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“Work Out” Recaps: Episode 201

Last summer, Bravo gave us a reality series called Work Out, which starred professional trainer, upscale gym owner and out lesbian Jackie Warner. The show also featured her occasionally faithful legion of personal trainers and her girlfriend, Mimi, who, by the time the season ended, had become infamous for her temper, her tantrums and, of course, her biting.

If you were expecting weight-loss tips and sweating, grunting and contorted faces, watch The Biggest Loser. Jackie’s Beverly Hills gym, Sky Sport and Spa, is an homage to aesthetic beauty, with its glass-enclosed training area, hardwood floors, telegenic trainers and row after row of gleaming torture fitness machines. Work Out is about already-perfect guns, imperfect egos and personal drama.

Welcome to Season 2.

The Cast – They’re all back from last season (plus one newbie).

Jackie: Equal parts fitness professional and entrepreneur, the self-described “small-town girl from mid-America” dreams big, lives large and has everything under control – except her personal life.

Erika: Even though she looks more than a little like Angelina Jolie, Erika was single last season. Whether she dates anyone this season remains to be seen, because Erika is about as fun-loving and playful as a DMV clerk.

Doug: Older and wiser than the other trainers, Doug has that all-American look – if all Americans are gay, tan, ripped and have 18-inch biceps.

Rebecca: Rebecca is disciplined about fitness and little else, especially when it comes to sex. What some might call affectionate, others refer to as sexual harassment. That said, her appreciation of the human body is happily gender-blind.

Zen: Zen is the cute, perky one. Always quick with a smile and chirpy words of encouragement, she’s like a cheerleader who can bench-press the water boy.

Andre: The trainer with a military background, Andre likes to say he “expects 110 percent.” Last season, he also said he prefers smart women. I wonder if he ever did find one to explain how percentages work.

Brian: The kind of guy who likes to go by his last name: Peeler. The kind of guy who gives himself a nickname by putting the word “the” in front of his last name: The Peeler. You know the type.

Jesse: Last year’s new guy, Jesse quickly ingratiated himself to Jackie, and now he’s her favorite. Maybe they bonded because they’re both gay. Maybe he makes her laugh. Maybe he’s just the best-looking suck-up since the Dyson.

Gregg: This year’s new guy. Early reports say he used to date Zen. Gregg looks like Tracy Chapman’s brother. It could just be the hair.

Mimi: She’s baaack – the cute Brazilian girlfriend with many silly hats and one serious penchant for biting. She’s says it’s cultural. Uh, OK.

Wake-up call – It’s another beautiful morning in Los Angeles. Jackie rolls her 3-percent body fat body out of bed. She’s wearing baby-blue flannel pajama bottoms. I don’t know why I find this funny. She feeds the two gerbils she calls her dogs and wanders into the kitchen. It takes me a minute to realize Jackie’s having her morning coffee alone.

Jackie: [voice-over] My morning routine is the same, but almost everything else in my life has changed. I’ve got a new house in the Hollywood Hills that I’m renovating. And Mimi, who I spent the last five years with, is still in my life, but just not so much.

What? And they seemed so good together.

Jackie explains that the good news is she’s “staying focused on what’s most important … and that’s changing people’s lives.” Somehow, I don’t think that involves adopting babies from Third World countries. No, it involves a new venture called SkyLab. Not like the 1970s space station, but a fitness boot camp for the horizontally challenged. If Jackie’s SkyLab can offer the same weightlessness of NASA’s Skylab, then she’s onto something.

Jackie’s Posse — Later that morning at Sky Sport, the trainers are working out, and Jackie’s in her office. She watches her staff from her window.

Jackie: [voice-over] I think all of the success of Sky Sport has totally gone to their heads.

From what I recall, her trainers never had self-esteem problems. They must be insufferable now. Jesse brags, “I’m young, I’m fun and I’m the favorite,” which he is. Erika puts it her way: She says Jesse is Jackie’s “little bitch.” Why Jackie chose him as the Robin to her Batman is beyond me. I’d much rather kick around with someone who looks like Angelina Jolie.

Jesse’s not only a professional trainer; he reports that he also recently graduated from culinary school. That means he can stuff your face now and make you work off the extra poundage at the gym later. He’s a full-service kind of gay. There’s only one thing. Jesse doesn’t look so buff anymore.

Brian: He cooks, then he eats, then he wor— no. He cooks, then he cooks and eats again. Yeah, that’s Jesse.

