Screens: MTV
The Client
Antoinette, a waitress at a Redneck Heaven in Dallas.
The Beloved
T-Lights (T-LIGHTS), a hip-hop artist in Boca Raton.
The Clues
Since initially making contact on Instagram (yeesh), they text constantly, but they've never videochatted. She and her friend Lauren went to Florida at some point and planned to meet him then, but just before they were supposed to have gotten together, he picked a fight and the meeting was off -- but then he apologized later and they were okay after that. Sometimes he lurks on her IG, taking screenshots of her photos and texting them and his comments to her rather than just commenting publicly. And since this
is typical of Antoinette's Instagram feed, it's possible that she could be attracting someone who isn't interested in her thoughts on tort reform and climate change.
The Excuses
Since T-Lights is a recording artist, whenever Antoinette wants to videochat, he happens to be someplace where the wifi sucks or his phone is almost dead. And that's it.
The Investigation
"This is a new one," says Nev as they leave their initial meeting with Antoinette at the restaurant. It's Season 3, so: no, her being suspicious isn't a "new one." Everyone who writes to the show is suspicious BY DEFINITION. Or is it a "new one" that she's so cute that, according to Max, she shouldn't have to go online to find a guy, unlike the monsters they usually deal with? Look, I'm not going to sit here and say Antoinette isn't physically attractive, but I can also imagine that her irritating mannerisms and blank personality would turn people off in person like it did me.
HOLD YOUR HEAD UP STRAIGHT.
Anyway. Max and Nev are most concerned about the fact that when Antoinette and T-Lights first moved their communications off IG, it was to Kik, and since Antoinette gave T-Lights her Kik handle on IG, anyone else who followed them both could have seen that and then impersonated T-Lights from that point forward. He's also never, for example, made a video of himself addressing Antoinette directly or playing the guitar or something. But when they find a video of him online, at the end of which he speaks, his voice sounds the same as a voicemail Antoinette had played for them.
Since Max and Nev have T-Lights's phone number, they start on Spokeo, and find it registered to someone named Carmen Essaye who's in her mid- to late fifties. Joseph Essaye is a related person, who is married, and his Facebook indicates that T-Lights (real name: Albert Ambrose) is his brother and Carmen is his mother. "This girl is gonna luck out," Max declares. But! When Nev calls Joseph's number to find out if the number Antoinette gave them is T-Lights's real number, it goes to voicemail, and Joseph's voice in his outgoing message sounds a lot like T-Lights's voice on the voicemail they heard earlier. Now they're suspicious, and they don't leave a message; instead, they look up T-Lights's manager, Luke, and call him to try to get him to confirm T-Lights's number. Obviously, Luke's response is to say that he doesn't just give out his artists' numbers to randoms who call, and Nev doesn't seem to realize that his reading the number he has and asking Luke to confirm whether it's T-Lights's is...the same? As if Luke gave it out? But Luke denies that the number Nev has is right, and also says he's never heard T-Lights talking about any Antoinette.
The topic then turns to Joseph; Luke vaguely says that Joseph handles some of T-Lights's social media, and that Luke sometimes can't tell the two brothers' voices apart on the phone. HMMMMMM. So remember how T-Lights sometimes texts his comments on Antoinette's selfies to her instead of publicly commenting on IG? Maybe that's because Joseph saw her flirting with T-Lights, found himself attracted to her himself, and decided to pretend to be T-Lights and get in touch with her via his own phone (or a secret burner his WIFE doesn't know about, I guess). What might attract a married man to a stranger?
Oh right.
AS IT WERE. Long story short: Albert's a real person. "We just don't know who's holding that phone." DUN!
