A random girl's random gymnastics ramblings.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

the only straight i am is straight up bitch.


Hello friends!  Sorry for the delay, but two days and one new DirecTV box later (peace out Comcast, you price-gouging assholes) we are here, ready to relive the GLORY that is Make It or Break It. 

Let us not wait.  If you'll remember, last week left us with Payson sassing off to Fake Dawes, which resulted in her stomping away from the team.  All has been forgotten though, as Fake Dawes prepares to take her team to Worlds/mysterious pre-Worlds meet.  We find out that this pre-meet is an Eastern European Invite, which the USA is inexplicably invited to.  Prior to leaving, Payson is hunting for her mother in the Rock office, where she happens upon a letter addressed to Sasha in *gasp* Romania!  Payson quickly memorizes the address. 

Fake Dawes is getting chewed out by Daddy, who for some reason blames the coach for his daughter being a lousy gymnast, and almost always blowing away her chances to succeed in the sport.  Something clicks in Fake Dawes, and she immediately turns into a mega-bitch super coach.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy about it.

Running late, per usual, are the Kmetkos.  Bitchface Chloe, in all of her glory, is about to run out the door when who should appear but Demon, who is wondering why Emily is ignoring him.  Since this kid is ruining all of our lives, Bitchface Chloe tosses him an awesome bitchface.


Emily immediately becomes an irrational bitch, and asks Demon what is up with Kaylie.  She tells him he'd better not say "Nothing," even though nothing has happened.  He looks confused, as do I, because as of yet, exactly nothing has happened. 


Emily's all butthurt because Kaylie didn't come to her with any of her problems.  Um, maybe that's because you compared having to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet to having a life threatening mental illness, I don't know.  This cooze throws out the sex card, to which Demon replies with his best William Shatner impression.

"I love........you."

They break up, thank God, and Demon retreats to his apartment above the rave, while Emily is off to the airport.  At the airport, Daddy gives Lauren a credit card, and of course Summer admonishes him for doing so, since she is now aware the Lauren is a conniving little slut. 

Bitchface Chloe rolls up with Emily, drops her off, and doesn't even turn around to say goodbye.  She runs off to the car ASAP, probably so she can get away from her miserable daughter. 

Now that the girls are all present, Fake Dawes gives them her new "mean coach" speech.  She tells the to shape up or ship out, and immediately Emily has beef with it, probably because she thinks she's entitled to be treated differently than every other gymnast in the country.  Payson's mom is all like "WHOA!" and acts surprised.


Payson reassures the girls that they don't have to deal with mean Fake Dawes much longer.  Lauren claps to herself, and Emily continues to look all emotional and pissy.

Missing out on the meet is Kaylie, who is in the midst of recovery.  Since she's now terrified of dying like poor Skinny Minny, she is finally taking therapy seriously, and spilling her guts to the googly-eyed therapist. 


Googly-eyes asks her point blank, why did she stop eating?  Kaylie has no clue, so Googly tells her to write down EVERY thought and emotion she has, and eventually she'll come up with the answer.

The girls are on the first leg of their flight to Budapest.  Emily sits alone, of course, loudly sniffling to herself.


Payson, always being up in everyone's business, asks Emily if she's ok, and Emily responds with that typical "Oh yeah, my life's just great," bullshit that is so annoying.  In a strange, out-of-character moment, she asks Payson what she's doing, instead of just being obsessed with her own life at all times.  Payson lets Emily in on the secret, that she knows where Sasha lives, and she's going to go AWOL on this trip, and stalk him.


Payson's plan is to switch flights last second, which is totally realistic and legal, fly to Bumfuck, Romania, find Sasha, and drag him to Hungary with her, so that he might lead the team to glory.  Now, even though the page she pulled up shows their return flight leaving the next day, she seems to think that they'll have about two hours to hunt Sasha down, convince him, hop on a train back to Hungary, and be back in time for PM registration.  My geography is iffy, so forgive me, but if a trip takes almost four hours by plane, would it not take slightly longer by train??  But whatever, Payson has totally done all the research, so she's pretty set on this.

Being the voice of reason, Lauren asks her how the hell is she going to afford a last minute ticket, and Payson reminds Lauren that she's a spoiled little bitch, and has Daddy's credit card.  She then reminds the girls that without Sasha, they will remain a pathetic loser team.  Emily chimes in with some more anecdotes about herself, and I guess that's all Lauren needs to hear.  She agrees to hand over the credit card, but also demands that all three of them go on this wacky little trip.

