LAST EDITED ON 09-04-04 AT 05:05 PM (EST)

Official Summary
The Complex - Episode 1
Bob Vila Would Roll Over in His Grave (If He Were Dead)

I’d like to start off this recap by mentioning that tornado warnings were constantly popping up at the bottom of the screen during the premiere of The Complex: Malibu. This probably doesn’t mean much to you, unless you’ve read some of my other recaps for RTVW. I was slated to recap the fourth episode of Temptation Island 3 but lost power due to Hurricane Isabel. During my recap of an episode of The Simple Life 2, heavy thunderstorms in my area caused the weatherman to break in every five minutes. Maybe for my next Complex recap, we’ll be struck with an earthquake or a monsoon.

The show begins with a voice over talking about the exclusive dream homes of Malibu, with one exception. The Complex. Here’s the premise: The complex is made up of 4 identical apartments. The top two apartments are the (ready for this?) upper complex and the bottom two are the (shock!) lower complex. To start off, two couples will be living in each apartment, meaning the upper complex has four couples and the lower complex has four couples. Each week, the same room will be made over in all four apartments, so the teams will have to work together. A panel of home improvement “experts” will come in each week and judge the completed rooms. The room that adds the least amount of value to the complex is the loser. The losing team then has to vote a couple off their team. Eventually it will come down to just two teams working in the complex. The apartments will then be auctioned off and the couple whose apartment sells for the most money wins ALL the profits made from the sale of the building.

Got that? Good, because I’m not explaining it again. Opening credits. “Burning down the house!” Oooooh, that would be some interesting reality tv!

Let’s meet the teams, starting with the upper complex:

Steve & Nicole are engaged. She’s a teacher and he’s an MBA. They don’t want to play dirty, but if someone screws them over, they’ll screw back.

Sanyika & Monique have been dating for 2 ½ years, he’s an office manager, she’s in market research and they renovated their first house together. Sanyika says all they have to do is win. That’s it, huh?

Erik & Jayna have been together for 4 years and are professional artists. Jayna says they're not interested in mainstream. They’ve “flipped” a house, whatever that means.

Scotty & Sam have been living together for 4 years, he works for the phone company and they both tend bar. Sam says people are intimidated by her, but she’s not sure why. Let’s see if we can figure that out during this episode, shall we?

And in the lower complex:

Barney & Rose have been married for 49 years (Wow! Rose was 15 and Barney was 18 when they got together.) He’s a town foreman, she’s a homemaker and they’ve remodeled their house. Rose says Barney’s mouth gets him in trouble. As opposed to Rose’s mouth, which…never mind.

Dave & Ana have been together for 2 years, he’s an engineer and she’s in health care. Dave thinks people may underestimate Ana since she’s so frou-frou.

Brad & Lew have been together for 10 years. Brad is a restaurant manager and Lew owns a store. Brad says he packs light because Lew packs heavy, so if he needs something, he just takes it out of Lew’s suitcase. Hee hee.

Carl & Kim have been married for 3 years and are building their first home. He’s a chiropractor and she’s in ad sales. Kim says if they don’t play dirty, someone else will and they’ll be at a disadvantage.

The teams are riding in limos together to Malibu. In the limos they get their keys and discover they’re living with the people they’re riding with. In apartment #1 are Steve, Nicole, Sanyika and Monique. In #2 are Erik, Jayna, Scotty and Sam. #3 will be home to Brad, Lew, Carl and Kim and #4 houses Barney, Rose, Dave and Ana.

The complex is built into a mountain looking over the beach and it is in a stair step design. Apartment #4, which is at the bottom and closest to the beach, sticks out the furthest, each apartment above it recedes further and further back. The street is at the top, behind apartment #1, so you need to walk down a heck of a lot of steps to get to #4.

The teams arrive and the first thing one of them comments on is the number of stairs. As they open the doors to each apartment, the reaction is pretty much the same. “Oh, my God!” “Holy sh!t!” “We have a lot of work!” “You have got to be kidding!” “This is so dirty!” Um, okay, was the premise NOT explained to these people before they agreed to be on the show? Basically, each apartment is completely gutted. Rose squeals because there is no bed. Duh.

The teams get to work cleaning the apartments, which means hauling all the trash down to the dumpsters. Brad and Lew comment that it is about 4 stories down to the dumpster and they’re in apartment 3, so imagine how it must be for those in apartment 1. Rose makes one trip down to the dumpster and complains that coming back up, she thought she was going to die. Of course, as soon as she gets to the top, she makes sure to light up a cigarette. I guess it refreshes her?

