I Love Money 2: Fowl Play

This week on I Love Money 2, the episode is awesome! Who’da thunkit?

We open to everyone shit-talkin’, which is no great surprise. 20 Pack can’t understand why Milf was sent home over Cali and Myammee, since they surely should’ve been the bottom two. In his own words, he is “fustrated,” so Saaphyri eggs him on by tattling that Tailor Made rooted for Cali to stay. That’s The Entertainer’s cue to eat Tailor Made alive, but since Tailor Made is walking by and probably heard this conversation, The Entertainer pounces on Prancer instead.

Prancer’s nestled all snug in her bed, visions of sugarplums dancing through her head, when he storms in and calls her out on her alliance. In confessional she’s like, “My alliance is a secret, so I’m cool!” but uh, it’s not really a secret if The Entertainer can name every member. Funny how that works! The Entertainer angrily gives her advice on how to communicate with Tailor Made, and it ends with saying Tailor Made’s not even a real man, which sadly does not lead to an extensive Pinnochio comparison.

Elsewhere, Pinnochio is squirreled away with Myammee, Ice, and Bonez, analyzing the teams. Mymamee is wearing a wig cap because of course she is. If only it were raining, she could wear her saran wrap! Tailor Made explains that their alliance dominates the Gold Team, but they’re outnumbered on the Green Team. He theorizes that if the Greens lose the next challenge, the Gold Team can probably eliminate one of their strong competitors, like The Entertainer or Saaphyri. If the Gold Team loses, they can eliminate either Heat, 20 Pack, or Buckwild. Oh, what a joyful day this is for Tailor Made! This is the first time he’s ever been on top in any context, especially bedroom ones.

The next morning, The Entertainer suckles.

Um, oh my God, is there anything grosser in this world? He is openly sucking on her teat, and it’s also like 9 AM and she’s already made up like a geisha. Everything about this is wrong. She interviews that she likes to touch his dong, but she won’t sex him until she’s sure he’ll keep her out of the box. Until then, he’s not allowed into hers. How wise and classy of her!

Craig summons everyone downstairs to find out the challenge deets. His recording tells them to put on their uniforms and get ready to fly, so It concludes they’ll actually be flying a helicopter, because that wouldn’t be a terrible idea at all. VH1 may not care about these folks’ lives, but they probably wouldn’t endanger all of Mexico by putting them in a cockpit… at least not until Rock of Love Jet, and we’re at least two years from that.

The teams sit down to choose captains, and Ice volunteers for the Gold Team. She does so in the most manly voice ever, which makes me think she and Milf are a lot alike. Everyone’s cool with her regardless, so it’s final! On the Green Team, The Entertainer steps up as captain. It also appears to volunteer, but I guess everyone just laughs that off because it’s never mentioned. Realistically, he was probably just rolling around with his hand in the air, like ya do. Anyway, with the captains chosen, everyone loads into the vans and heads to the challenge.

They’re greeted by an assembly of chickens and catapults, which means…Chicken Catapult Challenge! It’s actually called Chicken-a-pult, but that name makes me want to vomit-a-pult. Craig says this challenge is back by popular demand, which I do not believe whatsoever. Apparently it’s taken from Flavor of Love 1, when Hottie served Flav’s mom raw chicken and he catapulted Hottie off the show. If that’s the case, this challenge shows a surprising level of creativity – I genuinely assumed someone launched a chicken leg at some point during these shows, and this was a spin-off!

When Craig gives the teams the signal, they’ll rush to put together the catapult. The first team to build their structure, plus catch and plate five chickens will win! First the captains must divide the teams into Builders and Catchers. 20 Pack picks who will play each role on the Gold Team, while Ice stands around and picks her nose. Methinks her captainhood will go well. 20 Pack concludes their Builders are Ice, Prancer and Buckwild. The Green Team’s Builders are It, Saaphyri and Myammee, because none of those people seem like they’ll be even slightly incompetent. Excellent planning!

With that settled, it’s go time! The Gold Team is pretty swift at starting their structure, but unsurprisingly the Green Team runs into some problems, namely It’s existence. The Entertainer plays the role of Backseat Driver on the sidelines, hollering about how It is doing everything wrong. Admittedly It is doing everything wrong, so it’s not totally out of left field.

I don’t know if the Green Team is aware they have instructions for putting this thing together, but it goes without saying they’re doing it wrong. Saaphyri and Myammee basically have to lift It’s hands and move them into the proper positions to get anything done. Fortunately both are experienced in this department.

