I like Kameelah this week. I always hate Sean.

This episode opens with the usual establishing shots of the lifeless trees, the ice-caked lakes, and the buckling sidewalks and highways that have come to so aptly represent the unfolding five months in this snow-ravaged Hellmouth (er, I mean "picturesque northeastern hamlet"). The beleaguered cameramen really can't help but settle on another frozen slick, no matter which direction they turn their equipment, and I stifle somewhere in the area of a dozen "iceberg, right ahead" jokes because, in reality, it isn't really still 1997. Which I briefly consider to be a shame, as the soundtrack offers the rare treat of an instrumental vamp of Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity," a favorite song of mine off of a favorite album, back in the day. As a result of this, I am temporarily lulled into the misbegotten belief that the sheer unpleasantness of watching this season may recede ever so slightly at some point. But then I note with a too-familiar sense of dawning horror that the producers have decided to continue airing footage of these seven horrible, horrible people kvetching their way through the four-hour days and ninety-hour nights this city has to offer. Oh, how I have tried not to hate them all. How resolutely I have failed. How my anger and resentment concerning all things in life has grown and grown as a result. Wow. Looks like Boston's not the only bitter thing around here after all. Anyway, kill me.

Inside the firehouse, Jason grills Elka on the brand spankin' new topic of "How someone at my age could be so solid in their beliefs." Elka, forced to defend her religious beliefs yet again against a cynical barrage from The Guy Who Knows Everything (let's make that a universal nickname for every guy in this house, shall we? And Montana, also), responds that she was "born into a family that was Catholic and that's how I was raised, and that's why I believe what I do." Over in a confessional, Jason reports that "I think her religion is something she's gripping to," and Elka reports in her own private musings that "Jason is still searching. And I'm not." Searching for what? Another Glamour Shots-sanctioned aqua sweater for your quickly developing line of monochromatic Confessional Gear it has become your independent crusade to assemble? And what's Jason searching for, then? The return counter and exit to the Ye Olde White Boy Clothing Emporium? Because that's where he needs to be heading, with his own confessional outfit of a gigantic flannel shirt and black gangsta hat. And he needs to bring his receipt for a full cash refund. Because if he shows up without it and all they can offer him is store credit, he's going to end up with something equally as hideous, and then things are really going to start getting embarrassing.