Some may say that I made that mention of sluts because I knew that Theo and Tonya were featured in the opening sequence, or that Tonya was a Playboy Cyber Girl of the Month for December. (Nice photographs, but sort of scary to look at in their entireity. SFW sample). I assure you it was all complete coincidence. Anyway, Theo and Tonya are contemplating some things about the game, but mainly are just trying to pass the time as they smoke a cigarette. I guess there is some sort of rule that you must blur out cigarettes on TV, because MTV blurred out the pack Theo was fidgeting with (looked like Parliament Lights, but I can't tell). Maybe you can't show people smoking, but you sure can show them the cigarette butts that were left over from the activity. What is that you say, they don't actually blur out the cigarette, only the box? That makes much more sense. Bunim/Murray doesn't care about preventing the promotion of cigarettes to youngsters, they just don't want to piss of any advertisers.

I feel vindicated, because after several weeks of complaining about Eric and his stupid jump rope, we finally get to see what his teammates and opponents think of his accessory. Not surprisingly, almost everybody on the show thinks it is stupid. Unfortunately, I think this segment was supposed to be a campy bit, and not a full-hearted attempt at mocking Eric and his stupid jump rope. Everybody tried to play it off that they have no clue about the mysticism of the jump rope or why he carries it around, but I am sure he tells everybody who asks, and many who don't, the real reason he carries it around. He stars in his very own jump rope exercise video, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was produced by somebody in connection with MTV. That is how these things work in this town.

The dilemma on the girls team is still trying to figure out how in the hell they are going to pull off a win. Coral is stilly mystified and "can't pinpoint the problem", but assures us that once they hit rock bottom, they will be ready to pick themselves up and really kick ass. This begs the question as to what exactly is "rock bottom"? Was it the four game losing streak you put up to start the show? Or perhaps it was the four game losing streak you put up after winning your first challenge. Or maybe it was when Steven mocked all of them for sucking, and quite frankly they had to deal with the truth that they did suck. If Coral is looking for something that is the source of the problem, she should think about looking at Veronica, who took one look at the challenge and determined that the girls had absolutely no chance. Wow Veronica, did you come up with that one on your own? Couldn't you have said that every week and been wrong once?

So what was this daunting challenge? I am going to try and explain it to you in less time than it took Jonny Mosely. The name of the challenge was "Pop Culture Bike Jump", which got Coral excited because pop culture is stereotypically stronger for women, especially if the producers slanted questions for the women, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Basically, there were three bike ramps of varying heights. A contestant could choose to go down a ramp(which was actually part of a half pipe), and they would score one, two, or three points, depending on the height of the ramp. The "jump" was completed when the contestant got both bike wheels in the air on the other side of the pipe.

Complicated? Not really, although Eric made sure to remind us that we would only get one point for the ramp marked "1", two points for the ramp marked "2", and you can probably get the rest yourself. Now, before making a jump, a contestant could choose to answer a pop culture question. Get the question right, and you could jump off any ramp height and be awarded six points, fail the question, and you wouldn't get a chance to do the ramp at all, thereby ruining you chances at ANY points. You see, you had to choose between the risk and the reward between each scenario. Surely a grueling scenario for sure.

Despite another challenge with no sign of a reason why there should be a team leader, the girls chose Tina, Arissa, and Sophia, which I guess meant they were trying to get rid of some of the minorities on their team. The guys picked Brad, Theo, and Frank, or as I like to call them, Boring, Crazy, and More Boring.

Posted by J-Unit on December 13, 2004 10:33 PM