Will Catfish Put Joanna And Bo Back In The Path Of Cupid's Arrow? (2024)

The Client

Joanna, a twenty-six-year-old bartender, tattoo model, and cosmetology student in Riverside, CA. And producers let you know basically immediately that she's going to be one of the "hopefuls" you hate.

There are, like, fifteen different affectations on display in this selfie and she should have quit doing all of them a long time ago.

The Beloved

Bo, of San Bernardino, CA -- who doesn't actually love Joanna back anymore, officially; Bo and Joanna "dated" online for six months, and then Bo dumped Joanna and got back together with her ex. In her initial Skype call with Nev and Max, Joanna says this is because they were never able to meet in person and Bo was just insufficiently patient: "It just happened so quickly, like, it was so easy for her. If you love me, how was it so easy for you to get back with your ex-girlfriend, you know?" ...But when Max and Nev get to Joanna's house, she admits that there is more to the story. She and Bo were supposed to meet in Las Vegas one weekend when Joanna was there for a photo shoot. Bo wasn't going to be able to get there until Saturday, but she told Joanna she was going to come with her friend Ana, who would arrive the day before Bo. Joanna and Ana hit it off and ended up "kind of cuddling," Joanna says sheepishly; she later clarifies (not really), "Yeah, so, whatever, I guess we kissed." This seems like as good a time as any to let you know that Joanna has a face tattoo that reads "Cash Only."

Moving on: Ana told Bo, and Bo broke up with Joanna, after which they never talked again. Joanna did meet Ana one more time for a debrief about Bo, which is how she knows about Bo's reunion with her ex. However, Joanna's still in love with Bo, and she admits that she wants the show to help her convince Bo to meet her in person.

The Clues

Though Riverside and San Bernardino are neighbouring cities, Bo and Joanna never met in person. They also never videochatted.

The Excuses

Joanna admits that she got nervous and flaked on her first in-person meeting with Bo, claiming her son had a fever to get out of it, so the fault on that one lies with both parties. Joanna also says she never pushed Bo very hard to get on Skype or FaceTime: "I'm not a videochatter myself."

The Investigation

Joanna has a fair amount of information to supply Max and Nev with: Bo's full name; her home address; her Kik ID; and a few photos. (There is evidence later -- spoiler alert -- that Joanna also has Bo's phone number and that it hasn't changed, but that's not mentioned.) Joanna has a lot less data on Ana: just her phone number. She doesn't even know Ana's last name.

"So this should be quick?" Reader, it is -- or, at least, the online part is. The photos Bo's sent Joanna don't have any other copies online. They conjecture that if Bo is on social media, she's probably not using her real name, and then they just...don't look? SURE, OKAY. Instead, they search Bo's address, which the internet says is ACTUALLY the residence of a certain Ana [REDACTED], so they have no way of knowing if it's the same Ana who's friends with Bo; however, they do note at this point something I had already noticed, which is that Joanna's photo of Ana from Las Vegas looks a lot like Bo.

The Ana that Joanna met and frenched (or more) is their best lead, they say -- and we have to believe them, I guess -- so Nev calls her up; after a brief conversation -- in which we learn that Ana and Bo have fallen out and are no longer speaking either -- they arrange a meeting.

Ana, who had said on the phone that she'd seen the show a couple of times, marvels that Nev and Max are actually there, and when they report that they're helping Joanna and that she told them she and Anna met, WINK, Anna giggles adorably. She claims that when she met Joanna in Las Vegas, Bo hadn't told her that she and Joanna were an item (although I would think Ana would figure out that Bo wouldn't bother trekking all the way out there to meet someone she was pretty sure wanted to touch her boobs). She confirms Joanna's story, more or less: the way she characterizes their encounter is that they "hooked up," which I guess can mean different things to different people but, let's be honest, really means sex. Right? Isn't that what we assume? She goes on to say that after the blowout with Bo, Joanna texted Ana and that they went out clubbing and "hooked up again" -- whereas Joanna had described that second meeting more like an informational interview or something. Max and Nev report this discrepancy to Ana, who sticks to her version of events, adding that, after that night, Joanna let Ana know that she didn't like her That Way, and was just using her to get back at Bo. "It would obviously be strange to ask you, like, is Bo real?" says Nev. IF YOU WEREN'T PRODUCING THE TV SHOW CATFISH, YES, IT WOULD BE, BUT HERE WE ARE, so does Ana have any photos of herself with Bo? Sure she does!

