FUTURE SHOCK THERAPY: Episode 11.4 Recap

THIS IS WAY MORE AWESOME THAN GIRLS IN BIKINIS AND FIRE! 

We're halfway home on the eleventh season of Future Shock.  Four episodes down, three to go, and now things really start heating up. As is usual for the bikini joust, things got pretty crazy, although at least this time we didn't have Casey Atherton getting involved when it wasn't even her own season.  She's taken some very long strides, that girl. 

So how do the ladies stand after the joust? Well..

1. MARLA LEE- She won, of course, as Marla's well on her way to turning in one of the most dominating seasonal performances in the history of Future Shock.  Now she has immunity.  Of course, she wasn't going to be eliminated, but immunity means she won't even be on the ballot.  Since she's pretty much won every fan vote so far (or came close) that forces her votes to be dispersed.  That's going to have a huge impact on who's going home, but I'll get to that in a second. 

2. LOLLIPOP- Marla's stiffest competition remained just so this week, although I'm not sure how much her jumping the gun is going to help her in the voting though.  It certainly didn't end up doing so in the joust, as she left herself wide open for some payback from Raven that cost her the win.  Lollipop's pretty much finished second in every single challenge thus far though, so it's tough to see her in trouble. 

3. VELVET RAVEN- Not the best follow-up to her six-pack winning performance in Episode 3, but Velvet made her presence known.  The rivalry erupting between her and Lollipop should extend to the polls as well, with those who find Lollipop's maniacal methods tiresome wanting a more stoic candidate.  

4. LEAH O'QUINN- Gave what was by far her best performance of the season, but despite me having her over the cutline, I'm not sure if it'll be enough.  Her gamesmanship has been terrible: despite being deaf, she's fully capable of speaking coherently a ten minute monologue with decent diction and little real difficulty.  So why in the HELL did she wait until it was practically too late to show this side of her?  Instead she resorted to rather dry video packages of some faceless announcer exhorting her every move.  She may have just waited a bit too long here, and that's why she's so close to... 

=========THE DREADED CUTLINE=============

5. LANA STAR- Lana is by far the worst competitor remaining in the season.  In fact, ability wise, she's close to one of the worst in Future Shock history.  She's finished at or near the bottom of every single competition thus far.  By all rights, she should have been sent packing weeks ago.  But she hasn't and I doubt she will this week.  Why?  Because of Marla's immunity.  Marla has developed a huge following in Future Shock, despite (or because of) her rather... war criminalesque methods.  She's out of the voting this week, which means all those Marla fans vote for someone else.  Now, if you wanted Marla to win this competition, who would you put through?  Her biggest threat Lollipop?   The explosive Velvet?  The budding Leah?  Or the train wreck Lana, who would give Marla the easiest win inside the Thunderdome?  Rumors already suggest that Lana's again finishing strong in voting.  And if that's true, well, Marla's one step closer to total domination.