Reality Scorecard: Meatball Sandwich

Courtesy of MTV

Survivor is your old friend from high school who you still talk to from time to time. You’ve grown apart and probably wouldn’t be friends if you met now, but you maintain the relationship out of respect for your mutual history. Well, it must be Thanksgiving night at the local bar, because Survivor is back and better than the same as ever. The new cast shows some promise, though. This season sees the return of Ozzy, who may or may not have appeared on the supersexual Playboy TV show Foursome with The Real World’s Dunbar, Mikayla the pride of the lingerie football league, and Mark the gay retired NYPD Detective. For our supplemental Survivor draft (see the results below), we picked cast members in a random draft order so Bill wouldn’t have another uber-competitive weirdo tantrum.

Also, unrelated: Dear Producers of Jersey Shore: What made you think that the best way to tease this week’s episode in ads was to show Snooki getting into a fender bender? The car accident was nothing. Snooki and Deena’s performance this week made Jay Caspian Kang say, “This is the drunkest I have ever seen someone on TV.”

Survivor Draft Results

Joe House (The Fantashiques): Jim, Albert, and Christine
Bill Simmons (The Right Reasons): Ozzy, Dawn, and Edna
David Jacoby (Blanket Coverage): Coach, Mikayla, and Sophie
Connor Schell (Who We Thought They Were): Elyse, Keith, and Whitney
Lane Brown (The Blurcle Jerks): Brandon, Rick, and Stacey
Jay Caspian Kang (Fraudulent Coitus): John, Mark, and Semhar

Survivor-specific Scoring Rules:

• No points for unintentional nudity

• All hook-up points scored at triple value (they deserve them for hooking up with someone who hasn’t showered for a month)

• Making a catty exit speech: 25 points

• Wining a “tie vote” challenge: 10 points

• Stealing or hiding food: 15 points

• Killing a mammal and eating it (i.e., no fish or insects): 15 points (only killer gets points)

• Receiving medical attention: 20 points

• Adding additional flair on tribal vote card (smiley faces, hearts, symbols, etc.): -10 points

• Announcing that you are “in control of this game”: 5 points

• Accusing someone of eating more food than they were rationed: 5 points

• Being sent home with an unused immunity idol: -20 points

• Jeff Probst stops addressing you by your real name and starts using a nickname: 25 points (one time only)

• The Loved One who comes to the island is not a parent, spouse, kin, or sibling: 20 points

• No Loved One comes to the island: 100 points

• Claiming your real job gives you an advantage in the game: 25 points

• Crying in Tribal Council: 5 bonus points

• Jury member makes a survivor cry in the Final Tribal Council: 20 points

• Getting injured in an immunity challenge in an unathletic manner: 15 points

• Having so much trouble swimming that it briefly seems like you might drown: 10 points

• Being unable to light a fire: -5 points

• Being unable to make fire in a tie breaker: -5 more points

• Comparing another contestant to vermin in Tribal Council: 10 points

• Faking possession of an immunity idol: 10 points (one time only)

• Unsuccessfully hiding the immunity idol: 5 points

• Claiming that you will “teach these young people a thing or two”: 10 points

• Saying something that makes Jeff Probst raise his eyebrows: 10 points

Top Scorers

Deena (Jersey Shore, Jacoby): 45 Points. While in a cab on the way to the discoteca, Deena said, “Imdoinashaimjushangindoinasha.” To the untrained ear, this was just drunken gibberish. But “imdoinashaimjushangindoinasha” is actually Navajo for “I believe I have forgotten to wear undergarments this evening.” Deena had a lot of trouble with her underwear this week. Earlier in the day, Deena ordered “something that will get us really drunk” from a vaguely dreadlocked Italian bartender. He happily obliged (Deena finished this week’s episode with 20 intoxication points). It wasn’t long before Sammi and JWoww ditched the inslopsicated Deena and Snooki, leaving the pair to their own devices. While they staggered their way from empty bar to empty bar, they found one that was playing house music, which provided Deena the opportunity to dance her underwear off (5 unintentional-nudity points). Yes, she danced her underwear off. What followed was a display of such extreme inebriation that it looked like an interpretive dance of Mel Gibson’s famous evening at Moonshadows. She revealed her nether regions while dancing a second time (5 points), made out with Snooki for hours (5 points), and fell into — and nearly choked herself to death on — the velvet rope outside the club (10 falling points).

