Pull Your Own Weight

Sometimes, it is hard to put a finger on why you love a television show. For instance, take the case of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno II. What does it have to offer that other reality shows don’t have? It’s not new and original characters, because the same people are recycled. It’s not new and exotic locations, because they are in Mexico, the Caribbean, or some backwoods place nobody wants to be anyway. It’s surely not for the competitions, because many, many shows have much more interesting stuff going on. I don’t think it’s the host. Dave Mirra might be able to do a 540 double tail whip, but he is no Phil or Jeff Probst. No, the thing that sets Bunim/Murray apart is the possibility that at any moment in time, any one of the people on the show will simply break down and go crazy.Last week, a lot of shit happened to Beth. Again, she sucks, but it is really horrible to have to participate on a team when nobody else wants you around. She may not be athletically gifted, and she is the oldest, but the only reason any of her teammates want her gone is their own insecurities. As long as they all believe she is the worst player, nobody else can them the worst player. It works for everybody, doesn’t it?

When faced with this type of betrayal from your own teammates, you have a few choices. One way is to sit and take it, and resign to your fate. Another way is to go down in flames, and vow to take as many people with you. This latter method is how Beth chooses to play the rest of the game, and for that, I’ll have to say thank you. Since these challenges involve money, if Beth sticks around and is truly out to sabotage her own team, there is little they can do to stop her, right? It’s the other team that chooses who goes in the Inferno.

Well, not quite. There is always the lifesaver. One is awarded to each team, and so if they can somehow fix the lifesaver competitions, they can always find a way to get Beth into the Inferno. Fixing missions is nothing new. I always believe that fixing these competitions is one of the worst things to happen, and always makes watching the show very obnoxious. In the last Inferno, the Road Rules team continually tried to get rid of Katie, but she was always able to come back. As much as I want Beth to mess shit up, I don’t think she has much chance to go into the Inferno and come back alive like the lovely Ms. Doyle did so often.

Anyway, Beth calls out Abe about fixing the game, and he denies that there was any discussion like that. Once again, Abram can’t stand up when somebody calls him out on his behavior. Although he likes to pretend he hated putting the fix in to get rid of Katie last year, he was one of the people who was really hamming it up while the Real World[that should be Road Rules team. thanks Penny] team was bailing on the competition. If he didn’t like fixing the loss so badly, you would think he wouldn’t have had so much fun rubbing it into Katie’s face.

Our competition this week was called Run for Your Money. 10 bags filled with $1000 would be dropped from a helicopter at a predetermined interval. Some of the bags were filled with singles, some with fives, and some with twenties. The team that collected the most money would win, and the individual person on each team who collected the most money among their team would win the lifesaver.

As noted before, the Bad Asses decided to throw the mission. They wanted to get rid of Beth so badly, they all decided that they would stuff Tina with as much money as she could carry. If they got her out of the Inferno, they would simply insert Beth, and since she sucks she would lose, and their team would be happy once more. As crazy as it sounds that they had all of this money dropped on them, it was kind of a lackluster competition. People were running around and chasing after the money, but there wasn’t nearly as much mayhem as I was expecting there to be. Nobody really smashed into each other, or pushed other out of the way, or tried to steal any money from them. In fact, other than the Bad Asses stuffing Tina to what looked like twice her already prominent girth, there didn’t seem to be any strategy whatsoever from any team.

When Robin saw what the other team was doing for Tina, she immediately had a dejected look on her face. She really bought into this idea that the Bad Asses loved Tina so much, they didn’t want to see her go. Robin wondered why her team didn’t like her so much as to fix the game for her. Eventually, she told Jaime and Shavonda what was going on with the other team, and those two decided they would try and help out Robin. When Mike finds this out, he sort of complains. I think it sucks, but it is a valid strategy. Then again, you have to think what would be in it for Jaime and Shavonda. Unlike the Bad Asses, there is no consensus person who would get sent to the Inferno if Robin was saved. Jaime and Shavonda would likely get picked, and although you could argue that they would try and get rid of Jodi or Julie, why even take that chance? Because they are girls, and it sucks to hurt other people’s feelings.

