I Love Money 2 Recap - Episode 8 - Mama, I’m Coming Home (Again)

All together now:

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

In the not-so-grand tradition of alliances changing slightly without explanation when they’re announced at the beginning of an I Love Money episode, we are greeted with the revelation that It is on the Frank Alliance.

All this will be (un)explained later. As Frank runs this down, he also pronounces Saaphyri’s name like “Safari,” which is becoming another not-so-grand tradition even though it’s wrong (that “Y” is in there for a reason!). Why do people do this? Because she is wild and all that Indian hair is just a mane, is really what it is.

The counter-alliance that I started referring to as the “Cult Alliance” last episode thanks to Bonez’s creepy assertion that they’re “very welcoming,” seems to have another name picked out for themselves:

Shouldn’t that be Underlions? Or would Angelique need to have joined them for that to be the case?

Meanwhile, there’s this:

It interviews that he didn’t join a real alliance, but a love alliance with Saaphyri. Because, as we all know, love isn’t real. Frank kind of prods the seeming lovebirds…

The romance of it all is capped nicely with a declaration straight from It’s colon:

It won’t be the last time someone has to this episode. You might even call it a motif. And that, people, is what you call class.

The group hears an oblique message from the talking-Craig picture. Buckwild wants to be captain of her team, but duh, she will never be captain of her team so Tailor Made decides it will be him, probably for the nyah of it all. That’s why he’s on this thing, right? The nyah of it all? Saaphyri, meanwhile, will be the captain of the Green Team.

After that’s decided, Tailor Made and Prancer sit around talking about who they’ll boot should they win. The decision of whom she hates the most is hard for Prancer as she sighs and says…

“I hate them all for different reasons.” Haha, way to sum up the appeal of this show (maybe the whole of VH1, period) in seven words. Bravo, Prancer! HSN, Animal Planet and Syfy, too, for that matter!

The grubbers are shuttled to water where they see a crane overhead.

People grouse about the crane as though it’s been delivered by the Karate Kid. Frank says it’s giving him “heart complications.” That’s probably just gas. Or Buckwild. Or Buckwild’s gas.

This challenge is called Tangled Web of Lies, since everyone lies on these shows, but also because Big Bird’s always getting wrapped up in that fishing line. Before arriving at the site, Tailor Made and Saaphyri were asked to write down the names of the two members of their team they trusted the most. Tailor chose Ice and Prancer, while Saaphyri picked Frenchie and Frank. They will sit in harnesses over the ocean suspended by ropes that are braided together. They must untangle themselves. Once hanging free, they can release themselves and swim to a lifesaver. When all members have done so, the team will have their time. The two remaining traitor types will hang separately as “dead weight.”

Since these are the ones to typically throw challenges, Craig remarks that dead weight is basically what they’ve been to their teams, anyway. We see a series of challenge-throwing clips. God! Even the non-challenge parts of the challenges are references!

So, they do it.

Nothing really remarkable happens other than Saaphyri referring to Myammee as “crackhead-ass Myammee.” That’s cold. It’s one thing to call someone a crackhead, it’s another to imply that their ass has a head on it. Outright slander!

Their final time?

When it’s time for the Gold Team to go, Buckwild and 20 Pack decide that they’re going to flail in their harnesses instead of hanging limply. All the shaking, they reason, will make it that much difficult for their team to succeed in the untangling process.

But they are not the great-thinkers that they think they are. Imagine! (But only if you are a great imaginer.) The strain that Buckwild and 20 Pack’s movement causes Tailor Made’s rope to snap…

At first, it seems as though he may have pulled his release, which if done before you’re untangled, is supposed to come with a 10-minute penalty. But upon inspection…

He didn’t. And because of that, the Gold Team will get another chance to go. And because they’ve already been up there and know the drill, they’re able to untangle themselves rather quickly.

Despite Angelique’s helpful advice…

…(which, talk about a great thinker) and despite Buckwild’s brilliant heckling (”You should just let the sun reflect off your bald spot and burn the rope, Tailor!” and “Oh my god, Tailor, the one ball you have is hanging out!“), the Gold Team gets down in record time…

They do 5:35 versus Green’s 6:04.

But, hey, at least Buckwild got to yell “Man down!” when Ice pulled her release. That’s almost as good as winning, right?

A positively disheveled Saaphyri interviews…

“My makeup done fell off. My eyelashes are swimmin’ around in the ocean. I think Tailor Made done called up some of his little nymphs from Hell and helped him win.” So wait, is she saying that Hell is under water? Wouldn’t that put out the fire? And can we be positive that she isn’t one of those nyphs herself?

Back at home, the Entertainer dreams up a plan to use It as his pawn.

He wants the team to throw It in the box, urging him all the while that he’s safe.

But if there’s one thing It is smarter than, it’s a demonstrative adjective, which is to say that he’s smarter than that. He recaps: “Frank says, ‘Oh yeah. The other team is cool with you, so if you put yourself in the box, they not gonna eliminate you.’ Like I’m dumb!” Yeah, how dare Frank make that mistake? But if Myammee’s definitely going in the box and so is It, who will be the third person, according to Frank’s plan? He’d rather not think. At last, someone in this pool of geniuses who’d rather not think! Saaphyri thinks it should be Frenchie…

…or does she? When Frank is gone, she plots with It:

“I look at It and see somebody who’s cute, but feeble imbecile,” she interviews. Sounds like a love alliance to me! Something doesn’t sound right about Frank’s plan, so the seed to plot against her to-be former ally begins to germinate…

The next day, It reports the Entertainer’s scheme to Tailor Made.

But he will not be G’d. Nor will he be X’d. He’ll only be F’d (in the good way) if his plan holds up — he wants Saaphyri to vote out Frank, since Tailor is the “motherf***in’ master” right now.

