Now, if it hasn't hit you yet, the Inferno sort of gets some inspiration from Dante's Inferno. (Well it also just hit me today, so don't feel too badly.) I will spare you the long lectures that my College religion teacher put me through, but the gist of it is that hell is composed of levels, each getting worse as they go. Hence, the Inferno challenges became worse as the show dragged on. Similarly, the Inferno (Dante's) also describes the seven deadly sins that are used as the basis for the final challenge on the show. And if you think David and Veronica had it tough, read what happens to Judas, Brutus and Cassius at the end of the book.

I really don't understand why MTV can't simply make an hour long finale special for the final episode. Although I was excited to watch and see who makes the money, the show really didn't keep the fever pitch that the last episode had ended on. What we got instead was a tepid beginning and a lackluster set of challenges that really left no suspense after a certain amount of time.

To tell you the truth, I thought the challenges were fairly well constructed and did a good job of balancing out the advantages that a large team would have over a small team and vice versa. The challenges were mostly physical, with a cerebral challenge thrown in for good measure.

The teams were fairly even going through the first couple challenges, where teammates were handcuffed to each other. During one challenge involving breaking open pinatas to find the key to releasing the members of each team from their handcuffs, the Road Rules team opened up a sizable lead. Their lead was to no avail, as they took a bad strategy at the next challenge and the Real World team came storming back and took the lead after the challenge that followed - a walk across a long cargo net, one at a time, that took the Road Rules team extra time with all of their extra members still in contention.

But fear not you fans of Road Rules, because the second to last challenge was a mental challenge, which invariably becomes the great equalizer. For the Real World, we discovered that Coral's boobs don't contain any grey matter, CT isn't very good at his Good Will Hunting impersonation, and Mike has taken a few too many hits in the ring, because they were thoroughly slammed by the Road Rules team. The challenge was a little bit of memory and little bit of crossword. At this point in time, we see how, all of a sudden, Katie's skills at crossword come in handy and her team really likes her contribution. Even Veronica chimes in with some words of encouragement. I did hate how they piled on Katie the whole season, but I have to admit that, even without her help, they would have smoked the Real World team, who gave up as soon as they saw the Road Rules team was finished.

As you may have guessed, team Road Rules finished first and they split a $260,000 cash prize, and as an added bonus, each took home a vehicle from Saturn. (Side note: I wonder if Darrel will try and put some Sprewell's on his? I can just see him now at the corner of Sunset and Sweetzer yelling at some of the best out of the Valley: "Check them out! They spinnin'! They spinnin'!") And while you can always cheer everybody's good fortune, I must admit that I wanted to see the Real World win, if nothing else to see if Mike and Coral would put themselves out to pasture, so to speak, with regards to all of these challenges - I guess it's better than the 5th Wheel.

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Posted in Real World and Road Rules Challenge by J-Unit at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Last Comment: B-Side on May 25, 2004 03:32 PM.