Survival of the Richest

Originally aired on Friday, April 28, 2006 Episode Rating: ** (2 stars out of 5) Episode Overview: Down to the final three teams, Rich and Poor alike are put to the test in a military boot camp training and elimination race that will send one team home immediately.
Episode Highlights:

• A personal chef arrives to cook them breakfast - but first they have to earn it.
• Hunter and Johanna get their reward for winning last week's challenge.
• The teams are put through military boot camp with an immediate elimination at the end of the challenge.

Recap: The house is going through the usual reality show post-elimination debrief. Last week, after a tie vote, Richie Liz and Poor Kid Marcus were selected for elimination by Richie Hunter and Poor Kid Johanna. Liz's hook-up with Jim had made her expendable to Hunter, who had also been interested in her. Liz was in near-hysterical tears last week at the idea of leaving Jim. Jim's reaction? Ummm...not so much. He says it was cool to meet Liz (and, he adds in the same breath, Marcus) but he's glad she's gone. He's focused on the money and doesn't need the "distraction." Ouch. Well, one hopes Liz's fistfuls of cash will help cushion the blow. With the distraction out of the way, Jim is now gunning to get rid of Poor Gal Johanna. Last week, the Poor Dudes made a pact that the winner would share some of the prize money with the losing Poor Kids. Johanna, who has a young daughter to consider, didn't want to join in. This angered Jim. He thinks she's a "head case." While I concede it's a strategic risk to alienate other players when their vote could control your fate, the fact is Johanna is just looking to keep the prize money. Money they're ALL angling to win. If that makes her a head case, then aren't they all for coming on the show in the first place? Johanna is aware of how her decision could impact her down the road. In conversation with Richie Sammy, she says that if she and Hunter don't win the next challenge, they are screwed. The next morning, the kids are awoken by the distinct call of a pissed-off personal chef: wooden spoon banging on metal mixing bowl. The chef had been brought in to fix the house a breakfast, but is so disgusted by the state of the kitchen she refuses to cook until they clean it up. She assigns them each tasks and they get to work. Hunter is flummoxed by the task of cleaning the floor, but is still amused that Southern Poor Kid Jacob doesn't know proper table setting. Floor-cleaning skills? Unimportant. Table-setting skills? Doesn't everyone have them? The hearty breakfast of Eggs Benedict and pancakes pleases Sammy, who says it's how she's "used to having breakfast," but not Jacob, who would prefer a PBJ sandwich. I guess this was to be some illustration of the difference between rich and poor. Eggs and pancakes aren't foie gras and black truffles, though, so it more makes Jacob out to simply be a fussy eater who just happens to be broke. After breakfast, Rich Kids Sammy and Hunter discuss how winning the $100,000 will give them some financial independence from their families. Yes, for about ten minutes unless they start living like Poor Kids. The next day, Hunter and Johanna, who won last week's challenge, are given their reward: a trip to Johanna's apartment complex to see her four-year old daughter and Johanna's mom. She's thrilled to see her daughter, and they all have lunch in the apartment. While Hunter is touched – or has enough common sense to say in interview that he was touched – he seems visibly irritated that the reward wasn't a reward for him. Which, OK, I can see the point, but suck it up, dude. You're RICH. Once you leave the show, you can feel free to set up little daily reward excursions for yourself from now until your dying day. The next day, the kids are all woken up at 4:30 AM by barking Drill Sergeants, who harass the kids as they leap out of bed and dress in fatigues. The Sergeants seem to take special pleasure in tormenting the Rich Kids, giving chubby T.R. the endlessly funny name "Jelly." The teams are taken to a fully-functioning military training facility to meet with Hal Sparks (whose participation in this show continues to makes no sense to me). Hal tells the kids they will be put through a military training course, and then immediately put the new skills to use in a race. The slowest team will be eliminated from the game immediately. The teams all suffer through the training, including running through an obstacle course, learning to properly fold the American flag, directing their blindfolded partner, and carrying a loaded stretcher as a team. After the training, the race begins. Each team will run the race separately and will be timed. First up are T.R. and Jim. T.R. nearly poops out immediately, and Jim has to carry the weight, literally. He takes over carrying the medical stretcher at the start and T.R.'s pack at the end. Next up are Hunter and Johanna. They start off strong, but despite her military training, Johanna slows down towards the end, and Hunter has to take her pack. Last to go are Sammy and Jacob. Jacob runs the course yelling near-constant encouragement to Sammy. Strangely, this doesn't make her want to kick him in the shins (she is a better woman than I am). Instead, she says later in interview that she has the best partner and she couldn't have done it without him. She couldn't, apparently, do it with him, either, though, as when all the teams convene after the challenge, Hal lets them know that T.R. and Jim won, Hunter and Johanna came in second, and so Sammy and Jacob are eliminated. Sammy's disappointed she let down Jacob. This is the part I still don't get about this show: can't she just write him a check? Maybe not for $100K, but put an old Hermes bag up on ebay and give him the proceeds. Johanna is sad to see them go, and also apprehensive about competing with Jim in the final two. Hal warns the two teams that they will need to prepare for the final challenge as "it's going to take everything [they] have." We will have to tune in next week to see what everything they have adds up to. -BuddyTV Staff Columnist