WarriorTwin: Thanks for all your comments.
Derick Lindsey (ch.13): Topher just joined. No way his team loses that challenge. As for the lopsided teams and Animal Buddy episode, we've got that covered.
acosta perez jose ramiro (ch.13): We'll see what she does.
Dunsparce519 (ch.13): Action did feel dry at times, so we're trying to spice things up. And we brought Topher back because not only was he the first one eliminated last season and needs redemption, but we have some plot for him this season.
Dunsparce519 (ch.14): With Jasmine on another team, the voting will be hard.
acosta perez jose ramiro (ch.14): Cool.
Dunsparce519: This is why we swapped Jasmine, so that Millie would get the most votes.
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Justin, Topher
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Jasmine, MK, Ripper
Episode 16: Dial M for Merger
"Last time, on Total Drama Action! It was a festival of guts, determination, and sweat, as yours truly put our contestants through their sports movie paces!"
"And despite Anne Maria's cheerleading skills, the Grips lost the challenge. Lucky for her, it was Millie who was sent packing, but not before giving a goodbye and warning to her boyfriend."
"But there's no time to think about our coifs today," Chris continued in his control room before pressing a button on his keyboard, causing the three monitor feeds to switch to a half-closed iris view, "'cause today, we're gonna make the best spy movie ever!"
The scene flashed to a close-up of one of the monitors, and Chris walked through the iris' white space in his baby blue tuxedo. "And we might have a few sneaky surprises along the way," he said as the iris followed him to a classic spy-movie tune. He threw a tomato through the iris at the camera and it splattered; the pulpy remains slid down as a transition to the host standing back by the cast trailers. "Right here, on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
The episode opened on a close-up of a fly as it buzzed down through the sky to a plate of sandwiches being carried towards the common area in front of the trailers by Topher of all people. "Hey, everyone! Look what I brought!" he said with a cheery tone and wide smile, waving to the Gaffers who were seated on one of the benches around the central fire pit.
Chase and Jasmine shared a confused look as the camera briefly lingered on the four, while MK and Ripper merely stared dully at the passing dirty blond. The shot cut over to Anne Maria and Justin on opposite ends of the other bench, the former filing her nails while the latter looked at his reflection in his mirror with a smile.
"Do any of you want a sandwich?" Topher asked the others. "We may be in a game, but we can take advantage of our down time." He sat down in between his teammates and started to eat a sandwich, his teammates ignoring him.
Confessional: MK
"Topher of all people is not caring only about himself for once?" MK asked the confessional camera in an incredulous tone while crossing her arms. "There has to be a reason, and I know it's not going to be non-ugly."
Confessional Ends
"Thanks, honey, but I'm not in the mood right now," Anne Maria said with a hint of sadness.
"Is something the matter, Anne Maria?" Topher asked, leaning closer to the tanned girl.
"It's nothing for you to worry about," Anne Maria replied, standing up and walking back towards the girls' trailer.
Confessional: Anne Maria
"I can't believe that Justin used his looks in order to sway my vote away from him and onto Millie," Anne Maria groaned. "I'm normally stronger than that, and I was just starting to consider Millie as pretty cool after seeing her go all out in the challenges. I really underestimated her a lot before and during this season."
Confessional Ends
Anne Maria turned the handle, and quickly realized the door wasn't budging. "Looks like Chris McDodo locked the doors again," she deadpanned just before a small, camera-like device suddenly descended from the canopy above the door to a dramatic piece of background music reminiscent of spy movie intrigue.
It scanned the hair-obsessed girl's eyes, then in a robotic voice declared "Intruder alert! Entry denied!" Before Anne Maria could react, the steps leading up to the door collapsed into a slide that sent her falling back into a pit that suddenly opened up in the ground.
"Anne Maria!!" Topher dashed over and looked down into the pit from above. Out of nowhere, a small purple-fletched dart hit him in the neck; his eyes immediately drooped and he moaned, then fell forward into the pit.
MK laughed as she walked over to the pit. "I can't believe you two got punked like that!" As she grinned mockingly down at them, a black bowler hat spun through the air in the foreground. The camera followed it as it circled around, eventually hitting MK in the back of the head and knocking her into the pit as well.
The other four gasped. "Run for cover!" Jasmine cried as she, Chase, and Justin ran into the boys' trailer and slammed the door shut. Ripper tried to open it to get in, but the door was locked.
