Survival of the Richest, Episode 2: Off to the Races!

“Mirror in the bathroom, please talk free
The door is locked, just you and me.”
-- “Mirror in the Bathroom,” The English Beat, 1980

Welcome to the second episode of Survival of the Richest. The show starts off with a recap of events so far. You can read my recap of last week’s episode. As a reminder the poor kids are Esmerelda, Tracy, Jim, Jacob, Michael, Johanna, and Marcus. The rich kids are Elizabeth, T.R., Liz, Nick, Sammy, and Hunter. Last week, rich-kid Kat was the first person eliminated. Our host is Hal Sparks.

The episode starts with the players musing over the loss of Kat. Michael thinks that people just didn’t bother getting to know her. Hunter says that was her own fault because she distanced herself from everyone. He says that she just wasn’t any fun.

Soon they find their paychecks from the following week. Everyone is excited. Well, excited until they open the envelopes and find just $45. The rich kids are appalled at how little they were paid, while the poor kids note that they made $20 an hour for their work and are grateful. Nick says that he’d kill himself if he got paid that little. He thinks waiters should be paid $50 an hour. Hunter says he is glad they got paid because he was running short on toilet paper. He says he usually wipes his butt with Franklins, but he’ll gladly use Jacksons.

Then it’s time to go grocery shopping. Michael, Nick, and Sammy, pile in the van to go get food for the week. Michael says that they pooled their money and now they have $450 to shop for 12 people. Okay, here we see a possibility of why Michael might be one of the poor kids. 12 times $45 is $540. Of course, maybe the shortage of money could be explained by the fact that Hunter and T.R. used theirs as toilet paper.

At the store, Nick tells us that he has never shopped before. He just gives his assistant a list of stuff he wants and it magically appears in his refrigerator. While they are shopping, Nick just grabs stuff and throws it in the cart. Michael tells him that they can’t afford all that random stuff. He thinks that peanut butter is, like, $5 per can. Michael says, “Can?”

Later, Sammy and Nick are complaining that cheap food will hurt their stomachs. Nick suggests that they get the cheap food for the poor kids, because that’s what they like, and then get the good food for the rich kids. Michael rolls his eyes. At the cash register, Nick says, “That’s what I get for shopping with poor people.” This gets an icy stare from the cashier. Meanwhile, I note that Michael is eating the whole time he is at the store. He is eating a fruit pop, which is about $3, and then later he is eating a bag of chips, which, at that particular store, costs about $3. So Michael isn’t quite being as budget-minded as he should either.

Back at home with the food, Hunter decides to cook for everyone. He says he will make Tequila Chicken Allspice, which he later admits is a dish he just made up. He literally throws stuff on the grill, creating huge clouds of smoke. The fire alarms go off and no one knows how to disable the alarm. Fire trucks soon arrive and the firemen are dismayed to find that the rich kids have caused this much trouble. Jim thinks that Hunter was disrespecting the firemen and notes that his own father is a fireman.

The next day, a package arrives for Foxy, indicating the job for the day. It is an equestrian outfit and all the kids think they will be shoveling horse poo or something stinky. Elizabeth thinks it will be disgusting.

When the kids get to the historic Del Mar racetrack, Nick says that he has so many great memories of the place, sitting around upstairs in the VIP lounge, drinking. I think he won’t be coming away from this trip with similar memories. Well, it turns out that they won’t be cleaning up after the horses, they’ll be cleaning after the unwashed masses, which is arguably worse. They will be cleaning the stands after the crowd has left and then cleaning the bathrooms. The rich kids are suitably disgusted. They’d rather clean up horse poo.

The kids change into their uniforms. The rich kids aren’t really taking things that seriously at first and think they look hot in their janitor’s outfits. They spend a little extra time on their makeup. Soon, though, it’s time to work. They have an hour and a half to complete their task. Let’s see, at $6.75 an hour, they’ll make about $10. In any case, they are off to the races!

We see the typical scenes of the rich kids whining and the poor kids just working hard. Michael doesn’t seem to be working all that hard either. Soon, they all head to the bathrooms and that’s where the fun begins. The rich kids are completely disgusted by what they see and make the expected retching and gagging sounds. T.R. even wads up some paper and sticks it up his nose to keep from smelling the bathrooms. Of course, I’ll admit that the bathrooms do look pretty gross. I’ll point out here that most of the bathrooms they’ve picked are men’s rooms! But the kids persevere to the best of their abilities. Much humor ensues.

It’s finally time to announce the winner for the week. It’s Marcus and Liz, based on their hard work. Hal says that the vote will happen the next day, but there will be a twist - it will be a secret vote, which will allow everyone to stab anyone in the back.

Talk around the house gets to alliances. The rich kids think that they control the votes and can tell the poor people how to vote. This, they say, is just the way politics works. They mention that T.R., Hunter, and Nick have an alliance and control their partners’ votes. They agree to vote out Sammy and Jacob. Well, loyal viewers of reality shows know that when the editors allow this kind of comment to air, it just isn’t going to happen.

Later, Johanna confronts Hunter and complains that he threw the contest. He says not to worry because the game is not about hard work; it is a popularity contest and he has got all the angles worked out. And, you know, that’s a problem I have as well. Winning each challenge doesn’t really help that much. It is all about the votes.

Speaking of votes, Jacob knows that his head is on the chopping block, so he is running around trying to get votes against anyone else. The most likely other couple to vote against is Nick and Michael. The poor kids finally agree that they need to stick together. All too soon, however, it is time to vote. We get to see some of the votes and they are for Nick and Jacob. The players are assembled and Hal confirms to everyone that all the votes cast were either for Nick or Jacob. Nick looks worried.

And well he should be. Hal reveals that Jacob got three votes and Nick got nine. Okay, let’s look at the numbers. Michael and Nick could not vote for themselves and represent two votes against Jacob. So who was the third vote? Well, Nick is in an alliance with T.R. and Hunter. Yet it’s obvious that one of them betrayed him, if not both. And it probably turns out that they both betrayed him because Liz tells us that she is shocked at the vote. Hunter, in fact, tells us that he voted against Nick because betrayal is more fun than an alliance.

Nick and Michael try to clear the air. Michael basically reads Nick the riot act and tells him that his arrogant cockiness cost them the opportunity to win. Nick is appropriately contrite and seems genuinely sorry that he screwed up so badly. But the real question is whether Nick will write Michael a check for the lost money.

Be sure to join us next week for another episode when the teams are assigned to pick a peck of pickled peppers.

Bill (bing@paxentertainment.com) is a huge reality show fan. His favorite reality show of all time was Cannonball Run 2001.