Part Two of this season's absolutely riveting Make It or Break It finale. If you'll recall, we left off with Lauren and the New Guy getting T-boned in the intersection, because Lauren thought it was a fine idea to stop there. It kind of sucks that we didn't really get to experience that as a cliff hanger. Instead, we see Sister Mary Summer (copyright: Kitty) race into the hospital, to check up on the wayward teenager that she had disowned some 40 minutes earlier.
Sister Mary Summer and her eyebrows demand to know what happened to her dear, sweet Lauren. Turns out she is just fine, only suffering from what seems to be some sort of zombification.
The New Guy, however, didn't fare so well. He suffered a concussion as well as a fractured collar bone. Lauren managed to avoid being pulverized by the car probably because she is a gymnast, and was able to flip out of the way of danger. All of that is meaningless though, because all Lauren cares about is that her "mother" came to get her at the hospital. True to form, she pretends that nothing prior to this moment has happened at all. She feeds Sister Mary Summer a bunch of needy bullshit, until Sasha walks in. He chews her out for being a dumb bitch, and warns her not to do it again. Lesson learned. The lesson being that there are never any consequences for our friend Lauren. Sister Mary threatens Lauren that she had better come clean about the Payson-Sasha DVD. So very threatening.
Kaylie, Payson, and Austin all show up to check up on their friends. Payson wants to know what the fuck Lauren was doing with the New Guy, which Lauren obviously assumes is an opportunity to antagonize her a little bit. She implies that they were doing something a whole lot sexier than just listening to her sob about her fake mother. Austin is the only one who seems to understand the implications of Lauren pretty much ruining the New Guy's athletic season. That, or he's the only one who cares.
A nurse comes over to let the group know that the New Guy is asking for a hot blonde. Lauren assumes he means her, and off she goes. Payson is butthurt, and confesses to Kaylie that she told the New Guy that she loved him. Adult baby Kelly Parker catches up with the crew, and asks about Lauren. Kaylie hates her guts though, and puts on this huge bitch fit about her coming. AB KP reminds Kaylie that she gave the stupid journal back, and that she could have done a lot worse with it. Kaylie ignores her like a little brat, so AB KP says fine, they'll go back to being snatchy enemies.
Zombie Lauren goes in to see the New Guy. He's doped up to the nines, and apparently doesn't know who the fuck she is, because he starts moaning Payson's name. Cue more pouty grunty faces.
The next morning, Payson makes a last minute effort to start packing. She's all emotional about being shunned by the New Guy. Payson's parents are confused at best. What is the hilarious Becka Keilor supposed to be doing while everyone else is out of town? I'm surprised they mentioned her name at all. I thought she was off at boarding school with Brian Kmetko or something. The Debbie Downer parents moan about having gone through all of Payson's endorsement money already, having had paid their mortgage and all that.
At Casa de Cruz, the NGO asshole shows up to let Kaylie know that she is the de facto team captain. He briefs her on what to say to the press regarding her "ACL tear." He reiterates that they can't come out about her anorexia, because the judges have free reign to assign scores however they please, and there are standing "has an ED" deductions on the books. I think admitting to anorexia is something like a .5 deduction. Per person on the team, of course, if the perpetrator is team captain.
Finally, we are in Rio, where we get to see the girls march up the stairs to the arena on their requisite matching outfits. China marches in like Nazis, while Russia looks all cool and slutty. Team USA, in wannabe Ralph Lauren gear, stumbles around, unsure of where to go and who to speak to. Sasha gives them explicit directions to speak to no one, which of course Lauren quickly ignores. After hearing Fake Musty tell the reporters that she's not worried about Genji Cho or Kelly Parker, Lauren decides that it's a good time to interrupt, and tell everyone how she is totes going to win beam gold. Kaylie then gets whisked away, and is asked about her ACL tear. She flubs, and admits that she never had surgery. The NGO asshole is PISSED. He forbids Kaylie to speak to any press.
Meanwhile, Payson's parents are accepting foo-foo umbrella drinks on their daughter's dime. They are riddled with angst regarding Payson tossing her NCAA eligibility away, when who should show up in fucking RIO but the head coach of Stanford gymnastics. Apparently, she doesn't have a phone or an email account, because this bitch came all the way to RIO to recruit Payson to compete for Stanford when she injures out of the Olympics. Her parents are devastated, natch.
Outside, Austin is doing some sort of publicity-laced sluttery in the pool. He's surrounded by chicks while reporters ask him about the sunglasses he's hawking. I'm sure this exact scenario happens with Nastia, but instead she lays on floaty beds while eating sandwiches. Then she falls in the pool.
