Beauty and the Geek 3, Episode 1, Part 2: Missed Opportunities

Earlier, we posted our recap of the first half of the Beauty and the Geek Season 3 premiere. Just as we suspected, the two-hour premiere was really a case of two one-hour episodes strung together. Thus, while the first hour ended in a “thrilling” cliffhanger – with all eight couples tempted by host Mike Richards’ offer of $20,000 if they would leave then and there – the anticipation of finding out who would go for the money didn’t last long, since the program showed us exactly what happened after the commercial break. Actually, there was a slight delay in showing viewers the outcome, as the program ran through the normal opening credits at the first-hour mark as well.

As an aside: to be fair, it was the program’s $20,000 up for grabs, not Mike Richards’. I mean, it wasn’t like Richards had some diabolical scheme to end the show quicker by handing out cash to the contestants. (Although that would make for a good Joe Schmo-like twist to some reality show, come to think of it.) Either way, it didn’t work, as we see after the commercial break that none of the contestants bit at the offer. Andrea and Matt seemed the most tempted, but Andrea felt $20,000 split between them wasn’t enough and Matt didn’t want to look like a quitter. [Note from Mike: Hey, Mike DeGeorge here, RNO Associate Editor and recapper from season 2. I’ll be here to throw in a pithy comment or two from time to time. Anyway, notice how Andrea’s hand loosened from the baton – she definitely looked like she wanted to but wanted to wait to see what Matt was doing first.]

They all leave the room; a bit relieved that everyone else seemed interested in continuing with the fun rather than just grabbing at the money. While most of the others appear to be in the kitchen gabbing, Matt ends upstairs alone with Cecille. Matt is smitten by her attention, but it’s pretty clear that Cecille is just looking at Matt like a plaything. How do we know this? Because she says so in an interview, which pretty much gives that away; not to mention how Matt probably feels like a classic all-day sucker when watching her comments. Cecille puts makeup on Matt and messes with his hair while – waitaminute, she’s wearing glasses! No wonder she won the Dewey Decimal System contest! She must be one of those gorgeous librarians we talked about in the first recap! She’s suckered us all!

Okay, enough of that.

Cecille gets Matt to look goofy and it’s pretty clear that Matt is playing along because he wants to fit in. When Cecille takes him downstairs to show Matt off to the others, however, Matt’s partner Andrea is furious. She states it is because Cecille was doing nothing to help Matt’s self-esteem by toying with him… and then she injects how Cecille probably done that to thousands of others as well. This makes Andrea come off as being jealous more than just being worried about Matt’s self-esteem. Not that Andrea is interested in Matt, but it IS her partner and she probably feels like Cecille was messing with her by toying with Matt. Matt doesn’t see what the big deal is, however.

The contestants go down the next day to meet with Richards in the study. The host reminds them that each week they will be giving study material to help them prepare for the elimination room. The material also seems to be there to help with the upcoming challenges as well, from what we see, but Richards doesn’t actually say that. The women are told that they will have to study for a challenge where they will have to have an intelligent conversation on current events; meanwhile, the guys will have to do stand-up comedy in front of an audience.

The geeks seem more worried about their challenge than the beauties do with theirs. I’m somewhat surprised, as every geek I’ve every met thought they were funny, so it would seem stand-up would be a calling to them. Oh, they may suck at it, as we’ll see, but they would still think they had a calling. As it stands, most of the beauties are more upset with having to crack open a book than talking about current events. Andrea also doesn’t help Matt much when she tells him that “if they don’t laugh, it’ll be the hardest thing for you.” Way to go with the self-esteem builder there, Andrea! Then again, Matt tries out a pick-up line on Andrea that involved sines and cosines and it bombs badly (hey, even Todd Rundgren’s “Lowest Common Denominator” would have worked better there, Matt). [Note From Mike: I loved it, but then, I love geek humor. My favorite geek joke is that there’s a sign in a bedroom at M.I.T. that says “Heisenberg might have slept here.” Physics geeks around the country are howling right now, trust me.]

Drew has Erin helping him out with his stand-up act, which would seem to be a plus as Erin is a voice coach. She mainly works on building his self-esteem when performing in front of people, which Drew immediately understands and begins to use. Piao appears to be on his own in his room, while his partner Sheree works on her challenge elsewhere. Piao is laughing at his own material and thinks he’ll do great. Of course, he only has the audience of himself at the time. Mario works on his act like he’s cramming for an exam, and being quite hyper about it while showing that he does some of funny ideas in mind. Nate is the polar opposite; sitting in the yard and scribbling down gags as they occur to him. Meanwhile, Sanjay tries to work on some material in hope he can do well, although he confesses that he is worried about his partner Tori, since she went to bed earlier than he felt was necessary to be ready for her challenge the next day.