The Challenge: Head Trauma and Failure

No major TJ updates this week.  The only information I found was the same as last week, so we’ll just assume that he’s continuing to recover nicely.

Previously:  Camila cozied up to Johnny Bananas, causing much alarm amongst her teammates.  Also, challenges and money winning and all of that crap.

Our challengers begin this episode on a boat.

Sadly, there is nary a nautical-themed pashmina afghan to be found.

Brad is excited about seeing cities and his team having won two consecutive challenges.  Camila has no friends on her team, since the vets would prefer to get rid of her and win more money for themselves in the end.  Welcome to Challenge 101, Camila.  Hint:  the final exam is getting screwed over by your beloved Johnny Bananas.

Dan, our resident recovering alcoholic, says his confidence in his ability to stay sober is wavering.  I remember him on the Island, and I think I speak for all of us when I say Sober Dan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Drunk Dan, because that shit was scary.  When you’re considered an alcoholic even in the realm of Real Worlders/Challengers, that’s no joke.  The upside is that he gets access to the prettiest pink cell phone in all the land to call his mom.  She gives him some words of encouragement, and he tells us that as long as he stays sober, he’s a winner regardless of whether or not he leaves with any money.  Yes, but you’re a bigger and better winner if you also make money.  Just sayin’.  He smiles and it’s unnerving because he seems way too nice and normal to be on a Challenge.  It’s disturbing how I’ve gotten so used to the insanity that a moment of nice normalcy freaks me out.

I am starting to wonder if we should be concerned about the gigantic vein in his forehead, though.

He and his mom exchange “I love you’s” and he goes back to the house.  I hope he has a friend there, guys.  Like, I’m really concerned.  He seems to get along well with Luke, right?  Luke’s cool.  This is getting unhealthy.  Let’s move on.

Oh, good, it’s Ty time.  Brandon makes a bet with Ty that involves poor, innocent Luke performing fellatio on Ty.  Everyone around them is cracking up, except for Ty who determines that Luke is a bad sport for not dropping to his knees and getting to it.  This prompts Walnuts to ask Ty if he knows he’s gay.  She tells us she would like him more if he was gay because then he could be fun bitchy instead of just a bitch.

Ty proclaims that getting a BJ from a guy is not gay.  Poor Dan walks into this debate and has to deal with it soberly.  Paula proclaims Ty “not NOT gay.”  And I’m just going to have to quote Ty directly here, because there is no direct translation from Ty logic to English:  ”Brandon made the bet so Brandon’s gay.  You wanna laugh, but slippers are off and we can do anything… that you want… IN THE WORLD… right now.”  Five bucks says NO ONE IN THE WORLD wants to suck Ty’s dick.

You know how I know you’re gay?  You like Coldplay… and BLOW JOBS FROM MEN.

Brandon tries to tell Ty to go to bed, but it just evolves into them yelling at each other about wrestling.  It’s funny when they’re in each other’s faces because Ty is quite a bit taller than Brandon.  Ty reminds us that he likes “pushing people’s buttons.”  He stores up things about them in his mind for “that confrontation day.”  Oh please, what an amateur.  He’s just yelling nonsense at people until they get annoyed.  He’s no Puck, or Coral, or hell- even Kenny/Evan/Bananas.

This ruckus has awakened Bananas, who breaks up the fight and tells us that Ty is a nuclear weapon that must be handled carefully.  The usually good-natured Brandon looks pretty angry, so I guess Ty is good at pushing people’s buttons.  Don’t do it, Brandon.  Ignore him, you’re better than that!

Dan decides to threaten his status as my crush of the season by shaving a “V” into his head.  Why a V?  Anyone know?  Anyway, I shall not screencap this because I do not want to look at it anymore.

Clue time!

Did someone say clue?!

Now, it’s not as exciting as Tshirt time, or when the cab are heah, but it’s all we’ve got on this show.  I really think one of these people needs to come up with a song about clue time in order to gain ratings.  The key words in this clue are “glide” and “bathing suits.”  The blue team has determined that they must/would like to win.  They had better hope the other teams oblige.  Derrick says they don’t want any more people to go home.  I’m going to have to call bullshit on that one, D.  Bananas is on your team, and he ALWAYS wants people to go home.  Fat must be trimmed, after all.

This week’s challenge is called Surf’s Up.  The challengers will pair up with a teammate, hop onto a flying platform, jump into the water, swim around buoys, climb onto shore and ring a bell.  Not falling off the platform is helpful since it moves faster than they swim, teams with odd numbers will have someone go twice, and the fastest average time wins.

The blue team is up first, and Bananas tells us that he and Derrick have decided to stop fooling around and step up as leaders.  Yeah, halfway through the challenge is a great time to start that.