The Gold Team uses their instructions, but not well. Somehow their catapult becomes botched enough for Craig to mock it, which is delightful indeed, and Ice just stands back and shakes her head like any good captain would. They resort to taking the whole thing apart and starting from scratch, but even with that setback, they’re still ahead of the Green Team. Jolly good!

The Gold Team finishes and hits the field while The Entertainer hollers at his team. Suddenly he remembers how to build the thing from last year, so he screams the correct instructions at them. Of course this begs the question – if he was one of the builders last season, why didn’t he step in to do it this time around? Sigh, logic. He ponders that same question about 13 minutes later, and lo, there is rage! The Greens still haven’t finished the catapult by the time the Goldies start launching chickens, although they do so with little success.

The Green Team catches up and runs to the field. Angelique interviews that she feels more better at that point, which is pretty insightful. I’m glad that made it through the editing process. The teams go back and forth fruitlessly, but the Gold Team comes to a standstill when they realize their chickens are launching in the opposite direction, ie: backwards. Whoops, so much for reading the instructions! I friggin love that it takes them a good three or four tosses before they realize the chickens are going the wrong way. Maybe in the first few tries, the chickens used their wings to fly in the other direction!

As the Goldies stare in wonderment, The Entertainer catches his team’s first chicken! He even plates it successfully, which is truly shocking. Across the field, the Gold Team launches another chicken and…it goes the wrong way. Huh. Another attempt breeds similar results. At no point do they stop and retool their catapult, just FYI. That would be too easy! Meanwhile The Entertainer scores another chicken. The fact that the Green Team might actually stand a chance here says a lot about the Gold Team’s level of fuckery!

The Gold Team keeps on keepin’ on while the Green Team delivers another bird. Unfortunately it launches with such fervor that it breaks some of The Entertainer’s ribs, but so it goes! To his credit, when Angelique asks if he’s okay, he answers, “Totally, just get back there.” This marks the only time I’ve ever actually appreciated The Entertainer, so make note. The Gold Team takes pleasure in The Entertainer’s injury, as anyone would, but it distracts them from catching their one successful launch. On the bright side, 20 Pack claims he heard The Entertainer’s rib snap, so…there’s that.

The Greens plate their fourth chicken, so they only need one more to finally win a challenge. They load up their bird, and after an arduous slow-motion montage, The Entertainer catches it! Of course he has to showboat, dancing with the chicken and taking his sweet time, which Saaphyri refers to as “berry-walkin’.” The technical definition of this is “walking as though one has a dingleberry in one’s ass,” and I will maintain this even if Saaphyri actually said something else and I couldn’t decipher her accent. He gloats and kisses his chicken, inhaling a glob of salmonella stew, before setting it down on the plate. With that, the Green Team wins! The Entertainer is Paymaster! There is much rejoicing, although it’s in a totally classy and respectful manner, natch.

Prancer is bummed to lose, but also bummed to be the deciding vote in the vault. Both alliances are counting on her to secure their spot, so no matter what choice she makes, people will hate her. Hating Prancer should be outlawed by society, but whatevs, these people were born rulebreakers. The Gold Team mopes to their van, while the Green Team gloats about who they’re sending home. The Entertainer coached his alliance members to put Tailor Made in the box, you see. Sensing such a development may take place, Bonez grabs his nads in fear.

I thought those were Prancer’s legs, for real. Way to man up, Bonez! Buckwild mournfully repeats that the team lost, as though they hadn’t noticed, and 20 Pack says everyone’s fair game in the vault. I guess this is his way of saying the loss is no one’s fault, although I’d put the blame on the Builders, but what do I know?

Back at the house, Bonez, Ice, and Tailor Made discuss their strategy for the vault. They need to make sure Heat, 20 Pack and Buckwild are in the strongbox, and they’ll need Prancer’s vote to make it happen. As a side note, one of the best things about I Love Money 2 is the Ask.com ads that play in the bottom corner of the screen. In this scene it has a search box that asks, “What is a swing vote?” I was not aware this was a term that needed to be defined, but thanks, Ask.com! Way to remind us you’re the search engine no one uses!

Vault time! Craig explains how the ceremony works, and half the contestants actually have to listen since they’ve never been there before. I’m guessing that means the ceremony won’t take seven seconds like it did last week. Ice begins the voting by reminding everyone that she was captain, and I’d say it doesn’t bode well for her that she has to tell them this fact. Still, she only gets votes from Buckwild, Heat, and 20 Pack. The same three people vote for Prancer, although Ice says, “That’s two votes.” She learned how to count from It, so she’s doing the best she can.

Ice, Prancer, Bonez, and Tailor Made all vote for Buckwild, so girlfriend’s in the box!

