Episode 7 : Race to the Altar

What happens when a Brazilian and a Cult Member put on a dramatic performance prominently featuring Black Face??  Race to the Altar happens, that's what happens!

Race relations is a topic that Real World has always been very happy to tackle.  Early on before the series became an excuse to watch drunken college kids live their lives, the show prominently tried to discuss social issues.   I think it climaxed in Real World Brooklyn when the Miz, Coral and the guy with the Fro (Malik?) tackled over race.   Miz thought it wasn't a big deal, Coral was incensed.... the dude with the Fro dated a white girl, Coral was incensed and on and on.   But outside of a few flare ups the issue of race never really became an issue on our beloved Challenge.

Now nearly every white person is either an overt racist, or feels obligated to walk on egg shells around the topic.   I'm no different - in fact, I don't even know if the picture above is appropriate.  So I'll take the CT tact here, "I can't pretend to know what you're going through - but I'll try and relate the best I can".

Now with all those caveats - I think we need to take everything with a grain of salt.   We need to take the source.  Emily should have been playing the "I grew up in a crazy religious sect / border-line cult" card until the cows came home.   And Camila comes from a place that is not the USA.  Brazil has very different race dynamics than we have here and its impossible for her to know what is appropriate behavior up here.

I found the scenes largely entertaining.  I think Johnny and CT both did a nice job of calming Ty down and I thought the moment with Ty and Emily outside was pretty nice.   It was clearly a mistake, there was no malice, but Emily offended Ty and at the end of the day that's really all that matters.

I particularly enjoyed multiple house members talking about Emily's jealousy towards Paula correctly predicted on KIWTJ.   But what I enjoyed the most?  The Dunbar/Emily friends by necessity portion of the program.   Highlighted by Dunbar holding a drink and Emily seductively taking a sip out of it.  Where did that come from?

The Challenge was an interesting one.   Clearly took some effort and planning by the producers which we here at KIWTJ applaud.   Each group would create a task.   After each task the last place finishing team would be eliminated.    I don't know if I liked the idea of it being a continuum rather than a re-start after each task was completed, but it certainly enabled the best team to win.  

Ty and Emily are the bottom couple because of Ty's inability to put on a tux.   Not exactly a huge black mark (no pun intended) on their resume.  After that Johnny and Camila were eliminated because they were the slowest to finish a massive amount of cake.   Mark and Robin were eliminated because of their inability to change a tire.   Then we were down to two teams Paula and Dunbar and CT and Diem.   CT's team had a big advantage going in, but he was able to carry Diem across the threshold faster than Paula and Diem.   Good job by CT on the changing of the tire and Diem destroying the cake.  A true team effort.

So our power couple was CT and Diem and we were left with a to be continued about who they were going to throw in.  Not my favorite thing, but we knew it was coming when all those couples were eliminated for off the field behavior early in the game.  

Leading up to the cliffhanger Diem wanted to throw in Paula and CT wanted to throw in Johnny.  Now here is where it gets confusing.   There are two possibilities:

1) I was able to read CT's body language and he was disappointed with who they were about to send in
2) The producers wanted me to think I read CT's body language and its a good ole' fashioned mis-direction.

I should probably re-watch and see how overt CT's signals were.   But I tend to think that Paula and Dunbar are going to be thrown in.

And this is a HORRENDOUS mistake by CT and Diem.  Diem's logic is insanely misguided.  She is scared of Paula?  She doesn't want to go against Paula or Emily?  Does that really matter.  Wouldn't you rather have CT eating Dunbar's dead carcass than struggling against Johnny who has proven to be a weirdly good competitor.   You have a chance to guarantee yourself getting rid of either Ty/Emily or Johnny/Camila.   You take it.  Everything else should go out the window.   You can't be scared of Paula, come on, stop it.

The last thing worthy of discussion was the Bachelor and Bachelorette party for CT and Diem.  I think they touched on it quite a bit during the episode, but Diem was waaaaaay too into it.  And frankly Diem has been looking like a troll this season.   Its like she got a nose job in the wrong direction.  (* Wife quote {and a good one})

Overall a pretty good episode.  Lot to like.

Who do you think CT and Diem are going to throw in?  Who should they  throw in?  Were you offended by Emily's behavior?  More upset about her choice of chocolate pudding on the face?