9-17 “Let’s Face the Music”

I am behind. I was away, and then I got busy, and then I forgot. I suck. To make matters worse, the empty yogurt container that provides the mystic power to decide which episode I recap has produced this one. I think it’s the Bobby Rydell and Fabian one. And I think it might be terrible. Let’s find out.

We open with Facts‘s Cousin Olivers, Andy and Pippa, arguing over whether the song Andy wrote is metal enough. Andy is managing Pippa’s band, which is called The Witches of Eastland. Then Andy sings us his song.

Give me your animal love
It fits me like a glove
What the heck
Rip off my neck
Chew up my heart
Won’t you please chew me up
Girl I want your animal love

Poetry.

Andy has the same mullet that both Jo and Blair had in season six. But now Jo is a killjoy with a long cascading mane and bright red claws.

Pippa suggests that Jo should come to their show on Saturday instead of mocking them, and Jo says that she’d love to but she is already committed to a benefit for the Center. Recall that in this season, after Jo’s gig in Malibu doesn’t work out, she ends up working in a nonprofit center for at-risk kids with a dude named Casey, whom Blair ends up dating.

Tootie enters and tells Jo that she got a string quartet for Saturday night’s benefit, and now’s when I realize that this isn’t the one with Bobby Rydell and Fabian, it’s the one where all of Jo’s entertainment falls through and Pippa’s band ends up playing the benefit. I can’t remember if it’s also the same one where they all go to the salon to get their hair done for the benefit and things go awry, and they end up fantasizing about being the band themselves. Season nine is pretty terrible. Let’s keep watching.

Oh yeah! It sure is!!! Blair rushes in and announces that she got Sergio Pavon, and after a dumb joke from Jo and a Robin Leach impression from Natalie that is beneath her comedic talent, we learn that in the Facts world, Sergio Pavon is the top stylist at the prestigious Golden Mirror Salon in New York. In 2020 Real World, Sergio Pavon is an MMA fighter.

Sergio Pavon is going to match the entire fundraiser dollar for dollar, and he’s throwing in makeovers for Blair and Jo.

Tootie: “That’s amazing! I’d give an arm and a leg just for a manicure and pedicure!”

Ha! That was probably the best joke we’ll hear all night.

Jo doesn’t want to go, but after some contrivances, it ends up being the case that all four of them are going for makeovers.

Our next shot is of Pippa’s band, sans Pippa, getting set up for rehearsal in the living room. Pippa enters with the outfit she’s planning on performing in.

I don’t think we need to say any more about that.

The rest of the band tries to explain to Pippa how to be punk, and one wonders why they chose Pippa as their fronter if she’s so square. The gagger tells Pippa that she needs to dress like her: “snakeskin hip boots, spandex body stocking, black lace bra, and leg irons.” She does not mention the red button-down or the argyle vest, but she calls for the band to play “Bad Girls in Trouble.”

We’re bad girls in trouble
You’d better get out on the double
I’ll turn your face to rubble
‘Cause we’re bad bad bad …

The rest of the band stops Pippa, and here I should mention that Sherrie Krenn, the actress who plays her, followed her Facts stint with a successful career as a country singer as Sherrie Austin. She had a hit called “Put Your Heart Into It” right around the time I was a buckle bunny, so I danced to it a lot at the country bar. I am not going to link that song’s video here. You can look it up on your own if you insist, but do not claim to not have been warned.

The rest of the band tells Pippa that she needs to sing with more pain. Natalie, conveniently passing through with Tootie, makes a stupid joke about whether she is supposed to sing or have a baby, and Pippa begs them to listen just for a second.

Why are the girls so boring this season? This song is like wannabe Joan Jett. They’re not playing Mayhem or anything like that. You disappoint me, Natalie. They excuse themselves to go to the spa.

The poor actor who has been instructed to ham up the Frenchman stereotype as heavily as possible explains Tootie’s massage and Natalie’s avocado mask and offers skin buffings and steam pore decloggings. Blair checks in on them and then pulls Frenchy aside to request a procedure to so something about the “strange darkening around the rootal area” of her blond hair. He plays along and it’s actually a cute exchange.

DEEP ASS TRIVIA: Blair’s hair color is Scandinavian Sunset #3.

Jo tries to flee. She says she’s tired of being steamed and plucked and she gave it a shot but it’s just not her. Jo’s stylist is as over-the-top Frenchy as our turtlenecked friend, and while Blair tries to persuade Jo to stay just long enough to get her hair done, Turtleneck summons his colleague.

