Welcome back to Multiversity Comics’ weekly recap of season two of King of the Nerds. Things got heated when contestant from last season, Joshua Ovenshire, contacted us to shut down our accusations that season one’s contestants haven’t been up to anything since the show’s end. Upon further reflection, I realized that by being someone who writes about contestants on a reality show I am in fact in a lower position than any of the contestants on this show. I am in fact, far more pathetic and cruel-hearted than many of the lovely people who are on this show. As a result I ran into the woods for a few days, a difficult feat as I live in New York City. I climbed the highest trees, weathered through the snow, and read the entire Song of Ice and Fire series of novels that I found on a hiker who was totes dead when I got there. This experience gave me revelation. If I’m lamer than all the contestants on this show… then that means it’s me… I’m the King of the Nerds.
I’m not sure what to do with this information… should I stay in hiding, out of sight from TBS’s assassins or should I head east and raise an army that I’ll send upon the set of a reality show that probably wrapped up a couple months ago. Anyway, big thanks to Joshua for his tweets and assistance in my existential reawakening. Let’s get on with the show.
1.) Shacking Up With Radioshack
Last week saw the first contestant to leave King of the Nerds, self-professed “Japonophile” Kelsey and this episode opened immediately with everyone drinking. Drinking to honor their fallen friend, drinking to forget the dangers that come with being crowned king, and drinking to distract themselves from whatever hosts Armstrong and Carradine have in store for them. Turns out to be a science fair as Curtis Armstrong and David Carradine reveal, while dressed as Einstein and The Muppets’ Beaker. To be fair, those are also the only two scientists I can name. The hosts then go on to tell the contestants that all the supplies they need will be found in the Radioshack Lab© which results in one of the best quotes of the episode. “Radioshack’s pretty cool it’s where I got my soldering irons.”
Since when the fuck has Radioshack sold soldering irons? I’ve bought only a couple of things from Radioshack, all of which were batteries for my hand-me-down Walkman in 2005. Should Radioshack even be allowed to sell soldering irons? I just saw a commercial for the store where they talked about how their technology’s upgraded since the 80’s by having its greatest hits burst into the store and trash everything. Don’t get me wrong, the first appearance of both Alf and Chucky the Doll on screen at the same time was appreciated, but should anyone really trust a company whose marketing team consists of the writing staff for I Love The 80’s with selling us soldering irons? According to every contestant on this show who signed a contract, fuck yes.
2.) One Doesn’t Simply Craft Mordor Out of Papier-Mâché
After caring more about Radioshack than Radioshack employees for a couple minutes, the contestants compose themselves and get to work on their science fair experiment: a papier-mâché volcano. Gold Team (they have actual team names but they’re longer than some spells in Harry Potter so we’re going by Jim Lee naming rules here) has two actual scientists and a talent at doing the first thing that comes to mind: namely a replica of Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. Not too bad, except the team has only two scientists, one historian, and two people whose purposes in life are a little less clear. There’s Zach, the fantasy writer with a Machivellian complex who talks about wanting to do something flashy for the presentation to which everyone responds with dagger eyes. Someone suggests beatboxing and Josh follows up with the best moment in the show: actually beatboxing pretty well and then just going “What’s the point?”
Pokemon Master Josh may not get the point of putting a little razzle dazzle into his presentations but Blue Team sure does, as evidenced by Multiversity Favorite Katie who tries to start up an improv game instead of actually working on science which would automatically win the competition if I ran this show. Instead Kayla, who is a rocket scientist and came here to WIN. As a result she shuts down Katie’s improv lesson, automatically failing it by not following “Always Say Yes.” Real amateur hour here, Kayla. Real amateur.
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3.) Bill Nye The Busy Guy
Eventually both teams finish their volcanoes and bring it to a panel of scientists who all should really have better things to do. First off is Bill Nye the Science Guy, the obvious big draw here. Then there’s Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik who has a degree in Neuroscience and, all opinions on the show aside, seems like a really cool person. That said, Kayla does say “I’m convinced [Big Bang Theory] is about my life and the writers are tapping my phone.” which is either an enthusiastic fan exclamation or the saddest conspiracy theory ever. Then there’s a third scientist, Blake Marggraff who won some fancy competition from Intel and is one of the younger generation’s brightest minds who also gave a great presentation on possible cancer treatments. But he’s not a celebrity so we’ll just ignore him. Heh. Nerd.