The reporters ask about his love life, and whether or not he has a girlfriend. To prove that he does not, in fact, have a girlfriend, he makes out with a bunch of sluts in a row.
Even the girl watching them is happy. Kaylie, also watching them, not so much. She storms off, and Austin runs after her. He explains to her that it is all an act that he needs to put on in order to hawk his glasses. She's all pissy, until he reminds her that she's a fakey-fakerton too, since she's been lying about her eating disorder.
The time has come for prelims. No podium training necessary, because no one here competes on a podium. Continuing what seems like Make It or Break It's obsession with stairs, the teams' march in involves them all cascading down a flight of stairs.
We see that tonight's announcers are none other than Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner.
Didn't catch that? BART MOTHERFUCKING CONNER!!!!
Be still my heart! He immediately gives this entire sham meet an air of reality. His voice also soothes me into a calm dream-like state. If I close my eyes, it's almost as if I'm watching real gymnastics...
The illusion of reality explodes once Bart explains the format of the meet. 44 teams compete in two days of prelims, and the top 4 from each session moves on to finals.
First up on beam, in kind of a cute leotard, is Lauren.
Hate the blue pattern. Is it snakeskin? Also not a fan of the throwback jersey neckline. The rest though isn't half bad. For whatever reason, Sister Mary Summer is also on the floor. Sasha reminds Lauren that she is not to do any of her slutty choreography. Just boring, clean gymnastics. Which explains why she's already ditched her Garrison mount, as she prepares to mount the gigantic Big Betty beam from the side. The beam also has a camera attached. Which I'm sure meets FIG regulations.
Obviously, the camera is needed to catch these stunning crotch shots.
If any one shot in the whole show was totally necessary, this was it. Sasha, having instructed Lauren to ditch anything interesting at all in her routine, watches while wearing the best warmup jacket ever.
I'm not even kidding. I love this jacket. I happen to collect various athletic jackets, and even though this is a fake one, I want it. So if anyone out is out there reading this who has the ability to find me this jacket, please let me know with a quickness.
Lauren continues to take all of the good stuff out her routines, and stuffs it with a front aerial, a wobbly illusion, and a really squatty 1/4 dive to handstand.
She wraps her shitty routine up with a whoosh-whoosh double full, while she takes a step to the side and off of the landing mat. Sasha says not to worry, even though we do seem to be dealing with a 6-1-1 format.
Next up is Fake Musty on UB. She dangles on the bar in order to mimic a kip.
I mean, props for the bitchface, but those armpits won't be seeing a real kip anytime soon. She goes into a bail, toe-on hecht to the high bar. Also watching Fake Musty's routine is Team USA, who is also flashed with a great leap bomb in the foreground.
Somebody get me Sasha's jacket! Fake Musty wraps it up with, what else, but a whoosh-whoosh double full dismount in front of some spotlights. The bars also seem to be adorned with little clip-on cameras.
The girls rotate to vault, where the only competitor will be Kaylie Cruz. AB KP wishes her good luck, but Kaylie tells her to fuck off. Kaylie lines up to throw the miraculous Amanar that she learned in only two days.
She makes it around, Musty-style, but takes a large step forward.
Now, in a total change of pace, Make It or Break It gets it totally right, when the real FIG gets it totally wrong. Nadia points out that such a sloppy vault, with its resulting large step, will incur a large deduction. Imagine that. A DEDUCTION for a shitty Amanar. However, whatever credibility that was gained is immediately lost when Kaylie heads back to throw her second vault.
One might argue that she was throwing her second vault in order to qualify for event finals, but come on. We all know better. Kaylie proves this by throwing a 1.5Y for her second vault, which the announcers admit was supposed to be another Amanar. So there you go.
The only person cheering at all, and being a good team member is AB KP. Everyone else is snatchy and quiet. Meanwhile, Fake Musty is up on beam.
Can't argue with a split leap, now can we?
She does some of her weird hyper-extended elbow choreography, and catches a glimpse of Payson warming up for floor.
Ooooh, girl, you are gonna SCURRRR her with that flexibility. Fake Musty blows it off, and dismounts with... wait for it... a whoosh-whoosh double full. Her creepy coach approves.
Before walking off, Fake Musty winks at Payson, which unnerves her. Her parents can tell from the get go that Payson is going to fuck up her FX.
