King of the Nerds 2/6/15--"The Gods Are Angry" summary

Previously on “King of the Nerds”: the cosplay competition involved also making up a story with a good moral. Lily (and clearly the rest of her team) felt that she would be so great with the costumes that their story and acting didn’t have to be that great. Team SMASH knew they’d have crap costumes, so they worked very hard on their story. And then they won, causing Lily to cry and then be a brat when people tried to stop her crying. The secret girls’ alliance brought in Ben and Jonathan, mostly because Jonathan had his own idea for a cross-teams alliance and went looking for people to join him. This alliance sent Kaitlin to the Nerd-Off as Team SMASH’s vote. Team Hooloovoo sent Thomas, and never really explained why or what that reasoning was. At least Kaitlin is clearly a threat. The Nerd-Off involved answering riddles and Kaitlin was better, so Thomas was sent home. (click for more)

Kaitlin is feeling good because now she thinks everyone is scared of her. In the morning Heather and Amanda appear to be sleeping in the same bed? While Todd is still sleeping on the floor. I don’t get this but whatever. Everyone hangs out and has dorky discussions about skin biota or something.

Curtis and Bobby are wearing togas today. Yeah, sure. Bobby is the one who gets to be fed grapes and not do anything. The Nerd War is going to be about ship building. You will make boats out of cardboard and duct tape in two hours. Then there will be a math puzzle. One person on each team will not be in the boats but will be a spotter. New rule because of Todd and Colby, who are big guys? Or so that you can put two people in each boat with one left over? Jonathan is super excited about math.

Oh they get poster tubes and sheets of cardboard, plus spray glue. Jonathan starts explaining how to make stuff. Todd says they should shellac the boats with the glue so they don’t leak. Kaitlin busts out a bunch of math to figure out how big the boats need to be to only sink six inches or whatever. A box works so they’ll keep it simple. Hooloovoo is actually going to use duct tape instead of glue, I think. Jonathan puts Heather in charge of “the outer shell” whatever that means, and Ori is charge of the paddles, and everyone else is a minion. Sure. Everyone is really working hard, but Ori keeps asking about the paddles. Heather is really bitchy about how useless he is. I mean, she’s bitchy but he’s so annoying and he’s supposed to be a mechanical engineer. Hooloovoo says Todd is the spotter and he seems to get why, even if he’s slightly irritated about it. He knows he’s not getting in a cardboard boat. He’s also worried he’s the next one going home, because he asked Ben if he was the next weakest link and Ben said yes. “But only because you get distracted so easily”. Todd says it’s bullshit because Lily is way more useless. She’s supposed to be helping him waterproof but she’s over helping Ben put duct tape on. Todd fans the boats so the glue dries, I guess, and he tells her to get back to work. Really he says “I don’t see fanning, only talking.” She tells him to calm down, but he’s pretty calm. He calmly explains that they’ve all told him he’s getting the vote if they lose so clearly he is invested in finishing the boats. Ben is like “you’re doing a good job though!” because he doesn’t get it. Or he does get it and he’s just condescending. He promises they won’t lose so I am going to go with the latter.

SMASH’s boats are huge and sketchy looking. They look like they might fall apart on the way to the pool. Hooloovoo has boxes, basically. So you have to sail around, and pick up bags from buoys. Inside there are puzzles, which give a combination and then you unlock a crown and go back across the pool. If your boat fails you have to swim for it and drag the boat behind you.

SMASH quickly gets into their boats, and they actually are on their way much faster than Hooloovoo. Heather got stuck in the same boat as Ori and she is very quickly shrieking at him and smacking his hands. Calm the fuck down, Heather. I know he’s useless but damn. Hooloovoo has huge giant paddles while Ori’s terrible paddles are like, the size of a piece of paper. And about halfway across the pool the paddle part falls off the pole of every single paddle and they are all useless. Ben and Lily fall in. Kaitlin is already across and solving things. Jonathan and Amanda also fall in.

All the math puzzles are geometry, which makes Raychelle complain about it. Kaitlin claims to never have taken geometry. Not even in high school? Come on. They also don’t know what order the puzzles go in to get the right combination. SMASH finally gets onshore and Jonathan says he knows how this works. Someone hisses about letters, because each block has a variable to solve for, and they spell “nerds”, which gives you the right order. Everyone seems to figure it out…except for the parallelogram. Colby says he’s a teacher, so his head isn’t up in advanced mathematics like Jonathan, but instead right where it should be: trick problems. It’s true. I paused on that problem and I eventually got it, because it looks like problems I give my students. This is after Jonathan snaps at him, because Team SMASH tends to bitch at each other during challenges. Colby totally solves it, and they don’t even bother to get in the boats. They just swim across dragging all that wet cardboard behind them. They win before Hooloovoo can solve the parallelogram problem. Jonathan collapses on a pile of wet cardboard while Colby yells “PARALLELOGRAMS!” and shakes him. Hee. Jonathan is really great about admitting Colby saved the day. They each win a gaming system. Todd looks pissed about losing.

