The Next Great Chump

Watching tonight’s episode of Road Rules: X-Treme made me think that television might just be a better place if more washed-up reality stars beat the shit out of each other every week. Imagine it. Coral vs. Omarosa. Rupert Boneham vs. Boston Rob. The Miz vs. Evan Marriot (that’s Joe Millionaire, in case you forgot). The possibilities are endless.

The thought dawned upon me while watching Angela and Tina punch the bejesus out of each other during the climactic event on Face Off Island. You see, tonight’s episode served as Part 2 of the fascinating battle between Road Rules: X-Treme and Road Rules: South Pacific. Savvy viewers might remember that when we last left this electrifying showdown, the new cast had a comfy lead over the pros, which is baffling since half the older kids had kept their skills sharp by performing similarly inane tasks on various Real World/Road Rules Challenges. Still, despite being behind, the older kids had one last shot to reclaim their dignity during a wild and chaotic boxing showdown. Needless to say, blood was shed.Before we got to the pugilistic antics of this episode though, we did need to wrap up some sloppily tacked on cliffhanger issues from last week. When we last tuned in, Mary Beth was doing the tango with Patrick, much to Jillian’s consternation. We were left to fret about the romantic implications of this flirting, but contrary to MTV’s assumptions, I don’t think anyone has been spending the past seven days nervously wondering if the Jillian/Patrick union could withstand this major setback. I mean, it’s not like they’re Demi and Ashton. Actually, I don’t care about them either.

Well, in true Bunim/Murray fashion, this minor flirting resulted in… nothing. Jillian started dancing with Abram, Mary Beth let out a mannish laugh, and the entire tango tease fizzled away into a medley of peppy rock music and footage of the moon. Has anyone else noticed that on any given reality show, lunar cutaway shots have become the de facto “Uh, we don’t know how to end this scene…” transition cheats? It’s like the moon adds some significance or irony to something that wasn’t there before. Cast members could be discussing lint, and then a random transitional shot of the moon will show up, and we’re supposed to say “Ooh, how romantic” or “Ooooh, there’s gonna be a fight” or “Ooh, this is foreshadowing something ironic. Perhaps a visit to a laundromat!” You get the point.

After the white hot romantic action at the top of the show, the Road Rulers woke up early for their next X-Treme face off: egg chugging. I know what you’re thinking: was there a bungee or a blindfold involved? No. People just had to chug six raw eggs as quickly as possible. Now maybe I’m a little jaded, but this just wasn’t very hardcore compared to the poor people on The Amazing Race who had to eat a whole ostrich egg, which is the equivalent of, you know, 24 normal eggs. Stupid Road Rulers.

MTV once again took the classy route by happily airing ample amounts of egg-vomit footage. First we saw Abram proudly standing above a floating mess of boot in some now-polluted body of water. If that wasn’t bad enough, we then had to watch almost all of these people regurgitate their eggy stomach contents in a variety of ways. Chris, who said cheers to the Holy Spirit before drinking his eggs (okay Chris, we get it. You’re religious. Big deal…), went galloping over to the water for some Jesus induced-vomiting. I hope he didn’t kill some poor Christ-representing fish. Meanwhile, Tina followed her egg cocktail with a variety of unflattering hacks and grunts which proved that her vileness knows no bounds.

Probably the most comedic reaction was Angela who burst into a fit of tears after her egg-sperience (get it??? Okay, I’ll never do that again). The resident drama queen threw a minor hissy fit when she discovered that no one had filled up her water bottle and then ran over to the lake or river or whatever it was and booted. For some reason she burst into tears, which had me wondering if Angela knew she was actually drinking just eggs. I mean, it’s not like she was being forced to kill a little peasant boy. Maybe she had some yolk-induced childhood trauma. A Jehova’s Witness visit gone wrong?

With the egg challenge over, the battle moved from Face Off Island to a dirty boxing ring where the Road Rulers learned they would be boxing each other for points. Fantastic! Abram started punching air with angry sounds that confirmed that he does in fact suck. Meanwhile, a crowd ambled in, and Tina prepared to enter the ring first. Now, I was too lazy to get a screen shot, but I must say that Tina in boxing attire was more ghastly than I could have imagined. Still, eyesores be damned, the sight of Tina and Angela duking it out was fantastic. Of course Tina demolished the whiny wardrobe assistant with a few uppercuts and few loud growls from her skateboard-on-asphalt voice. Angela cried into the arms of Jodi, complaining that her head hurts so much. If only she had the magic power of the giant blue choker flower…

Up next was Derrick vs. Chris. This was a no-brainer. Derrick’s a scrappy kid from the streets. Chris is a preacher boy from Hollywood. In what proved to be the most exciting and visceral of the bouts, Derrick easily dominated over the taller and more handsome Chris. Turns out the Born Again Boxer has only one move in his repertoire: a wildly thrown roundhouse punch, which more often than not was whiffing magnificently through the air. By the end of the fight, Chris was a bloodied mess. It was kind of like MTV’s version of The Passion of the Christ, except in convenient Bunim/Murray packaging.

Jillian and Mary Beth were up next, which meant a whole lot of bouncing around and light fist plunging actions which I suppose were punches. Since nothing was really going on in the fight and since the animosity between the two girls was largely manufactured by editing, MTV had to supplement the tension – or lack thereof – by providing dumb flashbacks to the night before with Patrick flirting with both girls. I really wish these moments were tongue and cheek, but I fear that they weren’t. It was a genuinely lame attempt to raise the stakes on another dull Road Rules moment.

Nevertheless, Mary Beth went down easily. She had lasted fairly long thanks to a little pirouette move she’d use every time Jillian landed a punch. It was this weird thing where she’d just go twirling off to another corner. I hope that Mike Tyson adopts it next time.

With Mary Beth going down on her knees, Road Rules X-Treme was only one victory away from clinching the $12,000 prize from Capri Sun. Question: Is this prize better or worse than the Chili’s prize or the Ion Lifesaver on The Challenge? Anyway, Patrick and Abram were next on the bill. Now, a year ago, we were all so happy when Abram beat up Donnell. How things have changed. After two Challenges and a sizeable inflation of the ego, Abram now has become of the reality stars we’d love to see clocked.

How fortunate for us then that he was slated against Patrick, our favorite jacked Ben Affleck doppleganger. As hard as Abram tried, he just could not rattle his opponent. Patrick’s only flaw was that he seemed to keep tripping in the ring. Well, I’ll spare you the details of this bout and just say that in the end, Abram had a bloody face and a black eye. Fantastic. Oh, and he was actually knocked out. The little bugger couldn’t get off his back.

Well, with that victory, the X-Treme kids nabbed their prize money and sent South America packing. Jillian proudly cooed over Patrick, happy to have her man back to herself again. As the show came to a close, Jillian noted that she was potentially falling in love with Patrick, which I guess can happen after five long days of knowing each other. You know, in summer camp, five days is like 25 years. I’m sure her parents are so proud.