Screens: MTV
Will Harold Ever Get Into Armani's Jeans?
A college freshman enlists the help of Nev and Angel Haze to find out if the girl he's been talking to on and off for four years is everything she seems, starting with: is she even a girl?
Harold, a college student from Sauk Village, IL.
Armani, a school janitor, of Kankakee, IL.
They've never met in person; he's only ever seen this one photo of her.
One picture? Take it, Angel Haze, by far the best co-host yet!
Another clue suggesting that Armani's not as into Harold as he is into her is that they stopped talking for a while -- pretty seriously; he'd blocked both her and a couple of her friends, Babay and Deshyla, on Facebook -- and then she got pregnant.
Armani had the baby, and FOR SOME REASON NAMED HIM "JRUE."
Another guy Harold played basketball with reportedly dated Armani, so Harold assumed that probably meant she's real; they've never met because she lives four hours away; she doesn't want to Skype because her phone (...?) camera is broken or jank or something.
Hilariously, Angel ends her three-way Skype call with Nev and Harold by telling the latter she hopes he gets everything he wants out of this experience. Then he hangs up and she is a BIT less optimistic with Nev.
And when Angel and Nev get to Harold's and he tells them some more of his sad story -- that seven of his friends have been shot and killed in the past year -- the full import of how much it's going to devastate this kid when Nev inevitably has to show him that the girl he thinks he's in love with is not what she seems hits Nev and he shits his pants a little.
But Nev and Angel forge ahead anyway. They don't get any other hits on the one and only photo of Armani that Harold has seen, or on her current phone number. But her old phone number turns up a Marcus Brown in Kankakee. Nev gets (typically) way too excited about this connection, since it means that at least she didn't lie about her last name or location. ...Great? I mean, I guess when everything else spells doom, he has to hang his hat on SOME damn thing.
The old number is attached to the email address "2fly4u@[whatever]," and when they Google THAT, they turn up a Tamila [something] on an old basketball recruiting website. Harold had told them that Armani was 5'10"; this says Tamila's 5'11" and 202 lbs., a stat she may now regret putting online although my esteemed colleague Sarah D. Bunting is totally right about this.
And can we get real about women's weights for a sec? 202 for a 5'11" athlete is not fat! Also, boobs weigh a lot. #catfish #freeTamila
— Sarah D. Bunting (@TomatoNation) March 12, 2015
They Google Tamila and find her Twitter profile, on which, btw, you can completely see her last name, so good job, blur team.
"This is potentially Armani," says Nev, but they're not stopping there: they find Deshyla and send her a Facebook message asking for her help; they also turn up Babay Gotem' Madd, who had called Harold from Armani's phone during one of the periods when Armani and Harold weren't talking.
When they poke around on her Facebook, they find a photo of Jrue (ugh), clearly the same baby as in the photo Harold had shown them earlier. For some reason, they make the leap that Jrue (ew) must be Babay's son, as though no one ever posts photos of other people's kids in their feed -- but far more incriminating is an idiosyncratic typing tic Babay shares with Armani, as Angel notes.
Based on the spelling, Angel declares she's "100 percent this girl is Armani."
Then Deshyla calls Nev back. She confirms that she's friends with Babay, but when Nev tries to trick her by asking whether Jrue is Babay's son, Deshyla, smooth as silk, says Jrue is Armani's baby. So then Nev asks if she's friends with Armani too, and guess what, she is!
Okay, that's what we used to say in landline days when your friend lied to her mom that she was sleeping over at your place and her mom called looking for her. NOT BUYING IT, DESHYLA. Anyway, Deshyla confirms that Armani's always talking to Harold, and when Nev asks why Armani's never met up with him in person, Deshyla says "she doesn't really have a car" (meaning...?); she does confirm that Armani's a high school janitor. So really all we've learned is that Deshyla's been briefed on the facts of Armani's story, and not at all that any of them is actually true, and not even Nev is fooled, though he still doesn't know whether Deshyla's covering for Babay or Tamila or herself. Doesn't look good for Harold, though!
Even though they both played basketball in Illinois, Harold has never met Tamila that he can recall, and also feels the need to comment that, at 202 pounds, she's heavier than he is, which: (a) rude, and (b) wouldn't that make him kind of puny for a basketball player? Nev tests the waters by asking Harold how he'd feel if Tamila turns out to be "Armani," and he pauses before answering, "Might have some difficulty there." "Why?" asks Angel. "Because I don't want to fuck a fat girl," Harold does not reply. What he actually says is, "That picture was stuck in my brain, and when I see this picture [of Tamila], it's like the complete opposite of what's in that picture." But he's still hopeful that the Armani picture will turn out to belong to the person he's been talking to!
