You’ll recall that castmates and various hangers-on had converged at a Dallas hotel for the annual summer shindig thrown by Chase, who was allegedly aided in its execution by Ashley, who didn’t understand the difference between a flash mob and an actual performance.
The party was themed, in a likely bit of cross-company synergy, after Footloose (whose remake is now in theaters). And when Taylor grew impatient with Phillip and Levi for his own nefarious reasons, he accidentally-on-purpose shouldered Phillip into the pool, who took Levi with him as he toppled into the waters.
This triggered quite a bit of fuming and yelping, swearing and stomping. Last week’s episode ended with a soaked, enraged Levi trampling a shrieking Ashley as he went for Taylor’s throat.
At this juncture, I want to point out that Steven Daigle, former rodeo cowboy and reality-TV personality and current porn performer, has asked me via Twitter, to point out that ALD is nothing like the real Dallas he knows and loves. And he says that Bravo’s competing program, Most Eligible: Dallas—which filmed at roughly the same time as ALD— is no better.
What, drunken hookups and hissy fits are unique to reality TV? How “Dallas” are the dudes of A List: Dallas? Tell us in the comments below.
Now, Onto the recap!
NEXT: An intervention for Taylor and Phillip grows a few inches where it counts.
Phillip continues fulminating over his soaked ensemble and jumps in the car with his “sexy Mexi” date, Leo. They disappear into the sultry Dallas night to the peal of tire treads on concrete, which may very well have been a sound effect added by the editors. (They seem to enjoy making not-so-subtle jokes at the expense of the performers.)
Over the next hour, the entire cast—all but James, who has his own problems this episode—confronts Taylor about his wicked, wicked ways and attempt to broker a peace agreement. In real life, they’d talk shit behind his back and write it off as a bad trip. But it’s reality-TV world. So Taylor the Terrible’s first response is to roll his eyes and lob insults—”Tinker Bell can flutter away somewhere,” he says about Ashley’s passive-aggressive whining, while he and Chase snap their teeth at each other about wrinkled foreheads and overly plumped lips.
For his part, Chase labels Taylor an “insecure, lying, manipulative boy bitch.” It’s not until Levi, the big lunk, dangles the promise of continued access to his fabled penis that Taylor agrees to apologize to Phillip. But his atonement is so hilariously contemptuous—he even insults Levi’s intelligence in a confessional interview—you have to wonder if it hasn’t been scripted.
The episode ends with Phillip recounting yet again how his Burberry/Gucci/Prada/whatevers were soaked—the number of labels he was apparently sporting grows with each telling—and cautiously accepting Taylor’s mealy-mouthed apology as they narrow their eyes at each other like a pair of divas in a telenovela.
Two subplots are threaded through this episode. Both involve Princess Ashley, who has utterly destroyed the decent first impression she made by piling up one eye-rolling moment of fuckery after another. She was traumatized by the rumble at Chase’s pool party and unsettled by Taylor the Terrible’s nonchalant reaction to her distress. “A cowboy and an angry black man were coming after me,” she whines without a hint of self-awareness.
Later, she goes shopping with James and, in a confessional interview, insults his masculinity as a gay man whose voice and affectation don’t match his attractive physical appearance. When Levi approaches her about shooting promotional photographs for his nascent Inch Wear underwear and swimsuit lines, she blithely says, “I’ve heard you talk about it before but I’ve never cared. But I care now.” With friends like these…
Levi, bless his Stetson, doesn’t heed a single red flag: He doesn’t want to rent a studio or hire a professional model for his company’s photo shoot, which Ashley, as a working photographer, finds odd. So he brings on Phillip and trucks the three of them—no crew whatsoever, not even makeup—out to the lakefront in the harsh sunlight for the shoot, where he proceeds to undercut Ashley’s directions; her typical passive-aggressive direction (that girl is earmarked for an ulcer) amusingly has no effect on him whatsoever. Phillip, for his part, sashays up and down the beach like the second coming of Linda Evangelista and emits high-pitched squeals when he treads on a few rocks in the surf. Ashley’s attempts to coach him into butching it up for the camera are utterly ineffective.
Numbers that are stitched onto the Inchwear suits are supposed to refer the wearer’s penis size and Phillip takes offense when Levi asks him to stuff his suit with a sock. “Too bad we don’t make a five,” Levi cracks. This kind of awkwardness could have been avoided with a modicum of pre-planning, but the observant reader may have observed by now that Levi can be a bit slow on the uptake. He lumbers from scene to scene, blundering into one cringeworthy moment after another, and shrugs off any embarrassment. The only time he brightens up is when he talks about sex. He flirts with Phillip, and reflexively lobs a come-on at a hunky marketing professional during a business meeting and doesn’t appear to notice the man’s visible annoyance. But he’s so good-natured and benignly unaware that I can’t stay bothered by him.
NEXT: “Now when I eat a Barbie shoe?”
Run, Jarred! Run! Leave everything behind!
Later, James reveals that Jarred gave him the brush-off. No kidding! He blames himself for being ugly and boring, which is ridiculous because he’s handsome and also cray-cray. James ends up hiring a life coach who takes him out to the same lake we’ve seen in every episode and exhorts him to bellow positive affirmations to the horizon. She claims success but I’m going to assume that everybody watching this scene would beg to differ.
