So happy togetherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Or not.
9:59: As I begin to prepare for my second annual minute-by-minute recap of the season debut of “The Game,” it’s probably not a good sign that it took me three minutes to find BET on my cable box. I feel extremely white right now. (And by “white” I mean “grown”)
Anyway, as “Lost In The World” — the Kanye song I listen to whenever I want to think about my dead goldfish — is playing in the background, they’re in the middle of an montage of things that made me wish I’d actually watched more than one episode of “The Game” last year so I can know what the hell is going on.
Confession time: You know how you’ll be watching some trailer for some sh*tty movie, and you’ll see a “much too established to be in this sh*tty movie” actor in it, clearly just there to collect a paycheck and go home?
Well, that’s how I feel about writing this summary. I have absolutely no interest in this show, but I’m only writing about it because I know people are going to want to read about and discuss it tonight and tomorrow. I’m officially a sell-out.
10:00: Another confession: I was kind of stressed about doing this. Live blogs, while fun, are pretty difficult to navigate because you’re watching, thinking of clever/relevent sh*t to write, and writing simultaneously.
But, since BET has five minutes of commercials for every three minutes of air time, I’m surprisingly good. Thanks Debra Lee!
10:01: I’ve never not been entertained by an Underworld movie. Just wanted to put that out there.
10:02: The show begins with Twin Mowry and Derwin Davis in a hospital. I really have no idea what the f*ck is going on right now. This — me not knowing what the hell is going on — will be a recurring theme with this summary.
10:04: Do laugh tracks make anything better? Seriously. Have you ever seen something funny happen in real life (i.e: a fat man in a little coat slipping on a patch of ice) and thought to yourself “Damn. This is funny as hell. You know what would make it even funnier? A gotdamn laugh track.”
(Ok, I actually have thought that before, but I think you get my point. Laugh tracks suck.)
10:05: As Derwin and the good Doctor McWhateverTheHellHisNameIs have a pissing contest, I’m reminded of something a few of my soon to be PhDed friends joke about all the time.
According to them, doctors (surgeons especially) usually are a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket, and aren’t exactly the smartest people on Earth either. They’re known as the dummies in the advanced degree world. I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. Perhaps I think you’d find the years long MD vs PhD feud to be more entertaining than my summary of this scene.
10:07: We see Jason Pitts for the first time, as he’s completing a mid-day booty call with some onesie-clad chick named Gloria. Don’t bother asking me why someone would have sex, put a onesie on, and get back in bed, because I have no answers for you.
She chides him about his pattern of not dating black women (I smell a recurring theme!!!) before inviting him to a wedding. Hmm. Shouldn’t booty calls make baby steps when they’re trying to score some “lets do something in public now” time? I mean, a wedding? It usually takes at least 20 sessions to even make it to a Wendy’s drive-thru.
10:09: Seeing Rick Ross on screen reminds me that his “Rich Forever” mixtape may be the best mixtape I’ve ever downloaded. (And yes. You just read a hip-hop purist put “Rick Ross” and “best ever” in the same sentence. If you have a problem with that, I’ll levitate on all you p*ssy n*ggas)
10:10: Pooch Hall Malik walks in while carrying a drunk hoochie, and the drunk hoochie is carrying 15 pounds of ass and 115 ounces of weave. This probably won’t end well.
10:11: Sign #3453 that I’m getting old: I remember when Anne Marie Johnson — the mom in the Kevin Hart Ford Explorer commericals — played the token hot chick in all of Robert Townsend’s movies, and the plastic woman in “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.” I wanted to sleep with her before I even know what “I want to sleep with her” meant.
10:13: Derwin Davis is having his Emmy moment as he speaks to Twin Mowry. Nostrils are flaring. Cheeks are flushed. Voices are cracking. This is some high-level, Inside The Actor’s Studio-type sh*t right now.
10:14: Checking to see if they were joking about the show being an hour long.
10:14: Finding out that it is actually an hour long, and that I’ve already committed to writing this entire f*cking recap
10:14: Contemplating suicide.
10:15: The producers of “The Game” must have ESP, because as soon as I was thinking about giving the peace sign to life, they threw on some Kanye to snap me back to reality.
10:18: Brandy the bartender tries not to peek at her cue cards while exchanging barbs with Jason. Honestly, is there a 30-something celebrity with a weirder and more random resume than Brandy? She was a legitimate pop star, Kobe Bryant’s prom date, actually killed someone in a car accident, has been surpassed in pop culture relevancy by her much less talented and likable younger brother. It’s like her Wiki page was written by a dyslexic.
