Eatin` Scrap
RW/RR Challenge Season 04 - Extreme Challenge - Episode 15

By BoyBlunder
10/14/2001

This tedious episode starts with the Challenged meeting to get their mission. A grating, whining voice drones their mission. Quick! Who is it? It’s Gladys spouting off some nonsense about "wretch" and "going medieval on your opponents." First a fetish show and now torture! Has MTV turned into Showtime After Hours? Last mission’s dip into fetishism must have turned Julie on, for the mention of torture lights up her eyes and brings out her tongue. Yes, once again, Julie sticks out her tongue. In disgust? In delight? Who knows? But this is important as this episode provides us with a marathon showing of Julie’s abnormally long tongue. We’ll be keeping a tongue tally for this episode.

The light shines off the beautiful turrets of a medieval castle. Perhaps at night this ancient edifice would seem dark and foreboding, but in the light it’s just another tourist trap. The door is opened by a cloaked figure who speaks in a mock British accent that would put Madonna to shame. I’ve seen Scooby Doo episodes that were scarier, but the Challenged seem properly freaked out. Come to think of it, Jamie is looking more and more like Shaggy with his goatee. That bad boy's looking like an overgrown lawn. "They’re going to kill us," Julie chortles as they enter the castle.

One can hope, Julie, one can only hope.

The gang is escorted down a long dark hallway to a shadow-drenched courtyard with a lone hooded figure. Oh wait, that would actually have been creepy. Instead, it’s daytime and the corridor is bathed in warm sunlight. Oh well, so much for atmosphere. As the hooded figure greets them in a pseudo, "I learned all about being forbidding from an episode of Hercules" voice, Dan rolls his eyes. He could tell them what a real dungeon and Master looked like. There was a reason he performed so well in the fetish mission after all.

They are told that they will participate in Grass Ut Gams. Or something like that. I think they mean Gross Out Games but the accent threw me. It's worse than listening to RW's Danny mumble his way through a confession. This mission is supposed to be scary but to me it’s hard to be menacing when you have a French accent. I think it has something to do with their love for Jerry Lewis. The hooded figure is also sporting some really styling and modern sunglasses which also helps to kills the mood. So let’s see, we have an ancient castle, in the sunlight and a hooded monkish figure with a French accent and sunglasses. Even Fear is scarier than this.

As they are told of the needless rules there’s another view of Julie's tongue. Now THAT'S scary!

They have to pick members from the other teams to participate in "tortures." I consider torture listening to Julie thump her chest and spout off Mormon angst but BMP has other ideas. Event 1 is eating scraps of meat and brains. Julie explains that they picked Emily and Suzie to participate in this because they’re "weenies." I just think Julie likes to say the word "weenie." It gives her such a thrill to buck those stifling Mormon standards and say double entendres. The next thing you know, she'll be drinking Folgers Blend off Jamie's stomach. This challenge seems to have an erotic effect on Julie because as she watches over the scraps of rotted pieces of meat, she flicks her tongue at them! What does it mean? Is her tongue waving a greeting, a warning, a "nice to see you"? Isn’t there some Mormon tenant against showing the soft pink insides of your body on camera? One thing's for sure, that sucker is long and Julie knows how to flap it! She's the Mormon equivalent of Gene Simmons for crying out loud!

As they start eating, Emily promptly heaves into a trash bag. Maybe the rotted remains of animals had something to do with this but I think it was the appearance of Julie's tongue that caused Emily to lose her lunch. A person can only take so much. James gleefully holds the trash bag for her, doing a spastic dance of joy. A Pretty Girl! Vomiting! This is better than cow tipping with his frat buddies!

The Real World team is made of hardier stuff, they’re tearing into their food with aplomb. "I can get through this, I’ve been through tougher things than this," Rebecca tells us, which makes sense. Feeling James' tongue in your mouth would make eating brains and assorted pieces of meat seem like child’s play.

James goads his team onward in the charming abusive way only he can, much to the annoyance of Suzie. With her puffy white cap, blue tank top and high pitched inhuman wail, cute little Susie resembles a slumming Smurfette. In the spirit of competition, Road Rules gives up. James prepares to throw a hissy fit but Suzie cuts him off by squealing "Shut up! I’m so sick of you and your yapper!" Usually I would applaud anyone who tells James to shut the hell up. However, this is Suzie we're talking about. She delivers her insult with the gusto of a UPN sitcom actor delivering a lame punchline. Suzie pulls off tough as well as Dan pulls off butch.

The next mission leads them to an area filled with hay. The amount of flies hovering over it clues our heroes in to the fact that there is more to this apparently harmless scenario than it seems. There aren’t this many flies hovering over the filth in their trailers so this MUST be bad news.

The chosen ones have to root around in the hay, looking for an elusive gold coin. But, to the surprise of no one, there is trash buried in the hay. I was hoping for feces but rotting meat will do. Following the lead of Challenge alumni Eric Nies and David Burns, Dan and James take off their shirts while attempting the challenge. I know when I’m rummaging in hay filled with trash and refuse, I want as much of my bare skin showing as possible.

Emily finds the coin and proclaims it the "best feeling in the world." They sure do make them weird in the Heartlands.

The next mission leads them to a Plexiglas tub filled with eels. Smurfette looks suitably distressed. Break to commercial.

Say, look at that Christopher Walken dance! Willya look at that! Who knew a man who looked as creepy as that was such a hoofer? That’s entertainment and nary a flickering tongue in sight! This 15 second commercial for MTV2 packs more entertainment value than 30 minutes of the Challenge! Maybe they should get Chris Walken to be the next mission mayor. THAT would be fun!

