Real World/ Road Rules Challenge - The Ruins - Episode 5

Every week, during a RW/RR Challenge, I’ll write a recap of the new episode with some running commentary. If you missed a week or want to know what happened on a previous episode, an archive of my recaps will be under the News tab in my profile.

My apologies for not making a recap for last week’s show. I was down with a really bad sinus infection. I even got a doctor’s note ;p

Last week, Tonya, Katie, and Danny went home. Sadly, I think all of those losses help the Champions team. Since I couldn’t do a full recap last week, I’ll share some thoughts on last week’s episode and move onto this week’s episode.

First thought, as annoying as she is, you really have to feel for Tonya. She knows exactly what her problem is and how it affects her relationships with other people, but she doesn’t know how to confront it.

Second, I’m tired of hearing Veronica try to position herself like she’s the victim and all these crazy people somehow target her. Tonya initiated the confrontation, but Veronica provoked Tonya into hitting her. Veronica continued talking trash after Tonya had broken down emotionally. What kind of person does that??

Finally, the only significant difference between Wes and the boy band (Evan, Kenny, and Johnny) is the boy band has a sense of humor about them. They all have huge egos. They all mess with people. They all lie, cheat, and will do whatever it takes to take home the money. But Wes always has to carry himself on a high horse.

Okay, onto this week’s episode..

Johanna is again talking/ flirting with Wes. Johanna is telling Wes that she can’t trust Wes in the game or in life. Somehow this is cute and funny for them because they are cracking up. It’s like foreplay. In her interview, Johanna is saying that she doesn’t trust Wes and doesn’t like talking to him, but we all know that’s a lie.

Looks like MTV has a bigger budget than usual because the cast is getting on another boat taking them to some resort where they’re drinking more alcohol and playing beach volleyball. It’s straight out of Top Gun. I’m half expecting someone to flex like Hollywood or see Kelly McGillis driving by in her white convertible. Cohutta is trying to get Kelly Anne to hold a little hermit crab that bit him. In interview, Cohutta is talking about how there are still weird feelings between him and Kelly Anne (I’m not really seeing those feelings being reciprocated by Kelly Anne, but I’m not even sure when this relationship even happened for them.)

Back at the house, Wes is telling Kelly Anne that Cohutta’s crossing a line in his interactions with Kelly Anne and wants to face him in the Ruins to send him home. Kelly Anne seems to be sticking up for Cohutta and tells Wes that she doesn’t want Wes to face Cohutta in the Ruins because she doesn’t want to see either of them go home. Wes counters, “He’s going to be sent home by someone. Wouldn’t you rather see me with his money?” (Wes is so SMOOTH.. Yeah, that was sarcasm there.)

In interview, Kelly Anne seems legitimately torn about possibly seeing Wes vs. Cohutta in the Ruins. I think her emotions are legit because the vein on top of one of her fake boobs is pulsating. Maybe I was wrong about Cohutta’s feelings being reciprocated?

Johanna, Ibis, and Susie are talking on a balcony about how they want to make sure they get to the finals. To do this, they want to send Veronica into the next Ruins vs. Kelly Anne. As they’re discussing this, Veronica and Casey are hanging out on a lower balcony and Veronica overhears their plan. Veronica goes straight to Evan to see if she can prevent getting sent into the Ruins. Where do they decide to discuss this? Another balcony! Susie sees Veronica rush to talk to Evan and wisely finds another balcony nearby to eavesdrop on them. Veronica tries to convince Evan that Susie should go into the Ruins, but Evan’s not receptive to that because he has an agreement with Susie not to vote for her to go into the Ruins. Also, Evan says that Susie has volunteered for every Ruins, so she has every right not to be sent into another one, if she doesn’t want to go. Looks like Veronica’s screwed.

As we zoom forward to the day of the challenge. The Champions have a meeting to clarify how the vote’s going to go. Looks like everyone, but Wes and Veronica are in the meeting. Everyone agrees to send Wes, Veronica, and Kelly Anne into the elimination.

The Challengers team has seven players left. Six are eligible for elimination. They have three guys and four girls. The person not eligible for elimination is Brianna, since she went into the Ruins last week. So Brad, Dunbar, and Cohutta will be up for elimination every week from here on out. And this week, Kelly Anne, Kimberly, and Casey join them.