Sam complains about vacuuming in 3 inch heels and Jayna whines about cleaning in a dress. Again, do these people NOT understand the show? Can they not change out of their clothes? I’m sure they brought other stuff to wear. I know they have suitcases – I saw them bring them in. Sam mentions that she likes Jayna a lot and that they’re really getting along. Remember that for later, kids.

The lower complex asks Rose if she would mind cooking up some hamburgers and hot dogs while they continue to work. Rose interviews that she was really pissed off about that. After getting the burgers on the grill, Rose whines to Ana that she has no way to flip the burgers, then realizes she can use the new paint scraper out of all the tools supplied (by Sears, in case you miss that. I mean, their product placement is not obvious at all. /sarcasm) Rose thinks the team assumes that she’ll cook because she’s a woman and says she’s “not cooking after tonight.” Okay, Ana and Kim are on your team and nobody asked them to cook, and, if you’re not going to cook and you’re not going to help clean up, then what exactly are you going to do, Rose? You’re not adding much to the scenery, so there is little use for you.

And now, the beginning of the rift between Sam and Jayna (for anybody who cares.) As the upper complex meets for dinner, they discuss what they want to do to the apartments. Crown molding is generally agreed upon by the entire team, except for Jayna who says that she thinks really high class, cutting edge design doesn’t use crown molding and that, when she sees it, she thinks it looks suburban. In an interview, Sam says that Jayna made a comment about crown molding that was so condescending, it made her skin crawl. Steve and Nicole interview that they think apartment #2 is going to have a hard time making decisions.

The next day begins with the teams getting their blue prints and instructions. The first challenge is the master bedroom with a budget of $10,000. That’s $7,000 in cash and $3,000 on a Sears card. That’s a lot of money with a ton of possibilities. Heck, I could do a pretty good job on my entire apartment $10,000. In addition to the money, each team gets a car to use as well a pick-up truck that they must share in shifts. The teams have 120 hours (5 days) to complete the renovation. In addition, each team needs a property manager, who has to oversee the project and negotiate with the other property manager for use of the truck. For the lower complex, Kim will be property manager and Monique will be property manager for the upper complex.

The teams begin to discuss the set up of their rooms. The master bedroom is a strange room because the main entry door to the apartment goes into the bedroom. #1 agrees upon a design pretty quick, but #2 can’t agree on anything. Jayna wants to do something with planters and goldfish bowls, but isn’t exactly sure what. If you can’t explain your idea, it’s probably not a good idea. #1 and #2 meet for a team meeting and everyone is trying to talk, so Monique says nobody can speak unless s/he is holding the “speaking stick” (a green sharpie.) Sam says she feel like she’s being treated like a little kid.

In apartment #3, everything seems to be going okay, but in #4, Rose keeps referring to things she and Barney have already done in their home, which is a different style than Dave and Ana like, not to mention they have no idea what Rose and Barney’s house looks like. Barney tells Rose that they can’t do colonial in a modern apartment and Rose whines that she can’t do anything here. The gang from apartment #3 is worried they’ll have to spend most of their time helping out apartment #4 since they’re teammates.

Commercial time. Still with me? Good, because we’re not even halfway through yet.

Day 3 – 74 hours to go. Sam and Jayna still can’t come to an agreement on anything. Meanwhile, Rose takes a little shopping trip. She comes back and shows Ana a plant and a lamp she bought to put on floating shelves she bought. Ana doesn’t like the plant and she wanted a classier lamp than the one Rose bought.

Brad and Lew interview that they think they’re gong to have spend a lot of time helping out apartment #4. They’re busy painting the walls in their room when Barney comes in and asks for some help with a building project, then insults their painting job and asks if they’ve ever painted before. Lew says he’ll spend most of the next day helping Barney and Dave build the cabinets for their room. Barney makes the required “gay people usually have good taste” comment, so now that that’s out of the way, lets resume working, mmmkay?

Jayna and Sam head to Sears to buy some things for the room. They agree that if either of them hates something, they’ll say so. Still, it doesn’t take long for them to start arguing. They get the paint mixed and Sam comments that it’s “her color, not mine.” Back in their apartment, Erik and Scotty are attempting to install a fake ceiling over where the door comes in to make a separate entry area from the bedroom. Um, okay. Eric comments that it will get done today and it will get done “good” as we’re shown a shot of the frame put together in a way that can only be described as “half-assed.”