Snooki (Jersey Shore, Lane): 45 points. Deena was not alone in testing her alcoholic limits this week — she had her meatball-in-crime Snooki along for the drunken ride. Snooki wasn’t quite as inebriated (15 intoxication points), but was just as dizzy (20 points for falling down twice) and willing to make out (5 open-mouth kissing points). Have you ever made out with someone and gone past the 10-minute mark where it shifts from being exciting and sexy into an introspective, “What the hell am I doing here?” type of thing? Snooki and Deena hit that point, then kept going for another three hours. As usual, Snooki couldn’t remember anything the next morning. When she learned that she’d hooked up with Deena the previous evening, she brushed it off as just another night on the town. One morning, Vinny and Pauly, the Statler and Waldorf of Jersey Shore, should switch it up and tell Snooki she got really drunk, opened a conservative 401K plan, filed her quarterly income taxes, took up veganism, and became a philanthropist. A couple of days later, uncharacteristically sober, she drove into a cop car and cried (5 points).

Mark (Survivor, Kang): 25 points. Mark, you had me at “Gay Retired NYPD Detective,” but you lost me when you insisted that everyone call you “Papa Bear” (25 points for making Jeff Probst call you a nickname). You can’t give yourself a nickname! You just can’t. Not even you, Shaquille.

Kasey (Bachelor Pad, Connor): 25 points. This season, Kasey did everything he could to make everyone hate him. He got legitimately mad at his girlfriend for not having sex with him and called her a “fame whore,” lied to everyone about who he was going vote off, said he needed the show’s prize money for his grandmother (5 points), and, worst of all, wore a skull cap through the Los Angeles summer. While he was watching it all back during the “Kasey is a jerk” montage on the finale, he pretended to be a changed man and cried (20 points). Somehow his apology for being fake was faker than him being fake. The only thing that would make Kasey’s behavior make any sense is if we find out that this whole thing was an act and that Kasey is actually Banksy.

Second Tier

Holly (Bachelor Pad, Lane): 20 points. My wife and I spent the entire three-hour Bachelor Pad finale trying to decide whether Holly was hot or not. We decided she has some angles. She won two challenges (20 points) and revealed that she’s engaged to Blake, a man who keeps track of how long he brushes his teeth. If you are dating a man who times how long he brushes his teeth, or a woman who has rhinestones on her cell phone, dump them immediately. Just trust me.

Michael (Bachelor Pad, House): 20 points. So Michael won a challenge (10 points) and the final vote (10 points) that netted him about $75,000 after taxes. If you were on one of these shows, wouldn’t you just go backstage and offer to pay $2,000 per vote to guarantee your victory? Why isn’t this happening on every reality show? Oh, right. The contestants are too dumb to think of this. My bad.

Vienna (Bachelor Pad, Kang): 12.5 points. This week, Vienna cried (5 points), made up something she would do with the show’s money (7.5 points), and came to the reunion with a weave so obnoxious it’s a wonder there are still any horses with hair in the state of California.

Ozzy (Survivor, Simmons): 10 points. They’ve started bringing back two former cast members on each season of Survivor. At this point, all the contestants are huge fans of the show, so when the returning Survivors are put in their tribes, they’re treated like the Ewoks treated C-3PO. Returning Survivor Ozzy is somehow the stoniest and most athletic person in the world. He is a cross between Spicoli, Lance Armstrong, and the Geico lizard. He wrote some hearts on his vote card when he voted Semhar off (10 flair-adding points). Jim Rice — not the baseball player but the medical marijuana dispensary owner — thought Ozzy was crushing on Semhar and said, “Her body is memorizing, but it is not hypnotizing.” Usher, if you’re reading this, you’d better steal that line before Chris Brown does.

Michelle Money (Bachelor Pad, Kang): 10 points. Is Michelle Money … normal? Sure, she cried twice this week (10 points), but this season she showed none of the “I would really love it if some of these ninjas would kidnap some of these other girls” flair that she exhibited during her stint on The Bachelor. Michelle Money, in the GRTFL, you were Todd Marinovich.

The Situation (Jersey Shore, Kang): 7.5 points. Mike’s wearing sunglasses out at clubs (2.5 points) has always been a mystery. Clubs are dark, sunglasses make it even more difficult to see, and it seems like combining the two would make for an evening of nothing but apologizing for stepping on people’s feet. This week we learned why Sitch does it, though — so he doesn’t have to look at the girls he makes out with (5 points). The shot of his kissing partner was brief, but I swear this week on Jersey Shore the Situation made out with Andy Milonakis.

Dawn (Survivor, Simmons) 5 points. Dawn started crying (5 points) THE MORNING OF DAY 2. Dawn, the show is called Survivor.



Semhar (Survivor, Kang): 5 points. I have nothing against poetry. In fact, I quite enjoy the greats — Whitman, Neruda, Poe, Raekwon the Chef. But spoken-word poetry is bullshit. Mix some puns with some hand gestures and the word “ancestor,” then throw on a hemp necklace and all of a sudden you’re a spoken-word poet. Semhar is a spoken-word poet and, like all spoken-word poets, she was way too eager to demonstrate how spoken-word-poetry she is in front of everyone. She cried when she got voted off the show (5 points). Everyone at home laughed.

