The Unholy Mess that is Tallafornia, Episode 2

We quickly recap last week’s moronitude: so there’s this love triangle between Cormac the Beefmonkey, Shnakey Phil and Cuntyflaps Nikita. And there’s the OPENING CREDITS! So I guess we’re just meant to forget all the other amazing things that happened last week. Well, Tallafornia producers and whoever edited this recap, I personally am not going to forget OR forgive you for inflicting Darryl the Gay on us last week, try as you might to pretend it never happened. Anyway, it turns out that these episodes actually have titles. This one is called “Hook Ups and Heart Aches”. You can tell they really put a lot of effort into coming up with that. Personally I would’ve gone with “The One Where Natalie Pays To Have Claire’s Accessories Diamonds Stuck To Her Labia” but your mileage may vary.

It seems that the STI-magnets are having difficulty keeping their shag-pad clean. Kelly “used to keep the place clean”, we’re told over footage of her hoovering up protein powder or something. Oh, it’s washing up powder actually. Because as everyone knows, the washing up powder goes on the floor of the bathroom. Then you lay the clothes over the powder and do the clean-uppy dance while standing on them and presto – everything’s clean! Somehow the footage of Kelly hoovering up the washing powder (possibly because she thinks the hoover needs cleaning) segues into a discussion of the “love” triangle between herself, Beefmonkey and Phil. 

Prematurely Balding Jay, who seems to be most loquacious of the muppets, takes about 5 minutes to tell us that something involving the exchange of bodily fluids might have happened between Nikita and Phil. Then, David the shit-stirrer takes two seconds to just outright confirm sex was had. But let’s not forget that David and Kelly, who sounds like she has a perpetual cold, are being all lovey dovey too. This is Kelly who has a boyfriend, remember. If you didn’t remember, don’t feel too bad, because it seems that Kelly has only just remembered herself. She concedes that it’s “probably a bad sign” that she’s only just remembered him, as she struggles to recall his name. Then she tries to justify her cheatin’ heart on the fact that she’s only 22 and she’s continually been in relationships for the last number of years. Dear Kelly, if they last one night then it doesn’t actually count as a relationship.

Time for a producer-mandated visit to somewhere knackery. This week, the girls are going on an excursion to some beauty salon with leopard–print EVERYWHERE, while the boys go to the Square Shopping Centre. You know, the one from the ads with the awful jingle. Yay! It’s Natalie, my favourite Tallafornian! Saying that, having a favourite Tallafornian is like having a favourite cancer. Anyway, the primary reason for the girls’ visit to the Leopard Lounge is so that Natalie can get vajazzled for her 21st birthday. God be with the days when people got silver keys for their 21^st. Now it’s diamonds on their cooch. Also, Natalie looks like she’s put on about a stone since last week but I presume it’s just fluid she’s retaining after drinking a small lake’s worth of vodka. “Are you going out yourself tonight?” Natalie nonchalantly asks her beautician, who is busy tending to to her lady-kitten so that it can be properly bejewelled. Meanwhile, the steroid jockeys visit every men’s clothes store at The Square to buy various v-neck t-shirts that are two sizes too small.

There are several shots of the Neanderthals pissing about interspersed with footage of Natalie having her joo-joo adorned with rubies, diamonds, sapphires and gold. Also, there is an extreme close-up. Mercifully, they just about manage to avoid showing anything lippy. The lads finish purchasing t-shirts intended for boys aged 10-12, so they decide to get a birthday cake to celebrate Natalie’s coming of age. 

Back to the salon, where the girls are parading their new looks. Nikita and Kelly tell us that Natalie’s hair is “so different!” Well, it’s not greasy anymore, so I guess that’s a change. Suddenly we whip back to Chez STI, where Natalie is delighted with her cake. She says it really made her feel at home. Everyone is very interested in Natalie’s new vagina decorations. She assures us however, that she didn’t show anyone, “bar the people in the house”. That’s six people, Natalie. Counting (aside: No joke, I initially wrote “cunting”) the beautician, that means seven people have already seen your vagina, and you only got out of the salon about 5 minutes ago. Well done, love. Your ma will be proud. Phil confirms that Natalie’s vagina looked lovely. Beefmonkey lays into Natalie’s cake (that’s not a euphemism), before outlining his “pulling regime”, which isn’t worth wasting any words on because everything Cormac Beefmonkey says is a lie designed to allow him to pass as a human being until the day when he explodes in a sociopathic rage and kills dozens of people using whatever blunt objects are at hand.

