Tool-e-oke

Near the beginning of this week's Tool Academy, Boyband Tool explains an unfair double standard: "Only guys can be tools. There is a double standard. Guys talk about sleeping with 200 girls, they're the man. Girls talk about sleeping with 200 guys, they're a slut." Thankfully for us, in 2010, both can safely be called tools. And also, "sleeping with 200 girls" would have to be in heavy quotes for any of that to be right.

This week's group therapy focused on video evidence of the Tools cheating on their girlfriends/boyfriend. Usually they show footage that was taken the same day as their fake Party Ambassador presentation, so it almost seems like these poor tools are victims of entrapment. This season, half of the tapes seem to have been submitted along with their original application videos. The tapes are seedy enough to give me a stomachache. Meanwhile, Teary Tool admits that his girlfriend "completes him" and Meth Tool's girlfriend flies off the handle, mouth-slapping him pretty hard. The married couple is truly hard to watch, since their interactions carry the weight of a thousand years' worth of intimate hurt. It's pretty clear they're headed straight down the toilet.

After an emotionally exhausting group therapy, the girlfriends relax by skinny-dipping in their pool. Meth Tool's girlfriend takes serious issue with it, positing that skinny-dipping won't help their relationships. If she were speaking to Lady Lovin' Toolette's girlfriend, that might be applicable, but it seems more like this whole thing is actually about how much she misses meth. From inside the house, Jennavecia Tool's boyfriend just keeps his eyes straight ahead, and when asked for a quote, says "...Girls...yeah, I don't know."

The next morning, we see a tool grab a fresh bandana from a colorful stack of starched bandanas in his suitcase. I wish I could grab a screen shot of it.

Guess what, I did.

This week's challenge is a Tool Academy classic: Tool-e-oke. The tools must cooperate with their angry girlfriends enough to produce a song and dance by sundown. During planning, Teary Tool finds out about his girlfriend's skinny-dipping and feels entirely cheated-on. "What, now suddenly two wrongs make a right?!" Somehow the marrieds win the Tool-e-oke contest (judged by Brian Dunkleman, Ryan Seacrest's long-lost American Idol season 1 co-host), and as a reward they get to go camping.

Back at the dorm, Neandertool tells Toolette he hopes she's the one going home. She tells him she doesn't like him. "I know," he mumbles, "but you like my body, bitch." I'm hoping that these two will make a huge mistake together and free up their respective partners, and then the better halves can pair up and it will be like at the end of That Thing You Do. Nice with nice.


Waiting to hear if he passed the Fidelity challenge, Boyband Tool (having sported his girlfriend's underwear onstage) explains, "hindsight is 20/20: shoulda put a pair of pants on." The tool who looks like Seann William Scott goes home, and his girlfriend, who reminds me of the orange little-girl monster on Sesame Street (the one who came along a little late for me and might speak spanish), stays with him. She's real embarrassed, though.

Next week's promo: Looks like the Academy's lack of meth is becoming a palpable problem for Rave Stick Tool & Co.