At the airport, Payson is trying to figure out where to catch her illicit flight to BFE, Romania, while Emily looks positively engaged in whatever's going on.


In an attempt to get Summer and Fake Dawes off of their backs, Lauren has Summer paged over the courtesy phone.  They then tell Fake Dawes that they're going to use the ladies room real quick, which Fake Dawes almost buys, but then she decides that she needs to go with them.  So the girls are again fucked.  They have a Friends-esque impromptu meeting above the stalls in the bathroom. 


Oh for the love of Pete.  Whoever uploaded this episode on Youtube titled it "The One Wear Chandler Wears Panties."  SO WRONG!  Everyone knows that this was "The One After the Superbowl."  Idiots. 


Lauren signals for the girls to crawl out of the stalls (NASTY) and make a run for the gate.


The girls are making a break for it when they run into that ho Kelly Parker.  Seems she's the defacto alternate for the meet, since Kaylie has not been seen or heard from in some time.  Usually this would provoke some constipated worry faces from the girls, but they have no time to worry about such petty nonsense.  They need to hop their flight to Romania!

Fake Dawes returns from the bathroom, and asks Summer if she knows where the girls are.  They're missing, so Fake Dawes has a meltdown, and admits that she is aware that the girls are terrible little brats, and are out to make her life hell.  She threatens to tell the NGO, in an attempt to save her own ass, until Summer tells her to STFU.  They'll just tell the NGO that the girls missed their flights, but will somehow be in Budapest in time for registration.


I love how ever since she's gotten back together with Daddy and Lauren, Summer has developed some major rage issues.  I hope she stays bitchy.  Payson has the wherewithal to text her mother, who I'm guessing will have to pay those international text message rates, and tells her not to worry, that they'll be back in time for the meet.  Payson's mom calls Summer and updates her on the whereabouts of their little misfits.

On the flight to Bumfuck, Romania, the girls discuss their plans to find Sasha in the middle of nowhere, and in a timely manner convince him to return to the Rock so that he can coach their worthless, unfocused asses.  Emily somehow produces a gigantic can of something, which turns out to be some sort of international energy drink.  Payson starts to flip out, because apparently they put cocaine and pseudoephedrine in energy drinks now.  Doesn't Emily know that these things are banned?  Emily, obviously, doesn't know shit about shit, and apologizes, saying she didn't know.  That's because she's useless, which Payson calls her out on.  She tells Emily to grow the fuck up, and focus on what's important in life, not starving artist losers like Demon.  Emily tells her not to worry, since she and Demon broke up.  Lauren, who I guess is trying to be a decent human in this episode, tries to make Emily feel better by reminding her that hey, at least she didn't give Demon her flower.  Um, except that she totally did.  Emily tells the girls that it was all because of that whore Kaylie, who is totally trying to steal her boyfriend.  They tell Emily that she's being a paranoid bitch, which she totally is.

 
Speaking of Kaylie, she pops in to the studio to have a little chat with Demon.  He tells her that he and Emily and broke up, and Kaylie acts surprised.  Then they both somehow blame the sport of gymnastics for making everyone on this show stupid and annoying.  For the record, gymnastics is not dangerous.  Stupid people doing gymnastics is dangerous.


The girls arrive in BFE, Romania, where the first homely local just so happens to speak fluent English.  She claims that no Sasha Belov lives in this town, and the girls immediately buy it.  Game over.  Might as well drink their sorrows away in the aptly named Olympia bar.  Lauren bemoans the loss of her/Daddy's thousand bucks, which seems like a pretty fair price for three super last minute round trip flights.


Payson immediately begins to pour over the bar menu, which pretty much features only borscht, which I guess is sort of like a beet soup?  When, shock of all shockers, who should be behind the bar ready to serve these girls, but Sasha himself.  The girls are thrilled, but he looks pissed and annoyed as shit.  Payson tells him that they've come to bring him home, not unlike a missing puppy, and Sasha tells her to shut up, and get back to her team and coach.

Emily takes it upon herself to try and convince Sasha to come home.  But since he, and everyone else, hates her, it doesn't fly. 

Back at home, Miss Bitchface Chloe is also painfully aware that everyone hates her daughter.  She mentions this to Payson's mom and Daddy.  Daddy reassures her that it is not Emily's fault, that it's that stupid Fake Dawes' fault!  Dude, weren't you the one that bought her?  Why do you now suddenly hate her?  Again, it is not the coach's fault that your daughters SUCK AT GYMNASTICS.  Bitchface responds with the best bitchface in the game.


