Brooklyn Kinda Love is a couple's reality show for people who hate couple's reality shows.
By Melissa Noble — Written on Jan 14, 2011
Brooklyn Kinda Love, a new series on the Playboy channel, comes from the same masterminds that created Taxi Cab Confessions and is both for and about couples—offering a glimpse at real couple's relationships, sex and all.
The show follows four very diverse Brooklyn couples and documents their relationship ups and downs. Shot Real World-style (complete with nudity!), each pair laments their frustrations, talks about how they met, bitches about everything from pubic hair to Facebook flirtations and, yes, even have sex on camera. We watched the first two episodes and saw each cast member naked and screwing. Score? While we were resistant at first, Brooklyn Kinda Love grew on us. In fact, we feel like we've met each and every one of the cast members at some point in our lives, which gives the series a voyeuristic kind of feeling. Unlike other reality shows where the cast is perfectly toned, tanned and polished, these people all have familiar flaws, which makes it kind of comforting. In fact, viewers feel more like flies on the wall and less like audience members.
Here's a rundown of who you'll meet if you watch Brooklyn Kinda Love.
After suffering through a cliche opening rap song—the Playboy channel would really like Brooklyn's rather benign neighborhood Park Slope to seem "street"—we meet Braniff and Frances, a young couple who have just moved in together. Almost immediately we learn that Braniff isn't holding his own in the bedroom and Frances is frustrated with their lack of sex. She'd prefer four-times a day, he's content with twice a week. Their relationship seems stormy; she calls him constantly, is paranoid he's cheating on her and even smacks him when she finds out girls were at one of his buddy's BBQs. Logic would say she has trust issues, until we learn in (spoiler alert!) episode 2 that Francis is itching for a threesome. Braniff is as confused as we are but tries to navigate as best he can through the jungles of her many emotions and desires. Her eyes brighten when she tells the camera about her fantasies of watching him sleep with other women, and the camera pans to a salsa club where she tries (and fails) to get a pretty girl to come home with them. Next up? Escort websites. This is not going to end well. Poll: Have You Considered A Threesome?
This is Brooklyn Kinda Love, not Jersey Kinda Love but the next couple seems straight from the Shore. We meet Rhiannon and Vinny at Coney Island (Brooklyn's version of the Jersey Shore) where Rhiannon, in a hot pink bikini, and Vinny looking like a taller, wispier Situation collect penis-shaped balloons. Rihiannon is emotionally broken after a failed engagement and Vinny is her first step back into the dating world. Vinny for his part seems intent on wooing her appropriately, taking her on picnics and stroking her face, but Rhiannon clearly isn't over her philandering ex. Later awkward is personified while she soberly tells the camera her ex was the "love of my life" and in a perfect universe they would be together. Vinny looks wounded. This is not going to end well either.
Nikki and Chris at first glance seem to have it all together. They admit to having sex on the first date (they didn't even know each other's last names) but somehow managed to mold a relationship out of a casual hook-up. Chris has the mouth of a poet (HA!) and continuously utters porn-ish, cringe-worthy sweet nothings while in the act or talking about it. Nicki doesn't seem to mind and we're treated to the sight of her giving him a blow job. Soon, however, we learn that Chris would really like a threesome. So much, in fact, that Nicki complains he brings it up almost every time they have sex. That's annoying. While he claims it has nothing to do with his attraction for Nicki, that coupled with a heated conversation about unprotected sex and what a pregnancy would mean to the relationship, we predict this is, most likely, not going to end well. 4 Signs He'll Be Good In Bed
Finally we meet our token lesbian couple, Bek and Erin. They met on OkCupid after a string of unsuccessful dates and have been together two years. They're adorable and down-to-earth and good-natured and one wonders if Playboy consciously chose the gay couple to be the one with the least baggage. They seem very much in love, with the their biggest problem revolving around Bek's resistance toward getting a Brazilian wax. She finally gives in to Erin's hairless wants, and the camera zooms in on an amorous love session. We predict this will end well.
Brooklyn Kinda Love premieres Saturday, January 15 at 10pm EST/PST on Playboy TV.