"Hey!" Ripper yelled as he pounded the door. "Let me in!"
"What is even going on?!" Chase cried from inside the trailer.
Confessional: Ripper
"I knew the producers were jerks, but I never thought that they'd have the guts to try and murder us," Ripper angrily whined. "They better hope that I don't make it out alive, cause I will-" he was interrupted by a white hand clubbing him on the back of the head and knocking him out.
Confessional Ends
"Hey, where's Ripper?" Justin looked around as the camera cut back to the inside of the trailer, Jasmine firmly holding the door shut and Chase sitting on a bunk bed.
"He obviously got taken along with Anne Maria, Topher, and MK," Chase said. "Right now is a good time to be selfish and only worry about ourselves!"
"I'm just lucky that I have my calming beauty and soothing complexion," Justin said.
"There is no way that this is happening to us!" Jasmine growled, only to be cut off by a small canister being thrown in the room and filling the air with a purple gas. The three teens coughed a bit before passing out.
The numbered studios were shown briefly, the camera panning up to the fake hill and the sky before cutting to what looked like the inside of a cave with numerous stagelights set up on the ceiling and floor.
The camera panned down to the seven contestants lying in a heap on the ground and groaning as they regained consciousness. Anne Maria, Topher, and MK were tangled together on the far left; Ripper and Jasmine laid apart in the center; and Chase was on top of Justin on the right.
Chase tries to get up, but he accidentally whacked his elbow on Justin's eye, making the model yelp in pain.
"My eye! My beautiful, uninsured eye!!" Justin got up to feel his now swollen left eye.
"Sorry. Are you okay?" Chase checked with concern.
"I bruise easier than a clingstone peach! Must prevent swelling, I need ice!" Justin started to run around. "Ice?!" He paused in order to take out his mirror and look at his face, and he began to cry. "I am a hideous beast!" the hot teen griped and got on his knees. "Nobody will ever hire me now and my modeling career is over! I'll have to go work in the circus as a... as one of those... circus freaks!"
The camera cut over to Anne Maria, who was walking around. "Where's my nail filer?" she demanded. "I think I scraped one of my fingernails."
"Here you go," MK got up and handed Anne Maria the nail filer. "One of my fingers is broken, but you don't see me crying for a bandage."
The viewpoint moved over the shoulders of the regrouped teens as the dramatic spy theme started up again and a holographic image was projected in front of them courtesy of a machine in the cave wall. It quickly formed a scene of Chris McLean sitting in his control tent and laughing evilly, with a patch over his left eye and a short-haired white cat getting stroked in his lap. Justin and Jasmine gaped as they looked up at it, as did Anne Maria and Chase.
"Wel-kom, to ze cloak an dag-gehr, world ov Spy Moveez, mon and wom-mon!" Chris told them in an utterly indeterminate accent.
"Can you repeat that?" Anne Maria barked. "We can't understand you over that bad Jamaican accent!"
"Jamaican?!" Chase exclaimed. "That was Japanese!"
"No, it was Swedish!" Topher corrected as the camera focused on Chris getting increasingly annoyed.
"French!" MK guessed.
"It almost sounded Italian to me," Ripper said.
"Umm, hellooo?" Chris interrupted in his normal voice. "It's Russian? And I should know. Because I am an ac-tor!"
"Really?" Anne Maria doubted him with a smirk.
"Any good spy in any good spy movie must have three essential skills," Chris continued, ignoring the comment. "One, the ability to deactivate a bomb." The top-left quarter of the screen changed to a picture of wirecutters preparing to snip the wire of a bundle of dynamite sticks.
"Two, the ability to escape an exploding building." He ducked down into the bottom-left corner as the bottom-right corner became a picture of a figure jumping down from an explosion at the top of a skyscraper.
"And three, the ability to fake an accent that makes people believe you actually speak the language," he said as he returned to the top-right corner and the bottom-left became no more than a standard portrait of himself. "Likea my fab Russian ac-cent, mon!" he said in the mangled accent he'd used earlier.
