I Love Money 2 Recap - Episode 5 - On Burning Bridges…And Shirts

This is such a like-sands-through-the-hourglass moment…

Except, you know, more soap opera-ish.

Just a refresher after last week’s 11th-hour bombshell — here are the new teams:

And here’s that same old alliance:

And here’s what everyone’s like following the new team selection: It’s weird! I thought everyone was happy about it, chiefly since it cleared the way for Buddha’s bouncing. But now it seems like everyone’s mad and sad and feelin’ bad, thinkin’ about the things that they never had. Like $250,000, for example. Frank’s bummed that his alliance is now split evenly over two teams. He burns his old Gold Team shirt in protest or, more accurately, a dramatic fit.

As he sits with Frenchie, he says, “See what’s happening to that shirt right there? That’s what’s gonna happen to their team.” Frenchie responds, “Yeah, they’re gonna die.” Do you think that Frenchie thinks that her clothing and other possessions are alive and maybe talks to them and forms bonds with them and stuff? Because now I think that.

Heat’s pissed enough to take out his rage on an apple.

In the background, you can hear Angelique screaming after he does this. It faintly sounds like she’s saying, “Not without my daughter!”

Meanwhile, Cali and Prancer discuss the guys in the house and whether any of them are cute.

When will It’s beauty be recognized? Never, I fear. He’s so underrated! Anyway, the rumblings of a Cali-Prancer alliance begin here. Cute boys or the lack thereof are about as good as any reason to bond, I guess.

The new-team talk runs into the next day. We see Bonez and Ice talking about the strength of their team. Ice says that Myammee is her only competition, to which Myammee says:

“Thanks!” That’s the clearest display of gratitude that I’ve ever seen on one of these shows. No, no, no, Myammee: thank you.

The grubbers get a message from the talking Craig picture that today they’ll be going for gold. Where they’ll do that is a place that looks suspiciously like the scene of the wilderness-path leg of the final first-season I Love Money challenge.

It’s not cheap; it’s self-referential. Big difference!

Craig, by the way, is wearing an awesome T-shirt…

Since I Love Money is basically Survivor with literacy issues and more tenacious rashes, in order to be truly accurate, this shirt should contain a misspelled word. And perhaps be made of burlap. But whatever, these are minor qualms.

Anyway, today’s challenge is a “treasure hunt” that will require each team to visit five stations gathering items that will help them proceed to a buried treasure. To help with absurdity, they’re all tied together (I said “tied” instead of “tethered” in case you’re like the Entertainer and suspect that “tethered” may mean “sex”)…

They begin at this station:

Which makes them do this:

It is routine even for a challenge on this show. There’s seriously barely anything notable that happens as they go from station to station. I’m going to make this quick.

The show suggests that the Entertainer sees his mother in the pinata…

…which leads him to pummel it with rocks. Ah, good old mother-stoning jokes. Where would our culture be without them?

This provides some difficulty for the Green Team, as Paymaster Cali interprets it as saying, “…that you could only grab one key and one shovel before anything else.” Even though it doesn’t say anything like, everyone agrees with Cali that what’s crucial the order in which they’re untying things shovels and keys that hang from trees (shades of the lunch pail trees in Return to Oz)…

…everyone except for Saaphyri, who has the rare gift of reading comprehension. Really, the fact that everyone’s inclined to make this task about 10 times harder than it actually is just goes to show that reality TV attracts the types of people who preternaturally complicate their own lives.

Heat gets this right away, since he speaks Spanish. Basically, it means that the last key they need is under the box that contained these instructions.

No one on the Green Team speaks Spanish, so they fly into a panic. Saaphyri, meanwhile, notes that they were in the possession of a dictionary capable of translating these words, but no one realized it. So much of information-age intelligence is not about knowing facts, per se, but where to find them. So basically, everyone fails regardless of the epistemology. At least they’re consistent. Also, at least there is Saaphyri, whose wildly off reasoning works in her team’s favor: “I decide kick over the whole thing, ’cause they know we not that bright. It’s probably in English underneath.” So many years have gone by since Socrates said, “Wisest is he who knows he does not know,” and at last, we have Saaphyri to illustrate it perfectly.

The next station advises the teams to follow the arrows back to the treasure. Cali thinks that this means they must turn around and retrace their steps. The Entertainer finally realizes that “back” doesn’t mean “backwards,” and while the wording of the instruction is a bit over-complicated, “follow the arrows backwards” would be just nonsense. How do you do that? Moonwalk? Regarding Cali, Saaphyri interviews, “Something is going on with her.” Wiser and wiser!

