Last night was the long-awaited Season 3 premiere of the MTV hit show Catfish, and it didn’t fail to pack in the emotion and epic dramatic climaxes.
Craig sits down with Nev and Max and mentions that he first found out about Zoe from his sister, Miriah, who lives in Jacksonville, Fla. His sister told him that she talked to Zoe but never met with her because — foreshadowing! — Zoe never showed up when they made plans. Craig opens up to Nev and Max and mentions that his father died of AIDS when he was eight, and he keeps holding onto this connection of strong love with Zoe because he never felt that when he was eight and alone when his father died.
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Unfortunately, after opening up to Nev and Max about the sensitive topic, Craig has to explain to them how crazy this girl is that he fell in love with. He starts off steady by saying that Zoe told him she needed his Facebook password in order to prove to her that he’s loyal and not cheating. Sure this is something that most possessive girlfriends would want, Craig thought nothing much of it.
However, things change in a split second when he starts to explain what happened when Facebook added a new advancement where all of the photos on your phone can be automatically synced and uploaded to your profile. Zoe saw a picture Craig’s friend, Kalyn, sent to him in sexy lingerie. Zoe uploaded it on Craig’s account for everyone to see and “blasted” Kalyn to everyone as being trashy, among other things.
This was only the beginning, because Zoe continued to hack into Craig’s account even though he changed his password countless times. While Zoe always seemed to outsmart everyone, she got caught in one of her own lies when she was signed in under Craig’s account on her phone and took a picture that showed a girl that didn’t look like Zoe. When Craig asked her who it was, she said it was her cousin Cassandra.
When Nev, Max, and Craig arrive in Jacksonville to meet Craig’s sister, the truth about Zoe starts to unravel, showing how she’s a true “catfish terrorist.” Miriah tells Nev and Max that her friendship with Kalyn has been ruined because of Zoe. She says that Zoe thought that because Miriah and Kalyn were friends, she was siding with Kalyn and not taking Zoe’s side. Then Miriah mentions that Kalyn and her friend Kayla were also affected by this online monster and she gets them to meet with Nev, Max, and Craig to tell their stories.
Kayla and Kalyn were best friends, but once again, another friendship was ruined by Zoe. It all started when Zoe sent some risqué photos of Kalyn to Kayla, and when Kayla asked how she got them, Zoe blamed Craig. Being a good friend, Kayla tells Kalyn about the photos and that Craig had them, so Kalyn confronts Craig about it. Craig is clueless. Both he and Kalyn realize that Zoe is a psycho and try to make sure she doesn’t do anything with them, but Kalyn is upset with Kayla for not taking her side, because she told her she shouldn’t have taken those pictures in the first place.
Then the unthinkable happens when a message to Kayla comes from Zoe off of Craig’s profile saying to watch out because she has her photos. The next day, Kalyn’s photo along with other girls’ are posted on Craig’s profile along with their first and last names and the schools they go to next to their pictures. Then Zoe makes up her own little game of posting more photos and puts the time of when she’ll do so online.
Nev and Max have heard enough of what this person has done and get down to investigating. They first do a reverse look-up of the phone number they have for Zoe and find it registered to someone named MaryAnn Rozmus, who is from Florida but lives in North Carolina. Then they look up the name on Facebook and find an account of an older woman which leads them to a Michael Rozmus. They search through his pictures.
The true CIA investigating happens here when they see that Mary Ann is in some of his pictures, and in a family photo there is also a younger girl. They try to figure out who it is, but no one tagged. Then they realize they’re logged in under Craig’s Facebook and that he might have been blocked. Nev logs into his own account and — sure enough — he gets a name, Cassandra Rozmus, the same name as Zoe’s supposed cousin in the photo.
When Nev looks to see if Craig is friends with her, he realizes that she’s blocked him so she can keep him hidden from the truth. Taking one last look at the profile, they notice in the URL that the “x3” at the end matches the URL of Zoe’s profile. They search Cassandra on YouTube and find a video to show to Craig so he can confirm it’s her by recognizing her voice. He does.
After showing Craig and Miriah all the information they’ve found, Nev tries calling Cassandra to set up a meeting with her in Florida. He keeps getting her voicemail however until the producer mentions that they already have her address, and they might as well go down to Florida and try to find her.
Off to Florida they go, along with Miriah.
Once they arrive at Cassandra’s house, it appears that someone is home because the garage door is open, but they don’t get an answer after numerous knocks and doorbell rings . When they try calling her, they get sent to voicemail yet again. All of a sudden, a car comes speeding up to the house, and it’s Cassandra. She’s shocked at how easy it is to find someone’s address and the fact that she just got caught in her own web of lies. She doesn’t want to talk and only offers that she doesn’t feel bad about breaking up friendships and thats she didn’t have any feelings towards Craig. She says she was just playing a game and wanted to “put people on blast.”
The next day, the gang tries to meet with Cassandra one last time before leaving and again, she has nothing to offer to Craig. They both agree that there’s nothing left to be said and say their goodbyes. However, when Nev and Max sit down with Cassandra, they get her to break down and get to the core of her issues: She was bullied when she was younger.
Cassandra says that she even thought about committing suicide and that since she was always bullied, she just wanted to bring the hatred towards people through this online anonymous bully, Zoe.
So what did you think of the Season 3 premiere, Catfish fans? Did you understand why Craig hung on to the relationship for so long? Would you have turned over your Facebook password? What did you think of Cassandra’s rationale that two cyberbullying wrongs made a … well, right enough? Sound off in the comments section below.
New episodes of Catfish air Wednesdays at 10/9CT on MTV.
Photos: MTV