Meanwhile, Sam and Jayna have finished seeing the softer side and they’re heading out of Sears with a cart loaded down with paint and supplies. The paint is stacked at the very front of the cart and Jayna, of course, pushes the cart right over the curb, busting two cans of paint all over the parking lot. Sam goes to find someone to have it cleaned up and says that she has apparently done something in her life that somebody is torturing her for and that she’s too good of a person for this. Jayna keeps trying to laugh it off, but Sam is not amused. Now if that had been me in Jayna’s position, I would have pointed at the paint and said “That is funny! Now help me load this sh!t in the car and lets get the hell out of here before someone finds out.” Obviously, I’m not a very mature or responsible person.

Eric and Scotty are wondering what’s taking the girls so long as Jayna dons some rubber gloves and begins scooping the paint into the hazardous waste bucket. Sam says she’s not helping clean it up since she didn’t make the mess (fair enough) and wonders if this is a sign of things to come as the mall clean up crew shows up. Sam and Jayna finally make it home and Sam storms into the apartment, telling the guys she doesn’t want to talk about it, then telling them exactly what Jayna did. Erik tries to take up for his woman, but Sam gets even more pissed off.

Apartment #1 is preparing lunch in the kitchen when suddenly Kim appears, “looking” for the truck keys. To get to the kitchen she has to walk through their bedroom and so now she knows what that team is doing. Kim, of course, runs right back to her teammates and tells them what she saw in #1.

Scotty complains that Erik does part of a project then goes and does something else and that nothing is getting done. Sam and Scotty interview that they’re just arguing with Erik and Jayna and that nothing is getting done. Monique decides she needs to be down there managing them. Sam complains that Monique doesn’t do anything so there’s no point talking to her. Monique assigns Sam, Scotty and Jayna each a wall and tells them to sand and paint them. Aww, it’s like a kindergarten art class. Don’t paint on anyone else’s paper, kids! That wouldn’t be polite.

29 hours to go. Lots of fast forwarded quick shots of, amazingly enough, teams working! Apparently, they’re supposed to be remodeling a room or something on this show. Suddenly, “Tyler Harcott – Host” appears in each apartment and asks for a team meeting. Tyler tells the teams this is their 24 hour warning. Their rooms must be completed by noon tomorrow, no exceptions and no extensions. Tyler then brings up one other thing… He reminds the teams that a couple will be evicted off the losing team. The teams themselves will be the ones voting on who goes. The catch – the property manager doesn’t get to vote. Interesting little twist. It’s going to be pretty hard finding someone to volunteer for project manager after this.

Kim immediately runs to Dave and Ana and tells them that they’re going to vote off Barney and Rose. Meanwhile, Steve and Nicole interview that they have an agreement with Sam and Scotty to vote off Erik and Jayna. Dave and Ana think that Kim is playing them, so they tell Barney and Rose what Kim is up to and agree to vote off Kim and Carl. Interestingly, Kim walks in right in the middle of their conversation, but missed who they decided to vote for. To top it all off, Erik and Jayna and Scotty and Sam agree not to vote each other off. Ahh, exciting intrigue!

88 minutes to go. Everyone is scrambling to get things done. Amazingly, big things like painting and laying floors are still being done. With five minutes to go, the teams are touching up paint jobs, vacuuming up dirt and polishing floors. Tyler Harcott – Host blows an air horn and asks each team to lay down their tools and step outside of their apartments. Tyler asks the apartments to get together with their teams and wait on one of their balconies, except the property managers, who will tour the rooms with the panel of judges.

Apartment #1: There’s a half wall that separates the door from the rest of the room. The headboard of the bed is up against the half wall. The entryway and half wall behind the bed are painted yellow, the other three walls are a cream color. There is white and blue bedding on the bed, gauzy sheer curtains on the sliding doors, a bench with some jars and candles along one wall and a flat screen tv on a stand in the corner. All in all, not a bad looking room. Or so I thought… The real estate agent likes the paint colors, but says that it’s “almost” a multi-color room. A designer compliments the half wall and likes that it camouflages the bed, but tells Monique they need to replace a flooring strip at the bottom of the wall. An architect finds all the flaws in their built projects and basically tells Monique that they look “cheap.”

Apartment #2: Ahhhh, my eyes! My eyes! There’s SO much going on that it’s hard to know where to look. The wall by the door is painted at least four colors – green, yellow, orange and cream. Separating the door from the room is a pretty cool shelving unit – essentially four rows of four blocks each, that is open on each side. Some of the cubbies hold vases, others have boxes that can be used for storage. The bed is on the same wall as the door, parallel to the sliding doors that go to the balcony. The bed is covered in a green spread with orange pillows and smaller stripped pillows that match the stripes on the wall. Across from the bed are two floor to ceiling cabinets with a matching chest of drawers between them that holds a flat screen tv. All the judges comment on the business of the room. They’re not crazy about the soffit ceiling over the entryway or some of the furniture choices.

