Inferno 3: Episode 4

The events of this episode led me to one huge realization: This cast is pretty terrible. MTV really dropped the ball here. It's like they put all their effort into securing CT and Alton and then designing ridiculous apparati for challenges and Inferno eliminations then forgot they needed 9 other semi-interesting people to fill out each team. I never thought I would same something like this, but where the fuck is Osama Beth Laden? And what the hell ever happened to Justin from Hawaii?

I am even more amazed now that they had the gall to kick CT off, when clearly they were relying heavily on his star power to keep this season interesting. If only Abe wasn't around when he clocked Davis, there would have been no proof it ever happened. They "didn't get it on film" so it would just be CT's word against Davis's word (and massively deformed face). I have no doubt in my mind the producers of the show were thinking the exact same thing when they were watching from the van and realized they were about to ask one of the most dominating performers and entertaining personalities in the history of RR/RW challenges to get in a taxi, hop and a plane and go home.

When the episode opened with Jen (probably the most fucking absurd person I can think of) talking about how everyone is drunk and crazy, you can imagine how excited I was to see what type of shit was about to unfold. Colie got thrown in the pool... wait for it, wait for it. Danny got thrown in the pool... any minute now, shit is about to get weird. Cue the dramatic music and slow motion...

The big payoff is the girls getting all up in arms because Ace shook Susie's bed?!?!? Here are just a few examples of how nights of excessive drinking on challenges have ended in the past:

1. Tonya tossed five suitcases worth of Beth's clothing in the pool
2. Mark ripped off his shirt and jumped from a moving bus
   
3. Robin offensively questioned Aneesa's race, sexuality and gender
4. Every dude on the cast got a handy from Jodi
   
5. CT PUNCHED DAVIS IN THE FACE

Are you telling me that Susie, the sweetest girl on the show actually thought that Ace, the most laid back guy on the show, meant any harm to anyone? If she wants to be mad at anything it should be Ace's poor taste in classic soft rock. Air Supply sucks. I bet this whole situation would have blown over if he had smartly chose something from the extensive catalog of Player or 10cc, or shit, what about the band Ace? I almost got mad at Cara for throwing in her two cents, by she is just so hot it is unreal. Smart, too! (Read her blog, it is hilarious).

More needs to happen at night. All the drunken hijinx of former seasons took place back when the cast had to be at missions at like six in the morning. Seeing as they get to sleep in until 9 or 10 now, there is no excuse for every evening not getting really, really weird.

Fortunately this disappointing start to the episode was totally redemmed by what TJ Lavin correctly called the coolest challenge ever. I would like to say that was just typical TJ overwroght hyperbole, but he was not kidding. For a challenge that involved no physical contact between any members of opposing teams, it was pretty damn cool.

My only qualm was that Alton just stood on a platform with a bucket of water instead of dangling from shear ledges letting his team climb up his back or something heroic like that. This episode was the first one this season that gave me no reason to call Alton a steed. That being said, it was still a cool challenge. And Alton is still a STEED.

Notes:

• This week's possible scenario presented by The Real World commercials during The Inferno 3 but then eliminated by the fact that the Denver cast is on this challenge: Colie dies of malignant chlymadia after banging everyone in Colorado.
• Danny could not seem to understand how his team keeps losing even though he is giving 110%. The answer is really quite simple: Alton pledged to give 140% in the first episode. Now I'm no math major, but I am pretty sure 140 > 110.
• What the hell happened to the afternoon sneak peak? I came home from work to find that last week must have been an anomaly. I got really upset until I watched the recording and was not greeted with a 14 year old getting his tibia worked with a bone saw, showing that MTV is being a bit more proactive in protecting the sanctity of my DVR by adhering to previously agreed upon time slots.
  

Inferno 3: Episode 3

Ladies and gentlemen, my prayers have been answered. Every time I have myself convinced that there are only 4-5 people on Earth that actually read this stupid blog (counting myself twice), something magical happens. John Murray must have this bookmarked, because after two weeks of begging and pleading, MTV finally got it right. The network has lovingly gone back to airing afternoon sneak previews of all 10 Spot programming, and actually kept the show exactly within the posted time limits. This is awesome for three reasons:

1. The DVR recognizes the 3:30 showing of The Inferno 3 as the "First run on this channel," so I can now watch it as soon as I get home from work.
2. The recording started at the perfect moment, but even if it didn't, I can tolerate Next or Date My Mom spillover way more than Papa Roach Presents: The Compound Fracture Half-Hour or whatever the hell is on at 8:30PM
3. Because of the newfound respect for timeslots, I was able to see previews for next week's episode.

Konichiwa, MTV. I appreciate it.

Did anyone else see the uncannily frightening similarities between the some events of this episode and our country's current foreign affairs situation. I would say that this is intentional, but I am not sure if I am willing to give MTV that much credit anymore. For me, The Real World: Seattle was the last time I felt like any of MTV's "reality programming" had any connection with actual reality.

