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Friday, January 20, 2006
Kitchen: Kim, NewLisa and Christie are cleaning together, while Jill looks on from the computer desk. Kim is talking about how all she wants to do is play with Christina’s son, but she knows he needs to spend time with his mother. She throws something into the trashcan and leaves the room. A minute later Christie notices something burning and pulls an ashtray with lit embers out of the garbage. No one can believe that Kim threw lit cigarettes into the trash and Jill mockingly exclaims, “Now she’s trying to kill us!” In confessional, Christie says Jill and NewLisa seem annoyed, as if Kim often does things without thinking.
Lisa’s “Life” (i.e. cage): Lisa is crying to Rhonda that she doesn’t want to do this anymore. Rhonda tells her that the key to freedom is in the cell and she needs to find it if she wants to get out. The key is hidden and all along Lisa has been the one with the power to set herself free. In confessional, Rhonda says that Lisa has always had the choice whether or not to maintain a relationship with Mr. Internet, but that she is bothered by the fact that Lisa kept it hidden and lied to her about it. She wonders if Lisa truly wants to grow up and free herself. To Lisa she says, “I guess you’re not ready to get out!” because Lisa is making no attempts to look for the key. Lisa whines that she wants to be out of the cage, and begins lifting up pillows and looking underneath them. Rhonda shouts at her “FREEDOM IS IN THE CAGE!” and upbraids her for her half-hearted attempt to find the key. She says maybe Lisa isn’t ready to find freedom and that she might need to sit in the cage for awhile. Lisa begins to cry. Rhonda seems very irritated, telling her that she is working harder on this than Lisa is. In confessional, Lisa says she is creating her own pain and she can choose to leave at anytime. She notices a key hanging from a bush outside the cell and Rhonda asks her what it says. The tag attached reads “True Love.” Lisa grabs the key, which is a huge, old-fashioned gold key and obviously will not unlock the small padlock on the door to her cell. Rhonda says, “Do you want true love? Can true love live in a cage? No! That’s not the key, because this is YOUR cell!” Lisa cries and cries. Rhonda tells her that true love won’t save her and that she has to save herself. Shaking out a blanket, Lisa notices a packet fall to the floor. Inside is a key with a tag that says “Freedom” (I totally thought she was going to have to smash the computer to find it). As Lisa opens the padlock, Rhonda asks her if she’s ready. She comes out of the cell and sobs that she doesn’t want to be in jail, she wants freedom. She wails that she could have had it at anytime and Rhonda affirms that. In confessional, Lisa says that this is the most horrible epiphany yet, but also freeing because now she sees that she is causing her own pain and she knows how to stop. Rhonda asks her what she needs to practice and she says, “Making different choices.” Rhonda notes that she has a date with Chris that night and wonders if he is a choice of freedom or jail. Lisa says he is nice to her and he is a choice of freedom. Rhonda tells her that it’s up to her to decide whether or not she wants to go out with him. Lisa looks at the cage and sniffles, “I don’t want to settle for so little.” Rhonda tells her she does that because she thinks she is so little and once she starts making different choices, she won’t feel that way anymore. In confessional, Lisa says that she’s angry with herself for acting desperate and chasing Internet Man. She realizes that Rhonda cares about her more than she cares about herself and she wonders how long she’ll have to suffer before she faces it, but she still doesn’t want to. Rhonda takes her back into the house.