Ella (Bachelor Pad, Connor): 5 points. All season long, Ella cried and cried (5 points this week) about how she needed the prize money to raise her son. Then, after not making a dime on the show, she paid for five plastic surgeries in one day.

The Basketball Wives: 0 points What the hell? Nobody from Basketball Wives LA scored this week? No one threw a drink, pulled a weave, or promoted their jewelry line for cats? Nobody? Too bad we don’t give points for “Being accused of leaving your young son alone for three days in an apartment full of feces.” Draya would have had a big week.

Message Board

Bill Simmons (The Right Reasons): I have an announcement: I am retiring from Jersey Shore. Haven’t enjoyed it all season, burned out by the characters, feel like every storyline is rigged or contrived, can’t get past the fact that they’re all millionaires pretending to be something else, can’t stand seeing Ronnie and Sammi on the same TV screen, legitimately grossed out by Deena and Snooki, can’t take Sitch at face value … I don’t think the show jumped the shark, just that it was a torrid TV fling for me and now it’s run its natural course. No hard feelings, I’m just ready to move on. Thank them for the entertainment for me, and please tell the gang that I’ll see at least three of them on Celebrity Rehab over the next few years. Until then.

David Jacoby (Blanket Coverage): Cochran is a contestant on Survivor and also a Harvard Law student. I know this because people who went to Harvard can’t finish a sentence without telling you they went to Harvard. If Cochran went to any other school on the planet, the lower third would have read “Law student.” But noooo, it read “Harvard law student,” because Cochran is some kind of mutant genius who was educated at Harvard, where they teach you everything but humility and how to have a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. Seriously, you saw The Social Network. Some nerd built one of the most powerful companies in the world because he didn’t know how to say “I think you’re cute. Want to come over and play Dance Dance Revolution?” Also, if you’re so smart, Cochran, why are you on Survivor? If I find out that my lawyer — the guy who charges me $500 for a 15-minute phone call — watches Survivor, I am finding a new lawyer. Someone else is going have to explain to the jury that the only reason I tased C.T. from The Challenge unprovoked was because I once wrote that he would eat my face off.

Jay Caspian Kang (Fraudulent Coitus):Last night, as we all watched Team Meatballs flop around like flounder on a pier, David Jacoby revisited an important Jersey Shore question from last week: If you had to marry one of them, who would it be? The easy part to answering this question is narrowing the field down to the two obvious choices: JWoww and Snooki. It’s pretty clear that much of Snooki’s dumbness is an act and that beneath the poof, the spray, and the rhinestones, there is a pretty savvy little alcoholic millionaire who probably has three, maybe four more years in the spotlight. JWoww is certainly the more rational of the two, but she also seems to be kind of a drag. Would you really want to sit down and talk to her about how her day went? Would you want to have to travel to Vegas to help her promote her clothing line and then have to console her when it inevitably collapsed? Would you want to field calls from Italy at 3 a.m. about how she’s “tired of taking care of Nicole and Deena?” Wouldn’t you rather go with Snooki, look the other way at her infidelities, party your face off on her dime for three years, and when it started to become too painfully clear that the dream was over, you could always shoot yourself in the face. Because you deserve it.

Lane Brown (The Blurcle Jerks): Two things. First: Welcome to the game, Snooki! I knew you had this in you, and I’m proud to call you a Blurcle Jerk. Second: If Jay hadn’t been so obnoxiously loud in the office yesterday while I was trying to work, and also sent a friend request to my mom on Facebook, I might have spoken up when he said he was going to draft Survivor‘s Semhar, who had already been voted off the show.

Joe House (The Fantashiques): I did not watch 10 seconds of Bachelor Pad this season, but I know we drafted some characters from that show. I have no idea who was on my team. I hope I won. We also just did a Survivor draft. I ended up with Jim Rice, some dude who claims to be employed as a “dating coach” and a communist teacher. Only one question — is Jim Rice doing this for the money?!?!?


David Jacoby is Grantland’s Reality Tzar. Listen to him on the B.S. Report or follow him on Twitter at @jacoby_.


Previously: Reality League Scorecard: Off the Wall
Reality League Scorecard: Climb Every Mountain
Reality League Scorecard: The Situation Goes Twinning
Grantland’s Reality TV Fantasy League: The Complete Rules and Draft Results

To comment on this story through Facebook, click here. Read more Hollywood Prospectus.

Filed Under: Reality TV Fantasy League

David Jacoby is an ESPN producer who somehow became a writer and editor for Grantland.

Archive @ djacoby

More from David Jacoby

See all from David Jacoby

More Reality TV Fantasy League

See all Reality TV Fantasy League

More Hollywood Prospectus

See all Hollywood Prospectus