Chase rolled his eyes and Anne Maria pursed her lips in annoyance, while Justin, Jasmine, and Ripper just stared up at him blankly. "You'll need two of the three skills to get through today's reward challenges," Chris told them all in his normal voice. "Can you guess which two? Let me give you a hint!" He switched to his awful Russian accent and said "Not da tird one, mahn!" He began to laugh evilly again, and the castmates turned to each other.
"Does anybody know anything about bombs here?" Topher asked the contestants.
"You're looking at a chem queen here!" MK gloated.
Confessional: MK
"We've had different movie genres used as themes each time," MK confessed, "and most of them required the use of athleticism. I'd prefer having challenges I can easily excel at instead of ones like the sports fiasco."
Confessional Ends
"Well, we know who's so eager to handle our bomb," Ripper told his teammates with a look towards MK.
"Hey, I wasn't particularly volunteering," MK objected.
"We'll be supporting you though," Jasmine told the techno girl with a smile and a hand on her shoulder.
"Oh," Chris interrupted on the holographic screen, "and one last thing! Since I'm really ho-hum bored of the teams, I'm bustin' 'em up! From now on," he told the castmates as they watched in stunned silence, "it's every dude and dude-ette for themselves! I'll see you back on solid ground. Let the double-oh-sevening...begin!" Just before the holographic projection ceased, the white cat the host had been petting turned and attacked him.
"Well, regardless of what Chris said," Jasmine told Chase, MK, and Ripper, "I see no reason for us to break up. Alliance?"
She put her hand forward, and it was soon joined by Chase. "Sure thing!" he agreed and the two looked over at Ripper and MK, who shared a brief glare at each other before putting their hands in as well.
"Yeah, we're in," Ripper said, disgruntled.
"It feels strange being broken up," Anne Maria said out loud. "Especially after everything we've been through."
[A pop tune began to play as the scene showed seven rows of silhouette contestants blinking one-by-one before showing them all at once. From left to right were Topher, MK, Chase, Jasmine, Justin, Anne Maria, and Ripper.]
"Life begins after school."
[MK was playing on a handheld keyboard as Justin put an arm around her shoulder and snapped his fingers.]
"That's when we bend all the rules."
[The hands of Anne Maria, Chase, and Ripper also snapped their fingers. Soon, a five-way collage of Ripper on the top left, Topher on the bottom left, Anne Maria on the top right, Chase on the bottom right, and Jasmine in the middle presented itself as the five smiled at each other.]
"In a place where we belong!"
[The seven contestants were lying on the ground holding hands with each other while the camera zoomed out to show them surrounded by their trailer set.]
"I'm sixteen! Starting to find my way!"
[A yellow background was shown with the contestants smiling at the camera. From right to left were Jasmine, Anne Maria, Chase, Topher, MK, Justin, and Ripper.]
"Got a new job, gonna start at the mall today!"
[Pictures of the seven displayed. The top row had Anne Maria, Topher, Justin, and Jasmine, and the bottom row had Chase, Ripper, and MK. The song ended with the cast throwing scraps in the air as the camera zoomed out to show the entire set.]
"How do we get out of here?" Chase asked after the montage ended, looking around the room with his teammates-turned-allies.
"It's likely some kind of secret passage," MK said. "We should try bumping into random things. One of them's probably a switch."
All seven were shown searching the cavern for a few more seconds, until Justin rested on a particularly seat-like stalagmite which turned out to not be a stalagmite at all, but merely a large switch in the shape of one. He nearly lost his balance and fell over as a part of the nearby wall slid away, but he stopped herself in time. "Over here!" he called to the others.
"Way to go, Justin!" Topher congratulated him.
"Good eye!" Jasmine added in as well before they all headed for the exit.
Confessional: Justin
"Now that I'm a hideously deformed circus freak, I have to rely on my brains to win this thing," Justin confessed before looking up at his head. "You hear me, brain? Yeah! I'm speaking to you!"
Confessional Ends
Justin joined the others in the elevator that had been revealed in the wall, and the doors slid shut with a ding.
A dinging sound characteristic of an elevator stopping at multiple floors accompanied a rising shot of what appeared, on the outside, to be a large water tower. The scene cut inside, revealing a large and mostly-empty circular room that was lined with carved stone columns. In the very center was a pedestal with a tall glass dome enclosing a bag of something or other, and illuminated from below.
Another ding sounded as the castmates walked into the room, Ripper and MK taking the lead followed by the rest in the back.