It’s night time, and that means the gang of eejits are off to some dingey hole to disgrace themselves. This week, it’s Club 92, which has fire-juggling, fire-breathing beauties and a VIP area where the Tallafornians will be hanging out. Lots of shots of the muppets house drinking before they head out. Then they arrive at Club 92! And start doing push-ups!  On the floor of the club! The disgusting, sticky nightclub floor! I have no idea why. I will never understand these people. The morons decide to have a competition to see who could score the most people in honour of Natalie. Truly, that is the best way I can think of to pay tribute to Natalie. Nikita wins, by kissing 21 people in about two minutes. Cormac Beefmonkey decides not to take part in these shenanigans because it’s not his style. His style is more phone you up and breathe heavily into the receiver, drive past your house with his headlights off or push the still-beating heart of a faun through your letter-box with a note saying “WE WILL B 4EVER”. 

More scenes of spit-swapping on the dancefloor. Kelly makes out with David the Shit-Stirrer. Kelly’s actual boyfriend shows up. David stirs some shit. Kelly dumps her boyfriend by text and makes out with David some more. This is exactly how European royalty used to court one another in the past.

Back at the home for the perpetually scandalous, the boys digest the events of the evening like the gossiping fishwives they are. They debate the moral virtue of dumping one’s boyfriend via text. Prematurely Balding Jay is frankly appalled. That’s right, the stripper is appalled. I know Jay, you’re all so pious normally. As is par for the coruse with these absolute wasters, it devolves into a debate about who has the bigger biceps/pecs/cocks and they decide to arm-wrestle. For some reason arm wrestling requires them to take their tops off. I’ve seen porn that starts like this.

The girls are discussing Kelly’s newfound status as a singleton when Kelly slaps Natalie playfully. They wrestle, in the least erotic simulacrum of foxy boxing ever and then fall over, legs akimbo. Suddenly half the screen is blurred, from which we can deduce the following: 1. Kelly isn’t wearing any underwear and 2. Kelly’s vagina is massive. 

No episode of this mess would be complete without drama in the hot tub, and this week is no exception. It transpires that Phil may or may not have implied that Nikita is easy. This would be the same Nikita who kissed 21 people and has shagged both Phil and Beefmonkey. Needless to say, Nikita and several of her champions are shocked and appalled that her honour has been sullied in such a manner. Phil attempts to defend himself by explaining that she “took it completely the wrong way”. I guess there are lots of subtle meanings to the phrase “Nikita is easy” so you can see how she might’ve missed the part where he didn’t mean to call her slapper. Nikita is pissed at Phil! Phil tries to blame everyone else somehow! It’s somehow Kelly’s fault! Then it’s Beefmonkey’s fault! Prematurely Balding Jay says that “Philly is just here to play the game”. What game? THERE’S NO PRIZE, YOU FUCKING TWIT. Whats the betting he thinks they’re actually taking part in an Irish version of Big Brother? I’m sure next week he’ll pluck up the courage to ask where the diary room chair is. Jay compares Phil to “Bambi caught in the headlights”. Ah, yes, that famous scene where Bambi is caught in the headlights of the truck that nearly knocks him down while he's on his way to Tamango's. We all remember that scene.

Phil continues trying to explain how calling Nikita a slapper was totally everyone else’s fault, to little avail, until the argument finally ends when Phil and Nikita agree to continue having sex. Natalie facepalms. Phil and Nikita fail to reflect on the fact that when even Natalie is aghast at your behaviour then perhaps it is time to have a long think about what you have done. Phil sagely points out that if sex is available to a man, he will take it. Because as we all know, the Y chromosome contains a gene that completely removes the ability to turn sex down.

