The Real World: “WWF Is In The House!”

This week we arrive at the penultimate episode of The Real World: New York and, while it lacks the seismic drama of Julie and Kevin’s race war or the Brechtian twist of Becky and Bill’s forbidden romance, “WWF Is In The House!” is, in my humble opinion, the best episode so far: funny, relatively free of controversy, and full of moments that make me nostalgic for the early ’90s.
As you will recall, last week’s episode ended with a goofy cliffhanger, as a guest at Eric and Kevin’s birthday party accused Heather of assault. This week, after Heather sweet-talked the cops (one of whom was an aspiring rapper), the “nontroversy” quickly evaporated. The plastic-cup debacle is one of those few moments in this inaugural season of The Real World when the producers’ desperation for a little drama is painfully obvious. Basically nothing happens at all—and we don’t even see the fight in question—yet the incident is dragged out over two weeks.
It does serve one purpose, however: shifting the spotlight to Heather B. who, until now, has largely been a supporting player, a sort of Rhoda to Julie’s Mary. This week, Heather finally takes center stage. With their time in the loft nearing an end, she is looking forward to moving on and getting back to work on her album. Heather is also growing impatient with life at the loft. “I’m saying fuck everybody. I got other things on my mind, I gotta pay my rent,” she tells Julie, while doing a little ironing. I don’t know if I realized this the first half-dozen times I watched The Real World back in the ’90s, but it turns out that Heather is actually pretty hilarious: smart and down-to-earth with a dry, barbed wit. She’s the Dorothy Parker of the loft.
But her witticisms come with a price: Eric’s feelings. For a good-looking guy, Eric is awfully sensitive, and Heather has a way of getting under his (flawless) skin. Tension arises when Smokey, Heather’s cat, knocks over a bottle of Eric’s precious vitamins. He threatens to kill Smokey, and Heather threatens him right back: “Y’all go out the way that Smokey go out.” A wrestling match ensues, one that is jokey on the surface but charged with some genuine animosity.
The Heather-Eric beef increases one night at dinner, as the loftmates sit around the table eating in silence. Eric awkwardly tries to engage them in conversation—or, to be more precise, tries to make them listen as he drones on about his weekend. Kevin interrupts Eric’s monologue with a tremulous burp, and Eric throws a tantrum. “I’m just ready to go home,” he declares. Heather calls his bluff. “Goodbye Eric. You need any help packing?” she says, while rocking back and forth with Norm in her lap, making her seem like a particularly nasty grandmother. Eric storms off in a tizzy so furious, he won’t even allow Julie to console him. (That’s how you know things are bad.)
To Heather, the tantrum is par for the course with Eric who, in her estimation, “complains the most and says the least.” Heather might be a bit of a mean girl at times, but she’s right about one thing: Eric sure does talk a whole lot. Elsewhere in the episode, Eric nearly bores poor Julie to death by reading aloud the label from one of his health-food products. Julie gently steers the conversation away from nutritional matters. “I know there’s more to you than the ingredients in these boxes,” she declares, perhaps a bit too generously. Eric agrees with Julie’s assessment, of course, but says he doesn’t like people to know how sensitive he really is. Otherwise, they may take advantage of him. Translation: models have feelings, too.
In a hilariously edited sequence, Eric opens up to Becky and Kevin about the challenge of living with roommates. He’s never lived away from home before (I forget that Eric was only about 20 when he filmed The Real World, which makes me feel ancient), so he doesn’t really know how to get along with people outside his family. As Becky and Kevin very thoughtfully advise Eric on his personal growth, we see him rollerblading all over Soho. Dressed in a leather cap, unbuttoned flannel and clashing plaid shorts, Eric performs all kinds of attention-getting mini-stunts, like grabbing the back of a taxi, swirling around pedestrians, and bouncing off a low wall.
Clearly, Eric is a sensitive soul.