Anyway, Bleu Cheese reveals their experiment which is about 40% science and 60% insanity. The volcano takes up little time as most of the focus is taken by Xander and Katie’s performance piece revolving around a volcano exploding and causing a post apocalyptic hellscape complete with acid rain, fire, and bad British accents. Brian the Historian also makes a claim about how Mount St. Helens (obligatory “But I hardly know her!”) is 2.9 cubic meters which causes Bill Nye to just drop his head in shame.
Gold Shower meanwhile, actually showed some science and did a volcano thing. It was neat and if I were a science teacher I’d give it an A-, move on to the next potato battery, and then go home to stare at a wall for a couple hours until my husband comes home from “work” in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, Gold Team loses in favor of Blue Team who, in spite of (in Bill Nye’s words) claiming Mount St. Helens was the size of a table, were pretty memorable. Of course, that doesn’t mean Bill Nye was happy about it. When Blue Team went to hang out with Bill Nye (their prize for winning the science fair) he asked their names, shook someone’s hand, and promptly left after twenty seconds, leaving everyone to talk about how cool it was to meet Bill Nye.
Fucking imagine if you just went through making a papier-mâché volcano, creating a whole scene, and having a few breakdowns (as Katie did when Kayla shut down her improv idea) just for Bill Nye, hero to everyone ever, to try and walk out of his contractually obligated appearance as fast as you can. I once saw Jake Gyllenhaal on line in the bathroom for a play and the dirty look he gave me for noticing he was Jake Gyllenhaal was more meaningful than this meeting. I’m so sorry. Not to the Nerds, not to Nye, but to everyone for this horrendously awkward situation.
4.) Not Very Effective
After Gold Team lost the Nerd War, they had to face the Nerd Off and decide who would be facing off to leave the team. Gold Team unanimously voted for actual dickhole Zach who had this great exchange with the producers after Marggraff voted for Blue Team.
Zach: He’s 19 years old he doesn’t have a developed brainProducer: How old are you?Zach: I’m 21!
Upon being given this news, Zach and Josh immediately go off into one of the world’s best passive aggressive fights that is one of the most toxic, non-eye-contact conversations I’ve ever seen in my career of watching reality shows. It’s a genuine thing of beauty and I encourage everyone to find it online, especially as it heats up when Josh is voted to enter the Nerd-Off by Blue Team because they know that making sure Zach stays on the team is the type of sabotage they hardly even need to work for.
The Nerd-Off continues the science theme by involving David Carradine laying on a table with his chest cavity exposed, requiring organs from the two dead aliens on the slabs in front of Zach and Josh. I know you’d think these are special effects but Radioshack does have some deep pockets. Did you see that 80’s commercial? They got Hulk Hogan!
Continued belowAnyway, the game is all about memorizing the alien organs and their human equivalent and then putting them in a jar on time. Zach says that Josh’s experience with Pokemon will only help Zach since he’s an action game and Pokemon’s turn-based. At first I thought this was a bit unfair to Josh but then he went ahead and talked about how he memorized over 600 Pokemon and honestly I’m surprised more than 200 came out. Anyway, the Pokemon memorizing skills don’t help as Josh loses the contest to piss-stain Zach, who is free to wreak havoc on the show for a couple more weeks.
5.) MVP vs. LVP.
I was pretty rough on Josh last week but honestly? Even though he was kicked out, he was incredible this episode. Unenthusiastic beatboxing? Amazing passive-agression? I’d actually really liked to have seen him for a couple more episodes. You’ll be missed, you Prince of Pokemon, you Trainer of Tentacool, you Breeder of Bulbasaur.
Kayla meanwhile, shat all over the very concept of improv and our running favorite, Katie which earns her the LVP of the week. Was Zach objectively a worse person? Yeah. Did he go after two things I hold dear to my heart? No, he only went after Josh. For that, Kayla is now on my shit-list. The shit-list being my Notes app, wherein I will write jokes about her on the internet. I know, I’m afraid for her too.
A new episode of King of the Nerds airs tonight at 10pm EST. I implore anyone and everyone who’s interested to talk about it here in advance of next week’s recap.
