Photos
Video
RSS'Beauty and the Geek' mix it up
What a disparity in challenges on this Beauty & the Geek. I'm not sure that the beauty challenge really increased their smarts, but it was certainly entertaining since it gave Shay and Jasmine the heebie jeebies.
Spoilers creeping your way.
The four remaining beauties had to test their knowledge of animals, including the creepy, crawly kind. And in true Fear Factor fashion, they had to confront some of choice phobias. For Shay it was spiders, while Jasmine just had a problem with, well, everything. They had 10 minutes to grab 7 critters (Madagascar hissing cockroach, giant African millipede, corn snake, African bouncing toad, Hercules beetle grub, pink-toed tarantula and scorpion) and place them in a terrarium labeled with the matching Latin name.
Do we really need to say that Sam won? Not only was he not squeamish, but he's pretty good at studying and got 5 out of 7 matched. But really, this is where I was proud of Shay and Jasmine. Despite their very intense phobias, they girded their girly loins and made themselves do the challenge. Shay even completed it. Sadly, only one of the names matched.
On the geek side, they had to learn to mix drinks and exhibit some flair -- you know, that bottle-flipping showboating stuff seen in that venerable Tom Cruise film Cocktail. All I have to say is that they are soooo lucky that they kicked juggler John out last episode. This gave William a chance to exhibit his mean hand-eye coordination perfected from his doublesticking. And even though he was better than the others, he still wasn't great. Oh, and his attitude stank. Even Sam, the party man himself, observed: "Nobody wants to sit there and see a cocky bartender make your drinks."
Joshua was just awful. His strategy of just flinging anything and everything in the air and catching it in the glass wasn't very effective, but he kept a good attitude. Nicole was lame and repetitive. William had the most skill, but was boring. Dave -- newly minted, confident and caring Dave -- won hands down because he was relatively okay with the technical skills, but had the most personality, something that irked William to no end.
So let's talk about the default elimination room teams. Shay and Joshua have come the furthest and are hilarous to watch. Josh says she's very motherly, but then observes that others have compared them to an old married couple. How sadly true. They're one of the touching stories that comes out of this show.
Not so with William and Jen, and I can't say I have hopes for a turnaround. When Nicole chides William that "You just insulted her, saying that [Jen] is at a lower level," he replies, "I'm just stating fact." I lay this animosity almost entirely at William's door. Jen tries over and over to create some sort of dialogue, but in the end, all she can say is, "If I was walking down the street and saw someone down kicking you, I'd stop them," and that's all.
It's a sad state of affairs then, that William and Jen stay and Shay and Josh go, but Joshua dropped the ball on his question (which I didn't know either), so what can you do? I hope William gets his ass kicked, and soon.
Other highlights:
- Shay describing her challenge: "Everything was just no bueno ... at all."
- Shay "talking" to her critters: "I didn't mean to drop you. Come here."
- Dave's awww moment: "The point of the exercise was not to make edible brownies ... but to cheer Jasmine up."
- Jasmine: "I'm not a good drink critic because I drink anything."
- Dave RE: his flair: "It looks cooler than it actually is, which is what I'm all about."
- Sam's scared face running away from William's flying bottle.
- Sam about Joshua's bartending skills: "It's not much, but he can make my drink any day of the week." 
- Dave's bartending banter: "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."
- Josh and Shay's imaginary toast, after which he pretended to drink.
- Josh calling Shay "Shalandra," and having her hit him for the impertinence.
Your thoughts on the couples? Who has the best chance of winning? Who ought to win?
Post a comment
Zap2it Twitter Talk 
What was the question that Joshua missed?
You know this show and the Biggest Loser use to be my favorite reality shows cause people on them always seemed to want to change themselves for the better more than they wanted the money. The ones who stayed in the house were the ones who needed to be there not the biggest theat for winning the money. But this season both shows have just been about the money.It saddens me they have lower them to other reality shows level. Makes me realize this will most likey be the final season I watch them.
