Previously: Misogyny! The only actual story line this entire season has produced!
We open at night, on clue delivery. Cut to Evan, Kenny, Ev, and Adam standing around whispering and colluding about throwing a girl's mission. Evelyn sides with the guys. Way to work against stereotype, Ev. Shot of Coral eavesdropping on them around the corner.
The morning, Coral calls Evan out on his probable betrayal. As Coral says her piece behind him, shot of Evan rolling his eyes at her. Then, the unthinkable happens, something that has never before happened on a Challenge: Coral has a moment and acts like a real human being. She takes her glasses off and sort of chokes up as she explains to Evan that she feels like something is happening that always happens to her: she holds on to a friendship too tightly, always asking the other person to reassure her that they're really friends. Flashbacks to various Coral-and-Evan-During-the-Salad-Days moments. Cut back to the present where Evan tells Coral that they are friends. Because friends love to call one other "dead weight" and "stupid" behind each other's backs. Oh, Evan's glib interviews are going to bite him in the ass. Coral tells Evan that she's not going to let herself be manipulated in this game, that that isn't who she is. Get this girl a fallen hero montage (a la Timmy), stat!
Commercials. The first Challenge is set to take place on top of a twenty-five story building in, as TJ Lavin calls it, "Porto Vah-arta." There are two planks jutting off the edge of the roof, off of each there's a rope ladder that they have to climb down to retrieve a team flag. The winner is the team with the lowest combined time, so the odds are in the Rookies favor, since there are so few of them. First pair to go are Ev and Jillian. Ev interviews that she has to hide her fear because her team looks to her to set a tone. Oh, cram it, Evelyn. You lost me at "Brooke." Adam and Frank go, Adam doing some crazy Spidey shit on the way. More match-ups, mainly uneventful. Everyone is scared. Duh. Then Rachel just fully falls off the plank at the very end of her heat. And then cries about it. The few, the proud, et cetera.... Tori almost punks out, while Coral gets to do her climbing with a lot of inspirational pop guitars in the background. Take that, Evan!
The Veterans are winning, and Danny interviews that they have to throw the mission. Shot of CT telling Danny to just fall off the ladder when it's his turn. Danny's a pussy though, and worries about getting thrown into the Gauntlet if they find him out. Casey goes and then acts in an interview like she deserves a Nobel Prize for not freaking out like a big baby about the heights. It's CT's turn and he just gorillas down the ladder all backwards and gravity-defying and then-- whoops!-- lets go of the last rung. Then the best part: back up on the roof, a number of Vet Boys weigh in from off camera: "It's very possible that he just fell off" and then "CT? YOU OKAY?" Wow, boys, that is some international spy shit right there. Smooooth. Katie tells them all to shut the fuck up, that she isn't an ignorant asshole. Katie gets onto the plank and promptly freaks out. Evan yells at her that it's her ass on the line, and she declares that she'd rather go to a Gauntlet than do this. Robin screams "Katie, NO!!" like Katie's a Schnauzer getting into a trash can.
Commercials. So Katie didn't go, and the Rookies win. The Rookies save Katie from the Gauntlet and vote Evelyn in. Ev is psych(ed)o. It becomes clear that Coral is the first choice to go in against Ev. But Coral decides to quit the game before the Gauntlet so the Vets will lose two girls. Evan interviews that "It's a new generation of people. She was no longer in the loop." God, this is like a National Geographic special or something and Coral's the elderly antelope.
Ev is pissed that Coral is denying her the opportunity to beat her in the Gauntlet. Jesus, lady, what is your problem? Did your field hockey team go 0-14 last season or something? In the deliberation cabana, nobody has any suggestions for who else to send into the Gauntlet. Except there are at least ten boobs left in the game, boobs that I thought made their owners "dumbasses," et cetera? ["Seriously. Seriously. I thought all the girls were expendable except Ev and her penis, right guys? Big talk, 'roid monkeys." -- Joe R] Kenny interviews and uses the word "palapa." Just thought I'd point that out.
Commercials. When we return to the deliberation palapa (TM Kenny), Casey is volunteering herself, Robin is crying, and we're apparently supposed to believe that Casey is a Real American Hero. She blabbers on about how she thinks the other girls will help the team more in the end. Casey interviews of Coral that Coral has been "screwing us over for, I don't know, eighteen years, since you're that old and need to get a real job, quit doing Challenges, lady." Oh, Casey. For someone who bought boobs for herself with the money she won on this show, you have quite a high standard of Challenge ethics for others. Basically everyone spends a lot of time acting like Casey's Brian Piccolo, and then she is promptly dispatched by Ev in Ball Brawl. Which is actually pretty hilarious, watching Ev shoulder-check the little bottled blonde elf. Why Casey didn't just kick Ev in the balls, I don't know.
