MTV
Will Catfish Help Michael And Chanelle Fashion A Life Together?
Michael's online girlfriend has suddenly disappeared! Is the the victim of foul play, or has she been foul all along?
Michael, a twenty-one-year-old overnight drugstore stock clerk in Philadelphia.
Chanelle, formerly of Philadelphia (she was a student at Temple), but possibly now of North Carolina? We'll get to it.
Since she DMed him on Instagram eight months ago, Chanelle and Michael have tried to videochat, but she was in total darkness so he couldn't actually see her. Even though she'd told him she was a student at Temple, they never met in person; she told him she was going home to North Carolina for the summer, and though he expected her to return to school in the fall, she didn't. THEN, about a month ago, Chanelle suddenly stopped replying to Michael's texts or answering his phone calls -- and updating her Instagram -- so he's not sure whether she's just ghosting him, or if she's actually missing.
None? Seriously, no explanation is offered for any of the above, which is why his much wiser brother Sid (according to Michael) basically ordered him to take this matter to Catfish. GOOD CALL, SID.
Considering how little information Nev and Max start with -- Chanelle's full name; a vague description of where she's from ("the north side of west Philly") and her affiliation with Temple; her Instagram handle; and her phone number -- this is really needlessly convoluted. I guess to give the overly trusting Michael the benefit of the doubt, they start by trying to rule out the worst-case scenario, searching Chanelle [Last Name] with "missing person," "arrest record," "police report," "hospital," and since that's their starting point, we all know perfectly well nothing comes of any of it.
Max -- who you'd think might be a little more hesitant about such things after his spectacular cockiness came to nothing in the last episode -- announces that he doesn't think Chanelle [Whatever] is her real name, and the evidence seems to prove him right, at least with regard to the face she's been using online...
...as the second "Chanelle" photo they grab from her Instagram brings them to the online portfolio of a model named Ashley Trent.
Having identified the fake face, Nev and Max search Chanelle's phone number and find it registered to a Kym [Something] in Lansdale, Pennsylvania -- which is, in line with Chanelle's story, a suburb of Philadelphia. They search Kym's full name on Facebook and find her right away: she went to high school in the general area Chanelle says she's from. Kym's profile also identifies a daughter named Stacey...
...who seems to be a grown-ass adult, if the prominent forehead veins on display in her profile picture are anything to go by, and when they click through to her profile, they see more evidence of her life: a boyfriend or husband and four kids; and a job as a nurse at...Temple University Hospital. HMMMMM. (Since it's never an actual old lady doing the online lying EXCEPT WHEN THE VICTIM IS NEV, no one even pretends for a second to think Michael's been talking to anyone who could be Stacey's mother.) (But it is weird that someone as old as Stacey clearly is would still have a phone registered in her mother's name. Those veins, you guys!)
"Suddenly," Max gets the idea that they should click through some of Chanelle's other Instagram pics to see who might have responded, which is when they see that a certain "larrya_95" has liked every single one of them. It's somewhat suspect that they immediately know to pronounce this username as "la-REE-uh" rather than, as it looks to me, "Larry A," but if I started trying to poke at every hole in this show, I'd never have time for anything else. (That said, this place where Michael supposedly lives is the most Airbnb-looking one yet this season. This twenty-one-year-old African-American male CVS shelf stocker has a wool Hudson's Bay blanket and Herman Miller dining room chairs? I DOUBT IT.) Anyway: they click through to Larrya's profile, which says she's a Temple alumna, currently in the nursing program. Max and Nev agree that there's something to the Temple nurse connection between Larrya and Stacey, Max going even further and suggesting that Chanelle is Larrya. But they don't confirm that before deciding to meet back up with Michael.
Michael doesn't know Stacey or Larry's names or faces, though when they pull up Larrya's photo, Sid comments, "I wish I knew her."
Sid makes a good, if lookist, point: Larrya is very beautiful, so if it's true that Michael doesn't already know her and dislike her personality, she would have no reason to hide her identity online by using the photos of another equally beautiful woman.
Anyway, Michael is dismayed to learn that Chanelle's Instagram profile is fake, but he still wants to find out who Chanelle actually is. Nev goes outside to call the number he has for her -- the one, you'll recall, she stopped acknowledging, at least when Michael used it, a month ago -- and leaves a voicemail. Back inside, Michael suggests DMing Larrya and Stacey, which Nev does.
Back at the hotel later that night, Nev calls Max up to his room to say he's heard back from the phone number Michael thinks is Chanelle's:
Nev and Max debate what this might mean, Nev noting that if this text came from a friend of Chanelle's, he or she probably would have responded to Michael sooner to let him know his contact info was out of date. But that kind of doesn't make sense: when you change your number, do you give your old number to a friend? (Also, who changes a number in 2016 when you don't really don't have to?) Max comments that the texter is "a little too emphatic" to be totally unrelated to this story, though, which also seems to be true.