"Cool!" Ripper said with an awestruck smile.
"Awesome!" MK echoed with a smile of her own.
"This is like some kind of museum!" Jasmine added.
The viewpoint shifted behind the seven as they came to a halt and another hologram of Chris – back in his usual clothes and covered in faint scratch marks – was projected in front of them. "Don't I look awesome in blue?" he said idly to his uninterested audience. "Now, for the first part of the spy movie challenge. See that case in the middle of the room?" He pointed to the glass-covered pedestal, and the camera cut in for a close-up of it. "You have to get whatever's inside, 'cause you're gonna need it for part two of the challenge!"
"An easy smash and grab?" Ripper smirked as he walked forward. "Just my cup of tea!"
As he walked cockily past one of the pillars, a small panel slid open in it and a laser popped out, the beam quickly reflecting off a number of mirrors mounted around the room. The host cleared his throat just as a beam shot over Ripper's shoulder causing the boy to yelp and recoil away from it, and Chris said "I need to finish! You gotta get whatever's inside without setting off the alarm. But be careful. Those lasers will cut you clear in half!"
"I'm a lot better whole!" Chase said in shock.
"Fitting under there is gonna be tough for my weight," Ripper warily approached the laser field.
"But for me, it's no problem," MK told him.
"Brain, got any ideas?" Justin spoke to himself.
"I think I can handle this," Jasmine said as she crouched down and pounced through a gap in front of her, rolling back on her feet without getting hit once. "I'm not gonna be a singed turkey today!" she said with a confident smirk.
The footage skipped forward to Jasmine doing an awkward headstand in the middle of the laser field, her legs bent at two awkward angles as she wobbled in place, trying to keep herself from falling over.
"In retrospect, I should have done something else!" she exclaimed just before the camera pulled back a little to show Chase slinking through the lasers nearby.
"My athletic skills are really coming through for this!" Chase said, only to yelp after accidentally touching one of the beams with his fingertips. "I also need to improve on my concentration skills."
The shot cut over to Topher and Anne Maria, the latter quickly ducking through the lasers with ease while the former struggled to maneuver his muscular upper body low enough to pass under the next beam. "Agh!" he cried in pain as his back got singed, and he looked up to see Anne Maria standing in front of him with a small smile on her face.
"Would you like some help, Topher?" she asked.
"Obviously!" Topher answered, singeing his shoulder when he tried to move it.
Another cut put the focus on MK as she maneuvered the field with a confident smile on her face. From a crouching position, she jumped up and over the next laser between her and the case, tucking her legs and rolling in mid-air before landing on both feet. "This is actually kind of fun!"
Meanwhile, Ripper was now in a tangled position as he tried to move through the lasers. "Couldn't the lasers have been more spread apart?!" he said.
The camera cut over to Justin, who had yet to enter the laser field and was holding his mirror. "Okay, brain, it's all up to you. I know you haven't had a lot of exercise in the past, um... sixteen years, give or take, but you can do this."
He started making his way towards the lasers, only to slip and slide towards one of the beams below him. Justin used his mirror to shield his face, and in return, reflected the beam backwards. "Mirror mirror in my hand, who is the smartest one of all?" the eye candy chanted after the discovery.
The focus moved back to Chase as he slipped down under another low beam, and the shot briefly cut to an overhead view of the room, showing that he and MK were the closest to the central case, followed by the still-upside-down Jasmine, Anne Maria and Topher, and Justin and Ripper still close to the edge of the lasers.
"How do you feel knowing that us four are gonna dominate the other three in the votes from here on out?" MK said to the daredevil.
"Pretty good. Our chances of winning are secured, but I have some doubts about it," Chase responded without taking his eyes off the lasers in front of him.
MK paused in her tracks, and gave Chase a look of suspicion. "What do you mean you have doubts? You were the first to agree with Jasmine's proposal."
Chase got himself between two lasers safely. "It's just that you and me don't really get along that much. You'll likely betray me, Ripper, or Jasmine if it means it'll benefit you."
MK started to step over another laser, which just about finished closing the gap between her and Chase. "I only betrayed Scott, and he was a threat last season. I'm not gonna do the same to you guys."
Confessional: MK
"I'm bluffing," MK told the confessional camera. "There's no way I'm not gonna drop one of my alliance members when the game is nearly over. Millie being gone is a blessing. If she was still here, she'd convince Chase to gun for me."