Back in Wherever, Romania, Payson tells Lauren and Emily to head on back to Hungary.  She'll stay, and manipulate Sasha into coming back with her. 

At home, Kaylie and Demon are sharing emotional words and thoughts at the Juicy Moose.  Demon is reciting Kaylie's words to her, as if she wasn't the one who had written them.  Kaylie contradicts what everyone else on this show says, and admits that she is crazy, not because of gymnastics, but because that is just who she is.

Jumping back to the Olympia bar, Payson is stuffing her face with some borscht, while Sasha watches on painfully.


Summer magically finds this random bar in the middle of nowhere, and shows up to drag Payson's ass home.  She agrees to go, but not before returning Sasha's cheap Olympic medals to him.  They represent failure to her now, as opposed to representing her hot, talented coach who had promised her the moon and stars.

Back in Boulder, Payson's mom and Daddy are simultaneously on their phones, reassuring various people that the girls are OK.  The parents have a weird bonding moment over how similar and annoying their daughters are.  They decide to have a cozy viewing party for the meet tomorrow.  They will probably end up boning sooner rather than later.  It's only a matter of time.  Everyone on this show bones. 

Payson arrives in Budapest, and immediately Fake Dawes barks at her to sign in.  The girls are all miserable and disappointed that they were rejected by yet another adult in their lives, in this case, Sasha.

Meanwhile, Kaylie is still macking on Demon while at the studio.  He hands her a piece of paper, and asks her to sing.  At first, I was all "Wow, for someone who has zero music experience, she sure did learn how to sight read sheet music super fast.  Good for her!"  But then I realized there was no music, just words, and Kaylie magically knows how to sing them.


No dude, save ME.  Kaylie sings the song written from her own lyrics.  She becomes overwhelmed, because they are just so very touching.  Demon just knows EXACTLY how she feels. 

At 3:04am, Payson and Emily hear a knock on their door.  Am I the only paranoid one here?  Like hell I would ever answer the door at 3am without a bat in my hand.  Emily prepares for the intrusion by practicing her birth-giving position. 


The girls are blown away when Sasha appears at their door.  He's there to tell them that they are horrible girls, and that if he was in charge, he would have sent them home like, yesterday.  Despite that, he will try one more time to coach these fat, lazy chumps.  The girls ignore any criticism, as usual, and jump for joy that they again successfully managed to manipulate all of the adults in their lives. 

The time has finally come for this random pre-Worlds meet.  The Russians march in with these horrid green warm ups, featuring their secret weapon, Ivanka, who appears to be a Mustafina/Afanesyeva drag queen hybrid.  Wannabe Tim and Elfi inform us that NO ONE has ever heard of her, because Youtube has yet to be invented, and we're all still relying on quarterly updates from International Gymnast magazine.


While the other teams march in, Sasha gives his team a pep talk, and they end their huddle with a WHOA BUNDY!


It's nice to know that the Rock girls and Team USA are so close and chummy that they can't even be in the same huddle prior to a meet.  Wannabe Tim and Elfi shit their pants when they realize that Sasha is once again the head coach at the Rock.

At home, Daddy and Payson's mom crack open a bottle of wine, part to celebrate Sasha's return, part to loosen up for what is sure to be the next scandal at the Rock.

I'm not going to lie and pretend I wasn't happy and surprised to see a nice, complete split leap in this meet.  It's like they hired girls who actually knew how to do real gymnastics to be in the background of this show.


Watching this beautiful leap are the Rock girls, wearing what would be an acceptable super shiny blue leotard, IF one of the girls wasn't visibly knocked up.   Shiny colors really seem to accentuate baby bumps. 


Lauren, one of our few un-sperminated girls, is first up on beam.  Her split mount is better, maybe slightly less awkward.  No crotch moves so far.  She does do a nice sort of head kick, even though Payson's was much better.  She then moves into a series of Nastia brand buttshelves, and a BHS, LOSO, into a Korbut.


She wraps up this impressive series by crawling onto the Big Betty beam like a frog, and dismounts with a GINORMOUS gainer full.  Welcome to the NCAA. 

Remember, in Make It or Break It world, teams alternate routines on the same apparatus, so up next is the Russian Ivanka.  She also gets to compete on a gigantic Big Betty beam.  She is so very stoic, and therefore must obviously be Russian.  No smiles for Russians.  And like the Russians, most Russians, she also does a lovely split leap on the beam, so I really can't dislike her all that much. 


Ugggh, but then she goes and ruins it with FREAKUM WRISTS!!!!


