(Female Version) Life's a B**ch: A What Would You Do Story (Part 1 of 3)

“Do you smell that?”

It was a bright, sunny early afternoon in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the start of the long Memorial Day weekend. The air was warm and full of possibility. The days were getting longer, the temperatures getting warmer. It was also Day 1 of the inaugural Life’s a Beach Festival, a 4-day music festival which would bring over 100 artists to perform on stages built right on the sand.

Festivalgoers were encouraged to camp on the beach, and the beachfront was set up to accommodate them: just off the festival grounds sat a temporary campground where visitors could set up tents, allowing them to attend without spending exorbitant amounts on beachfront hotel rooms, all of which inflated prices just for the festival. All the better for the organizers to vacuum up that money instead, redirecting it from Hilton, Sheraton, or the Shellfish Motor Inn toward their own overpriced food, drinks, and merchandise.

Families and festivalgoers alike shared the boardwalk on this Friday midday – hot dogs, sodas, ice creams in hand – when they caught a whiff of spoiled milk and sugar. Some scrunched up their faces. They looked at each other. They looked around. Then, they spotted them: the cause of that rank odor and the accompanying question.

Four college girls trudging down the boardwalk, as if in a trance. A couple were dressed in shapeless, oversized T-shirts that they clearly just got; another was in an American flag bikini that looked like it had been through a war; and the last in a matching outfit that used to be pristine white, but now was stained in all kinds of colors above her chest and all over her butt. And it looks like it’s… is that duct tape holding it together?

And that was just their clothes. Their faces had remnants of gooey substances all over them, smears of green, white, blue, and others. Their hair was all knotted, mangled, and matted to their backs. They all looked in desperate need of a shower, and seemed both embarrassed and dejected to be out in public looking like this.

[Four hours earlier]

Just after 9am, the girls parked their overstuffed Kia Soul at the campground parking lot, having just completed a 23-hour drive that took 2.5 days to complete. They were all 20-year-old members of the Omega Delta sorority, about to be seniors at the University of Minnesota, and in fact drove straight from Minneapolis, their shoestring college budgets leaving them no choice but to hit the open road. They were both bleary-eyed and enervated, prepared to rough it for four days and three nights in nothing but a small camping spot. Still, they were ready to make this a weekend to remember.

With a few hours to kill before the first artists hit the stage, the girls decided to kill time on the boardwalk. Three of them were content to just wear what they wore to bed last night, but for Bea, the overachiever in the group, her rumpled pajamas wouldn’t do.

For someone who worked hard on sculpting her muscular body – mostly by rock climbing at least thrice a week – she wasn’t about to be seen wearing any old thing.

Despite the cramped quarters of the backseat, Bea transformed in an instant, straightening her messy brown hair trading a ratty pair of running shorts and a standard issue U of M t-shirt for something much more attention-grabbing: an American flag-patterned tube top bikini, which she covered with a black v-neck tank top, enough to show off a lot of boobs and her rock hard abs; and a matching red and white striped bikini bottom, which she covered with a black mini-skirt and fishnet stockings. All this barely covered her shapely butt, acquired through some combination of her Puerto Rican heritage and her relentlessness at the gym.

All the while, the other three girls killed time on Instagram, doing their best to ignore their high-maintenance bestie. They each did a perfunctory bit of their own makeup in a halfhearted attempt to match Bea, but apathy was the prevailing mood in the car after their long sojourn. Best to save their energy for the concert.

They only made it a couple of blocks when they saw it. On the marquee of one beachside building, a sign reading, “TV SHOW TAPING TODAY! WIN VIP PASSES TO L-A-B FEST!”

They ran to the ticket window to learn how to enter. A cheery attendant gave them each a wristband, and instructions to return at 11am.

Comedy Channel was an official festival sponsor, and were holding what amounted to a pre-fest party by shooting a new episode of their popular variety show, the rebooted What Would You Do. With VIP passes to all four days at stake, which entitled the holders to upgraded camping accommodations and prime viewing areas of the four stages, the line was down the boardwalk when the girls returned just before 11.

Luckily, the line moved quickly, and they found themselves seated in the fourth row center. They looked around at the opulent set with its wacky looking contraptions and bright colors and immediately felt transported back to the 80s. Or what they heard the 80s were like. With literally hundreds of people in the audience, they wondered how on earth they’d ever be the ones picked to get the VIP passes. Maybe this was a waste of time.

Just then, their seatmates, a couple of friendly-looking college guys, asked if they were here for the festival. They all started talking, and the guys revealed they were students at the nearby University of Central Florida. It turned out their campsites were near each other’s, so they pledged to hang out throughout the weekend. One of the men asked if any of them had seen the show before.

“Never!” one of them replied. “We’re just here for a good time.”

One of the guys snickered. A bunch of marks, these four. “Well,” he said, “It gets pretty nutty. If you get picked, be prepared for just about anything.”

Before one of them could ask what he meant, a stagehand called for applause, and the famous What Would You Do theme song began playing. Just a few seconds later, host Marc Summers skipped out on stage under a bed of cheers.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to What Would You Do, how are we doing today?”

The crowd let out a roar, surprising the veteran host.

“Wow, a lot of energy in our studio today, thank you so very much!”

