Viva Hollywood: Me thinks the lady doth protest too much

Last night I caught the second episode of "the greatest show in the history of reality television," VH1's Viva Hollywood. It had more of what made me love the premiere so much: copious amounts of eye candy, bad acting, and brilliant cheese. This week's Deadly Sin was "Lust," so first off the contestants were ambushed by a yoga lesson that they were encouraged to do... in the nude. First the male instructor stripped down, his naughty bits covered up by a giant cartoon sombrero. Then a few of the guys followed suit, and while we couldn't see any of their naughty bits, either (more sombreros), it was still kind of hot to watch. To quote Vinci (above), I almost wished I were "watching TV, you know... by myself." The only girl to bare all was Jenn, and the poor thing endured no small amount of taunting from the other women. Gisel, that bitch, took the opportunity to hurl insults at her along with all the others; no one seemed to acknowledge the fact that they had all been told to do this, yet were all too chicken to do so. Next up, two telenovela stars came on to coach the contestants on their love scene challenge. Last week's winner, Roseny (the one who insulted the famous star she won dinner with) got to pair up the others, and she threw in some nice wrenches: Gisel was matched up with Janet for a lesbian scene, while macho guys Berto and Vinci were paired for a gay one. While Gisel was stymied, her reaction was nothing compared to Vinci's: he promptly threw a fit, started crying, and stalked off to his room to start packing. While the others trained for their scenes, Berto was stuck trying to coax Vinci out of his room. "Come out!" he cried, which made me happy to no end. The guest trainers attempted to reason with him as well. While Berto was willing to do the scene, since it's an acting challenge, Vinci was throwing a baby-ish fit. All of it seemed to indicate someone who's not at all secure in his sexuality. (Earlier Vinci had also noted his discomfort with doing yoga so close to the naked Enrique, who seems to be gay himself.) While Vinci did agree to do the scene, he insisted on changing the script, ostensibly to "show his acting skills" but in truth to remove any kissing or excessive touching. Ultimately, the "love scene" basically amounted to Berto's character coming on to his friend and being gently rebuffed; at the end, they hugged and Vinci gave him a superficial pat on the back. It's too bad, cause both guys have great bodies and played the scene in shorts and towels, all sweaty-- so if they made out it might have been fun to watch... you know... by myself. Meanwhile, prudish Gisel suggested she and Janet get liquored up to practice their love scene; Kalain continued to demonstrate his lack of any acting talent whatsoever as he mumbled, "Your husband will be home any minute"; and Roseny regretted choosing Geovannie as her scene partner, since he became extremely hands-y during rehearsals and filming. I was irritated by this last bit myself, since a few of my girlfriends have suffered similarly unpleasant situations. In the end, Berto won the challenge, which made me happy; he turned in a great performance as the gay friend, and he'd also had to put up with more crap than any of the others. Still, when he won a $10,000 shopping spree and was given the option to share it with someone, he picked Vinci. I would have smacked the goon for what he put me through, but it does seem to have been a calculated move on Berto's part, since he was heard commenting that "I know this will make me look good." I think I may have found someone to root for. Meanwhile, Alexcy was chosen as the loser, and while he wasn't stellar, I would have picked the emotionless Janet, who was actually praised for her wooden performance. (Maybe because it was somehow an improvement over her losing one last week?) The housemates deliberated and went to the chapel to pick Alexcy's duel mate (where many of them had decided to vote for Geovannie in some sort of strategery). Vinci got his share of votes, too; if you ask me, he should have been the landslide "winner." In any case, Alexcy and Geovannie's face-off was not nearly as dramatic as the sob fest between Jaimny and Janet the previous week. Alexcy acted all cocky and went on about his star quality, while Geovannie resorted to lots of big hand gestures. In the end, the hosts decided to give Alexcy the ax, or the bullet in this case. He and Geovannie's death scene ended with Alexcy's character lying on a bed, apparently shot to death with no wound of any kind. (I was amused by the scene's start: Geovannie walks in to find the other man lying in a robe, taunting him with the line "If you come close, you can probably still smell her perfume on me." Mmm... hot.) Next week looks like more of Vinci being a primadonna (how butch) and, hopefully, loads more shirtlessness from all the guys. I can hardly wait.