But back to my theory. All things considered, this may be a bit of a stretch, but here are a few examples, stated as concisely as possible:

• When it became clear Rachel would most likely be going into the Inferno, almost everyone talked about her supposed supremacy among this season's other girls and the ease of which she would dominate any opponent.
• When Derek sees the apparatus for the Life Shield mission, he says "If that thing breaks, you are dead." I haven't heard an overstatement like that since George Tenet called the case against Saddam a "slam-dunk."
• Rachel, the seemingly stronger of the combatants, get off to an impressive early start but is worn down by Jen's unconventional style of competition. Shock and Aw. Insurgents. Think about it.
  

Admittedly, they seemed a lot more prolific when I was sitting at work this afternoon spacing out during a conference call. Moving on...

Despite watching the episode three times I still can not wrap my head around what, exactly, they were supposed to do in the Life Shield mission. From the looks of it, I guess it is pretty easy to deduce that Susie won fair and square, but I would be lying if I didn't say I am still a little confused. One thing that was crystal clear is that her partner was Alton, and they were the only ones to finish the mission. Ergo: ALTON IS A STEED!

The bad news for Susie is that this task appeared to fall into the "impossible unless you had Alton on your team" category anyways, so she effectively wasted her "Throw the mission for me" card pretty early in the game.

A few more thoughts:

• They need to stop filming Tonya do anything. I haven't seen camera presence that bad since The Erotic Traveler 2: Lost in Ecstasy.
• I love the growing tension between Aneesa and Ev. It is only a matter of time before they get in a fist fight/make love.
  

Inferno 3: Episode 2

I think I may need to write to MTV and kindly request that they start and end their shows on time. Once again my DVR started recording during the last minute of that aberrational program in the 8:30 timeslot and stopped recording Inferno just as they were about to show what to look forward to on next week's episode. I thought that the entire reason they created time zones was so mishaps like this could be avoided. Anyways...

I am really unhappy with MTV's trend of frequently trying to make elimination challenges some sort of battle of brawn and brains. Last season, how many times did we have to see that stupid Ascender game? What an absolute waste of what could have been a really prolific match up this week. I am not saying that I don't enjoy Alton getting straight up surgical with whatever they throw at him. He is a steed and I enjoy watching him compete. He could play a game of Bunco with Scott Bakula while eating a grilled cheese sandwich and I could still find a reason to waltz into work the next day proudly tell all my co-workers "ALTON IS A STEED."

But imagine seeing him go against Tyrie is some sort of American Gladiator type shit. That is the type of quality television that has the possiblity of blowing your asshole clear off the end of your rectum. Save the brainteasers for the final challenge when they are necessary so everyone thinks the underdogs always has a chance.

So congratulations to Alton for, uh, annihilating (I guess) Tyrie in the Inferno. And congratulations to the entire cast for, as usual, using the events that occurred over first 36 hours of filming to make overarching assumptions about the rest of the season. In Denver, Jen knew after one night that she would never talk to Alex again and that Colie would be at her wedding. Here in South Africa, after the first elimination (and their first win at anything) John and Timmy are convinced that their winning "trend" has so much momentum that it can not be stopped.

A quick side note: I am sticking to my claim that is detrimental to both shows to have the Denver cast on this season of The Challenge. The first preview for Wednesday's Real World episode has Jen claiming that if she had a gun, she would shoot Davis after he (suprise suprise) goes out of his way to stir shit up for no apparent reason. Yes, the episode most likely will not end with a gun homicide, but I would have at least appreciated the opportunity to find that out the old-fashioned way.

Easily the highlight of this week's episode was listening to Tonya, Abe, Kenny and Ev's engrossing conversation on the Hamiltonian mechanics of kinetic and potential momentum. If you pay close attention, you can hear Abe briefly trying to explain Riemannian manifolds to Ev, who responds with an eloquent "Get the fuck out of my face." It looks like the Bad Asses are having just as hard of a time figuring out who the hell she is as I am.

The second most notable incident from this episode involves Danny completely flying off the handle after the Good Guy victory. This comedically overexaggerated performance of his can be explained with two words: 'Roid Rage. The amount of clandestine doping going on at these challenges probably makes professional cycling look like a BattleCry convention. The theory my friends and I have come up with goes like this: Sometime between The Inferno 2 and The Gauntlet 2, all the male competitors began to realize that appearing on these challenges is as much of a career as they are going to have their entire life. The only exceptions I can think of are Ace, Syrus and Cameran, who host the newest Girls Gone Wild video. And Tonya has been in soft core porn. But that is beside the point.

Everyone else has to prepare for the upcoming shows the same way football players and middle relievers prepare for their upcoming seasons: by conditioning their bodies with the help of banned performance enhancing drugs.