Evelyn interviews that Coral leaving Casey to take her fall for her is what she'll be remembered for, "that's your legacy." Then Diem (who? where has she been?) interviews that she has more respect for Casey than for Coral. Have all of these people forgotten that the team actually threw the mission in order to send Coral home? What kind of "legacy" is that? Casey gives one final overly-loud interview -- why is this girl always shouting at us in her interviews? -- talking about how she'll come back to the Challenge. Yes, Casey. And the , the , and the . For the eighteen years, bwah ha ha ha ha.
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Nighttime. Ryan and Nehemiah are talking about how the Rookies are now a "dream team." Frank comes up and is informed of this fact and then interviews, "What the fuck are you talking about? Our team is terrible!" Which, I hate to say it because it's Frank, really just made me laugh. Clue delivery, performed by Eric. Eric's appearance reminding me: didn't the season preview tell us he was going to die on the beach? When is that going to happen anyhow?
Cut to later on, presumably. Everyone is shitfaced. Like screaming and throwing signs in their underwear. Okay. Kenny and Frank decide to do a little wrestling. Which, with the seedy mattress propped against the wall in the background, and Nehemiah sprawled on a bed in the foreground looking on, is way gay-pornier than any Ryan-Tyler make-out session. So anyway, at some point, the wrestling match turns into them just having their bare legs all entwined. That is, until Kenny yelps and holds his ankle. Shocking, this turn of events. Kenny goes to the hospital, where his ankle looks pretty red and swollen. Back at the house, it appears that Frank has continued drinking, because where at first he seems somewhat concerned for Kenny's well-being, he is now interviewing, crazy-eyed, that if Kenny's ankle is broken, then that's just fine with him.
Commercials. Male Gauntlet day. Kenny interviews that he's not too worried about his ankle being hurt because "I am a machine. A gorgeous machine." Oh, Kenny. You are such a loveable goombah. The Challenge is "Mexican Blanket." The teams start on opposite sides of a course. Each player gets wrapped in a blanket and then they all have to roll past each other to the finish line opposite. The Rookies have the "advantage" again, with fewer players to get across the course.
So everybody gets wrapped up and starts rolling. There's not much to say about all this except that it is inexcusably enjoyable to watch all these idiots squirm around, especially once they start running into each other at the center of the course, a bunch of squirming worms in a big worm pile. So, it's pretty close, even despite the Rookie "advantage" and it's unclear as we go to commercial who's going to win.
Commercials. And, Veterans win. Oh my good God. Yes, quite the "Dream Team," those Rookies. Ryan interviews that he knows he's going in and he wants to go against Nehemiah, since Frank has proven himself to be such a freak for Gauntlets. The Vets deliberate and decide that they, too, want the match-up to be Nehemiah and Ryan. They save Frank, which means the other two boys have to go in against each other. Because there are only three boys left, total, on the Rookie team. May I point out to you that there are ten more episodes of this show? How are they going to fill all that (my) time?
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Gauntlet. TJ spins the wheel. Do you guys remember when these Challenge sets involved like fire and cages and expensive looking stuff? These days we've got hot sand at midday and some weird styrofoam dinosaur skeleton that serves no purpose. Oh, and also, Deliberation Palapas. Can't forget those. So the Challenge is "Ram It Home." Nehemiah and Ryan basically just have to push what looks like a big weight bag against one another, until one guy gets pushed past a line. So they start and its pretty evenly matched. Kenny interviews that Nehemiah is looking pretty weak, struggling with Ryan. Who is actually about the same size and strength as Nehemiah. Oh, but I almost forgot: he's gay, gay, gay! As a rainbow! And thus not as good at...pushing things? ["Hey, we can push The Gay Agenda. I hear we're good at pushing that." -- Joe R]
So these two go at it for like two hours. Evan is gleeful about the prospect of Ryan winning, apparently not putting two and two together: if Ryan is strong enough to win this super-physical challenge, he's stronger than anyone is giving him credit for. Anyhow, TJ intervenes at some point because they've both turned around to push against the bag with their backs. TJ's like "Uh, quit it with this back stuff, I got a joint to smoke" and makes them turn back around. At which point Nehemiah promptly wins.
Ryan gets his sendoff, TJ uttering those bone chilling words: "I'm sure this isn't, uh, the last time we'll see you." Ryan interviews about how the Rookies have to win, to redeem all the "blood, sweat, and tears" they've put into this and then, walking off into the sunset, proceeds to perform a set of spectacular heel-clicks. So, just in case you were keeping track and had ticked down the Kenny-Frank naked leg wrestling thing as the gayest part of this episode, I must inform you: heel-clicks trump all, gay-wise.
Nighttime, Katie is in bed all riled up over how she's going to throw a guy's mission if the Vet boys keep screwing over the girls. Come on, then! Bring it on! They've been screwing you over for like three episodes. Robin tells Katie to just do her best every time. Katie tells Robin to wake the fuck up and get out of her "happy bubble world." Robin interviews that she loves Katie but that she doesn't know whether it's in the team's best interest to have her there in the end. Katie does some more wrathful finger shaking and then Robin does this incredibly weird boob flex while lying on her side on the bed and then, whether from exhaustion or confusion, my DVR konks out.
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