Previously on Love in the Wild: I reviewed the premiere instead of recapping it, and one commenter got sorta mad at me about it! Fair enough. I know my place (recapping, not opinion-ing).
So here’s a mini-recap that literally leaves out nothing relevant (because nothing is relevant on this show!): Twenty University of Arizona graduates were dropped into the remote Hilton Ropes Course of Costa Rica, where they paired into hetero super-duos to collect meaningless talismans and forcibly smooch each other. Couple-who-creepily-look-like-each-other Sam and Mike won, earning the prize of smooching some more by a waterfall, or something. Their babies will have big, bushy, beautiful, brunette eyebrows. A guy named Ben was a dick, but a guy named Steele existed, making him automatically worse. Girls named “Kym” and “Vanessa” acted like girls named “Kym” and “Vanessa.” Someone had a chinstrap. Bossy Dawn and a guy named Jared couldn’t build a raft, lost and were eliminated at the “Couples’ Choice Ceremony,” which sounds like a honeymoon dance you’d do at a Hawaiian luau, but here it is an EMOTIONAL dance of SHAME AND HUMILIATION.
Tonight on Love in the Wild: More of the same, but a little different. Instead of crocodiles, there are bats!
After the CCC (Couples’ Choice Ceremony/Chumps’ Cruelty Convention) Heather leaves Ben, who admits “Some girls would call me the biggest dick they ever met,” for Miles, who she has a crush on. Erica has moved on to Jason, who is black, which is her favorite color, so eat your heart out, eHarmony compatibility index! These two were meant to be.
Steele is a pro golfer (ha! woof), and he’s sad to be stuck with Vanessa, whose uterus is screaming, “MAKE ME A BABY” almost as loud as her face is screaming, “I CAN’T BREATHE UNDER ALL THIS MAKEUP.” Kym’s neon pink claws are moving in on Steele. It’s a cocktail waitress showdown, and someone’s going to get a leopard-print stiletto (“jungle-style”!) to the neck.
Kym is attracted to Steele’s “great personality,” “cool sense of humor” and “infantile reasoning skills”:
… because that’s when the prices on muscle tanks and visors fall!
Vanessa watches as Steele “flirts” his watered-down brain-juices all over Kym’s bikini body from across the pool and silently plots her defense. (Become more defensive, needy and clingy. Works like a charm something that’s very un-charming.)
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE: The couples must travel a tree-top maze of bridges, collecting a series of tethers … while attached at the hip by the tethers. “The good news is, if you fall 400 feet to your death, you’ll die together as a couple,” says our chipper Australian grease-monkey of a host. The winner gets an extra-special sex-cation suite and safety from elimination.
Ben and Brandee are a terrible team, because Ben’s rampant terribleness overshadows all else. Even Ben’s mother is like, “That guy? Gross.” But Brandee seems into it. Something terrible and dark must have happened in her childhood. Brandee: You’re pretty and your eyes aren’t dead inside (yet), so just let yourself be happy!
Jessica, who looks like a To Catch a Predator bait girl, and Derek, who looks like a Derek, are getting along until Derek reveals his wimpy fear of heights. Her desire for him shrinks like her XS child-sized fitness tank. He almost falls through a rickety bridge, but Jessica/his eight safety harnesses get him through the experience. It’s like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dumb.
It’s like walking in Jessica’s mouth! (Her baby teeth are still falling out.)
In the middle of the course is a “bat-infested cave” that is actually a “clean metal tunnel with safety rails with, like, six bats in it.” Most of the couples miss the tether in the tunnel, so freaked out are they by the bats. Unfortunately, Ben does not get pooped on or bitten, as a crazy strain of aggressive jungle bat rabies would still constitute an upgrade to his “personality.”
“I’m scared … of how sterile this cave is!” – A bat about to die of starvation in the Love in the Wild “bat cave”
Vanessa is upset by how Steele is acting like “Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde.” How can I make that funnier? That’s unpossible! Peter, who is paired with uptight Jessica (who previously made her partner sleep on the floor), “is in his element in the adventures.” Ben thinks Brandee‘s “left butt is heavier than her right butt.” Three stupid things said right in a row. I can’t keep up!
And no one else can keep up with the Brain Trust that is Kym and Adam Chinstrap, because they are this week’s challenge winners. Their prize is a trip to “the Oasis” and a fancy lunch by a volcano tomorrow, at which they’ll get to pick two of their competitors to throw into the molten fire as human sacrifices!
THE LOSERZZZZ: It’s a race to the finish between Steele & Vanessa and Derek & Jessica, with Derek & Jessica getting last place. Derek is as disappointed as his meager grasp on the rules of this show’s elimination ceremonies will allow him to be. (Kinda.)
Back In The Jungle At The Resort: Jason, who won’t shut up, and Erica, who offended Jason by telling him to shut up, aren’t the match made in heaven that no one thought they’d be. Erica says “You annoy me, and I annoy you, and that’s the bottom story.” But the REAL “bottom story” is Jason’s FACE when she says it:
“Whathafuuuuu?”
