Double “The Paper” Equals Double the Drama, Action, Comedy, and More

I guess “The Hills” Finale was good for something, as in its once occupied time slot, we scored an extra episode of “The Paper” this week. Clearly, the greatness of last week’s Homecoming episode could only be rivaled by this double shot of “The Paper,” both of which were quite solid episodes.

In the first episode, we saw Amanda set her sights on applying to NYU while the rest of the staff set their sights on “superteen” Michael Jan. Not only does Michael Jan play tennis, run track, do orchestra, and have perfect grades, but he also has a social life. Everyone had nothing but good things to say about this kid. No one, guys included (Adam obviously), did not have a crush on this kid. Oh, wait, except Amanda.

During Giana’s interview with Michael Jan, Amanda made a point of talking to Mrs. Weiss about how according to her research, colleges are more interested in “well-rounded” students. Apparently, it’s not just about being in the top 5% of your class, or being involved a a wide range of activities, but they prefer students who do well in school while focusing on particular activities. Obviously, this roughly translates into, “Hey Mrs. Weiss, let me be a snooty little bitch and point out reasons why I am a better person than Michael Jan…while he’s sitting right here.” No one was deceived though, and Michael Jan maintained his heroic “superteen” status.

Other than that, Mrs. Weiss scheduled a team building exercise for the staff…on a Sunday! Supergay! Despite a great deal of backlash, the majority of the class showed up and did a fine job of working together on a challenging ropes course and developing close-knit relationships amongst each other. Adam and Giana didn’t show up for undisclosed reasons (probably had something to do with the fact that it was a SUNDAY!) while Amanda, little miss well-rounded Editor-in-Chief, decided that spending the entire day working on her NYU application was more important. Amanda is apparently so well-rounded and organized, that she could not make time to go to the ropes course with the entire staff. I bet she failed to write on her application about how to work on her application, she blew off a major commitment. College apps ain’t that hard, sunshine. Again, Amanda proves that she is the world’s biggest twit.

As a result of Amanda’s failure to show up to the ropes course, everyone seems to be getting along well. Amanda later tells Cassia, “I find it ironic that I tried so hard like, all year, to unite us all and the one time I’m not there, everyone unites…” Yeah, Amanda, that’s really not irony. Irony implies something that is unexpected, but yeah, I’d say everyone getting along and having a good time without you there is, well, pretty damn expected.

Anyway, the episode finished with some of the staff members challenging Michael Jan to a few events to see if he was, in fact, beatable. He lost in the rubix cube challenge and one on one basketball, but he won a race against Adam (psssh, like anyone doubted that).

As for the apparent finale episode, basically we got to see Amanda finally take some initiative. One such instance involved cutting the paper back 4 pages as it didn’t look like they had enough material for 36 pages. Another instance involved the vice-principal disapproving of a front page article the day before deadline, a decision that Amanda countered and came out victorious. As a result, she seemed to finally gain a little respect from the staff.

In closure, Alex and Amanda discussed their issues with each other, stating that they cannot be friends anymore (apparently the Editor-in-Chief position has torn them apart, gimme a $%&*ing break) but will still have to maintain a professional relationship. What I didn’t find out until midway through writing this post though, is that this was the finale. This is how we’re leaving the staff of “The Paper.” Lost friendships and ambiguous endings. Is this the final message that the staff is trying to send us? Is this the end of the story? According to MTV, I guess it is.

I’d like to close by thanking Amanda. She gave the world a colorful new reality TV personality, and contrary to my consistently mocking commentary on her, I found her to be quite entertaining. And so ends another series.