I'm Not Here To Make Friends

Some of Bret’s “good friends” have made an appearance on the show. Here they are. 

Jes

I’m sorry I spelled your name wrong so many times Jes, and I’m sorry that this show happened to you. I really do feel like Jes got caught up in the whole thing and six months of the “love of her life” not even acknowledging her showed her what everything was about. 

Bret should have picked Heather, they seemed to click on so many levels. I think that Bret saw Heather as someone who he has had in the past because he mentions the fact that she is a stripper every five seconds. Jes is young and wouldn’t be someone he could pick up at the end of a Poison concert. In the next season he will refer to her as his “wild child” a million times. 

Jes was young during the show, she was only 23. And yes she is mature but still Bret is more than 20 years older than her. And the fact that this is a dating show makes this all a huge mess. I respect that Jes told Heather in the end that it should have been her and that she doesn’t care what American thinks. If anyone in America was mad at her they are totally wrong. Bret is the only one who was a jerk and I’m happy that she dumped him on stage. 

I can’t find anything on Jes’s life post show, which is a good thing. Apparently she had already started dating someone before the clip show was filmed. I’m happy that she has moved on, and forever I will be on her side. 

Riki Rachtman is the host of this and all Rock of Love-related reunions and he’s a slimeball. Rachtman was a guy who hung out with hair metal people when they were famous and twenty years later he was still that guy. According to Wikipedia, “he was last seen on Daisy of Love, a Rock of Love spin-off starring Daisy De La Hoya, Rachtman’s friend and Rock of Love 2 runner-up.” That would mean Rachtman hasn’t been seen in seven years. Somebody should check on him!

When Bret comes out, his hair pops out of his bandana a little and it is so fucking bad. Bret has taken Rock of Love’s success for VH1 to mean that he is cool again, which is not the case. He always had swagger in the house and now, months later and with the knowledge that his show had great ratings, he has twice as much. As notable contestants come up to the stage (Brandi C and Kristia are first), he flirts with them. What a creep! He picked Jes and he’s still flirting with women on the show!

Now Brandi and Kristia are roommates and we hear a very boring story about how Brandi punched Kristia in her sleep. Kristia tells the story and then Brandi tells the same story. Bret and Riki make comments about how much they love imagining the two women sleeping together.

Rodeo gets a montage that focuses on the idea that she left too soon,  which I can agree with. She says she never gave up on Bret. “I’m going to tell you something. If it doesn’t work out, I want you to give me a second chance.” She’s tearful. And then Rodeo plugs her all-natural barbecue sauce and clothing line.

Sam gets a montage focusing on how much she cried. Riki says he told Bret mid-season that people were telling him not to break her heart, which is a lie because the whole show was filmed before any episodes aired. In fact, I bet a lot of the people in the crowd have never seen an episode of the show. This thing just doesn’t make sense with that timetable. Either the crowd is only cheering and booing on command, or they were shown an episode or two-worth of footage beforehand. Probably the former. The point is Riki Rachtman is lying.

Sam says she couldn’t trust Bret. When she signed up for the show, she didn’t expect him to “sleep with Lacey,” which is only the second time we’ve had this mentioned on the show. Bret doesn’t respond, but I wish he did. I want to see him defend that or at least acknowledge it, because it would go a long way toward explaining why he didn’t kick her out of the house earlier.

Lacey takes the stage opposite Brandi M and admits she slept with Bret before sniping at Brandi M by saying sleeping with Bret isn’t as bad as doing porn-- Brandi did porn and this was a thing that came out halfway through Rock of Love and was a big deal even though this is a show where Bret has the women get drunk and buy lingerie. By the third season, a prominent contestant will be trumpeting her appearances in Penthouse every few scenes. Brandi was just on the show too early.

We get a recap of the Lacey/Dallas fight, and we get another “Get off of her I said, now” from Rodeo, who is a hero. Dallas takes the stage and sits next to Lacey and generally looks badass. She doesn’t look at Lacey at all. She says “I don’t dislike animals, I dislike Lacey” and Sam throws up devil horns. Lacey half-apologizes for antagonizing Dallas and Dallas says “that’s funny because we bumped into each other three times when the cameras weren’t around and you didn’t say anything then.” Lacey presents Dallas with a “Dallas Loves Michael Vick” shirt (the back says “‘If there was an animal here right now, I’d slit its throat’ - Dallas”), to which Dallas says “I would love to wear this” and Lacey says “Michael Vick is available” to which Dallas says “I don’t date black men, but thank you for checking on that.”

Lacey says Bret was here to “pump his career” and she basically says she’s as sincere as he is. Brandi M is back to say that Lacey’s music video “smells like shit” and it’s “fucking horrible.” Brandi says Lacey was sneaking into Bret’s bed every night and Lacey says she had to do that because she wasn’t winning challenges and getting dates. Brandi says “that’s what turned me off about Bret-- I didn’t want to be with a guy who had slept with you.” That’s totally fair!

Brandi performs with “Nockturne,” her shitty nu-metal band. She sings in a dumb baby doll voice. Heather seems into it and Magdalena looks beyond bored.

New recap: Heather and Lacey’s falling out. Heather apologizes for calling Lacey a whore in front of her dad and they hug and Riki says “You guys should make out.”

