By Dennis Byron
On the sixth and most recent episode of VH1’s This Is Hot 97, the cast of radio station personalities gets a surprise visit from Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta’s Stevie J and Joseline Hernandez during one of its monthly poker games. The two were only supposed to be at the radio station for an interview and to promote Joseline’s new single, but they added an extra leg to their visit by storming into the station’s private, monthly poker game. At first, lead Hot 97 personality Ebro Darden objects to them being there, but because both of them are “FOTS” (Friends Of The Show), he lets them sit down for the $3000 buy-in game.
We don’t doubt that any of these folks know how to play poker; but in a humorous way, it’s hard to tell if anyone at the table is actually playing the game. To be fair, This Is Hot 97 is very deliberate about it being an unrealistic reality show, so viewers should expect scenes like this to be staged. Throughout the entirety of the poker game, the most you see is Joseline, aka “Puerto Rican Princess,” cheerleading her man and saying things like “not my shoe money, honey.” At one point during the game, she even stands up to showcase her voluptuous body to the whole table and says, “This is the best luck a man could ever have.” Immediately, the camera pans to a bewildered Funkmaster Flex. It takes a lot to shock the folks on this radio crew, but this pair’s shenanigans take the cake.
After Stevie J goes all-in and loses he throws another $10,000 on the table. Ebro suddenly has to leave and lets Flex take his place. Stevie J lets Joseline take over his hand, then she and Funkmaster Flex go head-to-head. The game finally comes down to the two going all-in. While the showdown lacked the climax of the the final all-in hands at the latest WPT World Poker Championship—the winner took home over $1 million and gold headphones!—it at least made Joseline look like she was skilled at something. “Time to bust these knuckleheads,” said Flex, on the assumption that he had her beat. But Joseline trumped him with four 9s, and beat his full house. In his words, he got hustled. Since Flex wasn’t financially equipped to pay up, the deal they make is this: he has to play her single on his radio show. He does, and then we see Ebro’s reaction to hearing the song in his truck. He’s pissed. Everyone should be. The song is terrible.
As far as the poker game is concerned, evil prevailed. But elsewhere, in episode 6 of This Is Hot 97, the good guy won—Action Bronson got laid.
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