“And it’s no wonder why! We here at the Comedy Channel are excited to be partners of the first-ever Life’s a Beach Festival! By round of applause, who is here for the festival, huh?”

More big energy. Pretty much everyone is here for one purpose: getting their hands on those VIP passes.

“And we’ve got a special giveaway for some lucky people today. Who here wants some VIP passes?”

The ensuing sound could only be described as Taylor Swift tweeting she was at the local Target.

“Well, that’s what we like to hear!” Marc exclaims. “I wanna play a game with some lucky audience members, with the winners taking home a set of these VIP passes. I’ve got a question for everybody. Who here drove from the furthest away? Not flown, drove?”

Countless hands reach for the sky to get Marc’s attention. Groups of people shout their origins, and as Marc scans the crowd, he notices just how uniquely everyone is dressed. People have turned up in all kinds of flashy, colorful, skimpy festival wear.

It’s a dead giveaway. No one who drove from far and wide would have enough energy to put themselves together the way most of these people did. Frauds, Marc thinks to himself. He surmises the furthest most of these people drove was from the Enterprise Rent-A-Car counter at the Orlando airport.

But then he spots a group of four guys dressed in sports jerseys. He points his microphone at a guy in a Space Jam Toon Squad jersey and asks where they’re from.

“Tempe, Arizona!” the boy says. “We go to Arizona State, go Sun Devils!”

Marc is impressed; a trip from Arizona to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean is no small feat. The crowd cheers in envy as Marc invites them up on stage to play.

“Now I’m looking for a group of women, any women from far away with us today?”

The cheers turn to shrieks as the disappointed hands of all the male volunteers recede, leaving only the overenthusiastic, overcaffeinated women to make noise. Again, Marc looks for the most plain looking group he can find, and sees one slender girl wearing all white with her arm ramrod straight up. To the surprise of her friends, he makes a beeline right for her.

“What’s your name, and where are you from?”

“I’m Lizzie, and me and my three girlies just drove in from Minneapolis!”

“Minnesota, terrific!” Marc says. “In that case, would you four please join me as well?”

The girls are all in shock. Of the hundreds of people in this audience, they were handpicked for the chance to win the coveted VIP passes. It was a long, long three days. They felt they deserved them, and that Marc was just in finding and rewarding them.

Not one of them recalled that vague warning. If you get picked, be prepared for just about anything.

Turns out there was a reason Marc sought the most fatigued folks from the audience, the ones who came from the furthest away. For one, a long road trip meant their minds wouldn’t be at 100%, which played right into his game. For another, he figured they probably had to squeeze themselves – and four days of supplies – into some tight little sedan, and likely didn’t bring enough spare changes of clothes to compensate for what this game involved.

Perfect for his sinister intentions.

The eight contestants assembled into two teams on stage, where they were met with a giant 3x3 tic-tac-toe-like board. The What Would You Do logo was in the center square, with the words Mystery Board and numerous question marks in the margin above the squares. The squares themselves are numbered 1 through 8.

Marc joined the two groups on stage. He approached the guys first, asking them to introduce themselves.

• Ricky is Mexican-American, 5’10” and toned with tan skin and close cropped dark brown hair. He was the one sporting the Toon Squad jersey. He paired it with maroon and gold basketball shorts with the Arizona State trident logo on them.
• Charlie pandered to the area by wearing a pink and black Inter Miami jersey with Lionel Messi’s name and #10 on the back, with light blue denim jeans. He looked every bit a soccer player, shorter and more slender with a well-built lower half.
• Jason is jacked, Italian-American and introduced himself with a strong, borderline grating Staten Island accent. He further cemented his bro-y look by parting his hair to one side and holding it in place with hair gel. He looked like he just finished a workout at the outdoor gym on the beach, what with his royal blue skintight tank top with the Superman logo on it, his slim fit running shorts falling gently on his muscular thighs. He was a walking stereotype.
• And finally, Ben, a striking 6’4” with a blonde ponytail and pecs for days beneath his unbuttoned baseball-style button-down shirt. Like Jason, Ben’s thighs were basically popping out of his jorts. Though he was an international student from Sweden, Ben had quickly assimilated to Arizona State’s hard-partying reputation. This transformation made him basically fearless.

After they introduced themselves but before Marc could walk away to let the girls introduce themselves, Jason grabbed the microphone. He growled, “And we’re frat brothers in Pi Delta Alpha! P-D-A, baby, let’s goooooo!!!”

Tepid applause greeted their introductions. These guys were already tough to take.

The attention shifted to the women.

• Lizzie is a member of the school dance team and had the slim, ballerina-type body to prove it. She was cute as hell with long dirty blond hair and oversized gold-framed eyeglasses, but she contrasted that with an outfit that showed off her fit body: a white cropped 3/4-sleeve shirt and matching white leggings, which covered a skimpy white and blue striped bikini top and a matching thong underneath.
• Nicole is somewhere between a blonde and a redhead; she, too, is very in shape, 5’5” with a runner’s build and with much less on than Lizzie: all she wore was a sky blue sports bra, tie-dyed white and sky blue short bike shorts that accentuated her big butt and powerful glutes, and a pair of running shoes.
• Maddie was the Barbie of the group, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a petite build. She wore a pink bralette underneath a magenta cropped hoodie, pink yoga pants covering her long legs. She even had pink nails to match her outfit.
• Of course, in her American flag bikini, black crop top, skirt, and stockings, Bea was the most put-together of the group, totally oblivious of what might happen to her carefully curated outfit. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have had a mile-wide smile as she introduced herself and gave the camera a sultry pose as she brushed her wavy dark brown hair back behind her ears.

