We open the scene with some crazy antics from The Miz. All of these people like to show off for the camera, and Mike knows what he is doing, he does want to be a pro wrestler after all. He opens the show with what looks like a pre-planned dare where somebody asks him to eat a jalepeno or habanero or something. He eats it, it burns his mouth, and he throws everything he can find in there to try and stop the pain. Nothing like a good icebreaker to prepare us for 30 minutes of back-stabbing action. Thank you, dear Miz, we salute you.

This week's competition is called Neverending Climb, which brings up a great tangent. Didn't you just love The Neverending Story when you were younger? That movie had everything. It came out when I was like what, 5 years old? I remember seeing it and being so scared of that wolf thing when Atreyu tries to kill him. Also what was the deal with those sphinx things with the huge boobs? It might be just me, but wasn't Falcor more scary than some of the "evil" creatures? Come on, a giant, flying cocker spaniel/dachsund mix? And when the horse died, that was more difficult for me to watch than when KITT got totaled in Knight Rider and they had to put him back together. But enough of the 80s nostalgia, back to the game.

In the Neverending Climb, the teams had to scale a structure and make their way towards the top, donkey-kong style, by climbing a ladder and then crossing a beam or pole. Along the way, they had to collect five tribal tokens, which looked like petrified garlic knots on a string, but were really small ceramic pieces tied together. Once you had your five tokens, you would jump off the structure, and you would be let down in your safety harness. You would then place your tokens in a bowl. The total time needed for each team would then be added up and the team with the lowest time would win. If a person fell off of the structure, they would have to wait on the ground for one minute before they could start again.

The Bad Asses were first, and they started right where they left off. Yeah, they have enthusiasm for their teammates, but only some of them. Dan, who has been sick of hearing Tina for the entire time in Mexico, much like most of the viewers here in the states, said that he didn't want to spend another day listening to all of the bitch yell, and he was really set off when Tina tried to tell him that he shouldn't go as high on the scaffolding. Right now, the Bad Asses might have more of the best players, but you really have to question how long they can believe this "team" concept is going to hold.

Veronica is the first one up, and she does pretty well, that is at least until she gets down to the bottom. You would think the easiest part of this challenge would be the part where they take the tokens and throw them into the big metal bowl. This proved quite the challenge for Veronica, as her tokens got entangled on her harness and she wasted nearly thirty seconds on the ground untangling them. Not quite the way you wanted to start off the competition. It not only means you have a bad time, but for the other team to see you struggle is a little confidence boost for them.

Everybody on the Bad Asses was doing fine after that, until we came to Tonya. She had said that she had a climbing wall nearby, or as Tina said, in her back yard, so I guess her team was expecting her to be super fast. Although she wasn't the fastest at the course, she did go farther up the structure than any of the other girls on her team. When she got to the bottom, it was nothing but negatives from Veronica, Rachel and Tina. They were probably insecure about Veronica messing up so badly, so they had to make it look like somebody was worse off so her ego wasn't too damaged. That, and she wouldn't be the firecracker in bed with Rachel, and you just have to keep Rachel happy.

Posted by J-Unit on May 8, 2005 11:24 PM