King of the Nerds 1/30/15--"And Now for Something Different" summary

Previously on “King of the Nerds”: the nerds all met each other and were placed into teams. Then they were given 24 hours to make a steampunk Rube Goldberg machine to reveal their team flag and name. Team SMASH melted a wire and had some cool stuff, but Team Hooloovoo made up a whole story and lifted their flag instead of dropping it, which was much more impressive, so they won. Team SMASH quickly decided to send Ori to the Nerd-Off, because he is immature and useless. All the girls in Nerdvana (except Kaitlin for some reason) made an alliance and worked to nominate only boys. Team Hooloovoo nominated Jacob, which was a shock to everyone, and as far as I can tell was only done to create chaos and freak everyone out. Jacob can keep the team together while Ori cannot. Sadly Ori won the Nerd-Off, a trivia/destruction game about anime and manga. Jacob was the first one eliminated. (click for more)

Jonathan thinks Ori coming back is not great because everyone loved Jacob. And they all just tried to get rid of Ori. Kaitlin rolls her eyes because she didn’t even talk to Jacob so who cares if he’s gone? Well whose fault is that? He’s not on your team, so don’t worry about it. Everyone drinks and Ori wants everyone to tell “their relationship status”. Ori, if you’re going to joke about not listening to people because they’re women, you aren’t getting laid. At least not by any of the girls. Thomas says he’ll be down here hiding under the table. He’s kissed a girl though so there’s that. Heather all of a sudden yells “Hey does everybody know that I’m mostly gay!?!” It was obnoxious somehow. Like she just wanted to yell that because no one was paying attention to her so she thought to shock people and also make herself the center of attention. Then she says she describes herself as 80/20 and she should have just lead with that because that’s pretty clever. Amanda says she’s married but still counts herself 70/30 (he’s the 70%, she clarifies). Raychelle is 60/40. None of the guys say anything about percentages. Todd kind of flirts with Jonathan maybe, or they could just be dorks.

The girls do makeup in the bathroom and Heather and Amanda thank the other two for keeping them out of the Nerd-Off. Curtis hollers to them and when they come out he’s dressed up like an octopus. Hentai and tentacle jokes are made. Bobby looks more normal but he’s in costume too. They have an awesome story about aliens. The Nerd War will be to create an epic sci-fi cosplay masterpiece. Lily, Raychelle, and Heather are all super excited. Lily says she’s going to prove to her team they need her. The story will be judged on creativity, costumes, but most importantly the moral they make up. 24 hours.

Raychelle wants to make a career out of cosplay, so Team Hooloovoo actually has two cosplayers. Amanda stops Team SMASH and says they have to get a plan before they do anything because Lily can really sew. Jonathan says they should get the moral first and work backwards, and he and Heather come up with “robots with feelings”. Killbot learns to feel. Sure, why not.

Meanwhile Lily is saying she’s a perfectionist, and Kaitlin goes “Well Lily is on costumes and her word is law”. Raychelle interrupts and says she cosplays too and would like some input. Lily doesn’t care about the story at all, just the costumes. Then she tells her team that Ya Ya Han is sure to be a judge. I guess Ya Ya Han is a famous cosplayer? I wouldn’t know. Anyway, even though she just said she doesn’t want the lead on the story, she tells everyone that Ya Ya is really into all cosplayers being accepted so their story should be about accepting everyone. Todd volunteers because of his size. I think Ben mentions something about a solider. Lily then says “Let’s go Whedon” and then just stands there with her eyes shut like she’s meditating. Shut up, Lily. Thomas thinks she means Wil Wheaton. Hee. What Would Whedon Do? Probably say a bunch of snarky shit and then kill everyone’s favorite character. It’s true and you know it.

