Beach Blanket Bogus

**"Beach Blanket Bogus"** is the fourth episode of the second season of *Total Drama*.

*“Yeah, I bet I know Leshawna's real nickname back home. Lebomba”*
―DJ
The teams participate in a beach-themed challenge, with the winners getting a beach party. Trent's sudden obsession with the number nine freaks out his team, Gwen doubt the stability of their relationship.

## Plot

The episode opens with the remaining castmates getting their breakfast the next morning. Heather smiles at Lindsay and Beth, who are trying to find a place to sit, but they ignore her. Trent discovers that Duncan has pranked him by unscrewing the tops off both the salt and pepper shakers, causing all of their contents to pour onto his eggs. Trent tosses the spices over his shoulder to prevent bad luck, but accidentally throws them on Heather, who gets blinded from the salt in her eyes and sneezes uncontrollably from the pepper up her nose, and runs away screaming. Duncan takes an egg off Trent's plate, which upsets him because there are now only eight pieces of his egg left. In an effort to calm him down, Gwen takes another piece, making it an odd number again.

Duncan mocks Trent's weirdness, but Gwen defends Trent and says she likes his weirdness. Meanwhile, Lindsay and Beth sit next to Justin, offering their food; Lindsay brings bacon, claiming it's better for Justin's hair, while Beth brings "facon," claiming it's better for his complexion. Each girl argues about whose offering is better, until Justin tells them that he accepts both. They choose to sit and watch Justin eat, declining to eat themselves since they believe Justin's looks are all they need. Beth is shown in the confessional making friendship bracelets, and obsessing over Justin, until the bracelet she is working on breaks apart and a piece of it falls into her mouth, causing her to choke. Chris comes in and announces that this week's genre is about teen surfing movies, which no one, except for Harold, is familiar with. The two teams will compete in two challenges, followed by a possible tie-breaker if necessary.

The first challenge is a surfing contest, in which the person who stays on a surfboard over a swimming pool the longest wins for their team. However, to make things difficult, the temperature on set has been turned down to freezing cold, and the challenge features the return of the sharks. Most of the castmates fail, but some manage to stay on longer, causing Chef Hatchet and Chris to bring in heavy special effects to try and knock them off. Owen manages to break the surfboard, and knock the sharks and all of the water out of the pool when it is his turn, prompting Chris to call a break, not for the castmates, but the sharks. When it is Gwen's turn, she believes she doesn't need to worry about the sharks, but soon finds out that Chris will be firing seagulls at her and the last few castmates using a machine gun. Justin is hit with a seagull and falls in the water, making him blackout. Lindsay and Beth rush to his aid, but they are pushed out of the way by one of the sharks, who revives and hugs him. During Duncan's turn, he stays on the board, knocks the birds aside, and even dodges the equipment Chris starts throwing at him, and, at one point, even Lindsay. Chris declares the Screaming Gaffers the winners, and Gwen gives Duncan a congratulatory hug, which Trent witnesses. Owen notes to Trent how unstoppable Gwen's team is.

The cast is then taken on a bus to Camp Wawanakwa, where they must build sand castles for the second challenge. The Gaffers have a great lead due to the half hour early start they won from the surfboard challenge, while the Grips try hard to get a castle going. Meanwhile, Duncan and Gwen slip away and sabotage the bus they rode to get there so they can spend more time on the island. Back on the beach, the Grips finally manage to start a castle, but Trent knocks it down while trying to put on a ninth flag, due to his recent obsession with the number nine. Beth reminds her team that it's a "prop sandcastle building contest," and that they can use some of Lindsay's magazines to make a paper-mâché castle. Gwen soon starts to notice that Trent is naming things after her, and is constantly using the number nine (which Duncan claims is because it's the total number of letters in Gwen and Trent's names). After the Grips are announced the winners, a tie-breaking challenge is set. Chris sends everyone off to gather some wood from the nearby woods. Trent and Gwen meet up in the woods, but Gwen notices Trent carrying nine sticks. She runs away, worried that Duncan is right and that Trent really is obsessed with her. When Trent questions why Gwen is acting strange, Owen claims it's because she wants to win.

The final tie breaker is a "Watusi-Twist-Mashed Potato-Dorky-Old School" dance off. Trent is chosen to go up against Leshawna, who claims she's been known back home as "Le*shaken*it." Leshawna's performance is considered poor by the rest of her teammates, except Harold, while Trent is seen as amazing. However, he remembers Owen's words and purposely trips on a branch and starts writhing on the ground to throw the challenge, giving the Gaffers the win. While the Gaffers are celebrating with a luau, Chris tells the losers to return to the bus, until he finds it's broken due to Duncan and Gwen sabotaging it to stay at the camp for a little while longer. Gwen and Trent meet again later, make up, and are about to kiss when they're interrupted by Owen, who gets branches thrown at him.

