Airdate: November 12, 2012
More Appropriately Titled: Sunny’s A Homophobe
Like much great American media (Pulp Fiction, Memento, American Beauty), Catfish begins by showing us the ending. We see a woman who I can only assume is named Sadie panicking about going somewhere alone (as white girls do). Nev, our tour guide through every sadist with an internet connection, guides Sadie to a shack that is more than likely home to a meth lab. Whist hiking up her dress like the southern belle she is, Sadie says, “Something’s gonna go wrong. I just know it.” This is where we learn Sadie is a psychic. And a good one, too.Â
As the door creeks open, Max, the human tripod, urgently calls for Nev and Sadie to turn their attention to the door. They must do this quickly because the Catfisher cannot expose the meth lab chemicals to fresh air too long lest to ruin the meth.
It turns out Sadie is actually named Sunny (but hey, I was close). Sunny’s boo is named Jamison King; a name that the person on the other side of the computer probably chose by looking around their basement, saw an empty bottle of Jameson covered in Dorito dust and Twinkie wrappers, then followed with, “Okay, now I just need a last name.” Over Skype, Sunny describes Jamison as funny, smart, and handsome-an impossible “pick 3” combination of the male species. We also learn Jamison is a famous model who’s fending off girls with a baseball bat to be with a nursing student from Arkansas.Â
When the crew arrives at Sunny’s house, she’s camera ready in yesterday’s hair and makeup and a pair of Soffe shorts. Her coffee table is covered in wedding planning books. Nev might as well smack her in the face with those now because that’ll probably feel better than when she finally meets “Jamison.”Â
This romance blossomed better than any Nicolas Sparks barf book every could; Sunny’s sister who’s seriously named Summer passed her sloppy seconds off to her sister. Keeping it all in the family. Sunny recalls their first conversation was 3 hours and 25 minutes. The men marvel at this because it has long been thought impossible for blondes to hold a conversation that long.
Sunny tells us Jamison is currently a model (red flag). He is taking online classes to be an anesthesiologist (super red flag). He is a writer for Chelsea Lately (c’mon Sunny, use your brain). Sunny says their connection is special because it is emotional and based on mutual interests. This is unlike most relationships because most relationships are built on knowledge of woodworking and strong calves.Â
We quickly find out Sunny is a horny pervert. It doesn’t take her long to switch gears to her lust for Jamison. She’s confident she can “teach him a thing or two” because she was a gymnast. What’s really been missing in Jamison’s sex life was chalk to prevent calluses.
Sunny is one hundred percent confident Jamison is who he says he is because of her gut feeling. Gonna go out on a limb here and say Sunny should probably get a new gut.
As the gang Facebook stalks Jamison, Sunny gets a text from him on her iPod phone. Her extreme reaction of disbelief can only lead us to assume Sunny has a Benjamin Button thing going on and she’s fascinated by this new technology the youths are on.
In a classic MTV drama sequence, Sunny tells Nev about Jamison’s three sisters who died in a car crash. They don’t really talk about it so they’re probably gonna bring it up later.Â
Nev and Max sit alone in their poorly lit room to internet stalk a young boy. They search his name and find an article in which Jamison was interviewed. In the article, Jamison says his three very alive sisters (wow, MTV comes full circle) were named Academic All American sports somethings. I had to google this because I spend all day on my computer and you can’t kick that around so sports obviously aren’t my forte.
The Wonder Twins decide to call Chelsea Handler’s production team about Jamison. This part is a fun relic of the show because they were unsure what to say. “Are we saying we’re looking to hire? Are we lying?” Now when they call saying, “This is Nev from the MTV show Catfish,” it’s like the FBI busting down your door.
Grab your socks because this part of the episode is so surprising, it’ll knock them right off; Jamison does not work for Chelsea Handler.
Simon and Garfunkel call Jamison. As soon as he answers, you wanna smack Sunny down because it could not be more obvious that that voice belongs to a 14-year-old boy. Sunny may have a degree in nursing, but she sure as hell does not have a degree in common sense. Jamison tells them he’s currently in Paris but he goes to New York frequently for work. Nev shares his privilege by telling us he grew up on the Upper West Side and asked Jamison where he stays. Unable to name one street in New York City, Jamison hangs up. You know how middle schoolers can be a bunch of asshole punks.Â
Outrageously conveniently, Jamison will be in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that weekend. He so kindly offers to bestow his valuable supermodel time unto Sunny. Wow, and they say chivalry is dead. Â
Batman and Robin meet Sunny at a tacky store in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It stocks exactly what you’d expect to find in Arkansas. They meet several of her friends who look exactly like her. They pull her aside to share their findings to which Sunny replies, “Am I in trouble?” Not with the law, but with the American public for being a dumbass. Sunny is oozing with excitement about finally getting to meet Jamison. When she is told they are leaving that night, she’s so shocked by the concept it’s as if she can’t wrap her head around the idea of not spending her night blacking out in an abandoned barn.Â
Sunny picks out a dress from the Dress Barn to wear to meet Jamison. The yellow dress pairs well with her yellow hair and orange skin. She’s anticipating for Jamison to rip it right off, which is why she chose a dress she found under a pile of broken hangers in the stock room.Â
Milli and Vanilli sit down with Sunny for their come to Jesus meeting. They tell her about Jamison’s interview regarding his alive and well sisters. Sunny is ride or die about Jamison’s sisters being dead. She really wants those girls dead. Her defense for no one knowing him at the Chelsea Handler show is that no one can keep track of everyone working anywhere. She’s confident in this argument because it rings true for her. This is how she is able to spend her days scrounging up clothes from Goodwill’s “unwearable” bin.