Recap: Heather’s time in the house. She’s crying when we come back from the recap. She really loved him. Heather now has a fake “SUCKS” tattoo under “Bret” on her neck. I wonder if she still has this tattoo. She’s a real estate agent now-- does she have to hide the “old e” Bret on her neck?

Some sad dialogue for you: Riki: Are there still feelings of anger?

Heather: No, there’s no anger. He hurt me, that’s all.

Bret thinks it’s “kind of a turn on” that Heather was hurt because that means he meant something to her, which is about what you’d expect considering how abusive he was toward her.

Jes’ moment arrives. Bret hasn’t seen Jes for six months and he’s happy to see her, though her body language is already yelling that she’s shut down. Heather cries in the audience as people cheer for Jes. Jes says that she feels for Heather because she wears her heart on her sleeve and “somebody can grab it, break it, stomp on it. [to Bret] Not saying that’s what you did, but you might not have held it with enough care. To be honest, this whole entire show was a complete mindfuck.”

We learn Bret didn’t get out of the car to say goodbye to Jes at the hotel. “If it was real for you, I think you made the wrong decision. I think Heather was the one.” Jes says that Bret probably wasn’t ready for a real relationship after leaving a longterm one, so she picked her.

The credits role, Jes leaves the stage to hug Heather and Bret says “That’s all I wanted was for them to make out,” which is the creepiest fucking thing in the world. Bret isn’t hurt at all. Riki says “We don’t know where this is going” but it’s clear Jes isn’t entering a relationship with Bret. All is right.

Bret and Riki joke around at the end. He isn’t hurt at all. Maybe he’s excited. This is a chance to do it all over again. Bret had to choose Jes because he got excited about chasing a woman for the first time in decades. Heather wanted him too much to be attractive to a guy who has women like Heather throw themselves at him night after night. But even if Jes had to win, nothing was ever going to happen, because Jes had to reject Bret. Because Bret is a tool.

Heather

Heather got a pretty raw deal as the show went on, and it’s strange that I feel that way considering how often she came off as a creep in early episodes. Heather, who lied about Erin’s relationship, who teamed up with the worst person in the house, who even at the end was sniping at the “good girls,” had my sympathy.

That’s partly a result of everybody, even Jes in her darkest moment, deriding Heather for being a stripper. Not only a stripper, an old (31) stripper. Mostly, it’s a result of Bret pushing her to her breaking point. He told everybody he needed “a girl who can hang,” meaning party, and so Heather partied to show him how cool she was. And then at the last minute he decided he needed somebody who didn’t always want to party. Heather drunkenly said she’d get Bret’s name tattooed on her neck and a couple weeks later, Bret decided that he was going to have to see how serious she was, so he pressured her into actually getting it. The decision was clearly get-it-or-go-home, and Heather was too crazy about Bret to go home. Standing at the final judgment, Bret, mind already made up but not done feeding off Heather’s feelings for him, said he loved both girls, “God’s honest truth,” and wanted a three-way relationship. Of course Heather said yes-- she’d do anything for his affection. Wrong answer, skank! Bret was lying to test you!

This episode starts off with the worst title ever. Who is the rose? Who is the thorn? Are each woman the rose and each have a thorn? I’m actually not really that sure what this title means. So this is the finale episode, the one where Bret picks his “rock”. I’m going to spoil the ending right now because a lot of this episode is figuring out why Bret picks who he picks. And the winner is…..Jes. I’m going to save my opinions about this choice for the rest of the post. 

Anyway, the girls are packing to go to Cabo, baby! Heather and Jes are leaving the house that they have called home for the last two weeks.

Both of them want to win, and by win I mean, be with their special man. Because, this is a reality competition show, someone is going to “win”. As much as Bret would like to believe the oppoisite, this is a competition, and both Jes and Heather had to “play the game”.

The two women awkwardly sit in the empty house when Bret bursts in and now everyone is happy! 

They are ushered to a private plane that takes them 45 minutes to Cabo, baby! 

They arrive and are greeted by sexy dancers. Heather takes her pick and dances with one of the women. Bret is worried that Heather just wants to have fun and will have sex with anything. Reasonable right?

The women get to see their tiny room, that Bret “set up for them”. At this point the girls seem like best friends, excited to be in Cabo, baby! 

This friendship soon ends as Heather, Jes and Bret sit down for a fancy dinner. Both of the women are angry, Bret is uncomfortable because dating two women is so hard, right? He breaks the tension by saying, “There’s bread here”, but no one says anything, and no one eats the bread but Bret. 

Bret starts the conversation by pointing out the reasons why Heather would be the wrong girl for him. He thinks that she just wants to party and would have sex with anyone. Heather reasonably gets angry and the conversation moves over to Jes and how young she is. Then Jes fires back about the fact that Heather is a stripper, which honestly has been brought up way too many times. Both girls are not happy about any of this. With tempers simmering, Bret leaves the dinner with Heather and Jes still sitting there.

Each of the girls gets to go on day long dates with Bret and Heather is first. They get to go ride dune buggies and have to wear bandanas over their mouths like cool guys. 

Bret drives a little too crazy

...and then he says, “Then all of a sudden it happens, I start feeling really sick because of the diabetes (pronounced, die-ah-beet-us)”. So Bret has low blood sugar, which means he needs to eat something. He totally plays it off, even after Heather asks, “Wait are you alright?” Bret just says lets go eat and Heather wants to take the wheel. 