Living Room: Jill is watching Christina’s son Jackson while Iyanla and Christina talk with Christina’s mom, Deborah. Jackson is really cute. In the study (I think), Iyanla faces Christina and her mother, who are sitting together on the sofa. She tells them that in order for Christina to stand tall in who she is now and demonstrate her commitment to her new choices, she has to tell her mom who and what she was in the past. Christina turns to her mother and says, “I was dishonest, a manipulator, a liar, a cheater, a stripper, and an escort.” Deborah nods but doesn’t say anything. Christina says she never told her mother the truth about being an escort. She tearfully explains that she did what she thought she had to do to survive in Vegas and she didn’t feel like she could go home. Iyanla jumps in and says, “That was a big thing for her, Mom, that Daddy didn’t come to save her.” Christina said that her dad called her a slut and it hurt because it was true. Deborah acknowledges that Christina’s father hasn’t been there for her. In confessional, Christina says that her dad has not been receptive to her. She knows when she gets home she has to have this conversation all over again with him, and it will be twice as scary as it was with her mother. Christina tells her mom she felt like an outcast. Deborah says she never should have felt that way and that she is proud of her because she is a survivor. Christina says, “I don’t want to survive, I want to live,” but Iyanla tells her to listen to her mother. Crying a little, Deborah talks about how frightened she used to feel for her daughter, thinking about how dangerous her life in Las Vegas probably was, and how badly she wanted her to come home. Then she says she will always be proud of her because she survived and she kept Jackson healthy and safe, even if it wasn’t achieved in the way she would have wished. She tells Christina that she’s proud of her and that she doesn’t have to feel ashamed of her past, she should just leave it behind her.
Patio: Christie and Dr. Stan are meeting for the first time to discuss what Christie hopes to accomplish in the SOH. They sit outside and Dr. Stan asks her why she’s there. Christie says she is learning to love herself and tells him that she had gastric bypass. He asks if she was heavy as a teen and she says that she has been dieting since she was 8 years old. He asks if she ever liked the way she looked before surgery and she says no. He wants to know if she had issues with body image and boys and she says she thinks she was always self-conscious. After she lost all that weight she felt great at first, but she agrees with Dr. Stan that she is still a fat person on the inside, trapped in a thin body. Dr. Stan inquires about what, if any, plastic surgery she had after she lost weight. Christie explains that when they did the bypass, they also gave her a tummy tuck and she was so thrilled with the results that she wanted a complete overhaul. After the euphoria of losing weight wore off, she began to feel depressed again so she decided to have surgery on her arms. She talks about what went wrong and Dr. Stan asks if it was upsetting to her. Christie admits that she used to lay awake at night, panicking and unable to breathe, wondering why it happened to her. She thinks that if she doesn’t find a way to deal with her feelings, she’s going to lose it all.
Study: Iyanla instructs Christina’s mom to tell Christina what she needs from her. Deborah asks her to come home, to take her place in “their world” (i.e. outside of the sex industry), and to be Jackson’s mom again so that she can go back to being Grandmom. Christina tells her that she doesn’t want her mother to feel afraid of her past or distrust Christina’s decisions because of errors she’s made before. She wants to change things in her life and she doesn’t want her mom to doubt her ability to handle her new choices. Deborah asks, “Which are …?” and Christina says, “Like moving,” and then scrunches her face up and cringes while Iyanla laughs. Deborah asks where and Christina admits she wants to move out to L.A. Deborah asks if she’s going to take Jackson and Christina says yes and then laughingly says she’ll take the whole family. Deborah is keeping it together, but she’s clearly devastated by the idea of her grandson moving across the country. Iyanla asks her if she has concerns about Christina moving, and she says she’s fine with it as long as Jackson is OK. Christina tells her if he was OK in Vegas, he’ll be OK anywhere. Iyanla tells Deborah that her little girl has grown up and that she is grateful that she came to the SOH when she did. She says one day Deborah will be shocked by where her daughter was at 18 and that Christina has skills that women twice her age don’t have, but she still has to deal with Dad. Deborah says, “He’s a hard nut to crack.” In confessional, Christina says she’s so happy she has full disclosure with her mom but she is frustrated with her father. She realizes she has to obey his decision and accommodate him, and she’ll give full disclosure over email if that’s how he wants it. All 3 of them close the conversation with a hug.
Patio: Dr. Stan asks Christie what would have happened if she hadn’t come to the SOH. She says she would have continued to self-medicate with food, alcohol, and possibly drugs. She’s tried for so long to heal herself but she doesn’t know what to do and she’s scared and afraid to fail. Dr. Stan informs her that at SOH, they encourage failure on the way to success. He tells her he looks forward to working with her and she thanks him.
Bathroom: Lisa is primping for her date. In confessional, she says she can see herself being friends with Chris for a long time. She doesn’t know about marriage and babies, but she knows she can count on his friendship.
