throat an English pastry and since she had practice with Keyring's disco stick the night before, she successfully complies, impressing even the highly experienced Richy. Way to go, K-cup! Thanks for being a positive role model for all the young dancers out there (not) watching this show. See you next week, Gasmii! >
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