Kid Nation: It Must Have Been Cold There in My Shadow

This week we’re faced with a very lopsided Bonanza city. The teams aren’t fairly divided, and almost all the gold star winners have been from the Green District. Actually, that’s beyond lopsided. That makes Tori Spelling’s first set of fake titties look even.

No easy task

In addition to the seemingly unfair team structure, some of the districts are facing personality clashes between their members. CBS tells the Council they have to mix up the districts. Zach and Guylan are happy because their districts are the youngest and could use a little help, but for Anjay and Laurel giving up a player would be a sacrifice. Eventually Anjay gives in and decides the greater good matters more than the individuals, so he agrees to lose a team member. Congratulations Anjay, you’ve just fucked yourself. Call PeeWee Herman, perhaps he knows how to recover from such a thing.

At the first commercial break, I call Dex to find out what he thinks about this whole “shake up” of the districts, but he tells me he can’t talk right now, he’s busy making a list of the Top Ten Hottest Asses in Bonanza City. I wish I was kidding. I hang up before he finishes reciting his list, but I can tell you that Sophia was number 6. Good for you Dex. If they can cut their own food, they’re fair game. I’ll write you in prison.

Back in the Nation, the council has to decide on some trades. So they go to the same place I go when I have to make my biggest decisions: the bar. Little bit of talking, couple sprite shots, and one or two games of rock, paper, scissors later, here are the switches: Guylan takes Nathan to red, Zach takes Blaine to yellow, Anjay takes Emilie to Blue, and Laurel just plain old refuses to switch at all. Very selfish of her, I have to say. Naught faya Laurel. Naught faya.

In reality, one would think this is actually a smart move on Laurel’s part. After all, she can’t get the gold star either way, and the only people who can get her off council are her own district members. So as long as she’s keeping team Green happy she’s all set, right? Right? More on that later.

When the Council tells the Pioneers about the changes, it doesn’t go over all that well. Immediately Greg starts blocking Blaine as if to suggest, “you can’t take him from me.” Hmmm. Is Dr. McSteeny detecting a bit of an attachment disorder Greggie? Call my receptionist and schedule an appointment, perhaps we can discuss this before we delve into that schizophrenia of yours.

First Guylan announces that Nathan will be joining the red team. Nathan is unhappy because “blue is his favorite color, not red.” Oh, that’s so sad. Know what my favorite color is Nathan? GrabARedFuckingBandanaAndSitDown. It’s the new black.

Next Emilie gets moved to blue. That Emilie is going through a bad phase. Something’s not right. She hasn’t been the same since Greg chopped her best chicken friend’s head off and Sophia made soup out of him. Don’t worry honey. Before you know it, this will all be over and you’ll go back to the good old days when you and your goats got into your jammies on the weekend and played Little Mermaid.

It’s just not the same here. This dinglehopper is for shit

Next Zack has to pull out the Jaws of Life and drag Blaine away from Greg. Blaine actually handles the whole thing pretty well. He tells us Greg is his best friend, but he knows he has to do the right thing, and in a way it’s good because he can finally get out of Greg’s shadow. Better than that Blainie, it will stop Greg from trying to spoon with you in your sleeping bag too.

Blaine gets up to grab his yellow bandana and Greg yells, “They’ll always be blue in your blood!” And not in a loyal companion BFF sort of way. In an angry, remember-that-time-I-cut-my-finger-and-then-made-you-cut-your-finger-and-we-rubbed-our-bloody-fingers-together-and-I-told-you-we-were-blood-brothers-for-life?-Yeah-I-was-serious-about-that, sort of way. I’m sure living in Florida’s been fun and all Blaine, but like it not not, you’re moving to Nevada with Greg. Hope you like the desert. And I hope you like wearing “I went to Bonanza City and all I got was this fucking gay boyfriend” t-shits too.

Back at the Club Red Hotel Resort and Spa (Trannies Welcome) Guylan is getting a lot of crap about his-her decision to take Nathan onto Red. Nathan’s not happy because the red bunks are dusty, and he’s “allegeric to dust mites.” And by “allergic to dustmites” he means that shemales make his eyes water.

