The WB calls it High School Reunion 3. The latest edition of the reality series might just as well be titled Fast Times After Cardinal Gibbons High.
A group of former students of the Fort Lauderdale Catholic school, most from the class of ’94, were selected for the third season of the show, which brings together one-time classmates for a two-week dream vacation at an oceanside Hawaiian villa. The program’s hope is that the young adults will rekindle romances and settle old scores in compelling fashion. The Gibbons grads deliver.
“This is the hottest, sexiest season we’ve had,” said executive producer Mike Fleiss. Gibbons was selected, he said, because he was looking for interesting stories that would resonate 10 years later — and beautiful people. Producers are renowned for hyperbole, but it’s doubtful anyone who sees High School Reunion 3 will accuse Fleiss of overstatement.
Over the next seven weeks, the former Gibbons students will be seen bed-hopping and back-stabbing, fueled by a bottomless supply of booze. During the uninhibited orgy of hedonism, hearts and promises are broken with abandon and not a fleck of remorse.
For viewers, the series is addictive trash, an involving real-life soap opera and an eye-candilicious bacchanal of bikinis and bubble baths, as well as frequent bleeps and blurring to stay on the right side of the Federal Communications Commission.
For Cardinal Gibbons High, it has the potential to be a nightmare. Throughout the series, the private institution is referred to as a party school for rich kids. Tara, one of those invited to Hawaii, laughingly calls it “a public school with uniforms. People got away with everything.”
Bolstering this description, the young people reminisce about the drinking they did when they were still way underage, and how homecoming and proms were mere preludes to what was to come in the hotel rooms they had reserved — amazingly, some say parents did the renting for them — to pair off afterward.
“This is going to be a black eye for us,” said school Principal Paul Ott in a phone interview. “But we’ll recover. Cardinal Gibbons has graduated about 11,000 outstanding individuals.”
Ott is a Gibbons grad, as are his three children. “We also have 15 faculty members who graduated from here,” he said. “The people on this show are a small group, who are not typical of our students past or present.”
Still, there are no hard feelings, Ott said. “These aren’t bad kids. I taught some of them,” he said. With only the promotional teases as a gauge, he thinks the combination of a romantic setting and a lot of alcohol encouraged the participants to act like Catholic school boys and girls gone wild.
He’s optimistic that parents of current students, as well as any who might be considering Gibbons, will see the show for what he expects it to be: “a sensational show stressing the negative.”
Sexy players and labels
Every member of the Gibbons class of ’94 was invited to apply for the TV reunion. In a typical WB coincidence, most of the core group of 12 — four others join the revelry as the series progresses — are beautiful and buff enough to walk right into a WB series. “The WB has a tradition of sexy people,” Fleiss said with a laugh. “We didn’t want to drag down the average.”
Nikol epitomizes this. When she was sweet 16, she won a Supermodel of America competition. Now an account manager for a skin care line, she made it to the final cut of the third Bachelor.
Nikol’s renewed romance with her high school sweetheart, Jim, is a thread that weaves its way throughout the series.
Each of the featured players has been tagged with a nickname. Nikol is “The Good Girl,” possibly because despite her passion for Jim, both say they never went all the way — pre-High School Reunion. Jim, a football player at Gibbons, is “The Jock.”
Eze, short for Ezequiel, is “The Shy Guy,” an appellation partly traceable to the fact that he admired Nikol from afar back in school but lacked the confidence to ask her out. He hopes to make up for lost time in Hawaii, but it’s a ticklish situation with Jim back in the picture.
Some of the labels are fairly innocuous. Nikki, not to be confused with Nikol, is “The Head Cheerleader.” A couple of late arrivals, the wild and crazy siblings Torie and Tara, are “The Hot Sister” and “The Baby Sister,” respectively.
Other sobriquets are a bit mean-spirited. Jen, who came between Nikol and Jim when they were Gibbons students, is saddled with “The Predator.” As harsh as this might be, it’s not undeserved. When Nikol and Jim reconnect in Hawaii, Jen vows to steal Jim again.