On the Champions team, Kenny, Evan, and Wes are eligible with Johanna, Ibis, and Veronica. There’s not really any deliberation and Veronica volunteers to go in because she knows she’d be voted in, regardless.

This week the challenge is called Block Party. Two guys and two girls from each team will wrap around a pole. The remaining players from each team with then need to pull the other team’s players off the pole and carry/ drag them back to the starting area to eliminate them. When a player is eliminated, they can join their teammates in trying to pull the other team’s players from the pole. Once the opposing team’s four players wrapped around the pole are eliminated, the team can then begin carrying cinder blocks to the pole to build steps high enough to ring the gong. To win the challenge, you need to accomplish all of these steps first.

(If you understood the challenge by reading this, you’re officially in Mensa. Congratulations! I didn’t understand the challenge and I listened to TJ explain it, watched the example clips, and WATCHED the freaking challenge. All I know is it was chaos and this part of the recap is probably going to suffer a little. Or a lot.)

To make the teams even, the only guys on the Champions team participating today will be the guys eligible for the Ruins. Everyone else is going to have to sit this one out. Wes, Evan, and I’m not sure which females wrap around the poles for the Champions team. Cohutta, Brad, Casey, and Kelly Anne hug the poles for the Challengers team.

The competition starts and Brad decides that the best way for him to help his team is to get eliminated, so he can help Dunbar with Evan and Wes. Kenny gets Brad without much problem. When he goes for Cohutta, Kenny is seriously struggling to pull him off the pole. Kenny says that Cohutta is putting up a huge fight and it basically takes everything he’s got to pull him off the pole and drag him to the starting area. Casey looks like she’s dragged into the starting area without much trouble, but the Champions’ females are struggling with Kelly Anne. Somehow or another, Kelly Anne is getting stripped to her underwear as they try to wrestle her to the starting area.

The Challengers’ guys are struggling to pull Wes off the pole and to the starting area. They manage to get him off the pole, but stop to rest half way to the starting area and Wes frees himself and runs back to the pole. So they have to start all over again. This time they’re carrying him and Dunbar has Wes in a headlock as he’s carrying him. They finally get him into the starting area, but now they need to get Evan, before they can begin building their steps to ring the gong, and they’re exhausted. Dunbar says getting Evan off the pole and trying to carry him to the starting area is like dragging a Canadian moose. They can’t really move Evan off the pole and the Champions team has already begun building their steps. After a few futile attempts to pull Evan, the Champions team rings the gong to win the challenge.

In the deliberation, Wes volunteers to go in against Cohutta and everyone is fine with that. For the females, Veronica tries to argue that she shouldn’t go in, but seeing that she’s not going to get enough votes, says she wants to go in against Kimberly. There’s a lot of arguing and they finally put it to vote. There’s three votes for Veronica and Kelly Anne, Wes and Veronica vote for Veronica and Kimberly. Now it’s down to Evan to cast the deciding vote. And Evan ties the vote by voting for Veronica and Kimberly. TJ comes in and because they’re deadlocked, the rest of the team is going to come in for a vote.

The rest of the team comes in and looks irritated they were disturbed from their binge drinking because their six teammates couldn’t agree on something that was decided earlier that day. There’s no discussion allowed and TJ puts Syrus on the spot for a vote. Inexplicably, Syrus votes for Ibis and Kimberly. Derrick decides to go with the flow and votes for Ibis/ Kimberly. Susie seems to be the only one who isn’t rattled and votes for Veronica/ Kelly Anne, as the team decided earlier. Darrell votes for Ibis/ Kimberly. Johnny thinks that the outcome is already decided, so he goes with Ibis/ Kimberly. Veronica, naturally, votes for Ibis/ Kimberly, as does Wes. Johanna, Kenny, Ibis, and Evan vote for Veronica and Kelly Anne, but it’s not enough. The tally comes to 6 votes for Ibis/ Kimberly and 5 votes for Veronica/ Kelly Anne. Ibis is going into the Ruins.

Veronica is giddy and Ibis is furious. She seems particularly upset with Johnny and Derrick because Johnny won’t stop talking, even though she doesn’t want to talk to him about it, and she feels like Derrick wasn’t loyal to her even though they were from the same Road Rules season.