Confessional Ends
"Just a little more," Anne Maria said softly as she guided Topher's leg over a laser with one hand and held onto him with the other. "There!" she smiled once the leg was temporarily out of harm's way again.
"Thanks!" Topher smiled at her before turning a troubled look towards the case. "But I don't think we're going to get to the case first."
"Yeah," Anne Maria said while looking in the same direction, "but we should at least try. We're not last season's quitters anymore!" She quickly ducked under the next laser, then took him by the hand and started to guide him forward as well.
"Uh, pros and cons of life as a circus freak," Justin wondered to himself, still in the same position. "Pro, travel. Con... the bearded chick."
The scene moved back to Chase, who was now ducking and sliding closer and closer to the case until he was out of harm's way. "I made it first!!" he whooped before giving the case a blank stare. "So, what do I do now?"
"Just grab something and smash it open!" Ripper called, having gotten further ahead but was still lagging behind.
"That's not an entirely good idea," Jasmine told him, her legs ready to be rested. "It's possible that Chris gave the case more than one layer of protection!"
"I'm pretty sure the only protection this has is the glass," Chase said as he looked at the case, then bent down to examine the pedestal it was on. "What exactly am I supposed to smash it with?"
"Just punch it with your hands or better yet, headbutt it," Ripper suggested as he wobbled on his hands.
"Actually," Chase replied, turning his head back towards him and grinning, "I think I have an idea."
He took a few steps back and jumped into the air in order to karate kick the case heavily with his foot. There was no effect at first, but once he landed back down, the glass shattered into countless pieces.
Almost immediately, the lasers began to turn off. "Splendid!" Jasmine smiled as the beams around her retreated, the machines creating them retracting into the columns around the room, prompting her to fall on her back.
Confessional: Ripper
"About time those lasers went off," Ripper confessed, "One of my brothers pressed his hands on my dad's iron one snowy day because he stuck his hands in snow and wanted to warm them up!" He laughed briefly at the memory. "That's why I didn't run through the lasers. I didn't want a third degree burn like my brother."
Confessional Ends
"Umm, what am I supposed to do with a weird gun and wire cutters?" Chase asked as he pulled the tool and a grappling gun out of the sack and the others walked over to him.
"They're meant to help escape a building that's about to explode," Anne Maria told him.
At that instant, the room was tinted red as Chris' hologram reappeared. "The room blows in ten!" he announced with an evil grin as an appropriately dangerous tune began to play in the background and the castmates screamed. The camera focused on a small timer in the corner of the projection, which counted down along with the host. "Nine! Eight!"
(Commercial Break)
The episode returned to a repeat of Chase discovering the tools and Anne Maria describing what they were meant for just as Chris' hologram reappeared.
"The room blows in ten!" Chris counted down as the castmates screamed. "Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five!"
"I don't want to die!" Topher cried as he grabbed Anne Maria and held her tight.
"That makes both of us!" Anne Maria cried and embraced him back.
"There's no time to escape!" Ripper shrieked in panic and hugged Justin without thinking.
"Where's the exit?!" Chase shouted with frantic fear as he and Jasmine looked around the room.
"I'm too cool to be killed!" MK stood in the middle of them all, eyes clenched tight.
"Three! Two! One!" Each group of castmates was shown again in quick succession. "PBBBT! SUCKERS!" A raspberry and laughing exclamation ended the countdown, and the red light faded from the room. "You shoulda seen the looks on your faces!"
All seven glared up at him, but the camera focused on Topher and Anne Maria as they looked back at each other and separated.
Confessional: Anne Maria
"Even though he only did it because he thought we were about to die, I… kinda enjoy hugging Topher at that moment." Anne Maria admitted. "I don't let anybody touch my hair, tan, and everywhere, but I'll make an exception for Topher. He's a pretty good hugger."
Confessional Ends
"You'll need the zipwire gun and the wire cutters for the next spy challenge," Chris told the cast. "Whether Chase, our little cat burglar, chooses to share the tools with the tools," he said as Chase was shown looking at the two items he'd won, "is totally up to him. Oh! And by the way! The first countdown was just a test! The real countdown begins, now!"
The room was bathed in red light again and the timer appeared in the corner of the projected screen as the grinning host began to count. "Thirty! Twenty-nine! Twenty-eight!"