The next day, Max and Nev are up very early for reasons we don't know and head over to "Michael's" (the Airbnb they rented for him). (Why so early? Are they checking out of their hotel because they already know how this episode is going to go? Because, spoiler alert, there's Couch Time still to come tomorrow. I don't know.) In the car on the way over, Max checks Nev's phone and sees a friendly message from Larrya asking what they need. Max texts back -- really not needing Nev's direction to play it cool in the event that Larrya is Chanelle -- saying they'd like to call her and ask some questions about a friend of hers.
At the Airbnb, Michael is also confused by the latest developments in this story. "The whole idea of 'I don't want nothin to do with this mess' suggests that they are, like, aware that Chanelle has been messing with people?" says Nev. "'Cause we didn't say it was a mess!" Right...but even people who've never seen Catfish know what that term has come to mean and what the show is about, so if you hear it mentioned in a voicemail you get from Nev Schulman, you can reasonably assume it's not because you won a contest. Since "Larrya is our only bet," as Max observes, they all decide in the absence of other options to try to pursue a meeting with Larrya, Max saying again that he thinks it's possible Chanelle and Larrya are the same person EVEN IF THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Larrya readily agrees to meet in a park -- where nothing good ever happens -- after class.
At the park (where nothing good ever happens) the dudes wait for Larrya in some kind of stone pavilion. Soon enough, Larrya appears...
...and looks the same as the person on her Instagram feed. Using the entrappy conditionals that subtly suggest that they think Larrya might be Chanelle, they tell her the story they know. Larry says she and Chanelle have been friends for a long time, and that when Chanelle stopped communicating with Michael -- whom, Larrya says, Chanelle cares for -- it was because "she had a lot going on" that she might not be comfortable having Larrya share on her behalf. Nev says he understands, but he's pretty sarcastic in his tone, so Larrya agrees to answer questions they may have. "Does she have a boyfriend?" snits Nev. "Did she get pregnant?" Larrya laughs and says, "She just had a lot going on." So you're...not going to answer questions, then. Got it.
Larrya then takes a very long pause, which cues Max to ask, "Is there a Chanelle?" "Chanelle is my friend, yes," Larrya nods. "There's a real person named Chanelle?" he presses. Larrya: "Ummmm, so, I have something to tell you? She actually-- I brought her with me?" Nev and Max can't believe Chanelle's actually somewhere in the vicinity, but Larrya says she's in the car, and they all go with her to retrieve her.
As Larrya goes to the car to get someone (or a sock puppet) out of it, Max says again, "I was sure that was going to be her." WHY WOULD THIS GIRL LIE IF SHE'S PERFECTLY ATTRACTIVE AND HAS NO PRIOR RELATIONSHIP WITH MICHAEL, MAX. USE YOUR HEAD. Anyway, Michael ignores that because he's keeping eyes on the car, and when another woman gets out of the passenger seat, Michael drawls, "Awwww, I definitely know that bitch." "You know her?" asks Max. "Hell yeah! That's my ex," says Michael. So...it's one of these.
"Chanelle" is Christina, who dated Michael for two months when they were sixteen. (Yeesh. That's a long time ago and a short relationship for Michael still to refer to her as "that bitch," but then I suppose he does have cause to be angry with her.) They both went to college and lost touch, according to her.
Max follows as Michael wanders off muttering, reminding us all that Michael and Chanelle did speak on the phone, but that he didn't recognize her voice because "she's a good fucking actor." That, or he just didn't remember what his girlfriend of two months five years ago actually sounded like?
Christina admits to Nev that she "could've planned things out a lot better." Or tried to meet and talk to a different guy you didn't know when both of you were children?
"That bitch" to the contrary, Michael tells Max he didn't have a problem with Christina, so he doesn't know why she went to these lengths to start talking to him again; if she'd contacted him as herself, he thinks he would have "probably been as cool as [they] used to be." Not to in any way defend Christina for all of this nonsense, but I do feel like she probably has a pretty good sense of how receptive Michael would be to her...though, again, I might just be focusing too much on the not-very-nice word Michael used when he first saw her.
Nev calls Michael back to the conversation, where Christina seems entirely unremorseful about her deception and is just smiling a lot like she thinks it's cute. Michael says again that he would have talked to Christina if she'd contacted him openly, and all she can say is that she's sorry and that she wasn't malicious. She vaguely says she had an idea of getting information about Michael's life as Chanelle with the thought that later she'd "swoop in as Christina" and try to start things up again, but then she got used to her role as Chanelle.