He takes this as an offense because Heather doesn’t seem to be concerned about his health. It was “eating him up inside”. This is dumb because he never said anything about his diabetes. It comes back later.

They get to go eat and Bret doesn’t act like anything is “eating him up inside”. Heather says that she has, “finally found the man of my dreams.” Heather goes back to the room and her and Jes fight with Heather first saying, “Going to meet my future husband.” Jess yells, “You better return that dress because it screams stripper”. Jes then tries to close the door, but Heathers bursts it back open and slings more insults her way before heading off to dinner.

During her dinner, Heather starts to honestly talk about her feelings and Bret can’t handle it. 

He feels like they have only connected on a “party level”, but Heather thinks they have more of a connection. She goes out on a limb and says, “I’m in love with you Bret”. To which he replies, “I don’t know what to say”, and, “I don’t have words”. 

He fixes this by making out with Heather and then inviting her up to his room, that he has set up just for her, to have sex.

Heather has to do a walk of shame over to Jes eating breakfast outside. She brags to Jes, “I need to go shower but I don’t know if I want to take his scent off of me”.

Jes leaves for her date but before she goes, Heather says, “when you kiss him you’ll be licking me”. Gross.

Jes gets to go on a yacht with Bret. He picked this date because he is trying to “land her”. 

This is part of the reason why Bret picks Jes over Heather. He already has Heather, but he wants Jes to “break down her walls” and know that he did was the one who got her to do it. Especially by pointing out sea life.

While waiting for Jes to join him for dinner, Bret has another diabetes attack and worries that, “this may be the last dinner I ever spend with her”. He shows Jes how to save him with insulin which freaks her out. 

She starts crying and he seems pleased with that. Her guard came down after he emotionally manipulated her. 

He then says, “I love being with you.” So it’s clear now, that he has forgotten about Heather and is totally for Jes. He later says that he likes her “innocence” so again it’s clear that he doesn’t like that Heather is a stripper. Jes and Bret also have sex.

Jes is smitten with Bret saying that it is, “hard not being around him”. Even so Bret sends the ladies back to LA, so he can spend some time by himself in Cabo, baby!

At this point in the episode, Bret has said, “toughest decision”, about 40 times. However it’s time for him to make the decision that he has already made two days ago. 

Heather knows not what Bret is going to do to her so he is confident with her “fuck me hair” (her words). Jes has been crying for a day, unsure of what is going to happen.

Bret starts his monologue and it’s clear that he only wants to be in the friend zone with Heather. He mentions that he has had a, “horrific time” making his decision, which to me means inventing reasons Heather is bad for him. He then has an idea that would help him make his decision easier, he asks, “is there anyway both of you would be my girlfriend?”

This is his final test.

Heather says yes absolutely and Jes says no, she wouldn’t want to share Bret. This confirms to Bret that she only wants to party. After Jes says her spiel, Alex noted that Heather knows she said the wrong thing and then Bret is not going to pick her. Her face tightens and as Bret calls her down she looks more and more angry. 

She doesn’t let him kiss her or hug her and storms away. Bret calls out to her, “Heather don’t leave the house like this”.

In my opinion Heather can leave the house anyway she wants. Her tirade in the car at the end is totally reasonable. Bret really hurt her.

Jes goes down to Bret and they make out, seemingly happily ever after...until the reunion show.

Final clip: More of Heather bad mouthing Bret.

 Rock of Love Drinking Game:

“Every Rose Has it’s Thorn” plays or is mentioned 2

This half-hour-long episode shows us the thrills and chills too boring to make the regular episodes of Rock of Love. The segments are:

- Bret needs to get a “natural sound” for a track on his forthcoming called “Butt Bongo.” He talks about wanting something “very organic and real. Something nobody else can ever produce from some kind of digital machine. I’m talking about the body. I wanted to play [and here he pantomimes playing bongos] the butt.” And then he lets us know that he’s “an equal opportunity rock and roller” by allowing the girls to play his butt first. While playing bongos on Rodeo, Bret says “hot sexy monkey love” to beat he’s pounding out, which implies some playfulness, but he looks completely serious and focused as he plays her butt bongos. At one point, Rodeo farts in his face.

- We learn more about Rodeo’s life through a rapid-fire series of quotes

“My goal is to train celebrities on the road.”

“I trained Beyonce’s cousin.”

She has a clothing line of miniskirts and thongs

“I’m working on a book about how I lost a bunch of weight.”

“I do a lot of painting. You could give me your face right now, a small pictures, and I could paint it.”

“I would like to have my morning show take off.” (This implies she has a morning show, though I haven’t been able to find one. If it existed, I’d love to find recordings)

“I go to the refuge where the tigers are,” she says, and apparently if you go a certain number of times a year, you get to go to Africa. I don’t know what any of this means. I’m just happy to have people like Rodeo and Dallas back. You forget that they haven’t been on the show for seven or eight episodes. It’s weird watching it all compressed and trying to think back to what it must have been like when I was watching these episodes as they aired. Rodeo was only on a third of the show, and yet she was always a stand-out.

- New segment! The girls draw lips and abs on a poster of Bret and they kiss it. The poster, by virtue of being covered in the girls’ sketches, has more personality than Bret.