WHO'S THIS BITCH NOW. In case you're not sure from the side-by-side shot above, this lady on the right is pretty clearly not Bo as she's represented herself to Joanna; this is.

Nev cautiously says that this Bo doesn't look like the one they've seen, and Ana says that's her friend -- or rather, her ex-friend, perhaps to be her friend again someday. Max is more definite than Nev: "That's not the Bo that Joanna thinks she's been talking to," and like, Max is obviously right, though he then tries to spin by asking how Bo normally dresses. "Like a girl," says Ana -- meaning, not in the style that Ana herself dresses, which Joanna had earlier described as "a stud," and her type. "Does she have lots of tattoos?" asks Nev. Ana says she does not. He finally then just shows her one of the Bo shots Joanna had given him and asks whether Ana knows who that is. "No, I've never seen her in my life," says Ana, adding, "She's cute, though." Peppered with more questions about Bo, Ana confirms that she does date women, and she is out.

That's when Nev runs out of steam, forcing Max to take over, awesomely.

Which: look. That's obviously what I started thinking as soon as Joanna told the Las Vegas story, because it makes so much sense: Ana presents herself to see whether she and Joanna have chemistry; when it turns out they do, she creates the conditions under which Bo would break things off with Joanna, leaving the door open for Joanna to seek comfort AND MAYBE MORE with Ana herself. But what's Ana going to do after she's just told this whole story and shown a photo to support it: say yes?

Ana says she doesn't need to put fake photos online to attract women: "I mean, I get girls, you guys saw that." While Max cracks up at her admittedly quite winning braggadocio, Nev replies, "Well, you say you get girls." "I mean, you want to see videos, I can show you videos," Ana giggles, while Max laughs even louder offscreen. Nev chuckles that they believe her. (You know he wants to see those videos, though. And he should, he probably has a lot to learn.)

Nev says "That's that," and that they just need to contact Bo and try to get her to meet. But first, they have to tell Joanna the little they've learned today. In the car leaving the coffee shop, Max and Nev agree that they believe Ana's version of events, and say she had no idea her friend was lying to Joanna. Case closed! Exceeeeeeeept.... "Why would Bo, who seems to be out and has no problem with it, likes girls -- why would she send a picture of a stud who's no more or less pretty than she is?" wonders Max. HMMMMMMMM. GOOD QUESTION.

The Presentation Of Findings

There's not much to tell up to their meeting with Ana, so of course they lead off with her claim that she and Joanna had sex the second time they met. Joanna denies it a bit heatedly, but at this point I'm Team Ana, not Team Try-Hard McKnockers.

I mean, live your life, but her gumball nipples are trying to come through the TV and kill me and it's not okay.

Nev goes on to show Joanna the shot of Bo and Ana that we already saw earlier...

...at which Joanna VISIBLY RECOILS, snapping, "No....Oh, hell no. Not even a stud. Like, no!" Evidently no parent of Joanna's ever taught her to say "no, thank you" rather than "broccoli is barf." THERE ARE CAMERAS ON YOU. ACT LIKE A f*ckING PERSON. Anyway, she starts crying and has to leave the room for a minute. When Max coaxes her back to the table of revelation, she agrees to let them text Bo about meeting. Bo immediately texts back, asking if Nev is with Joanna right now. Nev says he is. Bo says she'll meet today, since "this has gone on long enough" and she'd like to "get it over with," and checks that Joanna still has her address (which we know she does). Bo will be home in a few hours to meet. Joanna is ready.