Blech.  She wraps it up with a whoosh-whoosh single/double full.  Sometimes they show a single, sometimes a double.  Hard to tell.

Emily is inexplicably up next on UB.  Sasha feeds her some BS about being the best, which we all know she is not.  She proves this by promptly smashing both heels on her tkatchev, and once again putting her baby's life in jeopardy.  She, like Lauren some odd weeks ago, declines to do the rest of her routine.  She simply salutes, and walks away.  This terrible routine forces the new head coach, who I think was an extra on Saved By the Bell about 400 years ago, to tell Sasha that he's pulling Emily out of the meet, and putting Kelly Parker in.  Totally feasible.  If only teams were allowed to pull girls mid-meet due to shitty performances , we would have seen some vastly different teams over the years, that's all I'm saying. 

So right away, because who needs warmups, Kelly is on vault.  She vaults a FTY about an 3 inches from the table, and then shoves her ass way out, in order to feign a stick.  Was I the only one who was told repeatedly NOT to stick my ass out on landings?


With this "perfect" vault, Kelly has propped the US back into medal contention.  But first, both the USA and Russia need to have one more girl compete on FX.  OK.  First up, Ivanka.

It seems the producers cast a girl with an obvious dance background, which is fantastic.  The character has no lines, so why not go all out and hire a real gymnast?  I was almost, ALMOST fooled into thinking this was the case, and then I looked a little closer.  And then I saw it.  I know one Miss Tarah Chellevold when I see her. 


Was it not this same very station that brought us the 2000 US Classic?  As if we weren't going to notice.  Regardless, Ivanka shows a few nice shapes, and a more complete routine than we're used to seeing on this little gem of a show. 


Credit where credit is due, it sure seems like the real Ivanka is the one doing the high kick.  I'll take it.  But are there no corners on this floor mat?  Also, are the photographers standing on the mat during the routines?  And the flashes.  All of the flash photography.  Finally, let us not forget the spotlights.  Why does every shitty gym show/movie always insist on the FUCKING SPOTLIGHTS???? 

Immediately following the Russian anchor position is Payson, in the American anchor position.  Sure.  She does her Swan Lake routine, with remarkably more (read: any) tumbling than during World team trials. 


Despite that lovely performance, after tabulating the scores for the Eastern European Invitational, Russia comes out on top by .15.  The girls don't even try to fake being happy with silver, and are immediately overcome with tears. 


Of course Emily is crying, since she was the one who blew the meet, AGAIN.  Fake Dawes confronts Sasha, but he blows her off so that he can tell Emily that the Hungarian chairman/Wizard of Oz would like to speak with her. 


Sasha accompanies Emily to speak with the scary chairman, who informs the two that they've found some questionable results within Emily's piss test.  She immediately assumes it was that stupid cocaine energy drink, and begs off with more excuses.  The chairman explains that they're not concerned about banned substances.  They're concerned because she's pregnant.  End scene.


A couple of things: why does this guy look like an elderly Wayne Gretzky?  Do they seriously piss test you for pregnancy in elite athletics?  Do they also test you for AIDS and maybe your blood sugar levels?  Why does Sasha look at her with a newfound interest, instead of just punching her in the face?

Whatever, violence is not the answer.  And neither are condoms, I guess.  It'll be very interesting to see where this goes.  No way in hell is Summer going to let Emily do anything but keep the baby.  What I really want to know is what will become of the actress on this show.  I know that accidents happen, but when your job is to look like a teenaged gymnast, you really don't leave the producers a lot of options.  She really screwed the pooch on this one.  That's not to say that there are no real-life examples of mothers who exceed at gymnastics.  One need only to look at the grand dame Chusovitina to see that.  I'd like to say they'd have Emily head in that direction, but the truth is that as a whiny, punk ass, shitty little girl, Emily would never have the guts and determination to make a comeback after giving birth, ala Chuso. 

And there you have it.  What is to come?  Summer having a stroke over premarital sex, obviously.  Bitchface Chloe being all cool and awesome and understanding, while Emily is shitty and tries to blame her pregnancy on her mother's strip club job.  Maybe a little boning between Daddy and Payson's mom.  And of course, spotlights. 

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

you're hunky and i'm what they call predatory gay.


Alas, it is our favorite time of the week.  And you know what that means... MAKE IT OR BREAK IT HOUR

Can I just start by saying how hard it was NOT to photoshop a dong into Emily's hand right there?

Nevermind all that.  For now.  We begin this excellent adventure with Kaylie, who is sitting in her room, reading articles about how Skinny Minny died.


