So that was it! What's passed is past and we won't get anymore. The Real World: Brooklyn has come to an end, with bags and suitcases and genitals packed up and away.

There was a prank war and the girls decided to fuck with the boys' food and there was much spitting and sputtering out of milk and cereal and suspicious chicken. (My new detective-themed restaurant idea: Dr. Mystery's Suspicion Chicken. Investors?) Naturally, the boys had to freak out and blow things wayyyy out of proportion until JD had another crazy blowdown and got all ups in Sara's face, yelling at her like she hadn't jumped through the hoop or waved her sad little flipper at the money-paying Seaquarium guests well enough. So it suddenly became embarrassing. As Ryan raged and said hateful things and JD stormed around with a shotgun, picking off anyone he could find.

In the morning, though, on their last day... Everything was peaceful and forgotten. You really got a sense that the girls had bonded. So that was nice. Everyone said their goodbyes and MTV orchestrated their always-cruel-but-soaring-and-poetic one roommate leaves at time thing and there were tears and sad, hopeful songs about growing and experience and you think, because you've had a gallon of wines to drink the night before and here you are in your pajamas in Brooklyn eating toast, you think... This is why people are alive! To miss each other.

Not much else really happened in the final outing. Pranks were pulled, voices were raised, quiet and burning loves were shuttered up and sheet covered, like old summer houses. (I had a writing teacher in college who would kill me right now for using all those passives, but evs! I ain't in college no more!)

Indeed no one is in college no more. Scott and Devyn and Baya all decided that they wanted to stay in New York and that they love each other more than the stars and the moon and the planets and the heavens so they'd like to marry and live together in a beautiful New York City apartment. And they found one! These crazy youngsters. They pooled together all their wrinkled dollar bills in an old top hat and set off, skipping and dancing like some street-wise urchins in a musical, to conquer that great Big Apple. Worms! They were worms! And they found a place. A little corner. A little ground to stake a claim. A piece of the pie. Where? "On fifteenth and first street," was what Scott said. Which. Hah. That doesn't exist, Scott. There is no 15th Avenue. I wish there was! It'd be a party every day on 15th Avenue, where the girls are pretty and the boys don't come back from war in pieces and there's always bossa nova playing and we all wear hats, on 15th Avenue! On 15th Avenue you'll find the love of your life and days won't be soggy and full of worry anymore, and sometimes there will be ice cream. All the kids play baseball and the old-timers die together, here on the one five.

So that's where they're going. Katelynn will disappear into the occluding dusk of Montana, where she will do computers and various men, her soft, horsey hair billowing in the stiff mountainy air. Almost to Canada!, it will seem to say as it reaches North. Sara will continue her bumbling days over in cloudy San Francisco, a city of hills and bridges, of tunnels and turnarounds. A place where you don't have to be gay if you don't wanna be, but man oh man does it sure ever help. JD will go on to feed fish to more squiggly, waterlogged mammals. And when he's not dating, he'll work with dolphins.

Chet will still be hopelessly in love with Ryan. The final episode was just jam-packed with tearful declarations of boy love for one another, all thumpy embraces and gay panic jokes. And while Ryan—who as a military vet has seen his fair share of tough times bromancery—can easily laugh it off, something small and true and hard has lumped in Chet's ribcage. Something's come loose and is rattling around that body, which Chet tries to keep all tight and orderly and contained with his skinny jeans and form-fitting T-shirts. But passion and desire are inescapable witches, dear Chet. Even for someone who's been blessed by the angel Moroni. What sad ephemeral lives we lead! Chet, seize the day. Just kiss him. Just to see what it feels like.

And Ryan. So, OK. There was a reunion special after the finale? And everyone showed up? Including Ryan? In short hair and fatigues? And swoon? It was terrific. That wicked dancing minx Baya has apparently snatched him up. See RyRy and Bella broke up, because she ran off with a vampire. But Ryan has been visiting his friends a lot in NYC and one thing led to another and now he and Baya are bumpin' uglies like no two roommates ever should. Ryan ships out back to Iraq two weeks from yesterday. Scary.

Also on the reunion: JD is still crazy, Katelynn still likes to talk in blackspeak, and Chet doesn't like it when you make fun of Jesus. Because Jesus is a real-life space angel who talks to people in Utah and tells them to send money to a place a few states over where two loving, committed people are trying to get married. And you need to send that money so you can stop them. Because if you don't, then Jesus Space-Angel is going to get mad and he won't send you any more nourishing Moon Rays or Calamity Pies. So that's that. Don't make fun of that hallowed and precious religions, Sara.

These are the extremely hungover ramblings of a crazy person at this point. So I'm going to wrap it up. But before we go, before we fritter off into the remains of this spring day, lost and alone as always, let's ask ourselves: What did we learn? How did we grow from watching this curious, muted, issue-y, reinvigorating, possibly game-changing, but more possibly just plain dull season of The Real World?

We learned that love is a universal language. That everyone can speak it, and that anyone, if they want to, can understand it. And no barrier—political, ideological, or otherwise—should ever come between that. We learned that being an ex-lesbian hippie punker chick from SanFran doesn't make you automatically cool. We learned that dolphin trainers have the shortest tempers, because theirs is a dangerous, yet terribly, terribly necessary, profession. We learned that people who don't know how to spell the names Devin and Caitlin correctly will often yak your ear off with little to no point. We learned that beefy boys from New England are basically like beefy boys from anywhere else, just with funny accents. We learned that Dance (and groove) is in the heart. But if it's not also in the feet, you won't make it as a professional (sick beats!). We learned that TRL was canceled.

And we learned that war is tough, and that war sucks, and that war is what old people wage on the young because they are cruel and jealous and drunk with meaningless power. We learned that war swallows up not just those it kills, but those who survive it. We learned that Change doesn't always come immediately.

We learned that the name of Brooklyn is best not whispered in whitey cafes, but rather chanted and yelled by choruses of African Americans. We learned that Red Hook is perched atop a beautiful, glittering sea. We learned that the world is neither real nor made-up, but is absolutely worth being a part of. We learned that Wednesday nights could definitely have been spent better. But they also could have been spent worse.

And we learned the word "blowdown." And that, I think, is the most important thing.

Until next time! Until Cancun! Mexico!