Meanwhile, the Gold Team has already gotten to the site of the final treasure dig, for which they are allowed to untie the rope that has bound them all challenge.

The Green Team arrives just as the Gold is finishing…

Gold hits the chest but it won’t budge and digging it out seems too foreboding a task. A light bulb goes off above 20 Pack’s head and he yells, “Grab your tethers!” The Entertainer instinctively goes for his balls.

Tying their rope to the chest is exactly what they need to do. Gold Team gets it out. Gold Team wins!

Heat looks so happy that he really lights up the screen. Greed isn’t just good; it’s luminous.

The Green Team, meanwhile, immediately begins talking about who’s going in the box. Cali offers herself up for her reading-comprehension problems and being an all-around sucky captain. But who else? The topic of the shovel debacle is broached and Myammee defends her bizarre order of events.

Since she’s actually literate, Saaphyri knows that Myammee is wrong. Myammee retrieves the instruction from the box in question…

…and after further discussion, Myammee is convinced of the err of her ways. She’s going in the box.

HOWEVER! Once home, over a mutual snack of potato chips, Myammee and Saaphyri discuss the challenge…

Saaphyri and Myammee wonder if Cali threw the challenge because of her alliance with Prancer that was made evident when the two shared a swim and talked about boys. Saaphyri soon decides that that’s exactly what happened. “You ain’t goin’ home. I’m gettin’ that bitch out mmm mmm.” Cali’s so out of there, she won’t be around to see Saaphyri finish her sentence about her being so out of there. That’s really out of there.

Meanwhile, we see Saaphyri telling everyone of the Cali-Prancer alliance. And speaking of alliances, 20 Pack checks in to the Entertainer to make sure theirs is still in effect.

I love how it’s an “arrangement.” Are they a married couple looking into experimenting with a third? And kind of: basically the arrangement is that they can play but only together.

Ice informs a deeply thoughtful Tailor Made of Cali and Prancer’s possible arrangement.

To continue the off-color double entendres, Ice is planting the seed (although from the look on Tailor Made’s face, he’s passing a kidney stone).

Eventually, Saaphyri gets around to talking to Cali herself about her possible betrayal. Talking about someone to their face and not behind their back? How novel! Milf’s present, too, and she wonders if Cali’s insistence on turning her team around during the challenge was an attempt to throw the game. In her own defense, Cali says…

“I told you, I was putting too much thought into the clue.” The way that Cali hesitates before saying the word “thought” suggests that even she doesn’t believe it. However, I don’t think that Cali is lying, per se, she just knows that admitting to putting thought into anything ever is an overstatement.

And so, Saaphyri declares that Cali, Myammee and Milf are going into to box. She adds a caveat to Milf: “But you safe.” She forgets the following “Psyche!” though.

In the vault, this decision is carried out.

Cali starts to stammer something about an alliance, but Saaphyri interrupts her: “We gon’ put you in the box, you in the box, and you in the box. We done.” Saaph is just not having it today. She’s angry inside. Don’t take it personal.

Oh, here’s a shot of Myammee in the vault, if you’re interested in such things:

And I think you know what I mean when I say “things.”

After the vault, just about everybody in the Entertainer’s alliance implores Prancer to send Cali home.

But Cali’s Prancer’s best friend! But they just met! But who cares! Prancer dabs her tears with a beach towel.

A beach towel is to a security blanket what a reality TV best friend is to an actual friend, so really, everything makes so much sense.

The first part of the Power Outing finds the girls doing zip lines. For the uninitiated, that’s not a euphemism for snorting coke quickly.

It’s that above. Prancer says “Cowabunga!” on her way down, confirming my suspicion that she is a Simpson. Same hair color, you know? She may also be part Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but there’s no real way to verify that..yet.

While the girls are up in the air, so is everyone’s future. Being that members on both teams are gunning for the same person to be eliminated, per the pressure-Prancer meeting, he deduces that the old Entertainer alliance must still be in place.

And so, he formulates the idea for his own alliance:

He reasons that it would be best for them to send Milf home, despite the fact that she’s the other team and the other alliance’s weakest link. He’s more concerned with the principle than the practical: this would be a way to telegraph the fact that they are running their own team. Where’s Frenchie in all of this? If I had to guess, I’d say she’s probably forming alliances with her pasties and thongs.

