Jenna's Back In Her Serious Glasses For A Serious Disclosure

Talking About Dick's Big Secret, Part 5

So as you will recall, Dick just got everyone together to tell them his big secret, which is that he's HIV-positive. The first reaction we see is Cicely catching her breath in shock, and then we cut to Juan Pablo, who looks like he's trying to figure out in his head what those letters spell.

But then the camera cuts back to him and all of a sudden he's in tears?

(a) Nothing we've seen so far has given me to understand that Dick and Juan Pablo are that close, and (b) this is the most human emotion we've seen Juan Pablo express about literally anything. He just put himself in Dick's shoes and is so sad that Dick might have given up on love because of his status, which is a kind thing to say, and if my reaction to it is to think that what Juan Pablo's really thinking is that if he ever got HIV from having unprotected sex with any of the skanks he is almost certainly cheating on Nikki with, he hates to think that Nikki OR WHOEVER is his official partner would turn off the pussy tap, then I think it's Juan Pablo's own fault for being so gross all the time and making me think that.

Speaking of turning off the pussy tap: Dick says that as soon as he was diagnosed, his primary thoughts were of Stephanie, and that they didn't have sex at all after that (which is weird since as people on the forums have said, Dick was seeing someone else at the time of his Big Brother return, but whatever, I guess?). Throughout it all, Stephanie is ICE. God, it is so fucking creepy.

Anyway, everyone is very supportive and empathetic and gives Dick hugs and congratulations for his honesty, and as they gather for dinner after the session, Deena suggests, "I think we should cheers to Dick being brave," and all the viewers who assumed that Deena is the kind of person who'd think "cheers" is a verb interchangeable with "toast" is proved correct.

Cicely And Treach Hate Each Other

There's no way to write this without making it sound like high school, so: Cicely is mad that Treach is mad at her for having asked the Human Lie Detector to ask him if he's been faithful for, as she once again puts it "the last past year." And Treach is...still mad. He tells Dick he knows he didn't always behave with perfect moral rectitude in the past (I'm paraphrasing) because he got rich so young, but he also doesn't say he didn't cheat on Cicely at some point during their relationship. I feel like maybe if he really has been faithful the last year -- maybe because the older he gets and the further his hits recede into the past, the fewer opportunities he gets to cheat? -- he thinks he deserves a medal? Shut up, Treach.

Dick Stirs Up Shit

I guess Dick's bored and/or wants to take the focus off himself and his brave revelation because, as far as we can tell, he's decided to reopen The Case Of Juan Pablo Won't Say "I Love You." He opens by asking whether anyone there apart from Nikki has ever had the experience of saying "I love you" to someone and hearing back "I really like you," and of course no one has, because that's insane. Stephanie tries to explain to Juan Pablo how demoralizing that is, and Juan Pablo responds in the usual way: "Have you ever dated a guy who's from Latin America and didn't tell you 'I really like you' as he feels, 'Te quiero mucho'?" Of course Stephanie hasn't, I mean look at her. Juan Pablo then defensively THes, "You could say 'I love you' two hundred times to me and it doesn't seem-- it doesn't attach to what 'Te amo' means to me." Nikki whines that the issue isn't (just) that he didn't say it -- it's that she said it on national television, and when he didn't reciprocate in kind, she was humiliated. The subject then turns to questions of why Juan Pablo can't just say in English what he seems to be mealy-mouthing about in Spanish, since he has no problem saying he's "all in" on his relationship with Nikki and whatever the fuck else, whereupon Jenna comes out to sit by the pool, hears what's being discussed, and drawls, "Is it Groundhog's [sic] Day?" "GROUNDHOG DAY IS IN FEBRUARY," snaps Nikki. Good one? Jenna then speaks to/for us directly: "What he's trying to convey to you, you dense fuck, is that he DOESN'T love you." In his own interview, Dick agrees that Juan Pablo is using semantics to keep Nikki at arm's length. After Juan Pablo and Nikki depart to go hang out in their room and not interact, Dick & Stephanie and Jenna & John agree that Juan Pablo is full of shit, and his whole "I feel the same way you do, I just can't say it" thing is to appease her so that she doesn't cut off sex with him, but Jenna then THes that it won't last, because "you [meaning Juan Pablo] can only hang with that [Nikki's whininess] for so long." For real: how many times can they have this exact conversation? ONE OF YOU JUST MAKE A MOVE ALREADY, JESUS CHRIST.

Power, Power, Who's Got The Power?

Today's exercise in the group session is that each patient gets a card and is told to write down which person in the relationship they think has the power. It is extremely boring because you know what everyone's going to say.

Cicely & Treach: She says he does; he says no one does (not possible), and then pouts that he was raised on the streets and never learned how to be a husband or father. Cool story, bro.

Nikki & Juan Pablo: They both say he does, because they met on The Bachelor and he was The Bachelor. Duh.

Deena & Chris: They both say she does, though she hates it, she says: "I want him to feel like he's the man in the relationship." Gross?