- Brandi C talks about how she loves Bret after meeting him two hours ago. She’s talking to Faith, the last person who would be sympathetic to her. This is probably the first time Faith realizes where she is.

- Heather keeps trying to kiss Brandi C and Brandi doesn’t really like it. Heather’s constantly like “can I kiss you?” and “I’ll make out with you right now.” This leads to Brandi pulling people’s pants off, which starts a water fight, which starts a food fight that Big John gets involved in (he throws a peeled banana at Lacey and it looks hard).

- Bret gets a tattoo fixed after Heather gets her neck tattoo-- “Something to Believe In” was spelled “Something to Beleeve In” before somebody quasi-fixed it by adding an I and barely covering the second “e.” “Something to Believe In” is named after a song Bret wrote for a dead friend.

- We see that the girls leave cigarette buts around the yard, so Lacey picks them up (calling the garden “Bret’s beautiful yard,” like he owns the place) and puts them on the floor in Jes’ room with a note about not leaving cigarette butts. Jes confronts Heather and Lacey to their faces and it’s pretty badass. Lacey can’t take it and can’t respond without stuttering and looking around the room. I agree that they shouldn’t leave cigarette butts everywhere, but Jes points out that the other girls never cleaned up after the foodfight.

- We see that Lacey got naked and wrote “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” and gets ready to run in Jes, Mia and Brandi M’s faces. She apparently stands outside the balcony those girls are on for a second to psyche herself up, because we get an incredible clip of Jes, totally over it, saying “Why is Lacey standing ass naked outside the door?” Nobody cares about Lacey-- Brandi throws chicken at her and Mia pours her drink out but that’s the only real reaction-- and Lacey runs inside laughing. She then puts chicken in the other girls’ bedding.The girls are just like “gross, you’re a bitch.”

Bret’s hair during the talking head segments is completely fake.

Lacey

I don’t know why reality show villains get to me the way they do. I should be able to look at Lacey and say “Here’s this trust fund kid who lies to people about being a starving artist, but her art is nü-metal and she can’t really sing and she’s so desperate to get noticed that she’s pretending to be interested in a has-been pop-metal singer so she can mention being in a band twice an episode and that is sad.” I can’t, though. Maybe with Lacey it’s partly a class thing and there’s an element of me being jealous of the fact that she has all this money and can be totally delusional and think her awful music is good and nobody is going to tell her otherwise and if they did it wouldn’t matter.

But Johanna and I are watching the new season of Ink Master and I get uncomfortably annoyed at the white guy with tribal spiral tattoos on his face who probably doesn’t have any money. If it’s a class thing with Lacey, that doesn’t mean it’s always a class thing with reality show villains.

Part of it has to be that the people behind these shows know how to identify the most annoying person and make them even more annoying be emphasizing how awful they can be. That isn’t to say that Lacey was manipulated into looking awful-- her various social media profiles show you that even when she’s self-editing, a lot of blech gets through to the world. She married a guy whose stage name is Johnny Sculls and changed her name to Sculls. She’s played in bands called Nocturne, Lords of Acid, Pigface and Halo. I’ll probably never get to the bottom of my reality show villain thing, but with Lacey you can’t just narrow it down to one thing. It’s the awful music, the way she’s terrible to the other women, the lying about her trust fund, the way she uses sex to get ahead in the competition and then slams her friend for being a stripper. It’s the way she wears her hat, the way she sips her tea. It’s the whole package.

In the aftermath of what was the Las Vegas trip, Heather no longer trusts Lacey, this will be important later in the episode. This episode opens with Bret’s “awesome threesome” just hanging out, and Bret in his room dreamily playing his guitar. 

Bret then explains to the camera that he invited each girl’s parents to come live with them in the house. That’s right, live in the house with them. Sure to be good television.

Bret says that he needs to do this because as “they” say, “You marry the girl, you marry the parents.” Spoiler alert for this episode, because there are only three girls left and a lot of this episode is Bret interacting with other adults, he says so much more in this episode than in others.

My theory is that you can tell a lot about the contestants from the way that they greet their parents...or maybe you can just tell if something is off. Heather’s parents arrive first and she rushes to them, giving them big hugs. 

This is a good sign, she looks genuinely happy. Bret also has a positive first impression of her parents, and immediately takes a shine to them.  

Jes’s parents are next to arrive (note, it wasn’t until this episode that I realized I was spelling Jes’s name wrong, sorry Jes). Jes starts to cry when she sees them. 

Also a good sign. Her parents are a little more awkward. While Jes is crying, her dad asks her if she is happy or sad. 

He also tells Bret about the Jessy Baby Booby Fund, to get Jes some bigger boobs. He points to his wife, who is large chested and points back to Jes saying, “look at the contrast here.” Despite this awkwardness, Bret also likes them.

So Lacey’s parents are next. Their Rock-of-Love-Mansion-Coming is not as enthusiastic as the other girls. 

She immediately shows them her sexy album cover which doesn’t go over well. 

