The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
You can't escape the B--- in apartment 23. Not in New York, at least. As I was making my way around the city on Wednesday, the striking face of Krysten Ritter (the B---), dangling her apartment key on her finger, behind a sea of Pepsi blue, was plastered all over bus stops, newspapers, and subway stations advertising ABC's much hyped-up comedy, "Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23," which premiered on Wednesday.
You can't escape the B--- in another way, too. The show, which is about an unlikely duo of twentysomethings living in New York, captures the horrors of living in your first post-college apartment, an experience that often involves a roommate you randomly find on a website like Craigslist, speak to for a few minutes as you tour the apartment, and then sign a lease to live with for a few months to a year. A lot of the times, that person--who was sweet, outgoing, and fun when she was showing you around the apartment--turns out to be a total B that you're stuck with for the remainder of your lease. After four sheltered years living in dorms with your closest friends, this is a rude awakening to the real world.
Just ask the show's blond and perky June (Dreama Walker), a recently graduated midwestern girl who comes to New York in search of career and status. The only problem is, moments after she arrives to the big city, she loses her job, and finds her way to Chloe (Ritter), a malicious New Yorker and grifter, who's seeking a roommate for her apartment--that would be Apt. 23. Long story short, June moves in, Chloe steals rent money from June, and June sells all of Chloe's furniture as revenge.
There's one more thing: June is engaged to a man who turns out to be a philanderer, a fact that she discovers after walking in on a half-naked Chloe whipping him with a bouquet of roses--the show's climax, if you will. It turns out that Chloe was acting in kindness, trying to prove to June that her fiancee is a cheater. This is, we are told, the best thing that has ever happened to June--the nicest thing anyone has done for her--and so the two roomies end up getting drinks, as friends, as the show is ending. It's a bit of an awkward start to their friendship--but, who knows, maybe they'll grow into besties as the show develops. I think that's the point, anyway.
Lucky for me, when I moved to New York City about two years ago, I already had plans to live with friends from college. No "randos"--random people--from Craigslist for us. Two years later, four of us still live in a nicely sized apartment on a tree-lined street in New York. Everyone pays their share of the rent on time. No one walks around the apartment naked. No one sells my furniture when I'm not home. Even better, I enjoy spending time with these girls. Living with them is easy.
But my very first year out of college, three years ago, it wasn't so easy. I had to find housing quickly in Washington, D.C. That meant resorting to the dreaded Craigslist. I found a townhouse in my budget that was already inhabited by three girls, who seemed nice and fun when I came by for the open house. We hit it off and I moved in. Of course, as we learn in "Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23," nothing is ever as it seems.
Two of the three girls who lived with me in the townhouse hated each other, and took their anger toward each other out on the thermostat dial (one girl always wanted the house really cold; the other always wanted it really hot; the house alternated between arctic chill and savannah heat). More generally, there always seemed to be disagreements about who was drinking whose milk, who was using whose towel, whose turn it was to do the dishes--etc. I got along with each girl on a personal basis, but there was no escaping the negative vibe that these unnecessary, manufactured conflicts created. For the most part, the problems were all pretty petty, so I tried to stay out of the inter-roommate squabbling as best as I could, but some of the problems were a bit more serious than others, and made me vow never ever--EVER--to live with randos again. Like when I found a used condom on the couch. Or when one of my roommates was smoking pot with a bunch of friends in the living room when my parents came over that afternoon (as I warned my roommates they would).
"Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23" may not be the funniest or most compelling show on television--far from it--but it has a certain charm to it in capturing the pains and perils of living, post-college, with an obnoxious, self-centered roommate. The moral of the story, I guess, is to live with friends or risk living with sociopaths. Happy apartment hunting!
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
They're producing more cynical brain-numbing hedonistic crap for TV? How artistically brave....
Dec '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Emily. The Hunger Games depressed me. But, the preview for Don't Trust the B____ in Apt 23, shown to a theater full of tweens, teens, and their parents before the most highly anticipated movie of the year marketed specifically to the PG-13 crowd, drove me to despair for the future of Western Civilization. Gawdawful doesn't cover it.
The scenes burned forever into my brain and, most regrettably, into the brains of my 10 and 13 year old, were of the "nice" roommate making out on the couch with an older man, only to find out from the b---- that the man is the b's father! Closely followed by the topless "b" (blurred out) taunting the peeping tom neighbor.
It freaks me out that people are really living these experiences, let alone wanting to watch them on TV. If fish don't know they're wet, our young people seem not to know they're swimming in a moral cesspool. God help us.
I know I'm an old fuddy duddy. I'm just begging you and other young Americans to seek out the transcendent as much as possible. Pull up! Pull up!!
Nov '11
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Yeah, I had this on but was only partly paying attention to it. Laziness on my own part, it was on after a good show.
The title character was especially cynical and hedonistic.
The show will only last if they move her beyond that, which they started to do by the third act of that first episode.
Sep '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Emily: your first year out of college sounds like what the Democratic Party is like, every day.
Dec '11
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
I enjoy watching Last Man Standing. It is funny with out being sleazy.
Mar '12
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
I am one of those comical retrogrades who has lived with her parents, in a dorm, and with her husband, and that's it.
Roommates always seemed like a rather horrid idea to me; I had some in school, and that was awkward enough.
Jun '11
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Reminds me of single life... I used to like my women like I like my coffee: dark and bitter.
May '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Two of three ain't bad...
Mar '11
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
Five years of liviing with roommates in college. The one year I had roommate problems was the year I lived with people I knew beforehand.
On the other hand, 3 years of living with a 4 different [serially] random roommates post-college, got along great with one, okay with one, poorly with two.
Jul '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
That show sounds awful - clunky and unworkable title, one-joke premise, unlikeable characters, assumptions of familiarity with NYC cultural tropes.
I predict it will be a huge hit.
Aug '10
Re: The B in Apt 23 We All Know and Hate
That's why my first apartment out of college was a three-month sub-let, so I wouldn't be stuck for a whole year. Turned out the roomates were awful. Luckily, condo prices were relatively low at the time (1999), and I bought one my own immediately afterwards.