Using the only music without vocals in the competition, Payson starts her Swan Lake routine. She starts with steps and wobbles on her big opening pass of a piked double back. She follows with a 2.5, which she sits down. The first time we see her, she appears to under rotate, and take a step back. The second shot, however, shows her having over rotated and stepping forward.
Payson's parents sit in the stands, pretty much kissing all of that endorsement money goodbye.
Again, following the 6-1-1 format, and also stepping away from the traditional Olympic rotation, the girls have moved over to UB. First, and only one up is Kelly Parker. Her teammates don't give a shit, until Sasha rips them a new one for being shitty little girls.
Jordan Schweikert listens on as Sasha tells them to drop the bullshit, and act like a real team. The girls are in 5th, and only the top 4 move on to finals, so they have to get their shit together. Kaylie leads the charge, and begins the slow clap for Kelly Parker.
Sure enough, everyone else joins her, and before you know it, everyone is clapping, almost like a real team. Kelly, being human after all, is pumped on by her teammate's cheers. She starts with one of her two squat on transitions, and does a nice tkatchev right into a blind change jaeger. Does anyone do that in real life? That would be kind of neat. She does a bail, and goes into her second squat on of the routine. Bad girl. She dismounts with a full in double back, which seems to be done over some random shit on the mats.
Which doesn't matter, because she sticks the landing.
Her teammates clap politely. That routine eeks the girls into fourth place, which barely gets them into the finals. This is so very 2000.
The main four girls ditch their two teammates, and go up to their hotel room, where they each march to their assigned seating position for the upcoming lecture. Coach is PISSED. These are a bunch of snotty teenagers, and they each almost blew their chances at advancing to the finals. So, in punishment, Sasha orders them all to stay in the room until they get their shit figured out.
Kaylie makes an attempt to start a real discussion, but Lauren immediately butts in with all of her drama, and whining about all of this shit that she's at fault for anyway. This just opens the floodgates for all of the girls to bitch about everything.
Kaylie is pissed at AB KP for stealing her journal, while Payson is pissed at Lauren for being a ho. Kelly's pissed at Kaylie for having been named captain. I thought they were supposed to vote on that shit? Whatever. After they've all had a moment to calm down, Payson apologizes for having let boys get to her head, like the rest of these dumb bitches.
AB KP puts an end to this shit, and tells the girls that she knew they were all fake cheering for her. But she didn't care, because it was nice to belong to a team, for once. She guilt trips the shit out of them, admitting that she has been jealous of the Rock girls this whole time. That is, until she saw how stupid and catty they are all. This prompts emotional teary faces from the entire quartet.
Payson cries about giving up her NCAA eligibility, until AB KP comforts her, telling her at least she has parents who care about her. Payson continues sobbing, admitting that dumb slut Lauren won, and that she can keep the New Guy. Lauren pipes up, admitting that he was was actually calling Payson's name in the hospital.
Ahh, reflection. The girls realize that they've all been super stupid, and all become BFFs.
Kaylie gets kind of salty, because everyone's confessing their sins, yet she can't. All she wants to do is come clean about her ED, but everyone knows that the NGO asshole will be up her ass if she does.
The girls decide to hold an impromptu press conference, where Kaylie tells the crowd that she has an ED.
No one gives a flying fuck, except for the NGO asshole, who believes that she, and the entire team, is dunzo.
The girls are in the locker room, prepping for finals. In what may well be the creepiest scene I've ever seen on TV, the girls pass around this ceremonial lipstick while listening to the Flowers in the Attic soundtrack.
Not only are they sharing one tube of lipstick, but hell if it isn't the ugliest shade on the planet.
The four girls once again ignore the remaining two members, and have a small team huddle.
Leading off on beam, or perhaps the only one competing on it at all, is Lauren. Sasha comes over to give her a pep talk, but she interrupts him with the admission that she was the one who edited the Payson-Sasha make-out DVD and sent it to Ellen Beals. She tries her damned hardest to break down during her confession, but it just comes across as fakey as ever. Sasha absorbs this information, and walks away. Summer, pleased with Lauren's confession, watches from the stands. A few moments later, Sasha returns, and tells Lauren to forget the whole clean-gymnastics thing, and just go for her slutty routine.
All is forgiving, once again proving that Lauren can do whatever the hell she wants, and she will never be punished, ever. Do you think Martha forgives her gymnasts once she's been scorned? HAIL NO. Lauren again clings onto her coach, all while wearing her thong leotard and standing next to the oversized beam.
Lauren once again mounts the gigantic Big Betty beam, complete with attached crotch cam.