Jaime’s show title is “The Obsessed Ex” because of the hold she had — and thinks she still has — on Gianni, “The Basketball Player.”
Gianni had a secret crush in school on Loretta, “The Dream Girl.” It had to remain secret because he feared how his “crazy jealous girlfriend” would react if he were seen even talking to another girl. He had some clues: At least once, she hit him in the head with a bottle in a fit of jealousy. On another occasion, she crushed his windshield.
Jaime hasn’t changed. “I think Gianni is afraid of me,” she says in the show, with a measure of pride. It’s a farcical situation, since petite Jaime doesn’t come up to the husky shoulders of Gianni, a professional basketball player in Italy. Maybe this is why Gianni finally gets up the nerve to openly pursue Loretta, as Jaime fumes in the background.
Loretta, who still lives in Broward County, is pleased but puzzled by her “Dream Girl” label. “I wouldn’t put myself in that category.” Like Gianni, many in the audience might file dissenting opinions.
‘The out crowd’
John, one of those guys who never allows a pot to remain unstirred, is dubbed “The Loud Mouth.” Nikol embellishes the putdown: “He’s a little obnoxious.” In one tumultuous episode on Maui, “a little” is an understatement.
Brian A., a former bully who shamefacedly admits he once picked on a blind person, is “The Meathead.” His goal for the reunion is to show he is a changed man, sensitive and respectful of the feelings of others.
Brien M., a nonconformist who was asked to leave Gibbons after two years, is “The Rebel.” In his high school days, he favored very long hair and earrings, which made him stand out in the regimented milieu of a parochial school. “I liked to challenge the rules,” said the Wilton Manors resident.
Despite his involuntary departure from Gibbons, and relishing the notion of how he expects the show “to shock” the school, he seconded Ott’s assessment that the show depicts exceptions rather than the rule. “There’s that element in every school,” he said.
Kristian and Matt, members of “the out crowd” back in school, are saddled with “The Nerd” and “The Dork.” Money might not be able to buy love, but it does buy sudden acceptance when these two show up during the fifth episode in a red Corvette, boasting of how they became multimillionaires during the dot.com boom.
Perhaps the cruelest nickname is attached to Carin, “The Fat Girl.” In the interest of accuracy, it should be “The Former Fat Girl.” Carin acknowledges being “morbidly obese” in high school and a social outcast because of it. However, in the intervening years, she has had gastric bypass surgery and lost more than 100 pounds. She’s anxious to show the others the person they never bothered to get to know.
Carin didn’t seek out High School Reunion as much as it sought her, she says. “When they found out about my surgery, they hounded me.” She’s glad they did. “It was one of the best times of my life.”
The ever-present cameras
The reunion wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Good theater requires conflict, so midway through the series, the producers bring in a group from Douglas High, Gibbons’ bitter rival, for a grudge touch-football match. The stakes are high. If Douglas wins, the guys get to spend a night partying with the Gibbons girls. One of them also will be allowed to stay for the rest of show.
The only downer about the experience, many at the reunion said, was having cameras record their every move. “We were there for 12 days,” Brien M. said. “It took me 10 to get used to them.” Even after he returned home, “I had hallucinations of cameras following me.”
Carin joked about her strategy for putting the ubiquitous cameras out of mind: “A few cocktails.”
Loretta had more reason than most to resent the lack of privacy. A gimmick of the show is a “hall pass,” which allows the recipient to choose one partner for a private date.
When she is given the privilege, she chooses Gianni, who later reciprocates.
They are provided with what amounts to a honeymoon cottage, where they behave like honeymooners.
The lens follows them as far as decency statutes allow, then is back to film them waking up together in the morning.
“It was definitely awkward at first but they did eventually get lost,” Loretta said. “It was like, they said, ‘Let’s get this done, then we’ll leave.’ Now that I look back, I go, ‘Wow, did I do all that?'”
She did. If she feels guilt about the pleasures on Maui, it will probably be a shared experience with those who find themselves unable to resist becoming video voyeurs for the next seven Tuesdays.
Tom Jicha can be reached at .
