WTF
By Karen Malmquist
OOn Sunday’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, our peeing poolman boozes and cruises on a golf course, tries to talk politics, and miraculously delivers a good speech in Washington, DC. We also find out why he has mush for brains: in a scene when his mind goes blank, he tells us he’s plagued with the image of a banana dancing through his head.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ryan gets a haircut because he wants girls to be like “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum!” (his word) when they see him. He cheers himself on when the barber gives him a trim.
After getting his new ‘do, Ryan and best bro Gene go drunk golfing, consuming god knows what out of movie theater-sized soda cups. Gene gives an interview about his friendship with Ryan, while a pink-filtered romantic montage plays of the two of them laughing like Beavis & Butthead. Also, Ryan takes a sharp turn on the golf cart and almost throws his BFF/ assistant from the vehicle. Any word on if he still has all his sponsors?
Up next is Ryan getting fitted for a suit. He’s preparing to visit Congress to lobby for a bill benefiting Muscular Dystrophy patients. Jesus Christ please help us all.
On the morning of the flight, Ryan decides to play a prank on his brother, who’s driving him to the airport. Ryan wakes him up, saying that his plane leaves in half an hour. As he quickly throws on pants, Ryan laughs and says, “Just kidding! We don’t leave here for another hour.” Hilarious.
Ryan and Mama Lochte land in Washington, and they visit the monuments together. At the Reflecting Pool, a dramatic reenactment (they actually filmed this) plays of Ryan’s embarrassing moment of peeing on himself before making it into the pool. Apparently he’s decided that to overcome his previous humiliation, he must pee in the Reflecting Pool. Sadly, that will have to be for another day.
He tries to pose with Abe Lincoln so that it looks like he has his arm around the giant statue. Instead gets a shot of himself with his elbow in the stone President’s face.
Now Ryan and his mom go out for a drink, where he’s approached by a group of girls who grill him about politics. He makes a joke about the Pope resigning, saying, “I guess they should call him EX Benedict!” Surprisingly, no one laughs at the first semi-clever thing he’s caught uttering on tape.
He tells us he’s “very happy my mom came with me to Washington -” and then his eyes glaze over and he completely freezes for several seconds. He apologizes for going “blank,” and explains that a lot of the time he’ll have something great that he’s about to say, and then a giant dancing banana appears in his mind. “All a sudden, I have, like, a jumping banana in my head,” he explains. “Like, I don’t know what’s going on up there.” YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP.
How will banana mush play in Washington? As he’s getting dressed for the speech, Ryan realizes he doesn’t know how to tie a tie. When he finally gets it, he calls himself a genius. Yes, tying a tie is an achievement when you have too much water in the brain.
In the minutes before his speech to Congress, he goes over the bullet points on his information packet. He says that he didn’t come up with a speech, but just “like…. Bulletins… and then… like (dancing banana creeps into frame).”
Through some divine interception, Ryan’s speech about a dangerous childhood form of Muscular Dystrophy manages to be not terrible. Little kids are there, and they seem appreciative of him coming to speak for them.
When they return to Florida, he continues his likable streak by buying his mom a new car.
Next week, Ryan struggles at a swim meet, and his alleged girlfriend, whose face we have yet to see, pays him a visit.
