Real World/ Road Rules Challenge - The Ruins - Episode 6

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.

I’m not sure how many weeks are left in this season, but with six players from each team eligible for the Ruins and 16 players remaining, not a lot of people will be able to avoid being sent into the elimination.

The show begins with Kelly Anne in her room. Wes left her a note of encouragement and in the letter you can see he wrote that Brad has an alliance with Evan and Kenny and tells her to stick with Brad. She’s moping around the house because Wes is gone and she misses him. How sweet?

Johnny is talking to Evan about Johnny’s standing in the game. He’s pretty nervous about being sent into the Ruins and thinks Evan is making decisions to position himself for the finals, instead of making decisions that are best for the team.

(Isn’t that the whole point of this game? As much as it pisses me off when I see people screwed over on these shows, that’s where the drama and enjoyment we derive from this show comes from. And from the player’s perspective, isn’t that what they are all doing so that they win money? It’s like Johnny is trying to fill the sanctimonious BS void left behind, when Wes was eliminated last week.)

Johanna and Susie are strategizing on a balcony about who they want in the Ruins (after last week’s eavesdropping debacle, at least Susie is looking around while they talk to make sure no one is listening to their conversation. I think she’s the smartest female left in the challenge!).

Johanna, Susie, and Veronica are the only females left on the Champions team, so Veronica is the odd woman out. They still want her to take out Kelly Anne because they think she’s the strongest female on the Challengers team. In interview, Derrick says that he doesn’t trust Veronica.

Moving onto the day of the challenge, the teams select who will be eligible for the Ruins. Johnny and Derrick volunteer for the Champions and after some cajoling, Syrus joins them (uh oh.. He’s looking a lot like the guys in red uniforms who always get killed in Star Trek episodes. He’s already competed in one elimination challenge and won, so maybe they won’t send him in anymore.. That’s the fair thing to do, right?) And again, Johanna, Susie, and Veronica are the only females left on the Champions team, so they’re in automatically.

The Challengers team is down to seven players, three guys and four females. Brad, Cohutta, Dunbar, Brianna, Casey, and Kelly Anne are eligible, with Kim taking this week off, since she sent Ibis home last week.

The challenge this week is called Fruits of Your Labor. It’s basically a relay race with baskets of fruit. Two or three players from each team will pile fruit into a basket, then run the basket to a wall and toss the fruit over the wall. On the other side of the wall are two players holding a blanket-sized burlap cloth to catch the fruit thrown over the wall. From there, the fruit caught in the cloth will be dumped into a basket. That player will carry the basket to a table and pass along the basket to a teammate that can only carry the basket by holding two bamboo poles. The basket of fruit is then taken to the final teammate to grab the basket from the poles and pour the fruit into a giant scale. The team with the heaviest basket wins.

The teams are assigning everyone a leg of the race and the Challengers team is experiencing drama because the guys don’t think the girls can catch the fruit without a guy there, so they decide have one guy and one girl throwing and another guy/girl tandem catching. The females are frustrated because the guys aren’t listening to them and everyone’s just yelling. (In this case, I’ll have to side with the females. The task involves tossing a basket of fruit over a ten foot wall. A lot of guys would struggle mustering the strength for that.)

On the Champions team, their drama involves Veronica. Johnny thinks Veronica would try to sabotage the challenge, so they have her throwing fruit over the wall with Evan and Darrell. Veronica is completely offended and can’t believe that her team thinks she would do that.

The challenge starts and the guys toss their fruit over the wall and a bunch of fruit isn’t getting caught in the cloths of either team. The females try to throw the fruit of the over and it’s not even close to getting over the wall. In one pitiful attempt, Veronica tries to throw her basket as hard as she can and the fruit just flies straight into the wall.

The Champions get fruit onto their half of the scale first and this causes the Challengers’ side of the scale to rise. By the time the Challengers bring fruit for Casey to dump into the scale, she’s struggling to raise the basket high enough to dump the fruit.

Eventually the Challengers seem to even it up with the Champions team and it starts to rain on the contestants during the challenge. It’s close for a short while, but looking at the scale, the Champions’ side is firmly on the ground while the Challengers’ side is still high. The Challengers can’t make up the difference and the Champions win again.

The teams travel back to the house to prepare for the deliberations. Johnny’s appealing to his team that Syrus should go into the Ruins because Syrus is hurt and trying to hide his injuries from the team. Nobody seems to be taking him seriously, which is only aggravating him more. Later on, Johnny tells Syrus that he should go in because he’s hurting the team with his injuries. Syrus thinks it’s a weak excuse and feels double-crossed because he was under the impression that he wouldn’t be sent into the Ruins because he already competed in a previous week’s Ruins.

In the deliberation room, the team easily votes to send in Veronica and against Veronica’s wishes the team decides to have her face Kelly Anne. Syrus is also voted into the Ruins and he decides to go against Cohutta. Veronica calls Derrick a coward because he was sitting on the fence with his vote, but ultimately decided to go with the majority of the group. Derrick’s struggling with a lot of his decisions and didn’t feel comfortable voting for Syrus, but didn’t want to piss off Johnny.

Back at the house, Evan, Kenny, Johanna, and Susie are plotting their next step. Susie asks Evan if she should volunteer for the next elimination challenge and everyone shoots that idea down and the consensus is that she should wait to see if Veronica comes back tonight. Evan thinks if the four of them can hold out a little bit longer, they’ll be able to screw over everyone else to make sure they make it to the finals.

As they’re about to break, Veronica pops her head out of her bed and tells Evan that she heard the whole thing (Why would you do that?? Why do you need to let them know you heard anything? Couldn’t she have just waited for them to leave the room, then tell everyone in the house what she heard?). Evan, Kenny, and Johanna don’t really care what Veronica heard, but Susie is freaking out.

