On this episode of Catfish, Nev’s co-host is Slick Woods, an American fashion model. She starts the show off by saying she is going to cut right through the crap and talk about red flags as soon as she sees them, which Nev is on board with.
They have an email from Janisa, titled, “Asking for a friend.” Janisa is a freshman at a university in Texas and believes one of her three roommates is being catfished. Her roommate’s name is Aubri and she has been talking to this guy, Brian, on Snapchat for more than two months. At first, Janisa thought Aubri had found a really nice guy, but now she is suspicious considering they have not met yet they live on the same campus. Janisa got nosy after that and discovered they have never spoken on the phone or video chatted either.
Congratulations, Janisa, you caught yourself a catfish.
Nev and Slick get Janisa up on a video call, and she explains Brian added Aubri to Snapchat by username, which is interesting because Aubri does not have her Snapchat name on any of her other social media. Janisa thinks somebody else must have given it to Brian. She says Brian does post pictures of himself on his Snapchat Story, but it is a very small campus and it does not really make sense that they have not bumped into him yet. She says Aubri is very sweet and does not want to make a big deal out of it, but as Janisa says, “Everybody’s busy, but you make time if you want to.”
Exactly!
They end the video call and head to Texas where they find Janisa and Aubri at a huge but adorable mansion-like house. Aubri agrees that something seems a little off with Brian, and Janisa takes off to go to class, leaving Aubri alone with Nev and Slick. She fills them in a bit more, telling them they started talking initially after she posted a selfie snap and he responded with heart eyes. They have been talking ever since. The two clicked for the first time when she told Brian that she broke up with her ex because he cheated on her and he was a really great listener with a good heart.
Nev asks how Brian got her username, but Aubri says she does not know. Slick asks if she ever just asked him but Aubri has not. Brian does have a long list of excuses for why they have not gotten any closer though. They cannot talk on the phone because he does not have any minutes, they cannot video chat because there is no wi-fi, and they cannot meet up because he keeps leaving campus to go home.
👏 Make 👏it 👏 make 👏sense! #Catfish pic.twitter.com/VWl5zjLKFP
— Catfish (@CatfishMTV) January 10, 2019
The first thing they do is a Google search for his username on Snapchat, but it does not return any results, meaning that he does not use the same handle on any other social media platforms. They know he plays basketball, so they do a search for his first and last names + basketball + the school they are at, and they come back with a hit including a photo of a man who works on the basketball team as an assistant trainer.
Slick realizes it is slightly suspicious that Janisa never mentioned there was a man named Brian who works with the basketball team considering she got her scholarship to go to this school for basketball management. Nev says Janisa might know more than she wants us to think she does. Interesting. Aubri mentions how if you are a coach for sports teams you probably are not allowed to be talking to students the way Brian has been talking to her since he would be significantly older.
Next, they do an image search on some of the photos Aubri saved from Brian’s Snapchat. The first one they search leads them to a Twitter page which is also linked to an Instagram account. There, “Brian’s” name is Isaias and he has over twenty thousand followers. All of the photos there are undoubtedly of “Brian,” which pretty much proves Brian is not who he says he is. Aubri’s understandably freaked out, saying, “This is getting creepy. Who have I been talking to?”
Nev tells her it is now her choice what they do next. She could just walk away and leave it alone, but Aubri wants to know who it is and why they did this to her in the first place. Nev says they have a few things they can check into, and they will talk to her again later. Back in the car, Nev tells Slick anytime a friend writes into the show, alarm bells start going off for him. He thinks Janisa probably knows more than she is letting on, and Slick agrees, going so far to say she knows a lot more. Maybe Janisa is trying to get the basketball trainer fired because she wants his job? That would be an intriguing twist and one I cannot remember seeing in the past!
The next day, Nev and Slick meet up and Nev explains the plan he came up with overnight. He thinks they should go to the dorm where they know the Brian impersonator lives and ask around if anybody knows somebody named Brian who has been talking about a girl named Aubri. They find a young lady named Frances who is the resident assistant for the dorm (also known as a RA) and they start quizzing her. She says that she does not know every student but she has never heard of this Brian, but she has a friend who works at the REC center who might be able to help.
Frances hops in the car with Nev and Slick and they head to the REC center where she runs in to bring her friend out. Nev points out that it is not a very big REC center so if there is somebody in there often and you work there, you are going to know. Frances’ friend is Steve, who says he is there five days a week and has never heard of that name. Nev asks about the trainer, but he says no, that does not ring a bell either.
On their way back, Frances gets a text message that says, “If they ask you, Courtney doesn’t know anything about Brian.” Frances says she knows who the text is from but does not want to say. However, she does not know who Courtney is. They drop Frances off after that and give Aubri a call to ask if she knows somebody named Courtney.
She does, because it is one of her roommates.
She says they are not buddy-buddy or anything, but they have simple conversations, and Nev decides to head back to their place. As Nev says to Slick, Courtney either knows what is going on or she is who Aubri’s been talking to all along. Once at Aubri’s, they explain the situation to her. Aubri says she wants to know who sent that text to Frances, and Slick suggests they search the number. Nev seems confused because they do not know who sent it, but that is when Slick reminds him they took a video of the text message, so they can take the number from that.
