1) Andrew (previously #1)

Yes, I know it’s the third week in a row. But Andrew got a girlfriend! And she’s hot! Sure, she’s a divorcee and former model who’s probably just using him to get on TV, but hey, at least she knows they’re dating. For him, that’s a step up. Plus, this means we viewers get a front-row seat to his terrible dating skills (they bond over having the same initials), awkward come-ons (“You taste so good!”), and weird ideas of love (“I want to stand on the top of a mountain, with trumpets playing, and flutes”).

Choice Quotation: “You cannot trust women. Aristotle once said, no one trusts a woman, not even a woman.”

Moment of High Comedy: On the first date, he brings up the two of them moving in together. She thinks he’s kidding. He isn’t.

2) Erika (previously tied for #7)

“Wah wah wah, I’m a failing musician and NPR won’t hire me and Callie gets to do something artsy and semi-succeed at it but rather than be happy for her I’m just going to whine and feel sorry for myself. Wah wah wah.” That’s all she says. Now you can fast-forward every time she speaks.

Choice Quotation: “Sometimes I just wanna lay in my bed and read a book the whole day.” Real Worlders can read!

Moment of High Comedy: The gang goes to a soccer game, and while everyone else cheers she sits down and complains about her failed music career.

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1) Andrew (previously #1)

At the tail end of last episode, a very drunk Andrew was pushed off the house’s railing onto the pavement by a very, very drunk Ty. So given that this week began with him being taken to the emergency room in an ambulance (he got away with just a few bruises), Andrew’s display of hilarity—dare I say it, adorable hilarity—is all the more impressive.

The highest points of the episode come when he drunkenly uses his fall to hit on Emily, gets a visit from his carbon-copy younger brother William, and debuts a new hat, this one fashioned like the head of a moose.

Choice Quotation: “If I had twins I would circumcise one and not the other, and that’s how I’d tell them apart. I’d name them the exact same thing.”

Moment of High Comedy: He reveals that he used to be addicted to comic books, spending up to $80 per week on them, until his family and friends stepped in and said, “’Andrew, you need to get laid.’”

2) Emily (previously #3)

As Andrew’s roommate, Emily takes it upon herself to help the poor, inebriated weirdo the most after his fall, subjecting herself to his awkward drunken come-ons. (Upon gesturing to his crotch, he says “Here, I didn’t fall on this area. Touch this.”) But when she gets at odds with former flame Ty over his destructive drinking habits, she turns it into a power struggle that I’m sure will carry itself into the next season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

Choice Quotation: “You are a tool! You are a dick! You are a douchebag!”

Moment of High Comedy: When talking about Andrew’s fall and its aftermath, she never refers to him by his real name, instead only as “Panda.”

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1) Andrew (previously #7)

Sound the alarms, release a cageful of white doves, and cue the Hallelujah Chorus: Andrew got laid! But better yet—Andrew got laid twice! After the first encounter, when he sat in the confessional doing an awkward thumb-shaking dance repeatedly singing “I got some booootay,” America smiled along as they watched their favorite awkward virgin finally become a man. But don’t worry, he’s still the same Andrew we’ve grown to know and love: he fails at trying to procure a second rendezvous with one of the lucky ladies, drunkenly makes a pass at Emily, and does it all while wearing his panda hat.

Choice Quotation: “I want to have sex with her. Again. Why else would you take a girl on a date?”

Moment of High Comedy: He reveals that the only relationships he’s ever been in are ones where he thought they were together and the girl said otherwise.

2) Josh (previously #2)

The problem with trying to describe Josh’s actions is that there are only so many ways you can call someone a douchebag. This week he sleeps with a girl he meets with Andrew, has his idiotic girlfriend over for a visit, and then the night after she leaves gets with Kelly Anne, the same older broad from a few weeks ago. Seriously, I’m embarrassed to live in a city where there are that many girls willing to hook up with this tool.

Choice Quotation: “James Bond’s got a license to kill, rock star’s got a license to be outrageous.”

Moment of High Comedy: His girlfriend calls when he’s in bed with hookup #1. Well-played, MTV.

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1) Mike (previously #3)

This spot really shouldn’t go to Mike, but rather to Mike’s homosexuality. Between a visit from his family where he talks to them about his work on LGBT issues and a fight with his needy boyfriend from back home over whether their relationship is “open” or not, the only way MTV could’ve been less subtle is if it’d had someone stand in the corner of the screen holding up a big, rainbow “MIKE’S GAY” banner.

