‘King of the Nerds’ season 3, episode 3 review: Did Todd Hulk Smash Nerdvana?

Todd -This has been a very different season of “King of the Nerds” and one that we have really enjoyed. We’ve have see some team alliances before as well as a few smaller alliances within a team, but we’ve never seen something like the secret six. This is the first cross-team alliance and it’s incredibly smart since the teams always get switched around and eventually it’s every nerd for themselves and by that time the secret six will all be at the end together…. or will they collapse? We’ve seen this before on shows like “Big Brother” where the alliance gets too big, people get scared and someone makes a move on their own alliance member causing the whole thing to fall apart, but so far the secret six is holding strong and last week they sent Thomas packing – who will go home tonight?

Nerd War: Mathematics is the name of the game tonight – They teams have to make boats out of cardboard and tape then paddle their team across a pool where they will have a math problem waiting for them to solve.  During the creation process, Todd is getting upset because he feels that Lily and Ben are spending more time flirting (are we going to see a shomance come out of this?) then building the boats. He is also worried that if their team loses that he will be on the chopping block, so he’s putting in a lot of extra effort into making sure the boats are great.

At the challenge House Hooloovoo took a little longer getting into their boats, where as team S.M.A.S.H. are paddling like crazy people and grabbing their watery clues for the math problem waiting on the other side. House Hooloovoo had a slow start but they managed to get their clues first and start on their problem right away. (we were pretty amazed that these boats lasted as long as they did.) With Kaitlin heading up the math problem we were pretty sure Team S.M.A.S.H. was in trouble – until she revealed that she doesn’t know much about geometry. Team S.M.A.S.H. solves their puzzle first and wins the nerd war and although everyone thought Jonathan the mathematician was going to save the day it was actually Colby.

Todd did a lot of work in the challenge so he felt pretty safe this week, but when he finds out that he’s going up on the block he completely Hulk Smashes Lily saying she should go in because she didn’t contribute as much. Ben tries to diffuse the situation, but Todd keeps going calling her Cersei Lannister and using the B-Word. Lily held it together fairly well and bully accusations started getting thrown around towards Todd. To us there’s a huge difference between being angry and bullying and we don’t see Todd as a bully based on what was show on tonight’s episode – he was just angry and he apologized to Lily and everyone for his outburst.

Jonathan suggests that they send in Ben’s even though he’s in an alliance with him because he doesn’t want to look like a jerk sending in Kaitlin again – so it looks like Jonathan is going to be the weak link in this alliance and they’d be smart to get rid of him if they can.

Nerd Off: So as expected House Hooloovoo sent Todd into the Nerd Off. Team S.M.A.S.H. decided to send in Kaitlin and it surprises no one since she is going through this game like the terminator. Can she win another nerd-off? The challenge is to match items to relevant stories or characters in mythology, so another challenge that is heavy in studying – something that Kaitlin excels at, but don’t count Todd out since he is the comic book nerd and mythology and comics are heavily linked.

We were sad to see Todd the Bod go home tonight since he was a lot of fun to watch, but there’s a big part of us that is really rooting for Kaitlin to win the whole thing. She has become the underdog going up against a huge alliance and has been sent into nerd off after nerd off. Episode grade: B-

What did you think of tonight’s episode and are there any stand outs that you are rooting for to become the king of Nerdvana? Looking for more news on “King of the Nerds”? Then head over to the link here where we will have previews, reviews, weekly podcasts and interviews with the cast all season long. Also if you want more great TV news sent your way, then be sure to sign up for the CarterMatt newsletter. It comes out every Sunday and is stuffed full of great TV scoop! (Photo: TBS)

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