I’m going to spill the beans now on Lacey and her dad, Otis, who have a weird relationship. He makes weird faces (Alex took so many hilarious screenshots) and they get a little too close. He flaunts how rich he is and how he is unable to interact with people without making them feel like garbage. To make this even weirder, Bret had met Otis on an airplane once. Bret claims that he remembers but what I think happened was Lacey told him about it and he went, “Oh yeah”. He does say that he thought Otis was odd, which is pretty on point. He also says this about Otis, “ticking time bomb about to explode and I could see it in Otis’s eyes”

Bret proceeds to go out on family dates with each of the girls. He first goes out to eat with Heather’s parents and his total awkwardness is apparent. Heather’s father, David, is having  a really great time telling inappropriate stories (detailed in another post). It all starts when his when his wife asks him, “Tell the story about the Chinese that was next to you”. 

Heather rides the mechanical bull… 

...and Bret is the only one who has food?

Bret takes Jes’s parents shopping, so basically they play dress up. The place is called Rock and Roll Religion. It seemed like a pretty swell outing.

Lacey’s family date is the most awkward, and it's all Otis’s fault. They go out to a restaurant and Otis asks all the questions starting with asking Bret, “What do you have to offer a woman?”. 

He totally dominates the conversation by asking Bret things like how does he stay thin, is he from Oklahoma and if his parents are still alive. Bret is angry because he likes to dominate conversations and he can’t say anything. Otis further alienates Bret by telling him that if he and Lacey were to be married, they would need a prenup because all joking aside Otis makes a lot of money and buys really nice clothes and Bret can’t have any of that money. But also Lacey has her own money, says Otis, which calls into question Lacey’s starving artist bit. If that doesn’t infuriate Bret enough, Otis also asks Bret if he has hair underneath his hat to which Bret defensively says yes.

When they return from their awkward date, Otis and his family walk in on Heather changing and he creeps on her. 

Lacey tells her parents that Heather is cool, as cool as she can be for a stripper. She tries to get Heather to do her stripper moves on the pole but she will not have it.

The families sit down to an even more awkward dinner. Lacey is clearly trying to call out Heather the whole time, but then Heather turns the table on her. An all around a great night for everyone. 

The next morning, the storm hits.

Lacey finds Bret casually working out in is outdoor gym.

Bret is angry, he can take care of himself and was upset that Otis mentioned the prenup. Lacey takes the opportunity to talk smack about Heather. However, because they are in Bret’s outdoor gym, Heather can hear her every word. 

Heather storms outside and confronts Lacey about it in front of Bret, who just puts his head down. 

Jes is also there but she is happy about the fight and eating cereal. 

After Heather storms away, Bret tells Lacey to go take care of it because he’s done. He’s really done all he can.

Back in the house, Lacey tries to smooth things over with Heather by confronting her. Heather yells back, “Why don’t you tell your dad how many times you fucking sucked his dick since you been here”. Otis is standing right there. So is everyone else. 

Heather keeps yelling, “When they watch this show, your dad is gonna die” elaborating that Lacey has had lots of sex with Bret. Otis calls Heather trashy.

Otis gets his little self over to Bret, who is still working out, and says, “Sorry to bother you big boy”. 

He basically there to talk to Bret about Lacey sucking his dick. Bret laughs it off saying that nobody knows who did what, however HE DOES KNOW. Lacey starts crying? 

And Bret leaves because he can’t handle all this drama. Girls, right?

Elimination: Jes knows that she is safe, so it’s down to Lacey or Heather. Bret says that he’s upset that Heather and Lacey are no longer friends. He calls Lacey down before Heather but eliminates Lacey, who is “shocked”. Whatever, I’m glad that she is gone. Jes and Heather crack a brew and Bret tells the girls that they are going to Cabo! Woo! Hello finale!!!

Final clip: Jes’s dad being awkward talk about killing themselves in the pool. Her mom asks, “How deep is the pool?” He replies, “Deep enough”.

Rock of Love Drinking Game:

Lacey talks about being a musician-1

Brandi M.

I liked Brandi M. She wasn’t super crazy, maybe she drank too much but she seemed pretty down to earth. This interview with her shows how relatable she is. 

Her last episode was a hoot. She got really drunk, threw up, told Bret that she loved him and then took it back. Based on the interview it seems like she can look back and laugh at the crazy stuff that she did, which I think is a great quality. As she states in the interview, it also seems like she told Bret to let her go which would explain why he was so extremely peeved during the elimination.

During her tenure of Rock of Love, I think Brandi M. was enthusiastic and was down with most anything the producers hurled her way, besides Lacey of course. I am sad to see Brandi M. go, besides Jes, she would have been the only other contestant that I would root for in the finale. 

Brandi M. seems to be doing well. She was on Rock of Love Charm school, and got pretty far. In researching Brandi M., I found her twitter account and I like her even more now because of this tweet, which is something I say all the time. 

Sam

Sam is the antithesis of “I’m not here to make friends.” I’ve already talked about Sam’s sincerity and I’ve already applauded other girls for not breaking when the show wanted them to act a certain way, so anything I say about Sam is probably something I’ve already said before. But Sam is interesting on this show because she continues to seem like a cool person on it despite not at all jiving with the kind of cool that the show is trying to cultivate (cool in the sense that she’s JUST ONE OF THE BOYS or LOVES DRINKING or WANTS THE D SO BAD SHE’S GONNA FIGHT FOR IT).

