Okay, so week two, and I’m back. I didn’t jump out the window or beg UPN to bring back Chains of Love. I think I’ll be able to handle this. I think we’re all going to be okay. I think…oh, no. I just saw the beginning of “Previously on…” and my leg started twitching. That can’t be good.
“Previously on Road Rules"…everyone arrived. Hugged. The kids float and explain that this year is different and someone will get the boot if they fail missions. Ladder hanging. Jisela falls. She cries. She ruins everything. Adam and Ellen lie in bed and cuddle and then yell that they’re not doing everything. That was not from last week. It must be from the week I missed. Oh yeah, there has only been one week. Fuck B/M. Then the kids all walk. This is reality television at its finest, folks.
Jesus! Then we get “Tonight, on Road Rules…” Just start the goddamn episode already and get this half hour (it’s only half an hour this week!) over with already. The kids stand in front of some dudes who lift tambourines to reveal cobras. They will be snake charming as their mission. Adam is scared of snakes. He screams and runs away, voice-overing that he’s worried about getting kicked off the show. I’m not. Boot me!
Okay, so we get the opening credits, finally, which start with a voice-over about how they have to eliminate a team member if they fail two missions. The visuals begin, and I guess the “look” of the show this year is sand and weird little geographic line and square and target graphics, with a bunch of Requiem For A Dream film tricks with the film stretching and going to a different grain for “exciting” shots. Right on. I feel you, B/M. We see the Six of Suck while there are shots of various missions, like water wrestling and the ladder of helicopter and sky diving and snake charming and something that looks just like twirling your partner around on your back. There is skinny-dipping and boot-camp stuff and crying and the desert and the put-together crest (of Quest for the Crest fame), and that’s it. I’ll say it again…I miss the Road Master’s bloated hack-actor face. And also, hey, let’s take bets now whether or not things will also be “different” season. Ten bucks says yes.
Tioga. Driving. Street. Left Eye Ellen floats that the guys are insisting on driving, and she offers two theories on why -- that it’s because it’s Morocco, where women are subservient, or because “guys like to drive.” Dude, I wouldn’t trust Ellen behind the wheel of a bumper car with her gimpy eye, so I’m not sure what she’s talking about. Jisela floats that the guys are leading the group and making decisions and she doesn’t like that. Sitting behind the wheel, she tells Adam, “I am so tired of depending on you guys…I’m going to learn to drive and I’m going to learn to do my own thing, too...” Does that mean she doesn’t know how to drive and wants to, or she just doesn’t know how to drive an RV or what? Maybe she didn’t pass her Moroccan DMV test or something. Does Morocco even have the DMV? Who knows. It’s a mystery that shall remain so. Blair pipes up that they’re not trying to make all the rules. Sophia pipes up that because the guys have a better sense of direction around Morocco and because they can drive, they end up leading. Wait, was Sophia trying to help the girls, because I certainly don’t want to give the wheel to someone who admittedly has no sense of direction and doesn’t know how to drive, either. Thanks for helping, Sophia. Huh. Jisela then confuses the hell out of me by floating that Sophia is on the same page as her. Wha? Jisela, I don’t think she’s even in the same book as you, let alone the same page. And not only because she likes pussy, either. Well, I guess B/M has misled us all, because now Sophia is sitting shotgun while Jisela drives and cheering her on. I give up already. The funny part is that at the same time Sophia is cheering, she reaches over and puts her seat belt on. Good idea.
So Jisela pulls out, and the guys are all making fun of her and taking photos and laughing. Adam gets in her shit about this not being her “Winnie” (it’s not a Winnie, dude) and then laughs, and Jisela starts yelling that Adam is pissing her off. Jisela is obviously not sure about driving as she keeps asking the girls how she is on the right, and then she makes a joke about closing the window in case someone throws a rock. See, that’s what we call a comedic call-back; Ellen’s not laughing. She briefly considers telling everyone she was also molested by her dog when she was fifteen, but decides to hold that trump card until she’s backed into another corner.