Fuckers.  I am still butthurt over the death of Skinny.  I loved her.  The only beef I have with her is, why does she look like she's 30?  And why God why is she leaning over suggestively on the cover of what appears to be Insatiable magazine?  Whatever happened to good old Seventeen magazine?  Are 17 year olds really insatiable?  And no, Lauren doesn't count.

Whilst Kaylie sees her reflection in her friend's images, Bitchface Chloe and that scag Emily are pulling up to the gym.  The beautiful and talented Bitchface Chloe notices the banners promoting an upcoming dual meet between the Rock and Dallas, and I'm just going to assume they mean WOGA.  Because the best club in the country isn't in Dallas, I'll just say that much.  Bitchface wonders why Emily never mentioned the meet, and Emily uses this is as the first of MANY opportunities to guilt her mother for *egads* bartending in a strip club.  "Why did I/didn't I do/say that thing?  Because you work at a strip club."  Stupid entitled brat.  Bitchface Chloe explains, yet again, that it's not like she's STRIPPING, and that Emily should just drop it, because Emily's the one the NGO assholes are watching, not her.  If Emily could stop being a bratty cooze for like 5 seconds, and focus on, oh I don't know, gymnastics, then maybe they could both get the NGO off of their backs.  Emily stomps off in her snot ass child way.

Inside the gym, Lauren is getting her ho on with the new guy who we're supposed to think is attractive but isn't.  He's trying to take pictures of Payson vaulting, with a lovely bright flash which I'm sure won't bother her at all during her skills, as Fake Dawes had asked him to get action shots of the girls for the meet program with WOGA Dallas.  I wish they did that in real life.  They don't, for the record.  Lauren doesn't give a shit about the meet, and immediately starts rubbing up on New Guy.

"I hope you're saving some room on your memory stick for me..." 


Gasp!  What would Summer say?  No wonder no one can love this child.  New Guy tells her to show him something worth sticking his stick in, and so she prances off to steal the beam from Emily, who is pretending to use it by stretching one leg.  But we all know Emily hasn't done gymnastics in like, two seasons now, so it's really not a shock when Lauren easily connives her way onto the beam. 


Slut.  Next, we find ourselves at Casa de Cruz's in-home recording studio, which if you'll recall, Kaylie had offered Demon to use so that he can finish recording his album.  He's down there, playing the same three chords over and over and over again, trying to write a song about Emily.  Kaylie, bored and reeling from the lost of her friend, peeks in the studio. 


There is always, admittedly, something about guys playing guitar that draws in even the most unlikely of audiences.  It's like wearing a pair of guitar goggles.  You can take the biggest loser of all time, put a guitar in his hands, and then all of a sudden he's marginally more attractive.  That seems to be the case here.  Kaylie oozes her way further into the studio, eavesdropping on Demon's rockin' song.  After he's finished, she apologizes for having interrupted him, and starts busting out better verses to his song.  He's totes thrilled, because he's actually a pretty shitty writer, and now he has someone to do the hard stuff for him.  

Back at the gym, Payson is rocking out a Shapashnikova/Double Twist dismount off of UB.  She's being watched by Emily, as opposed to an actual coach, but that's probably because Emily is looking for any excuse in the world to not work out, ever.  Payson starts shit-talking Fake Dawes, until of course, who should happen upon them at that exact moment?  Fake Dawes takes the opportunity to tell the girls that, unfortunately, WOGA Dallas has withdrawn from the meet.  However, due to some handiwork, she was able to get a replacement team last minute.  The Rock Rebels will now be competing against Pinewood Gymnastics from Davenport, Iowa!  Everyone immediately bitches and groans, since Pinewood is like, the WORST gym in the country!


Oh hail no.  They did not just pit a Texas team against an Iowa team.  OMG IT IS NOT 2008 ANYMORE PEOPLE.  Time to move on.  Fake Dawes reassures the girls that it'll just be an easy meet,  and it'll be nice to have a win before Worlds.  Everyone looks at, and treats Fake Dawes like she's the dumbest piece of shit on the planet.  The kids, the moms, everyone.  She figures the best way to combat this is to suck up to Payson, who everyone does respect, somewhat.  Coach asks her what vault she's doing, despite just having seen it, and Payson explains that it's a front handspring onto the horse (where the fuck else would the handspring go?) into a front tuck half.  To prepare for such an incredible vault, Payson is using a mini tramp instead of a beat board in order to do her "front handspring onto the horse."  Fake Dawes is totally wowed, because that is just such a huge POWER VAULT.  Right.  She suggests to Payson that they could up her D score to a WHOPPING 5.5 if they add a 1/1 to her vault.  And, if my memory serves me correctly, a 5.5 start score will totally win her vault at Worlds.  Payson is intrigued, and responds with the one and only super creepy Payson smile.  