Veronica is talking to Kelly Anne and Casey about what she heard. Veronica feels betrayed by Evan and the rest of her team. She waxes philosophy with Casey and they explore the deeper intricacies of a RW/RR challenge. (It’s funny how Veronica never used to think the challenges were corrupt, when she, Corral, and Rachel were the most popular girls in the challenge and could bully everyone else.)

Kelly Anne is sad because she’s developed a bond with Veronica talking about their disproportional implants. (I made up the part of them talking about their implants, not that they feel bonded because they are.) Veronica then says that if she comes back to the house she’s going to tell the rest of her team what she heard and she and Syrus are going to band together to sabotage challenges for the Champions.

(Again, why wouldn’t you tell Johnny, Derrick, Syrus and Darrell now, before the challenge? What’s stopping you from saying anything to them now?)

The elimination challenge for this week is called Hog Tie. There are two logs that are the length of the course. Each player will be hung by their hands and feet to a log. Their hands and feet will be tied together to a rope that’s wrapped around the log. In this hanging position, they will need to worm to the other end of the log. About 2/3 of the length down the log, a key will be hung for them to grab and hold onto. When they reach the end of the log, there will be a platform for the players to lay their backs on and use the key to unlatch themselves from the rope tied around their hands and feet. Once they’re unlatched, they will need to run back to the other side of the course and ring the gong. As always first person to ring the gong wins and the loser is sent home.

First up are the guys. When TJ starts the challenge, Syrus jumps out to a HUGE early lead as he shimmies his way down the log. Everyone is amazed how fast he was able to start. Even Cohutta was startled at how well Syrus was moving along the log. About halfway, Syrus slows down as the fatigue of making his way up the log sets in and Cohutta is able to catch up. Syrus regains his groove and gets to the platform first.

Unfortunately, Syrus is having trouble unlatching his hands and feet from the rope and he’s starting to panic. His team is yelling for him to unlatch one hand and one foot, instead of both to save time, but in his panic, he can’t hear them. Cohutta, on the other hand, is making it a point to maintain his cool and remain focused. By the time he gets to the platform, Syrus has one hand unlatched. Cohutta gets to work and stays calm to unlatch one hand and one foot to make a dash for the gong and win the elimination challenge. Syrus was able to unlock both of his hands, but wasn’t able to unlock his feet.

Syrus is disappointed in himself for panicking and losing his cool. He’s still a little bitter about getting screwed into the Ruins, too. In his interview, he says, “Next time I’m going to come with my game face on. Play the game like they play the game, but I’m going to come back a different person.” (I don’t even know what that means, but I’m a little frightened that he’s thinking about coming back.)

Next up is the female elimination challenge. Kelly Anne says, “I don’t really have a strategy. I’m just going to listen to my team for advice and fight my heart out.” (That’s exactly what the strongest player on a team is supposed to say before a challenge!)

TJ starts the challenge and, unlike the guys who shot across the log, the females are struggling a lot more with this. Halfway across the log and both Kelly Anne and Veronica look spent. Veronica is mostly hanging there like dead weight. Kelly Anne isn’t moving very fast, but she’s still moving. Inch by inch, Kelly Anne makes it to the platform, unlatches herself and eliminates Veronica, who didn’t make it to the platform.

Back at the house, everyone is relaxing and Derrick is about to go to sleep on his bed after he had a few drinks. Johnny decides it’s a good idea to tar and feather Derrick with maple syrup and some feathers he brought with him for the trip (I have no idea why he thought that a trip to Thailand meant he had to bring feathers).

While putting on the syrup and feathers, Derrick wakes up and gets pissed about the whole deal. Derrick jumps out of bed and starts wrestling with Johnny. Johnny is trying to fend him off, but Evan and Kenny are just standing around watching everything go down, instead of helping him and Johnny starts yelling at Evan and Kenny to help out. They choose to sit back, until Derrick starts to get a little more aggressive, then they separate them. Evan explains that Johnny got himself into this mess and they weren’t going to get involved.

In his interview, Derrick says that he keeps pictures of his wife and children around his bed and he considers his bed to be a place of significance for him and was upset that Johnny was messing with him in his special place. Derrick also sounded upset that Johnny decided to pick on him although Derrick has always backed Johnny’s decisions and voted with him in this and previous challenges.

As everyone calms down, Johnny is complaining LOUDLY that everyone blames him for everything (he’s trying way too hard to fill Wes’s void as the resident blowhard). To Johnny’s credit, in his interview, he admits that his outspoken nature tends to rub people the wrong way and he brings a lot of this drama on himself. Kenny says in a foreboding manner that Johnny has a problem because a lot of people on the team aren’t happy with him right now..

Memorable Quotes:

“I guess guys have more muscle mass per weight, this, that, or the other..” – Casey providing scientific analysis of Veronica and Kelly Anne struggling with the Ruins compared to Syrus and Cohutta.

How is she still on the show?? She ranks slightly higher than Shauvon in terms of athletic ability and that’s only because, in theory, Casey should be able to move faster.

”It’s a game for them and they risked losing me. And now they have to deal without me.. They’re going to be screwed.” – Veronica, in her interview, after her elimination challenge.

I don’t think anyone on the team thought it was that big of a risk to throw Veronica into the Ruins. Someone’s going to need to explain her value to me in smaller words or something because I don’t know how she helps her team win challenges.

Previews for next week:

The gang is partying by the pool.. Casey flashes her implants.. Brad is telling Casey she’s worthless.. The Challengers are openly saying that Casey is holding them back.

As always, feel free to leave comments about the show, the recap, or whatever. See you all next week!