It’s hard to talk about Sam in the same way I imagine it would be hard to talk about seeing Ice Cube at the Gathering of the Juggalos. He’s clearly the best person performing there, but “there” is a hundred acres of late 90s edge, Faygo and people breaking things over each other’s heads in backyard wrestling rings. Like, you aren’t going to come back from that experience with much to say about Ice Cube but “I’m glad Ice Cube got paid to rap in a cornfield where a hundred people in every pocket crowd could get busted on the spot for carrying crystal meth.” I’m glad Sam got this singular experience when Celebreality was still going strong and it wasn’t too desperate.

The next gauntlet for the women is meeting some of Bret’s “superfans” (I’ll discuss their “superfan” status later). Bret wants the girls to meet the fans because passion is Bret’s favorite thing, especially passion for his fans (his words). All of the women, except for Lacey, are excited at this prospect because it means that Bret will get more feedback on how crazy Lacey is, even though he was told three times through the tears of women he supposedly cares for in the last episode.

So these superfans, who are they, are they really superfans? The first superfan turns out to be a rather good looking woman named Amy. She seems the most legitimate superfan, having been a fan of Poison for 10 years. She still sleeps in a shirt that Bret threw her once. 

They don’t specify how long ago he threw that shirt to her so to me it’s not really that special. Assuming that the show was filmed in the same year that it aired (2007), this means that Amy has been a Poison fan since 1997. Poison was still an active band in 1997 but I would say that their heyday would have been the late 80s. At least that’s what the show harkens back to by playing their 80s hits all the time. However, they did release a greatest hits album in 1996 so that may be what sucked Amy in. 

The next two superfans, also good looking women, Ky and Allison, have only been fans for five and four years respectively. Ky’s claim to superfandom is naming her cat Poison.

Allison’s claim to superfandom is that she once threw a rowdy fan off the tour bus.

In my opinion these “superfans” are women who definitely “dated” (had sex with) Bret once (or more) and couldn’t be on the show because of conflict of interest. I may be wrong, but this is my theory.

No matter the origin of these superfans, Lacey is not worried because she is the “queen of intimidation”. The first thing that the superfans do is make the women go sit outside in the rain while they set up the interrogation booth. The women don’t look happy about it. 

Each woman is called in to face the terrifying panel of three, the one they think is the best for Bret gets a solo date. 

There’s a lot of stripper, therapy and medication shaming. I guess this show never claimed to be progressive. Brandi M.’s hair starts to smoke from the large light that they have to stand under. 

It’s so low that all of the women have to take their shoes off so that they can stand underneath it.

Sam doesn’t do well, the superfans ask her to fake an orgasm and she can’t because she never has and won’t debase herself by making an orgasmic noise. The superfans tear into her and it works so she is basically crying for the rest of the episode.

Jess kisses one of the superfans because she has had lip injections and Heather looks like a pirate and tells the superfans that she would get Bret’s name tattooed on her neck.

Lacey also doesn’t look good during her interrogation. 

They make her sing a song for them. Naturally she sings “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”. She’s not very good. She tells the superfans, “I don’t have anger issues but I’m aggressive”, and she says once again, “I’m not here to make friends”. Lacey knows that she messed up so she tries to make it up to the superfans by getting them food and silverware.

Sam, still crying, threatens to leave again and Jess begs her to stay because she doesn’t want to be left in the house with all the other people. I don’t blame Jess, her and Sam seem like the most down to earth contestants.

The superfans sit down with Bret to tell them who should win the solo date. They also tell him that Lacey is the worst but he won’t have it. I guess she’s must have really made an impression on him (cough...by having oral sex with him...cough). Heather wins the date and is maybe too excited.

Bret immediately whisks Heather away for their date. They are in the car, drinking, and Bret says, “let’s get tattoos.” He explains that he wanted to see if Heather was bluffing when she said that she would get his name tattoo because of course, the foundation of love is competition and deception (my words). Heather has no choice at this point. Even though she has never had a tattoo before, her first is going to the name of an aging rock star who she competed for on a reality show. Bret suggested it and if she refuses she will most certainly lose the competition. Bret has her tangled in his evil web of tattoos, he even tells her is has to be in “old e” (Old English). Seeing no other choice, Heather calls to the driver, in the weirdest voice, “Tattoo parlor please!”   

The show even hints at Heather’s dilemma by doing this. 

In the house, the girls rally around Sam to try to get her to stay. The superfans have seen something in her and think that she might be good for Bret. They’ve picked their bottom two for the week, Lacey and Brandi M. and ask the girls to talk with them. Lacey is incredulous saying, “I can’t believe I’ve been put into this situation”.

Bret and Heather, both at least buzzed, arrive at the tattoo parlor. The “celebrity” tattoo artist, who has tattooed both Marilyn Manson and Mickey Rourke, knows that this is a bad idea for Heather, but he does it anyway, even though she continues to drink in the tattoo parlor.

Bret is pumped, saying that the pain is eroitc and turns him on. Heather gets “Bret” tattooed in “old e” on the back of her neck. The first tattoo she has ever received. 

We turn back to the house, where Sam with a new sense of determination says that she is going to stay. She and Jess join the superfans while they try to get Lacey to tell them something “heartfelt”. She says a vague sad thing, and maybe cries although it’s clear that she really can’t cry on cue for them.

Jess makes fun of her pursuit of tears.