There’s Rebecca — who never met a butt she didn’t like — spanking a female client. She also spanks her co-workers. And her boss. Jackie doesn’t even seem to mind. California ‘s laws on sexual harassment in the workplace must be different from where you and I live. Jesse’s take on Rebecca:

Jesse: A little on the obnoxiously unfiltered side. … And maybe … [she] could consider wearing underwear every once in a while?

Doug’s on a machine working his enormous thigh muscles. Everyone loves Doug. Even Brian, who’s about as urbane and worldly as a truck driver, calls Doug “the gay brother I never had.” Doug won’t kiss your ass. He won’t slap your ass. Despite being a gay man, Doug leaves your ass alone.

Andre is like a parrot when he says for the umpteenth time, “I demand 110 percent.” OK, we get it. Although I don’t respond well to demands, Andre seems nice enough. I would give him 10 percent, 11 times.

There’s the new guy, Gregg. Gregg claims he’s “diabolical” and “hard-core.” This does not sound like someone who used to date anyone named Zen. Zen, by the way, assures us her parents were not flower children.

Erika “walks the walk and talks the talk.” I’ve always thought that was the dumbest expression. In Erika’s case, the “walk” is that of someone with a big stick up her ass. Oh yes, Erika may very well be a good time, but they never show us that. Zen puts a positive spin on Erika because Zen can put a positive spin on anything.

Zen: Erika can be the best bitchy friend that you’ve got. She takes s— from no one.

Meanwhile, Brian not so much takes s— but dishes it out. His personal philosophy of “if you don’t like me, you can go to hell” earns him many friends and admirers such as, say, Jesse.

Jesse: Brian is always saying, “These are the hands of Michelangelo.” I don’t think Brian really knows who Michelangelo is.

A day at the beach — To gauge the readiness of her staff for SkyFlab, Jackie brings the trainers to the beach to test their mettle. Jackie wants “100 percent or nothing at all,” which is great news for Andre, who’s ready to make change. Yeah, I don’t know. If he can play fast and loose with math, so can I.

Jackie walks up to the group as they wait for her in the sand. Nobody looks terribly happy to be there.

Jackie: We’re going to be working with some clients that need us to help them really, really drop some serious weight. So I want to see how you guys are doing in terms of your own fitness level. I want you guys to show me what you can bring to SkyLab. I want you to bring at least one exercise to the table today that you think will fit every fitness profile.

Everyone takes their shirts off. I haven’t seen that many six-packs since Saturday night. Rebecca and Erika stand there all casual with their arms of sinew and cobblestone tummies. Doug’s abs look like an overstuffed pan of dinner rolls. Jesse hasn’t moved. He just holds his shirt by the hem. Jackie asks what the hold up is. Finally, Jesse takes off his shirt to reveal two blobs of love handles and a serious gut. Whoa. What the hell happened to him? One too many profiteroles, I think.

Jesse: I’m not fat. I’m gay-fat, maybe. Gay-chubby, maybe.

And it’s true. If he were a straight man, his new man-boobs would look totally normal.

The trainers are running sprints in the sand, which, as anyone who’s ever run on sand knows, sucks. Jesse drops to his hands and knees, his cow belly swaying under him. Jackie further tortures them with stationary exercises and shouts of “get those knees up!” and “c’mon!” and makes them run across the beach over and over.

Rebecca puts it succinctly when she exclaims to Jackie, “You whore!” That prompts the boss to make Rebecca demonstrate her exercise first. Rebecca does some up-down thing where she jumps from a standing position to a push-up position and back again. Jackie approves and moves on down the line.

Jackie: What do you have, Jesse?

Jesse: How about a nice glute exercise?

Jesse does a thing on all fours, making circles with one foot up in the air. As stupid as it looks, his exercise looks hard to do. How about a nice piece of pie instead?

Erika’s idea is very complicated. She wants clients to run a good distance, drop down and do modified push-ups, get up, do a side-shuffle, hold a plank position, get up and sprint again. Then, it’s a jump to the left, a step to the right, put their hands on their hips, bring their knees in tight. But it’s a pelvic thrust that really drives you insane …

Erika’s still explaining her 20-minute regime when the others wander off to get water. There’s a little breakdown in command as Jackie calls for her kids to regroup, but no one budges. Jackie’s not happy. She tries to reprimand everyone, but Brian’s got a “kiss my ass” attitude and Rebecca has the attention span of a gnat.

