Average Joe Season Commentary
As with any new season of any reality show, season four of Average Joe promises many exciting changes. The first obvious change is that the twenty-two hopefuls are met with three Average Joes from Season Two – Brian, David and Fredo. They put twenty-two guys through a series of tests including dodgeball and talent to see which eighteen will be moving on. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m struggling to see what dodgeball prowess has to do with being a successful mate. One of the Joes picked even states that Darwin must be rolling over in his grave.
The object of these men’s affections will be Anna, a model and entrepreneur from Las Vegas. She hasn’t seen any reality TV show since she has been taking night classes the past few years, and has no idea what this show is about or the history of it. She doesn’t know that the public has been screaming for a Joe to be picked instead of the studly men that are always cast as spoilers.
The first man off the bus to greet her is Dante, a large man with crazy hair and an array of Elton John glasses. For his talent that he showed Brian, David and Fredo, he did a rhythmic gymnastics routine. He hands Anna a tinfoil flower and after he meets her, he is left crying, saying she is such a beautiful person. She is met after by a Jesus look-alike, a man obsessed with magic, the requisite virgin, an exterminator and a bartender named Igor.
After she meets them she is filmed by hidden cameras on the yacht she will be calling home for the duration of the show. She says she gets the obvious joke here and she admits to feeling very special. She’s certainly a lot easier going about it than the previous women in the other seasons, and doesn’t seem to take as much convincing as them.
At the cocktail party to get to know the men better, Anna is approached by the magician, Nick. She shows him a card trick she knows and he begins thinking it’s some type of fate. The Jesus look-alike, Joshua, tells her he is in construction, and Anna says she did construction before too. Aaron F. thinks he looks like Ben Affleck or JFK Junior and Art sings for her. The other Joes notice that Dante’s soft side is coming out when he is around Anna.
This isn’t a show where the men are picked because they have a lot to offer initially; they are picked because they’re goofy or complete novices in the dating world. As charming as they all are, we all know why they are there, to become a caricature of what an Average Joe is. Every woman out there is left wondering if she’d have the courage to date Dante and knowing she’s dated way too many guys that may fall into this category. Every man out there is left wondering if women consider him an Average Joe.
As Anna faces the men, and tells them she now needs to send six of them home, she prefaces it by saying it really sucks and that she’s sorry. The first Joe sent home is Aaron K., still thinking he is a Ben or JFK look-alike, and believing it must be rigged, as there are several men there he thinks are less datable than him. He doesn’t get it it apparently like Anna does. It’s not about looks at this point. It’s about who they are as a person. But not seeing past that, he’s no better than the studs that will soon join the show and provide the Joes competition.
Harold “Solid” Gold and Damian are eliminated. Again, it’s not the looks. Harold is eliminated most likely because he thinks it’s cool to be nicknamed after a bad dance show from the 80s. Damian is gone because he can’t stop talking about his Mensa intellect. If he proved the intellect instead of talking about it, he may have lasted.
Bill, a fellow redhead to Anna, is eliminated as she says she enjoyed talking to him, but it just didn’t click. He had started the show, before he saw what Anna looked like, saying two redheads don’t make a right, so assumably it’s okay for him, yet Anna turns her head and cries a little. Height-challenged Matt is eliminated and a check of the Average Joe site on NBC says that Matt had the toenails on both big toes surgically removed because he was tired of cutting them. That one needs no commentary; it speaks for itself.
Sadly, Nick the magician is the last eliminated. He is completely shocked. Yet one of the new twists this season is that one eliminated Joe each week will receive a makeover and will later re-enter the game. Nick is the chosen one this week. His eyebrows are waxed, teeth straightened, and his diet and exercise regime improved. He also meets with a a life coach and learns it’s best not to spend his whole conversation upon meeting someone taking about magic. He’ll enter the game later and we’ll get to see if these changes are enough for Anna.
The interesting thing at this point is that the pretense of the show is that it’s all about looks. The beautiful woman choosing from a field of ordinary-at-best looking men. Yet the eliminations were clearly not based on looks. The question is, will she change her tune once the model-perfect men are brought in next week? Perhaps the show has finally found a woman that will actually entertain choosing a Joe in the end, and will find true happiness. God save us all if she chooses Dante.