Heather smashes back into the scene, excited to show everyone her new act of devotion in the form of a tattoo. Everyone is crying but still can’t believe that Heather went through with it. She just waves them off by saying, “I’m in love with that guy.”

Before elimination, the superfans tell Bret that he should get rid of Lacey, but he’s still not buying it (cough...blow job...cough).  

Elimination: Heather gets her pass first, thank the gods. Bret seems very conflicted during this elimination. He keeps dropping hints that he might be eliminating Lacey but they are vague. She starts to try to cry, which makes her look even more yuck. 

He says that this has been his toughest decision (maybe he will finally get rid of Lacey!). The last two are Sam (but she just renewed her commitment to Bret?) and Lacey. Bret calls Lacey down first. He has psyched Sam out this way before but no, he gives Lacey the pass and Sam has been eliminated. She’s not done yet and makes out with Bret in front of everyone before walking out with, as she says, “with guns blazing”. 

I’m pretty mad at Bret for this one. Sam had just decided to keep fighting and he blindsides her, she was definitely in contention for winning. Again, her exit is so amazing though that it almost makes it ok.

Final Credits - This was never mentioned during the show but Bret also got a tattoo that night.

Rock of Love Drinking Game

“Nothing but a good time” plays 1

Lacey talks about being a musician 2

Bret says, “Wassa Goin On” 2

Bret says “...turned me on”/ “...turn on” 2

Mia

Hay Dios Mia! You may be wondering what Mia did during her stay on Rock of Love and the truth is, not much. I’m trying to think of my most memorable Mia moment and I honestly can’t. She never won a date with Bret and during her last episode she tried to get one on one time with Bret but he had already decided it was too late.

Mia seems to be doing well, she’s a dating coach, with a website here. She does podcasts about dating advice, even this one about getting on the Bachelor.

That’s all I have to say about Mia

Magdalena

Magdalena is a statuesque Polish woman with a lower voice than contestants like Brandi C, so half the house, the shitty half, calls her “Magneandrathal” and says she’s like a man. Really, Magdalena has more personality than the half of the cast that makes fun of her. Bret joins in once or twice, because he has to look like a jerk to everybody a couple times over.

She does connect well with the other women, and reportedly kept in contact with Sam, Jes, Brandi M and Erin, which makes me happy. I wouldn’t want Magdalena, who is sincerely funny, who talks time and again about not getting blackout drunk to impress Bret, to look back on her experience as six weeks of being made fun of by women trying to tear her down.

Ultimately, I don’t have a ton to say about Magdalena because the show tried to turn her into such a caricature that I barely know who she actually is. But I like her a lot. There’s an interview with her from 2007 that makes me like her all the more, and that’s the last the Internet has heard from her:

This is one of my favorite episodes. I think it is the first episode that I had seen, because back in the day I just watched whatever was on VH1. This episode starts with Bret’s “Magnificent 7”, soundly asleep in their rooms when Big John comes in to awaken them saying, “This is rock and roll, not rock and sleep”.

But there is no reason for the girls to be sleeping because today is BRET MICHAEL’S BIRTHDAY (awesome guitar noise).

The challenge on this the day of Bret’s birthday takes place in a parking lot because Bret needs his woman to know what life is like on the road. If these challenges are an accurate portrayal of “life on the road” then all of these women would be insane to continue in this competition. Speaking of insane, this game that someone has concocted. The ladies file into a “tour bus” and the bus stops at a “city” in the parking lot with a specific challenge. At each “city” Big John picks someone’s name out of a hat and then that person picks someone else to battle in the challenge. The person who loses the challenge gets kicked of the bus. Got it?

The first “city” is New York City and Jess vs Magdalena. On the hot parking lot ground lay two suitcases and a bunch of clothes. The first person to put all of the clothes into the suitcase and zip it up wins. Jess looks a little manic but loses and is left “New York City”.

Next is Philadelphia, woo! 

John picks Magdalena’s name and she picks Sam who is upset.

For this Philly challenge the girls have to change into “whore clothes” (Magdalena’s words) in a gross portapotties that have cameras installed in them! 

Magdalena makes it out first but her shoes aren’t tied in the correct way (yeah what?) and that gives Same the time she needs to take it home. The only problem is that Sam now has to wear a lace, crotchless onesie with high heels.

Detroit is next and John picks Lacey, and Lacey being the evil bitch that she is picks Sam in her insane outfit. This really sucks for Sam because for this challenge the girls have to pick through a dumpster filled with legitimate trash to find a guitar pick. This challenge sounds inhumane, and I think it takes the girls awhile because there is so much trash in this dumpster. 

The girls in the bus, happy that they don’t have to partake in this challenge comment, “Lacey’s just diggin”. 

However as fast and as furious as Lacey can dig, it is Sam that wins and returns to the bus, covered in trash. 

She has to sit on a towel in the bus because she’s so gross and it’s probably a rental.

Next stop, Nashville. The girls look and see a guitar and an amp and lots of cords. Brandi M. seems confident saying that she hooked up all of her mom’s stereos, notice Sam sitting on her towel next to a huge bottle of hand santizer. 

