MTV
Will Catfish Help Paris And Tara Live La Vie En Rose?
Or will scrutiny force Tara to surrender her lies?
Paris, a twenty-five-year-old massage therapist living outside Chicago.
Tara, apparently ageless and jobless, and apparently also of the Chicago area.
After meeting in a chat room four years ago, Tara and Paris not only hadn't videochatted but had also failed several times to connect in person, and then Tara got into a car accident and suffered a head injury. After that, Tara kind of went off the grid, but recently she resurfaced. Because of her departure from Paris's life, Paris was suspicious, so she reverse-searched the latest photo Tara had sent her and found it on the Facebook profile of a girl in New Jersey named Dana.
Tara claimed she couldn't communicate with Paris after her accident because the radiation from her phone hurt her head in some unspecified way.
Since Tara's already been found out as a photo liar before Max and Nev even arrive, the investigation starts the first time the two of them meet at "Paris's" home.
I mean, come on. That is in no way where Paris lives unless her mother writes a home décor blog.
Max asks whether Paris thinks "Tara" could be someone else she knows from the chat room where they met, and it turns out Paris does have a couple of suspects in mind. First, there's her ex Nicole: after the two of them dated -- in person -- for a little while, Nicole broke up with Paris because Paris identifies as bi and Nicole -- who "was full-on lesbian," according to Paris -- thought Paris was just dabbling with women, basically; she got jealous of a male platonic friend Paris made in massage school and, after she started throwing things at Paris, their relationship ended.
Then there was Mary, who is four years older than Paris and who lived in Mississippi...until she moved to Chicago to be with Paris. That didn't work out great, though, since Mary showed up on Paris's doorstep with no job, no place to live, and her mother and young son in tow. Paris still lives with her mother and did back then as well, but since it hadn't been Paris's understanding that Mary had no plan for how she and the rest of her family were going to get by after their move, Paris's mom wasn't okay with the Mary clan staying more than a night. Paris, by the way, was only nineteen at the time, so what the fuck is a mother in her twenties doing putting this kind of pressure on her?
And what is THAT mother's mother doing going along with this ridiculous moving-in scheme? Anyway, after Paris was forced to kick her out, Mary went real sour on her. In fact, Paris knows that Mary has even contacted Tara to warn her against getting involved with Paris. "This girl sounds like she's definitely not above inventing a new profile, pretending to be someone else in the chat room," comments Max. And then, as we're about to see, he pretty much parks on that position and barely moves, because the amount of research Max and Nev are about to do on their own is...negligible.
To be fair, Paris doesn't give them much to go on: she says the only information she has on Tara is her Yahoo username (suspect in itself), and no social media profiles at all. She's also got her old phone number, her current phone number, and the four (4) photos Tara sent her in their four years of online acquaintance. Cool, seems legit. She also has the link to Mary's Facebook profile, which Paris can no longer access since she blocked Paris, "but hopefully you guys will have better luck." I don't know: if Mary even knows how to block someone on Facebook, she's more privacy-minded than 99% of the boneheads who make it onto this show on either side of the liar divide. Finally, she includes Nicole's email address...and that's it. Seriously? She never had Nicole's phone number? When they were dating at some point between 2007 and now? Spoiler: the Nicole stub of the story doesn't end up going anywhere, but that's still fucking weird. I know they had an acrimonious breakup, but so acrimonious that Nicole changed her number when she could probably just block Paris's number?!
I digress, because there's so little to say. For some reason, they start with Dana, the person least likely to have knowingly been involved in this story in any way, and send her a Facebook message telling her a stranger stole her photos and asking to chat with her.
On to Tara's phone numbers. The old one is a landline in Chicago, but since she used it to text, they assume it's a web phone number, which Max dubs "shady," and based on the evidence on this series generally, I can't disagree. The current number is registered to a Mary, and though Nev and Max immediately think they've cracked it, Max then asks, "Is that for the correct number? It's not," and they drop it. I don't know what that means. Nev mistyped it? Why even include this in the final episode cut when it goes nowhere and makes no sense? (I actually know: because even with so much filler, this episode barely squeaks over a forty-minute running time. SHIT IS THIN.)
