Howdy gang, sorry about the delay in getting this post up, I took my notes even though I didn’t plan on it and wound up getting busy with other stuff, so the post didn’t go up. Anyway, I found myself thinking much less of a few people I used to like before this season, specifically Frank and Alton. Frank comes off as a total dick this episode. He’s playing the game so hard that it’s almost painful to watch. Dude thinks he’s super crafty too which doesn’t seem to be the case. He just lucked out and happens to be on a season packed with people who don’t know what they’re doing. Put him on a season with Johnny, Kenny and Evan and he’s nothing. Case closed. I dislike Alton because I really don’t know what his game is. He basically asked to be thrown in and was going to screw over one of his female teammates by quitting in the Arena, but then didn’t. What’s he doing? I mostly don’t even care anymore.

The challenge this episode was pretty funny and I’m glad it was played straight for the most part, but I keep thinking that, if your most interesting challenges involve hitting people with fish and trivia, then you don’t have much of a season. I wonder how this season is doing ratings-wise because it’s pretty boring. There’s always got to be a wave of new viewers who were big fans of the recent Real World season though. It does look like the rest of the season is going to be pretty explosive. Dustin looks like he’s going to get into a number of fights along with everyone else. These kids don’t seem to know how to turn the game off. The obvious Rookies vs. Vets follow-up to this season should be pretty damn intersting though.

Frank saying that strength doesn’t come from personality is hilarious.

“I handle Frank like I handle dogs barking in a kennel.” – Alton

Frank is just throwing himself between Alton and the weights so he has to move around him to put them away. Frank is coming off really bad this season. Not Knight bad, but bad.

Something about a beach day, Alton doesn’t want to go and get into it with a 20 year old kid. Sarah says if he doesn’t go then no one gets to go. Ah, if one doesn’t want to go out, no one gets to go out.

Even Dustin gets mad at him.

“I would love to see your boy or you step to me in the streets.” – Frank. HAHAHA, seriously?

“I bet you’re dying to get your hands on a man again.” – Frank

Frank’s gonna have a giant target on his ass as soon as a non-alliance group wins.

Insane Games. A team knocked out every round. Two worst teams go into a loser’s challenge. One loses and goes into Arena.

Chariot horse race thing. One person from each team pulls their entire team on a cart and has to wear a horse mask.

This might benefit Knight and Jemmye cause they only have 2.

JD does it for Brooklyn. CJ for Cancun. Frank for San Diego (really? not Zach?). Alton for Vegas. Knight for New Orleans.

Knight bites it. Vegas is in first place. JD falls too. Alton stumbles and almost loses the lead, but gets back into it. Cancun winds up winning and Brooklyn comes in lasty last.

All the horse people look pretty rough. Alton’s taking oxygen.

Egg Drop. Guy and girl from each team on either side of a wall. One throws eggs from the other side while the other person has to catch them in a dog collar type thing. Gotta get 6 to win.

Kinda hard to write about. St. Thomas is not helping their teammates out. Cancun gets first place again. Nice. Too bad they’re part of the alliance. St. Thomas is last so they’ll be going up against Brooklyn in the final thing.

Ear Pull. You against an opponent with a two foot loop of string around your ear and someone else’s. You have to stay on a stump and do everything you can to get the string off.

Jemmye wins first. Then Knight. Then Nany. Then Alton.

Vegas and New Orleans head to winner’s circle. Trishelle and Dustin versus Jemmye and Knight for Power Couple. It’s jousting. Hoping for a Vegas win here, it’s be pretty surprising if they lost. Girls pulling, guys jousting.

The guys joust was a draw. For the women, Jemmye nails Trishelle who steps back and loses. Knight and Jemmye won! Now it’ll be interesting to see how they vote.

Loser’s playoff is called Fish Heads. You hit each other with fish until someone falls off their platform.

Chet versus Trey. This is pretty hilarious. They’re heavy, but don’t really have much weight to them. Chet falls!

Marie wants to go in and gets in an argument with Laura who wants to actually do something. Marie thinks she’s stronger than Laura, which I don’t think is true. Everyone points out that it’s just a fish. She thinks she’s the best chance they have at winning. Hilarious. So much talk.

Sarah versus Laura. Marie is still saying that it should have been her. Laura falls first. Tied 1-1.

TJ flips a coin to see if it’s guys or girls, it’s girls. So it’s Laura versus Sarah again. Marie will not shut up. They’re really going nuts with the slow mo this episode and it’s great. Sarah nails Laura off balance. St. Thomas is going into the Arena.

Alton talks to Zach and tells him to throw Vegas into the Arena. He tells his teammates that he wants to go in and lose so he can go home. He says he’d rather send his friends home. This means one of the girls will get sent in with him and get sent home. Why is he being such a douche?

I wonder if they can convince New Orleans to chose Dustin for the Arena.

To the throwing in ceremony! Knight goes up and says they’re throwing in Vegas because they want to prove themselves. Knight choses Strategy for them.

Nany, Trishelle and Dustin are talking. Nany doesn’t mind going in, but wants Dustin to go in with her.

Alton says he went there just for the vacation. Sarah says she doesn’t have the energy to deal with all that now.

St. Thomas is sending in Laura and Trey. Vegas throws Nany and Dustin in.

Knot So Fast. Turning 100 foot rope into puzzle around dome made of bars.

CJ’s getting into it with Alton. For some reason Zach gets up in Alton’s face. Zach pulls Alton’s hat off his head and…we cut to commercial. This leads to nothing. Alton just walks away and Zach continues to talk shit. This makes me like him less.

Trey and Laura seem to be working really well together, but not so much with Dustin and Nany. Trey wants to wrap the rope around him as they unravel it and doesn’t care about it weighing him down. This could be what it takes for them to lose.

Trey and Laura don’t have to deal with nearly as much as the other two, Vegas left a huge pile in the middle to begin with.

Trishelle makes a good point, if it’s just her and Alton, it’s a death sentence for them.

Nany and Dustin walk away with the win. Bye St. Thomas kids no one cares about. Unfortunately, this means we’ll probably have to listen to more of Marie talking and not doing anything. On the plus side, less Trey crying.

TJ says that now that there’s two teams with two players things will be changing. Splitting into separate teams maybe?

Alton says he’s the enemy on the team, but what does he expect? He told people he wanted to go home. For what it’s worth, at least as much as we were shown, a lot of the anti-Alton stuff seems nuts. I also think that we haven’t been shown a hundredth of everything going on, though.

The rest of this season looks pretty bonkers though. I think I just saw Dustin punch like three people.