"We really are gonna die!" Topher shrieked.
"But we can't be!" Ripper exclaimed. "What's to say that Chris isn't faking us out again?"
The camera quick-panned down and outside to the base of the tower, where a large number of bombs, mines, and fireworks were planted.
It cut back inside as Jasmine spoke up. "Well I am not going to risk my life against Chris's whims. We need to set up the zip line now."
The shot moved to MK as she walked over to the wall and pushed against one of the panels – it swung out into the open air with little resistance. "Come over and check this out!" she waved the others over.
Jasmine looked out through the hole. "Just what we needed," she said. "If we can secure one end of the line to a building, and the other to this pillar," she pointed at the nearby column, "then we can escape."
Confessional: MK
"I'm aware that Chase has the gun to save our lives, and knowing him, he'll definitely save our lives without asking for anything in return," MK theorized. "I'm not saying that I'd be heartless enough to let my competition die unless I was given something like a cut of the money, but I would save everybody first and then ask for something small like a share of today's reward."
Confessional Ends
Chase started to walk towards the opening. "Is anybody gonna come with me or not?" he asked.
"You're not going to ask for anything in return?" MK asked.
"Why would I?" Chase responded. "If this is not another fake-out, then I am definitely not letting either of you die."
The shot cut over to a close-up of the time as it ticked down to 16, 15, 14 before moving back to the castmates. "This is unsurprisingly selfless and noble of you!" Ripper said dryly.
"Hey, it's what I do," Chase said, and the footage was paused.
Chris stepped in front of the screen and said "I knew there was a good reason for Chase to be in this season. He's as reckless as he is nice!" He stepped back out of sight, and the footage unpaused.
The daredevil started to glare, and the timer was shown counting down to 11 and 10. "The clock's ticking," he reminded the others. "Are you in, or not?"
"We're in!" Topher agreed. "I am too young to die!"
"Great!" Chase then pointed the zipwire gun at the hole in the wall and fired. The view moved outside as the grappling hook flew out of the tower, bounced a few times off the roof of a nearby building, and was reeled back in until it got hooked on a vent.
Back inside, Chase was tying the other end of the line around a nearby column when MK spoke up. "How are we all gonna fit with just one line?"
"Leave that to me," Jasmine said. She removed her belt, slung it over the line, then positioned herself in front of the opening. "Hop on, everyone!"
The beeping continued as the shot moved back outside, focusing on the belt first as it slid down the line before zooming out to show the screaming contestants – Jasmine holding onto the belt, Ripper and Topher holding onto her, Anne Maria with her arms around Topher's neck, Ripper having MK on his back and Chase on his leg, and Justin with his arms around Chase's chest.
They landed on the other roof, with Justin skidding along for a bit, MK flipping forward onto her back shortly before Topher landed with Anne Maria on top on him, Ripper landing on his butt, and Chase flying past the screen with a scream before Jasmine face-planted.
"It's gonna blow!" Ripper cried as he squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears. The shot cut over to the explosives at the base of the tower as the lone fuse burned the last few inches...and fizzled.
"Crimney! We've been had again!" Jasmine exclaimed as she got up and put her belt back on.
"Chris is just downright awful," Chase grumbled.
"As if we have the budget to blow up an entire building!" Chris explained, the camera panning across the roof to reveal him at the end leaning against some tarp-covered object. "I was just playing with ya! Again. Because I can," he grinned.
"Some of us almost wet ourselves!" Topher said angrily.
"Right. Some of us did," Ripper said, immediately covering his wet spot on his shorts.
"Okay, kiddies!" Chris announced. "Time for your next super-spook challenge!" He grabbed the tarp and yanked it away, revealing a series of identical-looking oil drums with LCD timers strapped and wired onto the side. "In front of you, you will see seven bombs," he told them as he walked in front of the seven drums. "You will have to deactivate the bombs with only the tools you got from the last challenge – the wire cutters. Oh, wait!" the host frowned playfully. "Wasn't Chase the only one who got the wire cutters?"
"Locked and loaded!" Chase smiled at the tool in his hand.
Chris laughed. "Well, I guess everybody else will just have to find their own way of cuttin' the wires," he said with a jovial shrug. "Sucks to be you! Any questions?"
