Trading (and Memorizing) Spaces

According to our informal TVgasm survey, it looks as if there aren’t too many people rooting for the Bad Asses to beat the Good Guys in the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno 2. In fact, other than a few young women who have a thing for CT, you could almost say that nobody was rooting for the Bad Asses. The reason for this is largely because the Bad Asses as a group define the qualities that we least like about the Bunim/Murray alums that find their way on to these shows. They are juvenile and immature, and other than showing up for these challenges, they don’t seem to have any sort of marketable skills at all. With the general worthlessness of the Good Guys in the Inferno (save for Landon beating Karamo), you have an underdog that nobody minds rooting for.Julie left last week, so without any more Jesus in the house, you knew everybody was going to get loose and have a blowout like the world has never seen. I was sure there would be booze and drugs and hookers, and enough hot ass that even Pat O’Brien wouldn’t know what to do with himself. So what exactly was planned with the morality out of the house?

A belly flop contest. No really. A belly flop contest.

I guess there is only so much boozing and dancing you can do, so I applaud everybody for getting creative. Plus, watching it was pretty funny. After all of the guys took their turns, it was Tonya who really had the best smack in the water. They even gave it to us in slow motion so we could appreciate the moment better.

There are more serious things going on in the house. We have one elimination left for the guys and one elimination left for the girls, so people are starting to figure out who they want to take that money home with. Since the Bad Asses are the only ones that have any bodies to spare, all of this sacrificial talk is taking place on their end. CT is the one doing most of the strategizing, and for all of you people out there with a brain about as functional as CT’s, this basically means that the Bad Asses are trying to find a way to get rid of Dan and Tonya in the final two eliminations. See, for CT, it’s not enough to split 70 or 80 thousand among 8 people; it would be so much more worthwhile if it was split among 6. Like CT said, money makes him feel good about himself, much like dogs say when they discover they can lick their own balls.

The teams arrived for their next competition, which was called “If Memory Serves.” It was a dumb name, but kind of a fun concept. There was a model room set up by Sharper Image (and we were reminded many times how cool these things were just in case you forgot). Each team would pick a captain to inspect the room up close while their teammates looked at it from a distance. After two minutes of observation, the teams would have ten minutes to organize an undecorated room the same way as the model room. The team that was the most accurate replicating the model room would win the game and $10,000.

Now, when you look at who the players were on both teams, there was only one person from each team who could even be considered to lead this task requiring attention to detail, memory, and anal retentiveness – the Asian (Jamie), and the gay guy (Dan). Think about it – isn’t it always the Asian family you want to be in line behind at the grocery checkout? They really are models for efficiency. And isn’t it always your gay friend who is the first to notice a new haircut, hair color, or pair of shoes? It was like this game was meant for them.

Both teams came up with almost identical strategies – the captain would go in for the details, while their team members each took a section of the room to memorize. Jamie was happy to go, but Dan wasn’t quite as enthused. Like he said, “the challenges are not difficult, we just think they are.” Dan was going to get the details, but he told his team not to rely on him. The meaning of this phrase was completely lost on Abram. Dan didn’t mean to say he wasn’t going to try his best, but just that he can’t make up for every single person if they can’t get the basics. If each person memorized their section like they were the only ones responsible for it, they have a much better chance at getting things correctly. In other words, eight sets of paranoid eyes were much better than five.

Everything was pointing towards easy victory for the Bad Asses. The task was difficult, as there were many, many little details that you had to pick up on, but anybody who has played “Picture Hunt” drunk while in a bar has all the skills you need to do well in this task. Let’s go over this logically. If the guy gay and the Asian girl cancel each other out with their efficiency/attention to detail, the Bad Asses had more people to look at the room. If we assume that everybody on these teams are about the same level intelligence-wise (there could be a few outliers *cough*Tina*cough*Landon*cough*), it was no contest. The Bad Asses just had to work together and use their brains.

For those of us rooting for the Good Guys, whenever we hear the Bad Asses have to work together or use some sort of intelligence, we already get more interested in the show. It’s almost as if the Bad Asses are guaranteed to have some trouble with the “strategy” types of competitions, and we can look forward to a win to stave off the increasingly obnoxious talk about how great they are.

I am happy to say that we were not disappointed. Despite having the numbers advantage in a game almost made to favor a team with a numbers advantage, the Bad Asses managed to score only 53 out of 79, while the Good Guys scored 61. With another $10,000 in the bank, that means the Bad Asses now have $70,000 and the Good Guys now have $60,000. Why do I update the totals every week? I am not sure, but the money really seems to bother the Bad Asses. They keep on talking like they will lose somehow if they have less money at the end than the Good Guys. No, they will lose if they don’t beat the Good Guys in the final challenge. They could have $100,000 more in the bank than the Good Guys, but if they don’t win, it would be all for nothing.

With another challenge won, it is back to deciding who is going to go in the Inferno. The Good Guys wasted no time in picking Dan. Even though he had been able to beat Jon in the first Inferno, he is generally considered the weaker player. For the Bad Asses, they had to decide whether they wanted to pick the person who Dan wanted to go against (they had already figured out that he was the most likely to be picked) or somebody of their own choosing. Dan didn’t really care who they picked; he was more upset at how little his teammates respected his ability. He called out CT for not wanting him around and said that he wasn’t scared the first time, and he wasn’t going to be scared the second time either.

When the names were announced, Dan was expecting to go up, but the same cannot be said of Landon. Since he won his Inferno, I think he believed he would have some sort of immunity. Either that or he believed the Bad Asses were going to send Mike in once again.

I was actually going to put the odds of Landon beating Dan about even until I saw the final few minutes of the show. We had a scene with Dan, Tonya, and Jamie, all mentioning how much of a sweetheart Dan was and that he didn’t deserve to go. Dan even made a mention of his special Captain America boxers. Sure it was kind of a light episode, but any time you get a random montage of a person out of the blue, it does not bode well for the person who is the focus of that montage.

As much as I hate the Bad Asses, I kind of want Dan to win, if only because it would really foil the plans of those evil lesbian masterminds and their minions. They weren’t able to get rid of Sarah on the Gauntlet and weren’t able to get rid of Katie in the first Inferno, but they won both times. Hmm, by that logic, rooting for Dan could be construed as rooting for the Bad Asses to win it all, and I am really hoping that doesn’t happen.

Next week, the players are dealing with crabs, and I’m not talking about the ones they got from sleeping with each other. Should be another fun episode.