Average Joe 4: The Joes Strike Back, Episode 2: Riders on the Storm

Our show begins this week without a two-hour delay and without an introduction by the president. Hopefully this will help ratings, as last week’s time change gave Average Joe its lowest ratings since the show first debuted.

Apparently the late start last week had its effect on the Joes too, because after a brief recap of last week, we see the Joes all conked out in their beds and dreaming of the lovely Anna. In a voiceover Arthur tells us that Anna is everything a soulmate should be. It’s six in the morning and not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. Well, not quite. One of the Joes is getting an early start. Dante is out in the kitchen rattling those pots and pans. Is he making breakfast? Oh no. Is he cleaning up from a late-night party? Wrong again. Perhaps he’s trying to salvage a meal from the crumbs Igor might have left behind. No, sorry. I’m going to have to flip all the cards and tell you that Dante is in the kitchen planning to become the first person in reality show history to be killed by his fellow contestants. He tells us that his plan is to awaken his roommates and welcome them to the new day. He grabs a big pot and a ladle and walks into the bedroom area. Like a cliché from every boot camp movie ever made, he begins banging the cookery together and screaming at the top of his lungs. “Wake UP!!!!! It’s TIME TO GO!!!!” Gino tells us in interview that he only got three hours of sleep as a result. Dante just tells us it’s his way of saying hello. The footage of Gino saying “hello” back to Dante must be on the editing room floor along with the scenes of the surgical removal of the aforementioned ladle. Trust me, if anyone decides to awaken me in that fashion, the doctors will be removing the ladle, the soup pot, and quite possibly the refrigerator!

The scene jumps from the mansion to a spot out in the desert some 229 miles away. We get a glimpse of a dust devil swirling in the sands to provide us with a moment’s foreshadowing, and then we see seven bright red sports cars on the horizon. It’s time to meet the Studs. But wait! Without so much as a glance at the drivers, we cut back to the mansion where Dante is being prophetic. “I’m just looking ahead at the storm that’s out on the shoreline waiting to come in,” he warns the other Joes. “It’s gonna be like an earthquake.” He continues to play Chicken Little, and the other guys quickly get tired of all the angst and hand wringing.

“Dante’s making it seem like these hunks are like superhuman devils,” Igor tells us. “They’re just humans.” Dante spends the morning coming up with ideas and plots to humiliate the Studs. He suggests a belly-flop contest and a scavenger hunt. “They’re just ludicrous ideas,” Jason tells us. Finally, Dante and Igor are reduced to calling one another names with Igor saying that Dante needs psychiatric help because he’s going nuts over something that might not even happen. “You’re a psycho!” he screams at Dante. In an interview clip, Igor assures us “it’s something he doesn’t even know is gonna happen.”

Better wake up the cameramen in the desert; there isn’t a director in the world that can pass up a segue like that! Quick as you can say “jump cut” we’re staring at the seven sports cars tearing across the sands. It’s time to meet the… never mind. We jump again, this time to a shot of a killer whale at Sea World. It’s date time with Anna. We see a montage of Anna and the Joes riding the attractions while she tells us that she wanted some time with the guys to get to know them a little better. She tells us it wasn’t what she expected, but that the guys are all so sweet they make her feel like a princess. As they stroll around the grounds however, a stench begins to surround them that is bad enough to make the dolphins threaten to strike for better conditions. “I brought out my secret weapon,” Dante proudly tells us. “If you really want to eliminate someone, that’s how to do it.” It turns out that the stench is coming from his sandals, and the other guys complain to us of his “wet foot funk.” Not since Puck on The Real World has a roommate made this kind of impression.

Soon Dante begins to crowd in on Anna and monopolize her time. Chuck and Igor immediately notice and swoop in, literally grabbing Anna away from the Toe Jam Kid. If one of them had puffed up a large red sack under his neck it would have looked like mating season on a National Geographic special on the great apes. We see a shot of some of the more timid Joes lagging a bit behind and walking with downcast eyes. The effect this all has on Anna is immediate. “Chuck and Igor are grabbing me, and so is Dante,” she tells us in an interview clip. “The quieter guys are getting flushed out, and some of these guys are coming on way too strong.”

The group decides to head over to the Shamu performance and Igor reminds Anna that these are actually Shamu’s grandchildren that they’ll be seeing. “I’m psyched to get in there and shake things up,” Gregg says, “those other guys are out of the picture right now.” I’m kind of excited about seeing the Orca show and… wait. Who’s Gregg and why are we back in the desert? What? Now it’s time to meet the studs? But we were going to see the killer whales and… okay. But there was no warning this time and the director already let two perfectly good chances to introduce these guys go by the boards and… Fine then. I’m supposed to recap, not try to understand what the director smoked in the editing room. Ahem.

Now it’s time to meet the studs! There are seven of them:

Gregg has little spikes of hair sticking straight up all over his head, and I don’t care how popular the style might be, I still don’t understand why a grown man would deliberately make himself look like hedgehogs are mating on his skull. Regardless, we’ve already heard his opinion of things so let’s move on.

Brad too has the mousse-it-to-death hair and a set of pearly whites that would make Mack the Knife shiver with envy. “I feel kinda bad for the guys,” he tells us. “I can only imagine the look of despair on their faces when they see us.” He’s apparently driving a convertible because his ego kept busting through the roof of the hardtops.

Rocky is as rugged a slab of beefcake as you are likely to see. With wavy brown hair and a chin cleft you could plant corn in, he is definitely a lady-killer. “Guys that are out of shape pine after girls like Anna,” he assures us with the wisdom of the ages. “I’m the guy that dates them.” If he hides his arrogance well enough, I’ll bet some big bucks that Anna is going to melt like buttah the first time he so much as glances at her.