Choice Quotation: “If I were a dog my tail would be wagging right now.”

Moment of High Comedy: When he takes his younger brother out to a bar with the roommates, he has a DFMO with Callie. The encounter is quickly followed by confessional footage of virtually every other housemate commenting on how gay he is.

2) Josh (previously #8 )

After a lengthy reign at the dead bottom of this list, Josh stages a coup this week when he puts together a mediocre group of musicians, calls them “Wicked Liquid,” and crowns himself their lead singer. But after he wailed trite lyrics (a Shakespearean excerpt: “Come on, honey, just love me ri-ight/ Maybe we can go lay somewhere toni-ight”) into the microphone for a good chunk of the episode, I suddenly longed for the days I got to forget he existed.

Choice Quotation: “You take one look at me, and that’s about it. Like that’s all you need. That’s what got me into most of the bands back home, just the way I look.”

Moment of High Comedy: The contorted look of pain that he makes when he sings is an exact replica of the face the TV-viewers make when they hear him sing.

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1) Erika (previously #6)

After not having given us too much to talk about in previous episodes, Erika shows her true colors this week, and man, are they annoying. She spends almost the entire episode going at it with Ashley—whining when Ashley won’t leave her alone, crying when Ashley doesn’t want to be her friend anymore, and just being an overall attention hog.

Choice Quotation: “I asked her to get off the phone, how was that inappropriate? Inappropriate would be ‘can you get your vagina off the phone?’”

Moment of High Comedy: When trying to console Mike over his relationship problems, she turns it back into a conversation about herself.

2) Ashley (previously #2)

If these were the Pain in the Ass Rankings rather than the Power Rankings, Ashley would be neck-and-neck with Erika for number one. She calls Erika a spoiled brat, and when Erika flips out and calls her a bitch in return, she starts babbling insults that really only prove Erika’s point.

Choice Quotation: “If you want to stay out here until midnight-thirty, I’ll stay here with you.”

Moment of High Comedy: When the crew goes out to McFadden’s towards the end of the episode, she crimps her hair.

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1) Mike (previously #8 )

Mike deserves a trophy as the only roommate who got any this week, and for (presumably) tagging all the bases at that. After going to a gay club and getting lots of free drinks from other patrons, he meets a cute guy named Eric and takes him back to the house. There, the two do what Real Worlders do best.

Choice Quotation: “When I like a guy, I put him through the 3 tests: we talk politics, we talk sports, and I punch him in the arm. If they don’t whine about it, they pass”

Moment of High Comedy: Before they get down to the business, Eric folds Mike’s laundry.

2) Ashley (previously #6)

Ashley’s begins the episode as a stereotypical MTV drama queen when she begs Andrew, who’s making bizarre advances on her, to “open up” to her. But shortly thereafter, you have to feel sorry for her—when he shows his true colors as a pizza-box-wielding, panda-hat-wearing mental case, she quickly regrets having ever spoken to him.

Choice Quotation: “I was laughing out of uncomfortability.”

Moment of High Comedy: She and Andrew get into a drunken screaming match over whether guys or girls have a harder time finding mates in D.C.

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Last night, Americans across the nation glued their eyes to their television screens where powerful figures addressed issues of national importance and immediacy. And if you happened to change the channel during commercial breaks, I think Obama might have been making a speech or something?

1) Josh (previously #7)

Our favorite token tattooed guy had quite the dramatic episode, catapulting him into the top half of these rankings for the first time. A lot of the episode featured his rocky relationship with pink-haired girlfriend Ashley. First, he accuses her of cheating on him, then she comes to visit and the two won’t shut up about how in love they are. But after he hooks up with some thirty-something in shiny leggings and arm-warmers that he meets at a bar and his girlfriend miraculously finds out about it via this crazy invention called the Internet, he tells her he just may need a break. Talk about a roller coaster.

Choice Quotation: “I’m not having sex with anybody. I’m not getting my dick sucked, which I could be.”

Moment of High Comedy: A close-up of him shows that the giant cross tattoo on his bicep says “Grandma” underneath it. If that’s not bad-ass, I don’t know what is.

2) Ty (previously #4)

Although Emily seems content with her and Ty’s strictly physical relationship (after all, this isn’t some classy show like The Bachelor), Ty apparently doesn’t see it that way. When he and Emily are dancing at McFadden’s, Ty decides that’s the prime opportunity to tell her she’s “unbelievable” and he’s in love with her. Because every girl dreams of a guy telling her he loves her in a bar. In a college bar. On The Real World.