They seem to have confused “step up” with Step Up, as they begin by performing a tango of terror.

They hop on and zoom across the water on the board before diving in to swim.  Bananas proclaims it one of the coolest things he’s ever done and it does look like a LOT of fun… you know, provided you don’t fall off and cause severe bodily harm.  They finish with a time of 2:55.  Emily and Jenn are up next, and they start strong but Emily slows down and Jenn has to wait on shore for her for a bit, but they still ring in at 3:06.  Katie’s understandably nervous after her fall a couple of weeks ago, but Theresa managed to keep them on the platform.  Katie drags in the water, and requires help from Theresa, but they still clock in at 3:40- slower, but not terrible.

Ty tells us that this shouldn’t be too hard for him because he’s CLEARLY the most athletic person on the team.  His words, not mine.  As he’s saying this, he and Derrick (who is ACTUALLY the most athletic person on the team) can’t stay on the platform and take a spill into the water.  Derrick, who is on his second round, still outswims Ty, and they clock in at 4:14.

Gray is up next, and Abram and Luke are first.  Luke tells us that his experience snowboarding/wakeboarding/etc. will help him.  I don’t know if it does, but they finish in 2:42, the fastest time yet.  That is, until Laurel and Sarah (who is once again declared a dolphin) finish in 2:32.  Would you look at that?  All of those guys just got beat by a couple of weak little girls!  We can’t ask them how it feels, though, because they don’t actually know they were beat by the girls they’re always trying to get rid of.  Dan and Skull Beads are up next, and she loses her balance and takes him down with her.  He’s way ahead of her but keeps yelling encouragement because he’s afraid she’s going to quit.  She must have been pretty slow, because they have the worst time yet at 4:42.

Paula does not think the challenge will be too hard.  Tyler declares that he and Chet are strong swimmers.  They are also strong fallers, as it turns out, as they cannot stay on the platform and take a nice long tumble.  We are told that Chet seems out of it.

I suppose the “it” they’re referring to is not the closet.

Chet tells us that the colors were distorted and everyone looked dark but the trees were fluorescent green.  So Brandon can’t have a beer before a challenge, but Chet’s allowed to drop acid?  What’s up with that Teej?  Anyway, they finish in 3:18, which means that Chet fell, swam the whole damn thing with (spoiler alert!) a concussion, and STILL smoked Ty by almost a full minute.  But Ty’s totally the most athletic person in the history of the universe, guys.  For real.

Speaking of Chet’s head injury, he looks ROUGH.  Melinda describes it best, saying he looks like a zombie.  He’s so pale he doesn’t even look human, and it’s really effing creepy.  No me gusta.

Tori feels the same way, but unlike me she actually has to do this next.  She and Camila fall also, but do not suffer head injuries.  They finish in 3:42, meaning even the weak little girls who fell off smoked Ty by over half a minute.  Oh, and what’s this?  Melinda and Paula ALSO fall, and finish in 3:54?  Ty just lost to effing PAULA AND MELINDA.  Incidentally, so did Skull Beads, who keeps telling us she’s a great competitor in between telling us every week that it isn’t her challenge.

Brandon is also not a fan of swimming, and he and Dunbar only stay on the board an extra second longer than the rest of their team before falling.  They swim for a bit when suddenly Brandon starts panicking and yelling for help.  It’s very strange.  The rest of the competitors yell from the shore for Dunbar to help him, but Brandon is thrashing around too much for Dunbar to do much of anything.

Not that Dunbar ever really does much of anything.

Brandon continues to freak out until they end up with a DQ and a 20 minute time.  To be fair, the red team was pretty much out of it before that, but that was the nail in the coffin.  Brandon says he did nothing to squash the stereotype about black people not being able to swim.  He says he got a leg cramp, and panicked, and looked like an idiot.  You know what else you did, Brandon?  You continued to win me over with your unprecedented self-awareness.

Brad and Tyler are still taking their turn, in hopes that they can complete it in negative 25 minutes?  I don’t know.  Bananas feels the need to heckle Tyler anyway, for some reason.  Tyler says he and Brad are the leaders, and they need to have a good round for team pride.  Guess what?  They, like every red team member before them, fall.  They still finish in 3:19, but it’s beyond useless at this point.

Teej gathers everyone for the announcement of the winning team:  Gray.  Other than Skull Beads falling and being a slow swimmer, they kicked serious ass.  Blue had kinda slow Katie and falling/slow Ty to contend with.  TJ sends them back to the house so gray can get their dinner and champagne on while the other teams get to voting.

