‘The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans’ Episode 2 Recap: “Outta Bounds Part 1”

The Real World Homecoming Season 3 is officially off to the races, as the Real World Season 9 cast goes back to New Orleans and laissent les bon temps rouler for the most part, unless you are Julie, in which case, quelle dommage. If you’re just tuning in, all seven original housemates are happy to see one another, except whoops one of them wrote (or had agents who wrote, which, same thing) damaging letters about two of them way back when, which limited the post-Real World speaking engagement earning power of those two, and also whoops the one of them who did it never acknowledged it or apologized. So Julie (the writer) walked into the house knowing Danny and Melissa (the written-about) would be wanting to have a word, and as we left them last week, Julie was shifting foot-to-foot outside Melissa’s bedroom like a child who was about to be punished.

Julie will not be punished tonight, we quickly learn. Melissa has already had her mic pack taken off for the night so that she can shower and hit the sack, so she pleasantly sends Julie away to be punished later, which, if your parents ever did this to you, you know is actually much more painful. Julie goes to the confessional in her LuLaRose leggings (I didn’t see that miniseries, but I’m pretty sure I’m right) to cry about it in solitude, again. A reminder to the kids: apologize for your transgressions as soon as you are able.

The boys are all awake, having what may be White Claws out in the courtyard, and Julie joins them, saying “Are you guys talking about me?” And again, the reply is the cruelest one imaginable: “No.” Julie apologizes to Danny, but still with approximately half of her ass: “I still don’t know who wrote what, but the buck stops with me, and I’m sorry.” She says she cannot stand the girl she’s seeing in the clips they’ve been showing.

Let’s talk about that for a second. I too was on MTV at around this time in history, and while my work there was mostly scripted and way less vulnerable to the machinations of an editor trying to build a story, even I get uncomfortable when I see clips. I actually mostly don’t remember what I’m seeing. Not that it’s a traumatic memory, or that I was drunk, it was just all so utterly surreal, so many strange and unfamiliar things coming at me at such a fast pace, that my brain could not form memories. So now someone sends me a YouTube clip of something I did in 2000, and I’m like: “Huh. I guess that’s me.” Zero recall. Just: “Well, good for that guy.” And again, I was just hosting shows. I didn’t have a camera following me when I tried to go out for the night, or when I was brushing my teeth. Melissa—who, with Danny, is our guest on the Homophilia podcast today, FYI— told us something similar: that the whole experience is so difficult to digest as it’s happening that the editors cut quickly and permanently takes the place of your memory. That’s a lot for a person to handle, especially when society deems them too young to rent a car.

I’m not excusing the behavior of anyone or anyone’s agents. I’m just saying this has to be a difficult experience, the years in between have to have their own unique challenges, and I’m glad it seems like we’re going to dive into that this season.

Danny semi-accepts the semi-apology and says “My life has been full of baggage, I’ve been through plenty of hurtful things like this.” Danny seems wise in 2022, and it seems like the road to wisdom has been a painful one.

Anyway, the next day, Tokyo wears a shirt that says TOKYO. Also, we find out that he has a YouTube cooking channel, that he has a character called “NeverMind,” and that in 2022, he is in complete understanding of who he is. I am in less than complete understanding. There is a lot going on with Tokyo, and it is all presented like “Tokyo does some kind of art either with or inspired by hidden messages only he sees, any questions?” And then we move on very quickly. I know he is not editing this show, but I need him to slow down the editing of this show. He makes everyone breakfast in a way that looks extremely labor-intensive, and then he’s like: “Oh, it’s just bacon and eggs.” That’s our Tokyo.

Jamie gets Melissa going on the Oculus, in footage that looks like it’s from nighttime on a completely different shoot day. He says Melissa is the only one he keeps in touch with, and even with her it’s only every four years or so. I sort of remember Jamie as someone who was pursuing some kind of finance degree or starting some kind of sports or interactive or interactive sports business, and I’m not sure where he is in his life right now aside from being vaguely enthusiastic. But my man looks good.

At breakfast, Julie reveals that her husband works for some expensive eyeglass frame company, and Melissa perks up like: he could get me a discount, and Julie perks up like: oh hey this argument is finally over and I didn’t even have to do anything. But that’s as much as she gets from Melissa in the moment and Julie is back to being on pins and needles in leggings.

A message then incomes from the INCOMING MESSAGE screen. This one is all about Danny and Paul and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and what a shitty, shitty compromise that was. We go back to all the clips of Paul in the house, and all the fear they both had about it. (At least at first; initially, he’s in the bushes hiding from the cameras, but soon enough they’re making out in the hot tub.) Paul was of course a difficult character to connect with in the New Orleans season, since we never saw his face and rarely heard his voice. So in this section, I choose to focus on Danny’s turtleneck sweater. Listen, I was in my late 20s when this season aired, and between The Sweater and Jamie’s backward fitted ball caps, this cast had me sprung. I cannot imagine the seismic physical effect The Sweater must have had on developing gay boys. When you’re young and gay and starved for not only contact but representation, you develop very strong attachments to the out gay people you see. In 1984 as in 2000, those people were few and far between. I had Bronski Beat and a suspicion about Greg Louganis, the young gay boys of 2000 had Danny. And Danny had The Sweater. I mean, it awakens a primal feeling in me, and I was like 28.