After the time was up and the teams had collected all of their money, Dave Mirra threw in a little bit of a twist. Everybody was going to get five minutes to count up their money. After the five minutes was over, each player would write down the number they had counted. Afterwards, Dave Mirra would do an official count. Only those people who counted their money correctly would count towards their teams totals. Likewise, anybody who collected money but counted it wrong would not be in the running for the lifesaver.

Man oh man, I am not sure who came up with this twist, but it was absolutely beautiful. A very small change, but a change that completely affected the game, and actually slightly penalized a player who had more money, since they would have more to count accurately. It basically smacked the Bad Asses across the face for their strategy. They thought that they could fix the game for Tina and still win, but they were wrong.

So the counting commenced. It doesn’t really take that long to count money, but the teams were also supposed to bind all of the money neatly and rubber band it. It seems like a short time, but the money wasn’t real, and so it was color coded, meaning that people could count by color and not denomination. Still, when you saw the huge wads of cash Tina had to go through, you knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and then you have to factor in how high you think Tina can count, and well, you get the picture.

The counting requirement was great news for the Good Guys, but if Robin wanted to save herself, she was also going to have to count accurately, and she also had a lot of extra money thanks to the people helping her out. In the end, neither Robin or Tina one the life shield, having been wrong with their counting by 7 and 10 dollars. Mike won it for the Good Guys and Derrick won it for the Bad Asses. Since the Bad Asses put so much money into Tina’s hands, her money didn’t count towards the total. Since more of the Good Guys counted on their own, they ended up winning 881 to 619. It was also their first competition win and the first $10,000 to go into their bank account.

With all of the great schemes having failed, Robin and Tina were headed to the Inferno. As matchups go, this one seemed pretty even if you were doing a tale of the tape, but the intangibles I would have to give to Tina. She is annoying, loud, and unattractive, but if she wants to get nasty, she can get nasty. This week’s Inferno challenge was called “Sack Attack”. Each person would get tied into a harness. That harness was attached to a bag that was equal to half of that person’s body weight. The contestants would then drag themselves along a sandy pit until they reach the edge of the Inferno cage. Once there, they had to use a key to unlock themselves from their harness. The first person to free themselves would win, sending the other person home.

Like I said before, this seemed like a pretty fair challenge. Both of these ladies aren’t exactly svelte, and Robin is carrying probably 10 more pounds of boobage than somebody her size normally would. When the challenge started, it looked like Robin was going to pull ahead quickly, but then she slowed down. Tina eventually caught up, and then stormed ahead by getting low and using her hands and arms as much as her legs to get her through the deep sand. In the end, Tina destroyed Robin, who didn’t even make it to the edge before she was eliminated.

So, Robin makes the second of the Good Guys to go home. It always hurts when you lose a teammate, but everybody seemed to like her, and everybody was about the same level in the competitions. Robin was sort of upset because she felt her team didn’t have her back, but as Brad said, there was no expendable teammate on the Good Guys. If Robin didn’t go in the Inferno, another person would have had to go, and the team would have been just as disappointed if that person had lost. Robin gave her last, teary goodbye, saying she was proud to be a member of the Good Guys and she hopes that they win.

Even though it was sad to see Robin go, that was not nearly the most exciting part of this week’s episode. Beth and her vendetta against her team is going to be something to see. Now perhaps all of what we have seen up to this point is simply hype, and her team manages to get rid of her in the next challenge or two, but it is going to be fun to figure out. Beth has already moved on from her beef with Tonya, and called out Veronica at the end of the show. Now, I didn’t think her smack talk amounted to anything that great (You’ve won all the time, You would sell your family up the river to win), all of the housemates heard it and let out with the “Aaawwwws” and “Daaayummms” and the “Ooooohs”, so hopefully there will be more bad blood festering as the weeks progress.