Cutthroat season thoughts

So Cutthroat is in the books, and boy was this season pretty good. The main thing about Cutthroat that I noticed, is that MTV was attempting to do different things to kinda freshen it up. New concepts, new rules, new team structures and a lot of new people. Some of the missiosn were pretty bad ass (riot shield), some sucked (martini glass and upside down), and some were just hardcore (gas chamber/tight rope). We had drama, Laurel/Easy, Laure/Sarah vs Grey Team, the red team dysfunction, Ty and typical mission fights. We had twists: teams were chosen first day in by captains, secret voting and the heavy hitters. We had a hook up, and the finale had some surprises mainly with the fall of Abe. In my opinion, this season did not dissapoint. Sure there was a little lag, especially once Brandon and Camila left, but Laurel/Sarah quickly grabbed the baton to take over the central storyline, as was the Red teams continued issues. Other notable changes, two of the usual Champions left the Challenge, and the never winners finally won. Some things didn't change at all, Shauvon sucked, and Paula blamed someone else for her losing..well you can't do everything in one challenge.

So onto some thoughts on the season. First off, once I heard about the location I was excited, I just imagine being a cast member and finding out I'm going to of all places Prague (funny enough they found out as they boarded the plane, they were told to pack for tropical weather, then at the first airport they are told they were going to England, and in England they finally found out it was Prague..oh Bunim Murray and MTV one day you will get these kids arrested for suspected terrorism), one of the most beautiful places on this planet. Then the cast got me even more psyched: Abe, Derrick, Bananas, Jenn, Cara Maria, Laurel (I was a fan on FM2), Brad (before he turned into pussy Brad) and many others. I was also excited for a lot of the newbies who I hadn't seen before. It felt different right off the bat, but as time went on some things truly did change while others stayed the same.

The teams.. from looking at the first episode, before the first mission even happened you would've thought Blue team was winning this in the end. They had the "stacked" team, while gray was full of misfits, and red was full of players who had never won a challenge bar Tori but still stacked. Then the first challenge happened and the group of misfits surprised everyone. It became the trend of the season with Gray winning the most Challenges on Cutthroat.

How about Blue team? How could the team with proven Champs like Bananas and Derrick, and great female competitors like Jenn and Emily fail? If you actually analize it, they just got bad luck on all accounts. Ty gassed out, CT/Tina arrived, and Derrick faced off a bigger Tyler in an elimination round that favored bigger guys. Not taking anything away from Tyler who went from underdog to top dog in this Challenge with his performance, but Blue team was dealt a bad hand of luck this Challenge.

Gray Team? The band of misfits that weren't supposed to work well, actually became the team to beat, even when the team itself wasn't working. The infighting between that team was 10 times worse than the Red team one, as Laurel and Sarah came real close to throwing two Challenges, but thankfully pride (and a pissed off Abram) intervened. Was Laurel right? or was she wrong? Technically she was right about sharing money with unworthy people, but she chose the wrong target. All season long she had a parrot with her in Sarah, who is still on her ego trip from the Ruins (let's face it as awesome as Katie is, Sarah's claim to fame is beating Katie and Johanna in the Ruins two girls who have never been strong girls), every time Laurel said something Sarah was right behind her saying the exact same thing. Yet who failed in the final? Was it Cara and Luke? No it was Sarah and Abram. Abram surprised the hell out of me as he has done a ton of these but apparently he didn't eat well before the mission and heat stroke affected him as well. Sarah? Not surprised, as soon as TJ said the rules she broke down claiming "I am not a good long distance runner", HELLO? Haven't you been in a final before? Haven't you seen finals before? Isn't that one of the things you and Laurel loved taunting the rest of your team with? At least Laurel pulled through in the end, as did Cara Maria who seemed to hold her own in the end.

Red Team? Going into this Challenge, I knew it was Brad's last. Tori is very vocal in hating how the Challenges affect their relationship, and I guessed Brad promised it would be the very last win or lose. Some have criticized Brad and Tori's play the entire season..but honestly can you blame them? If they can make it so that they didn't have to put a foot in the Gulag why not take advantage of it? Isn't the whole point of the game to make it to the end? They played the smart game, was it scummy? Sure it was, but in the end they won the Challenge so they weren't wrong. Sure Gray team's collapse in the final helped win that final but it was still a win.

The missions themselves this season were pretty hardcore all around. They all weren't awesome missions but they were pretty cool. My faves were.. Riot Shield, which I still believe should've been done earlier. Surf's up, I so wanna get on that surf board thing. Bottle Neck Stampeed, reminded me alot about the older Challenges and it looked way fun. The Martini glass one, just because it look frustrating as fuck so I loved the reactions from the cast. The tight rope one was hardcore as hell but it wasn't anything new, reminded me a lot about the zip line from building to building on Inferno 1. The rest I could give or take, but the Gas Chamber one was in poor taste considering where they were, and from what I've heard the conditions were a bit more dangerous than we saw on tv.

The drama? We had some good drama with the infighting on Red and Gray team, but the gray team drama just became really annoying at the end, and at times made me switch off the show. We also had the Laurel/Eric stuff, which as fate would have it actually aired on "National Stop Bullying Day", and even more ironic Eric had a purple shirt on during that segment. I was sickened by the segment at first watch, but hey we all make mistakes Laurel has owned up to it countless times so its time everyone moved on from it. Then we had the cliched Paula drama of this Challenge, and honestly its not even worth getting into. Either quit coming on Challenges or trust no one. We also had the love story between Abram and Cara, which as Johnny said the first day "these two weird bastards found each other" and are made for each other.

The Gulags. The Gulags this season bar the stupid slapping one, were kinda cool. Back Up Off Me takes the cake as the best one, followed by Pole Me Over. Dice was pretty cool as it was physical and a puzzle at the same time. Slapping one was funny the first 5 seconds then it became pointless, I'm glad they only did it during that episode.

Final thoughts.. I enjoyed this season, best one in my opion since Duel 1. It had a good mix of old and new cast. For once the same people didn't win, and the usual suspects left before the final. It had some good surprises. The production value was the best its ever been. I'm glad they started showing where the cast was from in their interviews again. The final was intense and at one point a nail bitter due to the editing but red had it in the bag once Abe fell. I'll give this season 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. I do hope they re-do the three team format but do Real World vs Fresh Meat vs Road Rules as it has been a long time coming, and with 10 on each team they can pull it off.