In the office, Payson's mom and Summer are griping about how stupid Fake Dawes is.  Um, you want to talk about stupid for a moment?  There is a poster hanging on the walls of this office, and it has been UPSIDE DOWN for like, two years now.


There was one episode, maybe early last season, where it had been fixed, but now it's back to being wrong.  But since poster accuracy means very little to the Rock, they go on with whatever dumb discussion they were having.  Lauren comes prancing in, asking Summer/Mom if she can go shopping today after workout.  Um, no, because she's a little slut and a horrible person.  But also because she needs to stay home and finish her homework, and clean her room.  Payson's mom stares at Summer, and she's all like "Bitch, it's called DISCIPLINE." 

On the floor, Lauren is yet again whoring it up to New Guy, begging him to take new headshots of her for the Rock lobby.  Gymnasts need headshots now? 

Meanwhile, Demon and Kaylie are still chumming it up, playing guitar, singing songs, and pretty much eye-fucking each other.  That is, until Kaylie get's a call from Skinny Minny's mother, asking her to say a few words at Minny's funeral.  Kaylie starts to freak out, and Demon offers to go with her.  But not before telling her to write her feelings down in the Burn Book, I mean his notepad.  

Before running off to slut it up with Lauren, New Guy is at Payson's house to take some "necessary" headshots.  She looks like a total goober in every picture, until he can get her to smile naturally, which of course produces beautiful pictures. 


They have a lovely time, but he must run off quickly, so that he may go bone Lauren. 

Emily is spending her night off stalking Demon's webpage, and learning that he is playing a show at the Pizza Shack soon.  This guy looks like such an asshole on his web page, it's not even funny.  He also happens to be online, so the two start a secret IM session.  They talk about absolutely nothing of importance, until Bitchface Chloe walks in.  Emily deftly closes the IM, but leaves Demon's web site up.  Bitchface sees it, and reminds Emily that she only needs to be a slightly less horrible daughter for a little while longer, and then she can see Demon again.  Emily attempts to turn things around, blaming her mother yet again for daring to work in a strip club.  Bitchface Chloe is classy, and doesn't take the bait.  But she does rock off another one of her classic bitch faces.


Kaylie is at home, adding to the Burn Book, when Demon pops in real quick to grab his jacket.  They discuss Skinny's death a little bit, and decide that he will, in fact, accompany Kaylie to the funeral. 

Finally, we learn what that scag Lauren is up to this evening.  New Guy has brought his camera, and is taking scandalous pictures while Lauren sluts it up. 


Why do girls always think that biting your finger in pictures is sexy?  It's not.  And bitch, you aren't Baby Spice, so don't be giving me no shush face.  That's HER face, not yours. 

Summer comes home, and happens upon this little scene.  Obviously, she freaks the fuck out, pushes New Guy out the door, and covers Lauren up with a silk robe.  She threatens to tell Daddy, until Lauren cries and moans, and wonders why no one loves her.  I think it's pretty obvious.  More people would love you if you weren't such a horrible excuse for a daughter.  Summer caves, just like Lauren's pussy dad, and life goes on. 



The next day at the gym, Emily is putting up fliers for Christian Summer Camp.  Or Demon's show.  One of the two. 


Payson tells her to wake the fuck up, and stop obsessing over some dude.  Emily's all whatever, and goes back to pimping out Christian camp. 

Lauren waits until Summer leaves, and further proves she's the brat daughter from hell by disobeying Summer and waltzing up to New Guy, and asking him to come to the Pizza Shack with her to see Demon's show.  She also wants to see the slutty pictures he took, but since even New Guy is frightened by the wrath of Summer, he says he'll just email them to her.  He follows up by asking if Payson will be at the Pizza Shack, and Lauren tells him that Pay's a lesbian, so don't bother.

This has been a running joke for a few weeks now, and I'm unsure whether or not to take it seriously.  That said, if Payson mysteriously becomes a lesbian just because she keeps striking out with boys, I am going to be pissier than I've ever been pissed.  Ugh, and can you IMAGINE the preaching?  Summer would have a field day.  