For their part, before Marc could explain the game, Lizzie made an attempt to one-up Jason, grabbing the microphone and squealing, “and not only are we members of Omega Delta – stand up O-Delts! – but it’s also my birthdayyy!!”

Lizzie had always been the ringleader of the group, for better or worse. She rallied everyone’s interest in the festival, engineered the road trip, and, of course, was the reason they were on stage right now. It was at this moment that Nicole suddenly remembered seeing GIFs on Twitter of contestants on this show being turned into memes. The one she recalled in particular featured one girl in a dunk tank, plunging 15 terrifying feet into a vat of pie cream. Suddenly, she didn’t want to play anymore. Her daydream/nightmare was interrupted by Marc, addressing her directly as he introduced the game the four girls and four boys were about to play.

“Nicole,” Marc said, “Are you in Florida, or in la la land?”

The audience chuckled. Nicole shook herself out of her stupor and asked, “Sorry, what was the question again?”

“I said, how well do you think you know the lineup to this year’s Life’s a Beach Festival?”

“Pretty good, I think!”

“Excellent,” Marc replied. “Because that’s the premise of our first game today.

“We’ve got four of you on each team, and one team is walking away with some VIP passes to the festival, while the other will walk away with absolutely nothing.

“Or maybe not nothing, but I’ll tell you what, it won’t be VIP passes,” Marc said in a sinister voice.

“Here’s how it’s gonna work. It’s very simple. There are four of you on each team, and there are four days of the music festival. So you’ll each be given one day of the festival, and you’re gonna go head-to-head against a member of the other team, with each of you naming artists performing on that day, until one of you can’t, or until one of you gives me an incorrect answer.

“Now you have to name artists only on your specific day. So if you’re assigned Friday, you tell me Ariana Grande – well, she’s playing Sunday, so you would lose the round, okay? Any questions?”

Marc is met with mostly smiles, head nods, and shakes of the head. He proceeds.

“Now you might be wondering about our Mystery Board here” – Marc gestures at the tic tac toe board that had already been on stage – “Whoever loses each round is going to pick a square from this board, and I can assure you, you don’t want to be picking from this board.

“Robin, can you show them why?

Right on cue, Marc’s longtime assistant appears from offstage, wheeling out what’s becoming the most dreaded set piece for any participant on the show. The audience, many of whom had never seen the show and so were unfamiliar with the ritual faux executions that took place, began to yell ohhhhs and whoaaas, with a few incredulous laughs mixed in. The few who were familiar with the show immediately break into applause, as they know this is the part where the messy ammo comes out.

And sure enough, a bakery cart as tall as Robin makes its way onstage, stacked high with full racks of gigantic cream pies, several sheet cakes, and even what can only be described as an industrial strength water gun, connected by a plastic line to a very large bucket with a lid on it.

Both teams are beside themselves. Some of the boys turn away, some chuckle. Lizzie throws her hands up to the sky in exasperation, figuring her white outfit may not stay white for long, while the others simply cover their shocked mouths with their hands.

Marc stretches his arms out and pushes them downward in an attempt to regain control of the crowd. They oblige.

“That’s right, guys,” he says. “The loser of each round will pick a square, and you’ll have to do whatever it says. Some of the penalties could be for you, could be for you and a friend, or they could be for your entire team. Each square has a certain number of skulls on it. However many you see, that’s how many people have to take the penalty. So that means even if it’s not your turn, if your teammate loses, YOU could be punished!

“Or, and this is the silver lining – they could be reversed, meaning your opponents have to take the penalty!”

More ohhhs and applause from the crowd. Everybody loves a good swerve. Anything could happen to anyone at any time! It’s anarchy!

“There are eight squares on the board, and one of them says ‘Game Over’. Whichever team picks that square loses the game, giving the VIP passes to their opponents and earning every member of their team a trip to one of our world-famous pie devices you see around our studio!”

The audience erupts again. As has become de rigueur on the show, not only are contestants at risk of getting messy in the actual game, they’ll get finished off at one of the Saw-like contraptions ringing the studio.

The combo Pie Pod/Pie Slide combo named The Torture Machine. The Pie Coaster. The Pie Slide. The Dunk Tank. The Human Fondue. The Cruci-Pied. Usually only one or two of them would get activated each show, but this crowd would be treated to four of them.

Marc hears a squeal come from the girls’ side off-mic. “I’m sorry, what was that, miss?”

“I don’t wanna play anymore!” Bea says. She spent all that time in the car making herself look perfect. Some silly VIP passes weren’t worth it for all of this. It wasn’t even her idea! Lizzie was the one who raised her hand!

“I’m sorry Bea, that’s just not an option! But if you want, we can just send YOU to the Dunk Tank and get this over with!”