Rebecca: I was bored …

Jackie: Honey, you’re bored the moment you get out of bed until the moment you go to sleep … Life isn’t about constant stimulation.

Rebecca: I disagree.

When did Jackie start channeling my mother? And when did Rebecca start channeling me?

Jackie gives everyone a pep talk about how they’re going to need all their strength and determination to help the SkyFlab clients lose weight. Andre nods in agreement because he can’t wait to push someone over the edge. New guy Gregg wisely keeps his yap shut. Jesse stands there with a bloated belly, just aching to be the first SkyFlab client.

I wish I could quit you — After a long day of cajoling and prodding her staff, Jackie drives home to her new and empty house. Mimi’s around not so much. And by “not so much” I mean not at all. Jackie admits that her work came between them and maybe they didn’t communicate very well.

Also, Mimi liked to bite Jackie. I don’t know. I think biting has little room for misinterpretation.

We’re treated to the highlights of fights from last season, because watching lovers go at each other’s throats is even more fun the second time around. A rousing round of she said/she said, biting and wine glass-throwing makes for must-see TV.

Jackie reports that she and Mimi have spent several months apart. Jackie’s in her kitchen, opening a bottle of wine and saying: “I guess the saying is true. Never say ‘never.'” And in walks Mimi.

Jackie laments that at her age, she should be in a healthy relationship by now, but she’s not. She keeps calling Mimi. And she wonders why she’s not in a healthy relationship?

Giving an unenthusiastic “cheers,” Jackie raises her glass and immediately looks away like they’re toasting with hemlock. These two drink a lot every time they’re together. Nothing takes the edge off a crappy relationship like a good chardonnay buzz.

They play a game of Catch the Grape Tomato With Your Teeth, because there’s nothing more seemingly playful yet passive-aggressive than throwing food at your girlfriend’s face.

Jackie: Use those teeth for a good reason. Catch it … catch it. [laughing after Mimi misses] I swear to God, you look just like a little dog.

Can’t you just feel the love?

Jackie admits this relationship is her addiction. Jackie wants to work on their communication skills in a structured setting, also known as therapy. Save your money. The only thing you’re going to get out of couples therapy is permission to break up.

Jackie: If we can’t make it work this time, then I’m out. And not only am I out, but I’m out without any tears this time.

Mimi is uncharacteristically silent and stone-cold. This evening makes the worst blind-date seem like a hootenanny.

The night shift — Meanwhile, at Sky Sport, Gregg is working with a client named Daniel who needs to put bulk on, not lose weight. Daniel thinks eating 4,000 calories a day is hard. Boo hoo. One Bloomin’ Onion from Outback Steakhouse is over 2,000 calories alone. And it’s a vegetable, right?

While Gregg works to put some mass on his frat-boy client, Zen is in the corner doing her own thing. And in case you were wondering if guys gossip as much as girls do, let me fill you in: they’re worse.

Daniel: What’s up with the little girl? What’s the deal?

Can you be more condescending, bean-pole? Zen could bench-press your skinny ass.

Gregg: You know I’ve been dating her, right?

Gregg says they used to date, but if they’re going to pick that back up, it’s up to her. Zen thinks Gregg has many “fabulous qualities” like being a nice guy, a great trainer and a talented musician. Gregg thinks Zen is a great girl: great legs, great face, great stomach, great arms.

And there’s the difference between straight men and straight women.

Zen says her red flag is that Gregg’s only 23 years old. So, what’s your point?

The day shift — Pillsbury Doughboy Jesse is training a Los Angeles radio host named Ellen K.

Ellen: I have a little boy. After you give birth, it’s like “Gah, how do you get this weight off?” And that’s when I met Jesse. From then on, it was love at first sight. So we just kind of started spending a lot of time together outside of work outs, too. We became close friends. He’s like a brother to me.

Is it just me or is having a gay guy who’s “like a brother” the latest trend these days?

Jackie gives us her assessment of Jesse, the other gay brother:

Jackie: Jesse has gained weight. He is not at a body that, in my opinion, is representative of a training professional. And that’s why I kind of ride him. I want him to know that he is a representative of Sky Sport and SkyLab, and he really has to have the body that his clients want to achieve.

Ellen K, turns out, is just like a sister, because she has no problem ratting on Jesse about their stops for doughnuts and pizza and that giant cookie he ate last week.

