Recap: Road Rules: Keep On Rockin With Road Rules

For the last couple of weeks, I have had one thing in mind when I turned on Road Rules, i.e. “Will Veronica get back into the RV?” and “How long will it take her to rip Kina’s face off when she gets there?” OK, so that’s two things, but you get the point. So far, the people on the RV have been acting like one big happy family, which is exactly what you are looking for in most situations, but this is Road Rules. Having one big happy family does us no good. What we really need is a bunch of petty arguments to get these people really pissed at each other. Luckily, I think a lot of viewers think the same way that I do, and since we are partially responsible for what’s happening on the show, that means Veronica has a great shot of getting back on the RV and making all of our wishes come true.Tori was picked to go into the Pit and we still weren’t given any sort of clue as to why they are only voting for one person to go into the pit instead of two, but I am guessing they were running into a time crunch. People were only able to vote for the Road Ruler for a few hours after the episode aired. Now since we are only voting for the pit crew, it can happen all week. It takes a little bit extra out of the voting aspect, but I really think the voting was kind of secondary. The viewers want more DRAMA.

Tori was voted into the pit by the luck of the draw, and the viewers decided to place her into the Pit with Veronica. Last time around, the challenge was physical so Veronica had a slight disadvantage. She is a good competitor, but in a battle of body mass, she is always going to lose. This week the battle was a puzzle, which means that it was going to be a battle of brain mass, and not to rip on Veronica too much, but she doesn’t always come out on top in those battles either.

The puzzle had seven pieces, but the girls were given nine pieces, meaning they would have to use their brains to figure out which pieces were extra. That’s not quite extreme enough, so the pieces were placed at one end of the room, while the finished puzzle had to be assembled on the other end. The girls were only allowed to bring one piece at a time, forcing them to shuttle back and forth with the pieces.

I have to say that for the most part, Drew is still kind of a douche, but at least he isn’t taking away from the program. He is finally using his arms in an almost natural manner when he speaks. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do to make this battle very exciting. Oh, he called it exciting, and you know that whenever a puzzle is thrown at these people, it is going to take more than the five minutes that most 1st graders take to finish, but there was something missing. In the end, Tori won, and Veronica admitted that she would much rather go into the Pit with somebody that she hates, like Kina.

Back inside the RV, everybody was really hoping that Tori came back because, like I said, they are all about one big happy family. Therefore, they were all really happy to see the beauty queen waiting for them at whatever undisclosed location they were picking her up from. Dan was especially happy because Tori also started life out in the Pit, meaning that she was also doing this for the first time. This gave them some sort of connection, which a number believe might turn out to be romantic at some point in time. As for me, I’m a cynic, and knowing how the veterans operate, it is always a better idea to have newbies around, because that makes it easier to spread the blame.

While I think the viewers voting has been a mixed bag, the other great part about having the show taking place in real time is that the people in the RV get to see what we have to say about them. Each of the people in the RV and the Pit have a blog. I wouldn’t really call them a blog, but since they are written and on the Internet and corporate America loves to hear the word “blog”, that what we’ll call them. Other than voting for Veronica, the fans at the official Road Rules site at MTV like to talk about Kina, specifically her make up. Kina stopped putting her makeup on somewhere between hooker and clown, and the fans have no trouble letting her hear about it, and the rest of the people in the RV had no problem sucking it up. Kina acted like it really hurt, but come on, she has been doing dumb shit on TV for a while now. This can’t be the first time she has read that people think she is stupid and/or a skank.

An autograph in from Kina. Worth it’s weight in eyeliner.

Another cool thing about this season, as long as you live in California, is that the episodes are taking place in real time, meaning you could end up running into some of these people at some point or another. No, I don’t have any inside tips on where they might be going, but if you want to have one of these folks sign an autograph for you, you can start by visiting your local Wendy’s. The Wendy’s / Under Armor advertiser combo seems kind of strange. In one corner, you have an apparel manufacturer created to help people look as buff as possible. In the other corner, you have a fast food restaurant with a food lineup that does just the opposite. Hmm, maybe Paula Abdul was when she came up with that song.

The people at Wendy’s were so happy to see the Road Rulers, and I am sure it had nothing to do with being Wendy’s employees, but eventually the RV had to make it’s way to Joshua Tree Lake for the next challenge. The message on their Cingular Blackjack said the next mission was going to rock, double entendre INTENDED. And actually, it became a triple entendre. The mission was going to rock because they were rock climbing, and it was also going to rock because they were going to be carrying rocks. It rocked so much, it was recursive (not really, but who doesn’t like using recursive for completely no reason every now and then?).

Climbing the rock was easy to figure out, but why all the extra rocks, 304 lbs to be exact? That represented Dan and Tori’s weights combined. And while we were all at home marveling at the symbolism, the Road Rules were at Turtle Rock nearly shitting themselves. They had to split this extra 300 pounds among the six of them, and they all had to climb the rock and rappel down all within two hours.

Early on, I thought that it was going to be game over for the Road Rules. Adam is an experienced mountain climber, but with the added weight, he was really struggling. He and Susie took almost 42 minutes to complete their climb, and if you multiply that times three, you get 126 minutes, which is more than the two hours time limit, which means that if they didn’t pick up their pace, they were going to miss out on the money. Luckily, Shane and Kina did much better, even though Shane said that he was scared because he could “die at any point”. If this was a free climb or he wasn’t wearing a helmet, maybe. These folks were strapped in and there was about as much chance of dying in this mission as there was drowning two weeks ago.

Shane and Kina went relatively fast, and after they were done, Dan and Tori were left to finish the task in about 53 minutes. I know that’s a lot of pressure, but if Kina can get herself and her Tammy Faye Baker mask (i.e., her face) up and down in less than thirty minutes, Dan and Tori could do it having been given almost an hour. There was a little bit of worry towards the middle as Dan became frustrated that he couldn’t make his way up. He was getting frustrated, and I thought that they could actually lose. Then his teammates started giving him encouragement (read: telling him not to fuck up or he’ll go home), and he was able to regroup and move along. He got out of his difficult spot by moving his right leg like two inches to the right. He and Tori got to the top and made it to the bottom with almost six minutes to spare. Yay!

That was a little drama, and with the voting coming along, that should be good for a lot more. Unfortunately, the most exciting part after the rock climbing was Adam farting in the RV. Deliberations are supposed to go badly, especially when the volunteer system is in place, because nobody likes to put their ass on the line, which leads to lots of dumb arguments, and I thought there was a dumb argument when they previewed the episode at the beginning. Instead, Kina volunteered herself. She saw that Veronica and Angel were the top vote getters and she was confident she could beat either one of them. WTF? Kina just deprived us of the most enjoyable part of the show: the arguing! Can’t she get anything right?

So, Kina is in the Pit and I am guessing she is going to go up against Veronica. I hope Veronica brings her A game because we desperately need somebody to stir some shit up on the RV. What did you think of the episode? Who do you want to see battle Kina?