"The Joe Schmo Show"--episode 8

Previously on “The Joe Schmo Show”: Ralph surprised everyone with a sudden death elimination. Both Hutch and Ashleigh told Matt he should vote for Brian, but in the end, everyone voted for Ashleigh. Then Ralph revealed that the eliminated contestants would be returning to decide who wins the game. Matt briefly freaked everyone out by saying he had been wondering if the network exec was real or an actor. We had jury questioning, and Matt was his usual nice upstanding self, saying he had a great time and he's won already. Then each jury member read their own vote and explained themselves. So far there are two votes Hutch, two votes Matt, and one vote Brian. Dr. Pat told everyone she was voting for the realest person, and then the episode ended. (click for more)

First we have a recap of the whole show. I don't like this in general, because I do pay attention to things, and it's especially weird when I'm bingewatching. Anyway, we remember all the screw-ups, and how Matt didn't play along with their plans sometimes, like bailing on the first immunity challenge. But then they would have things like having him ally with Gina, and he came up with that idea on his own. He also fell for the whole Ralph—Molly--Ashleigh triangle. That was the beginning of his campaign to get rid of Ashleigh. Matt was really upset by Earl's eviction, and briefly they thought about ending the game, but then forged ahead. Matt sent Dr. Pat to the hospital, and felt so bad he gave her his prize. We also see all the times Matt stood up for Kip.

OK back to the final elimination ceremony. We recap all the votes. Dr. Pat says this is the realest person, who deserves it the most, and also who gave her three consecutive orgasms and that's Hutch. Hutch...wins? I have to admit that's not what I expected. Confetti and balloons. Matt smiles but doesn't look super thrilled. Ralph listens to his earpiece and stops the party, saying they have a problem. It takes him a minute though, because no one is listening. As he “listens”, they cut to Matt wiping his eyes. The “network exec” rolls in and talks to Ralph, and then Ralph says he's sorry but they have to reset. There's been a major violation of the rules. Someone in this room is not who they say they are, so does anyone have anything to say? Everyone sits and looks around at each other, until finally Hutch says alright! My name's not Hutch, it's David Hornsby and I'm an actor. Ralph says he's ruined the whole show, and Hutch says “Don't blame me, ask him” and points at Kip. Kip says he has no idea what he's talking about, but as Hutch stares at him , he drops the accent and says he's an actor too. Matt just looks really confused. He goes to leave the room, but Brian grabs his arm to make him stay. Kip tells the rest of the jury to admit they're all actors too, let's be honest. They all stand up and raise their hands. Matt says “What is going on?! Are you freaking kidding?!” Molly's boyfriend and the network exec show up too. Brian is trying to reassure him that everything he's said is true, but Matt just wants to know if Brian is an actor too. Like it would be so much better if there were two dupes. When Brian finally admits he's an actor too, Matt loses it again. “Someone fill me in!” Ralph says the only real thing on this reality show is Matt himself. Oh wait, the prizes are also real...and they're all Matt's.

Everyone hugs Matt and he's trying not to cry or completely lose it. Ralph tells him everything was planned out and brought to life by these actors, all for you. He stops them and said “Wait wait wait, ask me now that I won where I'm gonna go!” They do and he says “I'M GOIN' TO PITTSBURGH!!” Hee. Ralph explains how they searched to find the nicest guy possible, and now he's the star of his very own show. In a lull, Matt says he just has to say this, he went to a basketball game while having a hard time, and the casting director was there, and he was like sure why not? He's crying now, and says someone out there saw something in him that he didn't see, because they cast him. Then he apologizes if he did anything bad. “I couldn't fucking believe the Hutch won. I tried to be gracious about it, but after all that this asshole won! I'm cool as hell!” Hee.

Everyone introduces themselves, and Matt laughs every time he learns someone's real name. He shakes Kip's hand and says “Dude are you at least gay?!” Earl does say he was a Marine. The crew was real, and Matt sighs in relief. Ralph also reassures him that he (Ralph) is not really a tool. Also he's not dating Molly so there's a chance! Hee. Then there's a TV so they can watch a video of all the actors talking about how awesome Matt is. He immediately starts crying. Hutch apologizes for all the stuff he did. Matt's a great guy, he's gone out of his way to be upstanding and awesome and they all love him. Earl says he's done a lot and he can't see it. In some of the extra footage and other information, it turns out that Matt and Earl had some long conversations about life and stuff. We don't know exactly because Earl wouldn't say. But I think they were real conversations where Earl tried to act like a father figure and forget the acting. Brian reassures him that he'd be Matt's friend anytime. Ralph says they're all going to hang out here tonight, but tomorrow he's going to be the guest of honor at the kick-off party for the show, at the Playboy Mansion. “We thought that was something you might enjoy.” Hee. Matt can't believe any of this. “I can't believe Kip's not gay.” Ralph says he's got a lot of opportunities ahead of him. Matt says he just wants to go home and see his family. They take Matt back to the control room where everyone applauds and cheers. They give him his collectors plate and he says he almost wants to smash it.

OK this is the second part of this episode, where they do behind-the-scenes and talk to Matt after he's had some time to process. Matt is still in shock, though, that someone made a whole show around him. He says all his money is going to his mom, they're going to invest it and try to be smart about it.