Raychelle cries, because what? Fine. Todd for some reason decides he is safe because he worked his ass off and Lily is useless. Oh Todd. You don’t get it. He leaves the room for some reason and as soon as he’s gone Ben is like “Can we agree it’s Todd?” and they all agree and put their hands in. What happened to being honest and secrets making you sick, LILY? Whatever, I guess they did tell him beforehand, even if their logic is dumb.

Team SMASH gets their gaming stuff, and Heather and Jonathan both apologize to Ori for yelling at him. I think Jonathan is the first to do it and then Heather is right there. Jonathan doesn’t want to vote for Todd, because he knows Hooloovoo is doing it so it’s a waste, but voting for Kaitlin is a jerk move for some reason. Why? Whatever. He tries to convince Heather it’s better to vote for Ben, but she says Kaitlin is adaptable. She is. Jonathan is already questioning his alliance to the rest of his alliance, which is maybe not the best move.

Todd returns and asks Kaitlin and Raychelle who the team is going to vote for and stuff, and they’re like, well it’s you and you know it’s you. He’s pissed because he thinks Lily should be up. I guess now he’s also pissed they decided without him, although I still don’t get this idea that everyone has to be involved in discussing who to sacrifice. Todd bails and goes hunting for Lily and talks to himself. Does he think it’s her fault? She was the mastermind? Everyone decided, though.

Anyway Lily shows up finally and Todd just lays into her about how he did a ton of work today and all she did was bitch about stuff and he’s going to say it to her face. Lily just kind of looks shocked and then is all “well you’re proving my point because you have a short fuse.” Todd asks when he had a short fuse other than right now, which is a good point. Ben is like let’s calm down there is some volume, so he can derail this by saying he’s not fighting properly. But Ben does bring up that Todd should be angry, but it’s not fair to yell at one person. OK, yeah, they did all decide to vote for Todd. That’s true. Somehow Todd has decided that Lily spun a web and is a “two-timing backstabbing bitch”. …OK? I don’t know that Lily is a backstabber? I don’t think she even outwardly controls Ben, I think Ben just does what she wants because he thinks he can get in her pants. She claims Todd didn’t used to be the weakest link on the team, but he is now because of his short fuse and she can “see through it” whatever the fuck that means. How do you see through someone’s short fuse? Todd throws her crying after the last challenge in her face. Everyone else finally shows up to tell Todd to knock it off. Heather goes straight to Lily to hug her and accuse Todd of bullying Lily. He’s not bullying Lily. He’s yelling at her and is a dick and his accusations don’t make sense but he’s not even that threatening. Let’s also point out that Lily was NOT crying throughout this whole thing, even though she clearly can’t answer Todd’s questions about why they are voting for him. Even though when Ben told him he was getting the vote, he said because Todd’s distracted. Can’t you even remember what people said six hours ago? Come on.

Lily interviews that her crying doesn’t make her manipulative. She’s annoying because she cries, but yeah, I don’t see a lot of manipulation. Except possibly Ben but see above where I talked about that. Raychelle tells Todd this is the game and this is not who they are and who he is and whatever. Todd does have a tear. Also Raychelle is basically saying “don’t say shit” not “Lily is a nice person and you’re wrong”. Everyone else is in another room while Heather holds forth that Todd is a toddler and “I don’t care what you’re going through, you never go out of your way to make someone else feel like shit, ever ever ever ever ever.” Oh like how you were a bitch to Ori like 4 hours ago HEATHER?! Also thanks for the life advice Mom. Jonathan helps me out by saying let’s be honest, he totally did that to Ori today. Heather snaps that today was the heat of the moment so it totally doesn’t count. Ben says it’s a fine line, and Heather yells that it’s not a fine line, it’s a fucking huge moat, because if she’s not adamant about how totally different this is, then she has to admit she’s not the angelic nice person she’s trying to force everyone else to be. You can’t look down on people if you’re doing the same shit you’re trying to condemn them for. Listen I’d be pissed at Todd if he came at me. But I wouldn’t get on my high horse and say no one should ever make anyone feel bad, except for when I did it today, because that’s totally different. I’d be mad Todd had no idea what he was talking about. Colby interviews that burning all your bridges is a pretty stupid move, because if you come back from the Nerd-Off you’re a pariah. Heather continues to demand attention and be angrier about this than Lily, who is just sitting on the couch not saying anything. “That’s like literally unexcusable!” Guess we won’t excuse you then. Colby finds Todd and tells him all he had to do was win the Nerd-Off and come back and he fucked that up. Yeah, no one is telling Todd he was wrong about what he said about Lily, just that he was a jerk for saying it.

I’m not saying Todd wasn’t an ass just then. Colby is right; just win the Nerd-Off and come back. And I don’t know where he got this idea that Lily is manipulating the whole team when it was Ben who said they should all vote for Todd. I think it’s possible Ben is doing whatever Lily wants because he has a crush on her but she’s not using him as far as I can tell. Is Todd just mad because yesterday he was trying to comfort her and she told him to fuck off? Todd was out of line to just attack Lily instead of the rest of his team. But Heather needs to calm down about it, because no one appointed her morality police and in her haste to hold forth about how everyone should act she screwed herself by talking about how the behavior she put forth in the Nerd War is unacceptable. And Lily had no response to Todd, just about his short fuse, which he didn’t display before today. Not that today’s display isn’t enough to get rid of someone. Either Lily just didn’t know how to react or she really is manipulating everyone and she had no response to his accusations. I guess either one is likely. Decision: everyone shut up, especially Todd and Heather.

