Episode Five

Sigh. Deborah's packing to go home again. Apparently because of some conversation earlier in the morning with Kim, although specifics weren't gotten into.

The episode opens with Josie on the phone with Rhonda telling her what's happening. Kim gets on to explain more, how she's been begging her to stay. Wow, I didn't think she would do that. Pretty big of her.

Rhonda gets them to put Deborah on the phone, Deb says she's tired of crying every day.

The girls pay the cabbie that comes to pick her up to go away.

Deborah's such a pain in the ass, you want her to leave, then you come to your senses as a television viewer and hope she stays.

Rhonda to the rescue. She comes to the house, they all have a meeting, Deborah says she'll stay.

After the meeeting, Deborah goes for a drive accompanied by omiinous music. She gets out of the van to make a cell phone call... apparently it wont be on camera. They catch the audio. Something about her "having to leave for a few days" to "get this taken care of". Smells like a pregnancy.

Fire in the Starting Over house! Well, the backyard. Deborah didn't try and burn the house down, did she? If so, some homeless person who tried to start a little campout gets the blame. No one hurt, the house is fine.

Deborah eats chicken for breakfast. Pizza. No wonder she's got such a svelte figure.

Kim's pretty damn cool. Chatting with Deborah, Deb says she's gonna hide shit during her reveal cause she can't trust everybody. Kim tries to cheerlead for her to get naked.

Towanda's in a session with Iyanla. "Are you offended that your music career hasn't been more succesful?" Iyanla asks. Towanda says yea. Then Tow goes into how her dad the minister had an affair. Iyanla calls Towanda a big keeper of secrets, secrets she doesn't even know she's hiding.

Jennifer on the phone. It wasn't a mistake that I left her out of the list of housemembers I would like to nail... she was such a young stick, she didn't do much for me. Seein her sit in the chair with those shorts on changed all that though. She complains to her dude friend/boyfriend about how "the crazy lady tried to leave again".

It's time for Deborah's reveal. She shows a picture of her with her daughter, next tot the convertible she bought herself for her 40th birthday. Dang, her husband was pretty hot. Killed by a drunk driver. Deborah talks about how the hospital called her on the phone and only told him about all the broken bones he had...seeing him for the first time, how "crumpled" he looked. On life support. How she went to lift the back of his head to put it back on the pillow, and the back of his head wasn't there.

Ok Deb. Be as big a bitch as you want, girl. Wooh. That's some rough stuff.

Iyanla The Retard pipes in and forces everyone to hear how out of control her symbolism addiction is. During the funeral, their daughter took her first steps, started walking all around. Of course Iyanla ruins the moment with trying to make sense of it all. "She knew she had to walk on her own..." And she means it; she thinks that's why the damn kid got up and started running around. Deborah: "Wow, I never thought of that." Well, stop it.

Then, Deborah's BROTHER died of pneumonia! Of course, he was also a real important factor in her life as well. On the talkover she explains how she's been "celibate for years". Uh, ok... It's not like she's been totally closed off during this period-- she says she's gone on about 300 blind dates. Iyanla says that doesn't mean anything about how open she is to letting dudes into her life. Methinks she's onto something here.

Deb shows a pic of herself from 2 years ago. Damn. She's REALLY bulked up in that amount of time. Didn't look so bad in it, although there was still too much greasy afro sheen goin on even back in those days..

Deborah goes to the gym, talks to a trainer about her diet [her goal is supposedly to just lose the weight]. Says there's no way that she's not going to take the skin off her chicken. Is chicken skin THAT important, or tasty?

The ladies are told that night that they have a surprise guest coming to the house. "I hope it's a dude," Kim yearns. Yeah, baby..

Turns out it's that egghead they showed in the previews, the clinical psychiatrist whose part of the life coach team this year. A Mr. Stan Katz.

Uh-oh, a man in the house... Ergo, they all want to rip his balls off and kill him.

He tells them, hey I know you see men as the devil, I'm gonna try and help you deal with that, give you a man's perspective. He then asks what their father means to each of them.

Deb-- "reliable/dependable"; her father is the perfect man that no one can measure up to. Kim: "What father?" Jen: "What father?" Towanda: "perfect/cheater"-- she thought her dad was the perfect man, then he lied royally and that vision was fucked. Sinae "He chose my stepmom over me". I forget what Josie's father was, but he was equally heroic.

The show ends with Deborah on the phone busting a lethal smackdown on her daughter. Holy shit. She speaks in such vagaries about some sort of "information" that her kid was supposed to get for her, and then berates her pretty bad--it really was ugly to watch. Deborah seemed pretty disgusted with herself as well after she hung up, holding her head in her hands.

The translation of that cloudy conversation seemed to be, "Bitch, where's my goddamn abortion?"

Ohhhhhhh dear...