Originally aired on Wednesday, 02/07/2007

Episode Rating:  *** (3 stars out of 5)

Episode Overview: It’s down to three teams and this week’s challenge will determine the final two.  The teams have to focus on winning, but will Nate and Jennylee’s new romance be a factor?

Episode Highlights:

• Both the Beauties and the Geeks have to venture outside their comfort zones this week for the main immunity challenge.
• Cecille’s reluctance or inability to demonstrate any sort of personal development continues to frustrate the Geeks.
• Nate and Jennylee continue to develop their relationship, but this week’s elimination puts them head-to-head to get to the final two.

Recap:  Jennylee Berns and Niels Hoven once more make it back from the elimination room, and again, Nate Dern is thrilled to see Jennylee.  Their other housemates had picked up on the romance between the two, but the news of their kiss spread quickly through the remaining Beauties and Geeks.  Nate admits that he hasn’t had a lot of experience in that arena.


While Nate and Jennylee spend more quality time alone, the others hang out.  Niels and Alan “Scooter” Zackheim try to talk to Cecille Gahr about her attitude and values.  She is insistent that she wants to only date “the richest 5%” and doesn’t want to hang out with “trash.”  Niels says that he finds her values “disgusting” and says that happiness is a “quality relationship with a quality person.”  Cecille remains unconvinced.

The next day, they learn that their newest challenge will place both Beauty AND Geek outside their comfort zones: they will be heading to a farm for some cowboy-related activities.   They head to their rooms to change into their cowboy gear.  Scooter and Nate have some immediate concerns as both of their partners, Megan Hauserman and Cecille, pick cuteness over comfort.  The two women sport bikini tops and short shorts, and seem to want to spend more time primping than prepping.

In the bus on the way to the farm, however, everyone gets to studying.  As soon as they arrive at the location, it’s a mad dash to the first stop, where they all review their instructions.  Then it’s another mad dash to the first challenge.  Cecille resents the running, and both she and Megan seem to be regretting choosing their choice of fashionable but uncomfortable footwear.

The first challenge is to move five bales of hay, and the near-unanimous reaction seems to be: this is a heck of a lot harder than it looks.  The partners mainly work together to move each bale.  Nate and Cecille finish first, with Megan and Scooter following closely, and Niels and Jennylee are last to complete the task.  Nate and Cecille lose their lead in the next challenge – milking a cow – and Megan and Scooter overtake them to head first into the final challenge.  It is down to Megan and Scooter vs. Nate and Cecille in the final challenge, a sort of sheep-wrangling event.  Despite the fact that she is wearing next-to-nothing, Megan quite literally throws herself into the fray, hurtling herself at a sheep and wrestling it to the ground. Scooter is surprised and impressed, and it’s in large part to her dedication that the two are able to win. 

They have not only won this challenge, but also secured themselves a spot in the final two.  And, in a bittersweet twist, this means that new…well, what does one call them at this point but “special friends” Nate and Jennylee will have to compete against each other for the other final spot.

All three sets of partners get to spend one final evening of fun all together at a barbeque/hoedown.  They talk about what they’ve learned.  For the most part, everyone seems to have taken something positive from the experience, but Cecille is a bit of an exception.  She is either willful or clueless and seems reluctant to acknowledge any personal growth at all.  Nate and Jennylee break off alone again to be with each other during the evening, but once they are back at the house, they both seem to focus on studying and preparing for the elimination the next day.

Before that can happen, though, they are all directed to the library, where they are shown videos of themselves as they entered the house.  Again, nearly everyone but Cecille seems to have the same reaction: embarrassment at the things they said and assumptions they made coming into the house, and a greater appreciation and understanding of other people after their time there.  Nate looks back and sees how his goofy persona was a way to keep people at bay, and can’t believe he was ever intimidated by his teammate.  Megan realizes she probably judged Scooter too harshly when she first met him.

Cecille, on the other hand, insists that she thinks her comments in her introductory video were all just fine and she doesn’t think she’s changed all that much in her time with the others.  Needless to say, this frustrates Scooter and Niels.

Finally, it’s time for elimination.  The girls go first, and have to answer farming-related questions.  Nate seems just as happy to see Jennylee get an answer right as his own partner, as he can’t hold back a smile when she seems to pluck a correct guess out of the air at the last moment.  The score is tied as they girls turn it over to the boys.  They each get their own question right, and Nate answers his next one correctly as well.  It is down to Niels to get the final question correct, but he misses it (it seems odd that again the last question is like five times more obscure than all the questions that came before it). 

Niels and Jennylee are eliminated. Although this means that Nate is still on track to win a lot of money, he looks like he has been punched in the gut.  The host is about to cut Niels and Jennylee loose, when Cecille says she has to say something.  I think for a moment: oh MY!  Is this the twist?  Could the most shallow girl of all suddenly have some change of heart and opt out or something so the two lovebirds could compete together?  I don’t know why I thought that.  Instead, she had stopped the proceedings to say that “You can take the blonde to the ranch, but you can’t take the bikini off of the blonde.”  Or something.  Honestly, she might have said something a little different, but it made about as much sense as that. 

Jennylee is stunned and just flat out says, “That’s so inappropriate.”  They all have their goodbyes, but hers and Nate’s is marred by Cecille’s weird comments.

In the closing interview, Niels talks about how much he’s learned.  Mainly, he says, he knows now that if he sees a “hot girl” in the supermarket, he can go up and talk to her.  I am so pleased that the main action plan Niels has taken from this “Don’t judge a book by its cover” show is to run right out and start judging girls by their covers.  Not to say one cannot find one with a hot girl in a supermarket – she might turn out to be just as nice as Jennylee – but seriously Niels, what happened to “quality relationship with a quality person?” 

Jennylee soldiers on in her interview despite her disappointment, when suddenly Nate appears.  He says he’s jumped out of a window to come see her before she left.  They kiss.  It’s just all so darn cute.

Well, who the heck cares who wins next week?  The real story is what happens with these two crazy kids.  But we still tune in next week to see how it all plays out!


- Leslie Seaton, BuddyTV Staff Columnist