Jonathan is happy to be the assistant, because Heather and Amanda know what they’re doing. Heather says if they had a week, Lily would win, but she is more skilled at “last minute crap-play”. Heh. Amanda is fleshing out the story and it sounds pretty good. Lily whines that there’s no leather or foam or whatever for her to work with. Raychelle tries to help but Lily keeps telling her she’s not ready for Raychelle to do things. She’s getting bossy and she needs to delegate. Kaitlin and Ben talk about how Ben survived the destruction of humanity or whatever in their story. Todd and Thomas goof off, which annoys Ben, but from what I saw of Lily it’s not like they have a lot to do over there so I think they’re bored. She probably wouldn’t let them help. Not that Todd really needs to be trying on bikinis and spandex. Ori is screwing around and being distracted. Amanda says she has two kids and Ori tests all her patience. That’s pretty bad. Also it means that Team Hooloovoo’s plan was a good one.

Lily sews uniforms and says everyone is listening to her and everyone has a job. Ori choreographs fight scenes so he actually is doing things that are relevant. Team SMASH is totally the underdog. There are shots of them practicing but no shots of Hooloovoo practicing. Heather says they know Lily will make better costumes, so they concentrated on creativity and the moral of their story in the hopes that they might pull this off.

Performance time. Team Hooloovoo has impressive costumes and makeup. Raychelle appears to have a whole harness thing with wheels like she’s attached to her console. Thomas has a facemask and tentacles. Overall they look excellent. Team SMASH has decent costumes but they don’t seem to go together. Like, Ori is a cowboy but with green skin, and Amanda has like a Greek draped chiton and sandals, and Jonathan is a robot, and Heather has a short trench coat, fishnets, and boots. At least Hooloovoo is all “sci-fi rockets” about it. Guest judges Tara Strong, who does a voice on My Little Pony (so Thomas is all excited), and Ya Ya Han of course (Lily is SO smug about how they all knew she was coming, like, shut up Lily, anyone who watches the show could figure that shit out), and Billy Boyd, who looks way older than he did when he was in Lord of the Rings but he is still cute. Colby stage whispers in confessional “Nerd Secret: I fell asleep during Fellowship of the Ring, in the theater!” Hee.

Hooloovoo is first. Raychelle has a uniboob going on and is a robot. Ben finds human Todd stowing away, and they are like “humans are dangerous” so they put him in the dungeon. Ben’s name is “Hugh Mann” FFS. Anyway, at one point he smacks Todd around and Ya Ya is all “Why are they so mean to him?” and Billy goes “Well I think he deserved it.” Hee. So anyway, you can’t judge a book by its cover, because secretly Ben’s been a human all this time. Todd (character name “Biff Wellington” which is awesome) saves the day, which is weird because why doesn’t Ben save the day? I think they confused the story. Either Todd redeems his race after the aliens treat him like shit, or Ben’s secret is found out and then HE saves the day and they are like “Well we know him and he’s OK”. Right? I think there are too many storylines? It’s kind of an after-school special but they said the moral is the most important so that’s what you get.

Team SMASH. They made a robot to be a servant, but he has to feel and learn to love I guess? Kaitlin scoffs that you don’t build robots in flowery dresses and she should know because she builds them. Kind of annoying, but I would agree. Colby was wearing some eye makeup and like, a trench coat, so why is Amanda in a sundress with fake feather eyelashes? Plus this robot is basically a box covered in tin foil. Heather is a self-described “trash bag villain”, apparently in a feather bra and go-go boots. She takes off her trench coat and they put in a shot of Curtis leaning forward to pay more attention. Actually her name is “Dr. Windows, ME” which is kind of funny. Colby tells Jonathan to twerk which is a disaster and hilarious. They make him evil so he punches Colby who says “OH my 401K!” and then Ori shows up to be some kind of western sheriff or something. Where is this coming from? Well nothing else makes sense so we’ll go with it. Heather makes a lot of orders and then the fight scene actually looks pretty good. I guess Amanda plays her flute and that resets the robot? And then he goes “What is my function?” and then you give him orders which is how he was killing people? So Amanda says he has to choose and he chooses love. Aww. Well it was funny but only because it was kind of random. Hooloovoo had a more coherent story but it was cheesier. Jonathan did a good robot voice though.