The episode concludes with the morons barging into the “score room” to see what Kelly and Dave are up to. Kelly’s bra is on the floor and lest we forget, she wasn’t wearing any knickers, so it’s safe to assume they weren’t lying in bed discussing potential ways to ensure that countries such as Libya and Egypt can emerge from their recent uprisings in manner that allows for a fair and egalitarian transition to democracy.

Next Week: Everyone reminds Kelly that she had a boyfriend. Kelly reminds everyone that she dumped him by text. Natalie has her anus encrusted with opals.

The Unholy Mess that is Tallafornia

There are those among us who believe that 2012 is the year that will herald the end of the world. These people will spend the next 12 months looking for signs and portents pointing to the forthcoming end of all that is; for indications that humanity is about to step off the edge of the cliff and hurtle face first into the gaping maw of oblivion. These people, desperate to find validation of their belief that we as a species have reached the end of the road, need look no further than TV3s Tallafornia for the proof they need.

But lest you think that Tallafornia is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to Irish television; your horror might be tempered by the fact that if you flick on to TV3 a few minutes early, like I did in my absolute haste to ensure I didn’t miss a single minute, you’ll end up catching the end of Take Me Out, which makes T’fornia seems at least 5% less horrendous than it actually is.

Awfulness of the opening credits as measured on the Voice of Ireland Theme Song Scale: 4.5/5. Lots of pastel colours float around as the names of the assorted meatheads and fanny pads living together for our viewing pleasure float on-screen.  Clearly a member of the production crew remembered the concept of in medias res from his media course at UCD, as we join the Gonnorrheans while they get suited and booted for a night out at Ireland’s premier hotspot for research into the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, Tamango’s. Kelly (one of the dark-haired girls... and no, I can’t tell them apart) explains that her initial impression of David (described on the TV3 website as, and I paste directly, “the life and sole of the party".... clearly you didn’t get very far in that media course, did you) is that he was a D4 rugby meathead, but she was pleased to discover he wasn’t. The other Gonorrheans speculate as to whether or not Kelly will be able to restrain herself around David’s massive man muscles, or will she give in to the smell of raw testosterone and stale boxer shorts and cheat on her boyfriend?

Once they've finished setting up that storyline (hint: she totally will cheat) Nikita puts on a pair of knacker-tights while the rest of the shitheads gather around the cooker, seemingly amazed by the fact that you can put food into a large white appliance and then eat it.

Future murderer Cormac arrives with some “tunage”. “Shake your hips like a bag of chips” remarks Natalie (it’s pronounced Nah-ah-lee) in what is just the first of many, many asides from her in relation to the topic of food and the eating of food. Also, what the fuck does shake your hips like a bag of chips actually mean? It fails as a visual metaphor because quite simply, a human body in music-fuelled locomotion does not resemble a bag of chips as she suggests. And wouldn’t a bag that vibrates madly utterly fail as a viable means of containing the deliciousness of the chips? Is Natalie one of those people who thinks that rhyming something automatically makes it funny? Or is she some sort of subversive literary genius, lampooning the general public’s inability to appreciate any form of poetic expression that doesn’t involve a rhyming scheme? We’ll never know, because just as Natalie is about to share her thoughts on the future of prose in the era of the Kindle and e-publishing, Moves Like Jagger comes on and the arse-slapping begins. Prematurely balding Jay the stripper informs us that he has never stripped at Tamango’s. Is Jay an actual stripper in that people pay him to remove his clothes? Or is he a stripper in that he gets drunk, takes his clothes off and rages around the dancefloor hoping that his abs will distract from his thinning hairline? 

Oh sweet Jesus. Natalie and Nikita decide to bust some moves in the cage. “People were throwing money down our thongs!” Natalie beams as my eyeballs vomit blood. At this point I’d like to remind anyone reading this that in the first episode, Natalie informed us that she wants to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. I think I was on to something when I speculated that she’s some sort of subversive genius. This entire show is just one big exercise in ironic post-participation as far as she’s concerned. Natalie and Nikita declare the cage their new local, as we endure further footage of them gyrating about with flakes of disease falling out of their thongs.