Wes seems ecstatic about the vote, too. (I think he’s happy because his team messed up something as simple as voting for Veronica/ Kelly Anne. I probably would be too, if I were him. It was surreal to watch.) He goes to the Challengers room to tell Cohutta, they’ll be in the Ruins and to tell them what happened in their deliberation.

Cohutta doesn’t seem to really listen to Wes and looks like he trying to focus on his upcoming elimination challenge against Wes. No one is really giving Cohutta much of a chance. Even Cohutta sounds intimidated.

At the Ruins, TJ introduces the elimination challenge. It’s called Spool. Each player with have a rope tied around their waist. That rope wrapped around a number of bamboo beams and each player will need to follow their rope to untie the entire spool of rope and carry the rope across the finish line to ring the gong. First person to ring the gong wins.

Wes and Cohutta are going first today. Wes concedes that this challenge doesn’t play into his size advantages vs. Cohutta. Cohutta mumbles something about doing his best. TJ starts the challenge. They seem about even as they need to climb up and down these bamboo beams to untie their rope. The Champions team is resoundingly rooting for Cohutta, except Johanna who seems to be relatively quiet. Kelly Anne seems to remember that Wes is her boyfriend and is cheering him on. Kenny reminds us that Cohutta gave him a heck of a fight in the challenge earlier and thinks that Cohutta can pull off the upset.

Cohutta takes a small lead on Wes as he looks smoother carrying his untied rope over and under the bamboo beams. Wes looks like he’s getting frustrated and his rope is knotting up as he unspools more and more of it from the bamboo beams. Kelly Anne sounds like her voice just raised another octave because Cohutta is almost done. Wes looks exhausted and defeated. Cohutta unspools all of his rope, crosses the finish line, and rings the gong to pull off the upset and send Wes home.

Everyone seems elated about this outcome, except for Kelly Anne and Johanna. Johanna actually looks like she might cry. Kenny has a huge, smug grin on his face (and he’s wearing a Karate Kid headband!). Wes seems to take the loss gracefully, he congratulates Cohutta. He then walks over to his team to tell them that despite any differences they may have had, he still thinks each and every one of them has good qualities. In interview, Wes tells us that he’s never lost before and has “too big of a heart” not to forgive anyone on the Champions team who “comes back to him”. (I know I make a lot of jokes about Wes, but his attempt to sound like Jesus there was ABSURD! Dude, you’re not the lord and savior.)

Now it’s time for the female elimination. Ibis and Kimberly get set up and their challenge starts. Kimberly seems to have a slight lead, then Cohutta yells out to her that she needs to keep her rope from tangling up or she’ll end up losing. Ibis looks like she’s getting tired and frustrated. Kimberly looks tired too, but she pulls away and wins the challenge pretty easily. Ibis is going home.

The Champions team feels a little guilty about how she was voted into the Ruins, but as Kenny puts it, “she was their anchor”, so they don’t feel too bad about her going home.

Back at the house, Susie and Kimberly confront Johanna about her reaction when Wes was eliminated. Johanna tries to deny she was tearing up, but Susie calls her on it. Later on, a group of females are sitting around the house talking and Johanna is talking about how she feels sad about Wes leaving. Kelly Anne is sitting right in front of her and Johanna’s talking about how it was weird having him around and sad to have him sent home! Of course, Kelly Anne starts getting a little upset about this, but mostly keeps it to herself. In interview, Johanna admits that she can’t help feeling for Wes because they were together for three years. In her interview, Kelly Anne says that even though she has nothing against Johanna, she can’t help feeling that she wants to send Johanna home. (Maybe because it sounds like Johanna still has feelings for your boyfriend, they hang out and talk a lot, and they were engaged to be married.. But what do I know?)

Memorable Quotes:

“What is happening??” – Wes, during the Ruins, as Cohutta is taking a significant lead and he’s struggling to untangle his growing wad of rope.

It’s much funnier when you see it on TV. Especially when you compare it to his arrogance earlier in the show and he was trying to convince Kelly Anne that it was a foregone conclusion Cohutta was going to be sent home eventually, so she should feel okay about Wes taking the money in Cohutta’s bank account.

Previews for next week:

Looks like a bunch of people aren’t happy with Johnny Bananas and there might be a little uprising against him.

See you guys next week! Please feel free to comment and keep the discussion going!