In the morning Todd knows he needs to apologize, so at breakfast he does apologize and says he was a complete asshole. Lily says “Thank you Todd”. Todd sounded sincere.

Nerd-Off time. Curtis asks Heather what happened, which is TERRIBLE because SHE WASN’T THERE. Ask the people involved, Jesus. Heather is superior because it’s so terribly un-nerdy to attack people, which is the dumbest statement. Nerds don’t all like each other. You don’t like Ori. And you clearly don’t like Todd and you also said you don’t like Kaitlin. You don’t all have to be friends. Also, Gamergate. Un-nerdy. Curtis turns to Lily and asks if she felt bullied, which is also bullshit because that wasn’t bullying. That was a one time blow-up for a specific reason which was followed by an apology. Lily says he apologized and she forgives him. I don’t buy it 100%, because it sounds like she doesn’t believe him but she also knows if she doesn’t accept his apology she loses the high ground. Todd, do you agree? “Yes, I was aggressive, BUT” OMG TODD STOP TALKING. Now he’s claiming there were cracks in the foundation and sometimes you have to take a sledgehammer and destroy everything to rebuild it. Todd, you moron. You just undid all the goodwill you got from apologizing. He gloats that he got all the votes and then says if they thought he was angry before, they haven’t seen anything yet. You idiot, Todd, I was trying to back you up. Forget it. SMASH votes for Kaitlin (Curtis does not say it was unanimous which is interesting) and Lily makes a face all sad. Shut up, Lily, there’s no one left for your alliance to vote for so don’t pretend like you didn’t know it was coming or that you are upset. She’s dangerous, and Kaitlin agrees about that, so she’s not sad. The Nerd-Off today involves mythology. You have to match items with myths. There is some nicely timed thunder. Kaitlin says if she wins she better get a parade.

Todd knows he’s the one causing chaos in the house. Heather is still bitching about Todd, and she’s all “Is your team worth someone’s feelings?” as if she didn’t decide winning was more important than Ori's feelings yesterday. I don’t like Ori either but damn, Heather, at least pretend you’re not a hypocrite. Kaitlin studies with a bunch of people, but Todd only gets Ori. Womp womp. Ori feels bad for him. Everyone knows if Todd wins the house will burn down or something.

So outside there is an amphitheater where Curtis has to be the fanning slave. Ha. So there are a bunch of items on the steps, and the first person to match 4 items wins. Also there is a sumo wrestler to be in the way and make it slightly harder to do things. Sure, why not. Kaitlin has to find an object for Odysseus. Heather interviews that she almost wants to be in the Nerd-Off because she wants to know what pressing into the sumo wrestler feels like. OK bitch, seriously? You’re going to yell at the whole house about how they all have to be nice to each other but it’s totally fine to act like this person is nothing more than an “interesting texture” for you to wonder about? Fuck off, Heather. Lily says Odysseus makes her think of the Odyssey. Good for you, Lily. Anyway, Kaitlin eventually picks the Trojan Horse which is right. Todd has to match Perseus. He brags about how much he knows but then he picks a snake labeled “Damballa”. What? What the hell, Todd? Damballa is from Haiti. Kaitlin gets to steal. She picks Medusa which is right. Every time they go up nothing is happening with the sumo wrestler so whatever to that twist.

Dionysus. Kaitlin says either she wins which is great, or she loses, and then she’s going home and they have to deal with Todd. Kaitlin brings back olives. Todd rolls his eyes about how dumb an answer that was but then he brings back the branch of Yggdrasil, because he doesn’t see any wine and this is what Dionysus made his staff out of. WHAT THE HELL TODD. That’s not even close. Is he throwing this challenge to go home because he thinks everyone hates him now? Or because he doesn’t think he can win the game because he pissed off his team? Kaitlin eventually tries theater masks which ends up being right. So now Kaitlin is up 3-0 and just has to get one more point. Todd is supposed to match Prometheus. Heather spends way too long explaining to us how Todd has to win four times in a row to win. We can count, Heather. Instead of picking fire, Todd decides Prometheus has to do with fish and picks a bone fishhook. I think Todd threw this challenge on purpose. There is no way he would be so far off. Every myth has been Greek or Roman and he’s picking shit that isn’t even from there. Kaitlin quickly picks fire and wins. Todd goes to leave, and then everyone is like Todd we get over things quickly and you should say goodbye. I don’t know who it was but they’re a damn liar. All of you have just spent five minutes talking about how little you want Todd to win because he needs to go. Don’t pretend you are sad to see him leave. And don’t berate him for knowing you all hate him and trying to leave without a shitty fake group hug. Then they chant “Todd the Bod” and I hate all of them. Knock off this fake shit. Be like Kaitlin, who doesn’t like you and won’t pretend to.

Next week: the rap episode which is always horrible and entertaining.