Yes, tonight's episode commenced with Derrick squirming at the thought of Danny being all gay and naked in a lake. Resident Dr. Phil of the group, Kina, sat her Polish friend down to talk, and Derrick continued to fret about Danny's homosexual cooties. In the future, I think Derrick should spend more time worrying about how to unravel the dumbass bandana around his head, unless he meant to go for that retro Village People look.

Later that night, the buddies found out that they had to be at their next mission at 9:30 AM. They all moaned about how early that was (hey, X-Treme Road Rules calls for X-Treme wakeup calls). So I guess it would be a no-brainer that they'd all go off and get wasted until the wee-hours of the morning. This episode, Derrick passed the drunken buffoonery baton to Danny who spiffied up the bar floor with his Fabulous puke.

Afterwards, in the RV, Danny projectile vomited into a ruby-colored bucket while the girls assumed their now standard late-night tragic faces. Oh my god, will he die? Does he need to have his stomach pumped? Nah! said a slurry Patrick. Just let him sleep.

Meanwhile, Derrick took this moment to laugh at Danny and even float a few gay jokes by the crowd. Yeah, that didn't go over so well. Kina turned on her Jersey Girl charm and rightfully cursed out Derrick, making sure to remind him that the night before he was the putz puking all over the RV. Kina - your application of logic is welcomed, but remember, you're on a Bunim/Murray show. There's no room for that.

The next morning, with Danny still wretching in his bucket o' shame, the crew finally drove out to their first mission: rappelling down a waterfall — yes, the second most popular Road Rules obstacle (after the bunjee, of course). There was some talk about needing to complete each checkpoint within six seconds of your partner, but really this was about as meaningful as adding a volcano into the mix. Actually, if lava were pouring down the waterfall, that would have been awesome. Instead, this was just a silly rush job of watching kids lower themselves down ropes while getting splashed in the face. The only moment that approached something resembling drama was when clumsy Jodi wound up upside-down and spread-eagle. MTV inserted a commercial break right in the middle of her plight - as if we thought she was going to plummet to her death. Wait, did I say something like that last week? Wow, I'm as repetitive as the Road Rules editors.

While Jodi untangled herself from her supremely embarrassing position, teammates Danny and Derrick (who would have thunk it?) took the time to bond at the top of the waterfall. After they completed the silly challenge and we saw footage of the mission mayors checking their stopwatches for the umpteenth time, the Danny and Derrick love tour continued outside of some burger shop. Optimistic guitar strumming signaled the arrival of the "Look! we're growing as people" portion of the episode, which was followed by Derrick cuddling up to the girls and apologizing to them for being such a douchebag the night before. Yes, one big happy family, until the next gay slur.

You know, it's always good to see people's horizons broadened, but do we need to tread on this subject every season? Haven't the lessons of previous installments of Road Rules and Real World taught homophobes like Derrick anything? Just as sure as any Road Ruler will face a bunjee cord or rappelling rope, it's also a given that if you're homophobic and trying out for this show, they're going to jam a gay guy down your throat. Well, not literally - yet. So grow up and get over your issues before the show begins so we don't have to sit through this treacly learning experience yet again.

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Posted in Road Rules by B-Side at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Last Comment: lyrikaljuse on Jun 20, 2004 08:51 PM.

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