I Am Incurious (Red)

The Client

Jennifer, a high-school senior in Fort Madison, IA.

The Beloved

Skylar, a college junior studying "computer tech" in San Francisco.

The Clues

Skylar has never agreed to videochat with Jen. She's only seen two photos of him. He's not on Facebook.

The Excuses

"Time out. He's in school for computer tech and he won't videochat with her?" - Max. When she wants to videochat, he's always "busy with school" and she doesn't want to be annoying. Even though she's clearly willing, he's never tried to get their friendship onto a "romantic" level.

The Investigation

Searching Skylar's phone number returns a profile with no information apart from his city: Martinez, California. Neither of the photos appear to be attached to anything else. A call to San Francisco State confirms that no one named Skylar Hazen is enrolled there. So...dead end, right? Not necessarily: a simple web search of the name returns a Facebook profile for a Skylar Hazen in Nebraska. So she has never even Googled his name?! Stop helping her when she cannot even do the simplest thing to help her own stupid self! Anyway: this Skylar Hazen apparently has a girlfriend. Max and Nev contact a friend of his, who says Skylar does have a girlfriend he met playing an online game (which is how Jen met her Skylar), and that he's never heard Skylar mention any Jen. Then Skylar himself calls Nev to deny that he's the Skylar Jen's been talking to.

The Presentation Of Findings

Despite all the nothing Nev and Max turned up, Jen still wants to meet Skylar, but she's like

Nev calls Skylar, who hilariously asks why he's supposed to think this is actually Nev from Catfish. Nev barrels through this script-flipping and demands that Skylar meet with Jen. Skylar is typically skittish, whining that he's in the middle of finals and that if he wants to meet Jen, he'll do so on his own terms. But since all of this was worked out with producers before Nev and Max ever came to Iowa, he takes a day to think about it but finally agrees.

The Confrontation

Skylar is a dude named Bryan, who is plainly not the guy in either of the two photos Jen has (who are...probably not the same guy, by the way). Jen is like

He willingly states that he doesn't "have, like, emotional feelings towards her" and never wanted her to know who he really was. When Catfish called, Bryan figured he could tell Jen the truth and let her be a surrogate for all the other girls he's been duping online: Jen was one of several girls Bryan was faking relationships with online in order to "brush up [his] game." I'm not sure what kind of practice Bryan thinks he's going to get trying out lines on a dope like Jen, but I suppose if a baseball player swings a bat with like a sweatband around it, that offers a tiny bit of resistance for when he's actually at bat? Anyway, I guess because Bryan was just fucking around and not stringing Jen along for true love like Nev thinks all this show's other gigantic liars are, Nev gets super-offended, snitting, "Why did I bring this awesome, amazing girl from Iowa for you to clear your conscience?" Instead of replying, "That was your decision as part of the production of your bullshit show, Nev," Bryan says he thought it would be good for Jen to hear the truth straight from Bryan, who has no shame about any of this even when Max points out that Bryan could have ended this whole thing over the phone. Nev leads Jen away because Bryan is not worthy even to talk to Nev anymore. After they're gone, Bryan says he was "giving [Jen] a gift" by being in a fake relationship with her because it made her happy.

Nev encourages Jen to go tell Bryan off on behalf of all the other girls, and Jen agrees. Bryan clearly couldn't care less what she thinks of him or that he hurt her stupid feelings.

The Post-Confrontation Confrontation

Given a whole day to come up with a reason for his scam, Bryan says he's gotten himself into fake online relationships because some other girl did it to him. He never put it together before Catfish came along! Imagine that. Max is like, "Do not contact Jennifer ever again," and instead of saying, "Or else what?," Bryan is like, "Yeah, I'm not interested in her, so I won't -- weren't you paying attention?" I'm paraphrasing, barely.

The Aftermath

Two months later, Bryan is "still online," so presumably nothing's changed from his perspective. Jen claims to be more cautious about friendships with people she doesn't know in real life. I just bet.

The Life Lessons Learned

Like...Google? Do a Google search on a person's name if you've been talking to him or her online for more than a couple of hours? It's easy -- you don't even have to capitalize it! Also, if you find that you have a hard time making friends in real life, consider that it might be due to the fact that you're making this face all the time.