Tara loved SMASH’s characters but Hooloovoo’s costumes. She votes Hooloovoo. Billy agrees with Tara, but gives SMASH the vote because they were way funnier. Ya Ya says this is tough. SMASH had a good story and a fight scene, but Hooloovoo had hand-made costumes which is important to her. Then she votes for SMASH. Lily cries that she thought Ya Ya would care so much about costumes. I guess she thought they could skate by on costumes alone. OOPS. And when I say “cries” she is actually crying. Team SMASH wins $250 each at an online costume store. Sweet. Ben says he TOLD them to get rid of a cosplayer last round.

Lily goes to bed and cries and cries in confessional and whatever. Kaitlin is all “I feel so bad for you.” Don’t feed that drama. Todd says he hates to see her crying because it’s driving him nuts. It sounds like a typical “I feel bad that my friend feels bad” statement, but Lily’s response is “Fuck you”. What? Todd finishes his sentence with how she needs to get ahold of herself, which maybe does deserve that response, but she said it way before he got anywhere near there so maybe accept some sympathy, Lily, damn. Lily tells Todd and everyone she will cry all she wants and there’s nothing weak about crying, crying makes her strong. Please. Crying does not make you strong. Maybe you need to just cry it out and then you’ll be fine, which I totally get. But if you’re going to just sit around and cry then don’t yell at people who are trying to buck you up. I don’t think Todd is being condescending or like “girls have icky emotions, gross” or anything like that. She’s either crying about Ya Ya Han or being defensive about crying over losing. Neither of those things is maybe the best idea when people are deciding on a vote. Not that there’s a lot she can do if they decide to all vote for her because she was so bossy about how this was her challenge. I’d vote for her.

Team SMASH gloats (by themselves thankfully) about how great they are and how cocky Hooloovoo was. Good for them, you know? Underdogs. Raychelle says she wants them all to be honest with each other, basically because she wants to know if she’s going, and she starts crying too. But I think she’s crying because she thinks she might get the vote. Kaitlin tells Thomas that she’ll vote for him, because “I think the games and alliances are stupid.” What? What does that mean? She’s not in an alliance and neither is Thomas that we’ve seen. Ben quickly agrees, probably because it’s not him and anyone that isn’t you is a good idea. Kaitlin isn’t that sorry about it either but she doesn’t care. Ben plans to get everyone drunk because then he’s the bartender and won’t be voted out? I still don’t know how Thomas got the vote instead of Lily. Jonathan excuses his flirting to HIS WIFE by saying he knows she would expect him to be friendly. Sigh. Amanda and Raychelle talk about going down on a woman, and then Ori comes over all “you guys let me show you how to make a LARP sword” because he is a child.

I think Todd is sleeping on the floor. Why isn’t he using a bed? I’m not sure. Heather argues to Jonathan and Amanda that they should get rid of Kaitlin because she’s good at everything. Jonathan doesn’t want Ori and Colby to figure out he’s in with Heather and Amanda so even though he doesn’t want to vote for Kaitlin, he thinks they should go with Ori and Colby. Then he decides to go to Hooloovoo to see who wants to work with him. And of course he finds Lily and Raychelle. So two different people had the idea to make a secret alliance with the other team and they overlapped. Jonathan says he would like to not go to the next Nerd-Off, and neither would Heather or Amanda. Of course Lily and Raychelle were never voting for those two in the first place and they are more than happy to agree. They also want Ben in on this, and then they have three people on each team. Majority on each team! Nice. Heather says this is perfect as long as no one is shady. Six people is a big alliance though. It’s so likely someone will flip. Like one of the boys. Ben watches enough “Survivor” to tell Lily that this is what he would do: go to the other team, pretend an alliance, and then screw them later with that inside information about who is voting for whom. They have no choice but to see what happens today and then adjust this alliance accordingly. I think the minute they’re down to six the boys are gone. They’re clearly the bottom of their alliance so it would benefit them to flip at some point in the future. Maybe not though because the person you vote for doesn’t automatically go home.

