The Sorority Life Renunion

All those mildly amusing Greek-inspired commercials on MTV can only mean one thing. The first season of Sorority Life was so popular that the network is bringing it back, this time even with a companion show, Fraternity Life.

But before that happens, MTV decided to reunite the six pledges and four sisters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi for what I'm sure they were hoping was high drama.

It wasn't.

Oh, it had all the makings of a reunion show filled with conflict a-la Real World Puck Rainey style in that cast's first reunion. What happened during the pledging process was enough to inspire at least some hurt feelings. Here's a quick recap of the series:

The sisters at the University of California-Davis signed up to allow MTV to film their pledge process last year, obviously having no idea what they were getting themselves into. From what I've read on the topic, the Jewish-faith sorority was the new kid on the block on campus and hadn't even had their own house that long before MTV came knocking. The girls were hoping to publicize their group and give people an idea of what sororities are really like.

Then the filming started.

Because it was MTV, the sorority had waaaay more girls go through the rush process than they do normally and some were there to be on television rather than experience "sincere sisterhood." That was a recurring theme of the show.

The pledge house - nicer digs than most regular fraternity and sorority houses - was created by MTV and the producers of the show and the girls who lived in it also were hand-picked by MTV. This also became a recurring theme of the show.

Immediately, there were rifts between the sisters, the regular pledges and the pledge house pledges. To make matters worse, four of the house pledges - Jordan, Candace, Amanda and Mara - were the partying type, creating more problems for the sisters, who were at times more concerned with their image than anything else.

The irony was, because they felt so shunned by the sorority sisters, the pledge house sisters bonded together and became, dare I say it, almost sisterly to each other. In the end they even got along with house pledge Jessica, the token fat girl, whom they believed at the beginning was a spy sent by the sisters.

Well, everyone got along except for Jordan and Amanda. The two, who had been friends for two years before the show, grew apart during the process. Amanda started hanging out with Candace, partying more, and Jordan started partying less and less as she realized she didn't want to be part of the sorority.

The big controversy came when Mara and Jordan not only stayed in a different hotel during formal but then left the event in the middle of it.

The season ended with a bang as both Mara and Jordan decided to "de-pledge" at the sorority's Blue and Gold dinner, where all the pledges are initiated.

Candace, Amanda, Jessica, and Dede, the little-seen pledge, all made it in.

Which brings us to the reunion.

The sisters, Leah, Pauli, Leslie, and Becca, are seated on one couch, in front of the studio audience. Dede and Jessica are on the next couch and Candace, Amanda, Mara, and Jordan are on the last couch. Ironically, Jordan and Amanda are seated farthest from the sisters. I just noticed that.

The host, whose name I don't remember, but who is stuck on terminal perk and probably at one time contemplated being in a sorority herself, asks Leah, who was president during the process, what she was expecting to get out of the deal.

Leah says she was hoping to show the positive aspects of sorority life but not everything was shown as she'd hoped. The group has learned a lot.

Becca, pledge mom during the show and current president, says the group is stronger now than when it started.

Then in a moment of true irony, the group is shown a tape of Becca the "Sigma Lush," partying it up like she gave the pledges so much hell for during the show. Surprisingly, no one has anything to say about this.