Road Rules - The Quest (For the Crest) (2001)

It has only been a few days and the Road Rulers are already at each other's throats. The fire erupts when Jisela insists on driving the Winnie, and Adam criticizes her driving. Jisela screams to Adam, ""You're not my dad and you're not going to tell me how to drive!"" Adam decides to push Jisela's buttons further by honking the horn while Jisela is trying to talk on her cell phone. Jisela completely loses it and explodes when her teammates try to calm her down. Meanwhile, the Road Rulers face their ultimate fears in the next challenge.They must try to get a cobra snake to strike at them by using their fingers, a drum or a flute. Adam is particularly scared of snakes and is worried that his teammates will think he's ""the weakest link."" But he pulls through for his team and wins the mission. Back on the drama front, Adam confides in his teammates that he has ADD--Attention Deficit Disorder--which explains his unpredictable behavior.

Most important news first: Adam and Ellen finally hook up after days of flirting. Nobody is suprised. Meanwhile, the Road Rulers run out of cash and must work to earn more. They head north to a small town called Fes, which has over 20,000 narrow streets. They must make seven deliveries in five hours on foot or by donkey. The items include stuff such as chickens, eggs and yarn. Needless to say, delivering items on donkeys is not their strength. After causing a major traffic jam, pissing off the locals, breaking eggs, losing two of the donkeys, and almost crushing Steve, the Road Rulers manage to make the last delivery in the nick of time. But Adam ends up in the doghouse when he doesn't take his ADD medication and makes a fool of himself and his team during the mission. Ellen begins to wonder if she made a huge mistake.

We left off last week in an extremely tense moment when Jisela tells her teammates that she will not complete the rock climbing portion of the mission because of her intense fear. Her teammates beg her to change her mind, but she stands firm. As a result, the Road Rulers fail their second mission and must vote off one of their own. Now the big question is...who will be sent packing, Jisela or Ellen? The team seems really divided on this issue. Ellen, Adam and Steve plan to vote Jisela off because she refused to even try to complete the mission. Sophia and Jisela want to vote Ellen off because they think her attitude makes her the weakest link. So the deciding vote lies with Blair. It is clear that Blair is struggling with this responsibility. On one hand, he has a tight relationship with Jisela, and prefers her personality to Ellen's. But on the other hand, he is worried that if Jisela stays, they may run into this situation again and fail another mission. After a tense afternoon, Ji

With Jisela gone, the Road Rulers prepare to meet her replacement. Sophia and Adam are having a particularly hard time dealing with the prospect of welcoming a new bubbly female team member that has no clue what they have been through over the past several weeks. Adam even creates a pretty harsh initiation for this team member, including trials such as ""spending the night sleeping under the stars by herself."" He justifies this by saying, ""I'm not going to let this person into the group until they earn their spot."" Well, ""this person"" ends up being Katie. First impressions indicate that her positive upbeat attitude will be a refreshing change for the group. Before Katie even has time to adjust to her new environment, she and her teammates face the scariest mission to date: base diving headfirst at 65 miles per hour into a wall of fire. Katie faces her fears and proves to her teammates that she will be a strong member.

Ellen is in the doghouse again after Blair overhears a phone conversation where she rips apart her teammates. And to make matters worse, Ellen leaves a similarly negative e-mail open on the computer screen for all to see. Her teammates have had it with her and her deceptive behavior and decide to confront her. She gets defensive and doesn't understand why everyone is picking on her. Meanwhile on the next mission, the Road Rulers must exhibit trust during a human tower competition in front of thousands of Spanish locals. Ironically, the team must depend on Ellen to climb to the top and lift a little boy onto her shoulders in order to complete the mission. The team gets frustrated during practice when Ellen predictably shows off, causing the tower to fall. Suddenly, things turn around for Ellen. After a few days of soul searching, Ellen changes her attitude and manages to pull through for the team, completing the mission without falling. She reacts by saying,

Things lighten up a bit for the next mission. The Road Rulers must each go out on a blind dates with an individual chosen through MTV.com with a chance to win money on their dates. Everyone is stoked except for Sophia, who is terrified of dating. Katie and Ellen get all glammed up and Ellen vows to ""get wasted"" while on her date. Oddly enough, Sophia has the most successful date of the group. She and her blind date enjoy a romantic Italian dinner and spend the evening talking and laughing. Her date even buys her a gift the following day as a remembrance of their evening together. Katie informs her date early on that she has a boyfriend, which kills any chance of romance. Ellen gets the reward for the most entertaining date. It starts off pretty well, until Ellen fulfills her promise of ""getting wasted."" After one too many ""vinos,"" Ellen starts tripping and giggling. On to the guys...Adam doesn't take long to turn into his goofy self.

The Road Rulers are shocked to learn that there are actually some beautiful estates in Morocco. They are even more shocked to find out that the Real Worlders get to stay in one of them. The Road Rules team is anxious to prove to these ""wimpy New Yorker Real Worlders"" that being on Road Rules is much more challenging than living in a ""phat pad"" in NYC. This brings us to ""The Dual in the Desert,"" which involves several competitions between the two teams for a grand prize of $1000 per person. The Real World team gets pumped up after winning the first event, a sheep-herding contest. The Road Rulers hold a team meeting in the bus and agree that they ""WILL NOT"" lose to The Real World team. They exit their RV with the Road Rules flag and a new sense of unity and determination.