Speaking of Payson, she's practicing her new 5.5 super duper power difficulty vault.  However, she's still using the trampoline instead of the beatboard.  We see her double doing a handspring front, and despite all of the whoosh-whoosh noises, she throws neither the 1/2 nor the 1/1.  Fake Dawes doesn't seem to notice, and waxes on about how great the "new" vault is.  Payson's mom is lording over the gym though, and she's downright pissed about her daughter throwing such a difficult "power" vault.  She didn't seem to care when Payson was throwing a bunch of power crap that she hadn't warmed up in years during the little buddy meet two weeks ago...  Her mother seems to think that she's five, and unable to make decisions regarding her abilities.  Payson's just too stupid to know what she, and her body can handle.  I'm sure her mother and coach know much better, since they're always around and totally spotting her and shit.  Fake Dawes tries to be the coach, but she is yet again shot down, this time by Payson's mom.  Why even hire a coach when no one gives a fuck about what she says and thinks?  Oh, and I forgot, only mean, scary coaches are effective. 

Fake Dawes listens to Payson's mom's threats, and tells Payson not to do the vault, since it might eff up her back.  Payson spazzes, and tells Fake Dawes how much she sucks, how much this upcoming meet sucks, and how much everything sucks.  As she stomps away, Fake Dawes takes a look at her motley crew of girls, and realizes that non of them give a shit.


She gathers the girls together, and I have to admit, I was totally hoping she'd become this huge, bad ass bitch and whip the girls into shape.  But alas, it was not to be.  Instead, she politely tells the girls that in order to get ready for the big meet the following day, they will be spending the night at the gym. 

I fail to see how this would help in any way.  For me personally, I cannot even function if I don't sleep in my own bed every single night.  I can't imagine how sleeping on the floor, or even on a pit would be good for anyone's back, let alone Payson's.  She's not concerned, however, since Lauren just dropped the bomb that she was supposed to have a date with New Guy tonight, and now poor Payson is heartbroken, because she had her awkward little heart set on the photographer. 

Free from the hassle of having to sleep at the Rock, Kaylie is instead attending poor Skinny Minny's funeral with Demon.  Skinny's mother approaches Kaylie, and asks her to talk about how healthy Skinny was, and how she was totally on the path to recovery.  Kaylie has a meltdown, because she knows it's all a huge fat lie (no pun intended) and slowly jogs out of the church and over to the conveniently placed bench on the lawn.  How many scenes does Kaylie have with benches? 


At the meltdown bench, Kaylie admits to Demon that she is lying, Skinny was lying, everyone is lying, and that she doesn't want to become like Skinny and die.  Demon is there for her, and as he holds her, we see what I can only hope is the beginning of the end for Emily...

As someone who attended a highly respected acting conservatory, I will say that the actress did a passable job here.  She seemed to really have it in one or two of the takes, and not so much the others.  I blame editing, because it seemed that she was honestly teared up in the beginning, and just kind of faking it from there on. 



At the Rock, everyone is sitting in the Corn Circle, or whatever Fake Dawes calls it.  The idea is that the girls will pass around a huge tub of popcorn, and as you eat some, if you have to air your grievances.  Payson is first, and after she grabs a handful of corn, she admits that she would rather be at home.  She gobbles the corn.  Lauren janks the bowl next, and admits that she would rather be at the Pizza Shack with New Guy, attending Demon's concert.  Something about this confuses Fake Dawes, so she asks for more information.  Emily explains that even though he's been supportive of everything she's done, and been to all of her meets, she hasn't done shit for Demon, so now she feels bad and thinks they should go to his show.  Lauren agrees, and thinks they should take a field trip to the Pizza Shack, because maybe some team bonding would help them.  Also, Emily wouldn't be breaking any of the stupid NGO rules if they all went together as a team.  Fake Dawes is like "Fuck it," and agrees.  Payson, bewildered for a moment, just grabs some more popcorn and leaves the gym with the team.

At the Shack, Demon is singing, and Emily starts to smile like a goofy lovesick teenager who is obsessed with her boyfriend in the most unhealthy way.  Lauren takes a moment to show Payson the scandalous pictures that New Guy took of her, which upsets poor Payson, because she thought he was only taking pictures of HER.  This kid's memory stick gets around. 

Before his next song, Demon tells the crowd that a great friend helped him write this next song, and invites her to come on stage and sing with him.  Emily is all "THE FUCK???" and doesn't feel any better when she sees that Kaylie is the one being brought on stage. 


Demon and Kaylie sing their little diddy, again while essentially eye-fucking each other.  Emily is NOT happy.  Well, that's what you get for being such a miserable person. 