Sunny’s not ironically named sister Summer comes over in Soffe shorts (they really are sisters) to hear about Sunny’s journey for love. Summer is pissed because she peed on him first thus marking her territory and Sunny pulled the rug out from under her. Summer says she won’t be there for her sister which is fair because it’d be absurd to not have an internet stranger drive a wedge between you and your best friend from cradle to grave.Â
Sunny gets all jazzed up in her Halloween costume from last year, a half inch of makeup and a Terre Haute hair poof. She says if Jamison lied to her, it will be the lie of the century. She is correct; this would far surpass “we know where the WMDs are,” “I promise you Prime Minister Chamberlain, Germany will not invade Poland, “ and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
They finally arrive at Jamison’s meth lab. No one answers the door, so they peek into the windows. This is legal if you have a camera crew. Sunny’s falling apart at the seams and therefore, she lets her true gold digging nature slip. She is upset her supermodel boyfriend lives in a FEMA trailer and begins pointing to nicer houses on the block saying those seem more like the type of place he would live. It’s beginning to set in for Sunny that her future could be crushing up Sudafed.Â
The door flies open and it is not a ghost. It’s an 18-year-old lesbian (but we don’t know that yet) named Chelsea, who is pretty close to a 14-year-old boy. Chelsea created the account because she was mercilessly bullied and she didn’t know any other way to escape. Sunny really misses the mark here, and interrogates Chelsea about her sexuality in a way where you can tell she’s clearly homophobic but she’s trying her best to not let that show on national television. “So are you, like, attracted to girls or something?”
Turns out Jamison is a real boy with real living sisters. The news regarding the sisters really seems to devastate Sunny. Sunny then accuses Chelsea of having a personality disorder saying she must have multiple personalities to have created a second profile. This is true regarding a lot of technology. If you have more than one email account, you have borderline personality disorder. As her anger grows, her homophobic filter shrinks. “You must be a lesbian or something.”
Sunny brings out her Arkansas backwoods fighting skills to tell off Chelsea. These are very refined skills. She used them in high school to sass her way into the cheerleading captain’s position, taking it from a girl most likely named Britney. Before she hopped into the bed of her boyfriend’s pickup truck, she had to add insult to injury. She clapped her hands whilst telling Britney that her blonde hair and black roots were as segregated as a Georgia prom.
She tells Chelsea she might look bad on TV (she really is a psychic), but Chelsea will look infinitely worse. Once again utilizing her Southern Belle skills she learned at Cotillion, Sunny says if it were the two of them, she would beat Chelsea down. In order to prove why they’d win the fight, the two women then each argue they are the bigger one. This only proves once again that we are in a parallel universe.
Sunny now shows she’s total garbage by telling Chelsea she will find a way to fuck her over for revenge. Now I don’t know much about the law but I do know according to (Ala. Code § 13A-6-20), Alabama law defines second-degree assault as, “Intending to and causing serious physical injury to another person.” Sunny certainly declared her intent multiple times. If she acts, Sunny is facing 1-10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine. Let’s see how little her sister will be there for her then.Â
Later that day, sad piano music plays as Jay and Silent Bob visit Chelsea. She kindly moved the meth lab to the basement. Chelsea tells us how badly she was bullied and how she used social media to escape and create a new persona where she was liked and popular. What a great case study on the human psyche. Nev gives her the “it gets better” speech circa the internet, 2010.Â
Nev brings Sunny to Chelsea’s home to sort things out. Sunny seems uneasy about being left alone with Chelsea, but it’s Chelsea who should be uneasy. Sunny’s planning to kill her. The girls walk to the kitchen. If you look closely, you can see pipes and baggies Chelsea missed when moving the meth lab. Sunny is upset about the fact that she was being hit on by a girl more than anything else. She asks plenty more of her “I’m not homophobic but…” questions, including, “Have you ever been with a girl?” I don’t know what role that plays in this online romance, but it apparently helps her make sense of everything. Â
One year later, Chelsea has joined an organization where she helps bullied kids. She has deleted all her fake accounts and stopped being a cyber freak. Sunny has not changed at all except her hair is longer. Shrek and Donkey set up a Skype between Sunny and the real Jamison. She giggles the whole time. It was a waste of my time.
Recommendation: 4/5 would recommend
Sunny’s blatant homophobia caused her to really miss the mark about why this was all happening.
Sunny was about as dramatic as you’d expect a bleach blonde from Arkansas to be.Â
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