Work Out: Jesse Welcomes JD

In season three, episode two of Work Out, the new SkyLab clients were introduced as well as new gay staff member JD Jordan. Jesse Brune showed his concern for his new client and his camaraderie with his fellow trainers, while his boss from Hell, Jackie Warner put out to sea and made miserable the trainers she Shanghaied to go with her.

At the start of the episode, Jesse noticed new boy JD working out and Jackie told him that she was thinking about hiring JD as a masseur for SkyLab. Jesse admired JD's physique, which played into Jackie's favorite sport of showing indifference to other people's feelings. Jackie explained that she thought it would be fun for her to bring Jesse and JD together, and in the process break up Jesse's existing relationship. Jesse, brave and true, wasn't having it. He only used the opportunity to make a new (gay) friend on the staff. Still, Jesse sagaciously noticed that "He wants to have sex with me. I'm sure of it. But I have a boyfriend so we'll just have to be friends." On the other hand, it may only have been a comment based on the odds. Who wouldn't want some tuck and roll action with our favorite fitness guide?

JD massaged Jackie and told her that she has a lot of tension. I'm curious, has anyone ever gotten a massage where they were not told they had a lot of tension? It's probably one of the first things you learn to do when training to be a masseur. You get a little starter kit, which includes candles, oil, mood music, a script with the aforementioned line, and a large wooden spoon for giving deep tissue massages to people you would rather not touch directly.

Jackie went to lunch at an Asian restaurant again with the female trainers and told them that she is taking them on an Olivia (lesbian) cruise to Mexico. The nature of the cruise prompted the girls to talk about how being kissed by Jackie is something that you have to expect as one of her female employees. Sky Sport: one of the few work environments where acceptance of sexual harassment is a bona fide occupational qualification.

Before she set sail, Jackie had a conversation with her girlfriend Briana about the cruise, mentioning that old fling Rebecca Cardon would be there too. Briana was appropriately concerned, which mystified Jackie as she explained that she never had any real emotions during her relationship with Rebecca. Jackie strangely, although maybe not so strange for her, stated that the question of why Briana was concerned is something that "she doesn't want to answer within herself." As indecipherable as that statement is, it can be understood well enough when you consider that Jackie only sees the pain that she causes in other people's lives as their problem, not hers.

In contrast, noble Jesse goes to visit his new SkyLab client/partner, Natalie. He stated that he wanted to help change her life forever and really to get to know her. As part of that he wanted to see what kind of environment she lived in. Of great importance to him was the contents of her refrigerator. He took a look and there was a lot of nasty junk food in it. For me, any inspection of someone else's refrigerator that doesn't reveal body parts of some previous trick is a pretty positive experience so I probably wouldn't have cared about the loads of fat covered globs of fat filled pieces of fat that Jesse found and ended up throwing out.

While the girls weighed anchor on their floating yeast infection convention, the boy trainers went to Greg Plitt's place for a BBQ male bonding experience. They got to play horseshoes, which modest Jesse first suggested was something alien to him, but being as well-rounded as he is, he showed that he could easily throw a ringer. Brian Peeler wasn't so good at this dude game, but he upped the ante by suggesting that all of the guys go as a team to do a Mud Run at Camp Pendleton. Jesse agreed, but probably with a lot of mock excitement about the prospect.

Back on the boat, Rebecca and Erika Jacobson led a "boot camp" exercise session for a deck of dykes. Jackie observed the class taking place and her psychological issue of needing to slap people in the face with her position of authority kicked in and she kicked Rebecca and Erika out of way while she took over. Erika and Rebecca later confronted Jackie about her problem. Jackie of course was indifferent to anyone else's feelings and belittled Rebecca and Erika for being bothered by it. Jackie did let the audience in on what goes on in her head by projecting her feeling of insecurity and attributing the quality to Rebecca instead. Rebecca then showed that she is smarter than you might think by pointing out Jackie's projection to her face.

Unfortunately, to see more of Jesse, a viewer has to put up with Jackie's crap, but unlike her terrorized trainers, we don't have to pretend that she's not seriously messed up.