Janice Dickinson said it best: “I didn’t know I was signing up for I’m a Holy Roller, Get Me Out of Here.” Neither did I. Three quarters of last night’s episode was wasted on the cretinous born-again Christians Heidi and Spencer and their narcissistic “will we stay or will we go” games. It’s way past obvious now that NBC was banking on them to drive up the numbers, but it didn’t work: According to TV by the Numbers, viewership among the 18 to 49s, that Holy Grail of demo groups, was down by 19 percent. That’s too bad, because once these two asshats quit for the third time—seemingly for good, although today rumors persist that they’ll be back, again—the last 10 minutes of the episode finally got down to what this show is supposed to be all about.
Here’s how it played out. Damien and Myleene dimple charmingly as they welcome us back and try to convince us how “incredible” the show's been so far. To the recap: We left off with the players, minus lame sitter-outers Spendi (because they have completely spent my nerves… and by the way, why were they allowed to sit out the live challenge? That is not supposed to be an option!), strapped onto stretchers and suspended headfirst into a pit as different groups of heinous critters are released one by one. Each has the option, of course, to bail at any time. First up is roaches. Frangelica are outta there before it’s even started. Salley springs up like a jack-in-the-box next. Janice bails and seems a little traumatized by it, shrieking “No! No! No! No!” even after she's freed from the pit. I really hope J-Dick doesn’t get voted off. It’s fun watching her freak out.
Tarantulas are released next, then snakes and then worms. Salley the arachnophobe decides to psyche out the remaining women, Mrs. Blago and Torrie, by announcing where all the critters are on their bodies. Torrie has a snake on her face! The girls are out. LouDi's out. Only Sanjaya and Stephen Baldwin remain. Water starts to rise in the pit, threatening to drown them, as the critters crawl and slither all over. Baldwin’s out. Sanjaya wins. Sanjaya! Who knew he was such a badass? Then he interviews in his little-girl lilt, “Winnninggggg was amaaaazinggggg” and flaps his hands at the memory of it all. He’s a fierce little mohawked badass sprite.
Back to camp: LouDi gets a bed just for being The Leader and Spencer puts on an incredulous “I’ve been robbed” face. Tool. And then, suddenly, a confessional from the Angelica half of Frangelica. Sad reality-show sob-story violins accompany her as she describes a traumatizing potty trip in the middle of the night, and then she shares, just between her and us, that she’s had “a lot of mini-breakdowns.” We cut to one of them. Poor Ange is talking to herself, then telling herself off for talking to herself and slapping herself in the face. What the…? “I’m jungle upset,” she explains. Even though I feel bad for her, well, this is more like the I’m a Celebrity I know and love. Stuff happens to these people when they’re camping out in the jungle like that. It’s a crucial part of the game.
Then we see her telling Frangie that of all the jungle noises at night, “Your snoring is like a safe harbor.” That’s so sweet! I love these two.
Next comes a bunch of Jesus talk between Spendi and Stephen Baldwin, who I’m going to call Dawg because he’s all up in that kinda talk. Dawg wants to baptize Spencer. “Jesus was baptized!” quacks Heidi with her overblown duck’s bill of a mouth. She goes on to tell us that her goal is to be a Mother Theresa. She’s really starting to make me feel sick.
It’s time for the food challenge. Spencer bullies his way into it. Heidi goes in for the girls. Each has to go into some kind of a hut that’s filled with the usual jungle fare—rats, bugs, spiders, bats, eel slime—and collect stars that are planted all over. Each star represents a meal; the one who collects the most stars gets the meals for their team.
Spencer kneels down and throws around Jesus’ name some more before he goes in. Unfortunately, God does not smite him right then and there for this blasphemous, grotesque behavior. Once inside, in the dark and being doused by the slime, he sounds like a little old lady being goosed. “Wooo! Wooo! Wooo!” Full-on falsetto. He gets two whole stars out of 20. Myleene is seriously unimpressed. I’m starting to like her. In fact, both she and Damien are beginning to relax into their roles. And getting nice tans, too.
Heidi goes in. She’s strangely sanguine for such a spoiled little handbag-carrying stiletto-wearing princess. She tells herself to “pretend like I’m shopping.” Then she goes “Wooo! Wooo!” just like Spencer. Her heart’s not in it; she only gets one star. “I couddinnt see anything so I don’t carrrrre if I won or lost,” she burbles. Spencer wins.
They return to camp. J-Dick deadpans, “So you did a little trial today, congratch!” Love. Spencer describes the horror by gamboling around and scraping his knuckles on the ground, like an albino gorilla. J-Dick tells him he stinks. “Go take a shower with some soap.” Spencer says he’s going to wash off the stink when Dawg takes him into the river for his baptism. J-Dick speaks for all of us when she rolls her eyes and says, “Oh gawd. You’re hurting the religion.” And here’s where she drops the Holy Roller line.
After Spencer is baptized by Dawg—who, J-Dick points out, isn’t even a minister— Spendi announce they’re quitting the show. Again. But really, this time it’s for real. The campmates are bored with this shtick already and virtually ignore them. Unfortunately NBC doesn’t, and keep devoting all the camera time to these beige wastrels. Counting Episode 1, it’s three hours and 41 minutes into the series and they’re still playing the Will They Leave or Won’t They card. Spendi keep jibbering about it. The other campmates talk about them jibbering about it. Three hours and 46 minutes: flashbacks to their past “escape attempts.” Spencer tells us for the 10th time how they’re too famous for this shit. They keep talking. And talking. Does anybody care anymore? Not J-Dick. “Let them go off to Heidiwood along the yellow brick road,” she sneers.
But no. We have a postmortem from the rest of the cast on how annoying they are as we cut to them running across the bridge. Three hours 50. This is the longest goodbye ever. They’re getting in the car. They’re hamming it up for the cameras. Spencer keeps yelling about how he’s a celebrity and he’s outta there!
They’re gone. Sheesh! Why did NBC milk these two and make us sit through all that? It’s really unfair to the other cast members; the producers have virtually blown them off all this time. Now it’s the end of the show and we finally get down to the meat.
LouDi is instructed to choose a woman to save from being eliminated in the live public vote. He looks extremely confused by this, as if he’s just been asked to explain the theory of relativity. The other men seem already to have made their choice. It’s Patti. Huh? Where did that come from? Obviously there’s been a lot more going on in camp that we didn't get to see.
When Damien and Myleene go through the list of the remaining women who could be expelled, J-Dick, true to form, exclaims, “Oh maaaan!” and then points to herself. She did exactly the same thing in the UK version, and she made it to the last two. Drama queen!
Cut to everyone sitting around looking dumbstruck and not knowing what to do next. After reading through the phone numbers, Damien says we’ll find out on Thursday who gets voted off. Thursday? I’m confused. Why in the world does the “live vote” take two whole days to tally? I call bullshit.
Coming up on the next episode: Salley goes off on Janice. It looks intense. This could get juicy! But after being force-fed the Heidi and Spencer show like geese in a fois gras factory, will anyone come back tonight to see it?
photos courtesy of NBC
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