King of the Nerds episode 107 recap: Let’s get physical

By Natt Garun March 1, 2013

Hey guys, when you were kids, did you ever try to stack random objects on top of each other to see how far you can go before the tower comes toppling down? If you said yes, congratulations: You could have been a contestant on “King of the Nerds”! Really, I think that’s all the skills you need to succeed in this show.

This week’s episode finally got down to the real nerdy stuff, or at least it would appear. The Nerd War challenge had our remaining nerds calculate how many sheets of glass random objects would break depending on how heavy the object is, how high up the object is dropped, and the distances at which the sheets of glass are placed. “What the heck, it was all fun and games and now we have to sit here and do physics problems?” Celeste complains. Oh, Celeste, you magnificent idiot. Pretty soon you will come to realize math has very little to do with this challenge but just a use of common sense.

The challenge starts off with the hosts showing contestants how many panes of glass one 12-pound ball breaks. Using that as a frame of reference, the three other instances are pretty guessable. Moogega, a NASA engineer, is clearly excited by this challenge and goes off calculating her formulas while the rest of the nerds freak out over their lack of physics understanding. Danielle, in particular, feels the most lost, because she never took physics in school. Instead, she stays up until 3 a.m, looking up “My Little Pony” physics lessons to help estimate her answers.

At the challenge, Moo is afraid of getting the wrong responses. After all, she’s a scientist, and it would be embarrassing to essentially suck at her job. But as the show has always set up, nerds who say they’re good at something never prove their case. Such was the example when Celeste failed to win points in the gaming challenge, Alana didn’t know her comic books trivia, and Virgil lost at his favorite dancing game. Moo “trusted her numbers” too much and miscalculated all two out of three instances when, in reality, you could just look at the ball and use logic to guess how many glass panes it could break. An eight-pound ball coming down on one-inch thick sheets spaced five inches apart? No way it could go through more than two. You don’t need to be a NASA engineer to figure that out.

Danielle is proclaimed the winner with two correct answers, and since there are no longer teams, the losers get to nominate one person for the Nerd Off while Danielle picks the other. At first, she plans to pick Genevieve because she’s managed to survived two eliminations, but has a change of heart when she realizes the trophy is called “The Throne of Games,” not comic books (Gen’s forte), physics (Moo’s forte), or design (Ivan’s forte). But before she makes her final decision to vote Celeste off, our pro gamer convinces Danielle otherwise – saying Genevieve is just conspiring Danielle to help her stick around so she can beat everyone later. You can’t leave anyone alone in this house before they scheme against you.

Moo nominates herself so she can redeem a challenge in her field, which consists of the aforementioned item stacking – first person to 10 feet wins. Genevieve is revealed to go up against Moo, a decision that left her with the ugliest cry I’ve ever seen on TV. But thanks to homeschooling and spending her youth days building random toys on top of each other, the challenge is a no brainer for Gen, and she manages to embarrass Moo twice in the same show. Ouch. Our resident scientist is sent packing, leaving us in fears that this lady is responsible for designing us spaceships and rockets.

Next week, the finale of “King of the Nerds.” Stick with me, guys, we’re almost to the end.

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