Beauty and the Geek 5, Episode 3: How Do You Break a Shoulder Playing Flag Football?

Previously on Beauty and the Geek, Amber was sent packing, proving there is sometimes justice on reality TV. Tommy doesn’t feel the same, as he vows that this isn’t the end he and intends to see her again. He will date this supermodel. I want him to define supermodel for me, as I don’t think we use the same dictionary.

Amber had threatened Leticia prior to the last elimination ceremony so she’s glad Amber’s no longer in the game. Since Leticia clearly outclasses Amber in both intellect and likeability, I’m not sure she had anything to worry about.

There’s a lot going on in tonight’s episode, so we cut to the challenge set-up sooner than usual. First thing’s first: each team needs to select a team member to be traded to the other side for this challenge. The importance of this is stressed. The girls don’t want to sacrifice a strong player so they ask Jillian to be the sacrificial lamb. The Geeks are having trouble with Chris wanting to go, because of the inherent internal conflict: To side with his new team, or remain loyal to the Geeks. The guys note that he has too much integrity for this, and would rather send Jonathan. Chris and his integrity win the argument, so off he goes into the land of estrogen.

Once their choices are decided, Mike (the most laid back host on TV) tells them exactly how high the stakes are. Not only are the chosen contestants going to be competing with the opposing team, but the one on the losing team from today’s competition will be automatically eliminated. Not what they were expecting. It’s just a hunch, but had they known this before selecting their members, I don’t think it would have changed anything on the Beauties’ side, but I doubt very much the Geeks would have risked Chris.

The challenge is sports-related and of course they have the requisite study materials – but the specifics of the challenge won’t be given ahead of time. Joe talks about their determination to do well, and though no one wants to lose Chris, there are always casualties in battle. Joe confuses me because he’s a self proclaimed cowboy, yet most of his references are militaristic. Who was known as a cowboy and for his war films? Let me think… yes, I do think Joe probably likes John Wayne a whole lot.

The contestants head outside to practice with some of the sports equipment to get a feel for their general levels of athleticism. It doesn’t take long to determine those general skill levels are mighty low. Jim acknowledges this and for his part doesn’t enjoy mixing physical activity with games. He prefers his games “pure” such as chess, Rubik’s Cube, and some video game that he mentioned and I wrote down but now can’t read my scribbling. If you are dying to know, email me and I’ll re-watch it and get back to you.

Randi, on the other hand, thinks the beauties have the athletic advantage. Seeing as Greg is now interviewing that he is afraid of balls and Frisbees, perhaps she’s right. Tara doesn’t like to get dirty and is afraid that they will be required to wear mismatched outfits for the challenge. Tara is really bad at selling believable sound bites.

The challenge takes place at L.A. Memorial Hall Coliseum. They will be playing flag football in the first ever Beauty and the Geek Bowl. Randi is afraid of having her bones broken and Jonathan is afraid of injury and breaking his glasses. I can speak to these being legitimate fears as I have had both broken bones and broken glasses in my life. Both are inconvenient.

Joe isn’t weighed down with such trivial concerns, he’s excited because he knows something about football. He takes the lead in teaching his team some basics, but gets bogged down in teaching them the vernacular rather than cutting to the Cliff Notes version. I can’t mock this, I share his problem with brevity. He admits he’s not qualified to be a football coach but has complete confidence in the abilities of his team. He must have been watching a different practice session than we were, as I saw nothing to warrant confidence.

Chris steps up and assumes leadership of Team Beauty. As he tries to explain the fundamentals, one of the blondes (I am have a lot of trouble distinguishing most of these girls in the long shots without name captions) compliments him on his lip-gloss. He doesn’t smack her, which had to have taken some restraint.

As the game starts, Jillian and Chris are both conscious of the fact that one of them is going home at the end of this. Jonathan kicks off and Randi and Tiffany bust out the whoop-ass, but in case we missed it, the helpful editors gave us “intimidation” and “more intimidation” as their descriptors on the screen shot. There is a lot more contact in this game than I thought was allowable in flag football, but I admit my knowledge on this is limited. [Editor’s Note: At least when I played flag football waaaaay back in college, pretty much no contact was allowed.] Chris notes that the Geeks don’t have their defense spread out evenly so they can’t defend against a run. With this he makes the first touchdown of the game.

Joe tells his team not to lose faith. He may not be much of a football coach, but would be an excellent addition to any pep squad. The Geeks are having a hard time following Joe’s instructions as he’s calling plays with which they are completely unfamiliar. There’s a lot of chaos on the field, and Joe charges into Randi, causing her to protest that he can’t do that to her because she’s a girl.

I’ll call foul on that one. I’m a girl, I wouldn’t like to be knocked down… hence I don’t play football with boys. But in a competition for $250,000, as long as the rules aren’t broken, I would expect chivalry to be checked at the door.

Lest we think Randi was the most ridiculous person on the field, Tara starts wailing about Jonathan allegedly touching her boob. They show the play and the instant replay. If he did, it was completely cursory. Her claim that it was “not fair – you don’t grab boobs to get your way” is unwarranted. Not to mention completely nonsensical.

Somewhere in here, the Geeks get a touchdown and the score is Beauties 18, Geeks 6. Joe loves each and every person on his team. They are all wonderful people, but they exhaust him. I know how he feels.

Matt is charged fairly hard and hits the ground. At first it’s assumed the wind is knocked out of him and he’ll be on his feet soon. He declares that even though he knows there something severely wrong with his arm, he’s going to keep going. I’m really glad that brave sentiment is disregarded as the powers that be send in a medic to check him out. The medic escorts him to ER immediately.

Leticia is quite sad, saying Matt is so sweet and deserves to be here more than anyone. The guys are tearing up, but pull it together and rally in a vow to win it for Matt. Awww… Matt’s the Gipper!

The fourth quarter finds the guys trying to pull it out with a long pass nicely thrown by Joe and caught by Tommy for a touchdown. But they can’t close the gap and the final score is Beauties 24, Geeks 12.