Battle of the Easy Riders

I would like to know: is anybody out there really rooting for the Bad Asses over the Good Guys in the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno 2? I know, I know. There are some people out there who like the bad boy attitudes that CT, Derrick, and Abram bring to the table, but how much of that juvenile charm does it take to overcome the collective abomination represented by Tina, Rachel, and Veronica? All of my frustration with those three is compounded by the fact that the Good Guys have not won an Inferno yet, which means that none of the Bad Asses have been eliminated. Even worse, it means that the already inflated egos of the Bad Asses are being fed to absolutely astronomical proportions. This week, the Good Guys get another shot at the Bad Asses when Julie is scheduled to go against Tonya.Last week, I was sort of disappointed. The Bad Asses had to make their nominations first, and they chose Julie. It is well known that Julie hates Veronica, and so I thought she would change names at the last minute, which, for the last time, DOES NOT BREAK ANY RULES, and choose Veronica. Rachel made a heartfelt (and by heartfelt, I mean completely shallow and self-serving) plea for the Good Guys to play fair which might have affected the decision to stick with the vote and send Tonya in.

For her part, Julie says that it is going to be hard to get motivated to beat Tonya. In her mind a battle against Veronica would be a battle against evil. Tonya, on the other hand, is really sort of a victim, at least in this game. She is not enough of a lesbian to enter the Tina, Veronica, and Rachel clique (and to be clear, when I say that, I am not trying to say that lesbians are bitches, but that these three bitches just happen to be lesbians) and for that reason, Tonya is the enemy of pretty much everybody on her team except for Dan. Recently, Tina, Rachel, and Veronica have tried to be a little nicer to Tonya, in hopes that they don’t piss her off so much she sabotages the team, but Tonya is not falling for it so far. She hates the other three girls, but I am sure she doesn’t want to sacrifice her chances at winning money either, so she plays along in their little game.

The competition this week is called “Time to Ride.” Each person has to get on a Kicker 5150 mini-hog and choose one of two courses to complete, both of them going across the water. The short course is only 45 feet long in a straight line, but your path to the finish is only 16 inches wide. The long route is 240 feet long with many turns, but is also four feet wide, meaning it will be much easier to stay on. The winning team is the one with the shortest cumulative time, and a player is disqualified if they wreck the bike, go in the water, or don’t keep their feet on the pegs.

No game is good without some Miz antics, and when he sees that this game involves motorcycles, diminutive as they may be, he announces that he has some face paint and is going to paint himself a handlebar mustache and a goatee. In reality, there was no goatee, and it wasn’t a handlebar ‘stache because he connected it to the sideburns. I would more likely call it a sidewinder or “friendly chops” (not to be confused with mutton chops). I am also pretty sure that he didn’t just happen to bring face paint and it was more than likely either the producers egged him on or he asked the makeup people for some help, but whatever the motivation was, it looked a lot less like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and a lot more like something you would see on a poster outside of the Tomkat theater. Landon, who Mike was calling “Rex,” slapped some painted mutton chops on as well.

The short route didn’t look that hard, and with Abram up first, the Bad Asses were looking to show off some more dominance. Abram was sure that he only needed to get up to speed and it would be a straight shot across the short route. Well, Abram got about two feet before he tipped over and into the water. In the previews for this episode, I saw that clip of him falling in the water, and it was the funniest thing imaginable. This time, it wasn’t quite as humorous. I mean, it was funny, but seeing it in full context just didn’t send me rolling like I thought it would.

Anyway, Abram’s failure opened a lot of eyes. This game was not going to be so easy, and it was going to be a battle of times on the long course, because nobody was really going to have the balls to try the short route again. The Good Guys were stoked because they would only have to stay on the course to win because of Abram’s DQ. Unfortunately for them, that didn’t prove so easy. When Mike made his run, he made it to the end on the long course, but failed to stop his bike before it went into the water at the final platform. Even though he finished the course, falling off at the end was another DQ, and so both teams were tied.

Riding those bikes proved a difficult task for almost everybody. Mike is a big guy, so it might be hard for him to maneuver, but even the smaller people had trouble. Tina mentioned that she thought she would have an easier time on the course being a smaller person. I am not sure how Tina considers herself a smaller person, maybe she works on the set of Fat Actress or something. Most people took the course slow, and there were plenty of disqualifications including Shavonda (feet off the bike), Jamie (face first into water), and Rachel (fell into water and also had the honor of falling off faster than anybody else on the long course).

With the disqualifications even, the Good Guys needed a good time from Julie to pull off a win, but Julie wanted to win the life shield, so she was headed for the short route. She believed that the path to God was straight and narrow, so it must have been some sign for her to take the short route. Her teammates were screaming at her to go the long way, but she wanted the lifeshield, so she didn’t listen to their shouts. She went no farther than Abram, and also fell into the water, basically guaranteeing another win for the Bad Asses.

The only suspense after Julie’s fall would be to see who would win the life shield for the Bad Asses. Tonya went last, and although it looked like she wasn’t one of the fastest people on the course, she completed it in only 59 seconds. Unfortunately for her, that was 2 seconds slower than Derrick, meaning she would still be in the Inferno with Julie. The Bad Asses did end up winning, placing their bank at $70,000 compared to $50,000 for the Good Guys.

I was looking forward to this Inferno. Sure, it wasn’t going to be Abram vs. Brandon [that should be Brad, thanks GNARKILL], but both Julie and Tonya have a little bit of a crazy streak in them, so throwing the two of them into the Inferno would be good. As luck would have it, the Inferno event, called “Patch Work,” was basically a cat-fight simulation. The girls would don jumpsuits, each with 27 patches on them (which looked less like patches and more like condom packets), and they would each try and grab as many of the patches off the other as possible and place them in a basket. The person with the most patches in their basket after the time expired would win, and to add a little more difficulty, they would be suspended by wires, so they couldn’t just slam each other on the ground and start pulling, although just describing that does have a certain allure.

Tonya was really stoked when she heard she was going to get to rip shit off of Julie, and both girls were really getting into the competition. The Infernos have slowly been a little more head-to-head, physical battles instead of simply side-by-side events, so this was fun to see. If I was drunk and stoned, it might have reminded me of some sort of low budget Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, if the movie had taken place at a state fair and was performed by people with epilepsy. As the patches were counted, it was very close: 23-22, and Julie was sent home. I am not so sure it was that close; the producers probably asked Dave Mirra to keep the real winner a secret, but make the score close for the excitement of the people at home. Whatever it was, Julie had to leave. Another tearful exit for the Good Guys, and another ego-boost for the Bad Asses.

It was nice to see Tonya win because most of her teammates didn’t really care if she lost, but it is starting to get ridiculous with the Good Guys. In the end, the only thing that really matters is the final competition. The Bad Asses could have twice as much money in their bank and twice as many people on their team, but it will be for nothing if they can’t pull it off in the end. Increasingly, this is what I pin my hopes on. However, this season is so enjoyable, even a Bad Asses win in the end isn’t going to take that much away from the season.

What do you think? Who are you rooting for? What is the most annoying thing about the lesbian clique (does anybody believe Tina is a future MILF?)? Can the Miz rally the troops?