Choice Quotation: “I so wanna do you.” And they say romance is dead.

Moment of High Comedy: After Emily basically tells him he doesn’t have a good enough personality for her to want to take their hooking up any further, he says “good talk” and walks out of the room. I don’t think he got it.

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How to get high marks at Panda Charm School

1) Andrew (previously #4)

This week, Andrew’s quest to get some reality-TV-style action and subsequent sexual frustration took front and center in the Real World house. Despite lessons from his housemates on the timeless art of seduction (and unhooking a bra with one hand) and a promising start at a tryst with Alli of Georgetown, Andrew failed to end his well-publicized dry spell.

On the upside, when the guys “unwittingly” went to a gay bar, he gets some unwanted kisses on the neck from a fellow patron.

Choice Quotation: “I just laid there, thinking about my boner.”

Moment of High Comedy: He agrees that when trying to woo a girl, he shouldn’t talk about Pokemon or turn everything into a sexual innuendo. What’s the age limit on this show, anyway?

2) Ashley (previously #5)

Every MTV reality show has the one annoying, loud, dysfunctional male-female pairing. On RWDC, it’s Ashley and Mike. She spends the first few minutes gushing about how close she feels to her bisexual housemate after taking him to church, only to later on squeakily yell at and cry over the guy, all because of two instances where he didn’t defend her in the way she thought he should. Apparently she doesn’t think chivalry is dead.

Choice Quotation: “I don’t need to know a bunch of strangers, I don’t need to know the whole city.”

Moment of High Comedy: After her first fight with Mike, she storms out of the room. Cue dramatic music and shots of random DC-ers walking in the rain. I’m choking back tears just remembering it.

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If MTV’S The Real World has become known for one thing in its thirteen seasons and counting on air, it’s the hookups.

It must be a law of nature that if a bunch of attention-starved twenty-somethings shack up in an expensive house together and you set them loose on the bar scene of an unwitting major city, the result will be grainy, nightvision bedroom footage, be it housemate-on-housemate or housemate-on-random-city-dweller, that makes for reality television gold.

So when The Real World brought its cyclone of debauchery to D.C. for its latest season, many of us here at the Voice (except for wet blanket Chris Heller) were hoping for a cast member to get some on-screen action.

Well Georgetown, meet your latest celebrity student, Alli, a senior in the SFS.

In Episode Four, which aired on January 20, Alli is the love interest/intended sexual partner of Andrew, one of the season’s oddest and most annoying cast members. Though he claims to have slept with over ten women, his consistent lying and general weirdness (he’s the one who spends much of his time on air wearing the panda hat) have all of his housemates, not to mention all of America, convinced that he’s a virgin. In this episode, he even goes to Panda Charm School where he gets bra-unhooking lessons from his female housemates and Mike.

This week, in an episode perhaps tellingly entitled “The Princess and the Panda,” he set out with a vengeance to disprove us once and for all.

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Sweaty hug!

With a nod to Mark Lisanti and his Mad Men Power Rankings, Vox Pop will be running episode recaps of The Real World DC … just for you! Rather than bore you with summaries, every week we’ll rank house members in order of entertainment value. Rankings were determined with a scientifically thorough process that definitely didn’t involve a bottle of liquor.

Sorry about last week, gang. On Thursday morning, I woke up and started my morning routine—Gym, Tan, Laundry, and optional afternoon self-loathing crying session, in case you’re curious—and neglected my power ranking duties.

But before I get to this week’s, a plea. Try to avoid gushing about friends you glanced on the screen during the show, stop giggling when the cast goes to Rhino, and please stop pointing out Georgetown establishments you recognize. We recognize them too.

Let’s get to it.

1) Emily (previously #3)

I’m curious to know what “cult” Emily followed in her younger days. I didn’t think Scientology had spread to  Missouri yet. Or, maybe it’s a secretive Catholic sect. Someone call Dan Brown, he might be interested.

Hopefully, her relationship with Ty is dead now. I don’t think they had much to begin with—”cuddle buddy” isn’t a relationship option on Facebook.

Choice Quotation: “You can suck up your jealousy, suck your own cock, and go to bed.”

Moment of High Comedy: She spit on Ty. Afterwards, Ashley said, “[Emily and Ty] fight physically because they have so much sexual tension.” If so, is the spitting incident a metaphor for snowballing?

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