The high drama of Nilsa’s arrest and Kortni’s subsequent breakdown, where things got so real that the cameras were turned off, has set us up for a bit of a comedown this week.

Kortni is gone, headed home to “get the help that I need.” It’s still not clear exactly what the trauma is that she’s dealing with, but when even the producers of an MTV reality series are like, “Nope, nope, we can’t do this here,” you know it’s something serious. Hopefully she’s doing better.

Meanwhile, Aimee’s boyfriend/sex servant Dylan is still visiting, though soon heading back to Alabama. Over Vegas Bombs at Caddy’s on the Beach, the crew showers Dylan with praise and love. They really seem to like this quiet, affable, really quiet guy who also doesn’t ever say anything and doesn’t take any attention away from them whatsoever.

Jeremiah, meanwhile, is grumpy. He’s not drinking his beer. He’s not engaging, even with Mattie. There seems to be some pain that those Oakley wraparound shades simply can’t hide.

Eventually, he plays some friendly cornhole with a couple of random women, and Gus makes it weird by having a big, serious, definitely-within-earshot conversation with Mattie about how she definitely isn’t jealous of them.

Back at the house, this riveting conversation between Jeremiah and Mattie was broadcast on a major cable network in prime time.

Hello, how are you today?

Good, how are you today?

How’s your family? How’s your mom?

Good, I think? How’s your family?

I don’t know. I haven’t talked to any of them, at all.

Jeremiah exits the room.

Mattie sits at the kitchen counter until she starts crying.

So things are kind of awkward between them.

The guys all decide to play spades, with an agreement that the loser will be baby birded by Nilsa. I would tell you what happened next, but I started gagging as “baby birding” was explained so I got up to get a glass of water and when I came back Codi had what looked like potato salad splattered about his beard and neck.

The next day, Mattie and Jeremiah make up. Jeremiah explains that he was just being distant because he needs some space from his roommates. They go out for burgers alone, which really annoys Gus, because Gus is a hater.

At some point, everyone starts mentioning how they’re coming up on their last weekend in St. Pete (sweet, merciful crap — it’s almost over). But with the season coming to a close, how are they going to shake things up? Everyone seems to be getting along just fine.

Jeremiah makes a call on the gator phone to his brother Josh.

“Come party with us.”

A quick recap: Everyone hates Josh.

Behind Jeremiah’s back, everyone starts complaining about Josh and saying how they’re going to exclude the giant brothers from whatever their plans are for the weekend. Mattie gets offended, and it is genuinely sweet. She really doesn’t like anyone to be excluded.

But oh, sweet, sweet Mattie, you have not met Josh, explains Codi.

If you think Jeremiah sucks because he was home-schooled, as Candace has theorized, Josh is like if you took a toddler, locked him in a closet upstairs at a Mississippi State frat house and made him learn life by peeping through the hole that Tanner punched through the door that time.

Josh looks sort of like the government injected him with whatever they gave Captain America, but it didn’t go quite right, so they wiped his memory and dumped him in an alley with only a gift card to Party City to clothe himself.

He is one of television’s greatest villains. Also he hooked up with Nilsa and dumped her, and was really rude to Aimee last season.

And he just showed up at the St. Pete Beach shore house wearing American flag overalls, shouting “America is here!” Yes, accurate. A nice cliffhanger before next week, which will be part one of the two-part season finale.