Hall of Fame Moment: Dante’s Kiss on Average Joe 4

We’ve all been there. We think everything is going along fine and suddenly we discover that we’ve maneuvered ourselves into a situation where we just can’t win no matter what we do. The clichés for this litter our language. “He’s bitten off more than he can chew,” “in over his head,” and “painted himself into a corner” are three that immediately come to mind. In Episode 3 of Average Joe 4, one of the “regular” guys on the show found himself “up the creek without a paddle.”

Regular viewers of the show know that once a few of the average guys have been eliminated, a group of “ringers” show up in the form of traditionally handsome and muscular men. They have two roles. The first is to compete for the affections of the lady at the center of the show. The second is to make life miserable for the Average Joes. In previous seasons, the “hunks” have arrived and wreaked havoc. But this year is entitled, Average Joe 4: The Joes Strike Back, so everyone knew from the start that things would be different. This particular episode began with the expected arrival of the hunks, when they immediately started throwing the belongings of the Average Joes out onto the back patio of the house where they all were living. The Joes stood around helpless, as they always have when the hunks start throwing weight around. All but one Joe, that is.

Dante is an overweight bear of a man with long curly hair, annoying habits, and what his roommates assure us is terrible hygiene. The Joes decided as a group – and after he volunteered – that Dante’s job would be to act insane and annoy the hunks as much as possible. Dante approached this task with great zeal and when he saw his clothing tossed outside, he went into action. He dragged his suitcase back into his room and began a verbal give-and-take session with the two hunks who had taken over his sleeping quarters. He calmly informed the two men, Michael and Carson, that he was moving them back out. As he walked across the room to grab a suitcase, Carson stood up and blocked his path. You can read all about the event in my recap of the episode over at RNO, but in short what happened is this:

Dante and Carson stood toe to toe for several moments. In an interview shot soon after the confrontation, Dante told us that he believed the best way to handle an impossible situation is to do something crazy. Faced with the choice of being either physically beaten to a pulp by standing up to the muscular Carson or being beaten to an emotional pulp by backing down in humiliation, Dante invented a third option. Quick as a wink he closed the small gap between himself and Carson and kissed the beefy man square on the mouth.

The reaction of the others in the room was instantaneous. Carson, however, stood in stunned shock for a moment, giving Dante time to turn and walk out of the room to safety. By the time Carson came so unglued that he would have quite possibly committed homicide, Dante was safely in another part of the house. This left Carson powerless to do anything but scream in rage, unloose a stream of profanity at the producers, and punch the closets. Dante’s exit was also quite possibly the only thing that kept Carson on the show. It’s common knowledge that any act of physical violence toward a fellow reality contestant will get you booted from just about any show in a heartbeat.

In less time than it would take to describe it, Dante turned a potentially disastrous situation into some of the most riveting moments to be seen on a reality show in quite some time. He defused what could have been a very violent and ugly moment and transformed tension into humorous turmoil by, in Carson’s eyes, striking at the very manhood the hunks seem to hold so dear. With his quick thinking under pressure, he also managed to keep both himself and Carson on the show. Finally, with one swift peck of his lips, Dante struck back for all the Joes past and present and exposed Carson as an aggressive, barbaric, violent, and ultimately impotent fool. Seldom has a televised smooch packed such a wallop, and Dante’s Kiss therefore gets this well-earned Reality TV Hall of Fame Moment.

You can contact Bruce at BBarker57@yahoo.com.

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