We Now Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Reality Show to Bring You a Wedding

Within minutes of the opening of Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Sexes 2, Bunim/Murray put to rest a debate long standing in the annals of TVgasm history. We had previously wondered if Chris, our favorite god-fearing Road Ruler, was living a secret double life as Paulie, an unidentified member of Friendster who bore a striking resemblance to Chris, and loved pink. Was Chris hiding a secret, or did somebody simply pull a prank on him? It looks like the latter was true, because Chris informed us this week that he was getting married. And the wedding wasn’t scheduled until sometime after filming was finished, it was going to be in a couple of days. That’s right. Apparently Chris had scheduled his wedding, and then when informed of his chance to score free stuff by appearing on MTV, decided to appear on Battle of the Sexes 2. At least I hope that is the case, because if he scheduled the wedding after he knew when he was going to be away filming episodes, he is just plain dumb.Chris was on a very tight schedule to get married. He had to drive 5 hours, just to catch a plane that would then take him to San Antonio, which is where his wedding was. After the ceremony he would spend one night of post-matrimonial bliss with his new bride, and then fly back to finish his competition in the challenge. Although he would miss his wife, the chance at the money would mean a lot for when he was trying to start a family, because waiting tables at the Forbidden City is just not going to do it. But before Chris got to leave, the rest of the guys decided to throw him a bachelor party, which of course means there will be stripper. And just in case you were thinking about saving money and having your bachelor party in Santa Fe instead of Vegas or Tahoe, you were snapped back into reality at the sight of the stripper the guys got Chris. Perhaps they didn’t want to spend a lot of money because they knew Chris wasn’t going to like it, being all pious and such, but if they spent more than $20, I hope they got some change back. Maybe it’s just me, but I like my strippers with more boobs, less FUPA.

So, thanks to Chris, the guys actually had some interesting back story, but as always the girls were much more interesting. Katie and Arissa were talking about the game, and in particular how much they wanted to win, but you knew there wasn’t going to be a lot of silence with Coral and Veronica still complaining about the ouster of Rachel. Stupid arguments(surprise!) were being thrown around from either side. Veronica and Coral said the team could have used Rachel’s strength, and Coral further argued that Rachel’s disqualification didn’t even make any difference in the outcome of the challenge. If you take it that way, you can argue that Rachel’s strength didn’t make any differences in the outcomes of any challenges either, since her strength didn’t help them win any challenge. The only challenge they won, Ruthie, Robin, and Veronica were at the helm. Katie tried to pass of her vote for Rachel as some sort of greater plan to help others. By getting rid of Rachel, she would give some of the newer people a better chance at winning and breaking alliances, as if that isn’t the exact outcome she wanted for herself.

The problem with the RR/RW challenge these days is the complete lack of creativity in any of the challenges. This time, we had another challenge involving bathing suits and the lake. Always looking to be cost conscious, they pulled out the same scaffolding used in the first challenge, but instead of hanging punching bags from it, there were several ropes spaced along either side. One row was for the guys and the other was for the girls. Team members had to swing from the first rope to the last, and the side with the most members making it all the way across would win, with the tiebreaker going to the team who completed the task in less time. As you can imagine, this challenge had no strategy involved, but we are still forced to name leaders, which were Theo, Brad, and Shane for the guys, and Katie, Ibis, and Ruthie for the girls.

Also, I know that “concise” is probably too much of an SAT word for anybody making the show to care about, but why does Jonny Mosely have to read ten pages on air to make sure we know what is going on? Aren’t we just about to sit and watch what happens? And do we really need to have names for them? This week’s name “SA-wing” (imagine you are Garth Algar saying it), was so very unoriginal, and even though the names do get a bunch of chuckles from our challengers, it’s not worth the pain we get as they try their very best to be punny about the naming.

Things started off badly for both teams. Eric Neis, who has been the heart and soul for the guys team through a lot of this season, fell in the water, probably because his jump rope wasn’t close enough to him to lend him support. On the girls side, Ruthie was determined to finish, but was taking such an impossibly long time to move from one rope to another that she was holding up the other women, who were left hanging on their ropes with no way to advance. Luckily for the girls, a lot of the men were falling off, so it looked like they still had a fighting chance. In the end, it all came down to Arissa. The girls and guys were tied at five members finishing the challenge, but the girls were way behind with the time, so the only way for them to win was for Arissa to cross. Arissa had previously tried to get off the scaffolding, and down to the ropes, but was so afraid of heights that she couldn’t do it at first. While about to begin her second try at the ropes, Arissa decided to give one of those inspirational speeches about being scared but overcoming you fears to take it for the team. It was so inspirational that she fell almost immediately. I think the producers get these people stoked about things, knowing that they will fail half of the time, which will make for better TV. For her transgressions, she ruined her chances of all of her team members winning a Gibson Les Paul Melody Maker, which in turn meant that the guys would have a chance to sell their new guitars on eBay instead.

Before deliberations began, Chris told Theo that he wanted to go home. It turns out that he missed his new wife, and it was more important to get a start on his marriage than winning some money. Once again, a deliberation from the guys that wouldn’t have any suspense. During their inner circle (which took place just before nap time), everybody agreed that Chris was going to go. The women also had a fairly normal inner circle. The choice came between Katie and Ruthie. Some argued that Katie didn’t do good in challenges, while others countered that Ruthie took so long on the challenge, it might have cost them the win.

In the end, it was Chris and Katie who left. For Katie, she has come a long way. She was bullied in the Gauntlet and got kicked out early, and they tried to do the same in the Inferno, but she made it and survived. Even Coral had some not too backhanded compliments to send her way. Chris was so relieved and exclaimed “I can’t wait until I get home” and expressed his love to his wife, which must of made him feel good now that she is watching the show four months after he actually said the words. Congratulations Chris, and here’s hoping that your marriage outlives your acting career.