Kelly informs us that the big drama is going to be the “love triangle” between Cormac, Phil and Nikita, because the producers told her to say that. Well, it’s really more of a love hexagon between Cormac, Phil, Nikita and their respective reflections. And when we say love we mean random-drunken-shifting. Like the kind that’s going on between Nikita and Phil on-screen. Cormac informs us that “I’m a red-blooded testosterone fuelled male. I saw red” before judging Phil to be “a fucking shit-stirrer. He stirs shit!” Cormac has a wide and varied vocabulary, and loves the Sunday Times crossword. I am greatly amused by the fact that Cormac the Beefmonkey blasts Phil as a shit-stirrer two minutes after David gleefully skipped over to him, malice in his eyes, and said “OH EM GEE, NIKITA IS SHIFTING PHIL!” and then showed him several photographs of the incident, some recorded footage, before telling him that Phil said his Ma had a cock. THE REAL SHIT STIRRER IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK, STEROIDMONKEY! “He’s Got To Accept The Consequences“ bellows Steroidmonkey, as he confirms that he could “mooch twenty birds” if he chose to do so. Um. Okay?

It’s the morning after the night before, and after disinfecting their genitals, the Tallafornians are off to Prematurely Balding Jay’s Mammy’s house for a fry-up. Natalie informs us that she’s mad for the sausage. I never would’ve guessed. The girls ask Mammy Jay how she feels about him being a stripper. Mammy Jay says she loves watching him bounce around on-stage with his meat and two-veg barely constrained by a tight sparkling red G-String as he rubs olive oil into his nipples. The meatheads are impressed that Jay gets on with his family, probably because the rest of them have all been disowned for being such massive fucking disgraces. 

And then they’re off to go abseiling and rock-climbing, except in the Health & Safety obsessed climate of modern Ireland, this involves putting each of them in a harness and watching as they clamber down a small boulder that’s about 10 feet high. It’s as riveting as it sounds.

The boys decide to have a quiet night in with the Wii while the girls head out to bond at “The Playhouse”. Nikita says she’s looking forward to getting to know the girls better as she feels like their mammy but hasn’t really bonded with them. So like a mammy with post-natal depression, then? The boys bellow testosterone-fuelled warcries at one another as they play about on the Wii.  That’s the Wii, the cute little white rectangle regularly advertised by the likes of Julie Walters and Carol Vorderman that’s the videogame equivalent of a nice cup of tea and a sit-down. Hardcore, boys.

Cormac isn’t joining in though. He actually has a job. He’s a taxi-driver, so he’s off to scour the roads of County Dublin for a victim to take his ‘roid rage out on.

Over to The Playhouse where the girls have decided to show what independent women they are by spending all night talking about the boys before going out to find some additional inebriated members of the fairer sex to sacrifice to the meatheads. Way to represent, gals. Fortunately, because you wouldn’t go near these three women with a remote-controlled barge pole from the safety of a sterile environment, the only people they find to bring home with them are Natalie’s cousin, Natalie's best mate and her other best mate WHO IS A GAY. Thanks for telling us, Natalie. We never would have guessed. 

The next excruciating ten minutes of this horrible show involve a horrendous gay playing up to every gay stereotype imaginable (No beers for queers? Check. Jokes about lube? Check. Jokes about hands where everyone can see them? Check.) getting completely bladdered and generally being a total mess. There are lots of mentions of Brian Dowling, because Brian Dowling is the only frame of reference the boys have for a gay man, and this gobshite is so taken by the idea that he’s going to be on television that he just completely plays up to the role of caustic, vulgar, mincing, predatory homosexual. In short: take the queen out back and shoot it before our peers decide to rescind the Civil Partnership Act based entirely on this creature’s behaviour. By the end of it all, the Tallafornians themselves actually seem like models of quiet decorum in comparison. 

Next week! The girls get vajazzled! I presume it’s a one hour special as a result. Also: I try to learn how to tell Nikita and Kelly apart.