Sigh, back to the show. The next challenge is actually pretty weird, even by the Challenge's standards. The chosen ones must lay in a Plexiglas tub half full of water while eels are poured on them. Then they have to place 4 goblets laying in the tub onto a platter that lays on their stomach. I think there’s a certain homoerotic symbolism here but it could be me. This is looking more and more like an episode of Fear. I keep expecting James to tell his team members, "You're Platinum Dude!!"

Jamie, James and Julie manage to go through this freaky challenge without any drama but when Suzie enters the tub, she seems to enter catatonia. From various rumors I've heard that she’s dated/stalked/slept with/been engaged to/married Timmy from Road Rules season 2. You’d think she could stomach a few eels. But since all the eels together outweigh her I can see why she’s so scared. Smurfette pulls through with only a minor heart palpitation but the Real World manages to win the sacred gold coins for this event.

The next contest is a bug spitting competition. At first I was thrown by the French accent and thought it was "back spitting" which would have been entirely too gross but somehow fitting for this episode. But the contest is to put a live bug in your mouth and spit it out as far as you can, a reaction that seems pretty logical to me. At the contest, our pseudo-creepy guide has pulled back his eerie hood and put on a jaunty straw hat! Perhaps it’s me, but the image of a monk with a French accent, sunglasses and a vaudevillian straw hat is just wrong. Those crazy French, they're scary on their own level.

While he’s explaining the rules, Julie shows us her tongue yet again.

"I’m not a spitter. I was raised to not spit" Rebecca declares to the camera. Off to the side, James grins and high-fives Laterrian.

By this point the Challenged don't seem to be fazed by placing live bugs in their mouths. I guess after watching Dan prance around in chaps and a g-string, laying with eels and dealing with the sporadic appearance of Julie's tongue, bug spitting just doesn't rank very high on the "ick" scale.

Not much camera time is spent on this contest since it's actually pretty boring. The Challenged seem to be handling the feeling of live bugs crawling over their tongues rather casually, which is troubling. It seems the teams will vomit when putting scraps of meat in their mouth but not live bugs. To no one's surprise Real World wins, thanks to Rebecca’s spitting prowess.

Julie wins MVP and wins a motorcycle. Visions of E-Bay flash through her head and alas there is no appearance of the tongue.

In the Road Rules bus, Suzie wants to have a perky pep talk. Weary with his team, James says, "My dad told me talking too much is as bad as talking too" and the rest is obscured by bad sound engineering but the concept gets through. Dude, that pearl of wisdom applies to the entire cast. Suzie is trying to get through to him. She learned this lesson from the episodes of the Facts of Life when the girls had to team up to win a singing contest and by golly they did! If Jo and Blair can get through their differences so can we! But James has never listened to reason, so why start now? If Rebecca's sonnets of wisdom can't make him see reason how the hell is Suzie going to be able to?

The sole level-headed member of the group, Christian, tries the doomed tactic of using logic on our unhappy frat boy which infuriates him even more. "Nobody threw up a sign that says I care what Christian thinks," James tells him, prompting a shocked reaction from Christian. If it were me, I would have pummeled some manners into James' head. However an abundance of manners and a lack of English obscenity hinder Christian from telling James off. From the shocked look on Christian's face you just know he's thinking "Wow, even Effie wasn't this big of a bitch!"

Sad oboe music plays on the fractured group as we head to a commercial.

The final challenge is a paintball mission in a farming community lead by a man in a tuxedo. If the monk left me wondering, the juxtaposition of their Mission Mayor in evening attire against a scenic farming backdrop makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. I think the mission creator for this episode was smoking some serious stuff.

The rules have two people team up and guard a third while they try to reach a target while being attacked by the other team yadda yadda yadda. Actually this is just an excuse to hit some media whores with paint, and what could be more fun than that? Road Rules makes the brilliant decision of having the dainty and slight Michelle and Emily guard the hefty Christian. Christian can barely hide behind the two as they scamper to the target. After they reach the target, Team Real World manages to pull off a few more shots, which seems to break the rules. However something more distressing is amiss. Emily seems hurt! Blonde down! Is Emily pulling an Amaya? The paintballs have actually bruised her fair skin. But since Emily can't blame Julie this time she doesn't make an episode long bitchfest about the infraction of the rules.

This blatant display of cheating sends James into a vindictive frenzy. He plots to hit the Real World team with some extra shots after they reach the target. Hell hath no fury like a frat boy scorned, dude! Kameelah, Syrus and Julie make their way to their target while James and Laterrian attack them with paint guns. The Real Worlders create their own concept of guarding and break up, leaving Julie by herself. Julie reaches the target but James manages to get off some shots at her.

Julie says she felt 4 shots hit her after she reached the target. I dunno, she could have deflected the paintballs with tongue if she didn't have a mask on. This drives Syrus into a frenzy. He starts to yell at James, who promptly gets in Syrus' face. Now even though James is a fairly big guy, Syrus outweighs him by a good deal. When you're a whiny frat boy who picks on blonde dingbats and helpless Norwegians, it's not smart to pick a fight with a big black guy. Even the usually calm Kameelah enters the fray and channels Heather B. as she tells James to "back the fuck up!"

A fight of epic proportions not seen since Gladys kicked Abe's ass seems to be brewing. Syrus grabs James' shirt as this episode comes to a close and a "To Be Continued…." And we're left waiting, hoping to see Syrus beat James into a bloody pulp. But since Syrus has been able to befriend Sean while living in Boston, I'm guessing he can handle another annoying white boy. They'll probably make up and walk off into the sunset, friendships renewed. And Julie will flick her tongue at them in happiness.

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