"Will you be giving us the bomb schematics?" MK asked.
"Is this another fake out?" Justin raised his hand.
"Is this something we can actually do, or are these gonna blow up no matter which wire we cut?" Jasmine asked bluntly and forcefully.
"Cool," Chris said with a grin. "If there are no questions, then what are we waiting for?" He walked a couple feet away, then paused and turned back. "Oh yeah! One more thing! Those barrels are filled with the most stinky, the most noxious substances known to humankind! Yeah, that's right. We're talking major stink bomb."
"Worse than a perfume spill?" Anne Maria asked.
"Yes," Chris replied simply. "Yes it is. Yo, Chef!" he called off to the side.
The large man rose up to the roof on a scissor lift wearing a tennis outfit. "Why can't you handle this?" Chef told the host while walking over to the bombs. "I'm busy!" He flipped a switch next to the first barrel from the right, then walked back.
A quick series of high-pitched beeps signaled the bombs' activation, and the camera zoomed in on the timer – now counting down from 3:00. Chris got on to the scissor lift with Chef, and they started to descend. "Good luck," the host told the castmates, "'cause this time, you're really gonna need it."
The contestants took positions behind each of the bombs, with Chase and Anne Maria taking the pair on the far right. "Okay, looks like we got blue, yellow, and red wires," the Jersey girl mused as she looked over the bomb.
Next to her, Chase was quietly inspecting his bomb with the wire cutters held tentatively above. The camera short-panned to the left to show Ripper, MK, and Jasmine at the next three bombs.
"Didn't you say you had an IQ of 170?" Ripper asked the girl next to him.
"That doesn't mean that I can't stop the bomb with my mind!" MK shot back.
"This alliance is definitely going to need more spirit," Jasmine mumbled.
The camera panned over to Topher and Justin. "Defusing stink bombs is not something that I want to do as a job," Topher said to himself.
"Okay, brain. Now's the time to bring it," Justin said. "Eenie, meenie, miny, mo. Ooh! Or is it miny, meenie, eenie, mo? Brain, don't be messing with me now!"
"Okay, so which one am I supposed to cut?" Chase wondered.
"One that doesn't cause your stink bomb to explode," MK told him dryly.
"I know that," Chase said, "but how are we supposed to guess which one it is?"
"Just use luck," MK muttered.
"Isn't it the red wire they always cut in the movies?" Ripper wondered aloud as the camera short-panned back to him. "Or is that the one you're not supposed to cut? Think, Ripper, think!"
Topher sighed as the timer ticked down past 2:00. "We should just guess randomly!" He grabbed the red wire and began to snap it on his knee. It broke in seconds, and the timer attached to it stopped counting down.
"Hey! It worked!" Jasmine cheered. "Nice job, Topher!"
"Yeah!" MK spat. "He won the challenge."
"Hold off on the celebrations!!" Chase shouted. "The rest of us still have to defuse the bombs and we've only got fifty-three seconds!"
"Got it," Jasmine said seriously. She tore the red wire with her bare hands.
MK took a bite out of her wire and spit it out. "Done!"
Ripper ripped his wire apart forcefully. "Done!"
Justin used the sun's ray through his mirror to melt his wire. "Done!"
Anne Maria filed her wire with her nail filer until it was cut through. "Done!"
And Chase used his wire cutters on his wire. "Done!"
"We did it!" Topher cheered.
"This alliance is working wonders already!" Jasmine said.
"Brain, this just might be the start of a beautiful friendship," Justin smiled.
Anne Maria frowned. "If we cut the wires, then where is that beepin' comin' from?" She looked down to see that her and a couple other bombs were still ticking.
"This can't be real!" Chase panicked.
"Brain, we are so over!" Justin scolded his brain.
"This is not going to be good!" Ripper braced himself.
The view cut to some nondescript hillside where an explosion could be seen in the distance. The cast could all be heard complaining about the smell and coughing.
The camera panned down and to the left, showing Chris sitting casually by some film equipment, sipping a cup of coffee. "What?" he asked the camera, setting his cup down on the saucer in his hand. "Obviously we're not gonna wire each bomb exactly the same way," he explained to the camera in a put-upon tone. "That would be way too easy for our production crew! And no fun for me!" He leaned back in his chair and laughed.
