Alright. This is now the fourth week in a row Multiversity’s recapped TBS’s high-concept murderous fantasy series, King of the Nerds. On some levels, it’s been an insane mess and an example of how low reality television can go in the pursuit of product placements, artificial drama, and pandering to the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, it’s been an insane mess that shows how low reality television can go in the pursuit of being an insane mess that caters to the lowest common denominator. For the latter, I’ve adored it and with this episode… I think I might actually love this show.
1.) Suite Life of Zack and No One Else
Last week, Zack killed off his second victim, Mary Kate. Skipping the banana sword revelry after defeating Josh, Zack just kind of choked on some alcohol and walked away while everyone continued their silent mournful round of drink. After a solid second of mourning, they then proceeded to play the world’s first game of “Drunk Never Have I Never” where someone didn’t talk about sex. Truly groundbreaking television here. Everyone’s malice towards Zack begins to fester, especially Katie who, through the type of arbitrary rule change this show loves to pull off, was swapped over to the Gold Team. She says it’s the “worst thing that could happen” and I agree, as Katie being callously crushed by Zack is the worst possible outcome for the rest of the season. Another horrible outcome: Zack’s “Bazinga” t-shirt. However it all turns out to be in Gold Team’s favor as the hosts begin to announce the week’s nerd war leading to a worried Nicole and Chris.
2.) It’s A Fucking Robot War
Hell. Yes. As Carradine announces in his C-3P0 cosplay, the week’s contest is a robot war wherein teams will need to create four robots each and throw a dodgeball war. Then Curtis throws a dodgeball at the contestant and storms off for no reason.To be honest, this is the Nerd War I’ve been the most pumped for even though Blue Team’s furious they lost the show’s roboticist at the last minute. At the “AMAZING Radioshack Lab”, everyone gets to work. Blue Team makes really cool robots that I couldn’t engineer in three years and then have a playful round of Dodgeball. Gold Team, meanwhile, takes its strategies from Twitch Plays Pokemon. Katie, the one (1) person who has worked with robots before tries to take control but goes to the bathroom and cries for the second time in four episodes. She talks about how this team’s doomed to fail and immediately after this Nicole hot glues her face resulting in some skin coming off. Zack also sits on Katie’s RC controller to rub it in some more.
Even though all seems lost for Katie, there’s still a shining nova of hope to come. At the Nerd War everyone reveals their robots while the hosts reveal their judges: Stan Winston a luminary in the special effects industry and The High Point of Television and Media in General: Robo-Nerd.
3.) The High Point of Television and Media In General
This shit is crazy. It’s like they kidnapped a prototype from the Pacific Rim set, complete with incredible graphics. Is it an actual robot? Probably not. Is it really a dude in a suit? Probs. Does it matter? Hell no: Robo-Nerd’s the best thing to happen to King of the Nerds and the first character I can truly relate to. Mostly because he spends his time flirting with the robots, threatening to crush everyone, and screaming about Asimov so the contestants can learn to fear him. Stan Winston, meanwhile, tries to avoid the fact there’s a robot hovering right over him.
Robo-Nerd ends up crushing Jack’s robot because he deems it lame and so the dodgeball game begins. Eventually, Zack’s called in to try and lead the team to victory but fails, making Blue Team the victor. Blue Team wins $1000 in merchandise from the Radioshack Lab which causes Xander to literally fall to his knees and cry from sheer unadulterated joy. Later on he even whimpers out “This is more tools than I’ve ever had in my life.”
Continued belowOf course they are. Your whole schtick is drama. Why do you need $1000 in tools, unless you work with design which, if Xander’s passiveness during certain design segments have shown us, he ain’t. I’m not saying King of the Nerds is hellbent on getting as much product placement money as possible, but I have stemming hot Little Caesar’s for anyone who can prove otherwise.
Zack doesn’t do well in the lead-up to this week’s voting ceremony as he screams at everyone trying to comfort him in his confessional segment. Eventually he gets voted off by Gold Team and acts surprised despite this being week goddamn three. After the hosts remind everyone of the prizes, a wind machine blows through Katie’s hair, and Nicole gets voted off by Blue Team, the Nerd-Off is announced: Zombie Kerplunk.
4.) Kerplunk? I Hardly… Plunked… Her? Dammit.
Okay, I’ve never heard of Kerplunk before but, like Little Caesar’s and Radioshack, it’s allegedly a board game that is definitely played by real people. The point of the game is to take sticks out of a box holding a confluence of blocks. Each pull of the stick can release some blocks out of the box and whoever reaches a certain amount of lost blocks loses. Sounds innocuous right?
So of course they make a giant Kerplunk box filled with (prosthetic?) dead body parts.
And of course the zombies are the presumably murdered contestants from last season.
But wait… if Joshua’s a zombie… who was sub tweeting me all those weeks ago? There’s no time to think on that as Nicole and Zack’s game get underway and go exactly like they did for the past two weeks. Person Who Is Not Zack holds a lead over Zack for most of the game until the last two seconds where Zack wins seemingly out of nowhere. Seriously, if that doesn’t happen on tonight’s episode I’d be incredibly surprised. That’s not to say it’s a broken formula. My roommate and his friend came in and watched this round with me and (with no context on any drama with Zack and the other contestants) completely lost their minds over this game. They had more fun with these ten minutes than I’ve had with anything since I became a teenager. They might’ve also been high. That might’ve had something to do with it.
Anyway, Mad King Zack wins another week as Nicole goes home. Children everywhere weep as they pray to anyone who could possibly stop this insane god.
5.) MVN/LVN
Most Valuable Nerd: ROBO-NERD! ROBO-NERD! ROBO-NERD!
Least Valuable Nerd: You’d think it’d be Zack because of his usual shenanigans but the Least Valuable Nerd this week is to Chris who, after Nicole left, solemnly uttered “Hashtag Nicole, you guys.” That’s the third worst reaction to someone’s death I’ve ever seen and the only one in the top five to not include balls. What’s that? You’re saying Nicole’s not dead because this is a game show? Well too bad, square! Robo-Nerd takes no prisoners.
ROBO-NERD! ROBO-NERD! ROBO-NERD!