So, driving. Jisela gets them stuck behind a burro, and everyone laughs. A terrible B/M Crack Editing Staff fade takes us to a gas station, where Adam begins yelling at Jisela to stop. He jumps out and shows her that she’s about to hit a gas pump, and advises her to “go straight.” Sophia yells, “No, don’t go straight, Jisela!” Jisela gets clear of the pump (she really wasn’t that close) and then floats that Adam made her think she was going to hit a kid. Hey, where’s Steve, by the way? Adam tells Jisela that she’s “done driving,” and Jisela’s voice goes to Rosie-Perez-when-she’s-mad-at-Mookie range and yells, “You’re not my dad, and you’re not going to tell me when I can drive or not!” They continue to argue. Adam floats that he’s only telling her not to drive because she’s a shitty driver, not because she’s a girl. Then Jisela bitches to Sophia; Sophia just stares blankly. Jisela then hypothe-floats that Adam is just mad that he’s met his match and it’s a girl. Yeah, that, or he’s mad because you almost blew up the RV. Either one.
The Music Of Canceling My Cable Today starts playing as we fade to nighttime. I’ll say right now that the timeline on B/M shows is always, always fucked. Trying to figure out when what is happening through use of facial hair or whatever is pointless and annoying, and I’m not going to bother. So even though that driving fight could have been two months in, we’re going to pretend it’s current, because otherwise I would never rest and my little OCD brain would wrap around the timeline problems like last season and sleep would never come and I’d stay up making charts and graphs and drinking to calm the voices, and no one wants that. It’s much easier not to care. Bunim and Murray did it eight years ago. See how relaxed they look? So, night. Some dude who looks like Eugene Levy or Tony Shalhoub playing a weird twitchy scientist enters the Tioga and meekly gives the kids a clue, after someone yells, “Are you kidding me!” apropos of nothing. (It would be nice if he could actually give the kids a clue, but I think they’re beyond that.) Ellen tries to tackle reading and wraps her lips around something about the “Crest of Patience” and encountering an “ancient adversary.” Words are not exactly what she’s used to wrapping her lips around, I’m sure. They are to meet Hamid and Mustapha, or some shit, for tea. Adam then floats for no reason that there’s nothing he won’t do, and he thinks he’s a good leader for the team. Whatever, Adam. Sell yourself to your castmates, not us. We have no power to boot, although we fucking should. Jisela, holding the note, then dumb-ups Ellen by revealing that she has no idea what the word “adversary” means. The kids all dig deep and give wrong meanings, but only Blair can come up with a definition. Man! The brainpower in this rig is awesome. Oh, and there’s Steve. He still hasn’t said a single word yet, but there he is, trying to define the word. I guess his family didn’t have a dictionary in their box when he was a kid. Or maybe they burned it for heat.
Tioga. Day. Jisela is on her phone, and then she floats that their phones are working finally, and that as long as she has her phone to her ear, nothing can take away her happiness. Jisela is the girl who stands to me in line at the post office and I have to hear her telling her friend exactly why she should break up with her boyfriend and then a song-by-song analysis of the new Destiny’s Child CD. Hate that girl. She says that she’s close to her family and needs to talk to her family constantly. She jumps out of the RV and Adam gets an idea. Laughing to Blair, he pulls the Tioga up to Jisela and holds down the horn. He’s cackling like a moron. So is Blair. Jisela just stares. She tries to ignore him but it goes on and on and on and even I’m annoyed now. Jisela runs to kick his ass but he locks the driver's side door. She runs in the back and starts yelling at him that it’s not fucking funny and she’s not fucking playing. He keeps laughing. She’s still holding the phone to her ear and I feel bad for her poor mom’s ears. Adam then floats, “I think honking the horn while somebody is on the phone is funny.” He then tells Blair that it was one of the funniest things he’s ever done. Really? Wow. He must have one sad, boring little life. He flips it and starts telling Blair that Jisela's “impatience” is not something he wants to deal with, and likens her not thinking that having the horn blasting in her ear is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to her with not having a sense of humor. He can’t believe how mad she got. Adam then creepily floats, “I am impulsive, and my friends just learn how to cope with my behavior.” Yeah, all three of them think you’re the shit, I’m sure.