Moving on: Harold is relieved to hear that Deshyla confirmed everything he (thought he) knew about Armani. And when they show him the photos of Babay -- which he's apparently never looked up even though he knew her full online name? -- Nev asks, "Does she appeal to you?" and Harold's like
Harold also notices Babay's "qq" thing. A producer asks whether Harold thinks Babay is the girl in the Armani photo, and Harold says no...but that's okay with him!
Angel, proving again that she is the best, is shocked and disgusted: "It's physicality for him. That's it." Harold tries to deny it, kind of...
"I was rooting for you," says Angel. But she doesn't let him off the hook, pointing out that he'd said he has trust issues, but that he's willing to forgive "Armani" for lying to him about the most basic details of her biography -- i.e. WHO SHE IS -- if it turns out that the person running a scam on him was also hot. "Man, you have to take into consideration that everybody's not perfect," says Harold. LET'S ALL REMEMBER HE SAID THAT IN CASE EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT LATER, OKAY GUYS?!
Well, there's nothing left but for Nev and Angel to call "Armani" and see if she wants to meet. When he tells her he's calling from Catfish, she kind of laughs and says she figures they're calling about Harold. She says she wants things to stay the same with Harold as they have been, and then starts talking way too much -- without being asked -- about her profile photo, claiming that people used to steal her photos all the time, so she had to hide them, except that one. Sure, seems legit. When Nev asks why she's never texted Harold any other photos of herself, she says he never asked. That, I believe, particularly if he suspected something might be up and didn't want to prove himself right. Nev asks whether she'd be willing to meet Harold in person, and after repeating that she doesn't want to alter what they have now, she agrees. Obviously.
Nev, Angel, and Harold show up at the address Armani had sent them, and after a moment, out comes Babay. "Babay a.k.a. Armani," says Nev. "No, Armani's inside right now," says Babay.
After a commercial break that LITERALLY EVERYONE agrees was bullshit...
What?!! How can they cut to commercial right there?! #Catfish
— Max Joseph (@maxjoseph) March 12, 2015
...we're back on the lawn, and Babay comes back out with...
..."Armani." Who, it turns out, is the first person they suspected: Tamila! Immediately, it's clear she is weird; what's not clear is whether she's dumb like the people on this show normally are; drunk OR WHATEVER; or...like, touched. The first thing she does is ask Harold for a hug, which he's too shocked to refuse. As soon as he's released her, she asks for another one.
I fear we'll never have a better avatar than Angel, you guys.
Once Tamila's cleared up the pronunciation of her name -- "TAM-a-la," not "ta-MEE-la," as Team Catfish has been saying -- she asks Harold, "Was this what you was expecting?" His sheepish silence is answer enough, so Nev has to take over the interview, and his question about whether she has a son leads her to say that everything she ever told Harold about herself was true, "except that picture." (And her name, obviously.) Nev asks whether Tamila knows the girl whose picture she used for her profile; she does not. Harold shyly asks what made her choose that shot, out of all the photos on the entire internet.
Duh. Angel asks whether Tamila was ever going to correct Harold's incorrect impression of what she looks like, and Tamila lies, "Eventually." She asks Harold, "Now, what'd you fell in love with, the picture or me?" Harold bullshits something about feeling connected to Tamila "mentally and emotionally," but that he was attracted to the picture, too. "Right, you thought I was just this light-skinned girl?" says Tamila disgustedly. I mean...yeah? I see her point, but on the other hand, it was still her choice to use that photo. Angel points out that Harold never said he only liked light-skinned girls -- I'm not sure how Angel knows that? -- and Tamila shrugs, "That's his type, though," and cracks up.
...Drunk? I really think she's had a few to prepare for this meeting, and I don't think she's dumb because when she points to Babay and says, "This is the one he's gonna like," we all know she fucking nails it. When Babay and Tamila start giggling about how the two of them have been running this scam together since high school, Angel sternly tells them it's not cool: "He's not living his life because you guys are fucking with him on the internet." Angel, I love you, but @KaraRBrown is right:
Ok tho, Harold being wrapped up in an online relationship with a woman he's only seen one picture of is his own fault. #Catfish
— KB (@KaraRBrown) March 12, 2015
Also, as Tamila points out, Harold HAS had at least one girlfriend in the time he's "known" "Armani."
Nev decides it's time to check in with Harold alone, and see if he wants to be friends with Tamila; he's understandably put off by how hilarious she apparently thinks this all is. And speaking of hilarious, we cut over to Babay and Tamila on another part of the apartment complex grounds, trying to figure out who the hell Angel is, Babay saying she thought Angel was Harold's girlfriend. They continue discussing their views on this whole encounter until Babay's like, "Bitch, I will smack your ass. Oh, damn, shit, we wired....Oops!" Eh, I don't think it's anything they wouldn't have said to at least Nev's face.
