Recap: Inferno: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

So let’s say you’re in your 20s and on a reality show. Let’s also say you’ve been sent to South Africa to compete in silly challenges and live in a house way nicer than you’ll ever live in. How does one go about unwinding and letting off steam from the hectic world that is THE INFERNO? Well for the dimwits still left in this house there is one answer – WRESTLING. Whenever me and my friends hang out and drink it always devolves into us ripping of our shirts and having a nice homo-erotic battle. This always goes over real well when we start doing it at Whole Foods. I openly wonder 2 other things about this. 1. Why is Aneesa involved in this? I thought she has a leg/back injury. I’m sure wrestling is gonna heal that quicker. 2. We keep seeing Tonya’s butt being blurred out, which I’m sure must have been a horrific sight for all those involved. Really though, I just have to say that nothing is more fun than half naked wrestling near a pool with a bunch of idiotic reality “stars”. Why else do we come to The Inferno?After “naked wrestling fun time” we get the usual scene of the gang being texted a clue. Susie reads it. It has the line “make sure you’re charged.” Well our gumshoe detectives immediately kick into high gear, with theories abound about what those mysterious words mean. Abram thinks it’s bull fighting, an entirely practical guess since South Africa is known for 2 things, racism and bull fighting. Tonya, using her head for once, thinks the challenge involves electricity, which Paula says is silly and of course, to steal and old joke, tells Tonya she can “KISS MY GODDAMN ASS”. Oh MTV what shall the challenge be? I wait with bated breath.

Sadly, before we can begin the new challenge, we are treated to an epilogue of last week’s exciting saga Giraffic Park Feet Markgate 2007. Susie says the Good Guys are having a meeting to address all the shadiness going on (what, you mean like Cara blowing challenges to help you?) Of course Cara instantly brings up Johnny not being clear about the foot mark stuff. What did you want him to do Cara? Slap everyone on the team around until they listened to him? Johnny, who continues to grow on me despite me hating him the first episode of RW Key West, calls Cara out for intentionally sucking. Thanks MTV for the grainy flashback in case I have experienced short term memory and blacked out last week. Cara at least does admit to holding back when Susie is on the chopping block which Johnny says hurts the team. Johnny states on male inferno days the guys always go “balls out.” The guys also go balls out when hanging out at the house, donating food to the homeless and just generally being awesome.

Of course no beginning of an Inferno episode would be complete with out seeing the Bad Asses discussing the game. We see Wes and Kenny talking about their Machiavellian manipulations as they play the idiots version of chess. Checkers. So I guess when not having half naked wrestling time the guys play checkers. Great. You’re all officially a combination of my grandfather and a bunch of jack-asses.

Nah, we can try that other board thingy another week.

Finally! Challenge time. We see a bunch shots of exotic animals running (will we get to see bull fighting after all?). Sadly MTV is just a big cock tease and we then cut to both teams in a warehouse. The challenge is called Captain’s Chair. Each team will be pick a female from the other team to be a captain. The rest of the team will then answer trivia questions about what has happened on the show so far. For every question a team gets wrong their captain gets shocked. I love how MTV knows that these people are too stupid to answer real questions and thus always give them questions about what’s happened on the show. Come on, would it kill them to give these kids a test of real knowledge?

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Take your time…

Abram, who has a bizarre S&M fetish, says he wants to be zapped. You know Abram, if I were you I’d avoid having any more brain cells destroyed by electricity. Anyway it’s time to pick captains. The bad asses pick Cara, which in my mind seems like a good call since when not trying to screw up intentionally, Cara manages to screw up anyway. When reacting to the news of being shocked Cara states “I won’t give up until I start drooling or soiling my pants. If that does happen, she will have begun her transition from playmate to appearing in fetish shock, drool, and poop porn. The Good Guys meanwhile pick Janelle. I say Ev would have been a good bet since that girl always caves under pressure.

Once again, I’ll spare the riveting details of who knew answers to such stupid questions as “how many rugs are in the house” and “how many trampolines were used in a challenge” to give you some highlights. First up is Susie, who brags she has a ton of info stored up to save Cara. Sadly this info does not include how many rugs are in the house. To make matters worse she writes on her wrong answer “I love you Cara.”

P.S. How many rugs are in the house?