“No!” she barks. She crosses her arms and stomps her right foot in protest.

“That’s what I thought,” Marc says condescendingly. His true nature is starting to emerge.

“Think of it this way,” he continued. “You don’t even need to have encyclopedic knowledge of this festival. You just have to not be the one to pick the Game Over square!

“Everybody good? What do you say, audience, are we ready to play this game?”

They’re absolutely feral. Based only on the obnoxious way the guys introduced themselves and their overall bro-y look, they seemed to be on the women’s side, but the girls were all so hot, it’d be a shame to not see them get absolutely demolished. Even if they weren’t as outwardly grating as the guys, they each seemed like the kind of girl you’d try to approach at a party, but the others would box you out before you got the chance to even so much as say hi to the one you were attracted to.

“Lizzie and Ricky, can you join me up front here, please?”

Lizzie looked radiant in her bright white body hugging shirt and yoga pants, while Ricky looked like he just threw on the first thing he grabbed from his duffel bag. He offered his outstretched hand, and she shook it.

“Aww, a little sportsmanship, Marc said, mildly surprised by the gesture. “Great job, you two.”

What Marc didn’t see was Ricky winking at Lizzie, overtly coming onto her. What Marc didn’t feel was Ricky’s handshake, so hard that Lizzie pulled away, feeling like her hand was about to get crushed. The combination of these two things turned her off immediately. Was this psychological warfare?

“Lizzie, ladies first. Here we go with Round 1. On your mark. Get set. Go!”

A thumping dance beat started to play as each of them began reciting names as best they could.

Her: “Billie Eilish.”

Him: “Diplo.”

Her: “Portugal. The Man.”

Him: “Noah Kahan.”

Her: “Um…” She still feels the tingling of Ricky’s handshake, and it’s distracting her. “Carly Rae Jepsen.”

Him: “Key Glock.”

Her: “Uh… um…”

Marc: “Need an answer, Lizzie. 3 seconds.”

Her: “The 1975?”

BUZZ.

“Oh no!” Marc says. “I’m sorry, The 1975 is performing Friday, not Thursday!”

OHHHH goes the audience.

Lizzie clenches her teeth and both fists, while Ricky punches the air and yells, “YEAH, BRO! LET’S GOOOO!” He daps up each of his teammates. The girls are immediately put off by his excessive reaction.

Marc says. “Lizzie, I’m gonna need a number from our Mystery Board. 1 through 8, what’s it gonna be?”

“I guess, I dunno… number 4?”

“Everybody, can we get a slow clap going?” Marc asked.

The crowd obliged as Robin slowly approached the board. Lizzie clasped her hands together at her mouth as if in prayer. The claps became faster and faster. Robin gripped the velcro number, and slowly, agonizingly, pulled in back.

The crowd roared as a camera zoomed in and the screens above the studio revealed the result.

CAKE IN THE FACE! With one skull: the spotlight will be solely on Lizzie.

Lizzie is heard off-mic shrieking “Oh my God!”

Ricky rubs his hands together, a sinister smile on his face as Robin delicately hands him a 13” by 18” sheet cake decorated with a red, white, and blue American flag for the holiday. As always, the cakes look less like cakes and more like vehicles for massive amounts of colorful whipped frosting, designed to do maximum damage to the hair, clothes, and especially the face of its recipient.

Except Lizzie won’t go down without a fight.

“I’m sorry, what’s that?”

“I said, you wouldn’t cake a girl with glasses, would you?”

Marc considers this for a moment. His eyes open wide when the idea comes to him. He calls an audible.

“You know what, you’re right, Lizzie. We’ll let your face off the hook this time.”

She is seen mouthing thank you.

“Now turn around,” Marc commands.

More rapturous cheers. The crowd senses where this is going.

Lizzie protests some more, but her complaints fall on deaf ears. Robin is heard saying, you heard him, honey, let’s see that butt! She takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face the crowd, her rear end in plain view of the cameras.

Another wide smile creeps across Ricky’s face. He stares long and hard at Lizzie’s small but shapely ass, thinking of all the things he might do to it if given the chance. He knows what he’s supposed to do.

“Ricky, I want you to show Lizzie what happens when you try to weasel your way out of a penalty on this show.

Then, Marc twists the knife on his victim.

“Lizzie, wow, this cake is… look at this thing, it’s red, white, blue. And that’s such a beautiful white outfit you’ve got on. Any last words before we add some color to it?”

“Please, I don’t want this!”

Marc is unmoved. “On the count of three, audience, let’s give Lizzie what she deserves!”

ONE! TWO! THREE!

BLOOK! A silly sound effect plays as Ricky grips the dancer at the waist with his left hand and doesn’t hold back with his right. Lizzie screams as she feels the cake slam hard into her butt, with such force that she shuffles forward several steps. Her pristine white leggings are instantly ruined under a slurry of gaudy colors. Her butt, upper thighs and exposed lower back are absolutely smothered. Chunks of cake tumble down her legs, leaving more stains on her calves and at her feet.

The crowd loves it.

And still, Marc doesn’t move on. “Now Lizzie, I understand you’re on the school dance team. Would you care to do a move for us?”

