The choppily edited, relentlessly padded reunion special is the traditional bizarro postscript for VH1's stable of celeb-reality dating shows. And, true to form, the Rock Of Love 2 reunion was a messy free-for-all of awkward transitions, canned applause, and furious slap-fighting and hair-pulling. Just in case you didn't hate yourself enough for devoting more than a dozen hours of your life to Rock Of Love 2, the reunion special worked overtime to make sure that the experience left a bitterly depressing taste in your mouth.
Honestly, something about this reunion seriously bummed me out. As soon as perennial bottom-feeder Rikki Rachtman and his totally rockin,' handsomely botoxed mug appeared on screen, I was reaching for a revolver to go with the bottle of Jack resting in my lap. It's one thing to be entertained by craven morons degrading themselves for a little basic cable fame. It's another to milk the death of Destiney's dad for a montage of totally freaking genuine tear-wiping. To see Rock Of Love 2 use a man's death as a vehicle for the cheap sentiment of a second-tier Poison power ballad exposes just how odious and empty this show really is. Which we all knew, anyway, but having it rubbed in my face like a pair of fake, French, she-male boobs wasn't exactly uplifting.
Don't worry, though. I'm saving my bullets for Rachtman, who's apparently angling to become the Donahue of the Good Charlotte generation. His obnoxious grilling of Kristy Jo actually made me feel sorry for the crazy little nymph. Later, Rachtman got his jollies from Ambre's horrifying Basic Instinct act from last week, and got Mombre to admit that she doinked (sorry, made love to) Bret in his tour bus during a recent stop in Chicago. It's nice to know that being named Bret's Rock Of Love entitles Ambre to the same rights and privileges as the big-haired Poison enthusiast that works the late shift at Denny's out on Route 54.
If Ambre seemed dumber tonight, Daisy amazingly seemed smarter and even likeable. (If anything best sums up how fucked up this reunion special was, it was Daisy's relative likeability.) Daisy sounded pretty reasonable expressing her disgust over Bret nailing her the night before he sent her packing. And when she got into the inevitable fight with Heather, Daisy made me laugh when she busted out a Stevie Nicks reference. Otherwise, the reunion special tacitly acknowledged that only a third of these ladies had any kind of discernable personality. The Angeliques and Kristy Jos took precedence over the who's-its and whatchamacallits lurking anonymously around the stage. Since it's pretty obvious that Bret and Ambre aren't really together, how about for Rock Of Love 3 we start with 10 really good contestants and keep each lady around a little while longer? That is, if we all decide to devote our Sunday nights to Bret Michaels again. For now I'm feeling viewer's remorse.
Grade: C