Screens: MTV
Will Tiana And James Wrench True Love From Their Awkward Situation?
Can Catfish facilitate a true love connection between James, car mechanic/probable faker who doesn't want kids, and Tiana, who's hidden the fact of her daughter from him for three years?
Tiana, a twenty-one-year-old single mother in Charlotte, North Carolina.
James, a mechanic in Statesville, which is apparently a forty-five-minute drive away.
In the three years since they met on MySpace, they've never even videochatted, never mind met in person -- not even in the five months since she moved from Washington State to her native Charlotte to be closer to him based on his promises that they could eventually move in together; they've made concrete plans to meet that he blew off at the last minute in very suspect ways. (He was going to pick her up at a gas station to take her to the restaurant where they had a reservation? What?) In case you blew past it in that first sentence, let me say it again: three years ago -- the year 2012 -- these two people met on MySpace. Why not via the notice board at their local apothecary?
He's very busy with his work, and also, his computer and/or phone camera is "raggedy." However, there is another wrinkle here: James has told Tiana he doesn't want or even like kids, so in all the time the two of them have been, as she puts it, "dating," she's never told him that she has a daughter she's raising alone. NO WONDER TIANA REFERS TO JAMES AS HER "FIRST LOVE"! THIS RELATIONSHIP SOUNDS DEEP AS HELL!
Things start out (no pun intended) fishy as hell when Max and Nev raise Tiana for their initial Skype call and she admits that she's only seen Catfish once, the previous night (an episode in which Max talked about taking his leave of absence from the show), and doesn't know which of them is which. Even when they arrive at her house later, she's still not 100 on matching the face to the name. So immediately, we know she's definitely not the one who wrote in about her situation because why would she write to a show she doesn't watch?! But whatever, let's just gloss over that even though the show has shone a spotlight on its fakeness by including this footage in the edit when they could have...just...not.
Anyway, the investigation really begins when Tiana shows Max and Nev one of the photos James has sent her.
Nev comments, "That looks like a picture from a photo shoot," and since that's clearly exactly what it is, one hopes Tiana's about to say, "Oh yeah, I asked him about that, and he explained [something]." Instead, she says, "That'd be good, if he was famous." I don't think she actually believes that a celebrity has been talking to her for three years from a phone with a North Carolina area code and posing as a self-employed mechanic just to test the purity of her heart and see if she loves him for him and not his burgeoning music career, but maybe that's the case? "Maybe that guy is famous -- it may not be the guy you're talking to, though," cautions Nev. "That's what I'm worried about." "Oh, God," says Tiana like this possibility has never occurred to her before, and since she's clearly not the one who initiated her participation in this show, it actually may not have.
The photo Tiana showed them is, duh, not any James who fixes cars in North Carolina: it's the thumbnail shot on several videos by a rap artist named Klassified Tipsytwist, which by the way, I know is not what the episode is about, but maybe pick one or the other of those dumb names and don't try to rock both. One of the videos is this guy speaking, so they figure they can show it to Tiana and she'll be able to confirm or deny that it's the voice she's heard on the phone.
James has apparently told Tiana that he's not on Facebook, but Nev and Max aren't going to take "not on Facebook" for an answer and search "james sloan nc," of which there are obviously a bunch...but one in particular has a smoking duck cartoon for a profile pic.
JUST LIKE TIANA'S JAMES USED TO HAVE ON MYSPACE, YOU GUYS. And he's a self-employed mechanic! Are there any actual photos of this guy on his profile???
I know from Nev's apparently defunct podcast (there hasn't been a new episode since May, and that one was about the Harvard rowing team as if anyone gives a shit) that in situations like this, if they can't clear the real photo they have found in their search, they just use a stock photo of someone who kind of looks like whoever they found, but I'm guessing in this case they didn't even try to reach out to this actual James Sloan, self-employed mechanic, since they go on to describe him as "the fifty-year-old pervert guy" and "the picture of who you fear you're talking to."
Nev and Max head to a kids' gym to meet up with Tiana and Aisha -- not just a friend of Tiana's but, according to the chyron, her BEST FRIEND.
Please remember that later. Before the guys start telling the ladies what they've found, they ask Aisha for her assessment of James, and the proof that she's a good friend is that she thinks this is all some bullshit, and that's before Max and Nev let drop what Tiana apparently never has, which is that James doesn't want kids and doesn't know about Journi (sigh), Tiana's daughter. Tiana says she's well aware of Aisha's objections to this sainted union but that she's determined to make it work with James regardless, to which Aisha cheerfully says, "You do you, boo." I mean, that's what she says in front of Tiana. I'm sure she's saying much worse stuff on the regular to all their mutual friends.
Tiana confirms that James has never told her anything about his hip-hop career, and when they show her that Klassified Tipsytwist (siiiiigh) has a totally other name, she asks whether that one has a Facebook account, and they show her he does have an artist page on Facebook, on which have been posted several of the photos "James" had previously sent Tiana. And when they show her the video of KT speaking, she says it doesn't sound like her James.