She totally never saw this coming, and it’s kind of exciting to watch the nasty team get bowled over! My feelings about Buckwild vary, but as many of you have pointed out in the comments, she’ll probably get her own reality show out of this series. All the more reason to laugh at her misfortune right now! The Buckwild voters also pick Heat and 20 Pack, as planned, so those are the nominees! I feel tangible excitement over how The Entertainer will react to this, not gonna lie.

The Green Team enters the vault, and oh, The Entertainer is so confident! He can’t wait to send Tailor Made home! He can already taste victory, yadda yadda. Craig explains that the Paymaster will take the bottom three out on a Power Outing, and he can barely get through this speech because he’s grinning so hard. I totally love that Craig is in on the joke – he’s one of us, he knows this shit is ridiculous!

Craig slowly reveals the nominees, and The Entertainer isn’t shaken up over Buckwild’s nomination. Everyone hates her, so whatever, that’s to be expected. When he finds out Heat is in the box, he’s surprised but not shocked. Then 20 Pack is revealed and The Entertainer pops a vein! Yay! Bedlam ensues until Craig intervenes and says that if he were on the Green Team, he’d be glad to see the strongest Gold members in the box. That’s The Entertainer’s cue to stutter, “Oh, totally, I’m down with that….” Then he poops his pants from holding in so many emotions.

The cast filters out, and It sits down with Buckwild to get a grasp on the day’s events. I can’t believe he’s confused, by the way. He’s so smart and put-together. He asks how the bottom three were chosen, even though Buckwild angrily pointed out the voters while they were shouting in the vault. She spells it out for him again, and my God, he reacts like he’s finding out Santa Claus really does exist.

His reaction is so over the top, it almost seems like he’s faking it in order to appear dumb, but…I think he’s really just dumb. If not, he’s by far the most brilliant person to play this game, and I just can’t give him that kind of credit. He concludes Tailor Made is now “Tailor Mandela,” which is a reference I totally understand. Just yesterday I was talking about how Tailor Made was imprisoned for fighting apartheid.

Buckwild sets off to confront the bitch-asses on her team, and she yells at them for their bitch-assness. It’s nice that she’s so concise. She informs Tailor Made that she’ll throw every challenge from now on, but she fails to realize his alliance will still have the majority vote, so they’ll probably be able to pick off Buckwild and company. Whatevskies! Tailor Made stands stone-faced during her whole argument, which is impressive because I would’ve had to laugh when she said, “Take your cake and eat it, because you just sliced yourself off a piece that you can’t finish!” Way to take that metaphor and run with it, Becky!

After stomping away from the conversation, Buckwild cries with Heat. They agree that whoever stays will throw every challenge until Tailor Made gets eliminated. That’s all well and good, but now it’s Heat’s time to storm away! He does so with great passion, kicking things in the yard and smoking angrily. The Entertainer was the Paymaster who sent him home last time, so Heat realizes he’s about to repeat history. This makes him a sad panda. He sets off to suck up to The Entertainer, who is disinterested because he’s sending Heat home. Duh.

Heat tells The Entertainer the challenge-throwing plan. The Entertainer immediately hates it, but he seems like the kind of guy who would hate anything you tell him. He’s that friend who tells you to pick a restaurant for dinner, but then you pick your favorite and he rages about how you didn’t pick Hooters, what the shit is wrong with you! In this scenario he berates Heat for telling the Gold Team the plan, rather than making it look like he gave each challenge his best shot. That would be a good idea, but Buckwild already notified the cast of the plans via certified letter, so they’ve missed the boat on that one.

Meanwhile 20 Pack wonders whether this is his last night in Mexico, so just in case, he decides to get piss-ass drunk.

There’s a lot of really unattractive drinking, and that leads to an equally unattractive Power Outing. Normally these events seem to stretch out over days, but this time it’s all rolled into a wild 24 hours. That means Heat and 20 Pack are plastered. Naturally the outing is a wine tasting, so they’re in great spirits for such an event! While the group slams back fine beverages, Heat starts to have deja vu. It’s not just the wine talking; the Paymaster is the same as the last time he was eliminated, and so is the waiter, funnily enough! It’s very odd that he remembers this detail, so I feel like someone gave him a tip about it, but that would be a really boring thing to discuss behind the scenes. In the end, no one cares anyway.

