Real World Paris Reunion: 10 Things We Hated About You

The stupidest theme music ever pops up and our seven Real World cast members are reduced to dancing puppets. No I am not making this up. Apparently the producers of the reunion got their inspiration from an arcade. Or something. To top it off, our host for the evening is LaLa.

LaLa (insert eyeroll here) introduces the cast. Leah is looking tan and drunk. Chris’s hair is gone! Gone, I tell ya! And he’s wearing real clothes. Adam’s haircut is probably due, except he looks five. Mallory looks cute with her glasses except I can’t tell if she’s wearing shoes or just really big athletic socks. Christina’s hair is OK, but her outfit and apparent matching shoes frighten me on several levels. Ace, of course, is as cute as ever.

The only one missing is Simon, who’s on the phone from Ireland. He says he’s in bed because it was his birthday and he’s been partying it up.

Instead of rolling with regular highlights, we’re now reduced to a top 10 of “Things you wanted to know about the Real World Paris, but were afraid to ask.” Whatever.

Number 10 is “How could Ace spend $1,000 on strippers?” Ace says it’s done with a bottle of vodka, a bunch of lapdances, and a blonde from Kansas. OK, ew. LaLa asks Mallory if she still has a problem with strip clubs, Mallory says she’s been in a few now and finds them OK.

Number 9 is “The Great Valentine’s Day Lie.” You remember. One of the first of Chris’s many indiscretions, where he took credit for tulips that weren’t his. And used the term “womens” instead of “women.” Chris says Ace got him in trouble by telling the girls they were from him, and much yelling ensues. Ahh, just like the good old days. Chris says he asked Leah if she knew anyone else named Christopher and she said no. Leah admits that was true. Somewhere, her friend Christopher is crying.

Mallory says she doesn’t understand why Leah and Christina got flowers that day and she didn’t. Chris says, “I didn’t send them.” Everyone laughs.

LaLa points out that everyone always picked on Chris while Ace just flew by. Then we relive the big “my bed is directly below the pool table” fight, where Ace and Chris stayed up late, and loud, playing pool and woke everyone else up. Then Ace ate some of Christina’s eggs. Then he went around and cleaned the house and left flowers and notes for the girls.

Christina says whenever you got in an argument with Ace he always said, “I’m so sorry,” and she says it in his accent, which gets a big laugh. A fight with Chris was a real fight. Simon pipes up and says Ace never wanted anyone to say anything bad about him.

The number 8 issue is Christina’s apparent hookups with Chris and Ace. Ahh, clips. Remember when people actually wanted to be in the hot tub with Chris? And Christina and Ace snuggled and apparently did other things?

Back in the studio, we never really get an answer from Christina because all the girls say they hooked up more with Simon than anyone else. Simon says, “Yo, yo, I’m a ho.”

LaLa asks them to define “hooking up,” so Chris plants a big, long kiss on Leah.

Number 7 issue: Where WAS Simon all season?

Simon says he just came to Paris, did his thing, and he thinks he got off easy. Mallory says Simon didn’t have “issues” like the rest of the cast. Simon says he didn’t hang out with the guys because he got on better with the girls and the guys were always going after girls, which he wasn’t.

Number 6: The Language Barrier. Remember when Leah needed to get her brother Pascual out of the house in a hurry and couldn’t get a cab? Remember when everyone first got to Paris and couldn’t get to the train because they didn’t know the language? Remember when Ace got in the weird fight with the cab driver? And in Italy, when everyone was crazy and Christina said to Simon how loud her culture was? And Simon said, “I live with six of you. I know.”

Mallory says they felt alone a lot because they just had each other and couldn’t start up random conversations. Ace says his mom was actually born in France and his making fun of French people was just his own ignorance. LaLa says (for some reason) that there was more hooking up in Vegas. The cast says you can’t beat Vegas, it’s the city of sin.