‘The Real World Homecoming Los Angeles’ Episode 3 Recap: “We Gonna Be Real Or We Not”

The Real World: Los Angeles is culturally significant for being the first-ever second-ever reality show. And that’s important; where the New York cast showed up with no expectations, the seven (and eventually nine) strangers of the second season showed up with an inkling about how to present themselves, how to get screen time, how to make good television. They did all of this primarily by fighting.

But now, after thirty years of reality television, the cast of RWLA is the first to be the second to reunite for a season of The Real World Homecoming. And what they’re learning — what we’re all learning — is that a foundation of fighting doesn’t give you much to build on. If expressing yourself and getting to know your housemates takes a backseat to bickering, there’s nothing for you to do but keep bickering. I don’t know whether anyone will grow from the Homecoming experience, but I will quote Jon quoting the Magic 8-Ball: OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD.

We pick up in Episode 3 right where we left off in Episode 2, with Tami loudly disappointed in Jon, Irene, and Beth S for not checking in with her after she opened up about her body dysmorphia. Beth S tries to mend the relationship that has never really existed in the first place, saying she wants to get to know her. Tami says, “Okay, well that’s gone, girl.” Irene wonders why it’s so important for Beth to win Tami’s approval, and Beth doesn’t have much of an answer beyond tears. I think it’s because they’re two of the very few people who have lived this experience, they both have similar walls up, and that striking up a friendship is something better done late than never. But really I’m just wishing the network ponied up some music-licensing money, because TLC’s “What About Your Friends” would have fit very nicely here.

The next day, Beth S asks everyone whether her eyes look okay, since she had been crying the day before, which is really just a cry-brag. Beth A and Glen separate themselves, as they had in the original season, and then as now, you get it. David pours himself some orange juice with a noticeably shaking hand. We will come back around to this. Tami is a little too vocal about being over her original housemates, insisting “we’re offa that now,” and wondering “what will happen next in the Real World house.”

What will happen next in the Real World house is that Tami will get all the way up in Jon’s business about whether he’s still a virgin, which he is. Jon enjoyed some small-town celebrity in the wake of the show, but — possibly due to his reluctance to write songs or take advantage of career opportunities that might pull him out of his comfort zone — within a year, he was “a dude looking for work.” He found that work as a youth minister and mentor for kids within his hometown church. He’s still clean as a whistle; “I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t live a promiscuous life, I try not to give in to the desires of the flesh,” he says. But now he’s 47, and he’s resigned himself to never marrying. He says “I’m pretty happy,” and it’s hard not to hope he is.

And then Tami says “Jon, I would like for you to get some pussy before you die,” which is not only not a cool thing to say to anyone, it’s an especially not-cool thing to say to Jon, who clearly hates talking about this stuff, even in jest. It’s something you say to someone to make them laugh or to start a fight, and since he’s pretty famously someone who won’t do either of those things, it’s something you say to let us know you’re thinking about the edit you’re going to get. Tami is good at this. I wish Tami were less good at this.

Beth S, as well as she knows how much Jon hates this stuff, doesn’t drop it. Jon eventually has to pull her aside and make it plain: “When you notice me pivoting away from this conversation, pivot with me.” And listen: having just binged Coming Out Colton, my brain naturally goes to whether Jon is gay deep down, but ultimately I don’t think so. I think he’s just really, honestly trying to live by the rules he was raised on. I’m a decent judge of character this way (and, also, I have seen his shirts).

David opens up about his motorcycle crash, which was either a few weeks or a few years ago, I honestly can’t tell. He’s pretty banged up, but he’s on the road to recovery, and he’s ready to go back out on the road and “make some real money,” which after all this I hope he does. But one gets the sense that he is the one in his own way, and again, we’ll come back to this.