Driving. Jisela is still on the phone to her dad, speaking in fast Spanish. Subtitles! “He’s probably the stupidest man on earth…he thinks he is so funny. He swears to God he’s the last Coca-Cola in the desert.” What? Is that really a saying or did she make that up? Or maybe it’s subtle B/M product placement. We may never know. Jisela ends with, “See, Daddy, they’re a bunch of idiots!” Man, you know, every time someone is speaking a foreign language around me, I always have this paranoia that they’re talking shit about me. Now I learn that it’s true. Fuck. I knew it! Thanks, B/M. I think I’m going to learn Spanish so time I go to the Taco Bell drive-thru I can make sure they’re not conspiring to spit in my Enchurrito.
Street. Walking. Jisela is talking to Ellen, saying, “Your little bitch-ass boyfriend,” which is very funny -- complaining about him disrespecting Jisela and how she’s had enough of it. Ellen, meanwhile, looks concerned and then floats, “I felt so bad for Adam. He’s used to being the class clown.” Hee. Yes, dear, poor Adam. Left Eye whines for Jisela to stop talking shit about the man she lurves. She floats that Jisela is always on the defensive. Jisela calls Adam a “fucking bitch.” Maybe Jisela needs to be reminded of all she’s done so far on the show: fell off a ladder, failed the mission, cried, cried some more, puked, and ate some sort of Moroccan paste while crying on the floor. She better not use up all her cell phone minutes, because she’s going to need them while waiting in the airport for the long ride back home when her ass gets the boot.
Hotel room. Jisela continues to complain to Blair and Ellen (dude, where is Steve, for real?), and says she tried not to be a bitch but Adam is on her nerves. Adam pokes his head out of the bathroom and Jisela gives him all kinds of hands, asking if she’s talking to him and if Adam is talking because she ain’t hearing and everyone is screaming, and then Jisela breaks three vocal cords yelling, complete with the Springer Hand-Claw Of Seriousness, “Me and you ain’t talking right the fuck now!!!” My cat's ears start bleeding from the Jis-yelling. I have time to swab them out and stop the flow as we fade to commercials.
I aggressively don’t care so much about Jurassic Park III that I actually kinda want to see it. That’s just how deep and complete my apathy is.
Ah, man! Just to piss me off, they play Jisela screaming again and now my ears start bleeding. Ellen then says, “Jisela, would you? Take it down? Like two notches? Like seriously?” Jisela leans back and sticks her tits out and yells, “I’m just not mad the way you are.” She mocks Ellen. Ellen starts cursing. Jisela yells again, saying that she likes to yell. Ellen curses again, also employing the Springer Hand-Claw Of Seriousness -- having last busted it out during the “Baby Ass” fiasco. Finally Blair busts in, but pretty much just tells Jisela to yell whenever she likes. Pussy. Jisela tells Ellen that if she doesn’t like it when Jisela gets mad, don’t piss her off. Good rationale. “Honey, if you know I hit you whenever you don’t cook dinner, just cook dinner and it won’t happen.” Man, I hope they fail this event just so they can boot Jis-yella. There is no resolution and the scene just ends, and The Bass Of Adam’s Apparent Intestinal Problems plays us out of the shot.
Tioga. Driving. The Graphic Of Stupid informs us that we’re at Palais El Badiaa, where the kids meet their guides for the mission. Ruins. Pelicans. Trees. The kids are guided through the ruins as crap-ass strings lament my wasted half hour. Abdul and Mustapha are sitting on a carpet. The kids all sit and drink tea. Ellen toasts, “Patience,” but no one repeats it after her, and she meekly looks down. The kids then stand, and the dudes lift up tambourines to reveal three cobras. The cobras go into strike position. I hope B and M are on set and get bit. I ask so little, really. Adam looks ill, and we get all sorts of Requiem for a Dream shots of the snakes, and there are creepy noises as Adam tells a terrible story of been lunged at by a snake once on a camping trip, so he’s afraid of snakes now. The snakes spell out B-O-O H-O-O on the carpet. So I guess there is another Mustapha, because some dude is Graphic Of Stupid-ed as Dr. Mustapha Oroikil, and he assures the kids that he has the anti-venom ready. Naturally, that guy is just an extra, as there is no anti-venom around because the cobras fangs were removed a long time ago. (I’m just guessing, but I doubt even B/M would put the kids in danger like this. Not that they’re moral, mind you. Just that they like money too much to invite a lawsuit.) The guys demonstrate snake charming, and we learn that the kids have to use the drum, flute, or their hands on the snake and be lunged at twice. They argue. They always argue. Jisela compares herself to a snake. I agree.