The Grips are on the beach shore, where Owen is disposing of the paper mâché castle by eating it. Justin tells Beth that he never got a friendship bracelet, and she gives him the one she is wearing, despite it being sweaty. Justin appreciates the bracelet, nonetheless. However, Justin is later shown in the confessional saying he will do anything to win. He looks at the bracelet on his wrist and asks whether or not Beth wants an alliance. Chris, watching from his control room, says he and Justin are both clever and manipulative and may be related, which is overheard by Justin since the two way microphone is on. When Justin calls this out, Chris quickly cuts the transmission, and ends the episode angrily asking who left the microphone on.

### Exclusive clip

Following the events of the episode, Harold is in the confessional, talking about the party that the Gaffers had as their reward. He talks about how he ate poi with pineapple, claiming that that poi is the world's most effective substitute for breast milk.

## Characters

* Beth
* Chef Hatchet
* Chris
* DJ
* Duncan
* Gwen
* Harold
* Heather
* Justin
* Leshawna
* Lindsay
* Owen
* Trent
* Tyler (*mentioned*)

## Trivia

### General

* Beth, Heather, Leshawna, and Trent are the only castmates to not be shown participating in the surfing challenge.
* Even though there's already a beach set in the film lot, as shown in Monster Cash, the sand castle building challenge still takes place at Camp Wanwanakwa.

### Continuity

* This is the first time in the series where an episode has a reward challenge while the two original teams are still present.
* This episode marks the second time in a row nudity is shown in Total Drama Action. In this episode, DJ is seen naked after the sharks manage to snag his swimming trunks on the surfboard.
* During the dance-off, Leshawna does a dance similar to what she later does in *Come Fly With Us* and in *Baby* as well.
* This is the last episode in which Justin, Trent, and Leshawna return to Camp Wawanakwa.
* This is the second episode which involves swimming as a part of the challenge, which continues the trend of each season having a water-themed challenge.
	+ Not So Happy Campers - Part 2 in Total Drama Island.
	+ Jamaica Me Sweat in Total Drama World Tour.
	+ Backstabbers Ahoy! in Total Drama: Revenge of the Island.
	+ Heroes vs. Villains in Total Drama All-Stars.

### References

* This title is a parody of the beach themed film, *Beach Blanket Bingo*.
* When the tie-breaker is announced, the car that is seen crashing into the ground had the tune of the Confederate national anthem playing.
* Harold mentions architect *Frank Gehry* as his inspiration during the sandcastle challenge.
	+ This is the fourth time that a real person has been mentioned in the Total Drama series. The first is *Céline Dion* in Phobia Factor, the second is *Stephen Hawking* in Who Can You Trust?, and the third is *Friedrich Nietzsche* in X-Treme Torture.
* Harold calling the Gaffers' sand castle the "Taj MaHarold" is a reference to the *Taj Mahal* in India.
* The car that landed on top of the stunt dummy is a homage to *General Lee* from *The Dukes of Hazzard*.
* One of Trent's dances is similar to *Michael Jackson's* moonwalk.
* All the dances Chris named are seen in a certain scene in *The Blues Brothers*.
* In the recap of the last episode, Chris says, "He was a boy, she was a girl," the beginning lyrics to the *Avril Lavigne* song, *Sk8r Boi*. In this song, it states that the boy and girl fall in love, but things do not work out, foreshadowing Gwen and Trent's breakup in the next episode.

### Goofs

* DJ is wearing his hat with his swimsuit during the surfing contest, yet when he is running out after losing his bathing suit, it's missing. It appears again in the next scene.
* When DJ loses his swimsuit, his hands overlap the pixellated censors over his groin, when in reality they would've been censored as well.
* After Owen falls into the water in the first challenge, Harold is briefly seen in his regular clothes instead of his swimsuit.
* After the surfboard challenge, Chris is seen with all of the castmates standing outside the lot in their teams. The team logos floating above the teams' heads are switched over to incorrect positions.
* It is unknown how the bus could arrive at the island, since there is no roads that connect to the island, and the only way to get there is by boat, as seen in the beginning of season one.
* When Duncan wins the first challenge and his teammates are cheering, Heather is nowhere to be seen.
* When Trent is putting the crab shells on the castle, there are seven. He says he is going to put the final one on, making a total of eight, not nine, as he earlier insisted.
* When Gwen hits Duncan jokingly, his nose piercing is missing.
* Beth is absent when the Grips are declared the winners of the sandcastle building contest.

* When Gwen hugs Duncan, the top strap on her shoe is missing.
* When the sharks are begging for facon, Beth is seen wearing braces, even though she had them removed before the season started.
* When Chris announced that the Gaffers won the first part of the challenge, the ammo clip for the seagull gun is full, even though it should be empty after using it on Duncan.
* Even though Chris paused the video of Justin's confessional at the end of the episode, Justin is still be able to speak to him until Chris turned off the camera.

### Running Gags

* **Lindsay's running gag:** Lindsay refers to Owen as Omar and Trent as Tyler.
* **Trent's running gag:** A nine-obsessed Trent asks for nine flags, jam rooms, moats, sticks and his team to say his name nine times. He also shook his necklace nine times throughout the episode.
* Owen interrupting Gwen and Trent whenever they are trying to have a moment, leading to them throwing sticks at him.
* Beth offering to give everyone on her team a friendship bracelet.
* In the surfboard challenge, Lindsay keeps getting thrown against the wall.