Swimming with SHARKS

As one of the lead members of the “Why doesn’t somebody take Wes behind the woodshed and put us all out of our misery” club, I have enjoyed the way that he has been targeted on Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat. That being said, I have to give Wes props for going into the Exile three times and coming back every single time. Although I am sure that Katie could relate to how Wes was feeling, Wes is now completely alone. His dumb friends are gone, his girlfriend is gone, his partner avoids him, and apparently even his sunscreen runs the other way, and the odds are strong that he was going to continue being sent into the Exile until he didn’t come back.TVgasm: The Best Recaps, News and Gossip in Television:After watching last week’s episode, I think Wes is really missing the point of his partner. You can say whatever you want about her determination, her heart, her intelligence, etc., but the fact that this girl packed less than any other girl in the house obviously makes her the best partner to have. As much as he can’t stand her, the reason why he gets to talk so much shit about sending people home from exile is because his partner such a “lightweight”. Considering all of the people left in the game, is there any team that has packed less than the 100 pounds Wes and Casey have to lug around?

Every week, the producers seem to tease us with the possibility that Tina and Kenny are going to be going into Exile, and this week was no different. Tina has been in this game before, and is taking things VERY seriously. She has been complaining for a long time that her partner, Kenny, is not taking Challenge seriously enough. For some reason, she can’t understand why Kenny refuses to acknowledge that the Challenge is more than just a game. This is one of the greatest parts about Fresh Meat. People like Tina, addicted to the fame and money that comes with being on television, but who do not actually possess any of the talent necessary to be on television, clash with people like Kenny who are still giddy over the thought on being on TV and still have hopes of an actual career.

Early on, the team to beat was Evan and Coral. It seemed like they were just rolling through the competition and nobody could stop them. They have been slowed down a little bit, and Coral is a little worried because there have been two competitions in a row that they haven’t finished first. OH THE HORROR. I think that this team can bounce back, but they seem to have a problem with hernias. Evan has a sports hernia, and you know that it’s only a matter of time before Coral has her own herniated disc from trying to keep those melons of hers upright.

I know tthey have to blur out pubic hair, but what sort of happy trail is Evan sporting there?

Evan is actually really worried that he is going to have a real problem with his injury. It’s already past the point where simple rest can help him, and so he’ll need surgery as soon as he gets out of Australia. Having suffered from a hernia myself at one time, I am sympathetic to Evan, but seriously, if this guy is in such bad shape, why is frolicking around with Wes? I know that as the Neo-Miz Evan must keep a certain level of meathead antics and Coral boob jokes or people will wonder what is wrong with him, but why waste time on beating on Wes? Can’t you leave that job for a Kangaroo?

Fortunately for Evan, their next challenge wasn’t too difficult. They only had to get in a pool WITH SOME SHARKS. The task, called Shark Bait, required the teams to finish a puzzle. Their puzzle pieces were spread around a tank of water. To make sure that none of teams had an unfair advantage, the other teams were sequestered before they had to jump in the aquarium. Oh, and did I mention that there were SHARKS?

Shane and Linette, who won the last challenge, got to pick the order, and they figured since there was no real advantage by waiting around decided to go first. OK, actually, they went second. They let Wes and Casey go first, just in case any of those pesky SHARKs were hungry. Obviously, I am being a little dramatic on the whole SHARKS angle, because a quick look at Wikipedia shows that shark attacks are very rare, and only four species have been known to attack humans. That being said, I’m glad I wasn’t in that pool.

The teams had only ten minutes to finish the challenge, and when Wes said that he was a state champion in swimming, I started to get worried that they might actually finish with the best time and therefore avoid being sent into exile. Since this was a relay event, one team member had to wait while the other swam out and picked up a piece before they could go out and find one of their own. Swimming must not be that popular in Kansas, because if Wes is the best they have, he didn’t do so great; he and Casey ran out of time before even getting a chance to start the puzzle.

After Wes and Casey failed to finish, Wes couldn’t even muster up a couple of decent insults for his partner. I’m wondering if he is actually starting to mellow or if he’s just given up on trying to keep himself out of exile. The next team to go was Shane and Linette. Shane has always been a good competitor in these challenges, and as long as the task doesn’t involve brute strength, he usually does pretty well. I’m not sure if Shane was a high school swimming champion (something tells me he might have hung out by the pool), but he and Linette didn’t seem like they had too much difficulty with the puzzle.