The kids practice. Blair hand-charms and then slaps five with one of the charmers. He says, “time don’t hit me that hard.” I’m not sure what he’s talking about. I think Blair may be a big pussy in general. We’ll see. Speaking of pussy, Adam is scared. Mustapha One tells Adam to kiss the snake, and the minute he relaxes and smiles a bit, the snake goes for him. Hee. Adam screams like a tiny child and runs away. Mustapha laughs. Sophia laughs. The snake laughs. Former New Kid on the Block Jonathan Knight, crying on Oprah the other day because of his intense panic attacks, laughs. Adam floats that he’s worried he’ll be booted. He says, “I could be the weak link.” B/M fines Adam a hundred dollars for using “weak link” right after Jisela did last episode. They try to get the Crack B/M Editing Department to make it sound like Adam says, “I could be the Making The Band,” but it doesn’t quite work. Commercials.
So now, dressed in robes like little desert blueberries of terribleness, the Six of Suck walk back into the ruins and the Graphic Of Stupid informs us, if we couldn’t piece it together already, that their mission is indeed “Snake Charming.” Jisela voice-overs that she and Blair will do the drums, Ellen and Steve will do the hands, and Sophia and Adam will do the flute, and they have to get the cobras to strike at them twice. Wait, can you explain it again, because I usually need three times to get such complex notions into my head. Okay, so the kids are sitting on a rug, and Jisela waves the drum at the cobras and it lamely twitches forward twice, and everyone cheers and that’s over. Jisela does a little dance where she starts fucking the drum. Hit her, Mustapha! She's defiling your sacred tambourine. So she covers the snake with the drum, and then Blair goes. It’s really boring, and B/M tries to spice things up with a shot of the snake lunging at the camera, and I guess it’s supposed to be POV Blair’s leg as the snake kinda lunges twice, and that’s it for Blair. The extra POV shot just reminds us of the desperation that is B/M, without increasing the excitement one bit.
is Steve. Hi, Steve! Where you been, buddy? B/M hate you already? I don’t remember who called you something like Msteve on the boards, but it fits, with how much they hate you. Anyway, Steve goes and waves his fingers in front of the cobras, and he floats something grammatically incorrect about a “fight or flight” instinct, and Box Boy still don’t speak so good. The thing he has to do with his hands right in the snake’s face is the only thing scary about this mission, not the drum or the flute. Well, the robes are pretty scary. Anyway, the snake lunges, and then he goes again and we get a close up of the cobra, and I swear I don’t see a single tooth in that snake’s mouth. Steve is done. He sits. Ellen gets up. She bullshits about dying in twenty minutes if the snake bites. She says something funny about her pretending it’s just something that matches one of her shoes, not a live cobra. Left Eye makes a funny, film at 11. Ellen starts with the hands and it lunges and she screams. Adam looks scared for himself, even though he’s twenty feet away. It lunges again, and she’s done. Man, this mission. Why is B/M making them do what amounts to a carnival trick? Are they going to knock down metal bottles with a softball , or win a goldfish by throwing a ping-pong ball?