Nothing comes up when they search Nicole's email address, but they send her a message anyway asking her to contact them.
On to Mary's Facebook, where she writes, "I'm 28 I have an amazing wife and son they have my heart what else could I ask for I am blessed [sic]." They send her a Facebook message too, and then wait...
...but not long, because Dana gets back to them, and is apparently just fine videochatting with them while she's walking down the street, from what we can tell. Surprise! She doesn't know any Tara, and nothing she says tells us anything except that she is thirsty. Get a job, Dana. And at least go lean up against a tree for two minutes while you're talking to someone on a damn TV show.
And that's where they leave things the first day. "It could just be some random person who just happened to come across Dana's pictures and made this whole thing up," says Nev, like, fucking duh, that's how these stories go about 80% of the time. But THEN he says, "At this point, anybody who gets back to us is somewhat less suspicious." In other words: it's definitely either someone who doesn't have any prior association with Paris, or someone who does. Congratulations on another productive day at this thing that's somehow become your actual job!
The next day, Nev gets a call from Mary.
Uh oh. When people Nev and Max contact are excited or even just know about the show, it's usually a red flag. Nev tells Mary they're in Chicago on behalf of Paris and they'd like Mary's side of the story of their relationship, she opines that Paris is not a good person, and confirms that she'd tried to warn Tara off Paris. And that's not all!
Mary claims that when she and Paris both used that chat room, "she was catfishing people." Instead of asking exactly what Mary means by that -- using stolen photos? faking her feelings to fuck with people? -- Nev asks generally whether Mary thinks "Paris would be capable of creating some kind of elaborate lie," and Mary says, "It wouldn't surprise me." So is Nev asking whether Mary thinks Paris invented Tara, as well, to get on the show? Come on, Nev: only once in a lifetime does a Hundra come along. Nev surmises that Mary and Paris are no longer in contact, and Mary says that's correct -- and also that she doesn't want any contact with Paris.
Nev is sorry to "drudge [sic] up bad memories," but Mary says she's okay and sounds friendly enough as she hangs up. "I don't think it's Mary," says Max. "Now I don't know who to trust!" yelps Nev, literally throwing up his hands in defeat. "Maybe Paris has been catfishing Tara this whole time, and wants to use the show to finally meet her and expose herself." "Now we have a new suspect," says Max. "The victim." And on that inconclusive note, the investigation -- some-fucking-how -- concludes.
Before telling Paris that they are no closer to finding out who Tara is than they were when they left "her" house the day before, Max and Nev try to get her to confess that she's behind everything and a huge liar herself basically just by raising their eyebrows at her a lot. When it doesn't work, they sit her down at the Table of Revelation and tell her straight-up that Mary accused her of also being an internet liar herself. Paris says, "Really. Ha." Then, after a pause, she admits that while she's not proud of it, when she was a dumb teenager, she did pretend in the chat room to be someone she wasn't, and that there were two people with whom she communicated using a false identity, for about a year, before she came out when she was eighteen. "So you started out catfishing," Nev recaps. (Leave it to the professionals.) Max:
Take it easy, dude, it's not like she just said she's the Zodiac killer. Paris regrets her actions to this day. Nev advances his theory about Paris being the real liar by saying he ran it by Mary to see if she thought it could be true, and Paris, reasonably, is insulted that Mary said she did; Paris denies it categorically.
And since Nev and Max have no new information about Tara AT ALL, Nev has nothing else to do but go call her. Tara readily confirms that the girl in the "Tara" photos is not Tara herself, and asks, "Is she mad?" Nev says she's not; she just wants to find out who she is: "She's had really strong feelings for you for a long time, and, y'know, she's just hoping that we can finally bring you guys together." Does Tara want to meet Paris? Tara does, but she's afraid Paris won't accept her, and she needs a minute to deal with this. After she's hung up, Nev tells an offscreen producer, "She sounds older." She doesn't to me, but sure.
Meanwhile, inside -- where Max and his non-toy camera are still sitting across from Paris, I guess to make sure she's not creating any fake profiles while the show's personnel don't have eyes on her -- Paris's phone buzzes with a text...from Tara: "Paris, if you want to meet me, I need you to tell me you love me." Max, loving the drama, runs out to the back door to relay this to Nev, still in the yard. Max and Nev come back inside together, where they learn that, while they were kvelling over this, Tara texted again: "Did you ever love Mr." I think that's supposed to be "me," and I guess punctuation costs extra on Tara's shady app.
