User blog:Gumball2/TDPI Episode Eight Reaction

No time to waste!

This episode begins with Sky and Dave dealing with their recent separation. And Jasmine’s like ‘You can’t love him anymore’ and Sky’s like ‘I must!’ And this episode is already reminding me about why Jasmine’s my least favorite character. I do think that her goal is justified given how supporting the other team could come at the cost of losing it herself. That’s perfectly fine. But the problem is Jasmine shows absolutely no empathy for Sky. She comes off as very authoritative, hostile, and cold. When I think of her, I think of a father of a white family in the South during the 1930s. And this scene feels like that father just figured out that her daughter wants to marry a black man. Now I know that Jasmine is not a racist and she’s only doing this for the sake of the team, but her pig-headedness and her failure to perceive the situation as an emotional struggle for Sky makes me think Jasmine is no more than an inflexible, callous bigot. Now given the record Jasmine has had this season, this action does seem to be in character which I’m all for. But the problem is that the writers seem to be writing Jasmine as a heroine. Not an anti-hero, but a strong, kind, and caring warrior that embodies the traditional view of someone that saves the day. They probably thought this scene was endearing (as we see Sky give Jasmine a high-five at the end and her reminding herself of how “right” Jasmine is), but it didn’t come off like that to me.

Where has the time gone?

So Shawn talks to Dave and they think that now that their sweethearts are on the same team that they’ll be talking about nothing but love. And I guess Sugar likes Max for whatever reason.

So we get to the challenge where they have to go through an obstacle course while being as quiet as possible. And all the while they have to carry babies. Babies are on the show because…they were unwanted? And also, they were only brought in when Topher was trying to seduce Chris into giving up his position as host. Why did they keep all those babies the whole time? Where did they sleep? What would have happened if Topher didn’t say that?

Oh…I forgot…this show is a giant jerk to anything that is morally right.

We get some stuff involving lions and rattlesnakes. From what I can tell, almost none of these people really care about the welfare of the babies. In fact, they seem to only be egg-shaped balls that you play catch with. And it’s not like any of them even notice what’s going on because they’ve been thrown around so much that they got brain damage. I mean, they were strapped to the bottom of a hot air balloon before being dropped a hundred feet to be caught by human arms and not like in a pillow or something. Also, Chris made them out to be a nuisance, but the only complication that ever happens is when Max leaves behind his baby in a rattlesnake on a lion and Sugar has to go get it. It’s not like they ever cry or anything. So really what was the point of including them in this challenge? They didn’t do anything. Well obviously because they’re babies, but it seems like they have no impact on the outcome of this challenge. All the missteps are the result of the actual competitors. If you ask, all it really did was slap me in the face for being mean-spirited for no reason.

Back to Jasmine. It turns out that not only is she a heartless monster, but she’s also a psychopathic killer! At the end of the first leg of the race, rather than continue onto the next part, Jasmine decides to create a ploy to wake one of the lions so that it attacks the other team. Sky seems skeptical and reacts the way a normal person would but Jasmine’s like ‘It’s for the good of the team! If you don’t like it, then that makes you a traitor!’ Our heroine everyone.

If you ask me, this team should really consider not using performance in challenge as a form of immunity. The merge shouldn’t be too far away now. I think it should really be a nice time to vote Jasmine off. I’m sure you could get by until the merge that will likely happen next week.

But since the script titles her the “hero”, it looks like we’re stuck with her.

So aside from some baby dropping, murder, and weirdness, nothing else really happens for a while…um…

There is one thing; albeit it’s small.

So like, Chef is like firing this pasta cannon and he’s supposed to fire whenever he hears a sound. But he’s blindfolded and yet he’s an excellent shot. My guess is that he has a trained ear, but why wear the blindfold in the first place? Is it so that he isn’t biased? Who would he favor more than anyone else?...um…

So anyway, we get to the last stage where they have to go through a snow zone with the threat of avalanches. Topher gets a call from a “producer” where he’s named the host of the show. It turns out to just be Chris. My guess is that this was supposed to be a massive surprise to everyone. But during the call- for whatever reason- they decide to show the person speaking on the other end and we can very clearly see Chris’s face. The “disguise” did absolutely nothing to conceal him. Wouldn’t it have been better to just hear the voice of the other person. Apparently no because then the audience would have to figure it out for themselves and they’re too stupid to do that.

So because Topher shouts in jubilation, there’s an avalanche and the team loses again. And they don’t even try to hide the fact of who is going home. So they don’t even have a bottom two, Chris tells the audience what it already knows, and Topher is sent away.

I’m noticing a pattern with the quality of episodes this season. It started off good, but then it fell face first into the poopy. Then it went back up to being good and now it’s eating crap again. Hopefully, we can get out of this rut quickly and we can at least finish on a high note. Is this the worst episode of the season? Not exactly, but once again the fate of this season is jeopardized by our designated heroine- Jasmine. Will we ever get out?