Jenna & John: They agree that he does. He tries to find a nice way to say he has to tiptoe around her moods all the time, which she says is his job since she has a temper and thus expects him to be extra-sensitive to accommodate her. That's convenient for her! She also denies that she causes fights for no reason, claiming, "I can read when it's time for me to back off, 'cause when I'm arguing, it's usually because I'm right." Everyone exchanges looks at that since it's clearly not true. Jenna also says John is better at avoiding relationship pitfalls since he "had a great family and a great upbringing," whereas she's had to fight for everything in her life, blah blah blah. She loves making excuses for herself.

Dick & Stephanie: As the session breaks up, we see that they were there, but maybe it's so obvious that the HIV-negative person holds the power that the editors just skipped them?

Treach Just Wants To Make It Work!

Treach and Cicely run into each other at the dining table, having eaten lunch separately. He drops all his bluster from earlier in the episode, saying he loves her and he's just there to make it work and fix their family. Yawn.

No One Told John He Was Dating A Porn Star

John and Jenna have a dumb conversation about (a) whether she's an exhibitionist, and (b) whether that's okay. "You don't need to show your-- your side boobs anymore," says John, at which Jenna THes, "Probably 99% of the earth has seen me naked." John counters that while he knows she's not just a porn star but the porn star, he's never going to be okay with her showing off her parts in their day-to-day life, whereas she thinks her tit-baring shirts are just "who I am." Yawn.

Jenna's One-on-One With Dr. Jenn

Jenna has on her dorky glasses and a dorky hairdo so you know it's time for her to Get Serious, and I guess it would be in poor taste for me to tell you to skip it in light of what she says.

Jenna: I've been raped.

Dr. Jenn: I'm so sorry.

Jenna: ...Twice.

Jenna never felt she could tell her parents because her dad was a cop and had always warned her to be careful, not take rides from people, etc. Dr. Jenn emphatically tells her that the only one at fault was her rapist. The second time, it was apparently a different perpetrator, and she did tell people, including a best friend who killed herself two weeks later.

Unsurprisingly, Jenna's assaults in her youth have affected the way she behaves in relationships to this day; she starts to explain that she's getting a sense from John that he's not as sensitive as she would like him to be. Dr. Jenn tells her to ask for what she wants -- "sweetly," whatever that means.

Afterward, John asks how it went and Jenna says it was terrible in every sense, since she doesn't ever want to talk about her childhood. John tells us he doesn't know exactly what happened to her then but that he knows it's an uncomfortable subject for her to discuss, so he feels bad that she had to get into it. I still think the relationship is doomed but now I feel bad about it so thanks a lot, SHOW.

Everyone Talks Shit About Jenna Behind Her Back

A bunch of patients have gathered by the fire thing and are discussing who's currently in with Dr. Jenn. When they realize it's Jenna, they speculate about how she's going to be acting when she emerges, and snit that she always wants the cameras on her. Dick brings up Jenna's drug problem, and Nikki and Cicely judgmentally agree that she has made choices (porn) and has to live with the consequences. Cicely says that, at a certain point, adults have to realize "life is not fair, you go through a lot, and you've got to keep it together." Only Treach sticks up for Jenna, saying they can't know what Jenna's been through in her life. He THes that he's done events with Jenna and has heard "horror stories" about her past, so he thinks everyone should back off. BOY, EVERYONE BUT TREACH PROBABLY FELT PRETTY BAD WHEN THEY WATCHED THIS AND FOUND OUT WHAT JENNA WAS TALKING ABOUT.

Cliffhanger: Jenna Picks A Fight

Okay. I know Treach is right about Jenna and I am trying not to be insensitive because I know that is "triggering" for her. But what follows here -- even though, yes, she was pretty raw from her session with Dr. Jenn (if the chronology here isn't deceptive, because in her session she was in a white tank top but now she's in a black one and open on the bed in front of her is her journal open to the page with the eye drawing in it from last week) -- is kind of all her fault.

Apparently Treach is going to be performing someplace that night and John wants to go. Jenna passive-aggressively tells him he should go if he'd rather be out having fun than staying with her when she's feeling bad. John patiently says that if she wants to stay home with him, he'll stay, but Jenna has to be all, YOU SHOULD DO WHAT YOU WANT even though if YOU were in a bad mood I would FOR SURE stay and take care of you. Things quickly escalate because she's not being an adult about it, and John gets frustrated and makes a sharp gesture with his hand, which Jenna visibly flinches at. In a TH, she claims that John reacted so violently that he slammed his head against the headboard as hard as he could (...not making any headboard jokes here, Jenna, but this is only going to last this week so don't get used to it), which we don't see, but which Jenna says is triggering. She gets upset and starts crying but doesn't explain why his physicality might be more alarming to her at this moment than others, and John gets more frustrated and stalks out. "Any moment, I am literally going to split in half," she says in a TH -- a surprising turn of phrase for someone who thinks she's highly intelligent -- and then we cut back to the room: once John's gone and Jenna's alone in the room, she verrrrrrry dramatically mimes taking a knife and stabbing herself in the heart, because when Cicely said earlier that Jenna always wants the cameras on her, she was...not wrong.

Verdict

Other than the specifics about Jenna's horrific past, this is a lot of ground we've already covered, NIKKI AND JUAN PABLO.