VH1's The Pick-Up Artist, the show that takes a group of nerdy, inexperienced boys and turns them into walking eyebrow rings with clown names competing for rune medallions, is back for some reason. This being the show's second season, a few changes to the formula have been made: Matador, a grown man who wears red mesh long-sleeved shirts, has longer hair (the better to ensnare young women from the thick of the club like some creepy male Rapunzel); Mystery looks even more like the personification of Magic: The Gathering (it's possible); and the show now takes place in the steaming hotbed of sexual tension known as Phoenix, Arizona.
The biggest change to the show, however, is the addition of a "wingwoman" (that's pickup artist for "douchette") named Tara who gets to sit in the surveillance bus with Mystery and Matador outside the fake club that VH1 hastily assembled in the Phoenix desert, and evaluate the boys' pickup performances. Last night, as she watched the boys recite their dusty, Mystery-approved "openers"–like, "Do you think Mick Jagger is sexy?" and "Man, did you just see that fight outside??"– Tara keenly observed that sometimes the boys failed through no fault of their own. Sometimes, there are just a lot of bitches in the club, you know?