Anyway, being the focus of all that intense developing gay energy is a lot for one man to handle, and that’s before you factor in the relationship with Paul, who would lose his whole job and whole pension if their relationship were revealed, and that’s before you think about how hard it must have been to keep a lid on it with Danny being as visible as a Real World cast member was in 2000. It was no joke for these two, and the rules of DADT plus Danny’s own social anxiety made him a bit of a recluse.

In the time since, Danny says he has been diagnosed with CPTSD: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a distinct condition from original-recipe PTSD, which tends to stem from a specific event; CPTSD is from being stuck in a traumatic situation over a long period of time, so that really any element of it can become triggering. In an interview, Melissa reveals that she has a touch of this condition as well.

I would imagine they all do. It is difficult to talk about trauma when one is not, say, a combat veteran. But it is all relative, and having your personalities and narratives be manipulated by a stranger at an edit bay and then presented to a world who eats it up and thinks they know you? That has to be a trauma. I’m sure that everyone’s overall instinct is to say, “Sure, it was hard, but so many people have dealt with so much worse,” but you know who else says that, according to my therapist? Combat veterans.

Kelley can sense Danny getting anxious as the clips play, so she invites him for a private moment outside. The two of them have remained close, and you can really sense the intimacy between them. Apparently, Danny overstayed in his relationship with Paul. Even after knowing for sure it wasn’t right, he stuck it out, not wanting to let the gay community down. But it was Kelley herself who convinced him to go, and although he describes it as a “raw ugly ending,” it’s a positive thing for them both. Again, Kelley is a good egg.

Meanwhile, Julie is full of energy while the rest of the people in the house want to call it a night early, like people in their 40s do. I am a 10pm sleep, 5am rise guy in middle age, and I love it, and I am aware that I have become what the version of myself at Real World casting age would have hated and feared and I even love that. Anyway, she says the shower has three shower heads, and that everyone should put on their swim trunks and take a shower together, and I say that when you raise kids to fear and avoid sex, you get 40-year-olds who ask other 40-year-olds to put on their swim trunks and take a shower with them.

Julie serves Melissa breakfast the next morning, with a clear expectation that a well-presented banana muffin will counteract a decades-old betrayal. And the two of them have a very friendly, very honest talk, and they laugh and they reminisce, and then Melissa very honestly and friendly-ly says, “That’s my limit for today” and that’s that on that. Healthy boundaries can make good television, turns out.

And then that night a bunch of them go out and get Bourbon Street drunk. Have you been Bourbon Street drunk? I have. I have woken up from a night on Bourbon Street with unexplained bruises, a missing wallet, and unswallowed bites of Krystal Burger in my mouth. Bourbon Street drunk is a whole other thing, even if you avoid shots and those sugary cocktails you see spinning in one of those Slurpee machines you pass every five feet, as I do. Beware Bourbon Street drunkenness. Beware Bourbon Street, period.

I will set the stage: an INCOMING MESSAGE reminds them of their night out with drag queens in the original season, and reminds us that they were ahead of the curve on the mainstreaming of drag. So it’s out on the town, unless you’re Matt, who has a FaceTime date with his wife that is also an excuse he made up on the spot, or Kelley, who is writing a book and finally has a moment away from her kids to get some work done and turned in. But the rest of the gang heads out, and Jamie says “woo-hoo” a lot. Jamie seems like a good hang.

Here is what I have to say about what follows: if you are not a regular drinker, go on a little test run before you drink on camera. Do it in the safety of your home, with your partner or a group of friends, just to see how it hits you. Do like you do when you’re testing out a tranquilizer on your dog for a long flight. You don’t want to just give the dog the whole dose for the first time as you’re boarding. You want to see how his body is going to react. You want to know what you’re in for. (My partner and I did this with our Junior a few years back. After about an hour, Junes staggered up to us and put his little paw on my knee, like “You, man. You’re the fucking best.”) The point is: if you are going to handle your booze badly, it is better to find out at home, where the evidence will not be broadcast to the world on Paramount Plus.

Julie, who only started drinking after she got married, does not know her limits and therefore flies right past them about six seconds into the night. She gets drunk. She gets Bourbon Street drunk. And then she keeps drinking. And then the rest of the gang wants her to go home. And then the bar’s security wants her to go home. And then even Jamie’s “woo-hoo”s start to take on a concerned tone. Julie is having none of this: she wants to do more shots, she wants to sit on the floor in front of the drag queens and whip her hair back and forth, she wants to bat away every bottle of water that is presented to her. Melissa says, “Sometimes I think of Julie, and I think of the word OUTTA. She be outta boundaries, she be outta pocket, she be outta her mind. This is no longer fun.” What this is, Melissa, is Bourbon Street.

Finally, Tokyo must pick her up and carry her out of the bar, which she is not having. But a group effort finally gets her to the waiting Yukon, and she says “What’s the problem, we’ve only been here an hour,” which both cannot be true and is the only thing I want to believe.

Next week, the action continues. The promo promises vomit that contains no fewer than three whole, unchewed saltine crackers. I am ready.

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.