The Meat Is Done - 
by B-side
Congratulations! As of 10:30 PM Monday night, the eponymous Fresh Meat of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge officially graduated to sophomore status. Yes, the show wrapped up its triumphant season of bag-schlepping as one winning team finally grabbed the grand prize of $250,000. With only three squads left, it was a toss up as to who would win. Okay, it really wasn't. It was obvious who would dominate this final challenge, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't have been able to stomach any other result. However, in the interest of not spoiling this most intense of outcomes, I won't say who won here in this opening paragraph. Instead, I'll pass the time talking about something else: a horrendous TV show I saw yesterday. It was called The 200 Pound Tumor, and it was on the Discovery Health Network. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, not including Wes's cocky face. Hmmm... I'm veering towards nausea. I better get to the recap.
This week's finale started off with all the teams nervously preparing for the next day's mission. I'm sure the producers probably wanted us to wonder who would win the big prize, but honestly, at that moment I was more concerned with what had happened to Darrell's head. It looked like he was recovering from a lobotomy. Either that or someone had cruelly extinguished a cigar on his forehead.
Nevertheless, the gang all gathered around the table and eagerly read their last clue: "Congratulations on making it to the end. Your final challenge is tomorrow." I'm not sure if that really qualifies as a clue as much as light plaudits followed by general directions. Whatever the semantics may be, the gang was psyched for their final mission. Wes and Casey were particularly confident in their chances of winning, thanks to all their victories in Exile. "Hopefully we're going to be able to use that as a catalyst to go into the final mission with enough confidence," Wes said, unsurprisingly misusing the word "catalyst." Of course, anyone who's seen just a glimpse of this season could tell you that Wes and Casey haven't won the Exiles thanks to their perfect blend of brains and brawn. It's more like they just benefited from other teams's stupid mistakes (ie. forgetting flags over and over and over again).
Wasting no time (except to show Darrell sipping from a giant water bottle -- or jug, really), the show then headed down to the sandy beaches of Australia where the final challenge awaited. A smiley TJ Lavin revealed that teams would be participating in what was essentially a super-sized Exile course -- a ten mile foot race, to be exact. Along the way, there would be several checkpoints as well as two of those nefarious puzzles. Unlike the Exile puzzles, however, there were some unique rules attached. Each team would have three chances to correctly solve the puzzles. At the first one, a correct answer on the first try meant that a team could advance to the next checkpoint without adding any weight. A correct answer after the second try meant they'd have to haul twenty-five pounds total. Third try was fifty pounds, and a total failure to solve the puzzle would result in a hundred pound burden. Things changed around on the second puzzle. A correct answer on the first attempt meant that teams could remove a hundred pounds. Second attempt meant losing fifty, third was twenty five, and failure meant removing nothing. So basically, the key was to answer the first puzzle on the first try. That way, the second puzzle would be rendered useless. This all sounded very convoluted, but I did like it and kind of wished this was how the puzzles in Exile operated all along (in case you were wondering how I really felt about that issue. And I'm sure you did).
Oh, and one more thing. Teammates would be tethered together with a six-foot line, another nifty touch that would have been nice throughout the season. Actually, you know what would be the best? If teammates had to be tethered at all times. Kind of like that failed dating show, Chains of Love. Next season... next season...
Anyway, as the teams prepared to commence this beast of a challenge, Wes feared that his long suffering partner Casey might not rise to the occasion. "She's just too young, immature, and stupid to realize how much is on the line right now," he said, erroneously implying that he on the other hand was not young, immature, and stupid.
Elsewhere in this suckfest, Tina and Kenny bickered about the daunting path ahead of them, with Tina being particularly pessimistic about their chances at success. If only this challenge featured a prominent "buzzard voice" component...
Well, after the commercial break, TJ Lavin finally let the teams loose on this course, and unsurprisingly, Tina and Kenny continued to yell at each other over pretty much anything. "You're not even sweating!" Kenny yelled; although, as far as I could see, Tina was covered in a shiny film of perspiration. Kind of like the time she found out Krispy Kreme opened up down the block from her. Mini zing!
Anyway, the teams all trotted across the beach until they reached checkpoint one which commanded them to... RUN THROUGH THE SURF! How very intense!!! What might come next? X-TREME Sandcastle building? Well, everyone managed to plod through the water without much of a problem; although, Casey did flail around as if she were navigating through a jellyfish minefield. Oh, how I would have loved to see Wes step on a Portuguese Man O' War. I would say stingray too, but, well, stingray jokes are apparently verboten in pop culture for about a week or so.
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