Apparently there aren’t any yachts available because everyone is partying by the pool. There is drinking, there is Truth or Dare. As Kim puts it, “There’s nudity and nipple-biting and a lot of other things we’ll regret… in about five minutes.” Johnny Bananas reminds us that after winning five of the last six Ruins, the Challengers have caught up, with each team having seven players. “Even though we are even in numbers, our team is light years better,” he says.
Post-Truth or Dare, Kenny and Evan bust in on Kim and Dunbar in the bathroom doing what Kim claims is strategizing. “I’ve never talked strategy with a topless girl in the bathroom,” says Evan, skeptical but possibly forgetting about Veronica.
Rotary Club
Brad has been on a ton of these shows and has yet to win one. The Champion guys — all of whom have been on a team with him on one RW/RR Challenge or other — talk about how they feel bad for him, being stuck on a team with Casey, who is the least athletic person on the planet, with the possible exception of Stephen Hawking. Casey tells us that while everyone likes her personally because she’s a fun girl, she knows how people feel about her as a teammate.
The Champions, however, love Casey as a teammate. They feel that her presence is an integral part of their winning strategy. The team has an agreement that no Champion girls are allowed to choose Casey as a Ruins opponent; they want her around until the final mission, which will undoubtedly be something she can’t do.
This week’s Challenge is probably the dumbest event in the history of competition, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. It’s called Rotary Club and it’s basically a relay race that involves rolling down a hill in huge tractor tires.
“This looks like what hillbillies do when they get drunk. And one of them ends up a paraplegic,” says Sarah, who can't believe the foolishness in which she is involved.
Evan puts it best: “It’s funny to hear them scream, and see them fly and land on the back of their necks. Then you start to realize, ‘That’s going to be me.” Everyone seems to be having a great time when they’re not actually in the tire.
The words “dizzy,” “discombobulated” and “vomit” are bandied about. KellyAnne compares it to being bodyslammed. Johnny Bananas says it feels like being in an industrial-strength washing machine. Because Casey is still on the team, the Challengers lose by nine minutes.
The Person Trainer vs. The Little Dragon Slayer
With so few players, everyone but Derrick, Johnny and KellyAnne are eligible for the Ruins, which Cohutta plans to buy if he wins the grand prize because it’s his “home away from home.” Since the winner of the elimination round pockets the loser’s money, Cohutta — who has $18,000 in his bank account, courtesy of Syrus and Wes — assumes he’s going to get chosen for the Ruins again. And indeed he is. Darrell volunteers to represent his team and chooses Cohutta as his opponent because that particular victory will earn him $16,000 more than if he were to beat Brad or Dunbar. Johanna is also going in and picks Sarah. Even though Casey is off-limits, Johanna tells us that she wouldn’t want to face off against her anyway because she’d be terribly embarrassed if she lost.
Sarah believes in the power of positive thinking. She says that while a lot of people see the Ruins as a death sentence, she looks at it as an opportunity to earn more cash. That’s a great attitude, but it’s easy for her to say, since Katie and Johanna aren’t exactly stellar competitors. The departed Katie makes up for her athletic shortcomings by being awesome and attacking people with the plungers she finds in her bed.
Crunch consists of a bamboo rod and a tank of water. Players hang upside-down from the rod over the water in a crunch position for as long as possible. Once you’re too submerged in water to continue, you pull a cord that opens your tank so you don’t, like, drown. The female heat is first this week and Sarah, who is determined and confident, beats Johanna, who doesn’t really care, fairly quickly.
Cohutta has a solid track record in the elimiation rounds — Evan calls him “the golden boy,” while Susie refers to him as “a little dragon slayer” — but Johnny’s money is on Darrell, a personal trainer. “He does crunches in his sleep,” Johnny says. Cohutta puts up a better fight than Johanna did, but his winning streak is over. Darrell, who looks comfortable enough to fall asleep, is so in the zone that he doesn’t even seem to notice at first. Having just claimed all Cohutta’s “salad,” Darrell is now the richest person on the show, with more than $31,000 to his name.
In the Challengers’ bedroom, Brad is frustrated with Casey, who he calls a “blond-haired, blue-eyed Big Easy,” referring to Eric, who cost his team a win during the final mission by nearly going into cardiac arrest a few RW/RR Challenges ago. Brad doesn’t think it’s fair for Casey to hurt the team so much and waltz into the finals. Sarah compares him to an expanding balloon: ready to pop.
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