Just wanting the cameras and the attention to finally shift to someone else, she obliges. She bends her knees, swings her arms behind her, and pushes off the ground, completing a backflip with ease, even as globs of cake fly off her body. She looks over at her friends, who are applauding her even as they look pained as they see her go through this.

Except it’s about to get worse.

“That was really impressive!” Marc says. “Thank you for that! You know what, I’ve got a reward for you, Lizzie. Wanna know what it is?”

She eyes him warily.

“Bring me another cake please. Can we get another cake?”

The cameras catch Lizzie as she falls into an exasperated squat. But they quickly shift, as coming out from behind the cameras is a very special guest. Is that…?

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome festival performer and world-famous DJ, Steve Aoki!”

The man known as much for caking audience members at his shows as he is for his DJ-ing comes out with his right hand waving, amping up the crowd, another sheet cake in his left hand.

“Lizzie,” Marc says, “I know it’s your birthday, and what’s a birthday if we don’t have some cake to give you?”

Lizzie is back on her feet, but her shoulders drop and her face shows the defeat she feels.

Marc takes her glasses and prepares the crowd to see her get caked a second time. Cheers rise as a snippet of his song “Cake Face” plays, louder and louder, as if reaching a crescendo. It’s the build-up to the song’s world-famous drop.

Marc yells over the song. “Steve, when the beat drops, do your thing!”

The crowd claps to the song. It plays louder and louder, the studio lights dancing along with it. The tension rises, rises some more, until finally…

“CAKE FACE!!”

BLAM!!! Steve launches the entire dessert at his target and connects with a direct hit. Lizzie scrunches her shoulders and braces for impact, but it doesn’t help. The cake explodes in all directions, showering chunks of red, white and blue all over the stage and theatrically blowing her hair behind her like a giant gust of wind. Lizzie’s friends, just a few feet away, scramble out of the way, leaving a stunned Lizzie bent over at the waist, giant gobs of goo tumbling down her formerly white top. Not a single square inch above her chest is still white, her whole upper half demolished by massive amounts of thick, buttery frosting.

Meanwhile, Steve continues to pump up the crowd, pumping his fists as the music and light show continues. Eventually, the lights return to their bright default, Steve bro-hugs the boys, fist-bumps Marc, and runs off-stage to another round of applause. Another job well done, another check to cash.

Lizzie is seen desperately clawing cake off of her body in vain. First, her face. She quickly realizes all she’s doing is pushing frosting deeper into her pores, so then she tries her hair. All that does is spread the cake around her gorgeous blond hair and into her scalp. Lastly, she tries to push cake remnants down her formerly white shirt and to the floor, but all that does is drive the colored frosting deeper into the fabric. She finally gives up, returning to her friends, all of whom touch her back tenderly and tentatively. They want to give her support, but not at the expense of getting messy themselves.

And that was only Round 1!

“Well,” Marc says, “That was an eventful first round! Stick around to see who knows more about the festival when our memory game continues, right after this!”

The show goes to commercial while the song “Cake Face” plays once more, but not before a slow-motion split-screen interstitial plays. First, on the left, Ricky absolutely blasting Lizzie’s ass with the American flag cake, revealing two plump butt cheeks and a wild swirl of color. Then, that video pauses, and the one on the right plays: Steve Aoki hurling a second gigantic dessert into Lizzie’s scrunched up face. The explosion of cake, the force of it causing Lizzie to shuffle backwards, the hands clawing helplessly at the buttery mess all over her face and hair. The What Would You Do logo hops around the screen before settling in a corner and fading to black.

Before long, the song ends and a stagehand is counting Marc back in from break.

“We’re back on What Would You Do, and we’ve got two teams here vying for VIP passes to the Life’s a Beach Festival for their entire crew. Our ladies from Minnesota lost Round 1, and Lizzie here just paid the price. How’s that cake taste, m’am?”

Even after a few minutes, Lizzie is still stunned from her double caking. She mutters something inaudible. Marc simply shrugs his shoulders and moves on.

“Round 2 – I’d like Bea and Charlie to join me up here, please!”

Both come forward rather tentatively, wondering if what happened to Lizzie is the worst they could expect, or if that was merely an appetizer. Marc gets them into position. Bea is looking especially stunning in her ornate, all-black outfit. Meanwhile, in his soccer jersey, Charlie just looks plain ordinary.

“We’re naming Friday artists. Bea, you’re up first. On your mark. Get set. Go!”

Her: “The 1975.”

Him: “Kendrick Lamar.”

Her: “Sabrina Carpenter.”

Him: “Thirty Seconds to Mars.”

Her: “Um… uh… Beabadoobee.”

Him: “Shit, that was my next guess. I, uh…”

Marc: “3 seconds, need an answer!”

Him: …

BUZZ.

“Oh no!” Marc exclaims. “Charlie, you ran out of time. I’m sorry! I’m gonna need you to pick a square, sir!”

Charlie sighs. “2.”

The slow clap builds once again as Robin approaches the board. She grips the flap covering the penalty, and with a flourish, rips it off to reveal…

CLOTHES DESTRUCTION! REVERSED! Two skulls!

The audience is going nuts. This is a punishment never before seen on the show!