The Confrontation

So we know it's probably not going to be the "stud" from Joanna's photos coming out of the house. But who is it?

Well, you and I and Max were all right to suspect her: it's Ana. Joanna the rotten bitch handles it about as well as you'd expect.

Ana leads by saying she's sorry, as all people in her position should, but Joanna doesn't want to hear it. In fact, she even doesn't want to believe, at first, that Ana is Bo until Ana confirms that she is. After Joanna's spent a minute or so getting over the cognitive dissonance of finding out that what she thought were two different people are, in fact, one and the same, she recovers enough to yell at Ana for telling Max and Nev that she and Joanna had slept together -- which, apparently, isn't true, judging by Ana's response: "You bullsh*t too, dude!" Joanna yells back wanting to know what she lied about (er, I guess other than her son's fake fever which she already admitted to on camera) and berating Ana for f*cking with her emotions. And to be fair (for a second) to Joanna, when she repeatedly asks Ana to say what she thinks Joanna's lied about, Ana can't come up with anything, lamely mumbling, "I'm about to go," and then changing her mind, sticking to her original story: "We did hook up twice." "We hooked up twice?" yelps Joanna, sarcastically repeating, "We hooked up twice." Ana insists that they did. And then...

OH, sh*t. Clearly, no one had any inkling that such a thing would happen. Nev and Max make ineffectual dadly noises, as Ana stalks into the house...and then almost immediately comes back out unbuttoning her shirt and looking ready to fight, and I have to say, I'm not sure which of these two I would bet on! Ana has more heft, but Joanna's nails are f*cking crazy.

Ana tears off her mic pack and goes back inside; Nev and Max both follow Joanna, who keeps babbling that she doesn't want to be there, so they try to pacify her and put her back in the car. "I don't want to be here, like, at all," she repeats. WE GET IT. On the sidewalk, Nev says he'll check in with Ana, while Max gets in the car and tries to pretend he's on Joanna's side -- and I guess he is, a little, given how Ana lied to his face the day before.

In her house, Nev finds Ana sobbing and saying she wants everyone to leave. Through tears, she explains that she just wanted to see Joanna, and she knew that if she'd told Max and Nev when the three of them first met that she was Bo, Joanna wouldn't come, "because of how she f*cking is. She's a f*cking asshole." Ana? I f*cking agree. Nev is in over his head and has nothing to say as Ana protests that she didn't want any of this to happen.

In the car, Joanna is dry-eyed and brittle: "I'm waiting for her to say she's just kidding."

In the house, Nev asks about the photos. The one Ana is actually in depicts her cousin. The others, Ana found online; Ana doesn't know who she is. (I...am not sure I believe that? The original Bo really looks like Ana; the shapes of their eyes and nose look identical to me. But I think Ana might be embarrassed to admit that she used shots of herself from an earlier time in her life when she looked different.)

Nev decides to leave it there and asks if they can cool things off overnight and try to pick things up again the next day; Ana agrees.

In the car, Joanna still wants to go home. She's also still a bitch. For the sake of preventing a future lawsuit -- or future physical assaults in future episodes -- Nev lectures that it's "definitely not cool" that Joanna hit Ana, but Joanna is remorseless: "What was she expecting?" Nev says she was expecting exactly what happened, which is why she hadn't told Joanna the truth sooner. "That's not a f*cking excuse," snits Joanna. "I'm just saying, violence is never something that's okay in a situation that doesn't need to have violence," blathers Nev. ...What? You can stop after "never something that's okay." Also, you're one to talk. Joanna isn't any more susceptible to Nev's attempts to shame her a second time, muttering, "f*cking stupid." So Nev drops it and tells her they can try to figure things out tomorrow.

