“I met Jaimee in Las Vegas.”
Before I get to this week’s recap of the third episode of E!’s brilliant new reality series, What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, I want to share my semi-depression over a missed opportunity. I like to believe that I have my finger forever tapped into the pulse of my beloved Orlando, and if there’s going to be a celebrity appearance, I usually know about it. So as I watched WWRLD last night, I was a little miffed that I never received my VIP passes to the Orlando Grand Prix back in February to watch Ryan Lochte place first in the races that were included in this week’s episode and not win the other races that were excluded, including the one race that he was disqualified from.
But I was even more upset to learn that Lochte was JEAHing it up at an Orlando nightclub this past Saturday night, and I could have met up with him and fulfilled my dream of watching him hit on women in person. Some people want to watch LeBron James dunk, but I’d rather watch Lochte dish out classic lines like, “Hey girl, potato.” I guess that in my quest to completely understand one man’s existence, I’ve lost track of my own.
We live, we learn, we watch this show so you don’t have to.
In this week’s episode, we finally meet Jaimee, the faceless girl in the head-scratching flashback from episode one. I say head-scratching, because it’s a reality show and it was the first episode. How the f*ck do you have flashbacks in a debut? But then, that’s the point – if you try to think about this show, your brain will devour itself and all that will be left is a pair of camouflage cargo shorts.
Ryan and Jaimee met several years ago in Las Vegas, which is, of course, where all of history’s greatest relationships began. And much like Antony and Cleopatra, Heathcliff and Catherine, Mickey and Minnie, Liz and Dick, Sid and Nancy, and Barack and Michelle, Ryan and Jaimee keep their long distance love and hopes of one day “going all-in” alive by never actually spending more than a few days together. So when Jaimee’s in Ryan’s life, he’s a softer, kinder bro. The kind whose bros bag on him for actually wanting to possibly marry this babe, and the Lochterage gives him hell for it. I mean, nothing screams, “Turn in your man card, BRO!” like wanting to marry the girl that you love. So quit doing that sh*t, you p*ssies.
Of course, Jaimee chooses to visit from London on the same weekend that Ryan is in Orlando for the Grand Prix. As Ryan described the event, it’s basically a chance for all of the Olympic swimmers to get together and stay loose. But even as Ryan still has to compete – and pee in the pool, it’s definitely important to remember that he always pees in the pool – he still has time for his fans, and he took pictures with young girls, wrote inspiring messages like, “Dream big”, for his fans and he even autographed one teenage boy’s back, which was… awkward.
The point of this show, though, is staring into the open window to Ryan’s soul, so we can better understand him. And just like we learned that he shaves himself from head to toe, we also learned that he has a very strict pre-swim regimen that might explain why he didn’t perform as well as he and his family had hoped.
More importantly, we learned that Ryan’s oldest sister, Kristin, who has never approved of any of the girls that Ryan has dated, actually approves of Jaimee. Naturally, this is much more important to Ryan the family man than it is to Ryan the BRO whose BROS make fun of him for eventually wanting to get married. But Ryan is a dreamer and aspires to achieve so much in his young life, and those dreams and several thousands of miles of ocean ultimately keep these two lovers from being together for the six or seven weeks that they’d last in a normal relationship.
Still, that won’t stop Ryan from treating Jaimee unlike every girl that he’s ever sucked Jello shots off of before. Normally, Ryan takes every girl that he dates to the same sushi restaurant in Gainesville. Now, I know that all of our female readers probably just flooded the room, but wait til you hear what he did for Jaimee instead… he cooked her pizza.
Except, Ryan’s plan for womb domination hit a snag when he realized he had no f*cking clue how to make or cook a pizza and he called a local pizza place to ask for instructions. And not only did that actually happen, but when the person at the pizza place answered, Ryan said, “Hey, it’s Ryan” because that’s just how he rolls. #JEAH #TURNITUP
As with any visit from a European lover that you met in the pink eye incubator known as a Wet Republic swimming pool, Jaimee finally had to leave. The two lovers shared a final kiss, before she asked, “Goodbye for now or goodbye forever?” And his response, as if written by the angels themselves and trumpeted into the sky for all to hear: “Goodbye for now, I hope.” Eat your heart out, Longfellow.
Oh, and speaking of Longfellow…
I can’t believe it took three episodes to get the random morning wood shot. You’re slacking, E!.
On Next Week’s Episode: With Jaimee gone, Ryan resumes his quest for love, because asking Jaimee to move here would get in the way of pouring Alabama Slammers for all the Pi Phi babes. And this week’s potential love interest is a black girl, so I expect to say, “Oh holy sh*t, he didn’t say that” at least six times.
And we have yet to see Carmen Electra. I’m now hoping she’s the season one cliffhanger.