It also says “John 3:16″ and “Go Raiders.” Seriously Susie i know you and Cara are BFF’s but I haven’t seen co-dependency this bad since…well EVER!!! Responding to getting shocked Cara says she can’t control her hands…oh lord the humanity. How dare MTV make her hands shake uncontrollably due to reacting to a low level electrical current. Other highlights of a stupid trivia challenge involve Kenny doing a silly dance after getting an answer wrong, Janelle making some crazy pain faces, and everyone ripping off their shirts and wrestling with TJ by a pool.

I guess the most exciting thing about this challenge was how Janelle and Cara reacted to being shocked. Cara decides to call her teammates stupid (even Susie? I thought she could do no wrong). Way to support the team Cara. Keep mocking them and I’m sure they’ll want to help cause you less pain (except for Susie who wants to tuck you into bed and sing you lullabies). Janelle calls it “an execution.” Now I’ve never seen an execution before but somehow I doubt they involve questions about numbers of rugs. Although maybe I’m wrong, perhaps in TX the let murderers free if they can name how many ottomans were in the living room they committed murder in. Also despite how gay the guys acted earlier in the episode they all comment on how Cara’s pain moans sound hot, which further cements my point about her getting ready for drool/poop porn. Kenny says he’s “never been so turned on by anyone getting electrocuted, and how “this replaced my previous number one electrocution turn of Christopher Lloyd at the end of Back to The Future.” Eventually it’s all tied up 4-4 in time for the last question. Tonya vs. Alton. The question: “which girl won the life shield twice?” What will the answer be?…well it’s a commercial. Man was I at the edge of my seat.

When we return from break we see Alton and Tonya writing their answers down. To help create more suspense, it seems that MTV has hired a Foley artist to create the sound effect of a squeaking Sharpie. Let me tell you nothing heightens a non dramatic moment like a squeaky pen. Tonya get the answer right, and Alton is wrong thus cementing a Bad Asses victory. Man Alton, you really have been sucking it up in the mental challenges, you can’t match giraffes and now Tonya pays more attention to things than you. Cara is furious and calls her team morons, boy I hope Susie doesn’t hear that or it might affect her undying love for Cara. The Bad Asses win ties the game up, with each team having banked 60 k in the team bank account. Also odd, when TJ starts to speak, MTV puts a label under him saying who he is. Look audience, if you don’t know who TJ is a this point in the episode you should probably just stop watching. Is anyone really flipping through the channels and stopping to see how the rest of the episode goes just because they see a guy named TJ?

TJ then drops “THE BIGGEST BOMB EVER.” He tells them that both teams are to pick a guy and girl for the inferno. With next challenge being a guys inferno, and then after that a girls inferno. In the Bad Asses deliberations Abram wants to pick Davis because he thinks he’s weak. Tonya wants Paula out because she hates her, but EV wants to send in Susie (which I would think Tonya would want too). Meanwhile over in the Good Guys camp Cara wants to send in Aneesa but Alton wants Ev to go. The Guys debate sending in Kenny or Derick. They seem to think Derick is better since he has a history of blowing it at the end of challenges. Plus it seemed like Derick was getting depressed in the challenge earlier for blowing a question.

In the end the Good Guys send in Derick and Aneesa. For some reason this surprised Kenny, but really seeing his face reflected in a mirror surprises Kenny too so lets not read too much into this. Tonya says Christmas has come early because they picked Aneesa. She also says the feeling of Aneesa going in is like Easter and Passover rolled into one delicious holiday. The Bad Asses send in Davis and Susie. Derick announces both names and man does he sound pissed/depressed about going into the Inferno. Clearly this guy has some confidence issues.

Once again the episode ends with the Good Guys and Bad Asses having wrap up discusses about the choices. The men of the Good Guys lounge out by the pool while the girls plus Davis gossip inside.

Don’t blow it.

Cara once again talks about how scary it for Susie to be at risk and says that she will do whatever she can to help her win the life shield (sucks to be Paula I guess). Why Paula isn’t more furious at their behavior I will never know. Over in the bad asses camp Aneesa and Derick talk, and for Christ sakes someone get this guy on suicide watch, he is WAAAAYYYYYYY too depressed about being picked. It’s a game dude, CALM DOWN!!!!! Of course MTV helps us out by showing a montage of Derick’s classic moments of boning it in Gauntlets and Infernos of the past. Get this guy some help, because he is clearly gonna lose if he keeps being negative.

The Choker

What will happen next? More naked wrestling? More of Susie and Cara being stupid? More dialogue on global market economies??