What can one say about this particular episode of The Real World: Brooklyn, this pop-music-scored, messy smear of patriotism and war protest and voting frenzy? Not much, really. But let's try anyway.

Everyone was Hope-Hope-Hopey about Election Day. Devyn gave us an important lecture on what black people are, while Chet motorboated a picture of Mitt Romney and said something about the economy. You know what Mitt Romney is qualified to do? Enter a Square Jaw contest at the annual Provo Tabernacle Picnic. And come in third. That's what Mitt Romney is qualified for. Ryan the veteran was an Obama supporter, like everyone else in the house, except for Chet and the dimbulb Scott, who was a Republican because he likes sandwiches (his reasoning made exactly that much sense). So election fever was blooming, the perfect opportunity for MTV to train its wobbly cameras on worried, scared Ryan—suffering as he is from some unseen war wound, a black hole or a pin prick, slowly hemorrhaging.

He made a student film about being in black & white and drinking beer while the 'Moonlight Sonata' plays and somewhere an Italian woman dances across a pristine ballroom in a long black gown and a rose petal falls and baby hand touches a big adult hand and then a snowglobe shatters and in the rubble we read... 'Mr. Plow.' Some people laughed when Ryan drank beer in the movie while brushing his teeth, but Ryan was upset because the movie was supposed to be deep. When it had reached its inexorable Fin, Chet squirmed in his pants, more aroused than he'd been since he saw Mitt Romney doing sexy calisthenics at the BYU Y. The Buoy they call it, on account of all the sailor-like behavior. He really dug the film and felt that Ryan was a beautiful, terrific genius and that such a mastermind of cinema must surely have something wicked and wonderful twixt his leg bones—a chalice, a serpent, a flaming apple pie. He desired it so.

Back at home, Ryan showed the gals some pictures of Iraq. Sara tried to be all self-important about it, of course. "Mm... Mmm..." she cooed. "He was really there," she gurgled to the confessional cameras. Thank you for explaining military service to us, Sara.

Ryan and Scott (who would totally be in the army if it wasn't for his murdeling, like totally) went to hear Anthony Swofford speak at a veterans' organization. So that was nice. Then Ryan's brother was in town, and Chet ogled him strangely and asked coyly "Were you in the military tooo....?" The brother said yes, and a whole host of furtive, squirming fantasies flashed through Chet's head. Later Chet went to the Fairway supermercato and had a life-size cutout of himself made. It was a lifelong dream he said. Of course it was. "You can put it near the girls' beds," said the (young!) owner of Fairway. Chet's face darkened. "I have lots of ideas of what I can do with this..." It was ominous and peculiar. Deep and strange. Like all of Chet's quiet, lonely longings.

Then it was Election Day! Ryan was dressed as Uncle Sam. Everyone was super awesomely excited because Marbeck Barama was winning the trophy. Scott was saying "You should not celebrate elections. Everyone wins, you're still an American." Chet said "It's just not functional to have Democrats running everything. You need to have opposing sides, or things just get skewed." Or they stall forever and nothing ever gets done, Chetterz. Katelynn mumblemurmured something about being happy and a nation turned its weary, thrilled, tear-stained face to her and said, urgently, "Please, shut up."

When they got home, Chet had hung himself. No! Hahahahaha, he wasn't dead. (Not yet...). He put the life-size cutout really high up on the wall with a quote bubble saying "Chet is so cool!" The roommates, still drunk and giddy and Changey, put Sarlack Morgana's face over Cheese's crotch, as means of a prank. Then Ryan painted Scott's finguhnails red. Haha, jokes are jokes. In the morning Chet was really mad, because the cutout that he'd hung up on the wall was ART! Paging Yasmina Reza! It was art! Because he stood really hard and had his picture taken really hard and then carried it all the way home. So how dare the roommates deface it. Chet = Dingus. Capital D Dingus. The thing is, I can see getting pissed that my new life-size cutout was defaced. But if you get pissed, then you're an arrogant dingus. So it's a Catch 22. You lose either way. Much like Mormons, who lose in this life and in the afterlife.

Then it was time for Ryan's sad, sparse-clapping Veterans Day parade. Of course the roommates made a gaudy show of hooting and hollering when he came trundling by and it was awkward. But it was nice to see people in New York, who I think outlanders think can be cold and angular and unfriendly toward the idea of the military, come and cheer some forgotten folks. Afterward they went for sad, boozy drinks and told sad, boozy stories about the war, about people who'd died. One of Ryan's Army pals talked to the roommates about the medals that Ryan had won and stuff and Chet got that same primal geyser feeling in his nethers, that underwear privates swoon. "We're in the presence of greatness," he declared. Was he talking about Ryan? Or was he referring to that which suddenly stood beneath his magic undergarments? We may never know.

At the wicked Junovivanti Coporation, where Devyn works as an assassin/receptionist, Katelynn got to wear a fancy ballgown for Ryan's big Veterans gala. So Katelynn was happy to be in a dress. That's good. Ryan in a suit and a funny patterned tie looked like an awkward 8th grader at an old relative's funeral. How sad for Aunt Bertha. But also how sad to not be home, playing Final Fantasy. Ryan looked at all the roommates sitting at a table and said "When was the last time we were all together? Gettysburg?" And it was like a Civil War reunion there for a second, with JD as a swaying, Latino, drunken Ulysses S. Grant.

Back at home, everyone was excited and happy and still reeling from Morlock Carama becoming our 7th Prime Minister. And then Ryan got the phone call. It was his brother, clearly upset, and he said that Ryan had been recalled for active duty. Obviously, Ryan was boggled. There were tears and whatnot and Scotty came out and offered the strange, faraway, manly comfort that dudes give to each other and ugh. What a shitty, rotten, sandy fucking mess that is over there and what a shitty, rotten, shrubby disgrace it is that the avatar of this great crime done to our young men and women is just sitting back and farting and smoking cigars in some ugly part of East Texas, with complete impunity.

Anyway, that's how the episode ended. Not exactly an upper.

Can't they send Chet's cutout instead?