Erica decides to sleep by the pool (the WILD JUNGLE POOL) instead of next to Jason. He’s 0 for 2 when it comes to getting a girl into the bed with him. Meanwhile, Miles and Heather are getting on (but not getting IT on) when he surprises her with a picnic, complete with wine that he crushed, fermented and bottled himself out of wild jungle grapes. Heather, no! Don’t drink the poision! Brandee laughs as she recounts how Ben‘s words toward her are “somewhat abusive.” “Hehehe, he hurts me with his words! HA HA!” No need to make fun; Brandee hates herself enough for all of us.
More Dumb Stuff Gets Said: Kym “hates cats,” but Adam loves them, so that’s a dealbreaker (since apparently his chinstrap wasn’t already?). Jess is in the hammock with Derek, telling him how she “seems SO mature” for 25. Talking about how mature you seem is the #1 way to show people how mature you are/seem. Steele and Vanessa get a seven-hour itch (in their hearts, not their privates) and decide they need a divorce. Vanessa cries and declares, “I don’t deserve to be alone!” Her subtitle says “Law student.” This scares me profoundly.
Since both their partners hate them, Peter and Vanessa decide they’ll pair up at the CCC, but the next morning, Peter’s cromagnon brain sees Erica and changes itself. Mike and Sam continue to be the show’s happy power couple, meaning it’s only a matter of time before everyone else hates them and attempts to tear them apart with the cruel voracity of a pack of wild badgers.
Kym and Adam’s Winner’s Lunch: Adam talks about his workout regime too much for Kym’s liking, so she tells him she’s planning on asking Steele to be her new date/partner/slave, whatever, NBD. As you’ll recall, since they won, Adam and Kym can ask/demand ANYONE as their next partner, and that person literally cannot say no. Adam is like, “Well, maybe if that doesn’t work out, we can get back together, or …?” and Kym is like, “Um.” Cool lunch, glad we got to be the third wheel on that one.
THE COUPLES’ CHOICE CEREMONY:
“Love in This Club” In the Wild
In some ways, it works like a game of dominoes. If the winning couple mutually decide to stay together, then the system stays intact and goes down the line in order of challenge place, until the first person decides he/she would rather break off than stay together. At which point everything falls apart into a feelings-hurtin’, back-stabbin’, date-rejectin’ free-for-some.
Kym decides to break off from Adam and asks Steele for his mighty hand. Adam throws unsuspecting, terrified Heather over his shoulder and drags her into the forest, and Miles must look on helplessly as another gorilla takes his female, who, once again, has no say in the matter. Just like modern dating!
Jessica asks Derek to be her new partner, and he says yes. Peter goes back on his word with Vanessa and asks “the funnest girl,” Erica, to be his new #1. But she says NO! That puts Peter in the “unmatched area,” where he may occupy himself with some complimentary Viactiv chocolate vitamin chews, a loyal cat named Howard and the Gilmore Girls seasons 1-6 DVDs while he waits to see if he will die alone for his penis’s grave error in judgment.
Next up are Brandee and Ben, who decide they’d like to stay in their abusive relationship. Somewhere, Tyra shakes her head in sympa-judgment. Teresa and Skip, who are apparently too dumb/dull to matter tonight, elect to stay together as well. So do Sam and Mike.
Erica asks Miles to be her partner, and he basically has no choice but to say yes. Heather weeps from her vantage point atop Adam’s hairy shoulder on the Empire State Building as Adam beats his chest in continued, clueless triumph. Jason, who increasingly reminds me of 30 Rock‘s “Twofer” (but hotter) asks Baby Jessica to be his new partner, and, given the choice of saying yes or going home, she says yes.
That means Vanessa and Peter, the two people who actually had the foresight to make a pre-CCC alliance, are eliminated, because Peter BETRAYED her. They leave their bracelets in the bowl (huh? oh, who cares) and go away forever.
Since this show is all about gender dynamics, dating and how to create successful relationships, what love lessons can we learn from Peter and Vanessa’s exits? I think I know. From Vanessa, I think we are meant to take away that even if you look like a Thai Masseuse and talk like a Real Doll, if you’re too clingy, no one will love you. And from poor, dumb Peter: If you say you’re going to do something, don’t get distracted by a hot girl, or scrambled eggs, or the effort it takes you just to breathe in and out, and DO IT! Also, wash your hair. Ladies like that.
Vanessa clearly learned her lesson: “I have a lot of things going for me, and I’m a good person, and I know that I’m not going to be alone for that much longer.” So have at her, guys! Her standards have never been lower!
Thoughts on Love in the Wild Week 2? Are you even watching this show? Should I keep recapping it regardless?
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Meghan hails from Walla Walla, WA, the proud home of the world’s best sweet onions and Adam West, the original Batman. An avid grammarian and over-analyzer, you can usually find her thinking too hard about plot devices in favorites like The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and How I Met Your Mother. In her spare time, Meghan enjoys drawing, shopping, trying to be funny (and often failing), and not understanding the whole Twilight thing. She’s got a BA in English and Studio Art from Whitman College, which makes her a professional arguer, daydreamer, and doodler.
