Here we are again, you guys. Standing at the foot of Mount Doom in the heart of Mordor. The only thing wearier than our legs is our hearts. We are unsure if we have what it takes to scale this treacherous cliff and cast back the Ring into the fires in which it was forged. The Eye is always seeking, bent on our destruction. Even if we do succeed, what do we have to go back to? Our homes have been ravaged by war and strife. Our loved ones hardly even recognize us, our faces deeply carved with worry and regret, a weight that won’t go away with the completion of our task. And yet we climb. Our hands bloody and ragged, we climb.

The Hills season 5, so it begins.

The opening scene of the first episode (because last night featured TWO new episodes, as a special treat. You know, like how punishment is a treat) features Heidi and Stephanie in a coffee shop talking about Stephanie’s new fashion class and Lauren’s upcoming birthday party. If I was a producer on this show (who managed not to suicide myself) I would have been struck during this scene with the realization that four seasons was plenty of seasons and we really do not need season 5. Not just because we’ve been treading the same lukewarm waters for two years (whether or not Heidi and Lauren become friends again has all the urgency of a post-brunch nap), but because this show has actually become a parody of itself. It’s been satirized so many times (James Franco and Mila Kunis, Jimmy Fallon’s 7th Floor West, This Fucking Thing) that you can’t actually watch these two plastic-faced human garbage cans blink their eyes at each other and pretend like they’re even listening to what the other one is saying without thinking it’s a joke.

Not to jump too far ahead, but this is ACTUALLY how the second episode ends.

HOLY SHIT.

I made a GIF of it for you.

Welcome to your new Livejournal Avatar.

And that’s basically the whole hour. Heidi goes to Lauren’s birthday party, but Lauren doesn’t want her there. Spencer flirts with a “bartender” and Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend text blasts the tip to Gossip Girl and all of Constance knows. Heidi and Spencer fight and Heidi goes back to Crested Butte, where she always goes when she just needs some time. Oh jeez, I wonder if Heidi and Spencer will ever work it out. And by work it out I mean throw themselves into the La Brea tar pits and fill their lungs with suffocating primeval ooze. Stephanie and Lauren argue in a fabric store. Brody Jenner. There’s no tension or drama in watching how these idiots’ lives played out six months ago, when just last week Heidi insisted that she wanted Spencer to rap on her new album. This has been a problem for The Hills for a long time, but at this point it’s almost embarrassing. Like, you want to pull The Hills aside and give it the strong tobacco lecture that only a friend can give. “Dude, come on.”

Relax with the hats, Aretha Franklin.

Jeffrey Eugendies, BEHOLD YOUR LEGACY.

Talk about virgin suicides, am I right? I mean, suicide?!

And then there’s this:

That kid should sue the fuck out of MTV. This is genuinely disgusting. I just barfed and my heart fell out. The only reason they’re at that bar in the first place is because MTV worked out a deal with the owners for low-cost filming in exchange for on-screen promotion, AND they agreed to let the producers pretend that Stacie actually works there (fake). It’s basically a soundstage. And then the producers and camera crew sit idly by while their goat-faced nightmare of an EMPLOYEE actually assaults someone (over a text message, never forget). This isn’t National Geographic. We don’t have to let nature run its course. Between this and the Sharon Osbourne vs. Megan Charm School Reunion fight, the MTV corporation has made it clear that their business model supports inciting violence for the sake of ratings. Fuck you, MTV. Fucking horrible. Go to jail forever.

Of course, Spencer should also sue the fuck out of MTV. For making him look so gross:

Yikes. He’s like reverse portrait of Dorian Gray. In a locked attic somewhere there’s a magical portrait of Spencer Pratt where he doesn’t look like the hideous result of his terrible choices. His face was particularly striking (like how a needle strikes you in the eye) in this scene because it featured his reunion with ex-friend Brody Jenner, who just looked so healthy and handsome in comparison, and not like a Madame Tussaud’s sculpture from the Horror Wing.

Oh Brody. You had built up so much good will with me during Bromance. I had actually begun to think that you weren’t a shitty Jaeger Bombotron from Planet Sup, or at least something more than your typical shitty Jaeger Bombotron from Planet Sup. In addition to. But all my goodwill for you went out the window when you told Spencer that you’d also be mad at Heidi for not trusting him on the whole whether or not he was flirting at the bar with a fake bartender hired by the producers of the show in a desperate attempt to create some kind of narrative tension in a self-parody that’s gone dead limp.

We’ve been fooled, you guys. Bromance was a lie! They’re both just idiots. When Brody walked into the cafe to meet Spencer he said: “What’s this little vegan place?” And Spencer answered: “It’s The Muse, homie.”

And so, the road stretches out before us, dead and gray and covered in nuclear ash. How many episodes are left in the season? Whoops, I meant to ask how many bullets are left in my gun? One? Perfect.