James cracks a couple of deadpan one-liners during this sequence that are genuinely amusing and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually an improv performer.
Along those lines, Phillip has a scene with a styling client—a rich, entitled desperate housewife—that is so surreal that it cannot possibly have been a genuine interaction. As she flounces through her gigantic closet, she and Phillip exchange so many shrieky OMGs! and LOLs! their banter ascends to a level that can only be discerned by teacup poodles. (I might have been been stroking out.)
I only tuned back in when the woman remarks that a friend of a friend pooted out a Barbie shoe during her colonic irrigation. This leads to a can’t-be-unseen moment with Phillip in stirrups, a blanket draped over his lower half, yelping “I just gave birth!” during his first colonic.
The straight-faced female technician assisting Phillip joins a roster of day-players—Jarred, James’ life coach, Ashley’s bedraggled dance troupe last week, and many others—left broken and befouled in the wake of the ALD cameras.
Next week: A poker tournament goes awry as Taylor the Terrible cries and Chase cracks wise! Ashley whines and throws a drink at Levi. Giddyup!
JC Adams is a Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker and blogger of moderate renown. His first book, Gay Porn Heroes (Bruno Gmunder), was published in September 2011. Find him on Twitter @GPTimes.
Myself
Hey Queerty
Did that Viacom/LOGO check clear?
Two step
JC–have you been to Texas? They really are this stupid.
CBRad
Now the scriptwriters for that show are stealing ideas from Dynasty.
cynch
If a rock smashes a Z-Lister’s window and nobody’s watching, will it make a sound?
These phony publicity whores and all their scripted bullshit are a complete waste of time. I wouldn’t watch it if LOGO paid me.
Ray
@Two step: You forgot the really are that shallow and pathetic too.
Ray
“But he’s so good-natured and benignly unaware that I can’t stay bothered by him.” I’m so fucking sick of the I love Levi he’s so sweet lies and fawning from people. All of you just say what you mean. He claims to have a big dick and you’re all a bunch of desperate bottoms with a cowboy drag fetish. Just admit you have low standards and are size queens who are willing to overlook just how vile this idiot is. There is nothing benign about him. First of all we know he fucked over the drunk one six years ago. 23-6= 17. Or was it 16. Or was it 15. Could those pesky statutory rape laws be why he’s so desperate to pretend like he doesn’t even know the drunk one? You think maybe if the drunk one hadn’t been screwed over and grown up drowning in “Dallitude” from twats like Levi maybe he wouldn’t have turned out bat shit crazy? Then on top of that the poor little benign innocent thing is dating the bible beating jesus on a stick gay republican neo-nazi. Why? “Because the sex is good.”. In other words Levi has fucked his way through all of Texas and the only one desperate enough to fuck him twice, that he didn’t diddle as a small child AKA the drunk one, jerks off thinking about W Bush. And yet you people are turned on by this. You make me want to burn the world.
Pep, Italy
@ Ray
Wow chill out – maybe you shouldn’t let Reality TV affect you this much and save the energy for things that actually matter. Also the Republican or Christian = Nazi comparison makes you looks incredibly smart.
timncguy
seriously, is this group supposed to be at all representative of the gay community? If so, then what are 4 of the 5 of them raging queens? Are we to believe that 80% of the gay community are queens? At least on the NY version the queens were kept below 50% of the cast with only Ryan, Derek and TJ.
Will
3 pages JC Adams? REALLY?
Is Viacom paying you and Queerty by the word?
BOYCOTT LOGO!
Ray
@Pep, Italy: Leave it to an Italian to speak up for nazis. You want to throw in a shout out to the pedophile pope too?
Amber024
Luv this show!!!
mattsy
I think its a fun fake show with a bunch of ridiculous phony fags on it. Levi reminds me of Stuart from MadTv ,Phillip couldnt be any gayer if he tried, the drunk, clingy one is headed for a short life, and the one with the lips is destined to be chained up in someones dungeon and abused for days. And by someones dungeon, I mean mine.
Vinny
I don’t know why people are so upset at the “stereotype” this show promotes. The few times I make it out to any big city gay bar, these are the types so many gays seem to be attempting to emulate.
wayne
@Vinny: Do yourself a favor. Try hanging out at places that don’t attract stupid assholes.
It’s not that hard to find gay people who aren’t annoying douchebags, but when you purposely seek them out as Logo obviously did that’s all you’re going to find.
wayne
@Will: I can’t imagine why anyone want to document every excruciating detail of this crap assed show if they weren’t getting paid to do it. The only other site I know of that does this is owned by Logo. This has to be a paid advert.
Myself
@cynch: $ is why Queerty promotes it.
I Mean What
These queens are so tragic and uninteresting that it boggles the mind. The Logo Channel has officially set back the gay cause 100 years. http://bit.ly/v8rKpz
Pep, Italy
Ray – I just reread what I wrote earlier but maybe you could point out to me where I am defending Nazis ? ? ?
Also I am not Italian, I just happen to live here.
shannon
Levi is DISGUSTING!!!!!! The crooked nose….pox marked face…crooked teef…..sinister laugh….HUGE belly…flat butt….shall I go on?