Patio, nighttime: Jill and NewLisa are talking about Lisa. NewLisa says, “If Lisa leaves the house the way she is right now …” and Jill finishes the sentence by saying she’ll be in the bathroom with a bottle of pills and they’ll all be on the phone doing an intervention. Jill declares that men enjoy a chase and a challenge, and Lisa is like a puppy sitting at the door, waiting to be let in. NewLisa wholeheartedly agrees. Jill thinks that if Lisa doesn’t deal with it at SOH, she’ll never deal with it at all. In confessional, she says that Lisa’s had a really traumatic day and she came out of the cage all ready to give up Mr. Internet, but Jill is suspicious. She bets she will spend her whole date talking about the Internet Man.
Hallway: Deborah is playing with Jackson and chasing him around the house while he giggles like crazy. In confessional, she says she doesn’t think Christina appreciates how much she bonded with Jackson, who feels like her own child now, and how heart-breaking it will be for her if he is taken away. More baby-chasing. Very cute. Poor Deborah, that kind of sucks for her.
Patio, nighttime: Now Jill and NewLisa are talking about Kim. NewLisa says that Kim is harping on the fact that she hasn’t connected with Jill and she brings it up a lot. She says she told her to let it go because Kim already told Jill how she feels, so whatever reason Jill has or situation she’s in that is keeping them from connecting, Kim shouldn’t worry about it. Jill says she’s not going to take it, and she feels like Kim is coming at her from the surface rather than a real place, so she’d rather not talk to her. In confessional, NewLisa says Kim is getting on people’s nerves because she’s a control freak, and that’s something that is hard for her to work with.
Living Room: Christina and Deborah are sitting on the couch playing with Jackson. In confessional, Christina says it’s refreshing to have been honest with her mom and she feels like Deborah is open to trusting her decisions. Chris, Lisa’s date, knocks on the door and Christina and Jackson let him in. She introduces herself and her son, who is playing with one of her paintings. Chris asks if it is Jackson’s artwork (HA! Roops!) and Christina says it’s hers. Chris recovers nicely by saying they should have a show-and-tell, as he brought his own work to show Lisa. He holds up a big portfolio. Lisa greets him and is excited to see his paintings. In confessional she explains that Chris was commissioned to paint pieces for a book of poetry. He asks her if she’s hungry and she admits that she just ate some brownies that Kim made and offers him some. They go outside to look at her jail cell. As she describes the cell and its significance, he sympathizes that she’s had an emotional day. She agrees, and tells him that she had to choose whether or not to see him that night and that she decided to go out with him because she doesn’t want to be stuck in the past. Then she says she doesn’t want to talk about the cage anymore, and that they should go have fun and talk about her day later. He agrees and then looks back at the cell and says it’s “an adventure and a half.” Chris really seems to be taking this exercise in stride. I think I’d feel kind of freaked out if on the second date, I discovered my intended had spent the day in a cage in the backyard.
Bedroom: Kim and Christie are discussing Kim’s relationships in the house. Kim says everyone feels with their heads, not their hearts. She has horrible childhood memories of terror that no child deserves to experience, and consequently she numbed up a long time ago. She describes feeling like she would pull out of her body and watch the terrible things that happened to her as if she were a fly on the wall and that’s all she knew. Then she says she was the only one who didn’t cry when she told her story to the group and that she never cries. She knows it’s a defense mechanism. Christie asks if she can offer feedback. She has noticed that Kim will make a statement about how she feels but then immediately retract it, like, “I think we should do x – but not if anyone doesn’t want to!” Kim says that’s because of weird stuff that’s going on with one person, but Christie says she should just own it. In confessional, Kim says that she doesn’t know what she is doing wrong because no one will tell her and now she feels like Christie is just another person coming at her. She wants to tell her that she (Christie) doesn’t understand the situation and Kim doesn’t even want to waste her breath explaining it because she hopes it will be resolved soon, but the advice is not making her feel better. Kim tells Christie she doesn’t want to get her wrapped up in her sh** because it’s hers and she’s marinating. Christie tells her she knows and that she doesn’t have to explain everything all the time. She should just say what’s on her mind and leave it at that. Kim says if she’s explaining too much for her, she didn’t mean it to come across that way but that’s just how it is. She sits back on the bed, clearly annoyed. Christie says, “No, I don’t want you to get defensive because I want to have an open line of communication with you.” In confessional, Christie says that she’s struggling with Kim and she’s not the only one. She feels that Kim does a lot of talking but little receiving and she’s not open to feedback.