Doug has a client, too: his former boyfriend of 14 years, Cheo. Pictures of Doug and Cheo from a decade ago show them as two ridiculously good-looking, muscle-bound guys. Cheo is still pretty massive, but his face is puffy and soft. Doug reveals Cheo has kidney failure and is at Sky Sport to get in shape for a transplant operation.

Cheo: To have been an athlete since I was 11, and to be able to do marathons, triathlons, and cycling, and more than anything, running — because running has been my passion — it was really hard to learn I had a disease.

Doug: I’ve been separated from him for almost four years now, and we’ve had many, many fights. As hard as those fights have been, you want to be there for him.

Organ failure and extreme irritability in athletes can be caused by any number of factors. That’s all I’m going to say.

Silent Auction — Jackie’s been invited to attend a dinner and silent auction at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. She invites her trainers to go with her and support the cause. Jesse says he’s in for the free food.

Leaving Las Vegas — Erika’s working with a woman named Beverly who drives in every weekend all the way from Las Vegas. That’s almost 300 miles. One way. Beverly struggles with bulimia. And a deep misunderstanding of fuel conservation.

Erika quizzes her on her intake. And output, I guess. Erika also had an eating disorder when she was young, so she feels uniquely qualified to help Beverly.

Beverly: I think it’s been 10 years now that I’ve been throwing up. For the past couple of months that I’ve been working out with you, I haven’t thrown up once.

Erika: That’s so awesome.

Beverly : I know that bulimia is not something that you can ever really overcome …

Erika: You are overcoming it.

Beverly : I am overcoming it.

The whole exchange would be very touching — if Erika didn’t have Beverly’s leg over her shoulder and wasn’t bearing down over her like she was about to enter her. And that’s what I’m thinking when Beverly concludes, “And that’s why I drive all the way down from Vegas.”

Just Jack — Doug and Jesse are having a homo-feud. Doug did an interview for a well-known website devoted to gay and bisexual men in entertainment and the media. What’s it called again? Oh yeah. AfterElton.com. In the interview, Doug likened Jesse to Jack from Will & Grace, and Jesse had a hissy fit over it. What’s wrong with that? I love Jack. Jack and Karen were my favorite characters. I liked them more than Will or Grace. I’ll go one step further and say I wouldn’t have minded if they called the show Rosario.

Doug: He felt I was calling him “queenie.” In return, Jesse did an interview that totally attacked my character and tore me to shreds. I just found it very vindictive and kind of childish, especially because I had already apologized twice.

Jesse, vindictive and childish? Wherever did he get that idea? Doug, you’ve been gay for a while now. You should know that angering a queen is like sticking your head in a wasp’s nest.

Doug has an unlikely ally in Brian. But Jesse is Jackie’s male doppelganger.

Jackie: Jesse is my best friend at the gym. We see things with the same dark, twisted sense of humor. He’s always good for a laugh.

Ladies who lunch — Jackie and Jesse have a girls’ day out together. Over lunch at a sidewalk cafe, they mock Doug’s interview, in which he said he was a “positive gay role model.” Jackie should put an end to the feud between her two employees, but she loves to dish too much and laughs and nods as Jesse says, dripping with sarcasm, that he’s a bad role model because he’s “so flaming gay.”

Jesse: With gay men, there’s a like a structure and Doug played into it. And I think it’s just such baloney. There’s like [at the bottom] drag queens, and [then] flaming queer guys, and [next] kind of effeminate [men], and then gay Republicans, and then [at the top] the butch guys. … Like for some reason if you’re butch, you’re better than the drag queens. I don’t think so.

News flash: That kind of kooky thinking doesn’t exist exclusively among gay men. Butches and femmes, fat and thin, beauties and the beasts, rich and poor, Caucasian and everyone else. Hello! The only status ranking system I subscribe to is that smart people are better than dumb people.

Only in L.A. — To cement his standing near the bottom of the role-model ladder, Jesse goes with Jackie to a beauty salon and gets his nostrils waxed. I didn’t even know this service was available. Jackie gets her face put on for the dinner and auction later that night.

In case you’re wondering, to get your nostrils waxed, the “nostrilologist” applies hot wax to the inside of your nose, allows it to cool and then rips the plug out with several quick, tear-inducing yanks. You have to be a special kind of shallow to endure this procedure.

