Forever Eden, April 2: On and On

Welcome to what’s probably the final recap for Forever Eden. Why? Well, because Fox will likely cancel this show before next week. Do I know that for sure? No. What leads me to think that? For the third consecutive week, Fox TV is showing Forever Eden on a new and different night of the week. The ratings for this show have taken a steady and steep decline. When it was shown on Mondays, it dropped from 11, to 5.8, to 4.3 million viewers. When it moved to Thursday, it dropped further to 3.8 million. Now that it has moved to Friday, a well-known graveyard for failing TV shows, its ratings are almost guaranteed to fall even further. Last week, Fox cancelled Playing It Straight and Oliver Beene for dismal ratings, so it seems that Forever Edenshould be receiving the same fate any day now.

Anyway, enough about that, let’s look at the recap from last week. You can read my article about it or I can just give you the short version: Pick partners… Claudia arrives… too many women… Jason selects… Shawna banished.

This week’s episode starts off with a lot of “He Said, She Said.” Jason tells Kassie that Liz told him that she thinks Kassie doesn’t have a flat-enough stomach. In other words, Liz thinks Kassie is fat. Kassie is upset. She confronts Liz and says that Jason said that Liz said she thinks she’s fat. Liz denies it. We get to see a flashback that shows what Jason says is true. Liz approaches Jason and says that Kassie just said that he told her that she told him that she thinks that Kassie is fat. Jason says, “But you did say that.” Liz denies that she ever said that. We get another helpful flashback of her saying that.

Confused? I’m not surprised. The bottom line, however, is that Liz lied, nobody believes Jason, and he is in the doghouse for stirring up trouble.

Meanwhile, while the guests are standing around, dissing Jason, we see Simon, the waiter, innocently standing nearby, listening to every word. Hmm. That seems odd. But, nobody notices and we move on.

But, we don’t really move on. The entire dinner conversation is all about whether Liz or Jason is telling the truth. Liz starts to hedge a little, saying now that she doesn’t remember what she said instead of denying it. The group is slowly coming around to believing Jason.

Later, the group is summoned to the banishment temple. Ruth appears out of nowhere and tells them it is time for next guest to arrive. She explains that the next guest will come into the game knowing everything about them. Simon, the waiter, approaches Ruth, carrying the dreaded green apple. He hands it to Ruth and just stands there. Ruth explains that the new guest has been with them all along. Simon suddenly starts undressing himself right in front of everybody. He stops when he gets down to his muscle shirt, thank goodness, and Ruth tells everyone that this is not Simon at all, but Chris, a fitness club manager. Chris tells us that, growing up, he never fit into any social classes, but was pretty good at coexisting with all of them. He hopes this skill will do him well in Eden.

Ruth turns to Chris and gives him four gold coins and the apple. She says that this apple is a good apple for him, but a bad apple for everyone else. The apple gives Chris the right to bring back one player that has previously been banished. Ruth says that this is either Mary, Craig, Khalilah, Jordan, or Shawna.

Now, I have to stop right here and point out that Khalilah was not actually banished. She chose to walk away from the game. Just from the aesthetics of the game, she should not be coming back for any reason.

Chris has until this evening to make his choice and put that name in a box on the bar. Ruth invites the other players to badger Chris into picking the person that they each want to see return.

They all retire to the bar and pool-table area. Someone asks Chris to give his impressions of each of the guests. Chris readily agrees. He says he like Matt’s carefree attitude and David’s custom tailored shirts. David says he only paid $10 at the thrift store for his shirt. Chris says he thinks Neveen is totally awesome, but he’d never take her out to dinner. He doesn’t like her bright pink high heeled shoes either.

I can’t say that this was really a compliment. In a private moment, Neveen seems quite upset at these comments and says that she wouldn’t even look at a man like him twice. And she loves her bright pink pumps! She utters a few four-letter words and throws her shoes across the room. This woman has problems.

Anyway, Chris continues. He says he really likes Wallace’s body, which causes little question marks to appear over the other guests’ heads.

He later tells the guys that he’s a bit of a queen and a fashion whore. This makes multiple question marks appear over everybody’s heads. The women scamper off like field mice to begin talking about him behind his back. They obviously think he’s gay, bisexual, or, at least metrosexual (go ahead and use Google to look up that word. I’ll wait).

Several of the guests confront him about the situation. Chris gives evasive answers. Liz asks him directly if people think he’s gay. He says that they do and that it probably doesn’t help matters much that he has a gay roommate. Picture me slapping my forehead and saying, “Doh!” The actual question of his preference(s), however, is not answered.