Summer decides to pop in at the Rock real quick, and check on everyone, since no one is capable of doing anything at all without her supervision.  Perhaps rightly so, since neither Fake Dawes nor anyone on that team was smart enough to even lock the doors after they left, because not only did Summer waltz on in, but so did that asshole NGO dude who is stalking Emily.  Is that this guys job, just to randomly follow teenage girls and see what they're up to?  Again, he's not her parole officer or anything.  Summer, probably thrilled to know she was right yet again, and that no one other than herself is to be trusted, happily tells the NGO asshole that Emily isn't at the gym, like her mother said she would be.  In fact, no one is at the gym at all.  The NGO asshole immediately knows where Emily is- the Pizza Shack. 

Summer and the NGO asshole show up at the Pizza Shack, where Summer happens upon Lauren hooching it up with New Guy.  She unleashes on Lauren, admitting that she is an idiot for ever believing anything Lauren says ever.  


She drags Lauren away, but not before telling Emily and the gang to hightail it out of there, because the asshole is on his way.  Summer and the girls head for the back door, while Payson stays to cover for Emily.  Payson tells the NGO asshole that Emily never came with them, that she went directly home after the gym just like she is supposed to.  The asshole seems appeased, until Fake Dawes comes over, chugging a beer, and telling Payson what an awesome idea this was.  The asshole does not seem happy.  

It's time for the dual meet with Pinewood Gymnastics, and the Rock girls are trying to get pumped up.  Pinewood looks a little tougher than they have in the past, and some of the girls are worried.  Payson gives her team a pep talk (I thought Lauren was co-captain?  Where is that bitch?) and they're off.  

Pinewood starts with a lovely mount on the beam, and despite the lack of split, I appreciate the originality and the toepoint. 


The girls share worried glances before Payson gets up on beam.  She stumbles on a front tuck, but manages to hang on.  I forgot that in Make It or Break It world, the teams alternate routines, but on the same apparatus.  A girl from Pinewood tumbles on FX, and sticks a nice double, and that's the end of her routine.  Don't people have end poses anymore?  Fake Dawes did the same thing with her FX.  Just whoosh-whoosh, stick, end of routine.  

Lauren does a nice double pike, but takes a glorified step out of bounds, both of which Summer seem very excited about.


Pinewood sticks a cowboyed double back off of UB, and up next is Emily Kmetko.  Seeing as how she hasn't done any sort of gymnastics in like a year, this promises to be good.  Emily immediately belly flops her jaeger, which hurt to even watch, because all I could think was "WHAT ABOUT THE BABY??

It all comes down to Payson.  Fake Dawes tells her that in order to win, and they absolutely have to win, Payson needs to throw the new handspring full vault that she's never done without a trampoline.  That's a fine idea.  In fact, it's quite en vogue currently to throw vaults you're not capable of doing, all with the prayer that it'll get credited and you'll win.  I mean, it worked for Russia.  Surely it will work for the Rock too.  Payson's mom walks onto the floor, again as is allowed at the Rock, and bitches out Fake Dawes for talking to Payson before her vault.  Fake Dawes tells her to STFU, and that she doesn't need mouthy gym moms telling her what to do during a meet.  Both just stand there as Payson throws a vault that she is wildly unprepared to do.  Of course, she flops it to her back.  I will give credit where credit is due, at least they showed her double doing the correct vault.  Payson's not hurt, she's just embarrassed.  The Rock watches as Pinewood celebrates their win with a massive trophy.  


Fake Dawes tries to console her losing team, but Payson and her huge camel toe cannot keep her mouth shut, and blames Fake Dawes for the team losing.  Like it's her fault that the girls suck, are out of shape, don't listen, and don't ever do anything.  Fake Dawes looks at her squad of losers, and then walks out of the gym.  Lauren makes some barb about a real coach not walking out like that.  No, a real coach would have kicked all of your fat asses out of the gym a long time ago.  A real coach would have a crew of bitty 10 year olds in line ready to take your place.  And bitch, get used to it, because people will be walking out of your life for a long, long time.  

We end our hour of fun with Kaylie, who is in bed, writing in her own Burn Book, of sorts.  Except hers was a calorie journal, which she is giving up because she doesn't want to end up dead like Skinny Minny.  Instead, she begins to write with handwriting that would give my second grade teacher an aneurysm.  


And that, my friends, is that.  I'm excited to see if/when Demon leaves that trash Emily, or if maybe Summer and Daddy will leave Lauren at the pound, since she's so very useless.  Regardless, I think the good stuff is upon us in the upcoming weeks, and I, for one, cannot wait.