is Sophia. She grabs the flute. She holds it like she doesn’t know what to do with the long, hard object. Oh, right, she probably doesn’t. She finally figures out that she needs to put it into her mouth (Ellen can help with that lesson, I’m sure) and uncovers the cobra. So now she plays the flute, which sounds pretty cool, actually, and waves it around. The snake lamely lunges, and she’s done too. The Drum Of My One Long Constant Yawn plays as Adam gets up. Requiem shots as Adam tells us you shouldn’t play with snakes. He takes a while to uncover the snakes, and he voice-overs that he’s worried he’ll fuck up and get kicked off the show. He again talks about being a leader. Well, no one is following, so you can lay off the word, Patton. More crappy shots. There is a shot from inside the drum, and the drum comes off and the snake does not move one millimeter; obviously a rubber snake for that shot. So gay. So very gay, and not in a Sophia way, either. Anyway, Adam starts playing while he floats on about battling fear and how he just wants to get the crest. Adam jumps back as the cobra lunges and everyone cheers. He keeps playing and it lunges again, and we get another terrible POV leg shot of the cobra’s head, and I pause it, and I swear there ain’t no kinda fangs anywhere on that fucker. Wack. So wack. The mission is complete, and the word "Patience" from the crest slides across the screen as Droopy Blair explains that they’re battling their fears and that’s what the show is about. I thought this time they were supposed to talk about patience? Oh, well. I’m nearly out of all mine, anyway. There is hugging, and then Adam takes a photo holding a snake and he’s smiling and Ellen can’t figure out how to work her digital camera. Hee. She talks to the camera, telling us that she thinks Adam is over his fear of snakes. Yes, Ellen. All phobias can be solved in twenty minutes. Absolutely. Adam then floats that the other kids didn’t make fun of him, which was nice. Well, Adam. Maybe they didn’t, but we sure did. But yeah, you’ll always have that. We end this bit with the cheesiest shot yet: a cobra coiled around the “Patience” crest piece. Terrible. I guess thatjkljfas;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; -- oh, shit. I just fell asleep on my keyboard for a second there, sorry. Whew. What did I miss? Nothing? Yeah. No kidding.
Tioga. A camping area. Blair offers to drive, but Adam says he doesn't like when anyone else drives. See, it’s not just about the women. He’s just a control-freak weirdo. Jisela then says that she gets nervous when Adam drives, and they argue calmly about this one time Adam went over bumps, and I don’t care enough to listen. They argue. Argue. Minutiae. Jisela is rather calm as she explains that Adam always talks about what’s “funny” while he drives, but he should just be concentrating on driving. Out of the blue, Adam then says he hasn’t been taking his “medicine” lately as much and maybe that has something to do with why he’s been hyper. Huh? Adam then floats that one of his biggest challenges is having ADD with hyperactivity. It was rougher as a kid, but now he regulates it with drugs. Sad music cues me that I’m supposed to feel bad, just like it did with Ellen’s rape, but less so, because rape is worse. Blair goes floaty, drooping that ADD makes it hard to concentrate and that’s why Adam sometimes talks without thinking. No, he just does that because he’s a douchebag. Jisela explains that without the medicine, ADDam is a different person than with it. Thank you, Jisela. Ellen thanks them for having that discussion without screaming. Hee. Both Jisela and ADDam are impressed with themselves as well. Blair, meanwhile, says that he would have enjoyed it more, however, if they’d fought. Okay, that’s funny.
Night. Now Jisela and Adam are all lying down together and being buddies and they talk about how they both have been labeled as hyper before. They decide not to harp on old arguments or live in the past. They clasp hands and mumble. We can’t hear, but I’m pretty sure they’re discussing how much B/M promised to pay them for staging all those arguments this episode. Shot of the moon. That’s it!
Oh, right. “, on Road Rules 10…” The kids move something through a city square, and Steve’s head is nearly crushed against a wall. Everyone screams. Then Steve’s torso is nearly crushed, too. Get out of there, Steve! B/M wants to kill you! Run! Then we get a montage of Ellen and Adam flirting and everyone making jokes about them digging each other, and Adam says he’s really attracted to Ellen. Jis-yella floats that ADDam was making out with Ellen last night, and we see them, and then ADDam says, in the dark, “Do you know that’s not my leg you’re massaging?” And…that’s it! Whee!!! All right, I got to go get my sleep on.
Two down, something like nineteen to go. Oh. That doesn’t sound too good, does it?