Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet 2

"The Gauntlet II" was the eleventh season of the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge", airing in late 2005 and into 2006 with 32 contestants and taking place in Trinidad and Tobago. The teams were designated Veterans and Rookies, based on the number of prior "Challenge" seasons on which each cast member has competed. Those on the Veterans' team had been on at least two prior seasons, and those on the Rookies' team have been on fewer than two seasons prior to "The Gauntlet 2". For this season, a male and female captain were determined at the beginning of the season. After each team challenge, the losing team captain would be sent to the Gauntlet, where they would face an opponent of the same sex and same team who was voted into the Gauntlet by the team. Gauntlets would alternate between males and females.

Cast

Host
*TJ Lavin, BMX jumper

Game summary

* Jo quit the challenge in Episode 2.
* The final Veterans were Aneesa, David, Julie, Katie, Mark, Robin and Timmy.
* The final Rookies were Alton, Ibis, Jamie, Jodi, Kina, Landon, MJ, Randy and Susie.
* The final captains were Alton, Aneesa, Kina and Timmy.
* The Rookies won the final mission.

Challenges in the Gauntlet

*Name That Coconut: Players had to find the coconut with the name of the person that is the answer to a RW/RR trivia question.
*Beach Brawl: Players had to wrestle their opponent out of a ring.
*Capture the Flag: Players had to climb up a 20-foot (approx. 6 meters) rope net to get a flag.
*Reverse Tug-O-War: Players are tied to each other, facing away from each other. First to get their flag wins.
*Sticky Situation: Players had to stick balls to a board as their opponent tries to stop you.
*Knock Off Never done.

Other spaces on the wheel:

*Spin Again: If a Gauntlet challenge was done 3 times, the next time there is a Gauntlet, that challenge is taken off the wheel for that instance and is replaced by Spin Again.
*Captain's Choice: The captain of the team going into the Gauntlet will choose which challenge he or she will be doing.
*Challenger's Choice: The person the team chose to oppose the captain in the Gauntlet will choose which challenge he or she will be doing.

Music

Memorable moments

* For this challenge, a male and female captain were determined at the beginning of the show based on physical prowess, although one some chose to use rock-paper-scissors to decide.
* Jo made her first appearance in a "Challenge", her first such appearance on MTV in nearly a decade, and quickly caused controversy in the first episode. She called the police to escort her out because she found being in the house with 32 cast members intolerable.
* Derrick blew up at his team for choosing a secret ballot method for voting into the Gauntlet rather than openly stating their votes.
* After the Rookies lost the second challenge, Kina picked Cameran for the Gauntlet. Cameran voluntarily lost, feeling Kina would be a better captain than her. The Veterans were outraged at this, especially after Derrick and Adam L. fought so hard in the previous Gauntlet. This led to a hilarious argument between Cara and Aneesa, with Timmy mimicking Anessa's rant behind her.
* Jisela volunteered to go into the Gauntlet and lost to Ruthie. Host TJ Lavin commented that Jisela pretty much quit the game.
* In a Veterans team meeting Ace took fault for the failure during a mission and volunteered to go to the Gauntlet. He and Derrick went head-to-head in a wrestling beach brawl. Derrick stayed low and powered his way through Ace to keep his role at Veteran captain.
* While strategizing for a mission in which a team member had to pull other team members around a track in a large rickshaw, Beth decided that she should be the one teammate who would sit out, due to her being the biggest woman on the team (both teams had to pick one person to sit out). Montana, along with several other members, believed that Beth was manipulating Ruthie so that she would get immunity from the Gauntlet. The team sided with Montana and let her sit out. Beth performed well in the mission, but the team lost. Beth was voted into the Gauntlet against Ruthie, but stunned the team by beating her at the Reverse Tug-of-War, thus becoming the new female team captain.
* While her team hoped she would be eliminated as soon as possible, Beth defeated both Ruthie and Montana in "Reverse Tug-O-War" Gauntlets. Both of her opponents stated that Beth had the advantage over them because she weighed more than they did.
*For the first time, a host almost got into a fight. Syrus got mad at TJ Lavin during his gauntlet against Derrick. Timmy broke it up as TJ and Syrus were nose-to-nose.
* Jillian tells Kina that Susie and Cara approached her for an alliance with the other team, starting a rivalry between Cara and Kina, along with Susie and Jillian.
* Alton was hailed by one player as a "freak of nature" for his repeated success at physical challenges. "TV Guide" critic Rochell D. Thomas, commenting on Alton's ability to climb twenty feet up a cargo net in mere seconds, opined, "If Alton's still in the game when this comes out, his teammates ought to call his mother and thank her for his winning gene pool".
* After losing a challenge, Beth quit the Beach Brawl wrestling challenge against Aneesa, claiming it was "against her moral values", thus leading to a segue in which host TJ Lavin stated, "I thought I told you to quit when the other quitters quit". The other cast members speculated that she was afraid of losing to Aneesa, who was praying for the Beach Brawl challenge. Beth later expressed regret about quitting before the challenge.
* Landon has now won back-to-back challenges, which are the only ones he's been on: "The Inferno 2" and "The Gauntlet 2".
* This was the first challenge since "Extreme Challenge" that Julie did not get voted off.
* Derrick ties Sarah for the most Gauntlets. They both had been sent to the Gauntlet five times. (Sarah participated in the Gauntlet 1 and won all her Gauntlets.) In the five that Derrick was in, he beat Adam L., Ace, Syrus, Brad and lost to Timmy in the very last Gauntlet.
* This was the first time that a team quit the final deciding challenge. This challenge was supposed to consist of 3 legs: eating roti, a memory challenge, and a relay race. The gambling element of this challenge led to the Veterans quitting after the Rookies won the first leg because they lost too many points to recoup with the scheduled 2 remaining legs.
* On the reunion show, Mark announced his retirement from the "Challenges". He gave his bandanna to Derrick saying, "From the first "Road Ruler" to the last "Road Ruler", I give you my bandanna." Mark joins Mike "The Miz" Mizanin and Eric Nies as the only cast members to officially issue a "retirement" from the "Challenges". (Wes Bergmann would later announce such a retirement after "The Duel", along with Tim Beggy who announced later in the Inferno III)
* Jamie was mistakenly cast as a Rookie when he had previously been on two challenges. ("Extreme Challenge" and "Battle of the Sexes")
* On the reunion show Brad from The Real World San Diego didn't have any shoes on, they were under his chair, he was wearing long white socks he had them on and off.
* Kina and Randy became a couple, causing tension as each wants to keep the other safe.
* In the intro of this season, everybodys name shows up on their respective team color when Brad and Julie's name are in blue when Vets are Red.

External links

* [http://www.mtv.com/onair/rwrr_challenge/gauntlet2/ Official site]
* [http://www.mtv.com/onair/realworld/ MTV's official "Real World" website]
* [http://roadrules.mtv.com MTV's official "Road Rules" website]