A good cause — That evening, the Sky Sport staff joins Jackie at the dinner, where they’ve donated training sessions to the auction. Jackie arrives with her date, Jesse, whose nostrils are now as smooth and fresh as a baby’s bottom. Zen and Erika come together, while the rest of the gang brings up the rear. Everyone’s in black except Rebecca, who’s wearing a full-length brown, white and yellow mess. Gregg has a jaunty cap on. Los Angeles must be rubbing off on North Carolina native Brian, because he’s wearing a hot pink tie.

They all pose for press pictures because they’re reality TV stars now. But it’s Jackie and Jesse who get the most attention for some reason. The others feel a little dissed.

Rebecca: [to the group] Jesse is so strapping it on. Or no, Jackie’s strapping it on Jesse.

Heh. I like Rebecca.

Jackie has sprung for a suite in the hotel to hang out in before the event, and everyone gets a good buzz on before dinner. It’s not long before the interview feud between Doug and Jesse comes up in conversation, thanks to that old troublemaker, Brian.

Doug defends his AfterElton.com comments by saying Jack was his favorite character on Will & Grace; it was meant as a compliment. Jesse’s still harping on his “butch is better than queen” theory. Jackie pours herself another drink. Everyone else is completely silent, mostly because they’re all straight and have no idea what’s going on. The longer Jesse rants about “creating segregation” and not fighting the same fight, Doug looks like he’s going to cry.

Doug: Not only would you not accept my two apologies, then you go and do this nasty, nasty interview. Why would you do that?

Jesse: I admit that I did not take the high road in that situation. I just talked about what happened, and I was done with it. And I’m done.

Jackie says she doesn’t need all the infighting, even though a mere six hours ago, she was all about laughing at Doug over beers with her pet. Can’t we all just get along?

Sweet Zen suggests that at some point, you have to let it go. But she’s talking to Jesse. “Let it go” doesn’t exist in this particular man’s vocabulary.

The torturous “happy hour” is finally over, and everyone goes downstairs to dinner. The lights go down for a video presentation. I hate when they do that — I can never see how much salt I’m putting on my rubber chicken.

During the presentation, Jackie is surprised to see her mother on the big screen in a scene from last season. She takes a big swig from her martini glass. The scene the organizers have chosen to show was from an argument Jackie and her Mormon mother had about the evils of gay relationships and how it will never be normal in her mother’s eyes. Jackie looks like she wants to slide under the table and die.

The lights come up, and there’s a smattering of applause. Jackie claps politely as she looks around for someone from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center to throttle.

At the silent auction portion of the evening, lots of money is raised, which Jackie rightly reminds herself was the point of the evening. She’s introduced to the winner of the donated training sessions and it makes her feel like the evening was worth it. Tell that to Doug.

Clarity — For the first time I can recall, they actually show Jackie working out. I could be wrong; my memory isn’t what it used to be. She’s clearing her mind because later that day, she has a therapy session with Mimi.

In therapy, Mimi and Jackie sit next to each other on the couch. The therapist asks simply, “What brings you to therapy?” which makes Mimi and Jackie glance sideways at each other and laugh. Personally, I’m thinking it was Bravo.

Jackie says again it’s about learning how to communicate. They agree they argue about 80 percent of the time. This relationship can not be saved. What is holding these two together?

Therapist: How’s the sex?

Jackie: [looking at Mimi] What are you laughing about?

Mimi: It’s great.

Therapist: [to Jackie] Would you agree?

Jackie: Yeah, I do agree.

Therapist: Yeah?

Jackie: Sad but true.

Therapist: Well, there’s nothing wrong … Do you think that’s part of the reason of what keeps you guys together?

Both: Yes.

Jackie: It’s like mind-blowing.

Now I get it.

Mimi and Jackie immediately start hurling accusations. You scream. No, you scream. We all scream for ice cream. They read each other’s emails. They won’t let each other talk. It’s a train wreck. Finally, Jackie says she feels hatred. Check please.

The therapist, Dr. Obvious, says, “Your communication is awful.” She asks what they like about each other. It’s met with silence. Twenty minutes into their first session and Jackie starts to cry, saying quietly, “I’m tired.” Mimi comforts her.

Tears turn to anger and Jackie shouts exasperatedly, “You never let me speak!” Mimi gets up and storms out. That went well.

Next week: Zen has a slumber party, Jackie enjoys the L.A. nightlife, and someone finally acknowledges that Erika looks like Angelina Jolie.

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