The Ruins - Episode 3

Stepping On Others To Get Ahead

Oct 15, 2009 Mike O'Brien

Previously on The Ruins: Half of Shauvon's enormous boob job popped. Wes and Ev got played by their team, with the latter purposely losing The Ruins to spite them.

The whole gang parties on a yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean like they’re in a Jay-Z video. Casey says she’d rather hang out on boats than, like, compete. Meanwhile, Tonya would rather get drunk and attempt to climb the mast than act like a normal human being. Everyone is all, “There goes crazy Tonya, vomiting over the side of the boat and kissing strange Thai girls. Where did we find her?”

Back in the house, Challengers Brad, Danny and Adam talk about how they need to stop losing everything. To that end, all three vow to step up into The Ruins and dominate, for team morale’s sake. In the Champions’ room, Wes says he’s done sabotaging missions so he can win and donate the monetary prize to charity and “inspire kids to do the right thing.” The team promises not to vote him into the upcoming elimination round, but not because anyone actually believes him about that charity thing.

Susie explains to us that she wants to align herself with Evan, who is more or less the leader of the Champions team. They agree to be in cahoots, pointing out the need to nominate themselves — not to actually go into The Ruins, but to have some control over who does. Veronica flirts with Evan a lot, presumably to weasel her way into this inner circle, but Johnny sees through her. “Instead of going to work, working hard and getting promoted the right way, it’s, ‘Let me just f**k the boss and get a raise that way,” he says.

Poverty: Stricken

Pre-Challenge, the teams decide which three men and women are “on the block,” to borrow an oft-used reality show cliché. Whoever ends up being selected, they need to “step up” and prove they “deserve to be here,” to borrow a few more. Also, they’re not here to make friends. Anyway, the Champions are temporarily true to their word, and nominate Kenny, Evan and Syrus, and not Wes. For the girls, it’s Ibis, Susie and Veronica. Potentially representing the Challengers in The Ruins are Adam, Brad, Danny, Casey, Kim and Brianna.

This show has been on for so long (The Ruins is the eighteenth Real World/Road Rules Challenge) that whoever comes up with the missions keep having to out-do themselves, so each season, they get more and more convoluted and ridiculous. Remember a million years ago when the participants would skydive and play football?

In Repo Race, one member of each team — Derrick and Cohutta — have to compete an obstacle course. But they can’t come into contact with the sand, only stepping on the backs of their teammates who have to keep moving to make human bridges. Kim sums it up for us: “We have to dive face-first into the sand and have Cohutta step on our faces.” It’s a close (and visually confusing, given all the shuffling) race but the Challengers win, finally putting some cash into their previously-empty bank accounts.

The six nominees from the winning team deliberate… in that room where everyone’s player cards are Velcroed to the wall. You know the one. While Casey is the obvious weak link, the Challengers want to send in a stronger girl who is more likely to eliminate one of the Champions. The group decides on Brianna, who isn’t very well-known as a competitor (this is her first Challenge) but is a scrapper. Brianna wants to shoot for the stars and picks Susie, who is undefeated in these things. Adam is going in for the guys and wants Syrus as his opponent because Kenny and Evan are his boys. Syrus is also twice Adam’s size, so that was a potentially terrible decision.

Zany Action On A Crazy Contraption

Burn Out is the name of the game and it may have been designed by Milton Bradley because it’s very Mouse Trap-esque. Each player has a wheel, a bucket and a fire burning at the end of a bamboo chute. The two wheels are situated at the end of this pole, in the middle of which is some triangular wooden thing. Water pours from an overhead pipe onto said wooden thing, and the players use their wheels to manipulate which way it goes. The object is to get as much water down the wooden thing into your opponent’s bucket; the bucket’s overflow goes down the chute and extinguishes the fire. See how convoluted that is? It’s basically strength-based, and Susie and Brianna are a close enough match that it’s really close. Susie wins, but not by much. Adam and Syrus are not remotely physical equals, and Adam is done. Between their team’s two wins and the money they just scored by winning Adam and Brianna’s no longer empty bank accounts, Susie and Syrus are currently the two richest people on the show, along with KellyAnne, who got Ev’s money last week.

That night, Evan and Veronica flirt on some balcony and debate whether their first kiss should be at sunrise or sunset. Veronica points out that sunrise is a lot sooner, while Evan interviews that while Veronica is hot, the fact that they’re playing a game makes her motives a little suspect. Similarly, Veronica thinks Evan is a nice guy, but isn’t sure whether his compliments are genuine. Veronica is also totally out of Evan’s league, but that doesn’t come up. The episode ends with a shot of them sleeping together (literally, sleeping together; this is not Real World-Cancun) so it’s safe to say their first kiss happened at sunrise.

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Veronica and Evan flirting