Thursday, May 27, 2010

Mitch the Intern's TUF 11 Recap: Episode 9

*Editor's note: Mitch the Intern is an NYU undergrad whose favorite Wednesday night pastime includes the TV in his dorm room, a green beanbag chair and two hits of acid.  Enjoy.*

This week on The Ultimate Smoke Monster: the tension between Jack and Locke comes to a head after they learn that coach Tito Ortiz is injured and may not be able to fight coach Chuck Liddell; Seth Bacitracin may be bound by whatever rules that keep him on the Island and prevent him from killing the Losties directly, but he still manages to punt Hawaii Five-O in the chops; British gangster Ronnie Kray and Aussie Crocodile Dundee fight over Kate; and, eccentric billionaire Dane Whitemore blows up a freighter.  Why?  Just because!

Fade in to a lush and verdant jungle.  It could be Guam, it could be a soundstage in Los Angeles, it could be some funky club in the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino where out-of-towners in black button-down shirts and Lucky Brand Jeans™ try their best to score with rail-thin blondes with dead hair and god-awful tattoos on the smalls of their backs.  It could be any of those places, but it's more likely a mysterious island in the South Pacific - the Island - where a jet crash has deposited a ragtag bunch of aspiring fighters and left them to fend for themselves, Gilligan Island-style, only instead of the Professor and Maryanne we get RC Cola, Joe Feminine and the loveable rogue Sawyer.

"Guys, my spine is broken," says Ortiz.  "I shouldn't even be walking now, I should be confined to a wheelchair."

"Tell me about it," says Locke, and he and Ortiz link arms and swing themselves around, skipping like participants in some secret Country-Western music hoedown.  Then Ortiz sits down.

"I'm numb in my back and legs, and I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that my girlfriend is an ex-pornstar," he says.

Flashback to Kate, graceful, pretty Kate, her face wrought with freckles and emotion.  She blows up her abusive stepfather's house, gets arrested by a US Marshall, escapes, and has a brief affair with Ronnie Kray in a bear cage.  Unfortunately, Crocodile Dundee wants some of that.

"I want some of the that," says Crocodile Dundee, so now he and Ronnie Kray must do the man-dance. 

Ortiz gives the camera some of his sagacious sage-liness.  "My boy Ronnie Kray.  Gonna lose."

And then Ronnie Kray and Crocodile Dundee are fighting.  Or, more aptly, they engage in some rough dry-humping, with Ronnie Kray getting his opponent down repeatedly but unable to do more than pant in his ear and talk about grim neighborhoods in London like the West End and Trafalgar Square.  Crocodile Dundee fires back with the names of Australian cities, like Sydney, Perth and Melbourne.  To the judges, this is enough to warrant a third round, but this time around Ronnie Kray actually adds some ground and pound into the mix.  He gets the decision and moves on to the next phase of the competition, which involves him ditching Kate and joining a sinister scientific group called the Dharma Initiative.  Hooray!

Meanwhile, Dana Whitemore orders mercenaries to kill Crocodile Dundee.  Ooh, what a douche.

Flashback to 1974.  Dana Whitemore is a fine, strapping young lad with long, luxurious locks of brown hair.  He wields it like a lion's mane, with authority, a majestic figure on the mean streets of Boston's Southside.  Cut to a delicatessen, and Whitemore approaches the counter.  Orders a pastrami sandwich on rye.  No mustard.  What could it mean?  WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

Back to the present, and it's time for another semifinal match-up, this one between Hawaii Five and Seth Bacitracin.  So the two find a clearing in the jungle, shoo away a snoozing polar bear and begin to fight.

They go back and forth, with Seth Bacitracin gaining the upper hand with a rear naked choke attempt, a close triangle choke attempt, and a VW bus that he finds in the woods and somehow manages to repair and use to run Hawaii Five-O down.  But Hawaii Five-O stands and dusts himself off after getting flattened cartoon-style, and he returns the favor with some leather bombs from above - some of them missing and some of them getting through.  Then they're scrambling, and when Seth Bacitracin gets to his feet he mistakes the prone Hawaii Five-O's face for a football and tries to score a field goal.  Um, that's a no-no.

You see, there's something called the Unified Rules of Lost, rules which prohibit: a) the Man in Tapout Gear from leaving the Island, b) the Man in Tapout Gear from killing Keith Kizer, c) a season of TUF going by without homoerotic innuendos, and d) kicks to the mouth of a downed opponent.

Seth Bacitracin is guilty of d), and though he apologizes profusely to his opponent, he's immediately disqualified, giving Hawaii Five-O the win.

"Dude," says Hurley.

"Shut up, you fat f*ck!" screams the injured Rich Atonofneato, and all sorts of chaos break loose.  From the sidelines putters Ortiz, shaking his fist from the seat of a motorized mobility scooter you sometimes see old and/or overweight people toodling around in.  Cypress Hill and the Amish Kid shake RC Cola until he sprays carbonated soda from his head.  Offshore, Desmond shouts "Ahoy, brothers!" from his passing yacht, while in a cave Joe Feminine plays backgammon with Bag of Hammers.  It's at this point that the nefarious Dana Whitemore tells Liddell that his bout with Ortiz is off.

A mask of rage overtakes the Mohawked One's face and he begins to tremble, a volcano of hate about to blow its top, spewing ash and grounding flights all over Europe.  He reaches into his pocket and produces a phone.  Stares at it at if its his sworn enemy.

"Why are you mad at your phone?" asks Dana Whitemore.

Liddell suddenly appears confused.  "A phone?  I thought this was a hotel for tiny people who liked to talk to me."

Cut to a black screen with "TUF" in white letters, suspended there ominously.

The end.