“A cyst poot is sometimes when you remove contents from the skin and the skin is a little bit floppy—it can make noises,” Dr. Pimple Popper informs us this week. “And so, yes, sometimes you get cyst poots.” Cue the “The More You Know” bumper…
We meet Diane, a woman from Lake Mary, Florida, with a skin condition called neurofibromatosis. We also meet her brother, Ernie, who shares the same affliction.
MEGAN: I feel bad for Diane.
RICH: Neurofibromatosis is what Adam Pearson has —the actor from Under the Skin/Chained for Life. You can see how that condition has considerable variation with those who have it.
MEGAN: I just wonder how Dr. Pimple Popper is gonna fix this. I don’t think there’s stuff in those. Ernie!! Oh my God! Diane and Ernie make me so sad. And I will be devastated if these are not resolved? I want these people to be helped!!
RICH: I feel like we’re being set up for a huge disappointment. Dr. Pimple Popper is just like life. “Reality TV” has never been so apt a description!
MEGAN: This is where TLC’s emotional manipulation goes wrong, I think. Because if PP can’t fix this…we’re just ogling at Diane and Ernie’s skin condition, and thinking to ourselves how grateful we are that we don’t look like this, which is unfair to them.
RICH: She didn’t have kids because she didn’t want her kids to have it. Dig out my heart with a scalpel and a pair of rubber-gloved hands why don’t cha?
MEGAN: Eek. OK, while I don’t think anything is coming out of these bumps…
RICH: Dr. PP has to go through bump by bump… WITH SPECIAL SCISSORS!!! I cannot believe this! She just started snipping skin off!!! In the words of that guy who’s coming up with a boob on his shoulder: It’s a hindrance, I hate it!
MEGAN: I wish they had put Diane under for the skin removal, but I appreciate her stoicism. I do NOT care for the scissors. Also, she said she removed “a lot,” and I’m sorry, she didn’t get enough.
RICH: I’m glad she’s working on Diane’s chin. I thought she’d skip the face for fear of causing scarring. I feel like this is… a very special episode of Dr. Pimple Popper. Serious. Less nauseatingly hilarious.
MEGAN: I think something extremely disgusting and almost comical will happen after this, though. Like, we’ve been promised a “pooting cyst.” TLC is rude in that way, though!! Or maybe rude is wrong. Every episode of this show is a real journey.
RICH: Can Diane go back and get more of her face done? I have never been more excited for an update. The end of this episode can’t come soon enough! (I mean, that’s always true.)
MEGAN: I want Ernie to get some shit taken care of, too! Does TLC pay for this shit?
RICH: They must.
Next up, Will, a 57-year old man from Hinesville, GA, with a lump on his shoulder that his friend refers to as his “little brother.”
MEGAN: That is indeed a big lump.
RICH: Wait, how old did Will say he was?
MEGAN: 57. He looks… great?
RICH: Would U Will?
MEGAN: I’ll get back to you.
A few minutes pass.
MEGAN: To answer your question, I would Will, but only if he wears the hat. And I guess most of his clothes. And I didn’t have my glasses on.
RICH: I commend your candor. Will is, in the parlance of Ciara, super turnt up. He’s amped. Look at him go. The guy just won’t quit.
MEGAN: Thank you. I feel comfortable being honest with you. However, that woman next to Will is likely would-ing him.
RICH: It’s his ex-wife. I love how lusty this show is, really, against all odds. Libido on Dr. Pimple Popper is like a flower pushing through asphalt.
MEGAN: Dr. PP can eradicate something like this in her sleep, I feel, though I don’t like the way he just grabbed it. Dr. PP is also very proprietary with it.
RICH: Is it a cyst or lipoma: the eternal question.
MEGAN: A question I ask myself all the time.
RICH: Do people that Will knows… really think a lipoma is exotic? Who are these people? Limpoma is about as exotic as flatbread from Subway.
MEGAN: EWEWEWWEWWWWW. It squirted??? I’m going to throw up.
RICH: I’m getting more coffee. I might not come back.
MEGAN: Shit just GUSHED out of that.
RICH: So it is a cyst. How sad for Will’s reputation as a harbor of the exotic.
MEGAN: NO NO NO. Sorry. This is so gross.
RICH: “Oatmeal.” We have heard that before. Let’s get some new metaphors in here.
MEGAN: Came close to barf again!!!
RICH: Hm, maybe the metaphor worked. Or was it when she said the cyst liquified?