Then everyone leaves Harold and Tamila to talk alone again. She tries to get ANOTHER hug, but now that the shock has worn off, he refuses. She's not put off, though...
Harold smirks, "I don't need it," and Tamila snorts, "Boy, PLEASE." (Here's where my old ass assumed this was some kind of youth slang I'd never heard of -- I think I've only been conversant with "fleek" for, like, three weeks -- but there's more to this, which we'll get to.) Harold laughs, and it really seems like there IS something here; he's clearly charmed by her personality, but that he's put off by the gap between Tamila's appearance and that of "Armani," because, as Angel said, he's just about physicality. Tamila's not doing herself any favours trying to make a good first impression in those weird jeans, either.
Anyway, Tamila loudly asks whether she can walk away from Harold. An offscreen producer asks why, and she demurely says, "He said something I didn't like." Harold explains: "She wants to give me twenty minutes of [nods meaningfully]." Nev: "Whaaaaat?" Angel: "...what?" Tamila laughs that it's something they've talked about before. MOVING ON: "You still my bae?" Tamila asks Harold. Even Babay looks like she thinks Tamila's pushing her luck. "He's just now finding out a big part of who you are," says Nev, in a very poor choice of words, adding that they should stop for today. He politely says goodbyes; Tamila holds out her hand to Harold to shake, and when he doesn't take it, she drops it: "I'm not shaking his hand. He made me mad." I kind of like how she's made herself the wronged party somehow?
In the car, Nev -- for once -- can't Pollyanna the situation, calling it "fucked up." "Did she ask to give you a blowjob?" asks Angel. "Yes," says Harold. "What the fuck?!" marvels Angel. Harold explains: apparently, during the NBA finals, the Heat were playing the Pacers, and Harold and "Armani" made a wager. She said that if the Heat won, she'd give Harold head for twenty minutes; if the Pacers won, he would give HER head for twenty minutes. Seems fair? The Heat won, so Armani knew she owed him. Instead of asking whether he intends to collect -- "Tongue is tongue," as Shameless's Svetlana wisely reminded us just this week -- Nev asks Harold whether he feels like he knows "that person" at all. "Not really," says Harold.
The next day, as they drive to a park someplace, a producer makes Angel tell Harold, "I definitely think you need to sit down and express yourself more" -- something I don't for a second think she actually believes, but...you know, they're already in the car. Tamila waits for Harold at a picnic table, and when they've all sat down, she says she thinks things went "horrible" yesterday. Today, she seems a lot less foggy, and she says she was acting so carefree because she was nervous. Asked by Angel whether she thinks of Armani as a separate person, Tamila says she does feel like she can express things as Armani that she can't herself -- like, she's much more open in talking about sex with that photo as a profile picture. She adds that she purposely picked a photo of a light-skinned girl because she'd attract more interest than with a dark-skinned one, and Angel kindly says, "One of the harshest realities to come to is that, like, as a young, like, black woman, you know, it feels like you only get praise if you're lighter." Harold, who has pretty much the same complexion Angel does, says nothing. Oh, privilege. You are everywhere. Angel tells Tamila she has to start accepting herself. "Easier said than done," says Tamila. Which it is! Harold says he's gotten rejected a lot but that she can't let it hold her down. Tamila says she'll try to be herself from here on out. Nev prompts her to say it must be a terrible feeling to really like someone but know you can't be together because you're a liar (I'm paraphrasing); Tamila agrees that she messed it up, and Harold says nothing to disabuse her of that notion.
After Nev and Angel head back to the car, Tamila asks Harold if he's just going to get another girlfriend and stop talking to her. Harold says that Tamila's been lying to him for four years and doesn't deserve his friendship, which is fair. She apologizes. "I feel kind of dumb," says Harold. Well, he should. She asks him to forgive her, saying she thinks she'd be a perfect girlfriend and that she really did love him. But: no.
In addition to the two at Tamila and Harold's initial meeting, Tamila gets hugs from Nev and Angel. No more hugs from Harold.
Since filming ended, Tamila's tried to contact Harold, to no avail. The black screen of update-iness says she has yet to delete Armani's Facebook page, which apparently is true. Harold's forgiven Tamila but is done having contact with her; he's also dating but who cares.
Like Harold, you may think you have "trust issues," but if you REALLY do, you don't end up on Catfish looking for a girl who won't meet you in person. If you're running a scam, don't give yourself away with non-standard spelling (cc Robert Durst). If you're a lady, don't let a basketball recruiting page publish your weight. If you don't think to ask for current photos, you deserve whatever happens to you. Angel Haze is the best.