Why did they stop talking? Oh right, that! "I wasn't using my own phone," says Christina. "I was using a friend's phone." You couldn't even be arsed to get a burner phone? God, poor Stacey, but also, WHY DID SHE EVER AGREE TO SUCH BALONEY. Now Stacey and Christina aren't speaking -- gee, I wonder why -- so that's why Christina had to cut off contact with Michael; it wasn't by choice. Nev notes that Michael texted Chanelle "late at night," and Christina says that if she wasn't there, Stacey would text Christina on her real phone to report what Michael had said and get Christina to tell her how to respond. OH MY GOD, STACEY, YOU ARE AN ADULT WOMAN WITH (apparently) FOUR CHILDREN. GROW UP! "But that also means that she's seen everything that you guys have said to each other," says Nev. Oh, lord. Stacey. Get a life. Christina kind of shrugs, "...Yeah," like that had never occurred to her before but that she doesn't think it's a big deal. See, if she was right all along that Michael would have ignored her if she'd gotten in touch with him as herself, WE ARE STARTING TO SEE WHY.
At this point, Michael decides he's done having this conversation and wants to return to the car. Nev says he'll get back in touch with Christina and Larrya in a little while. IF Christina's planning on having a spa day to primp for her next meeting with Michael, she probably needn't bother.
The next day, Nev calls Michael to see if he wants to come for a follow-up chat with Christina. He does not! Bye, Michael!
Max and Nev head over to Christina's, where she says she's glad they're here because she didn't feel "heard" the day before with regard to her reasons for doing what she did; she assumes Michael thinks she was "pulling a joke" on him, but that's not the case. She follows Sid on Instagram and saw a photo of Michael in his feed; it made her start thinking about the good times they'd had: "I figured I'd reach out to him as Chanelle, and kind of went with it." Okay, but...there's a big gap in this story. Did the fake Chanelle profile predate her first contact with Michael? If so, by how much? What else had she done with it?
Nev asks what it was about her relationship with Michael that made her think she shouldn't contact him using her real identity, which is also fair, and Chanelle says she was feeling insecure about herself at the time; her son was a year old and she still had postpartum depression and hadn't lost the baby weight. She liked talking to Michael because helping him with his problems gave her a break from thinking about her own; it also made her feel useful. They ask if she was just using him as an escape, but she says she did care about him and still does. Nev and Max then pretty gently point out that if she and Michael were friends, she should have known he would be hurt by what she did, and wouldn't want to come see her today. She says she does, but adds, "I do think that I'm going to reach out to him. 'Cause I didn't get a chance to talk to him at all." Nev just nods, but Max says, "Yeaaaaah, but like, I don't know if you should reach out to him, because he doesn't want to hear from you." I mean, I'm sure he doesn't, but Michael is perfectly capable of telling Christina that himself -- or ignoring her -- so I don't know why Max thinks he needs to run interference here. "And for good reason," Max adds. "He thinks you did something crazy. And he doesn't want to have a relationship with someone that can hurt him like that." Christina:
"Nah, I think I'm still going to try to talk to him anyway" is what that face is saying. Max soldiers on: "It just seems like that if you really care about him, trying to talk to him more and to get him to forgive you is trying to make yourself feel less guilty about what you did to him." Christina DGAF about any of that: "Um, but I know when someone does me wrong, I would like to have offered, at least my, you know, my sincere apologies." That sentence kind of got away from her, but okay. Nev decides to join Max in his advice that Christina...not: "Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is acknowledge that they don't want to have anything to do with you and give them that space. He has your information; if he wants to talk about it, he certainly knows how to." I don't get why they're acting like Christina's done something so much worse than any other liar that Michael's not getting their whole "you owe yourself closure" song and dance, but I also don't think Christina's hearing any of this, so whatever. Nev adds that they're going over to Michael's next, and offers to relay a message; she says she apologizes and that she wishes him the best.
At Michael's, Max opines that Christina doesn't seem like "she totally understands what she's done," but does repeat the postpartum story, and that she didn't pose as Chanelle to mess with Michael. For his part, Michael says he may talk to Christina in the future and let her know he's not upset. "But if you are upset, that's fine too," says Max. Did Christina run over Max's foot or something? I mean, yes, of course, what Christina did wasn't okay, but since he's not citing specifically which parts of this story he finds more objectionable than the norm, his insistence on keeping the wedge between Christina and Michael exactly where it is makes him look like a real bitch. Michael concludes that he's learned to be more careful about whom he spends his time on: "'Cause I played a part too." Very mature and very true.
Nev and Max hug Christina on the way out the door at her place.
We don't get to meet back up with either of them for a Skype check-in, but: Michael's avoiding online dating at the moment and focusing on work and his infant son. Christina's working on a blog to help women with postpartum depression. I'm not sure this episode is the best advertisement for such a project, but okay.
If your online girlfriend can't even be bothered to try to explain her weird behaviour, she's probably fake. If your brother thinks your online girlfriend is fake, she's probably fake. Don't be a party to some other idiot's deception by letting her use your phone to do it, STACEY.