“Oh no!” Marc shouts again. “It’s a reverse! This one is going to the ladies! In fact, two skulls means TWO ladies are getting their clothes cut off!”

Bea’s immediate reaction is to grip her chest tightly. Of all the people in her friend group to get her clothes destroyed, me? The one who actually took time to pick out something nice?

“Charlie,” Marc says, “We know Bea is getting her clothes cut off. Who’s going to join her?”

Charlie barely lets Marc finish the sentence before he grabs Marc’s hand on the microphone, yanks it toward himself and starts bellowing obnoxiously.

“That’s a GREAT question, Marc, but there’s only one answer. She was such a diva trying to avoid those cakes, so obviously” – he points directly at her and looks her right in the eyes – “I’m picking Lizzie.”

A no!!! is heard off-mic as Lizzie realizes she has to take a second punishment in a row.

“But these were so expensive!” Lizzie shouts to no one in particular. Marc simply shrugs at her.

The crowd roars as Robin approaches from off-stage carrying two sets of fabric scissors. She hands one pair to Charlie, and makes her way toward Bea, while Charlie approaches Lizzie. He handpicked her, he might as well deliver the penalty.

Both girls stand ramrod straight as Robin and Charlie grip their shirts at their respective waists. Robin takes hold of Bea’s black cropped shirt and begins cutting upwards, while Charlie does the same with Lizzie’s still-sort-of-white crop top.

The decibel level in the room increases as each girl’s shirt gets snipped off one cut at a time, painfully, agonizingly slowly.

In a silly turn, the scissors’ effectiveness diminishes as they reach the caked parts of Lizzie’s top, causing her to shriek, “Just get it over with already!” He finally cuts to the neck, frees the tattered top from Lizzie’s arms, and holds it in the air like a trophy.

Bea, meanwhile, is whining and complaining as Robin cuts away at the black crop top. Without any cake to contend with, it gives way extremely easily. The crowd’s attention flips from Lizzie’s complaints to Bea’s supremely toned body. The hourglass shape, a gift of her Puerto Rican heritage, her muscular biceps, and her washboard abs. She may be petite, but she was so much more than that.

Her crop top breaks free. Robin lifts it over Bea’s arms to more wild cheers, and simply tosses it aside.

Now in just their bikini tops, both girls cover their mouths with their palms and close their eyes as Robin and Charlie get to work on chopping up their bottoms.

Charlie once again has to maneuver around cake remnants, this time around Lizzie’s ass, as he cuts her formerly glistening white leggings down the side of her right leg. Lizzie shudders as she feels the cold scissors touching her thighs. Charlie finishes her right leg, then goes to work on her left, finishing the job and causing the tattered yoga pants to yield to gravity’s pull as they drop to the floor, revealing Lizzie’s skimpy blue and white thong underneath.

With her back to the audience, Lizzie knew where everyone’s eyes were focused. She caught Charlie’s eyes wandering down to the back of her hips, to her skimpy thong covering basically nothing in the back, and simply shook her head.

Meanwhile, Robin had a bit more trouble cutting through Bea’s considerably thicker mini-skirt, but with a little bit of gumption, the fabric gave way, dropping to Bea’s feet. Robin snickered as she spotted Bea’s red and white striped bikini bottom, just before she very easily cut through the black fishnet stockings, leaving Bea standing there half naked in the colors of the flag. God bless America!

The crowd noise indicated to Marc that the game has become a formality. The VIP passes needed to still be given away, but everyone in the room – the contestants, the audience, the hosts – want to know what punishment is next and who it will happen to.

The saving grace for the women’s team is that they’re no further away from the prize than when they started. All they have to do is win a round and have the guys land on the GAME OVER square, and they still win, clothes or no clothes.

Round 3 commences as Maddie and Jason step forward. Unlike in Round 1, where Ricky sportingly offered a handshake to Lizzie, Jason simply nods and smirks at Maddie. She gives him a stinkface back, which is exactly the reaction he was looking for: he’s in her head now. She’s distracted.

“Alright, you two!” Marc says. “You’re naming Saturday artists! On your mark! Get set! Go!”

Her: “Maggie Rogers.”

Him: “Yung Gravy.”

Her: “Sylvan Esso.”

Him: “PUSHA!”

Her: “Lana Del Rey. No wait–”

BUZZ.

“Nope, no take-backs!” Marc says, not an ounce of pity in his voice. “Lana is on Sunday, Maddie!”

Jason is seen cackling and clapping his hands loudly. His intimidation gambit worked!

“So I’m sorry, but I need a number. What’s it gonna be?”

Maddie is sorely disappointed, not only about losing but about losing to that guy. In barely a mumble, she says, “3.”

A drumroll plays through the studio speakers as Robin approaches the board. She grabs the panel on square number three and peels it back to reveal…

PIE IN THE FACE! WITH FOUR SKULLS!

The entire ladies team is getting pied!

“Oh my gosh,” Marc exclaims. “Our first full-team penalty! Robin, can we hand these guys some pies, please? This is gonna be awesome.”

The girls are all kinds of dejected. For the third straight round, they’re the ones on the receiving end.