The Post-Confrontation Confrontation

The next day, Max and Nev meet Ana for some pre-couch Couch Time, which means: sob story. This all started because when Ana started a Plenty Of Fish account using her own photos, no one messaged her, so she started another one just to see if the app was broken or something and got responses like crazy; she ignored all of them except Joanna's, because Joanna was so hot, and then she started really liking her, and things escalated. "What's special about Joanna?" Nev asks. "Because personally, I don't see it," he does not add. Ana likes that Joanna's "hard"; Ana thinks she's too much of a wimp, like when she gets into fights with her family over her sexual orientation, but Joanna would just tell her she doesn't need them. "Are you in love with her?" asks Max. "I love her, yeah," says Ana. She would love to be in a relationship with Joanna, she says, so Nev says she should tell Joanna that, so that Joanna doesn't persist in thinking Ana was just f*cking around and making a fool of her. Ana's willing if Joanna is.

So: off they all go to Joanna's, and if you thought her look yesterday was harsh...

...get a load of this lip. After trying and failing to get everyone to agree they're not going to try to beat anyone else's asses again, Nev cites the totality of Ana and Joanna's relationship in an effort to keep things respectful and calm. "She has a lot of explaining to do, actually, so I'm just here to listen," says Joanna, bitchily. It's not that she's wrong, but does she have to be such a C about it? Ana hesitantly says she's not sure how to start, so she goes with "I mean, I didn't do anything on purpose." "So it was an accident?" snaps Joanna. OKAY, THAT SEEMS LIKE ENOUGH OF A MEETING, MAYBE. Ana forges ahead, telling Joanna what happened with her original profile and that Joanna's the only person she answered. "So I was the lucky one," spits Joanna. Ana, more kindly than she needs to be, says she thought Joanna was unique (wrong, she's just an inky basic) and felt lucky that Joanna had any interest in her. It was hard for her to imagine telling Joanna the truth because she had become Ana's "rock": "I mean, you know my story, you know everything of my family." "I don't even know if that's true," Joanna shrugs. READ A ROOM, sh*tHEAD. Ana says everything she told Joanna is true. Joanna counters that she doesn't care for the way Ana's playing the victim, and continues barking recriminations at her while tears roll down Ana's cheeks. "Just give me some time, I guess," says Joanna. HOW MAGNANIMOUS. Ana nods, and says, "I do love you, I, like, I've got mad love for you." Joanna:

Ugh. Go live in a toilet, you turd. Smiling shyly, Ana says she just had to put that out there. Joanna does not reciprocate.

Ana then decides she might as well ask what she really wants to know: "Like, if you'd've met me me, would you have dated me? Like, me?"

THINGS ARE GETTING A LITTLE TOO REAL FOR OUR HOSTS! Joanna meanly says, instead of no, that she feels like Ana f*cked up any possibility that Joanna ever would. "So I had a chance once upon a time," Ana surmises. "Possibly," hedges Joanna. So she's just confirmed Ana's worst fears some more. Cool. Nice lady.

Hugs?

When Ana asks for one, Joanna crabs, "I don't really want to give you a hug," because she's a terrible monster.

The Aftermath

Two months later, Joanna has talked to Ana. When Max asks if she can imagine being in a relationship with Ana, Joanna says that Ana's seeing someone else: "I'm just more like, 'Well, damn.'" SWEEEEEEEET. LOOKS GOOD ON YOU, UNLIKE YOUR MILLION TATTOOS AND BRUISEY LIP SHADES. "You want what you can't have," Max gloats. When Nev says they're about to call Ana, Joanna requests that they put in a good word for her. Nev says they will. But they won't!

Ana is, indeed, still in a relationship, but says she's always going to have love for Joanna. Nev recaps (save it for the professionals) that he's happy Ana's happy in love and still talking to Joanna: "Who knows, you know, what might happen there?" "You never know," laughs Ana. "Check back in two months, I might be in a relationship with her." DON'T DO IT, ANA, WATCH THIS EPISODE AND REMIND YOURSELF THAT SHE HAS A BURNED-UP CHARCOAL BRICK WHERE HER SOUL SHOULD BE.

The Life Lessons Learned

When your beloved lives a town over and can't meet you, she's faking something. No one travels to Las Vegas to meet an online "friend" they don't plan to have sex with. Joanna is human garbage.