Voting time. Bobby asks Thomas if he trusts his team, and he says they’re still a team? Except for the part where they told him they were voting for him, remember that part Thomas? Lily smugs about how great it is that they’re so HONEST with each other and “Secrets make you sick!” Ugh, Lily, shut up. You’re going to blow it. Also your superiority makes me dislike you intensely. Team Hooloovoo all votes for Thomas, which we expected. And he expected, but he knows it’ll bite them in the ass later. Team SMASH votes for Kaitlin because she’s the leader. Kaitlin is only minorly annoyed because she knows she’s a threat. The Nerd-Off involves answering riddles. Nice. Heather claims that since Kaitlin is only here to win and not to make friends or alliances, she’s too boring and that’s why she wants her gone. OK Heather. I like Kaitlin for that reason. She doesn’t give a shit about any of you and she is honest about it. All this touchy-feely crap is not how you win reality shows. Not how you should anyway.

Kaitlin worries a little bit that the riddle answers will be comic book trivia and she’s not as well versed in that stuff. Thomas isn’t abstract enough. Colby is providing support about thinking outside the box. I love that the Jeopardy champ is not quizzing people on knowledge but on how to think and retain information. I’m also noticing that Kaitlin’s riddles that her team is helping her with are all fantasy-based. Like one answer is “Green Lantern” and then there’s a question about Harry Potter and whatever. Lily rolls her eyes because when they talk about Green Lantern Kaitlin is all “Oh! Ryan Reynolds!” He played Green Lantern, Lily. You lost the cosplay challenge and your hook is competitive cosplayer so maybe don’t get on your high horse like you’re better than everyone.

So everyone is out in the woods in Holy Grail costumes complete with coconuts. Awesome. But then Kaitlin and Thomas are stuck in just cloaks and staffs. Boo. They should get full costume too! Anyway, “magical creatures” will give them riddles. First one to three wins. First up is like, a sprite or something. “We show you a picture and point out the way. We dance in the night but flee in the day. What are we?” Thomas bangs his staff on the ground, which makes it light up which is cool. The answer is “Stars” so he’s up by one. Then there’s a giant? I guess? He’s just on a box or whatever, I don’t see him moving so I don’t think they even got him stilts. “The face on my head is long since dead, slain by a rebel scorned. I can buy you a fish, or grant you a wish, or tell you the year I was born. What am I?” Kaitlin guesses a penny so now it’s tied. She’s realizing the answers have nothing to do with comic book stuff or anything so she’s much more confident. But I don’t think you can buy a fish with a penny.

The third guy is like Shrek. Before the riddle we have to have a confessional segment where Kaitlin talks about how she does professional riding. Why is this here? Is she going to lose? I’m not sure why suddenly Kaitlin is talking about her life. “I am made of nothing, though I am golden. Through empty space I spread. Say my name and I am destroyed. I am my strongest when I am dead. What am I?” Both know it but Kaitlin was barely first. They both know it was “silence” and Thomas is frustrated. Now it is time for a minotaur guy. He’s huge. Lily says something about how she likes boys with freckles. Does Ben have freckles? “All alone I’m 24^th. I’m 20 when I’m doubled. Two of me makes you a she, but 3 gets you in trouble. What am I?” Thomas gets it, which is the letter X. (XX means you are female, but XXX is a chromosomal disorder. Or porn. Is it bad that I thought of chromosomes before porn?)

So it’s all down to the last question and a muppet. “Thin I am fast, fat I am slow. I live by being devoured. The wind I hate, your breath is my foe. What am I?” Heather hopes Thomas knows. He does buzz in first but guesses “words” which is wrong. Kaitlin guesses “a candle” which is the correct answer. Kaitlin wins and can stay. Thomas gets hugs and Colby is sorry he couldn’t help more. Raychelle is also kind of sad but her secret alliance of six has the majority no matter what. Thomas leaves but is squashed by a pony. Hee.

Next time: cardboard boats and Todd loses it.