S5, Episode 2: And now, for our next act…

The episode began with Countess DraculAmber chewing on Tommy’s neck, trying to suck out his hormones and turn him into a mindless sex slave. Given the “connection” he thought they had, it seemed to be working.

DraculAmber, on the other hand, was giving some mixed messages. She told the other beauties that her affections toward him were solely because she was doing whatever it took to stay in the mansion. However, she also admitted in the confessional booth that she liked him. Because he was tall, cute and would eventually get rich and buy everything she wanted. Okay, maybe that’s not such a mixed message.

Does anyone else think it’s sad that most of the beauties don’t have any talents? And they know it? And accept it? Whatever happened to the talent portion of beauty pageants? I guess plain old models only have to stand there and look hot, just like they told us.

Now that the beauties and geeks have to cooperate as a team instead of working individually and tallying the results, the difference in how they operate is frightening. Chris did a lot of the talking at first, but he seemed more like a mediator than a leader for the group. “You talk, now you talk, now you talk.” The girls… they yelled. A lot. All at the same time. No mediators, just a bunch of loud voices (and a few girls who wanted to choke the loud voices out of the others).

Then again, the geeks did work individually in a way. The beauties wanted to develop a single routine for everyone—a routine that no one could agree on. The geeks set up a plan where each guy did what he was good at. It’s kinda hard to disagree with a plan like that: “No, you suck at that! You have to dress up like a school girl and do The Sprinkler!”

Watching the beauties’ talent show gave me some horrible, horrible flashbacks. When Scarlet and I were preparing for our first challenges, we spent a lot of time working on her spelling, geography, etc. Working on our dance routine… not so much. Here was the plan for the three one-minute-long segments:

R&B: move my hips around and smile while she danced in front of me.
Disco: a pair of John Travolta moves (a pair of arm crossovers ala Pulp Fiction, then the Saturday Night Fever step over and over and over…)
Salsa: do random salsa moves until the minute was up.

Then after I discovered that it sucked and I hated doing it, we had to do it a second time for the sake of the cameras.

That being said, when I was on stage, it was a smaller audience, it only lasted for three minutes (twice) and it only had one person on stage who looked thoroughly awkward. This was in a packed theater, the digital clock was counting down from ten minutes and the eight beauties were collectively even less organized than me. The only thing that would have made it worse (or better, depending on your point of view) was if DraculAmber had been forced to stay out there on stage the whole time with everyone else.

“One Buff Geek” doesn’t seem like a geeky quality, but it definitely suits Jason. Hell, he probably could have added to his portion of the talent show by rapping into the mic while squeezing it between his pecs.

I wanna know what Jim’s talent was! The only time he appeared on camera, he was standing there looking awkward—he might as well have been wearing a skirt and doing the Sprinkler.

The geeks won the challenge, so that night, they went to relax in the hot tub. Or at least Joe did. The other guys may have joined him when they caught the scent of non-studying beauties. DraculAmber was pissed off at Leticia during the staircase ceremony for manipulating the geeks, playing around with them in the hot tub, but at least she had the decency to manipulate all of them together instead of trying to turn one person into a mindless sex slave. (Why she didn’t whine about Tiffany being in the hot tub as well, I haven’t the slightest idea.)

“Okay, according to page 76 of Robert’s Rules of Order, we need to make a motion to amend the amendment of the last motion before hearing motions about whether chocolate or vanilla is better. We have a motion, do I hear a second? All in favor? All opposed? Motion is carried, so it looks like… we like strawberry. Shit.”

By the end of the night, there were three groups of people. Geeks, beauties who studied and beauties who manipulated geeks. If that doesn’t say something about how well the social experiment is going this season, I don’t know what does.

Want to know how well DraculAmber got along with everyone else? And by “everyone else”, I mean everyone else (except for Tommy, but I cut him a little slack because of his transformation into a mindless sex slave). I submit my evidence from Episode 2 to the court:

1. She openly admitted to manipulating Tommy to stay in the mansion and sounded quite proud of it.
2. She was just as bull-headed as the other beauties when talking (yelling) about the talent show and was the first to bail on the meeting and start drinking.
3. She refused to accept the proper pronunciation of “genre”. (Damn French people need to learn to speak English…)
4. Her hypocritical whining about Leticia manipulating the geeks.
5. When she wouldn’t shut up during the stair ceremony, Joe forgot about his pledge from the last episode to help her stay and got into a yelling match with her (and Joe doesn’t seem like a guy who would break his word on a whim).
6. She didn’t bother listening to the rule about whoever buzzes in first gets to answer the question.
7. Her heart hurts? She has one? Wow…
8. Her attitude speaks for itself. Hell, she even admitted during her exit interview that she’s a bitch. DraculAmber is a beauty on the outside (according to the producers) and that’s about it.

Praise God for Joe sticking up for himself and the geeks’ decision! Chris tried to be subtle before and suggest that her ranting and raving was part of the reason why she got tapped, but that little girl seems like the type who needs a slap in the face to get her attention. If only someone had done that while they were explaining the rules in the elimination room… or any other time, for that matter.

As a final note, I’d like to say that I hope John E. can appreciate how effective this season’s dynamic has been after the first two episodes.