I find it really sad that out of the final three teams only one has made any really changes. If Sam or Nichole has changed any I haven't seen it and William what a winey b****. He needs to go home. Jen tries to help him and he doesn't listen. Maybe if he had he could have shown an actual personialty behind the bar.
The final should have been between Joshua/Shay and Dave/Jasmine. They were the two teams with real grown.
The sorry one final Rant. BUGS!!!!! Three girls and one guy and you make them carry bugs? that was one of the most unfair and bias things I have ever seen.
I really liked Shay and Joshua, I so want William to go home. He's such a whiney baby. I have not seen Jen do anything to merit such complete animosity and contempt from him. Dave and Jasmine for the win!
Sam and Nicole are the gimmick of the series, so it makes no sense for them to be eliminated early -- which, as a result, means we're getting challenges with a clear advantage to one of them.
And being different from the other couples means that they don't have the same shared goals as the others: they're not disgusted by Wil and Jen's lack of partnership as other couples were (like Shay trying to get them to speak) -- instead Wil and Jen are the easy marks to beat in the end.
Personally, I can easily see next week's episode coming out with both Sam and Nicole winning their challenges and then picking Dave and Jasmine to leave so that they're guaranteed a victory in the final.
I don't think other couples get to pick anybody to leave next week. Like this week, it will just be a matter of who doesn't win their challenge.
@ Brian
Although I agree that as plants Sam and Nicole will stay, it's untrue that they weren't disgusted by William and Jen's bad partnership. Nicole was very obviously fed up with William's condescending attitude toward Jen and said several things to that purpose. She also mentioned in interview that she definitely had second thoughts about picking Wil/Jen to stay over John/Natalie from the previous week considering the former's progress.
Sam, however, has always been out for himself.
i missed the show last night, so thanks for the re-cap. i'm mad that josh and shay left. they were so funny to watch, and they were actually growing themselves and having a good time--which is the subtextual point of the show i think. i hope that the contestants get a chance at the end of the season to vote back one team so that 3 teams compete for the final round. that way, we might still get a chance to watch shay and josh come back and hopefully either they or dave and jas will win.
"You don't wanna be just pastey white." says Shay as she puts tanning lotion on Josh. I liked Shay, not so much Josh. I would never have been friends with Josh. His personality, what little I've seen of it, simply rubs me the wrong way. William, for that manner, also has a personality which rubs me wrong and he treats Jen badly in my opinion. And here, I like Jen, not so much William. I would rather they dumped the 2 guys and kept the 2 girls, but that would ruin the whole premise of the show being about couples. Josh missed his first (and only) question about drinking games listed in his study materials. He guessed and guessed wrong. Of the 4, even though I do not like Josh, I think he improved the most to date. Jen could probably break William like a twig, and I wish she would. Jen puts up with SO much of William's crap. I do not think they will bring anybody back. In the next week promo, they said the winner of the challenge they showed part of would have a 50-50 chance to win which implies only 2 couples in the final, not 2.
Oops! I meant ...only 2 couples in the final, not 3.
Given that at this point, everyone knows that Sam is an actor and possibly a plant (who knows what Nicole's story is), I'm hoping that at the end of the season, it's revealed that the ultimate twist was to see how the other teams would react to seeng people from their same social group (beauties and geeks) but only with the sexes reversed. I would hate to see Sam and Nicole win, with no explanation given how a known actor could compete on the show.
Speaking of Sam, I'm not saying that the animal challenge was set up but I found it interesting that Sam just happened to pick the last terrarium, which lead to the (non)shocking results. Two beauties tied and then Sam's turn... could he possibly win ANOTHER challenge? As mentioned above, I do give credit to Shay and Jasmine for facing their fears.
Once again, disliking William and I cannot believe that everyone second-guessed their decision to get rid of John and Natalie over William and Jen. What did they expect to happen with keeping whiney Will around? Poor Jen deserves a consolation prize for having to put up with him.
Since Josh and Shay are gone and they were one of my favorites, I'm hoping that Dave and Jasmine win. Not only do they both seem like very nice people, but Dave should win for the brownie making scene alone.