Though not as visually menacing as the cakes, the pies that Robin gives to each guy are still very intimidating. Each is piled high with loads of whipped cream, topped with a bullseye made of the same buttery frosting as the cakes, all covering a mystery substance underneath that the bakers in the back have engineered to do maximum damage to faces, hair, and clothes.

All four guys size up their targets: Ricky takes aim at Lizzie, Charlie at Bea, rude boy Jason at Maggie, and Ben at Nicole, who has already lost even though she hasn’t even played a round yet.

Each man cocks his right arm in aim, and a couple of them even point directly in their opposite’s face, providing one last clear indication of where this creamy dessert is about to end up.

They can hardly contain themselves as Marc starts the count.

“On the count of three, audience, these girls may be ‘Minnesota Nice’, but we’re gonna show them some southern hospitality of our own. Here we go!”

ONE! TWO! THREE!

SPLOOK!

The screams are practically deafening as all four girls are simultaneously demolished by the boys' sloppy pies. The girls all get hit hard.

Whipped cream flies back behind the girls’ heads, as does all of their hair, a wave of blonde, brown, and auburn all lifting in unison over the girls’ shoulders and acting as curtains, picking up cream, crust and pie filling along the way.

Ricky walked behind Lizzie and held the pie with two hands tantalizingly in front of her face. He waited an extra beat, allowing the camera to catch Lizzie’s pained face – she’d already been caked, stripped, and now teased with a pie – just before he suddenly yanked his arms forward and slammed the pie right in her pretty face. He smeared it around a couple of times before dragging the tin down her chest, across her breasts, through her blue and white bikini top and down her stomach before shoving the mangled, empty tin down to the floor. Lizzie was stunned, but ambulatory enough to spin around to shove Ricky in disapproval.

Meanwhile, Maddie is under siege: muscle-bound Jason was unrelenting to the diminutive blonde, as he placed his palm on the back of her head just before letting her have it. He got some splatter on his arm as a result, which he quickly wiped on the right arm of Maddie’s pink hoodie.

Every single one of their bodies contorts. Lizzie’s arms flail up toward her face as the force of Ricky’s two hand hit causes her back to arch backwards, Nicole tries to grab Ben’s wrist to stop him from force feeding her pie, Maddie’s shoulders shoot upward in surprise, and Bea staggers backwards as if shot.

It turns out each of the pies was overflowing with blueberry pie filling, which drove wads of deep purple syrup and chunky berries deep into their faces, mouths, hair, and necks. All the boys (save Ricky) grinded the pies up and down the girls’ faces before sending them up over their heads and into their hair, revealing the very same reaction underneath the slop: four wide open mouths, hanging there, frozen in shock.

The pies immediately started to melt, sending gobs of blueberry filling and sloppy whipped cream down their perky chests.

White and blue filling dribbled out of Nicole’s mouth and onto her sky blue sports bra, piling onto the mess already collecting between her breasts. After a couple of seconds, Bea took a tentative taste of the treat off her top lip, her American flag bikini under attack by some foreign color.

The crowd rises up in unison to applaud, though it’s unclear whether the applause is for the girls’ courage, or for the boys’ ruthlessness. Either way, it’s hard to imagine a single pie doing as much damage as these did, and everyone in the room, from Marc to the boys, are extremely satisfied with their handiwork.

Round 4! TIme for Ben and Nicole to take their turns!

Ben looks at Nicole, standing there in just a ruined sports bra, skimpy bike shorts, and with pie splattered all over her face, and he can’t help but laugh at her. He mouths an apology, but Nicole knows this asshat doesn’t mean it.

“Alright, guys,” Marc says. “Sunday bands. On your mark! Get set! Go!”

Her: “Lana Del Rey.”

Him: “Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

Her: “Rina Sawayama.”

Him: “Lil’ Yachty.”

Her: “Mount Joy.”

Him: “A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie.”

Her: “Louis the Child.”

Him: “Afrojack.”

This is a surprisingly competitive round!

Her: “The Backseat Lovers.”

Him: “Joey Bada$$.”

Her: “Dehd.”

Him: “Upsahl.”

Her: “Alvvays.”

Him: “Fuck. Uh…

Marc: “3 seconds, Ben!”

Him: “Uh… Dillon Nathaniel!”

Her: “Oh crap. Um, uhh…”

Marc: “3 seconds, Nicole!”

Her: “Shit, shit, shit!”

BUZZ.

Her: “No, goddamn it!”

“That was an insanely good round, you guys!” Marc says. “I’m really impressed. I’m genuinely sorry we have to have a loser, but unfortunately, Nicole, that’s you… so what’s it gonna be?”

“Number 8.”

The drumroll plays, the crowd slow claps, and Robin approaches the board once more. The noise reaches a crescendo as she peels it back to unveil…

REVERSE THE ENTIRE BOARD! ONE SKULL!

“Wow, wow, wow,” Marc says. “Nicole, it is your absolute lucky day! Do you know what this means?”

She nods no.

“You get to pick one person to get all the penalties we’ve revealed so far!”

The crowd voices their surprise and satisfaction with a chorus of WHOOOAAAAAAs. Friends in the audience are high fiving, jostling each other like they’re saying can you believe this shit?. The twists and turns of this show never fail to disappoint.