10:19: I have to say, Jason is easily my favorite character on the show, and since they give him all the best lines, he must be the writers’ favorite character as well.
10:22: Wendy Raquel Robinson (“Racks on Racks” for short) is in great shape, but I think she may have gotten to that strange point some women get to when they work out so much that they’re in danger of going from “she looks good” to “find the nearest methadone clinic”
10:27: Literally nothing important happens in the five minute span from 10:22 to 10:27.
10:27: I misspoke. Something important did happen. My feelings about the laugh track have gone from “very annoyed” to “I wish a plague on the family of whoever thought this was a good idea”
10:28: I’m going to put my serious hat on for a second and say that the relationship between Racks on Racks and Pooch Hall Malik is what happens when moms fall in love with their sons. Please, single mothers out there, if you ever find yourself falling in love with your son, suckerpunch him in the eye. Trust men, in 20 years, you’ll be a better woman and he’ll be a better man for it.
10:28: Since when does “naked chick found dead from an overdose” = “cue laugh track?” Am I missing something here?
10:32: As I’m beginning to get progressively more bored with the show, my mind begins to drift to more important things, most notably have Twin Mowry and Derwin Davis ever slept together in real life.
(I don’t think so. In fact, I hate when people say things like that. (pot meet kettle) But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.)
10:33: Abortion Bombshell!!!!!!
10:35: Gotdamn. These two really go for the jugular when they argue with each other. Am I just naive? Do people actually argue like this in real life? Seriously, they say things to each other where the only rational response would be murder.
10:35: Cue Kanye again as Twin Mowry gets her own Emmy moment. I kind of like her’s better.
10:36: Really? You’re going to stop in the middle of giving the OD-ed weave monster mouth to mouth and argue? Really, “The Game” writers, you thought this would be a perfect time to add some levity?
10:38: Even Dead Ray Charles can see that Jason and Brandy are going to start dating. Perhaps he’ll even hit it tonight.
10:39: Or get married
10:41: I feel like I should be mad about this, but this KFC “wingman” commercial may actually be the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen. My favorite part is the slow motion face shimmy while one of the women is eating a wing.
10:42: Two things this Mexican honeymoon scene makes me think about:
1. How much money did they have to pay “The Hangover” people to borrow their phone camera montage trick?
2. Why does Brandy look like she’s wearing a sock in her panties? Seriously, forget about camel toe, it looked like she was hiding the camel’s entire f*cking face in her draws.
10:45: Who’s going to cry for the poor little yellow kid who couldn’t get rhythm from a sister? Who’s going shed a tear? Are you going to cry for him? You?
10:48: This new movie “The Vow” was great the first time I saw it, when it was called “50 First Dates.”
10:51: Brandy. Race. Jason. Brandy. Race. Big Booty Keisha Jackson. Race. White women. Race. Black Women. Taye Diggs.
10:55: Awww. Derwin and Twin finally made up. BTW, is it just me, or does seem like Twin Mowry always dresses like she’s from the future?
10:56: You know, I’ve been thinking if this — my girl telling me she got an abortion a decade ago and the baby actually wasn’t mine — would piss me off. Honestly, it would. Don’t know why.
10:58: The chick from everyone’s favorite Progressive State Farm commerical makes her annual appearance as Derwin’s baby-momma, which reminds me of problem my dad has with “black” commercials.
He thinks that white casting agents don’t know how to cast black couples in commercials because the women are always much too good-looking for the men they’re with for it to be believable. When I told him once that it was actually realistic because this — getting with women who rate much, much, much higher on the “looks scale” than I do — was the story of my life, he said “You played basketball, though, so you don’t count.”
10:59: Seriously, who ever is the lacefront technician or weave grip on this show must make like $200 an hour.
11:00: As Derwin ends the show by killing a guy in his driveway and running his bag of presents (That was actually some gangsta-ass sh*t), I’m left to wonder how much longer “The Game” will stay on the air. I don’t actually want it to be canceled again. Many people I know seem to like it, and even though I’m still kind of salty that their write-up on the Ebony Power 100 was like 1000 times longer than ours, the husband/wife team of Salim Akil and Mara Brock Akil seem like good people
But, snark aside, it feels like the show is on auto-pilot right now, and I’m not sure if it can be fixed or if they even want to fix it. Perhaps “The Game” is the game they’re running on black America because they know we don’t have sh*t else to watch.
 —Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)