Meanwhile, the girls dine during the Power Outing.

Cali picks up some kind of fruit that’s apparently as weird-smelling as it is weird-looking.

She quickly returns it. No use putting too much thought into it, you know?

Prancer talks about the state of the game. Saaphyri, she reasons, is a female Buddha. I don’t know about that. Saaphyri’s a little more foreboding. They all talk freely, except for Milf. Prancer tells her that she’s being quiet and Milf counters with, “It’s elimination!” Uh, actually, it’s not elimination but the Power Outing before, and what? Is this a convent or something? Has she taken a vow of silence? That would have made Real Chance of Love Milf’s nun academy. She wore a leopard-print habit then. The woman knows reverence.

Prancer polls everyone why they should stay. Milf talks about being safe or whatever and it’s nonsense because, hello, episode outcome! Cali says that she should stay because she didn’t flip when she went to the other team. So it IS an alliance! That wasn’t obvious 40 minutes ago or anything. Finally, Myammee mentions that she and Prancer haven’t seen eye-to-eye since Prancer got her bounced from Flavor of Love 3.

The moral of the story is: Myammee’s pretty.

When it’s time for the one-on-one, Prancer selects Myammee. Myammee talks about the new alliance that, per the show’s order of events, formed without her knowledge. She’s gotta be the hottest clairvoyant since Cate Blanchett in The Gift. Anyway, Myammee explains it like this: if she lets Prancer into their alliance then Ice, Bonez, Tailor Made and Prancer would comprise the majority alliance of the Gold Team. Sounds good to Prancer!

Before elimination is a preliminary meeting-cum-screamfest amongst the Gold Team.

Tailor Made brings up the fact that it’s weird that both teams want the same person sent home. The general response is, “Don’t question us! Let us take this game from you without a fight!” After much bickering, Tailor Made says that it makes sense to have disloyal members on the other team, and since everyone can agree that Myammee and Cali are gunning for Gold, it doesn’t even make logical sense to send Milf home. Not that anyone on this channel had time for logic ever!

Elimilation!

I was going to chastise Myammee for wearing the same lingerie as she did on the first episode (good old Whatshername would never wear the same bikini twice to elimination), but it’s not — it’s a slight variation. Phew! Myammee retains her flawlessness.

Prancer, meanwhile, is decked out in prom chic.

Not saying it’s a bad look for her, just a notable one. The point is: I hope she ends up with Duckie this time!

Oh, and while we’re talking about outfits, here’s Frank’s shirt:

Not that I expect you to be amused by it, but I think he does.

The members of the Bottom 3 are asked why they should stay. Milf rambles about being the weakest link and saying the right thing to the wrong person. How about saying the wrong thing to everyone? ‘Cause she just did. Cali says, “Obviously, I don’t wanna go.” Myammee says:

I would love to hand over the U.S. legal system to the VH1 cast stable and watch all the fascinating ways our country would crumble. Maybe that’s just the Joker in me typing. Who knows.

For no other reason than the fun of dramatic shift, Prancer announces that the first person she calls will have her check voided. Continuing on the drama tip, Prancer announces that she went with her team’s decision. “Cali…” she starts and then finishes after several million beats: “…just be happy it’s not you.”

Some rejoice. Others take offense…

Others bitch:

And seriously, I don’t even know what the hell Buckwild (or any one else who echoes this sentiment a million times as the show closes) is even talking about when Cali and her dubious literacy aren’t exactly the picture of strength. I sense saltiness and it’s not in the Mexican air or water.

Milf’s exit interview is the single most pathetic moment since Rodeo’s exit interview on Charm School. Or maybe her I Love Money exit interview. Or maybe her Rock of Love exit interview. Or maybe that rant about kids liking her because she likes rock and roll and country music and she wears a hat. The point is: I miss Rodeo.

She explains that she came on this show to unify a family that has battled so much. The Jacksons? She sobs, “I’ll see my son again. I’m gonna keep trying. Mommy’s gonna get you back.” Ugh. THAT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS. I didn’t sign up for this.

Myammee and Cali retrieve their checks. Myammee acts all cool about their alliance, explaining…

I bet if she went up and thanked Prancer with a French kiss, people still would have no idea.

Related content
I Love Money 2 show page
I Love Money video and extras

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm