Christmas is coming early for many of us. As you probably already know, the next 18 installments of R. Kelly's gloriously batshit hip-hopera Trapped In the Closet are premiering on IFC tonight. Just in case you haven't seen the first 22 -- yes, twenty-two -- chapters in this ongoing, one-music-video-at-a-time epic saga, let us recap them for you. This is going to be a long one, so let's not waste any time or words, but get right into it.
Chapter 1: R. Kelly is Sylvester, waking in an unfamiliar bed. Kisses from an unfamiliar woman, Cathy. "She ain't you," R. Kelly sings -- infidelity. Cathy's husband Rufus just got home. Sylvester hides in the closet. Husband enters, knows something's wrong. He searches, Sylvester's phone rings. Sylvester draws a gun. Rufus opens the closet.
Chapter 2: Sylvester holds them at gunpoint. Rufus berates Cathy, reminding her he's a pastor. Rufus' phone rings; Rufus tells his "baby" to turn around and come back. "Since we're all comin' out the closet..." Sure enough, "Baby" shows up, is a man.
Chapter 3: Everybody screams at each other. Sylvester fires his gun into the air -- or at least into the apartment above them. The fighting stops. Sylvester calls his own house, and a man answers the phone. "Jerry Springer - the Musical," observes YouTube commenter Remolfm.
Chapter 4: Sylvester drives home in a rage, and gets pulled over by a cop. The cop gives him a speeding ticket. Arriving home, Sylvester finds his wife Gwen alone. She claims her visiting brother Twan answered the phone. Sylvester fucks the shit out of her in relief. Once this is done, Sylvester flings the bedsheets aside to find: a condom wrapper. Not his.
Chapter 5: Sylvester threatens to burn the house down. Gwen turns the tables; she knows of Sylvester's own infidelity; Gwen was hiding in the club last night, spying. After a game of six degrees of separation, Gwen reveals she's boning the cop who pulled Sylvester over.
Chapter 6: It's "Gift of the Magi" but with fucking. Sylvester and Gwen collapse laughing at life's wackiness. The cop -- James -- busts in, mistaking the laughter for sounds of a struggle. He and Sylvester scuffle. A shot rings out.