The minute the cameras stop rolling at the end of a season, they hit the gym and the juice, and they hit them hard. Notice the impressive bulk that Wes put on between the conclusion of Fresh Meat and the start of The Duel. How about MJ, Landon and Alton on The Gauntlet 2? And now there is Danny, who was always a muscular guy but is now a complete brick shit house with a short fuse and horrific bacne.

It is bad enough that when I am 40 I am going to have to look back knowing that a vast majority of the baseball players I idolized growing up where worse drug abusers than Pete Doherty, but to also reach the same conclusion about the MTV cast members that I talk about with friends and write about in stupid blogs? Kick me while I'm down, world.

Some final notes-

• What is MTV trying to pull with Living Lahania? I didn't watch that show the first time it was on when it was called Maui Fever. Or the second time it was on when it was called Twentyfourseven.
• I am still really sad that I will not have any real reason to write anything relevant about CT this time around.

Inferno 3: Episode 1

First of all, I am really grossed out by whatever show is on before Inferno. About 30 seconds of it spilled over on the DVR recording, and I still can't exactly describe what I saw when I pressed play. It caught 15 seconds of teenagers getting compound fractures after falling off skateboards and then 15 seconds of Papa Roach performing live. Pretty confusing.

But when this third installment of the Inferno actually began I almost crapped myself. I saw what I have been dying to see ever since CT took credit for sending Leah flowers in Paris and Alton single handedly pushed a pick up truck full of bricks across a field on The Gauntlet 2: those two steeds on opposing teams. It was a dream come true. Add to that CT making a gracious, moving toast at dinner and then getting his nose bloodied wrestling with Kenny later that night? This is going to be sweet.

As far as the theme goes, they have done this before, but I like it in the sense that it is pretty much MTV admitting that now the main criterion for determining if someone should be put on a season of The Real World is whether or not they are one-dimensional enough to make a convincing Challenge character. They were way off on a few choices, though:

• Kenny as a Bad Ass? Don't get me wrong, I think he is plenty tough, but he is one of the funniest, most easy going guys on the show. He was the good-natured comic foil to Tina on Fresh Meat and an equally entertaining gentleman on The Duel.
  
• Rachel as a good guy? She was a total bitch on her season and everyone hated her (and if douches like Nehemiah and Wes have reasons to hate you, you must be a really bad person). In her defense, I guess being a "really bad person" doesn't necessarily make you a "Bad Ass"
  
• But by far the worst choice is making Danny a Bad Ass. Are you kidding me? The only bigger wimp I can think of from the past 15 years of MTV programming is Joe from Real World Miami and maybe Jesse Camp. He even calls himself a pussy. I bet if I were to tell him right now that every 13 year-old boy has access to these pictures of Melinda he would just sit in the corner and cry. You didn't win an Oscar, dude. You were on The Real World. Return Lacey's phone calls.
  

But on to the real story: CT was sent packing literally hours after the team arrived in South Africa for drunkenly punching Davis in the face. This situation gets me very angry for three reasons:

1. You can not tell me that they didn't get it on film because I am positive that after all the intentional and unintentional comedic moments CT has provided through the years, MTV must have a full crew trained on him at all times.
   
2. It appears that CT may be gone for a long while. Tina had been on like 4 of the last 5 Challenges and she is noticeably absent the season after she punched Beth in the face (which also mysteriously took place "off camera"). So not only are we robbed of any number of possible CT/Alton showdowns on this season, we may never get a chance to see it at all. Then again, Abe has gotten kicked off not one but two seasons of Road Rules for coming to blows with another member of the cast, and he is back, so I guess there is always hope.
3. Let's not forget Davis almost left Denver and went to rehab after he spent the good part of a night early in the season repeatedly calling Tyrie the n-bomb and actually begging to get his snotbox rearranged. Due to CT's absolute incoherence, we really never got his side of the story. Aside from the fact that we all know it would be hilarious to hear a sober CT describe how it went down, I can not stop thinking that the whole incident is very suspicious. I totally agree that CT had to be removed from the show, but Davis is on pace to become one of the more prolific shit-disturbers in Real World history, so I have a hard time believing the attack was 100% unprovoked.
   

This is getting long, so only a few more notables:

• How can they have the Denver cast on the challenge when their Real World season is still going on? MTV has ruined any remaining suspense about the fate of the cast. I was banking on at least one cast member killing another before the season was over. Now I know that everyone survives (I guess Jen or Colie could have still killed Alex, but I know for sure now that there are at least 4 people that Brooke doesn't kill, which in and of itself is a bit disappointing)
• I was very surprised that Tyrie didn't start crying after the ladder challenge like he's done every other time he had to climb something on MTV.
• I still have no idea what to make of Ev.
  
• I've said it once before, but it bears repeating: ALTON IS A STEEEEEEEEEEED! Stepping in on the first Inferno? Of course he did. I saw that coming a mile away and it still gave me goosebumps when it happened.