She continues on with her inappropriate choreography, and does an Okino before stepping into the requisite butt shelf.
She throws the front aerial, but this time, instead of the illusion, she does this prolonged penguin butt waggle thing.
That goes on for about 8 seconds too long, and is wildly inappropriate. She ends with her compulsory whoosh whoosh double full dismount, but not before running past a whole bunch of shit on the ground underneath the beam. What was that shit?
The girls rotate from beam to vault, which is totally normal. I guess Kaylie is passing on vault today, because Payson is vaulting in her place. She barrels down the runway, and sticks her 1/2 on tucked front cold. Despite sticking it, she manages to do something to her ankle.
Oh gee, an ankle injury on vault. I've never seen one of those before. Whatever will happen? Oh no.
After determining that it is both numb and hurts like hell, Payson tells Sasha that she absolutely must do her second vault (???) Despite barely being able to walk back to the top of the runway, neither her coach, teammates, or parents stop her from attempting to perform her second vault on one foot.
She stands at the top of the runway on one foot. She hurdles with one foot. I have to admit, there was a good 5 seconds or so that I thought she might bounce on one foot down the entire length of the runway. But no, she eventually uses two feet to do her vault, which she shockingly upgraded from a 1/2 on front tuck to a Khorkina II. She, of course, sticks it on one foot.
I feel as though I have seen this before. No longer in pain, Payson winks at Fake Musty.
Next, we find ourselves on FX, where Genji Cho is performing her homage to Jiang Yuyuan.
Since Payson busted her ankle, Sasha decides that he's putting AB KP in on FX instead. Kelly Parker decides that, meh, she's just not feeling it today. Instead, Kaylie should anchor floor instead. I'm sure putting in the girl who hasn't done floor in 6+ weeks is a fine idea. Sasha says whatever, and puts her in.
Kaylie opens with a wild double arabian, and then swings her hair around for awhile. She follows with a 2.5 into a 1/1. Two passes is all you need, really. Especially when you have this BEAUTIFUL sheep jump to end the routine!
Blame me all you want for picking a shitty picture, but this is where they decided to freeze frame this jump. We got to see this glorious jump at this position for a good 5 seconds. Everyone stares at the scoreboard while waiting for the scores to come out. Chants of USA-USA start to pop up. Eventually, the board is updated, and the USA comes out on top.
Russia must have bombed, because their scores did not budge from their 3rd rotation to the 4th. That, or they just somehow scored 50 points less than China and the US.
I am such a nerd. Even while watching a fake team win fake Worlds, I still get chills watching them listen to the national anthem. Good thing the organizers had red, white, and blue balloons and confetti all set to go! Would have sucked for China if they won.
This scene reminds me of the 2000 Olympic Trials. After the meet, everyone is hugging and congratulating. Sister Mary Summer, having forgotten every shitty thing Lauren has done in the past, runs up and hugs the little shit.
The moral of this story is, do whatever the fuck you want. Everyone will forgive you every time, as long as you crash your car and then win Worlds.
Payson is shocked when the New Guy somehow manages to break out of the hospital to come see her in Rio. He tells her that he loves her, and when he tries to tell her that he's bisexual, she tells him to shut up. I'm excited to see how that storyline plays out next season. And there had BETTER be a next season....
Austin and Kaylie are being all huggy, and when the reporters ask him if Kaylie is his new girlfriend, he says why yes, yes she is. Then he makes out with her, which is uncomfortable for everyone involved. Before they can get it on further in public, Kaylie is whisked away by Payson and Lauren, so that they can go back into the arena, and reflect over their win.
That really is a nice picture, seeing as how Emily isn't in it. I thought for sure she'd pop up in this episode, maybe watching the girls win team gold without her on TV. I will say though, that without Emily, there was ZERO BITCHFACE CHLOE in this episode, and that is simply unacceptable.
So that's that. The girls won Worlds. Everything may be wrapped up in a neat little package, and yet, there is so much yet to be explored in the next season! Will Payson freak out when she learns that the New Guy likes boys? Will Sister Mary Summer flip her shit when someone with such loose morals is invading her gym? If she forgave Lauren, does that mean she forgives Daddy too, and that the wedding is back on? Will Sasha and Bitchface Chloe PLEASE hook up already???
I need this show to be renewed. Do you hear me, powers that be? LISTEN TO ME!
Until next season, which will happen, I MAY decide to recap the first season. No promises. But there is just so much untapped gold, that it would be a shame if someone didn't rip it all to shreds.
Until then, friends, may you all pass your lipstick on your way to gold!
