Tonight is the grand finale of The Joe Schmo Show. If you're not familiar with the show, please check out my original post on the show. The premise of the show is pretty simple: lock nine people into the same house for a week and have them compete against each other until only one is left, who wins bug money. Except that eight of the nine contestants are working from a script, and only one has no idea what is going to happen.
As concepts go, this one is brilliant, and I think it is pulled off amazingly well. They picked their real contestant extremely well. He's gullible enough to swallow just about anything they pull, and so far he hasn't caught on that they're reenacting and satirizing moments from other reality shows, from The Real World to Fear Factor and undoubtedly others that I haven't watched.
And tonight it all comes crashing down.
Where We Are
All of the housemates but three have been voted off, and it is the final night in the house. The previous housemates are all brought back in to cast their votes for who should win the $100,000, and we've heard all but one of the six votes. The final voter was cut off just as she was about to speak the name of her choice by a "to be continued..." screen.
Spoiler alert: I'm not sure this matters, since the big finale is tonight, but if you really don't want to know even who the final three are before sitting through the whole thing, stop now. Don't bother skipping, either, because if you don't want to know from me, you won't be watching tonight, either.
The final three are Brian "The Buddy," Hutch "The @$$hole", and of course Matt "Joe Schmo". Since everything was scripted months previously, each voter has been able to give a plausible sounding and even almost predictable reason for his or her choice, and the count was two votes for Brian, two for Matt, and one for Hutch, and the remaining voter is the person who slept with Hutch during the week. Well, not really, but Matt thinks that she did.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
I was going to point out that this was only "today" because it was posted after midnight Eastern time, while it is still Monday where I am. But then by the time I figured out that Amazon is just truly being difficult and pulled the ASINs out until later in the day, it's after midnight here in the Central time zone, too.
Oh well.
2 - Phillip Winn
I laughed, I cried, it moved me. Would I have caught on? I certainly wouldn't have been as nice a guy.
My only complaint: How long after the final reveal was the follow-up interview in the second hour taped? It wasn't clear at all.
3 - Marcel
Anyone know if there is a CD with all episodes of The Joe Schmo Show??