Now they have a video about the casting and attempt to find Matt. Lots of dorky dancing and goofiness. When they brought him out for the “next round” they made him do a bunch of really dumb stuff just to see how he would react. Plus they put Brian in a room to meet him. They show when they came to his house to tell him he'd been cast, and his parents are really cute. They also have some casting videos from the actors, which is hilarious. And some of the rehearsals for things like the speeches at the eviction ceremonies. They have Gina's speech and Matt says he knew it was rehearsed. He also says some of scenes are bothersome to watch, mostly because the eviction ceremonies made him sick and he couldn't eat, and they messed with him, and he was never in any danger of being eliminated. The hardest person to reconcile is Brian. He wanted Brian to be a “real person” so badly so it really messed with him to find out he was an actor. There's also a shot of the producer telling the actors that even if Matt says “I know it's all fake” they should deny it until the end of time. There's also shots of the control room as they watched Matt.

Ralph asks how Matt feels about how this show was created just for him, and Matt points out that someone came up for the idea, and someone bought it, and THEN found him, so it's not like they found him and then made up the show. He also doesn't really like being called a schmo, but it's a small price to pay.

Matt tells Ralph he's replayed some scenarios in his mind, trying to figure out how it was all set up. The next video is about the gross eating challenge, from the first rehearsal to the actual scene. Matt says he was reassured he would not have to eat gross stuff. They originally wanted to actually serve him real dog shit, but he was so unpredictable and into the games, they worried he would really eat it. And then he'd eat real dog shit and they'd all be in trouble. So it was liverwurst and white chocolate with artificial smell. Also Brian was instructed to throw it across the room before he could eat it. Matt says he wouldn't have ever eaten it anyway, and he also noticed the producer in the room wouldn't look at him. Somehow he thought this made it more real? I don't know. They also show the rehearsal of the network exec scene. In rehearsal they basically say since Matt went to law school, has debate experience, and problems with authority, they know he'll argue. Matt is laughing in the studio and he knew it wasn't in his contract to eat anything because he could just lose the game. Clearly. But at the time he just chalked it up to people arguing. Ralph tries to get Matt to admit he really wanted Ashleigh and Molly to be topless instead of just kissing, and Matt says yeah, we all know I love women, so obviously I did.

Now they have a montage of everyone's mistakes and screw-ups that they all thought would ruin everything. But Matt never noticed. He tells Ralph he didn't really care, he was just asking questions and it was bigger for them than for him. There was also one close call where the interview room was right next to his room. There are just some double doors between the two rooms. So generally they made sure Matt was nowhere near there. At one point they were interviewing Kip out of character, and they thought Matt was in the downstairs bathroom. But suddenly they had to figure out where Matt was, because he wasn't downstairs, because he had gone up to his suite to use that bathroom. So Kip's interview was cut short, and then Brian was told to figure out if Matt had heard anything. Then Matt came back downstairs, looking weird, and then called Brian and Earl upstairs. While everyone freaked out, sure Matt was going to confront them, Matt just wanted to get them to vote for Ashleigh. Matt says on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is figuring all of it out, he was maybe at a 3. All these incidents were a huge deal to production, but Matt didn't even notice. Also he's a rule-follower and that helped them out a lot. Plus the idea that he's the only person who's not an actor is such a weird concept he probably wouldn't have ever thought of it.

Now we're going to talk about the night Earl got voted out. The girls were in the front row, and when they heard him sniffling it set them off. No one had thought he'd be so upset. The producers actually asked him if he wanted to stay on the show, and he told them yes. Matt says it was already a stressful situation, plus he liked Earl, plus he thought everyone was voting for Ashleigh. So it sort of snowballed. Matt always trusted the producers, so he never suspected them. Then Ralph said the producers thought they'd lighten the mood by having Dr. Pat and Hutch sleep together, and then the sumo game. Matt didn't want to have anything to do with anyone but Brian that morning when Hutch showed up being an asshole about it. He did believe they'd slept together, because he's kind of gullible. In the sumo game, he did want to jack everyone up to get some feelings out, but he didn't want anyone to be really hurt. Ralph wants to know if nailing Dr. Pat was payback because he was mad she'd slept with Hutch, but he says no. But he does kind of laugh about how she played him like the other actors so someone has to take one for the team.

Ralph talks about how Matt likes women. Matt interviews that he respects women, but he's going through a period where he's frisky. He had a big crush on Ashleigh, and he thought she was flirting with him. Matt interviews about each woman in the house and how he would be fine hooking up with any of them. Matt wants to come clean and says you can think a girl's hot, and want to hook up with her, but at the same time not be really invested. So while he thought it was unprofessional for Ralph to hook up with Molly, and out of character for Molly, he didn't hate Ralph. Ralph makes him pick who he'd marry, and Matt immediately says Dr. Pat. He thought Ashleigh was down (“just for some good, American, fun”) but then Ashleigh thought he was like her brother, and Dr. Pat slept with Hutch, and Gina was gone already, and Molly was sleeping with Ralph. “So there was just Kip, and whatever happened, happened.” Heh.

Montage of Matt being awesome and standing up for Kip. Backing him up and pretending his shitty magic was good and all that stuff. Also being nice to Ralph and explaining how his dumb bee costume wouldn't hurt his career, and how when Molly and her boyfriend were fighting he turned his back, and giving his prize to Dr. Pat, and his loyalty to Brian. Matt says this is who he is, but he also knew there were cameras on him all the time so he was always aware of that. He's also really grateful he was playing basketball that day, and he'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Next episode: Season 2!