Car: Lisa and Chris are out on their date. She tells him that her day was about how she’s stuck in her past and how past experiences have been running her life without her even being aware of it. At first she says she doesn’t want to get into it, but then she changes her mind because Chris is going out with her and she thinks he needs to know. She reveals to him that she was sexually abused as a child and that that experience has interfered with her ability to have a functional relationship. Her idea of sexuality is tainted because her first encounters were abusive. She says she knows it’s not really second date material, but he makes her feel really safe so she just put it out there. Chris reminds her that when she asked him out he said he was coming as a friend.
Study: Rhonda is meeting with Christie to go over her steps. In confessional, Rhonda says that Christie must become confident and comfortable in her own body before she can learn to love herself. Rhonda asks Christie if she thinks the average woman looks like her. Christie says that intellectually, she knows she is probably average. She is 5’5” and 150 or so pounds. Rhonda tells her that the average American woman is 5’4”, 163 lbs and a size 14. Christie is surprised and then says, “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Rhonda laughs and says, “Exactly!” and tells her they will work on that together. She pulls down the chart of steps and asks her what she thinks she needs to work on to reach her goal. Christie says, “Accept myself … be realistic … not be so hard on myself.” Rhonda wonders if she needs to look at the past and Christie reluctantly agrees. Rhonda comments on her lack of enthusiasm and Christie says it’s just difficult to go there because she doesn’t know where to start. Rhonda suggests the following steps: 1. Look beyond weight, 2. Discover family legacy, 3. Destroy negative belief systems (Rhonda says she likes the word “destroy”), and 4. Build new body image. Christie says she’s excited and scared and she knows it will be a challenge, but she’s going to give it her all because she has nothing to lose. Rhonda asks her if she has any questions and she says she thinks she’s OK for now. Rhonda tells her to enjoy that feeling because it probably won’t last. Christie thanks her and they hug.
Living Room: Christina, Deborah and Jackson are coloring together. In confessional, Christina says she’s so grateful for her relationship with her son and in the past she has taken it for granted. She feels joy in being able to share in his innocence. Jackson wants to draw trucks.
Phone room: Jill is on the phone with Jessica, telling her about Christie. She says she’s 30 and has a compelling, juicy story. Jess asks how it is not to have TJ in the house and Jill says that that morning, she was waiting to hear the BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! of TJ’s footsteps coming down the stairs and it was weird not to hear them. She says dryly, “And then they brought Kim into the house.” Jess laughs and says Kim sounds like a struggle. Jill says, “Oh, girl!” She can hang out and talk with Christie and NewLisa just fine but not Kim. In confessional, she says she is avoiding Kim as much as she can because at this point her voice is like nails on a chalkboard and it’s not good. Jill tells Jessica the story of Kim’s “the new girls are taking over” comment. Jess says, “Oh, God!” Jill says she just has to keep her distance right now and Jessica replies in a sing-song voice, “Things are changing in the Starting Over House!” Jill agrees that they definitely are.
Lisa’s Date: Chris leads Lisa into a “café piano bar” and pulls out her chair for her. He asks her why she wanted to have dinner with him again. Lisa seems surprised by the question. Chris hesitantly explains that since he moved from another country and is still in transition and trying to find his place, he didn’t think he was the kind of guy she would go for. Lisa says she’s interested in making friends and forming connections with people who reflect her values, rather than people she wants something from, because in the past she only sought people out for what they could give her. Since she was afraid of getting older and being alone, she looked to men for security. She makes a funny “yeah, I know” face and then reiterates that now she wants to meet people who reflect her values, people she can respect, and she wonders if that makes sense to him. It does. She then asks him what he’s looking for in a mate. He says that there is something about what she is doing for herself and how honest she is about it that indicates to him a true, valuable friendship. In confessional, Lisa says she is glad she chose freedom and chose Chris, because she’s talking to him in a way that she has never spoken to a man before in her life. They smile across the table at each other.