Nev says they have never done that before, but after checking the handheld camera footage, they get Aubri to check the number against her contact list but come up with nothing. Nev says they should just call the number to see who answers, which is exactly what they do. A man answers the phone who introduces himself as Patrick, which has Aubri in the background whispering, “That’s my R.A!”
Nev explains that they know he sent the text message to Frances, but Patrick says he was just reminding her that the guidelines of an R.A. are not to disclose information about residents. Slick looks just as skeptical about all of this as I feel, and when Nev hangs up, she says, “Not that believable.” Nev starts quizzing Aubri about her relationship with Patrick, but Aubri says there is nothing. He does not flirt with her or anything and he is not her type.
Now at a dead-end, Nev does something he has never done before on Catfish and uses Snapchat to reach out to Brian. Brian writes back almost immediately, asking if this is really Nev and admitting that he is kind of freaking out if it is because he knows Nev is looking for him and he is scared! Brian confirms that he is in the town they are in, but when prompted, admits his real name is not Brian.
Slick Woods is STRESSED! #Catfish pic.twitter.com/RPYLBywEpn
— Catfish (@CatfishMTV) January 10, 2019
The next day, Nev and Slick pick up Aubri, and they go to the park to find out who “Brian” really is. Before they can even leave the driveway, though, a redheaded young lady comes running out after them. Aubri exclaims, “That’s Courtney!” and then we hear Courtney say, “Aubri, come here. I have to tell you something.”
Not surprisingly, the next thing out of her mouth is, “I don’t want you to go to the park and Brian not show up… because I’m Brian.”
Aubri is appropriately shocked, and Nev jumps in to confirm that there is no Brian, only Courtney. Courtney begins by apologizing, saying that she has all of these feelings for Aubri and just did not know what to do. Aubri says she could have just told her, that they live together, but Courtney explains she was talking to Janisa about her feelings and Janisa is the one who came up with the idea and created the Brian Snapchat.
Nev says this confuses him, because how does pretending to be a random guy help? Courtney reveals Janisa said it would be a good idea so she could get to know Aubri’s likes and dislikes before she tried approaching her as herself. When asked why she decided to come clean now, Courtney says Janisa came up with the idea of reaching out to Catfish and they both decided it was a good way to do it.
Now, though, Courtney says she feels awkward and scared since she is basically coming out to everybody on TV. Since Aubri’s been extremely quiet, Slick asks her how she is feeling, and she says she feels betrayed. Courtney and Janisa are her roommates, so she never thought they would do that to her. Nev asks Courtney to go get Janisa since they now know she was in on the whole thing too, and once Janisa comes out she immediately apologizes and explains she was not trying to hurt anybody or be evil or anything like that, she just wanted both of her friends to be happy.
Aubri cuts right through the crap and says, “You could have told me, though!”
Nev asks them to give he and Slick a few minutes with Aubri, so the girls go back inside and the three of them get back into the car. Nev says he feels gross knowing that Janisa has been puppeteering the whole situation from the beginning. Aubri says she just needs a little bit of time on her own, so she takes off in her own car after promising to meet up with them again later.
They cut to a cafe next where Nev, Slick, and Aubri are sitting together. Aubri says the two girls tried to talk to her while she was gone, but she just deleted the thread entirely. Slick seems proud of Aubri, but Nev says they really do have to find a resolution because they all live together. Janisa and Courtney show up then and Nev immediately goes after Janisa, saying how he gets the impression she managed to get both Courtney and Aubri into a situation neither of them wanted to be in and wants to know how she came to the conclusion that Catfish was the best option.
She says that bringing up Catfish was actually for her, because she did not want to just walk up to Aubri and confess what she did, but she knows from watching the show that Nev is a good mediator and she wanted his help. Slick is offended, saying she doesn’t like the response because Janisa is always going on about “I, I, I” and she is not here for that.
When math is your least favorite subject! 😩 #Catfish pic.twitter.com/EN9yGP744X
— Catfish (@CatfishMTV) January 10, 2019
Aubri hops in to say that right now, she cannot be friends with Janisa. Maybe in the future it is something they can work on, but not at the moment. As for Courtney, Aubri says if she really had feelings for her she could have just told her, but now she is sure there will never be a friendship between them, though she is willing to be cordial since they live together. After shots of each girl looking like they are trying not to cry, the screen fades to black and we get the update on how things are going now.
Two months later, Nev and Slick catch up with Aubri where she explains she needed some time at home before she could go back to living with Courtney and Janisa, but since then they have all gone to the movies together and she thinks they might be able to salvage a friendship. They speak to Courtney briefly as well, and she confirms it is no longer awkward in the house and she is still trying to deal with coming out and being attracted to women.
Honestly, the entire situation seemed to clear itself up a lot easier than I would expect from three eighteen year old girls, but as they say, all’s well that ends well!