When you have participated in a reality show experiment, and your housemates were more interested in trying to get screen time than in trying to get to know each other, there is one single choice for your reunion other than fighting, and it is saying “Being back here is crazy,” which pretty much everybody does a million times an episode. You see, they were there in 1993, and then they weren’t, and now a lot of them are, except for the ones who aren’t. You see, that is crazy. Don’t worry if you forget that, you will be reminded.

Tami had been upset that Jon and Beth S didn’t have her back after she spilled her guts, now she’s upset that Jon pulled Beth S aside and asked her to ill-chay on the conversation about the irginity-vay. She seems upset that youth minister Jon won’t go on and on about sex in front of the cameras. “Why are we here if we’re not going to open up?” She continues “I think Jon would like to be a fly on the wall, where he can watch everyone else talk about their stuff, but please don’t bring up anything that pertains to me.” And, yeah, that sounds about right. That’s always been kind of his whole thing. I mean, I knew that.

And then David drinks everything in the house. Up on the roof, Jon asks David: “Has alcohol been a struggle in your life? I only ask because if it is, I want to pray for you.” David responds with a legit coughing fit. Again, we will address this.

Things seem relatively stable in the house, so obviously here comes an incoming message, which turns out to be questions from viewers, all of whom seem like they were a maximum of four years old when the original season aired. One asks, “Who was the most annoying to live with?” Jon chooses himself, Glen and Beth S choose one another. As a reply to “Who had the best style,” Jon talks about his mullet and his tragic 1993 fashion sense, and his shirt answers the question have you learned anything since? Beth S says her fashion was a little misguided back then, and I say her fashion was a lot Larry Sanders Show. Finally, “If you had to live with one roommate to live with for the rest of your life, who would it be?” A lot of people choose Jon, but for Tami it’s a tie between him and Beth S, because she sees that there have been times when they could have had fun together. The answer makes Beth S cry. Beth S is doing a lot of crying. It could be genuine, it could be acting, or it could be middle age. (Lest you think I am age-shaming, I think I’m the exact same age as Beth, and I cried twice in Coming Out Colton.)

Tami tells Glen she misses his ponytail, which seems like a cruel thing to say because he is bald now. He says he’ll borrow one of her wigs and tie it back, which David takes issue with, and suddenly we’re back to everyone bickering. The gang settles it with a trip to that apparently-iconic bowling alley where they I-guess-unforgettably had that fight that one time. Back in the house, they give a group confessional rebuttal to New York Julie’s drunken “fuck you,” and it involves Beth S yelling that at least none of them got Covid. Again, I will quote Jon: mmmBEYUTH!

Afterwards, Irene notices David filling a water bottle with gin, Beth notices an instant change in his behavior, and anyone who ever snuck a drink in high school knows that the smell of gin will give you away immediately. When Glen reminds Tami he wants to put on her rainbow wig, David goes after him. Glen says he’s not going to escalate the situation, but then Glen keeps calling him “Dave,” which David has been clear he doesn’t like to be called, thereby escalating the situation. It is as tense as anything this cast gave us in the first go-round, and I hereby support Aaron and Dominic’s decision to turn their backs on this experience forever.

“We were getting along famously for two hours,” Beth S says, “and then everything changed.” Everyone is concerned about David, but they decide to sleep on it rather than have an instant intervention on camera, which is a rare wise choice from this gang. So after David goes to bed — fully clothed, like maybe even in his shoes — the rest of the gang removes all the booze in the house, of which there is a LOT. No more wine glasses of beer for Tami, at least for now.

Ultimately, this gang is reliving their Real World glory days, because their Real World glory days consisted of ugly fights and bad behavior. The experiment — find seven people who will annoy the hell out of each other and then put them on camera to do it — is working out too well. Homecoming is a reality tragedy, a sad story against a beautiful backdrop. I’d have called it Beth In Venice.

Dave Holmes is an editor-at-large for Esquire.com, host of the Earwolf podcast Homophilia, and his memoir Party of One is in stores now. He also hosts the Real World podcast Truu Stowray, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch The Real World Homecoming Los Angeles Episode 3 on Paramount+