A chipmunk was shown perched in a tree, looking down as the colorful stench of something below wafted up to it. It took a single sniff, then fell from its branch, bounced off the roof of the girls' trailer, and fell into a large pool of something red where the contestants were sitting amidst a fog of foul odor.
Chef appeared at the side of the pool, a gas mask on his face as he poured a large tomato-labeled can in. The shot pulled out, showing that all the contestants save Justin were in the pool.
"Well this absolutely blows," Ripper grumbled as Chef emptied his can and walked off-screen.
"I'd rather have gotten our suffering over with and ripped apart all the wires if we had known that they weren't all the same," MK added.
"At least the tomato soup is good for the skin," Jasmine spoke up. "The Vitamin C in them boosts collagen and provides skin texture, firmness, and tone."
Just then, Justin came up for air with his mirror. "Agh, with this hideous facial deformity, I'll need all the help I can get, sister."
"Glad you like it," Chef said as he came back and tossed a handful of bendy straws into the pool, "'cause it's also dinner." He chuckled darkly and walked away, and the castmates hesitantly picked up the straws as they floated by.
Topher stuck his tongue out in disgust, then forced a smile. "As disgusting as this is, we're all in this together."
"Hey Toph, what was with that goody-goody act earlier today?" Ripper shot at him.
"Yeah!" MK chimed in. "Were you trying to gain something from us or what?!"
"I just wanted to show you all that I wasn't a bad guy," Topher answered. "I did just join halfway in the game, and I knew that all of you would distrust me."
"You were eliminated first last season because you didn't contribute much to the team," Jasmine told him. "And you gave off a bad impression."
"Yeah, but people can change," Topher said.
The shot pulled back to show Chris approaching in a gas mask of his own. "Is everybody having fun yet?" he asked mischievously. "Chase and Topher, as the winners of the first and second challenges, you get the reward! An all-expense paid trip to..."
"Jamaica?" Topher asked excitedly. "London? China?"
"How about Hollywood?" Chase added with a smile of his own. "The number of stunts you can do there are one in a million."
"Good guesses, but no," Chris answered with a smile. "It's an all-expense paid trip to...a local cheese factory!"
"Cheese factory?" Chase repeated in confusion.
"While on tour," Chris continued, "you'll get to sample all the cheeses of the world! From blue cheese, to green cheese, to head cheese, which isn't technically a cheese, but reeks just the same!"
"You gotta bring me back some gouda if you can," Anne Maria said, putting her hand on Topher's shoulder. "I love me some of that."
"I'd also like some fancy cheese too!" Ripper said as well.
"Fine," Topher said. "We'll get you all something."
"Hey Chris, how long do we have to remain in this pool until the stink wears off?" MK asked the host.
"Oh, I'd say another twelve hours should do," Chris told her as he walked away.
"Better make good use of our time," Jasmine shrugged and sunk into the soup.
"The teams are no more," Chris told the camera after the scene flashed forward and he took off his gas mask. "Let's see how these stinkers do on their own next time on Total! Drama! Action!"
Just as the scene began to fade, the white cat he'd been stroking earlier attacked his face again.
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
The scene showed the limousine of losers, the scenery out the partially-open window indicating that it was still daytime. Topher was sitting next to it on the far left, and Chase was sitting on the far right, and neither were looking at each other.
This continued for several awkward seconds until Topher finally turned his head and asked "So what's up with your agility prowess?"
"Oh, I, uh, took a gymnastics class and learned some moves in order to prep myself up as a daredevil," Chase replied awkwardly and fell silent for a few seconds. "What about you? What hobbies do you have?
"Um, I'm interested in photography and hair designing," Topher answered. "I know how to make normal hair stylish and I'm one of the student managers of the yearbook club."
Silence filled the limo for several more seconds. "You know, we should just stay silent for the rest of the trip," Chase said.
"Yeah. That's something we can agree on," Topher said as well.
Eva - 15th
Geoff - 15th
Izzy - RETURNED
Trent - 13th
Sky - 12th
Brick - 11th
Scott - 10th
Izzy - 9th
Millie - 8th
Boys: Chase, Justin, Ripper, Topher
Girls: Anne Maria, Jasmine, MK
Author's Note: Fun fact, pretty much everyone here is a pre-merger from last season this time around. That's pretty cool when you think about it.