Living Room: Christina, Deborah and Jackson are cuddling on the couch. In confessional, Deborah says that she wants Christina to start her life over in North Carolina where she has a family support system. She tearfully reflects that it would be like losing two children, to have Christina and Jackson move away. Gah. Christina’s mom is killing me.
Lisa’s Date: Lisa tells Chris she never spoke to a man before the way she is speaking to him. Chris takes that in and then says he feels privileged. Lisa laughs and says, “Maybe it was just the men I was picking, I’m not sure.” Chris laughs, too, and tells her she has to explain that one. Lisa grimaces and begins a “short version” of the Mr. Internet story. She tells him that after Mr. Internet moved to Europe, she emailed him everyday for 9 months without any response, because she couldn’t take no for an answer. Eventually, Mr. Internet contacted her and told her he couldn’t make her happy and she needed to move on, but Lisa wouldn’t give up. Then, right before she moved to SOH, he invited her to Monte Carlo. Chris makes an “oh, great” face and asks how recent all of this is. Lisa says it’s recent, but it’s been going on for a year and she hasn’t seen him since last Christmas. She says, “So…?” with a questioning expression and Chris looks pretty stunned. He asks if the emails are over now and she says, “Oh yeah,” but admits that they stopped only very recently. She can’t believe she told him all of that because she really didn’t want to. Chris smiles and says, “Well, you did, and it’s OK.” Chris kind of rules, to the point where I almost can’t believe he’s not an actor. That would be so mean. In confessional, he says he can tell Lisa is feeling safe with him, because she’s really opened up her heart to him as part of her journey (“heart” and “part” sound precious in his Aussie accent). They get the bill and he asks Lisa would she like to have a brownie, if there are any left? She teasingly asks him if he’s inviting himself over to her own house to hang out with her. He reminds her his artwork is still there and she says, “Oh so that was just a prop so you could come back inside.” He says, “Well, you know, I don’t have to … you could slide it under the door.” Lisa cracks up and says, “Let’s go.”
Dining Room: Jill and Christie are sitting at the table, talking. Jill tells Christie that all of her friends warned her about letting her mom move in. She was so frustrated because her mother had no intention of moving out that she couldn’t concentrate on anything else and her life fell apart, to the point where she applied for welfare. In confessional, Christie says she’s bonding with Jill the most because she’s funny, she’s easy to talk to, they both have food issues, and they get each other. Christie tells Jill that by herself, she might have a glass or two of wine, but if she were hanging out and drinking with Jill, she could go through a couple of bottles. She realized she needed to check herself because she was using alcohol to numb her problems instead of finding more constructive ways to relax. She stopped drinking because she wants to feel. Jill nods in sympathy.
Bedroom: Kim is telling NewLisa about how TJ got pissed at Jill over the groceries. She says it was because TJ was like her, and wanted everyone’s voices heard. NewLisa suggests that instead of approaching Jill like “I don’t know what I’ve done to you,” Kim should just tell Jill she’s pissing her off and they need to talk about it. Kim says she tried, and that she told Jill that the laughing thing was like gossip and she didn’t think it was nice. Then she says, “I am so compassionate, like, in other words, towards my father – I still talk to him. He’s a complete – he messed me up in so many ways.” NewLisa says she knows he did. Kim says “But I know every person is imperfect so who am I to judge them and condemn them for who they are?” In confessional, she says the wall is still up with Jill and she just doesn’t think she’s a very compassionate person.
