Over the icy river and through the frost-encrusted woods, six subways, three buses and nine miles of uphill (both ways!) cross-country skiing through thick brush which only a native Sherpa can successfully navigate, to the CCC we go. Elka (who, astonishingly, disappears halfway through this scene) sits next to a young girl named "Pilar," both of whom sit across the table from Genesis, Elka, and a girl with glasses named "Jessica." Pilar observes, apropos of nothing but the producer's most immediate whims, that "Michael Jackson is gay." Excuse me, did someone just bring up a hot button issue? Could it be that a Very Special Real World has begun? Let the healing begin! Jessica invokes Ellen's unholy name, informing the crowd that she used to be a rather big fan of her sitcom, but she is not allowed to watch it anymore. "But we do watch Home Improvement!" Wait. I thought it was her mother's intent to AVOID gays on television. Meanwhile, somewhere in Santa Monica, JTT looks worriedly up at the television, only briefly taking his eyes off the Christmas present for Danny Pintauro he's wrapping in old copies of every tabloid newspaper the poor kid had already sued by the time he turned eighteen. But I'm saying, y'know, maybe Jessica's mom will be requiring a more comprehensive screening process from now on in. Again, I'm just sayin'.

Kameelah takes the reins: "You used to watch Ellen before you found out she was gay. Now you know she's gay. What does that mean?" Jessica observes that being gay means Ellen is "in love with another woman." Yeah, tell that to a whacked-out Anne Heche, stumbling onto strangers' lawns and stammering nonsense on their porches like some latter-day Robert Downey Jr. doppelganger for the millennium. Jessica: "I don't like gay people. I just have a feeling that I hate them. My mother tells me not to hang around with gay people." Kameelah tells Jessica that they both know people who are gay, who they both really like (they do? I thought none of the kids liked Genesis), but she stops short of outing her housemate with the hypothetical, "What if I told you I was gay?" Jessica says that wouldn't stop her from liking Kameelah. Awwwww. Kameelah continues, "If I like girls, and I'm not trying to kiss you, and I just want to be your friend and color, why does it matter that I like girls?" Cue the Foksy Acoustic Guitar Strumming of Self-Actualization that indicates, much to the satisfaction and relief of Kameelah, Genesis, and JTT's otherwise steadily declining fan base, Jessica likes gay people now.