13: Fear is Real Episode Two Recap
Horror Reality TV Series Gets a Little More Frightening
Jan 14, 2009
Episode number two of the reality series 13: Fear is Real is even more absurd than last week’s series premiere. Feeling more and more like Saw VI every minute, the show does a fine job of generating feelings of uneasiness within contestants and viewers alike.
The remaining twelve cabin-dwellers encounter a menagerie of wild beasts and an endless supply of blindfolds this week while they battle for the $66,666 in prize money.
However, it doesn’t take long for Nasser to blunder his way into the execution ceremony. Within the first five minutes of the show, he falsely accuses Laura of holding the “death box” (an item secretly possessed by one cast member that allows him or her to assume the role of killer and take out other contestants one by one) and so he winds up on the chopping block.
As a result, he can’t participate in the week’s ritual, and with uneven teams Erica volunteers to stay behind with Nasser. (Strangely enough, she is exempt from going to the execution ceremony after begrudgingly sitting out the competition).
Week Two Ritual Competition
Following the cell phone instructions of their host, the Mastermind, the other ten contestants head to “the water’s edge” where they put on the obligatory blindfolds before each team is guided into boats.
This is where the show leaves the realm of reality television and enters a weird “surreality” genre.
For the first time in the series, the participants have a reason to scream. When they remove their blindfolds, they find they are in the middle of a swamp filled (presumably) with gators and leeches, and a mysterious box inside the boat is uncovered to reveal that it is filled (seriously) with snakes.
But it gets worse. The always moody Mastermind directs them to pull plugs from the bottoms of their boats so that swamp water will leak into the boats and sink them unless the team members work together to bail out the water.
Scaring the contestants with horror movie plots and bogeymen in shadows is one thing, but recklessly endangering their lives with contests like this is outrageous. (Steffinnie even admits she doesn’t know how to swim before the ritual begins).
Laura and Adam certainly don’t feel at ease in their boat, as they give up and seal their fate as participants in the execution ceremony.
Execution Ceremony, Cast Member Eliminated
Before heading off to the ceremony, Laura admits that she’s scared, but for all the wrong reasons: “There’s the huge fear of leaving, there’s the huge fear of panic because you want to be here.”
She left out the huge fear of rats attacking her face, because that’s what the show’s producers have in store for her.
The three unlucky losers take off yet more blindfolds to find that their heads are locked into weird cage devices so Saw-like that one half expects the cast members to disembowel each other to get the keys that will free them from these traps.
Oh, and the cages have rats in them. Apparently this is the chic alternative to game shows like Deal or No Deal, and winning modest amounts of money is only cool if you risk getting the plague or drowning in the Louisiana Bayou.
Nasser and Adam are the first to escape their traps, and Laura’s pleas of “Help me Adam!” go unanswered as her former teammate jets back to camp without her.
Apparently the show's editors want everyone to believe that the rats maul Laura’s face off-screen because some grisly blood spattering sound effects are the last we hear of her, as she has been executed.
So ends week two of 13: Fear is Real. This time, the fear actually was real, and with alligators and sinking boats the contestants had good reason to feel scared.
Hopefully next week’s contests will be just as scary, but a little more safe for those involved.
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