‘The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles’ Episode 8 Recap: “Fight Or Flight Pt. 2”

Well, we are at the end of another season of The Real World Homecoming, we have reconnected and torn open old wounds and seen grainy footage of Venice Beach in 1993, and again we are limping out the door one roommate down. We’ve seen this coming: the season’s supercut teased an early departure, as did your own common sense. And while after last week’s episode I made a bold prediction that Tami would take herself out at the last minute for maximum story-line impact, the reality is different and much more predictable. Take it from a Los Angeles resident: Venice is just never as interesting as you think it’s going to be.

We’ll get to the walkout soon enough. But first, it is a new day and the meeting of the first potential cast members of The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles: The Next Generation. Beth A had been wanting her kid Morty to come by the house to meet Irene’s nephew Gibby, as both these kids are trans and Morty needed to hang out with a peer. The Tami/David drama of the previous night has temporarily quieted down and Beth wants this “to be the kids’ moment and for the adults to chill out.” And they might! To his credit, David takes a two second break from talking shit about Tami into a phone that may or may not be turned on, and gives Morty a fist bump and a hair compliment. (And then right back to the phone.)

Morty and Gibby are sweetly awkward, the way teenagers are when you introduce them to one another. Beth A is concerned about Morty coming out in such a big way, when there are family members who don’t know the deal, but she admits the same was true for her when she came out on camera via t-shirt back in 1993. Gibby seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders; though his mother initially had a hard time with his transition, he made it plain: “You’re either going to accept me, or when the time comes, you’re not going to see me again.” Morty openly wonders why he has to be trans, and Gibby reassures him: “To me, it’s not a flaw, it’s my superpower.” The kids are going to be alright.

The adults are not. David is still seething about the argument he had with Tami, which— though he did eventually get upset and threaten to snatch the wig off Tami’s head— grew out of his not being upset enough at Glen and Irene for their inappropriate use of the N word. He definitely said unfortunate things as the argument escalated, but if we’ve learned as much about this cast as they say they’ve learned about each other this season, we know that that’s kind of his whole thing. You can just stop needling a person after a certain point! Even if you’re on television, this course of action is perfectly legal!

Anyway, he’s still angry, particularly about the fact that Tami sent her husband after him, and whatever self-awareness Tami showed in the aftermath — about putting her own husband at risk at the height of an argument about how Black men are at risk — has evaporated. So David’s just kind of hanging out upstairs with Jon, who “didn’t want him to look bad, but he brought this on himself,” and Tami’s downstairs with Irene and Beth S, who says “I understand why Tami felt like she needed to call her husband, but it was the wrong move.” It’s a nearly-perfect callback to the original 1993 standoff, boys upstairs, girls down. “Living together,” David says, “you learn who your friends are.” Watching this season, I say: you learn nobody’s anybody’s friend. Anyway, Beth S wants to say something to David, because of course she does, and Irene tells her to stay out of it, which proves the police can de-escalate when they want to.

David calls up producer Kevin, and tells him he’s decided to leave. “I can’t face these fake motherfuckers no more” is the justification, and it’s enough. The rest of the house says they’re disappointed, but their behavior, which consists entirely of not doing anything about it, says they’re relieved. Irene admits “It was shitty that Tami called her husband, because this could have helped him.” But she says that to us and not to her. David packs and jets, with Jon offering some support and Tami not even bothering to say goodbye, and that’s that on that.

People who participate in a show like this at a formative age, particularly when they come in hot with a big personality, tend to have their personalities frozen in amber. How could they not? At the time in your life when the question “who am I” is playing in your head the loudest, the world says “you’re that guy,” and what are you going to do but believe it? You need a strong sense of yourself to survive one of these things, and even then it’s hard. I bet the WHABOOM guy from The Bachelorette is still the WHABOOM guy. David came in as an unpolished stand-up comedian, in that early stage where you don’t know you can turn it off once in a while, and then he got tangled up in a situation that remained just problematic enough for him to be able to blame it for his career not blowing up. Now it’s 28 years later and he’s mistrustful and short-tempered and still firing off one-liners. I feel bad for the guy.

But I wouldn’t want to live with him.

