TV: Kid Nation "The Root of All Evil"

DIVAD
Divad has been lurking in the background since the show started, offering a line here and a background appearance there. Now I know she was spending all that time scheming. There's no other excuse (well, except editing) for her sudden collision with the main Bonanza kids. She's started a snack store and is heavily campaigning (making signs campaigning) for the gold star. At first I thought Divad was a quiet soul, her calming words and quiet resolve perhaps marking the beginning of Bonanza's own Oprah. Think about it; Divad had her shop destroyed by Jared and her face burned by grease. She reacted to both of these incidents with an "I must go on" coming out of her mouth and more snack foods being readied by her fingers. Then it came. The campaigning. The handing out snacks while the kids waited in line to vote. The voting for herself. The accusations that she actually doesn't work hard. Divad is sneaky! I doubt she'll ever get the gold star since the council noted that she's working hard in unimportant areas for the wrong reason. But, just like after getting jacked up in the face by grease, Divad is soldiering on.

NATHAN
"He's not gay, he's just homeschooled." My roommate said that and, really, doesn't that sum him up in a nutshell? He's finicky, OCD, the self-described 'outsider,' and hyper emotional. But, because of all of those things, he's also the hardest worker in Bonanza. Little Guylan had to tell him to go to bed instead of doing laundry into the wee hours of the morning. Nathan was almost the star of this episode, dealing with his own feelings of alienation and Jerkhole Greg. Greg himself has developed almost a split personality, both making Nathan feel like a worthless excuse for a kid and later a great man in the making. Nathan walked away with the gold star this week, even though I wasn't sure he should get it. I mean, yeah, the editing had me nearly in tears after his name was called (never a more manipulative show have I watched), but I think his determination and mindless devotion to work is unhealthy and could lead him to personal harm. As long as he remembers to have fun with that baseball and glove the council bought! Oh, wait...he'll probably enjoy making crafts.

KELSEY
KELSEY. SHUT UP. I can't think of anything nice to say about Kelsey, a girl who to date has just been another one of Taylor's acolytes. Oh, and she's the girl who didn't understand anything about any religion and didn't care to a couple episodes ago. In this episode, she straight up got in Jared's face and verbally assaulted him with, literally, eight questions/accusations a second concerning Jared's newly opened snack store. Instead of shoving Kelsey's face over, Jared shoved Divad's store over. Kelsey. Get. A. Grip. Calm. Down. You're annoying and way too intense without much brains to back it up. Even Taylor can come up with a somewhat coherent sentence.

PHARAOH

I was actually rooting for Pharaoh to win the gold star. He's been a seemingly positive presence in Bonanza and helps out on a regular basis, even though he is on the yellow team. For real, I think anyone who has to put up with the Taylor/Leila/Kelsey trio on a daily basis and does work on top of that is gold star material. Ridiculous. He was even honest about his motivations, saying that his mother really needs the money. Yeah, Divad did the same thing, but who knows where her gold star money would go. A fleet of motorized mini pink cadillacs? Reconstructive surgery? Okay, that last one is um, sorta a good reason. But still, he's honest and I appreciate that. Much like Greg, I bet the council will wait it out a couple more weeks to see how dedicated Pharaoh is. I bet he gets it eventually.

JARED

Thank God! There hasn't been ENOUGH Jared since the show first started! There actually won't be enough Jared until he gets his own spin-off series, perhaps Little Apprentice or the pre-teen version of Flavor of Love. Jared was a bonafide superstar in this episode, from trashing a snack shop to making kitschy crafts to doing a PIMP STROLL, Jared owned this episode so hard! Words cannot express my reaction to the pimp stroll, mainly because the sounds I was making during this scene (the couple times it was viewed) can only be described as jubilant cackling. Really, Jared is wise beyond his years. He recognized how wrong it was for Divad to have the only snack store in town, he then recognized the error of his Hulk smash ways and apologized, and he put his artistic side to good use and made what are, actually, great products. I'd totally buy a Jared made "Bonanza City 2007" necklace. I don't think Jared will ever win a gold star, but I think he's at least winning some respect.

SOPHIA
She dropped fifty cents into a bucket of straight up grody slop to find out how desperate the kids were for money. Pretty desperate. Sophia cracks me up. Beneath the reasonable demeanor and maturity, there's an insane mastermind underneath that is thoroughly pleased to mess with others for her own amusement. I love her. She'd be great on Real World if they were still casting intelligent manipulators.

A good episode. Next week looks iffy. A talent show? Hmm...

Holy banana bread, two LOLJARIDs this week! I could have done at least four.