The panty droppers arrive and the women of the house act like girls, giggling and pointing behind their backs. ("He, he. These are the panty droppers!") Please, it's not THAT funny. In all honesty, the girls don't come off as the brightest crayons in the box but that doesn't mean they deserve what they do next. The girl brigade, lead by Coral (doncha' know), decide it is their duty as fellow women to tell the panty droppers the way in which they were degraded. Now all of that is fine and good- if that was their true intention. For Rachel, maybe Nicole and possibly even Lori I might buy it, but where quarrelsome Coral is involved I've learned to know better.

So the panty droppers, I mean the ladies...err, the chicks? Find out that Mike called them names and they seem real hurt by the label. So hurt in fact, that friend Becky and Mike hang out yet again and we see friend Becky laugh, cuddle and even kiss Mike. That's right girlfriend! You show Mike that you will NOT be disrespected like that! Mike meanwhile admits to feeling bad about assumptions he made about friend Becky- like assuming she was a dumb blonde. If you're at all like me you're probably thinking, "Damn! This girl can't be the smartest if Mike of all people was doubting her!"

In the smallest of small subplots we see Lori flirting with a bartender named Stevie B (the singer, perhaps?) who apparently has flirted back. It's interesting to note that we never actually get to see Stevie B talk or do much other than pour a drink or two and wipe the counter in a dark, crowded bar. Miss Subtle herself admits that flirting with Stevie B is fun if only to make Kevin jealous. NO! GET OUT! REALLY? Later on we see Stevie B give Lori chocolate roses. Lori thinks it's sweet but her housemates find it lame. They are tough cookies man! I think what would annoy me more than the chocolate roses would be the fact that I had to call the dude Stevie B. I'm sorry, is there another Stevie on the show I don't know about? Ok then...

Back to the house's slow cooked plan to kill Mike. Nicole calls a house meeting. She mumbles something about watching noise levels in the house. Miraculously this makes the 22 minute episode cut, probably only to segue into why the real reason this meeting airs. Mike tells the girls that he did not appreciate the way they treated the trio when they were at the house. In defense of Mike he does have a point. I mean even if he did diss them, intentionally or not, the girls carried on the disrespect and as we all learned back in the first grade right after, look both ways before you cross the street and look with your eyes, not with your hands- two wrongs do not make a right.

Basically, Mike gets nowhere at this meeting. Although he has valid points, he's an amateur compared to cobra Coral Instead his argument laid there like a lump of clay. It's also pretty painful to watch Mike saying anything to his roomies since it's like watching the new kid trying to squish in at the cool kids table at lunch.

In a desperate attempt to prove he's a good guy, Mike makes (literally) gifts for all the girls for Valentine's Day. The girls all gush about how much they love their gifts, but in the next breath they go get ready for a V day night on the town. The girls talk about how they feel bad not including Mike- but decide not to anyway. Mike expresses how he wishes they had asked him to go but no one says anything about Malik and Kevin who also obviously went out without asking the little squirt.

The final shot is one of the most realistic in any Real World yet- a roommate chatting on AOL. We see the words pop up, "Are you lonely?" and Mike types, "Yes." The music swells and the credits roll. What you don't see is the realest real part- the cut out cyber sex invite that will be available soon exclusively through Bunim and Murray's latest installment of "The Real World You Never Saw."

Janet Branagan is a freelance writer and pop culture addict from New Jersey.

Got a problem? Email Michael at onthebox@go.com