The Presentation Of Findings
Max and Nev meet Antoinette at her dad's house. They open by telling Dominick, her dad, that, "obviously," he knows Antoinette's "in a relationship" with someone online, which -- and I am no fan of this bitch, but it must be said -- is not how she described it; she's made it clear that she and T-Lights chat and flirt, they haven't exchanged "I love you"s and that she wouldn't until she'd met him in person. Dominick says he doesn't know anything about T-Lights, but that he's been concerned in the past over Antoinette getting involved enough with a stranger to want to go to another state to meet him. He also says that he and Antoinette have talked about the sorts of things she posts, and that she may regret it later in life when she's being considered for an appointment as a federal judge or a slot on the first manned mission of a reinvigorated NASA space exploration program and then someone finds a video of her twerking on her IG feed. (I'm paraphrasing. But that is something she's published and that Nev and Max have also already been pretty sniffy about.) (PS This bitch is going to die a waitress, DON'T WORRY.) Antoinette replies that she's cleaned up her social media. Nev asks if that means he and Max have been seeing the cleaned-up version and she's like, totally! and then Nev puts her on blast in front of her dad for still having a video on her feed of her "shaking [her] ass cheeks." Antoinette is like, tee hee! But then she says she and her best friends were just dancing and having fun because there's not much to do around here. Which, fine? But it is possible to do things and not share them online. My personal feelings about Antoinette and her CLEARLY trying to goose her follower numbers by turning her IG feed into free softcore porn aside, please keep in mind as we go forward that this tramp-tervention happened. Because if it turns out that none of her social media behaviour is at all germane to the outcome of her story, Max and Nev are sure going to look like a couple of slut-shamers for no reason!
Once Nev and Max have finished calling Antoinette a hooker in front of her dad, they show her what they found, including shots of T-Lights with Joseph and Mrs. Joseph and the fact that Luke said the number they read him didn't belong to T-Lights. "If it's not Albert you've been talking to, then who could it be?"
...'Kay. So then Nev explains in the smallest words he knows what they think happened with the IG-to-Kik escalation, and that it could potentially be anyone pretending to be T-Lights after that.
And THEN Nev says they think it's Joseph. Antoinette doesn't seem that bothered that it could be a married guy, other than that it's kind of gross? Nev says the last thing they actually still haven't done is tried to call T-Lights -- which they could, orrrrrrrrrrr they could just go to this show in Boca Raton that they know T-Lights has in a couple of day and ambush him! Antoinette, reasonably, doesn't really want to meet "the brother," and they promise, "You're the boss." But they also confidently assert that "whoever it is" will be at the show, which is not necessarily true? If their Kik-impersonation hypothesis is correct, then fake T-Lights could be anyone anywhere. In fact, even if they're right that it's Joseph, he might not be there, because assumedly if he doesn't actually work for T-Lights beyond "handling" social media, he might not necessarily go to every show. But ANYWAY, Antoinette agrees, and it's off to Boca for all of them.
The Confrontation
They go to the show. T-Lights's music is terrible. And then, while Antoinette and Max lurk behind a bush watching, Nev goes up to T-Lights in the parking lot, where he's standing with Joseph and the other guy in the band and NO ONE ELSE (so I guess Luke's concerns about girls trying to get with T-Lights because he's so famous are completely unfounded?), and we find out...thaaaaaaaaaaaaat......Antoinette really has been talking to T-Lights. He's confused but happy to see her, though neither of them seems particularly excited to meet, and their hug has about as much electricity as a damp rag.
I stand closer than that to my sister when we talk. And if T-Lights isn't trying to get on top of Antoinette when that much of her actual ass is hanging out, maybe he doesn't like girls. Other than that T-Lights has been T-Lights this whole time, and the total lack of chemistry between our supposed lovers, the only other important information we glean in this segment is that Luke didn't confirm his number because T-Lights had asked him never to give it out, LIKE I SAID. Oh -- and T-Lights agrees with Nev and Max and Dominick that she doesn't have to be a ratchet girl on Instagram. I guess? But I also don't know that she has that much else going on.
The Post-Confrontation Confrontation
Since T-Lights is T-Lights, this is just a chill hang that re-confirms how little these two boneheads have in common.
Hugs?
Antoinette and T-Lights make out. Awkwardly.
The Aftermath
One month later: Antoinette still doesn't know how to hold her head up straight. She and T-Lights wouldn't say they're "dating" until they've seen each other more. Has she changed her IG habits? She thought about it and has stopped posting "provocative stuff" because she realized she was "being immature." I doubt it. T-Lights is working on his shitty album. Hanging out with Antoinette felt "super-normal," though he considers them "really, really close, good friends." But since they apparently just noticed that they live a time zone apart, they've decided not to pursue a romantic relationship, and Antoinette's dating someone else.
The Life Lessons Learned
You might as well post photos and clips of yourself acting like a prostitute, because if you're pretty, nothing bad will happen to you. And if you're a rapper, some dummy will want to jump on your crank even if you're white and from Boca.