Everyone toasts to their misery. The Entertainer explains that one of the guys will be going home, since he wants to do the do with Buckwild, and then he postulates that the Gold Team threw the challenge so these people would be in the box. The group thinks about it for a second, and…

Tailor Made’s alliance totally rigged the challenge! We’re treated to some secret footage of Tailor Made and Ice planning this out, which is pretty awesome! Ice did most of the legwork by jerryrigging the catapult, but dude, I’m impressed with them both. 20 Pack and Heat can’t really decide if they threw the challenge or not, but 20 Pack realizes he should work to save himself regardless. He delivers an oratory on how awesome and loyal he is, but while he campaigns, Buckwild and The Entertainer throw food back and forth as some kind of hideous foreplay. If you’ve ever imagined The Entertainer’s sex as gross, then well done!

When it’s Heat’s turn to speak, all he can come up with is that they lost. He is sad they lost. Dude, they lost. He also mentions that he feels “betrayded,” because of course he does. Finally the waiter interrupts his spiel to tell The Entertainer it’s time for the one-on-one date. The Entertainer asks the guys who wants to talk to him, and 20 Pack is like, “Nah, I’m good,” so Heat gets the session by default. What a prize.

The Entertainer remarks in confessional that he’d like to talk to Heat about his drinking, since that’s a really big issue for him personally. He says this like we haven’t seen him balls-out wasted 500 times. We’ve seen him drunk enough to lick feet, y’all! But yeah, totally, The Entertainer can judge. Heat swears and sways back and forth during their time together, but he insists on shaking The Entertainer’s hand, so at least there’s that! I’m sure later he’ll insist that handshake was bond, providing he can remember it.

The group heads back to the house, where The Entertainer promptly calls a team meeting. He doesn’t want to send his friends home, so he’ll make his team members do it instead. Awesome! Heat and 20 Pack have to make their cases to the Green Team, so Heat explains, “I never, ever thought I can be in this situation, but I knew one day it was gonna come. It is concensed.” Oh, all right then. 20 Pack basically just has to keep his pants on during his speech and he’s a sure bet to stay in the house. Alas, he bursts into tears as soon as it’s his turn, so…this whole thing is a toss-up. Myammee mocks his speech amazingly in confessional, putting on a drag-queen voice and talking about mascara. Love her! Fingers crossed for a Prancer/Myammee finish!

20 Pack genuinely says nothing before being escorted out of the room so the Green Team can vote on the two. Unfortunately we are not privy to the footage, so it’s onward to the elimination ceremony! Heat feels a little nervous as the ceremony begins, which is strange because he should feel pee-pants nervous. On the other hand, 20 Pack feels more nervous than he probably should, calling it “the most emotional day of [his] life.” Weird, but at least it’s this and not his I Love New York elimination? Still sad, but more acceptable.

Craig congratulates the Green Team on their one and only win. Then he asks The Entertainer why he’s so reluctant to eliminate the strongest players on the Gold side. I don’t know why he can’t just be like, “Because they’re my alliance, dawg,” since it doesn’t seem to be any kind of secret, but he pussyfoots around it anyway. He says the Gold Team threw the challenge, but Prancer denies doing any such thing. Naturally Ice and Tailor Made don’t speak up, but they don’t matter since this really should be The Prancer Show.

20 Pack interjects and says he’s the only reason the Gold Team ever did well, but then he yells, “So help me God if I ever come back to that team!” It would be hilarious if The Entertainer was like, “I’ll save you the trouble, your check is bounced.” Holding that thought in our hearts, it’s time to give out the checks! In the twist of the century, The Entertainer gives Buckwild the first one.

Although Prancer accurately describes the kiss as “the most disgusting kiss I’ve ever seen in my life,” I feel Tailor Made says it best:

Ugh. They are frantic and grabby and revolting, so it’s sweet bliss when Craig hurries the ceremony along. There are only two people left, Heat and 20 Pack, and The Entertainer still can’t make up his mind on who to send home. Clearly that team vote did a lot of good. After a long pause, he calls 20 Pack forward. He says 20 Pack is the strongest competitor in the house; 20 Pack will never throw a challenge, and he’ll always give 110%. Luckily The Entertainer respects that, as does the Green Team, so 20 Pack stays! Heat is eliminated by The Entertainer yet again!

20 Pack spits in front of the Gold Team to show how much he hates them, but I thought he was actually puking from nerves, so it didn’t really have the desired effect. While he stomps around, Heat legitimately starts sobbing like a girl. The Entertainer hugs him while military music plays in the background, and it goes without saying that this is all really queer. Sorry to disgrace you, military! They’ll do better next time.

Next week, there is yelling! Buckwild calls Prancer a “turtle-faced bitch,” which may be my favorite insult of all time! There’s also some aggressive lovemaking attempts on Angelique’s behalf, but let’s not think about that until it’s necessary.

What say you? Which alliance do you prefer? Who do you think has a shot at taking this competition? Does The Entertainer frighten you as much as he frightens me? Leave your thoughts!