MEGAN: Yes. And it was the glamour shot of the oatmeal. Also the noises. That didn’t sound like a poot—it sounded like a sex noise.
RICH: I like when he did chicken dance hands when talking about the poot.
MEGAN: SHE MADE HIM LOOK AT IT. I actually can’t eat oatmeal ever again.
RICH: I eat it everyday. This show has made that unpleasant, no matter how much peanut butter I stir in. This is my struggle. Who’s going to irrigate my life’s wound?
Next up, Anthony, a man with a “big ol’ ball, big knot” on the back of his neck who seeks Dr. Pimple Popper’s help at the urging of his daughters Juanita and Rosetta.
MEGAN: Anthony! Hello! Is the back of his entire neck a pimple?
RICH: It seems like it.
MEGAN: I like Anthony and his beautiful family. I have a feeling that I’m not going to love what happens next. Rich, if you see a bump on my body at work, will you motivate me to go get it popped?
RICH: As a member of your family, yes.
MEGAN: OK, I think I prefer a lipoma to a cyst. You can cleanly remove a lipoma. I am glad they’re getting that little chicken cutlet outta Anthony’s body. But I DO NOT like how she has to finger it and also I hate how she gendered it.
RICH: Yeah, these are some of her… quirks.
MEGAN: Maybe these are just the things you do, like maybe “chicken” and “oatmeal” are medical terms. Like the poop scale… you know?? Anyway… back to Anthony!
His daughters are Instagramming the thing.
RICH: They are really handling that thing. “Like two kids in a candy store,” is how Anthony described his kids’ reaction to his lipoma. Imagine a candy store of lipomas and Anthony’s daughters being SO HAPPY.
Megan: I just did and now I must lay in the bathtub.
We meet Kal-Elle, a woman who recently transitioned, who would like her varicose veins removed.
RICH: No offense, but that’s a riff on Superman’s name. See? She just called herself Superwoman but for her visible veins.
MEGAN: Wait… this is just for varicose veins? I guess I’m being insensitive about varicose veins.
RICH: I’ve seen skin turn into battlefields on this show. I’ve seen lumps that could be used to slow down traffic. I’ve seen flowing oatmeal and chicken cutlets that are neither. Varicose veins aren’t gonna do it for me. These will not sufficiently turn my stomach!
MEGAN: I bet varicose veins are extracted like little worms.
MEGAN: I used to work at a fish and chips place in Alaska and the halibut that they sent us was not great, so I had to take out the worms with the sharp end of a kebab stick and that’s what I’m envisioning for the varicose vein removal.
RICH: Should fish have worms??? I mean fish you’re going to eat???
MEGAN: I mean… no!
RICH: What kind of worms! Parasites perhaps? Like human parasites?
MEGAN: I don’t remember, honestly. I just remember standing in the back room after making my boss, Marge, a “spritzer” that was an XL soda cup full of pink Franzia with a splash of Sprite and then picking the worms out of the fish.
RICH: So which job is more disgusting, that one or Jezebel?
MEGAN: It’s a tie. I wish I had a spritzer sometimes. Hm, so I guess you inject spider veins.
RICH: Wow, look at that disappear!
MEGAN: There it goes!
RICH: “How is New York these days?” “I’m over it,” says Kal-Elle. SAME!!!
MEGAN: I actually feel great watching this. This is soothing.
RICH: Yeah, spider veins go down easy.
MEGAN: Just a nice thing to see. I’m glad they got Kal-Elle taken care of from frickin’ head to toe.
RICH: She’s going to insure her legs for a couple million, she says. Like Mariah.
MEGAN: As she should.
The best part of the show is, of course, the updates. We check in on our new friends.
MEGAN: YAS DIANE! I want Diane to encourage Ernie to do good. Will seems thrilled and he got a haircut—I still might!
RICH: Will always seems thrilled. His resting state is exhilaration. And same—watching this show is like doing an impossible hourlong workout whose every second sucks… but after you glow because the pain has been removed.
So this week’s food analogies included the old standbys of oatmeal and chicken, but we also got a golden nugget (which may have been in reference to its similarity to an actual gold nugget, but I’m going to allow it as a reference to a chicken nugget fried to golden deliciousness since it was already compared to chicken) and a plum, said soothingly and with… aplomb.
RICH: Also, I would like to point out that editing suggested that Dr. PP called this “gorgeous”:
MEGAN: This is over. I feel elation.
RICH: Dr. Pimple Popper, changing beauty standards, one shiny lipoma at a time.