Richardson’s anticlimactic attempt

Richardson does not touch any of the balls prior to reading the task brief. He carefully looks over the available balls, immediately ruling out a few of them based on their texture and his prior experience with them (such as the golf ball), and he also blows on a few of them he’s not sure of, in an attempt to see how they move. Finally, he chooses the ping pong ball.

Richardson sources a ladder and sets it up next to the oil drum, while singing a question to Antoine, wondering where all of the pipes have gone. He then goes so far as to test the direction of the wind, so he knows where exactly to position the ladder.

Richardson climbs the ladder, and drops the ping pong ball onto the oil drum, where it lands in the bin after a single bounce. He then calmly descends the ladder, folds it back up, and leaves. In the studio, Bianca and Virginie yell at Richardson in disbelief while this footage plays.

While it is never overtly addressed, it appears that at some point during all of his preparations, Richardson misremembered the objective of the task as being that the ball should land in the bin after the fewest bounces, rather than the most.

With a single bounce, Richardson earns last place.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)