Jared, Mike and Markelle are ripping into Guylan too. Mike explains it was a bad decision, and Markelle says no one on red really knows Nathan. Guylan in unresponsive. Probably because he’s distracted by the fact that Jared is standing there holding either the worlds longest lollipop, or a rainbow colored dildo that cost him 30 buffalo nickels at gaybay.com.

Jared, suspicious piece of weaponry in hand, approaches Guylan slowly and makes the following threat: (PS: quote of the week) “Lock your cell door tonight.” That settles it. It’s definitely a dildo.

And don’t drop your soap, either…

They also mention that Nathan sings in his sleep, which I really didn’t take too seriously until they cut to lights out and we hear Nathan singing as the camera gets a full shot of Club Red. Classic OCD bedtime signing children at their finest here in Bonanza City. Cleaning AND singing? What kind of 7 dwarf whistle while you work bullshit is this?

Another day another showdown. Blaine’s first day on team yellow, he decides to step up and wake his team up early. Yellow is known as the lazy district, and Blaine wakes Zach, and explains that this is why yellow has earned that reputation. Zach, half asleep, mumbling, and looking hung over says, “I don’t think we look lazy.” That’s when everyone watching laughs, the same way they would if Elton John asked if these glasses make him look gay.

Anjay wants to give his team a pre-showdown peptalk. During Anjay’s pep talk, instead of motiviating a win, he gets more shit from his team. Greg and Anjay are still fighting about Anjay’s decision to let Blaine go, and allowing Laurel to keep her team maintained. The bickering goes back and forth until Greg tells Anjay that if he insults him again, Greg will punch him in the face. Anger management clearly not a requirement on the Kid Nation application.

Anjay gets overwhelmed by the threat, and tries to regroup and get the team together, but it just doesn’t work and his team turns on him. Except Olivia. Olivia has no visible hostility or disgust for Anjay whatsoever. Nope, not at all

okay, maybe a little

This week the Showdown task is to load rocks into a wagon and push it over some obstacles and across the finish line. The whole crew has to get one ton of rocks across to get the reward. First team across wins upperclass, and so on. What to do, kiddies? Look out for yourselves or look out for the whole group? CBS Producer. Post-it. “No I in team” theme. Check.

In the end, they all push just about the same amount, with Laurel and the Green team coming up a little lighter than the others. Unfortunately their rocks don’t total a full ton, so no reward. Which is a real shame, because this week’s reward would have been a trailer lounge (never thought I’d put those two words next to each other in a sentence), or beds.

Frustrated that the other teams pulled less rocks than Red, Guylan announces that everyone else was thinking about where they’d place when they were deciding how many rocks to push. Personally, I kind of agree with Guylan. I think some of them were concerned about their own placement. I mean, right after he said it the camera cut to Laurel giving a very guilty whistle andlook away unassumingly look. See. She totally knows she was thinking about not finishing last.

Anyway, Sophia is offended by Guylan’s statement and says something vulgar, offensive, and apparently inappropriate for television because the entire thing is bleeped out. Come on, show it! You think she said “Guylan you are a he-she and everything McSteeny says about you is fuckin true!”? Prolly not. My bet is that he said “Fuck You.”

Guylan tries to shake it off, but it’s clear he-she’s been hurt. To make matters worse, Greg chimes in to ask how many people second what Sophia said to Guylan and they all raise their hands. That’s the worst when kids do that, isn’t it? The raise your hand if… thing. Gives me flashbacks to fifth grade when this little schmuck in my class said, “raise your hand if you think [insert my real name] is wearing a bra” (I was a very early bloomer, and yes, I was wearing a bra) and everyone raised their hands. What a dick. Curse you and your voting shithead! I wore t-shirt in the pool for years because of you!

I’ve gotten off point, I’m sorry. Anyway, they all start yelling at Guylan and cheering on Sophia for her mystery curse and Guylan looks upset. This makes me sad for him-her. Then someone who is not pictured calls him-her “Gaylan.” And now I smile and feel much better.

Having just lost a comfy bed, Randi is very upset and suddenly homesick. She is telling Taylor how much she misses her family and her animals and might go home. Taylor is border-line tears, but it’s hard to tell if she’s sad about losing her friend or one of her obedient disciples. See what you’ve done Taylor, I constantly question your motives, and the sincerity of your tears.

Randi continues to cry as Zach mocks her outside, and says that all the girls on yellow are constantly crying, and it’s ridiculous. Know what else is ridiculous Zach?