Apartment #3: In this apartment, the bed is on the wall opposite the entry door. The wall behind the bed is pale celadon green (hey, I’m wearing that color as a bridesmaid in a wedding next March!) which is also the color on the door. The other three walls are white. The bed has a black metal frame and a simple black and white cover accentuated by some red and white pillows and red shades on the bedside lamps. The team installed a walnut colored hardwood floor. Opposite the bed, the team painted a green rectangle, put a dark wood frame around it and hung a flat panel tv (notice a theme?) inside of it. They also put sheer curtains on the sliding doors. The judges would have liked a larger tv in the frame as well as something in the empty space between the foot of the bed and the tv wall. Also, they really don’t like the fact that the team used the wood flooring as base molding at the bottom of the sliding door or that they didn’t paint the undersides of the nightstands.

Apartment #4: The bedroom in this apartment is a little different as far as I can tell. There doesn’t appear to be any sliding doors to the outside. The team set the headboard back into an alcove created by a closet that used to be there. The bed is on a wooden platform that appears to float 6 or 8 inches off the floor. On each side of the bed is a floor to ceiling plywood cabinet. Small lights hang down from the ceiling over the bed. The bed is covered in a green striped bedspread with matching pillows. Opposite the bed is a black dresser with metal legs and drawer pulls and a matching black vanity table and stool. On top of the dresser is (you guessed it) a flat panel tv. There are some glass shelves with nothing on them hanging on the wall and the one small window in the room has been left bare. The team put in hardwood floors and added a small black throw rug with blue-green circles on it. The real estate agent immediately jumps on the plywood cabinets, saying the plywood is not ritzy enough for Malibu. The designer says the hanging lights are too low and anyone sitting up would hit their heads. The architect likes the bed, but comments on other shoddy construction work.

Now that the judging is done, the discussion goes back to who’s voting out whom. Brad and Lew think their biggest allies are Kim and Carl and their biggest enemies are Kim and Carl. Steve and Nicole are worried that Sam and Scotty are going to go back on their alliance with them to vote out Erik and Jayna. They have pretty good intuition, since Sam and Scotty do have an alliance with Erik and Jayna too. The teams vote, drop their slips in their mailboxes and head off to the lumber yard to hear the results. The teams sit on piles of lumber and Tyler Harcott – Host welcomes them to the lumber yard – the starting point in any renovation. Jeff Probst, your job is more than safe.

We find out that upper complex spent approximately $9,526 on bedroom #1 and $9,003 on bedroom #2. Lower complex spent approximately $7,943 on bedroom #3 and $9,311 on bedroom #4. Any remaining money will be added to the budgets for their next rooms.

The panel decided that the room that added the most value to the complex is bedroom #3. I hope the teams realize that if you have good taste, you can make rooms look good without blowing your entire budget. For $10,000 these rooms should have been incredible! I’ve seen better results on Trading Spaces. (Yes I know they have professional carpenters on Trading Spaces, but with that much money, the teams didn’t need to worry about building furniture.)

Now, onto the important stuff. The upper complex has decided to vote out Sanyika and Monique. The lower complex has decided to vote out Kim and Carl. Tyler Harcott – Host gives each team the opportunity to speak to their teammates. Monique expresses disbelief and immediately says that she’s surprised at Scotty and Sam for going against their alliance to vote off Erik and Jayna. A-ha! Scotty and Sam may have played their hand too soon, since they just showed that they had different agreements with each team.

Kim starts to speak to her team, saying she’s not surprised, but she barely gets the words out before Rose jumps in, saying Kim threw the first punch, trying to get Rose and Barney kicked off. Kim asks Rose what she’s done and Rose said she worked, but she’s sorry she’s not as “perfect” as Kim. Kim says it doesn’t matter about being perfect, it’s about working hard.

Tyler Harcott – Host reveals that the room that added the least amount of value to the complex is the bedroom in apartment #1. The lower complex celebrates and Kim and Carl run back over to them, saying “We still love you guys!” Tyler tells Sanyika and Monique that they’ve been evicted and Rose cackles in the background. Sanyika and Monique leave and Tyler points out that upper complex is now at a disadvantage.

Sanyika and Monique pack their stuff and express happiness that they get to sleep in a real bed. They admit they’re hurt getting kicked off first, but that its part of life.

Next on The Complex – Sam and Jayna’s relationship is beyond compare and in the lower complex there’s talk of sabotage. As long as it’s Rose they’re sabotaging, I’m all for it. Have at it Volsfan, they’re all yours!

Slice'n'Dice circa 2004
Edited to fix silly grammar mistakes.