Front Door: Lisa asks Chris if he’d like to come in for a brownie and he says he’d love a brownie and he heard mention of some milk as well. In confessional, Lisa says she’s concentrating on viewing Chris as a person and keeping the seductive element out of it, but she does really enjoy him and feels a connection. In the kitchen, she tells him there are 3 original HG left and that she thinks she’ll be the last to leave. He asks her if each thing is a step further and she says that the deeper she digs, the more she discovers about herself, even things she didn’t know were there. She explains she didn’t realize how deeply she was lying to herself – she thought she could come to SOH, get a lot of good out of it, and then take it and go tell Mr. Internet what she really thought of him. Then she says, “But that’s not really getting it,” and asks Chris if he knows what she means. He says he does, because he thinks the point is not to go to war, and Lisa says it’s to heal, and she was defeating her own purpose. She couldn’t change because she couldn’t feel and she admits she sought painful experiences with men because to her, that was feeling. Nice was boring and she needed to suffer to make it real. Chris appears to be thinking “oh, sh**!”
Guest room: In confessional, Christina says that her mom is concerned that if she moves to L.A. she’ll repeat the same mistakes she made before, and to see her get upset and cry really hurts (clearly Christina has no idea what her mom is really upset about, but that may be because her mother won’t come out and tell her). Christina and Deborah lay in bed with Jackson between them. Jackson stares intently at the camera. Man, he is cute.
Living Room: Chris asks Lisa to tell him which of his paintings is her favorite. Lisa says she liked a couple of them – a pink one because pink is her color and a blue one that for some reason she really liked a lot. Chris tells her it’s like a Rorschach test as she sits down to flip through his portfolio. She picks “Introspection” as her favorite, which is light blue with a feathery pattern radiating from the center. Chris asks her if she has room on her wall as he takes it out of the portfolio. Lisa delightedly asks him if he’s serious and squeals. As he gives her the painting, some slow, romantic music kicks in and she quietly says that she just loves it. In confessional, Lisa says she is really touched by the gift, that it’s from the heart, and that she cherishes it. It's clear that she is genuinely moved. She walks Chris to the door and lets him out. He gives her a quick kiss goodnight and tells her to enjoy her “Introspection.” She laughs and says she’ll see him.
Bedroom: Christie is getting ready for bed. In confessional, she says that her first day at SOH (seriously? It’s still her first day?) has been filled with many different emotions and feelings. In her heart she’s scared and untrusting of the process, but she still vows to give it everything she has. Kim comes in the room after she is in bed and it appears as though they don’t speak, though Christie is still awake.
Bedroom: Jill says to Lisa, “It’s like, Kim, you’re making us all very uncomfortable.” She feels like Kim is just on vacation. Lisa agrees and says that Kim is like a combination of TJ and herself, without the character. Jill says, “a boring TJ, imagine that.” She says the difference between Kim and TJ is that TJ was only protecting herself, and that’s all she knew, while Kim is manipulative. Jill feels that TJ never tried to manipulate her for control or for … something. Lisa agrees. Jill concludes that they all need to have a conversation with Kim because she’s making everyone uncomfortable. Jill is making me uncomfortable, what with the conveniently forgetting how controlling TJ could be and with all the not giving the new girl much of a chance, although I admit, she does seem pretty annoying. Can we get a house report card please?
Outside, nighttime: The camera begins to pull out like it’s time for commercial, but then we see a light click on in a window. Lisa is at the computer. In confessional, she says that she knows Mr. Internet is the wrong guy for her and that he can’t give her what she wants, but part of her can’t let go of what “could be.” Oh, heavens. She giggles and types, types, types away.
Next week: Kim has more conflict with the house as she says she’s feeling attacked in group. Jill confessionalizes that she’d rather stick toothpicks in her eyes than deal with her right now (HA! OK, that’s funny). NewLisa reveals a stunning secret to Iyanla, one that she says will be hard for her to tell. Out with the housemates, the stress gets to her as she lashes out at Jill and confessionalizes that she’s considering saying, “Go to hell, I’m not doing this.” Kim struggles to keep up her tough façade as she lies on the floor and cries like a baby, clearly struggling real hard there. Finally, Lisa may not have been able to keep her promise as she says she’s frustrated that she’s not getting it and Jill confessionalizes that her behavior might be enough to get her kicked out. Oh boy.
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