Next Gen NYC<\/a><\/p>\nThe Man in the LED Mask<\/p>\n
\n Season 2<\/p>\n
Episode 3\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
3 stars<\/p>\n
***\n <\/p>\n
\n The gender-segregated nights out make for extremely cursed hangs.
\n Photo: Bravo\n <\/p>\n
Despite all of Hudson\u2019s attempts to cozy up to her last week, Ariana is officially single and moving out. This new chapter is marked with a dramatic scene of her taking the ferry from Manhattan to her new place in Brooklyn, like the opening of Working Girl if Melanie Griffith\u2019s mother wore Party City wigs and smoked Newports. But this is great news for Liam, who is clearly into her enough to completely disregard Hudson\u2019s boundary request. The pair even goes on a quasi-date playing beer pong this week with Kendall and Shai, who can see right through Liam\u2019s act. \u201cYou know what building furniture means,\u201d Shai ominously says after Liam offers to help her move into her new place.<\/p>\n
And speaking of new places, Gia \u2014 a star of Next Gen NYC, mind you \u2014 is moving into her new apartment in Jersey City, which is notably not \u201cNYC.\u201d To add insult to injury, as she walks the streets of Jersey City, she says that it reminds her of the West Village. It\u2019s almost too much to bear. While she\u2019s happy to leave the nest, she wishes she were moving in with her boyfriend, Christian, even though she\u2019s not sure what exactly he does. \u201cLike\u2026 junk removal demolition,\u201d she surmises. In any case, she tells him that she\u2019s planning a girls\u2019 night, including her new friend Rowan, and tries to explain to him who her mom, Brooke Shields, is. \u201cHannah Montana\u2019s mom\u201d is ultimately the description she lands on, and you know what? Fair play.<\/p>\n
When we check in with Rowan, she tells us that she and Ariana quickly bonded over their shared experience of growing up with mothers in the spotlight. \u201cObviously in very different ways,\u201d she clarifies. Yes \u2014 \u201cTardy for the Party\u201d is a very different claim to fame than The Blue Lagoon. But if this means we\u2019ll eventually get a scene of Brooke Shields interacting with Kim Zolciak, I\u2019m all for this friendship. While we don\u2019t get that just yet, we do get our first Brooke cameo this week as she scuttles around her daughter\u2019s place, and even when she\u2019s not doing all that much, it\u2019s such a joy to have her on my screen. I\u2019ll need more of her stat, but until then, on to our other pals.<\/p>\n
As we learned from her bowling alley club and various event planning endeavors last season, Georgia is a hustler. But she says that her passion for nightlife has waned after Charlie and Omar decided to swoop in and steal her club idea, so she\u2019s directing her focus to new opportunities. She and her best friend Cooper meet with a brand consultant to talk through one of these ideas, and I\u2019m left wondering what it could possibly be this time. What he eventually reveals rocks me to my core. \u201cWhy are you starting a cleaning product brand?\u201d he asks these budding entrepreneurs. A what? That\u2019s right. Georgia, after establishing herself as a non-hands-washer last year (and doubling down over and over again), decided to sharply pivot to become a maven of cleanliness. And most unfortunately, the brand (or the idea of a brand) is called \u201cYuck!\u201d Now I\u2019m not a brand expert, but I don\u2019t want to spray a multipurpose cleaner called \u201cYuck!\u201d anywhere in my home. Especially one with a \u201cmusky\u201d scent, as she brainstormed. Suddenly, the bowling alley club seems like a really good idea.<\/p>\n
My perpetual confusion with these kids continues when we head over to Brooks\u2019s apartment, where he\u2019s chilling in an LED red light mask \u2014 but not just any LED red light mask. This one seems to wrap all the way around the entirety of his head, emitting light that\u2019s supposed to be beneficial for his scalp and hair growth. To his credit, you definitely don\u2019t notice any receding hairline issues if he\u2019s wearing the equivalent of a light-up bike helmet.<\/p>\n
Over FaceTime, Gia tells him that she\u2019s planning a girls night, but that he can go to the guys night that her boyfriend Christian is planning. Why would he ever want to do that, he fairly wonders. This is an age-old plight that gay men have faced from the days of gym teachers splitting up boys and girls, all the way up to gender-segregated wedding parties \u2014 and enough is enough. Gender is a social construct. If Brooks is better friends with the girls than the boys, he should spend the night having fun with his friends. But no, instead he is forced to bro out with all the guys, worst of which is Charlie, whom Brooks understandably has zero desire to spend any time with whatsoever. And who could blame him? Especially because Charlie \u2014 even though he happens to be unknowingly twinning with Brooks with an LED mask of his own \u2014 can\u2019t stop himself from making homophobic comments. He refers to the group as \u201cthe boys plus Brooks,\u201d and later bizarrely says that Brooks is \u201can aging gay man. He\u2019s got a boyfriend, he\u2019s not gonna be a party gal forever.\u201d It\u2019s not enough for Charlie to be fired from this show; I need him to be fired out of a cannon. I suspect that the worst torture that happened in that crypto house was being forced to have a conversation with him.<\/p>\n
He also weirdly texted Christian ahead of the night out that Brooks better keep his name out of his mouth, which Gia stealthily tells Brooks about. The weird, vaguely threatening statement doesn\u2019t lay the groundwork for a productive night, so naturally the vibes are just all off as the boys hang, so much so that Christian regrets planning it altogether.<\/p>\n
The simultaneous girls\u2019 night is only slightly more successful. I like Riley, but she can come across as a mean girl \u2014 especially towards Georgia, who she clearly just doesn\u2019t like, and thus she can\u2019t say or do anything right. When she tells a story about a friend refusing to touch any surface on the subway, Riley judgmentally glares at Georgia the whole time before asking the group, \u201cHow many of y\u2019all take the train?\u201d I mean this so sincerely: anybody who refuses to take the subway or stigmatizes it should be banned from living in New York City, let alone starring in a show with \u201cNYC\u201d in the name. It\u2019s one of the biggest red flags there is, and anybody should be deeply embarrassed to admit that they don\u2019t take the train. Go move in with Gia in Jersey City if that\u2019s the case!<\/p>\n
In contrast, Rowan\u2019s contribution to this conversation just makes me love her all the more. \u201cSome guy took his schlong out and started going at it,\u201d she recounts, adding, \u201cI took it as a compliment!\u201d Now THAT\u2019S a New Yorker.<\/p>\n
As if this night out wasn\u2019t already painting Riley in a bad light, when she and Ava go up to the bar to get another drink, she awkwardly tries and fails to bring up some gripe about how they communicate with one another. It was a difficult thread to follow, seemingly for all parties involved, in part because Riley was drunk and in part because she loves talking in vague, open-ended sentences that could mean anything. But what I did clock for certain was her sharp turn into mean girl territory when Ava gently asked her to say \u201cplease and thank you\u201d instead of ordering her to get her another drink. \u201cYou expect me to say please and thank you to you?\u201d Riley fired back in a way that made me wonder if she remembered she was on television.<\/p>\n
With both nights devolving into chaos, Brooks and the other guys decide to call it quits on this gender experiment and plan to infiltrate the girls\u2019 night and merge groups. Will two wrongs make a right? Of course not, things are surely only going to get worse. But we\u2019ll have to wait until next week to see just how bad things can get.<\/p>\n
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