Oh hay they’re not French! They have Jersey Shore accents in which Turtleneck tells Horshack that “the dame on the end” needs a dye job. Horshack nods, and then leads his charge away for her Scandinavian Sunset #3 treatment.

We come back from commercial to the living room, where the band is leaving. Pippa tries to make a suggestion to the guitarist in the red button-down and the argyle vest, and she snottily says that if Pippa wants to lead, she should form her own band. Enter the gang.

Beverly Ann: “Blair! They’ve turned you into Jo!”

Jo grumbles that it sucks that she has to go to the benefit looking like Pia Zadora. Beverly Ann says that it could be worse, which gets a chuckle out of Jo.

She deserves whatever she gets for that heinous fur coat.

At the benefit, Natalie is having a grand old time while Jo frets that the string quartet hasn’t shown up yet. Blair is running around in a very dramatic black hat. Tootie nervously approaches and says she doesn’t know how to tell them but…

Jo: “It’s OK, you can say anything. As long as you don’t say that the musicians aren’t coming.”
Tootie: “Well, it’s been nice chatting.”

Apparently they got outbid and the quartet is doing another benefit. OK, it’s bad enough that Jo hadn’t already secured entertainment for a fundraiser less than a week away, but for that entertainment to then take another job and not cancel? I guess that’s why they’re still available at the last minute. Tootie offers to go try to squeeze some donations before people find out there’s no entertainment.

The suited man first encounters Blair. He introduces himself as Sergio Pavon and says he wants to meet Blair Warner to inquire after her visit to his salon that day. Blair snits that he’ll hear about it in court, and he reacts as you’d expect.

Sergio: “I’m here to see Blair Warner. If she’s not here, then…”
Blair: “Oh, she’s here. She’s right here. She’s right…”
Unidentified voice: “Here!”

Jo says how nice it is for her, Blair Warner, to meet the very generous Sergio Pavon, who is going to match all donations. Jo has a ball in the role of Blair, introducing Blair as one of the sad, lost souls his dollars will be helping at the Center.

Blair decides to introduce herself as Jo Polniaczek and act like an ass, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, since Jo is in fact the director of the Center for which Blair is chair of the board of directors and for which this entire benefit is happening.

Anyway, Sergio commends “Blair” on the benefit, saying that so many events have no food or entertainment, just their hand out. Jo plays coy and coos and takes the hand kisses and visibly shudders as soon as Sergio is gone. She’s disgusted that all of that behavior actually works, and Blair sighs that you get used to it. What an underrated moment.

Tootie and Natalie return; no one is giving any money yet and Jo despairs that there’s no way to get a string quartet as such short notice. Sister, you shouldn’t have been able to get a string quartet with the four or five days notice you gave. Anyway Jo plays piano. Maybe it’s hard to get a piano to a venue like this. I’d say it’s 50/50 they have one around.

But for whatever reason, Jo’s piano talents don’t get mentioned. Instead, Tootie notes that there are four people in a quartet, and we are treated to a fantasy sequence.

They all agree that they’re no string quartet. Blair suggests Pippa’s band, and Natalie says all sorts of terrible things about what they play. Oh hay, who’s that behind them?

The Witches of Eastland broke up. But all their instruments are in Beverly Ann’s Winnebago, right there at the party.

In this fantasy sequence, in which the band is called “The Peekskill Sewer System,” we learn the second verse to “Bad Girls in Trouble.”

We’re everybody’s garbage
We’re the trash you just threw out
We’re the kind of girls your mother
Warned you about
We’re bad girls

Back from the fantasy, Jo decides there’s no choice but to go with the truth. She takes Blair to Sergio Pavon and explains that there is no entertainment; the string quartet canceled, people are leaving, and there won’t be any funds to match. Thanks anyway.

Sergio: “You’re beautiful when you’re honest.”

Gross, but gross money keeps the lights on as well as righteous money. The creep declares that there’s one thing more important than food and entertainment, and that’s honesty, so he’ll donate ten thousand dollars, and then match it. Oh by the way, how was their day at his spa?

Jo: “Well, to be completely honest -“
Blair: “We loved it!”
Sergio: “Well in that case, I insist that you all come back next week and do it all over again!”

Fin. No depth, no message. Whimsical, mildly entertaining, very 80s.