The next team was Tina and Kenny. Personally, I really like Kenny. He may not be the coolest, but he seems to really piss off Tina, and that makes you a winner in my book. That being said, Kenny never gives up in the challenges, so I don’t know why Tina gets so upset with him. Kenny lost his fins, which meant he was swimming a lot slower, and when time ran out, Tina screamed that Italians couldn’t swim. Actually, I think the proper slur is supposed to be that black people can’t swim, but both Darrell’s team and Chanda’s team were able to finish, so I’m not even going to be able to make that joke.

The teams that had the most trouble were Eric and Katie and Coral and Evan. I know, you are probably thinking that those teams went down because Eric’s was too fat and Evan was slowed by his hernia, but that was not the case. I’m not sure if Eric and Katie could have finished, but the reason why they lost was because Katie was scared to death of getting in the pool and swimming with sharks. It actually looked like she just wasn’t a strong swimmer, and the sharks were making her a lot more nervous. If she only imagined that the sharks were little Veronicas or Rachels, she probably would have just punched them in the face.

I don’t know, I just can’t stop laughing at this picture.

For Coral and Evan, the weak link was Coral. She mentioned that she worked on swimming, knowing that it was one of her weaknesses in other challenges. I am not sure what sort of training Coral did, but I can’t imagine that she did much more at the pool than sit on the side and keep her boobs tan. Maybe if she worked on killing spiders, she would have a little bit more success.

In the end, the team with the best time was Shane and Linette. One of the other reasons I like Shane in these challenges is that he’s not one to simply jump on the bandwagon and do what other people do. It’s a great attitude, but not this week. Shane said that he thought it wasn’t fair how people were being voted into Exile, which meant that he somehow felt bad for Wes. Therefore, he is going to start doing things on merit, which means that they were going to vote Katie and Eric in instead. That’s great and everything, because Katie and Eric have sucked, but it’s not like Wes is doing any better.

And like many people have wondered, if the point of this competition is to win, don’t you want to go up against weaker teams in the end? Most of these people have been in the finals, they know that it’s going to be some sort of endurance something, so wouldn’t you want to be racing Katie and Eric or Tina and Kenny, and not Evan and Coral? I know in past challenges, this was a problem because there was a chance of losing a strong member of your team, but since each team is really playing for themselves, I am sure the others wouldn’t mind putting up another strong team to compete. This thing is supposed to be fair? You are getting paid to get drunk, hook up, and run around Australia every now and then! This is not like an actual sport. You don’t get penalized for fixing matches or anything, so why not be as shrewd as possible?

With Eric and Katie in the Exile, it seemed like this whole fairness epidemic seemed to sweep everybody else. Instead of voting Wes into Exile, everybody decided that it was time for Tina to face elimination. I really wanted to get upset about this decision, but I hate Tina too, so how could I complain? When it came time for Kenny and Tina to vote, they were the only people receiving votes, but if everybody else voted for, say, Wes and Casey, they would have to go to some sort of tiebreaker. Unfortunately, Kenny voted for himself to go into exile, which surprised everybody, and made the voting kind of worthless.

Tina was furious because she couldn’t figure out why Kenny had voted for the two of them. She accused Kenny of having no dignity, and coming from Tina, that is saying a LOT. Kenny argued that he did it because he knew the vote would be unanimous against him, so why should he fight it? Now true, the numbers made it look like it was unanimous, even though you didn’t know what could happen. Personally, I don’t think what Kenny did was that bad. Besides, the two of them still have a chance to save themselves out of exile by winning next week’s challenge

So there you go. I am not sure what it was about this episode, but I couldn’t really get into it. I guess I was so used to seeing Wes go into exile, I was kind of thrown off. With Tonya gone and Wes subdued, somebody else has to step up and be the bad guy, especially if Tina is gone next week. I especially can’t stand the way these people think about the votes. I guess I should be used to this type of shit by now, but it’s too bad that for all of the shit these people talk about being better than everybody else, in the end they are really just scared of one another.

What did you think of the episode? Can Evan make it to the end? Can Katie and Eric or Tina and Kenny save themselves from Exile? Who do you think is going home?