How do you pitch a reality show? I have an idea for a Keeping Up with the Kardashians spinoff. Busting Out with Bruce (working title) follows Bruce Jenner as he attempts to escape his life of bumbling in the backdrop of various Kardashians iterations.
In case you missed last weekend’s season premiere of Keeping Up, it focused on Kim whining about how the extensive renovations she has planned for her new mansion won’t be done until her unborn baby girl is old enough to leak her own sex tape (fourteen). There was also a disgusting side plot about Kourtney and Scott’s sex life that is too awful to describe. At one point during a kitchen conversation, a cucumber gets shoved through one of those gummy peach rings and let’s just leave it at that.
More importantly, we watched as Bruce has his “helicopter friends” over for dinner, which annoys his wife, Kris. To be clear: these are friends that he gets together with to talk about radio-controlled toy helicopters, not friends who land actual helicopters on the front lawn. This isn’t The Bachelor. But Kris hates it because they get wine all over her wine glasses and food all over her food plates and poop all over her poop toilets. The next morning she tells Bruce that he needs a “man cave.” So he calls her bluff and rents a house in Malibu where he and his friends can talk about tiny helicopters and use kitchen implements for their intended purposes.
Bruce is having a grand old time, but Kris gets tired of not being able to keep an eye on him, so she shows up at his “getaway house,” as she calls it (FORESHADOWING), notes that he has a Frisbee on his kitchen counter, and orders him home. He complies.
Bruce Bounces (working title) Series Premiere
The inaugural episode of Bruce on the Loose (working title) takes place concurrently with the man cave storyline. Bruce, we learn, has had enough. He’s tired of being in exile in his own home and has decided to blow town for good. “I’ve been married to Kris for nearly a quarter century,” his voiceover tells us at the beginning of the episode, “and enough is enough.”
While the rest of the family is back in Calabasas demonstrating sex acts with vegetables and candy, Bruce paces the floor of his Malibu house, finally allotted the private time he needs to plot his escape. He gazes meaningfully at one of his miniature helicopters.
“And then it just came to me,” he says in a talking-head confessional interview. “I’m just going to run away. I’m an Olympic gold medalist for fuck’s sake.” We’ll have to bleep out the “fuck” because this is basic cable.
Does Bruce succeed in the first episode? Of course not. Then there would be only one episode. There have to be ten. Bruce fails because he runs 100 meters and then stops. “Well that didn’t work,” voiceovers Bruce. He returns to the man cave to work on a new plan when Kris shows up, remarks on the Frisbee (“It’s a DISCUS!” Bruce shouts in a confessional), and drags him home.
Episode Two
Another episode of Bruce and Bruce’s Bug-Out Bag Bolt to a Bunker (UK title) centers on Kim Kardashian’s backyard baby shower. Bruce politely mingles with the guests, including celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson and TV’s Maria Menounos, but his gaze is fixed upon the Jenner compound’s distant perimeter fence. How high could that fence possibly be? Bruce wonders to himself as he pretends to listen to inane semi-scripted conversation. Certainly not more than 4.8 meters. Bruce interrupts canceled reality TV’s Kimberly Stewart. “Excuse me, Sebastian Bach,” says Bruce. “I think I hear Kris calling me in the house.”
Moments later, Bruce reappears in the backyard with a long pole. He eyes the fence, says a prayer, and takes aim. But just as he’s about to launch himself to freedom, “YO BRUCE” booms a voice. It’s Kanye, and he’s wielding a near-empty bottle of rosé. “I’MA LET YOU FINISH,” he shouts, drawing the attention of the other partygoers, including Bravo’s NeNe Leakes and E!’s Giuliana Rancic, “BUT SERGEY BUBKA HAD ONE OF THE BEST POLE VAULTS OF ALL TIME!”
And then it’s too late. The whole party, including England’s Kelly Osbourne and some other part of England’s Scary Spice, is staring at him. This episode of Baluusu Jeneru vs. the Pig Monsters (Japanese title) ends with Bruce dejectedly returning to the house and reinstalling the pole in Kylie’s room where he found it. He uses the screwdriver that Kris doesn’t like him using to screw in screws.
Season Finale
In episode ten of Untitled Bruce Jenner Scripted Reality Project (final title), Bruce is still stuck in Calabasas and he’s running out of ideas. He’s tried running 400 meters. He’s tried running 1500 meters. Hell, he’s even tried long jumping to the Channel Islands. But every time he’s been foiled.
It’s time to confront Kris directly. “I decided to just tell her how I feel,” Bruce explains in a talking-head. “It’s just another hurdle in my life that I have to jump over, along with nine others over a course of 110 meters.”
INT. JENNER HOUSE KITCHEN – EVENING
BRUCE
Kris, can I talk to you for a minute?
KRIS
Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?
BRUCE
It’s just that . . . I’ve been thinking . . .
KRIS
Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
BRUCE
Goddammit, don’t you understand that you are RUINING our children’s lives? They might not understand it now, but they are all going to turn out FUCKED UP. And it will be all your fault. You are a horrible, sorry excuse for a human being. You tattered, busted, broken down—
KRIS
Bruce.
BRUCE
Kris!
KRIS
Hm?
BRUCE
What were you going to say?
KRIS
Oh, nothing.
BRUCE
Fuck it, I’m going to bed.
INT. JENNER HOUSE MASTER BEDROOM – THE NEXT MORNING
KRIS
I had the most horrible nightmare last night.
BRUCE
Oh yeah?
KRIS
Kendall and Kylie both left for private liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Kourtney broke up with Scott and decided to raise her children in an ashram in India. Khloé and Lamar told me they were committed to staying in LA and building the Kardashian brand, but I wasn’t really comforted by that.
BRUCE
What about Rob?
KRIS
Who’s Rob?
KIM enters.
KIM
Mom, I’ve decided to become Amish.
KRIS
NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
KIM
Mom, calm down.
KRIS
A sex tape! A sex tape! My kingdom for a sex tape!
BRUCE stabs KRIS in the face with a javelin.
KIM
Soooo, Kim and Kanye Take Central Pennsylvania is a no?
paper cut survivor 