Back at the house, TJ reveals that Chet will be spending the night at the hospital, which Walnuts describes as “way worse than what we could imagine.”  Really, Walnuts?  What land of sunshine and rainbows were you imagining?  They’re just being careful, he took a bad fall and they don’t need a lawsuit on their hands.  But anyway, the red team is not allowed to vote for Chet for elimination.

The voting montage yields nothing noteworthy.  Teej enters to announce the results.  The blue team has unanimously chosen Ty and Katie.  We get to see Ty vote for himself because he’s “young” and it’s his “time.”  Katie, meanwhile, is “exhausted by the politics of this game” and knows she’s going in so she doesn’t bother to vote for anyone else.  The red team unanimously voted for Brandon, and TJ inexplicably says he doesn’t know what Brandon’s doing wrong.  Ummm, Teej?  Have you already forgotten blowing the DQ horn for Brandon today?  Brandon, to his credit, acknowledges that this is the one time he does deserve to go in.  Camila and Melinda both received votes for the girls, but Camila is once again heading into the Gulag.

Derrick expresses concern for Katie’s ability to survive a final, and as much as I like Katie (I don’t know why), his concern is justified.  And he managed to express it without sounding like an asshole, a finesse that Bananas lacks.  Derrick wants Ty to take out Brandon and come back to take out more people.

“Listen, I’m exhausted.  I’ve been doing this for a decade and I only have a few dozen elimination rounds left in me.  Ty can handle a few.”

Paula attempt to give a sullen Camila a pep talk.  She tells Camila that she really does want her to win, and Camila says she just wants a reason for her repetitive trips to the Gulag.  Camila tells us that she knows it’s because the others have been friends for years, and Paula also throws in the part about Camila fraternizing with Evil Bananas.  Paula continues to attempt to be encouraging and they seal it with a hug.

A bunch of people are hanging out in one of the bedrooms, including Ty and Emily in Emily’s bed.  He randomly calls her a ho and she jokingly tries to get him out of bed.

Is it just me or have the crazy sexcapades between Abe and Skull Beads extended to drawing third grade artwork all over each other?

But back to Ty/Emily, a dynamic that I have not missed a single bit since recapping the Real World DC.  Emily breaks out the shaving cream and attacks Ty and his bed.  Ty rages and throws a giant potted plant into her bed, telling her to make jokes because it’s so effing funny.  This is followed by a hilarious cut to Emily in the confessional, scratching her head and saying it was kind of funny.

Apparently the funny bone is not among the buttons that Ty likes to press.

How DARE anyone experience laughter or joy in Ty’s presence?!  What were they THINKING?!  Everyone tries to explain the concept of a joke to Ty, but HULK SMASH NO UNDERSTAND LOGIC.

The next morning, Bananas tells Ty that next time they’re on a challenge together, Bananas wants Ty to wear a shock collar so he can shock Ty when he acts up.  Oh, if only.  Stop making me dream dreams that can’t come true, asshole.  Ty says this would be the wrong time to leave, since the best is yet to come for their team.  Please, PLEASE let that be ironic foreshadowing.  This would be the PERFECT time for Ty to leave for the sake of my sanity.  Ty says he’s not sorry for anything, and he’s never been a good team player.  Ty?  Not a good team player?

Tori is watching Katie pack while they reminisce about Katie and Chet falling into the water.  It is revealed that Chet has not yet returned from the hospital.  Katie rolls her eyes at TJ’s declaration that it would be cruel to sent Chet into elimination when he was hurt, since her team didn’t care when she was.  To be fair, Katie, you ended up with an ice pack, not an IV.

Tonight’s Gulag is called Pole Me Over.  The challengers are attached to opposite ends of a pole, and must push their opponents into barrels, knocking over two barrels to win.

The guys are up first.  Brandon says Ty’s not his favorite person in the house.  Ty says this will test leverage, leg strength, and endurance, of which he allegedly has all three.  Once they start, it immediately looks bad for Brandon.  All Brandon can do is flail as Ty knocks him into the barrels to gain the first point.

Bananas even says Brandon looks as weak as a girl, which is the ULTIMATE insult in Bananese.

The next round starts, and Brandon starts off better than the first round.  Ty still seems to be winning, though.  Like, I don’t understand how Brandon could POSSIBLY win this.  Various players interview about how sure they were that Ty would win.  Now, usually this is a surefire sign that he will lose, but surely the editors are just trying to fool us, right?  There’s just no way Brandon can win this.  And I really, REALLY want him to win.  Not only can I not stand Ty, I really like Brandon.  Poor Brandon interviews that Ty is the last person in the house to whom he wants to lose.

And then… Ty falls over the chain and out of bounds.  TJ yells at him to get up.  TJ counts down and blows the air horn to signal a point for Brandon.  Surely Ty will get up and win this now, right?