Marc continues. “So Nicole, who’s it gonna–”

“HIM!” Nicole points directly at Jason. His jacked stature makes him look unlikeable, his Staten Island accent makes him sound unlikeable, and the way he forcefully pied poor Maddie a minute ago makes him genuinely and truly unlikeable. Nicole simply couldn’t wait to give him a dose of his own medicine.

Robin brings out the scissors and hands them to Nicole, who makes a beeline for Maddie and gives them right to her. Maddie accepts them with a gleeful smile on her face, and sprints straight over to Jason.

This time, Jason is not intimidating, menacing, or even just mean. He simply accepts his fate. Maddie takes hold of his royal blue Superman tank top. She pulls it, but it’s so tight and he’s so muscular that she can hardly get any leverage. Jason chuckles at her futility, loud enough for her to hear him.

She continues to fumble with the shirt before giving in and just yanking it, allowing her to finally make the first cut. She cuts a few more times before dropping the scissors, grabbing the flaps she created and pulling outwards, giving the shirt a huge rip. The shirt makes tearing sounds as it gives way, revealing Jason’s massive chest and defined six-pack. Maddie’s pupils dilate – she clearly likes what she sees – but quickly returns to the task at hand.

With his shirt gone, Maddie gets to work on his shorts. These are easier to cut, and with a flourish, she rips them away to reveal, comically, a bright green speedo underneath.

The crowd OHHHHHs again at this revelation, but only temporarily, because there’s so much more to come.

Marc commands Jason to hold his hands behind his back – “no fair blocking those pies!”, he says – and Jason complies. Meanwhile, Robin arms each of the girls with a fresh pie of their own. Their faces are still smothered with cream and blueberry filling, but they can’t wait to let Jason have his. They look at the massive cream pies with glee, and all of them point right at Jason’s face, devilish smiles on their own faces.

Marc sees they’re not going to wait much longer before unloading on him, so he quickly gets the audience counting.

ONE! TWO! THREE!

The girls hit him so hard and in such quick succession that the foley in the production room has a hard time queueing up the pie splatter sound effects. Instead of trying to time them perfectly to the pie hits, he just slams the GLOOP button four times in rapid succession, leading to hilarity on set as the pies slam against Jason’s body and the sounds don’t match up.

The girls are as ruthless to Jason as the boys have been to them so far. Lizzie and Nicole deliver a pie sandwich to each side of the meathead’s face, blasting his greasy dark brown hair with cream and cherry pie filling. His head disappears under the two tins as pie filling jams its way up his nose and into his open mouth.

Jason sputters and tries to take a breath, but his breath is quickly taken away as Bea blasts him in his muscular chest with her pie. The hit is so hard that what little breath Jason had escapes him, leaving him gasping for air. At the same time, he ingests a bunch of pie that was already in his mouth, causing him to cough and wheeze some more.

But his breath gets taken away again as Maddie saves the best pie for last. Maddie spots Jason’s ridiculous speedo, and the shockingly large package inside. Time slows down as she gives it a good, long look, and, my god, is THAT the head?! She imagines the bullseye frosted onto the pie is actually on his stupidly large crotch, rears back and nails him right in the balls.

Jason moans in agony. He bends at the waist from the shock and slight pain, all while Maddie rubs the pie around and around. He finally takes her wrist and shoves it away, revealing that the lime green of his swimwear has been totally replaced with white whipped cream, red frosting and deep red pie filling. Little red cherries slowly slide down his huge thighs and onto his feet. Maggie, for her part, has a satisfied look on her face, with the empty, crumpled up tin in her right hand. She throws the destroyed aluminum pan right back into his groin, where it bounces off the pie mess and lands at his feet with a crackle.

Jason only barely comes to his senses before he sees it. Lizzie curls her index finger toward him a few times, her come hither look accompanied by a sultry look on her face. She’s armed with a giant sheet cake, as big, if not bigger, than the ones she got hit with earlier. Jason’s shoulders drop as he hears the audience begin their count.

ONE! TWO! THREE!

The American flag of frosting explodes all over the top half of his body as Lizzie demonstrates her surprisingly strong throwing arm. Bea may have pied his chest, but the cake takes care of any bare skin still showing between his pecs and his shoulders. Delectable red velvet cake tumbles down his body, mixing with the pie and filling to create an amazing palette of color, but not nearly as amazing as what has piled up on his face.

The cake demolishes his features, leaving layers of dessert up to three inches thick in some places. His immaculately styled hair has been destroyed, his eyes, nose, and mouth buried under layers of fluff.

The crowd cheers at his comeuppance, but not nearly as hard as the girls are cheering each other, for finally, mercifully, getting even with him.

“Well,” Marc says, “We’ve revealed half of the squares on our board, and we still don’t know who’s getting those VIP passes. We’ll take a quick break and come back with the second half of our game, so don’t move a muscle!”

As the show goes to break, the screens in the studio play slow motion shots of Jason taking hit after hit. The scissors tearing into the fabric of his shirt, all four pies smashing into his body – with an extra second or two dedicated to the hit below his belt – and finally, the sheet cake wrecking whatever was left of his top half. Cake remnants fall off his face in sweet slow motion as the What Would You Do logo bounces around the screen and the image fades to black.

To be continued…