MEET THE CARDINAL GIBBONS HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1994
HERE’S A LOOK AT SOME OF THE REUNION PARTICIPANTS AND HOW THE SHOW’S CREATORS CHARACTERIZED THEM.
1. Eze
“The Shy Guy”
A late bloomer, he didn’t have much of a social life at Gibbons. He has feelings for Nikol and imprudently believes her words and not his eyes that all she wants to do with Jim is achieve closure.
2. Nikki
“The Cheerleader”
A perky life-of-the-party type, she allowed herself to be dominated by a controlling boyfriend in school. Now, she’s an independent-minded woman, eager to show that side of herself to former classmates. She admits she tends to gravitate toward “bad boys.”
3. Nikol
“The Good Girl”
The reunion coordinator and a former model, she’s harbored a crush on her high school sweetheart Jim for 10 years. Meanwhile, another Gibbons grad, Eze, is trying to work up the courage he didn’t have in school to ask her out.
4. Jen
“The Predator”
She stole Jim from Nikol once, went out with him for a couple of months, then moved on. With Jim and Nikol picking up where they left off, Jen is prepared to move in again. It’s what she does; her favorite guy is always some other girl’s boyfriend, a history that repeats when surprise visitors arrive.
5. Brian A.
“The Meathead”
A brawny bully back in school, he’s shed his hair and his old ways. He’s reformed and wants the others to see it. He especially hopes one of the girls takes notice that he’s a new man.
6. Loretta
“The Dream Girl”
She was a year ahead of the others at Gibbons. She didn’t date a lot in school and is ready to make up for lost time. Fortuitously, Gianni, a guy she always found intriguing, had similar unrequited feelings for her. Meanwhile, a secret admirer is sending her love notes.
7. Gianni
“The Basketball Star”
A professional basketball player in Italy, he says being around Loretta during their school days made him tongue-tied and gave him butterflies. It didn’t matter, because he had a steady, the very jealous Jaime. That’s long over as far as he’s concerned; Jaime has different thoughts.
8. John
“The Loud Mouth”
He goes out of his way to draw attention to himself and roil the waters. “I’m still the man. I’m going to run things,” he announces upon his arrival. Not surprisingly, the reunion isn’t as pleasant for him as it is for most of the others.
9. Jim
“The Jock”
A former football player, he “was definitely in love with Nikol” but ended the relationship by dumping her at Homecoming for Jen, who also is lurking on the fringes in Hawaii. To Nikol’s chagrin, Jim confesses he has commitment issues.
10. Carin
“The Fat Girl”
“I was morbidly obese in high school,” she says.
Since then, she has had gastric bypass surgery and lost more than 100 pounds. She hopes others notice the new Carin. They do.
“She’s totally different. I might hook up with her,” John says.
11. Brien M.
“The Rebel”
He didn’t make it to graduation at Gibbons but is a good friend of many of those who did, which led to his invitation. He says he had commitment problems but this is no longer an issue when he gets reacquainted with Torie, “the most smoking woman I have ever met.”
12. Jaime
“The Obsessed Ex”
She aims to intimidate anyone who goes near the man she’s staked out. “Psycho” and “crazy” are among the labels hung on her. If that keeps other women away from Gianni, it’s fine with her. Her attitude toward new rival Loretta is, “What does she have? … Gianni will be mine in the end.”
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Tara
“The Baby Sister”
She has always been in Torie’s shadow and lacked confidence because of it. She’s ready to emerge in her own right at the reunion.
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Torie
“The Hot Sister”
A party animal, “All hell breaks loose,” when she and her sister Tara arrive during the second episode. Brien M. wasn’t her type in high school but she has a change in attitude when they become reacquainted.
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Matt
“The Dork”
Most classmates didn’t pay attention to him at Gibbons. Those who did, didn’t like him, he says. Kristian’s newly rich partner, he’s suddenly popular and the center of attention with the women. “It’s amazing what money can do,” he says.
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Kristian
“The Nerd”
He was one of those guys the in-crowd mocked, “the laughing stock of the school.” It appears he might get the last laugh when he shows up as a newly minted multimillionaire.
