The Veterans Have Some Explaining To Do.

The Gauntlet III has finally come to an end; no more CT for me. Luckily, The Bachelor: London Calling and The Hills have started up, so as to ensure that my brain cells will continue dying off at an alarming pace. I will write about those shows tomorrow, but today I must devote to the controversial ending of The Gauntlet. Even if you have never watched this latest Real World/Road Rules Challenge, you should read this post. Why? Because it will make you proud that you were smart enough to never watch this show...

Going into the final installment of The Gauntlet, I had a sneaking suspicion that the Rookies would end up winning it all. But I never would have guessed that they would pull off a victory only because Eric (aka "Big Easy") almost died?!?!!

Say what you want about this show, but the finale made for good TV. It also made me finally admit that my husband was right... he stopped watching a long time ago because he couldn't stand how selfish and egotistical all of the players were. The finale proved his point.

The members of the Rookie and Veteran teams were chained together, respectively, and sent off to complete a series of mini-versions of past challenges. The Rookies immediately had an advantage with only six people, whereas the Veterans had ten. And one of those ten was Eric, an extremely large dude. Whatever team won would split $300,000 amongst its members... so each of the Rookies would get $50k if they won, and each of the veterans would get $30k.

Early on in the final challenge (which was, mind you, completed outside in the searing hot Mexican sun), Big Easy started slowing down. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they all had to swim a half-mile at the very beginning of the mission. Anyway, Eric soon could barely keep up with the rest of the team, who was literally dragging him along, as they were all chained together. Brad was THE ONLY ONE on the Veteran team who showed any sort of compassion or concern for Eric. He was like, "Um, hello everyone... this guy's gonna keel over... um, helllooooooo.... his eyes are rolling back into his head... hello... he's gone white.... helloooo....we need to stop... he's gonna die.... HELLO YOU @$#(#%*()#$#(@$s!!!! STOP!!!!"

Sure enough, Eric passed over and dropped down onto the pavement just like Brad had predicted. And what did the rest of the team do while Brad was calling for a medic and making sure Eric got air? They started throwing hissy fits and crying and complaining about how Eric just lost them $30,000 each.

A few things:
1) In the whole scheme of life, $30,000 is NOT WORTH someone dying over!! Are you kidding me? No amount of money is. Are these reality show brats that hard up??? I know I sound like a grumpy old lady, but seriously, they should be ashamed of themselves.
2) Yes, Eric should have kept better care of his health. But he came onto the show overweight, so the entire Veteran team should have known that he could end up as a liability to them, as so prophetically pointed out by Johnny Bananas early in the season. It is their own fault that Eric ended up costing them the final challenge, because they didn't have the foresight to get him off the team before the end.

So Big Easy gets whisked away by the medics, and then (and only then) does Evan rise to the challenge of being a leader and encourages the rest of the group to finish the mission and to "do it for Easy." But it was too little, too late.

I'm sure I am not the only one who watched with a mixture of awe and horror as the Veteran team actually caught up to the Rookies, and then surpassed them to "win" the final mission of digging up a crate and hoisting up the flag that was locked inside. I know my mouth was hanging open.

But there was no victory horn blown by that loser host guy who always wears straight-billed baseball caps like a dork. The Veterans lost on a technicality. They needed to have everyone on their team cross the finish line, and Eric still counted. Since they "left him behind," their effort was forfeited and the Rookies won.

Now, this bothered me, if for no other reason than I'm sure the next round of Gauntlet players will NOT be smart enough to figure out that they should kick off the players who may not be physically up to the final challenge early in the game. Instead, these people are going to interpret the Veterans' loss by thinking, "OK, so they should've let Eric die and carried his body over the finish line... because THEN they'd have $30,000 to spend on... you know, new sunglasses and tanning oil. And that would totally be worth it."

The reunion show is on tonight at 10 PM EST and I cannot wait to see if that brat Ev or Kenny or any of those idiots even attempts to redeem themselves after their obnoxious behavior in the final show.

Who am I kidding? They won't.

- e