When Nev moves on to show Tiana the evidence of the guy they consider their prime suspect, Tiana doesn't seem to twig to the significance of the duck cartoon at all: "So is that a duck? It look like a bird." This is what we're dealing with, here, you guys. Aisha asks whether the duck/bird is the only photo of this particular self-employed mechanic named James, which is when Nev triumphantly reveals what he and Max are already on the record as saying is probably Tiana's worst nightmare AND APPARENTLY THEY ARE NOT WRONG.
Nev admits that they don't know if that's Tiana's James (he does strongly imply that they think it probably is), and adds that what they apparently know for sure is that the guy in the photos isn't the person Tiana's been talking to. Tiana mists up, whereupon Aisha becomes my hero: "Don't start crying now -- you've been talking to this man for three years, you should've already known him." SERIOUSLY THOUGH! Tiana wants to meet, and since we're watching this, we all know that James agrees.
The next day, Nev drives Tiana to the address James had provided, with Aisha in the back seat. The car hasn't even come to a complete stop before she yelps, "This is Ricky G's shop! Ricky G raps, and he's my baby daddy's cousin. He works here, in this shop." Hmmmm. The roll-up door to the garage is almost closed, but Nev can see in the gap that someone's in there, and though the show seems to want to make a thing out of the fact that someone's trying -- poorly -- to hide, I think it's probably more a function of the fact that it's raining and whoever's in there doesn't want to get wet? Nev asks whether Tiana knows this Ricky G; she doesn't, even after Aisha tries to jog her memory by mentioning a song he did for a local radio station or something. Aisha tries to suggest that maybe Klassified Tipsytwist -- who, to be fair, is also actually from North Carolina -- might know Ricky G and that this whole thing could end up being legit after all, and Tiana allows herself a hidden smile at the possibility...
...EVEN THOUGH she LISTENED to the Tipsytwist video and said without any ambiguity that his was not the voice she's been talking to! Unless she thinks the situation is that is that it's going to be this Ricky G inside and so even if it's not the guy she thinks is hot enough to talk to for three years, at least he has SOME kind of fame?
So everyone gets out of the car and starts creeping toward the garage, and can someone please explain the weather to me?
Because Aisha's in a toque and coat and knee-high boots and Tiana's in a crop top and a half-sheer skirt with bare legs and t-strap sandals. As Nev waits for the door to roll up, Aisha gives Tiana some sage advice.
But Aisha's going to reverse herself on that one in a second, because the person who emerges from the garage is neither Ricky G nor Tipsytwist, and Aisha starts flipping out. "TREZ. REALLY? YOU'VE BEEN BEHIND THIS THE WHOLE TIME???"
Remember earlier when Aisha was identified as "Tiana's best friend"? I'm starting to think that doesn't mean much, if the name of the father of one of Aisha's four children has NEVER come up before, particularly since when asked whether she was in a relationship, Aisha told Max and Nev that she was kind of seeing her "baby daddy"! Is Aisha "Tiana's best friend" because she's Tiana's only friend, and did they just meet each other last week?!
Once Tiana confirms that Aisha hasn't had any part in this scheme, everything proceeds pretty much as you'd expect. Aisha is furious that Trez has been e-screwing around on her behind her back because in her mind they were still an item in the sense that he keeps getting between her and any other guy she tries to date because he doesn't want her to be with someone else. Trez met Tiana, through Aisha, at a party years ago that Tiana says she doesn't even remember, though the more she protests that she's never seen him before, the more it seems like maybe she has known who he was and that he figured doing the show would force Tiana to spring the news on Aisha? Officially, though, Trez lied to Tiana about his identity because he knew she was friends with Aisha and didn't want everything to hit the fan, pretty much exactly as it has. (Also: pretty clear at this point that the episode was triggered by a letter from Trez.) And Tiana is still clearly interested in Trez now that she's seen he's not a hideous troll, but can't exactly let that be known with Aisha standing right there having a crap attack.
Also, remember "James"'s claims not to want kids? We learn that, in addition to having fathered one of Aisha's, Trez also has seven others. EIGHT KIDS ON THE PAYROLL MIGHT MAKE ME HATE CHILDREN TOO.
Boring. Tiana tries to front like she's offended by Trez's deception, but all it takes is for him to say she's pretty for her to melt. The last thing she says is that it would be "hard" for her to be in a relationship with him given his situation with her "best friend"...but she doesn't say that means it's off the table, and outside, she admits to Nev that she's going to give them a chance.
There is a hug.
One month later, Tiana reports that when she realized she wasn't ready to introduce Trez to her daughter, she pretty much stopped talking to him. She's also not friends with Aisha anymore, apparently because Aisha was jealous of Tiana and Trez. Aisha confirms that she and Tiana have fallen out, though Aisha claims it's because Tiana could never be convinced that Aisha wasn't party to Trez's deception. (Which makes no sense -- clearly, Aisha wants Trez back! Come on, Tiana.) Aisha also says that she's closed her heart to Trez and doesn't talk to him anymore except as needed to keep him in contact with their son together. Trez didn't feel like talking to the show for an update, and who can blame him, really?
Don't apply to be on Catfish if you're not prepared to break up every relationship your story's participants are involved in. You might not be so hesitant to tell your internet partner about your child if you give him or her a name that isn't stupid. If the photos your internet boyfriend sends you are clearly taken by a professional in a photography studio, they don't actually depict him. You can't expect scrupulous sexual ethics from someone named Trez.