The next morning, the gang goes out to brunch — Beth A has made a reservation at a completely empty restaurant — and things are much less tense but still far from comfortable, because it is still these six people. Everyone agrees that the Homecoming experience bonded them far more than the original: “In ‘93, we were in this house for six months and we didn’t learn anything about each other,” Beth S says, “but now we’ve spent two weeks and I learned so much.” Even Glen thinks Beth S has turned out okay as a human being, and I say that’s impressive progress.

Everyone is finally getting along, so they go back to the house for the last night there, and Tami basically says, “Let’s play a game where everyone tells everyone else what they don’t like about them.” Not really, but close: “Let’s go around the circle and everybody say what each person needs to do as we move forward.” She starts, because obviously. “Jon, I would like for you to find the teachable moment that speaks to who you are and the life that you’re living now.” Good, clear, actionable. “Beth S, I would like for you to learn how to have a clear and decisive point of view.” A callback to her episode-one “p-word burns” comment on Beth’s character, and not unshady, but Beth doesn’t take the bait. “Glen, you talk a lot.” And it seems like he does, but maybe Tami’s problem is that he doesn’t speak in crisp, editor-friendly sound bites, so she doesn’t understand him. Glen admits that he received a midlife ADHD diagnosis — Me too! Get at me, Glen! I’m sorry I was mean about Perch! — and Tami tells him to “stay on topic,” which is about as helpful as saying “don’t have had a midlife ADHD diagnosis.” Irene and Beth A are fast asleep for this, and nobody else takes a turn, so this game boils down to Tami trying to start one last fight on the way out the door. She cannot. So there has been growth.

And then it’s time to check out of the Big House on Speedway once again. Beth S hugs Tami and refuses to let go. Beth A says she is leaving with “a sense of completion,” but also wants to keep hanging out with everyone. Beth A is a little all over the place, and that’s why we love her.

It’s Tami’s voice that takes us out of this season, and I don’t know whether it’s supposed to be as poignant as it is. She says, “Reality shows now are pitched toward heightened drama,” and then there are quick cuts of other Viacom properties like Teen Mom and Jersey Shore and Teen Mom 2. “We laid the groundwork for that. I’m proud to have been one of the pioneers of the genre.” Is…is she saying that it’s good that other reality shows are emotional snuff films now, and that she’s glad she one of the first and most consistent pot-stirrers in the game? It kinda sounds that way!

But what happens next is really haunting. 1993 Tami says in voiceover, “Coming into a situation with six other people who don’t know anything about you, and hearing what they think of you, how they perceive you, can really change you.” And as Homecoming Tami jogs out of the house, laughing to herself and making sure the camera catches it, Season Two Tami says “That’s exactly what’s happened to me, it’s changed me for the better.” And off she goes down Speedway, a woman changed for the better, a woman who experienced reality tv fame before it even had a name, a woman who would be the first to stay in the game for decades, a woman who speaks entirely in quips and exploits every opportunity for conflict and then goes on YouTube to stir up more. There were people on The Real World before Tami, but Tami is the first person The Real World made. Is it put on for the cameras, or is it really her? I don’t know, and I don’t know whether she does either.

Did you ever see Young Adult? It’s a little like the end of Young Adult. Young Adult kind of fucked me up.

We’ll be doing this again soon enough, as The Real World Homecoming leaps ahead seven seasons to New Orleans. It’s a good choice: The Duffy-Campos axis of alt-right takes the San Francisco and Boston seasons off the table, Bunim-Murray would like to forget London, and everyone knows we need to wait on a Seattle reunion until I am emotionally ready to let David back into my life. (Combine Hawaii and Miami, please. Light on the Flora.) New Orleans had a cast that was camera-ready but soulful, a bunch of kids I continue to root for, a season that is under-rated. I’ll see you for that later this year sometime. Until then, to the degree that you feel is safe, come on be my babies tonight.

Dave Holmes is an editor-at-large for Esquire.com, host of the Earwolf podcast Homophilia, and his memoir Party of One is in stores now. He also hosts the Real World podcast Truu Stowray, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch The Real World Homecoming Los Angeles Episode 8 on Paramount+