“Maybe I should cohort with It,” Saaphyri says. They can cohort right on over to the dictionary and find out that what they’re doing does not exist, even!

Once in the vault, Saaphyri’s mind seems to be swimming as Craig goes over the necessities…

Except that turns out not to be the case at all, as when Craig’s done, Saaphyri shrieks at her team, “Who want Frank in the box?” An insane screaming match breaks out. I’d deliver you MP3s of sound bites if only I could parse anything out of the din of animosity. Since that goes nowhere, Craig decides to take matters into his hand and poll the team on each member. Almost everyone gets three votes, which means they’re at a stalemate. More screaming is unleashed.

Saaphyri interviews that she wasn’t even thinking of the time, but this has the effect of running the clock out. A highlight/lowlight (depending on your capacity for morality and/or “family values”) comes when Saaphyri mocks Frank for living at home with his parents and Frank retorts, “At least I got a mom and dad. Where the hell are yours?” Craig shuts Frank up by saying that he’s better than that. Frank disagrees. Frank’s right.

Since nothing was accomplished in that 15 minutes, the Gold Team is brought in and Tailor Made gets to pick the three people to go into the box. They are the Entertainer, Saaphyri and Angelique. He now has to eat with these people. Appetizing!

After the vault, animosity runs thick. Frank sits with Cali and 20 Pack on a balcony while Saaphyri looks on from another balcony.

This is most likely what she would look like if spotted during a safari. Like I said, she’s wild. But not more wild than Frank, who yells at her to “C” her way out of his “A and B” conversation and then farts…

…and says, “Aw. That was for you.” The fact that it landed properly and Frank didn’t poop himself in the process must count as one of his biggest accomplishments thus far. They are, after all, in Mexico. Every little acheivement is a triumph for Frank, right down to the fart.

Power Outing! The first thing they’re made to do is rock-climb. As they’re suited up, Angelique professes her desire to be suited down.

Unless she’s planning on baptizing those rocks with silicone or just scaring the rock crap out of them, her clothes are probably best kept on, you know?

Everyone is impressed at how well Frenchie can climb the wall. Maybe she is a physical threat after all! As Tailor Made follows her, the Entertainer can be heard wondering aloud, “If he falls, is he gonna fly upward?” Maybe he is a mental dud after all!

When it’s his turn, Frank refuses to climb because of his cracked rib, so Saaphyri is left to climb by herself.

But with a butt like that, is one ever really alone? This is seriously like watching hills and mountains collide. It’s like watching nature turn against itself. It’s like watching an Usher video.

While Saaphyri is up waging war with nature, Frank takes the opportunity to tell Tailor Made that he’s more loyal than Saaphyri. That’s, like, a half step up from being more loyal than a leprechaun. And at the end of the day, it’s all about “me gold” anyway.

After Saaphyri gets down, it’s time to dine.

Before that, Saaphyri leads the group in a prayer that goes, “Lord, please bless this food we’re about to eat. Let it be good so our bellies be really full and…it taste real good. And we don’t get sick. Amen.” Saaphyri is really the go-to person for prayers, you know? She is wildly inventive in the ways of addressing the Lord. And, you know, if addressing the Lord is your thing, I think that this is exactly the way to go about it. You know he starts dozing off when he has to listen to, “Bless us our Lord and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive…” for the 500,000th time in one day. It’s colorful, off-the-beaten-path prayers like Saaphyri’s that really must jump out. Deities need variation, too.

Since Frank and Saaphyri are in the same vicinity, they bicker.

They argue about whether Frank said he wanted to put Cali in the box. You know, people talk about Cali more than Cali talks. It’s like they’re helping the enfeebled. I wonder if Prancer chews her food for her and then spits it at her. We wouldn’t want Cali to be made to use her mouth, now, would we? There’s plenty of incomprehensible back-and-forth, although Saaphyri can clearly be heard saying, “You cannot trust a man that’s 37-years-old and lives in his mom’s basement!” She repeats the 37-years-old thing again before the episode is done. Frank has never claimed to be older than 31, so this uncontested accusation is surprising. These people and their stage ages! Whatever, if Frank really is 37, he looks good for 37. Especially for a smoker! And in the end, that’s all that matters.

Frank ends up getting the one-on-one and he pledges to protect Tailor Made if he’s spared.

He won’t even get the chance to compromise his morals like that, for you see…

…it’s time for elimilation!

As the three people she’s tightest with are on the chopping block, Becky mourns like a crying statue of Jesus…

It’s funny, because I think I saw Buckwild in my toast the other day. I still ate it, though.

Meanwhile, Saaphyri looks positively restrained.

These mountains have at least found their way to a hammock.

Oh, and since we haven’t had a Myammee lingerie check-in in a while…

There you go.

Tailor calls Angelique to get the first check. Though she let go of one of his allies last week, it was in the interest in staying loyal to her lion and he respects that. If she hadn’t, after all, it probably would have bitten her.

He calls up Frank next. He believes that Frank would, in the future, spare him and that the invitation to join Frank’s alliance is legit. There’s only one problem: Tailor Made already has an alliance. Frank is going home. Tailor Made gushes at his power.

The Entertainer and Buckwild share a passionate parting kiss…

And then we see a truly sad montage of the road to another defeat for the Entertainer.

“I love money…and I didn’t win it,” he says during his exit interview. God, he even failed at interviewing. Can this guy do anything right?

And so Saaphyri gets the last check…

That sounds racial. Also: yeah right.

Before they part, Craig announces that from now on, there are no more teams. Every man for himself! Perhaps this will effectively feed the lions to the…lions.

Related content
I Love Money 2 show page
I Love Money video and extras
The Entertainer Photos

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 9:55 pm