Not so fast.  He just needs a little rest first.  Challenges have naptime like kindergarten, right?  It’s the same level of maturity.

What was that Ty was saying about endurance?  And being the most athletic person on his team?  Brandon is hilariously waving his arms at TJ to blow the air horn and signal his victory, while Ty continues to lie there.  Derrick interviews that Ty fell over like he was knocked out by Muhammad Ali, and everyone yelled at him to get up, but “Ty’s still laying on the ground!”  I love Derrick and his innocent incredulousness.  Derrick just can’t comprehend such utter failure.  And say what you will about Bananas, Kenny, Evan, any of the egomaniacal assholes on these challenges, but NONE of them would ever pull THIS crap.  They can at least back up their claims of being good at stuff by, you know, not collapsing mid-challenge.  Hell, even the girls could probably do better.

TJ finally declares Brandon the winner, as Ty still has not moved.  Brandon’s happy, the red team is happy, I’m very happy.  But the best part of it all is seeing Bananas make this face when he realizes he might have to go into an elimination round after all:

“I, uh… think we might have, uh… trimmed a little too much fat.”

Now if only Katie could win and really ruin his day.  Bananas says he’s never seen anything so ridiculous.  Ty can’t move his arms or legs and “looks like someone just shot him in the face with a shotgun.”  The medics finally drag Ty away, and TJ congratulations his homeboy Brandon and sends Brandon back to his team.  Ty tells the medics who are helping him to “stop fucking talking.”  The medic tells him not to be like that.  How about YOU stop fucking talking, Ty?

Whatever, let’s move on to the girls.  Camila doesn’t want to go against Katie because she likes Katie.  Katie’s just trying to prove something to herself at this point.  And Katie puts up a fight, but Camila’s just stronger and wins fairly easily.  They both managed not to collapse though, so that’s something.  I mean, obviously going against Brandon had to be tougher than going against Katie, but I just don’t understand dominating so clearly at the beginning and then just collapsing.  Especially after all of his bragging about endurance.

TJ congratulations Camila and sends her back to her team.  She says she hopes she’s proven herself and wants to make it to the final.  Good luck with that, rookie.  You’re no slouch, but eventually you might have to go against Sarah or Laurel, and that is not the same thing as going against Katie.  Brad declares that he saw “fight in her eyes” and will take that into consideration at the next vote.  Yeah, we’ll see.

Teej declares that Katie earned respect from people at home and from the other teams.  Somehow I doubt that, but at least he’s trying to be nice.  He must get tired of giving the quitter speech.

“It’s so nice to see you trying.  You’re all grown up, grasshopper.”

To her credit, Katie smiles through it and says a cheerful goodbye to her team.  She says she wanted to face her fears and be a better person.  Well, considering she used to be so terrified of everything, I’d say she at least did the former.  She didn’t complain too much about her black eyes (just about her team sending her into elimination with them) and she managed to do this week’s challenge even though it could have had the same result (or even worse, if Chet is any indication).  She’s never going to dominate a challenge, but she’s come a long way.

Back at the house, Laurel and Brandon discuss how close Brandon came to elimination.  Brandon chalks it up to karma.  Bananas is crapping his pants now that he’s trimmed all of the fat and doesn’t have any more cannon fodder.  I almost want blue to lose next week just so I can see how Bananas justifies sending Derrick into elimination over him.  The red team is giddy and has a team chant, much to Bananas’ dismay.  Walnuts tells us that the blue team has five players, gray has six, and red still has nine.  She says this happily, as if it is somehow an advantage for her team.  Walnuts is not that bright, which is part of the reason she has never won a Challenge.  Since when has having more players been an advantage in a final?  Brad and Dunbar are not going to be able to drag Walnuts and Melinda faster than Sarah, Laurel, etc. can run.

We cut straight from a joyous red team dance part at the house to Chet in a hospital bed with an IV.

Not since the likes of “Who shot JR?” has there been such a compelling cliffhanger on television.

Join us next week, when the red team will be sad pandas without Chet around, the challenge will involve large rings high above water (as two out of every three challenges this season apparently must take place high above water) and Abram sucking at basketball, and Paula turns on Camila!  Scandalous, shocking, or predictable?  Take your pick!

I must say, this episode was annoying for the sheer amount of screentime for Ty, but the payoff of watching him lose was nice.  Was it karma or does Ty just suck that badly at life?  Anyone who WASN’T glad to see him go?  What about Katie?  I know she’s old and should know better by now, but I still kind of like her.  At least she’s gotten tougher.  Did this week’s challenge look like the funnest thing ever or the scariest thing ever?  Do you think the red team is right not to trust Camila?  How will Bananas justify sending Derrick into elimination in order to save himself?  Talk to me!