And THEN, Tara calls Nev. She will meet Paris, but: surprise, she doesn't actually live in Chicago; she lives in Syracuse. When she's hung up, Max asks whether Paris knows anyone who lives there; she does not. He also brings up Nicole who, having not responded to Nev's email, is "a total wild card." Or someone who has no reason to answer and isn't required to? Whatever: let's all go to Syracuse!
Things start off on kind of a dodgy note when Nev knocks on the front door of the address Tara texted to him and, by way of answer, he gets a text back asking that they all go to the back door so that her nosy neighbours don't see. They do, grudgingly, and when Nev actually does get someone to the door, Paris immediately recognizes who it is. "Thought you never could love me," says the resident tauntingly to Paris. "Do you know each other?" asks Max, like an idiot. Of course they do!
...because it's Mary. Immediately, Max and Nev go on the attack because she made them look the fools on the phone before. Nev recaps (leave it to the professionals) that Mary had said she was married and had a kid, and Mary says both those things are true and that they all live in this house, so I guess we have to believe her. Nev: "So this is just--"
All right, with the drama. It's clear Mary is hoping for a huge, hysterical reaction, but instead, Paris is like
Hee hee. Nev starts to say it seems like a lot of trouble for Mary to go through, but Mary cuts him off to ask if he knows what Paris did to her. "We don't know anything," says Nev. HELLO, NEW SHOW TAGLINE. Mary is only too happy to explain her version of events when she and her whole family descended upon Paris in Chicago more than half a decade ago: Paris said they would be together, and told her to come. Paris doesn't deny that, but counters that Mary came with "a lot of baggage," and made it Paris's responsibility to house Mary, her son, and her mother -- none of which Mary denies, by the way, before drawling, "And where did you put me?" "Don't say I put you anywhere," says Paris. "I gave you an option." "You put me there," says Mary. To Nev, Paris says, "She stayed in a-- in a women's homeless shelter." Mary:
It's obvious from this look she's giving Nev that Mary's like, "I REST MY CASE," but like, bitch, YOU WERE HOMELESS. You don't pick up stakes and move several states and a time zone to your nineteen-year-old girlfriend's MOM'S house without, I don't know, money? Instead of deciding, LIKE THE REST OF US DID A WHILE AGO, that Mary is crazy putty, Nev decides to turn it around on Paris, saying she shouldn't have offered her place for Mary to stay when she lived with her mom and should have known Paris Sr. would not have allowed such an arrangement. Paris says that Mary did stay there the first night she arrived, but that then her mother said that was it, and there was nothing Paris could do. Yeah, but Paris, that's Nev's point. What I think is more likely is that Paris made the reasonable assumption that Mary alone could probably crash with her while she looked for her own place, but that when it became clear to Paris's mother that Mary had no such plan, she pulled the plug, AND RIGHTLY SO.
Max asks what happened next, and Mary says that she, her mother, and her son went from Chicago to South Carolina, which is where she went on to meet her wife. "Are you guys happy?" Max asks. "Absolutely," Mary chirps. "And let me 'mind y'all, I took care of myself when I first moved to South Carolina." Uh, congrats? Why didn't you fucking do that in Chicago if you knew how. "Good, because you're an adult, and that's important!" says Max, on behalf of us all. Mary:
Guys. She's crazy. And Max starts trying -- nicely -- to point out to her how crazy she is by recapping (leave it to the professionals) that she had Paris out of her life, she'd met someone else and fallen in love: why not just cut the cord rather than create this elaborate revenge plot? As he's talking, here's Mary's face:
You can watch the phases as her true sadness about how things went with Paris starts to show, but then she snaps out of it and back into bravado to ask him, "Why not?" Max:
EVERYONE STOP CRUSHING MAX'S GENTLE SPIRIT.