John picks Heather who doesn’t pick Sam because give a girl a break and doesn’t pick Brandi M. because she know electronics so settles on Mia. Later on in the bus with Sam, Brandi M reveals that she lied about the stereos so she wouldn’t get picked. Nice strategy, Brandi M. For this challenge the girls have to hook up the guitars to the amps which sounds way easier than sifting through garbage but both girls forget to plug the amps into a power source. Mia eventually figures it out and wins.

The next bus stop is Seattle and Brandi M. picks Mia. They have to put the words to “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” in order. This seems like a breeze for super fan Mia but she falters under the pressure and Brandi M takes home the win.

The last challenge takes place in parking lot Los Angeles. Sam versus Brandi M. Sam is still wearing her onesie, that HAS NO CROTCH, remember this. 

The challenge involves jumping over hurdles (for Sam with no crotch covering) and then pushing back a sleight that football players use. Brandi M., recognizing the athletic prowess needed for this challenge starts intimidatingly stretching. 

Then the girls are off and the slo mo is on. The girls jump to inspiring music and do pretty well. I don’t think I could jump over hurdles like that. 

But Brandi M.’s stretching paid off and she soundly beats Sam. She returns to the bus and is driven to Bret, who is standing there playing an electric guitar that isn’t even plugged in.

Back at the house, Lacey and Heather put their scheming heads together and decided that they are going to target Sam next because she gets really jealous. The girls make signs for Bret’s birthday party out of nail polish because they are prisoners and can’t go and get markers. 

They also make a really disgusting looking cake that they present to Bret at his “party”. 

By “party” I think they mean the girls drink way too much alcohol, which is pretty much what they do everyday. 

Sam gets up on the stripper pole and Bret is excited because she is coming out of her sell. He says that Sam is a, “creature of sexual desire ready to explode”, and he yells up at her, “you’re up there giving sex girl”. 

However the carefree atmosphere is ruined as Lacey and Heather start getting very close to Bret causing Sam to leave because she is jealous. Lacey takes this opportunity to tell Bret that Sam is wrong for him. Bret doesn’t follow her manipulative advice and follows Sam up to her bedroom where Sam bears her soul to Bret.

The next day Brandi M. goes to a hockey game with Bret which seems like the perfect date for her. She tells him that she has lesbian friends and it worries Bret because now that Erin is gone he has nothing to worry about. They get to be on the big screen and Bret is happy because Brandi M. is a girl who could change a tire but you would also want to have sex with (his words).

Back at home, the girls have to make a list stating the reasons why each of them should go home. This sounds painful and it is. 

They sit down at the table and both Heather and Lacey find that they have to defend themselves but also can be as mean as they can. Someone says that they haven’t seen the real Heather and Heather is aghast because as she says, “This is totally me everyday.” Lacey says to write down that Brandi M.’s nickname is “Blowjob Brandi” and that she’s a slut. When it is Lacey’s turn to be written about it’s clear that she can dish is out but she can’t take it. Sam, in a ghostly voice, says to Lacey, “when I talk to you, I see through you”. This leads to Lacey saying, “I’m not here to make friends.”

When Brandi M. returns Lacey tells her what was written about her on the letter and who wrote it, but Brandi M. smells her bull shit. Bret tries to talk to Magdalena but just isn’t feeling it. He’d rather be with “bipolar” (his words) Sam who is crying in the bathroom. Will this bode well for Sam for the elimination later that evening? Bret reads the letter and starts this think that perhaps Lacey is as evil as everyone else tells him she is. This doesn’t stop him from wearing an ugly jacket to elimination.

Elimination - Bret’s there with his ugly jacket. It’s clear that both Sam and Magdalena are on the line. Bret fakes out Sam by calling Magdalena before her but eliminating Magdalena. Magdalena seems ok with being eliminated because now she can follow her heart (her words).

Final Clip- The making of the gross cake.

Rock of Love Drinking Game

Bret says “...on the road”- 2

“Every Rose Has it’s Thorn” plays or is mentioned- 3

Bret says, “Wassa Goin On”- 1

Somebody makes fun of Magdalena- 2

Erin

Erin got nearly as raw a deal as Dallas did. Reasons Erin got cut:

She had a fiancé back home and was set to be married soon after Rock of Love wrapped, only the two had actually broken up a year prior, Erin shared this story when the girls were all getting to know each other and talking about past relationships, and Heather distorted the story after half-hearing it from across the room.

She was a little bummed that she wasn’t going to be able to work at her bar the night Justin Timberlake was around.

The second one is more worth going into (partly because we’ve already gone into the first one extensively), so let’s. Erin doesn’t necessarily want to have sex with Timberlake, though if she’s into Bret in a VH1 dating show sense, she’s probably into Timberlake in the same sense. I don’t think she’d turn him down, certainly. But the heart of this issue is that Bret is so wildly insecure that he can’t deal with a woman wanting to be in the company, any kind of company, with any man but him.

He finds out that Erin would like to be in the bar when Timberlake and his massive crew throw a party and says “But I’M here!” to the camera like nobody would blame him for throwing Erin out of the house for this. Later, we hear that he is existentially throttled at the idea that he could have been a notch on a bedpost for Erin. “I am the notcher!” he says.

And so Erin is kicked out for being a Justin Timberlake fan. The lead singer of the Bret Michaels Band isn’t enough for her. Who even is she? How does a person like this come into the world in the twenty-first century?