This face

Greg just so happens to be walking by and notices that Randi is upset, so he decides to be a nice guy and goes to comfort her. Yeah, I don’t buy it. Greg’s got a thing with helping the younger girls. It’s really weird. When Leila was sad he went and laid down with her, and now he’s off to Randi’s rescue? Something’s fishy.

When Greg gets to Randi he gives her a little speech about how everything is going to be ok. When he talks to her, he puts his hands on either side of her head and talks real close to her face, and tells her how proud her parents will be of her, and that she won’t have this chance again.

Look at me Randi. I’m here to make out with you, I mean, help you

Before I continue with where this goes, I will tell you that Randi is 12 years old. Greg just turned 15. Everybody caught up? Okay.

Greg finishes his face holding speech, and hugs Randi, who I guess feels better, and then he picks her up into is arms like a three year old who just got stung by a bee, and Greg carries her to bed. That’s not the worst part. Wanna know the worst part?

He didn’t even call me the next day

Listen, I really go to great lengths to avoid sexual references with this show, seeing as they’re kids and all, but I’m sorry, this was just too weird. A fifteen year old picking up a 12 year old in his arms with her legs wrapped around him and carrying her to bed. Not innocent. Something has to be said.

CBS tries to help by having Greg tell us confessional style that whenever he was upset his parents would always carry him to bed, and it made him feel better. Very true. For example, just the other day when I was upset, a guy three years older than me came and puts his hands on my face and then picked me up and carried me to bed with my legs around him, and I felt much better after that too.

The next morning is the day of the town meeting. Blaine announces that the changes were good because they made things more even and fair. Greg’s mad at Anjay still for letting Blaine get away, and tells Anjay that Mallory is more of a man than Anjay is. Why drag poor Mallory into this. What did Mallory ever do, besides blow oddly on her teddy bears face this episode? (what was that?)

Taking his cue from Anjay’s defeated, someone just killed my puppy look, Jonathan asks if anyone would like to go home. Randi raises her hand and gives another speech about missing her parents and her animals. I sure as hell hope she’s talking about something with a pulse here. I’d hate to think she’s blowing a once in a lifetime opportunity on some stuffed teddy bear in a yellow raincoat named Max. Max being the bear, not the raincoat. Just making sure we’re all on the same page here.

Taylor starts crying, and I actually do feel bad for her for a minute. Fine thirty seconds. The rest of the Pioneers kick in with the tears, and all at once Randi is gone. Three minutes later Dex calls me to let me know that due to Randi’s departure, his list has been changed to the Top NINE hottest asses in Bonanza City.

But enough about Dex and his sick and twisted lists gasmii, it’s Gold Star time. This week’s nominees are Blaine and Hunter. Blaine really pulled a lot of weight for yellow, and Hunter has worked hard for a while now and also doubles as the Bonanza City pastor. Let’s see. They’ve showed Blaine about fifty times this episode and Hunter about three. Who ever will it be?

Drum roll, and the winner is Blaine. Laurel tells us Blaine is a hard worker, and has great hair and a great personality. Oooooooh, does anyone else sense a crush here, or am I just the most immature 28 year old person in the world who just likes to pretend little kids have crushes on each other? Never mind, I think I know the answer.

Blaine calls his parents, $20,000 gold star, blah blah blah, yawn. Let’s get to the good stuff that happened before that, shall we?

Jonathan asks if the Pioneers are happy with what the council is doing. Only Blaine is happy. Well of course he’s happy he just got the gold star. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Everyone else is displeased. Greg still hates Anjay, and Sophia actually comes out and says she disagreed with Laurel’s decision not to welcome anyone onto Green, calling the decision “selfish.” Well well, well, mutiny on the USS Laurel. I was not expecting this.

Jonathan announces that in light of the discontent with Council, there will be re-elections. But who will be running? Greg wants to run against Anjay: pick your poison with that one as far as I’m concerned. Blaine wants to run against Zach: Thanks for playing Zach, yer done. DK wants to run against Guylan: Hip-hip DK, DK’s a crowd favorite. And, uh oh, Michael wants to run against Laurel. The crowd is shocked. Frankly so am I. That’s gonna be tough one to call. What do you all think? Can’t wait till next week to see all the drama unfold!