Nev asks whose voice she used for "Tara" on the phone, and Mary tries to be cute by saying it was "someone close to" her before Nev is like, "Your wife?" and she admits that it was she. Paris, instead of just staying out of it, then casts aspersions on Mrs. Mary for not talking Mary out of this scheme, never mind involving herself in it. "'Cause she knows you deserved it," Mary clucks. Paris finds this ridiculous, because it is, and since Mary can tell she's losing everyone, she announces that she's done and goes back inside. "Bye-bye!" says Paris, waving merrily at her back. Really, that should be the end of the encounter.
THIS BITCH CRAY.
Then we're back in the car with the dudes as Max calls Mary to set up a meet without Paris. Mary is all about it.
When Max and Nev return, Mary is less combative, but says Paris "devastated [her] life." She claims Paris made her all kinds of promises about their life together and that they "would figure it out together." Okay...but she was nineteen. Use your head. Max asks whether the deal was that Mary and the rest of her family were all going to live in Paris's mom's house. "That's what she told me, yes," says Mary. "But when we got there, Paris dropped me off at the shelter with my son and my mom." I mean, even if Paris was very lovestruck, I just don't buy for a second that she volunteered her parent's house for Mary's whole family to crash in. Paris might be a romantic, but she doesn't strike me as someone who has that little regard for life's practical realities, and I truly believe Mary just heard what she wanted to hear. Or, as Paris herself apparently texted her at the time:
Seriously. Nev sticks up for Paris, saying she was obviously unable to overrule her mother with regard to who was going to be living (rent-free, presumably) in her house. Mary says she knows Paris was young, but that she wanted the love Paris promised her. So Mary is a narcissist, on top of which she has no life skills. Or sense. Or, in 2010, money for a hotel room. Got it.
Nev then asks why, if a five-years-older-and-wiser Mary now cuts Paris more slack for the errors of her youth, why go through all this trouble with the Tara profile? Mary claims that it wasn't always malicious, but that she couldn't stop thinking about Paris and, after a while, liked having contact with her as a friend. "This is the last lie in my life," Mary concludes -- a line one feels she's had in her hip pocket since she wrote to the show about coming out to Paris (because we all agree she's the one who initiated this episode, right?), "and I'm ready for it to be gone." Nev proposes a post-confrontation confrontation the next day; Mary agrees.
Everyone meets back up at Mary's, where we don't really hear much more of import that she didn't already tell Max and Nev the evening before: Dana is a Facebook friend of Mary's cousin's; she was able to talk to "Tara" thanks to an app that lets users log in under multiple usernames at once. ("Wow, crafty," mutters Paris sarcastically.) Mary has written a letter about her feelings, and how revenge turned into "compassion and concern" for Paris. In return, Paris kind of perfunctorily apologizes for what she had put Mary through all those years ago. Mary says she should have realized that she was making the mistake by deciding to move all that way, "and not knowing enough." YEAH. YOU FUCKING SHOULD HAVE. "And maybe not having a structured plan," she adds. YEAH. TO SAY THE FUCKING LEAST.
"But, you know, I'll always be there for you," Mary concludes. But then she says she's not asking Paris for her friendship -- and it sounds like that's a good thing as Paris immediately says she gets that, so...I don't think it was ever being offered. "I'll leave that door open," says Mary. I have no idea what that means, but we seem to be wrapping things up, so I'm just as happy not laying out terms for a relationship that's obviously never going to materialize in any form.
There is a hug. Mary is very weepy; Paris seems like she's already over it. Probably because she was, until "Tara" reappeared in her life after a long hiatus for the purposes of this episode.
Two months later, Paris is doing well. She says that when they were still in Syracuse, Mary texted her, and the two of them met at the hotel, along with Mary's wife and son. But they haven't had any contact since that day, which seems like the right call for Paris FOR SURE. Mary says everything is great. She is glad she got closure. She adds, "I still have concerns for her. I feel like there's a part of me that needs to protect her? 'Cause I know people hurt her a lot? But I also know I hurt her." Hey, here's a thought. Paris doesn't talk to you. Why not direct some of that energy to the other people who live in your house?
These people never got in any kind of accident. Even if cell phone radiation affected a head injury, you could still type on a computer. Elaborate revenge plots are rarely as devastating to their targets as their perpetrators predict. Participating in this show is a great way to get MTV to put you up in a nice Airbnb for at least a couple of days.