It's No Sacrifice

Laterrian and Theo bail out on a B-M supplied gore fest--(where's PETA when you need'em?).

Analysis

Well that was one funked up episode wasn't it? (and it's not even Halloween) Although it wasn't as funky and confusing as last season's "Hot Voodoo" it still registered a 9.0 on the bizarro scale. No Roadgimmick, no idiot proof message scroll bar, tone down spit screen nonsense--all of which would normally be extra points in the show's favor, however the overall "Blair Witch Project" atmosphere sort of distracts your attention away from such elements.

Now as a reviewer I try to be as impartial as I can when it comes to analyzing stuff I see on the screen, however there are times when I feel it's appropriate to draw the line. Here the troopers search the South African country side for a woman named Vuvu. Their mission: To become witch doctors despite Vuvu's attempt to gloss it over with a less ominous name "Traditional Healers," ugh ya, whatever.

From there (wherever they were) the group traveled to a small village where they took part in a--to be blunt--Voodoo ceremony to phone their dead ancestors. And if that didn't funk you up, in addition they had to serve up animal sacrifices which included a decapitated goat and a gutted ox--(for crying out loud! And PETA's bitching about milk?). And as expected, this was all too funked up for Laterrian and Theo, who explained that participating in this type of ceremony is an insult to their religious beliefs. So our boys made like a C4 bomb and blew the joint, but not without leaving a major resentment burn on M'saada.

M'saada, still wound up from last week's spat with James takes personal-PERSONAL offense to Laterrian and Theo's disrespect of her family--hey, that was the impression I got! Now I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of the phrase "When in Rome do as the Romans do," but at the same time if I'm put into a position where I'm forced to compromise my beliefs you can bet your 401K plan that I'm cutting loose!

At one point when the others were chowing down on the aforementioned butchered ox, M'shut up proclaims, "I didn't come to South Africa to eat at MacDonalds baby!". Oh how I wish Laterrian or Theo were there to retort, "Ya, but I didn't come to South Africa to 86 my convictions either, baby!" And as if M'shut up's self-righteous critique of Laterrian and Theo wasn't bad enough James (of all people) had to jump on the bandwagon and slam Laterrian for turning his back on his people, "It's your culture Laterrian," a comment, that if you take the time to think about comes off sounding rather ignorant. Consider if the troopers were somewhere in Europe, Sweden perhaps and Laterrian had made the same half-baked generalization to James. James would immediately set the record straight by informing Laterrian of his Irish and Italian roots, but unfortunately Laterrian doesn't have that luxury; and considering that there are many different cultures and tribes within Africa itself, for James to make the assumption that 1.) Laterrian's black and 2.) He's on the continent of Africa, therefore this particular group of villagers are automatically dubbed his "culture" is a rather narrowminded generalization to make. Someone please shoot the boy up with some Ritalin and duct tape his mouth shut!

Instead of chastising Laterrian perhaps M'saada should've attended to more pressing issues, such as asking the ghostbuster on whether they'd receive their handsome reward or not--as opposed to playing match maker with chicken bones and whatnot.

Ironically the issue of Laterrian and Theo not wanting to compromise their religious beliefs over a Voodoo ceremony sort of parallels that of Amaya not wanting to compromise her Jewish faith over bobbing for pig's feet in "Redneck Games;" however in that case Da Brat chose to sell out whereas here LT and Bumpkin chose to abstain from peer pressure, thus delivering the crucial point keeping this dismal puppy away from a big fat goose egg!

So overall I reflect on this episode as being one bad dream; and like all bad dream I intend to purge it from my memory as soon as possible.


NEXT WEEK: At last! The Roomies meet up with the Roadies to battle it out over the Robomutt.


Jump straight to "Safari Face-off". Or go back to "No One Ever Ask".

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