Mathew peas into the wind

In the first event, Mathew inspects the cushions and observes that the order of their colours changes towards the centre of the spiral, which he interprets as a clue. He then starts turning over cushions at random and, as he begins to run out of time, begins just flipping them all over in turn, out of desperation. He does not find the pea, and then asks for time to “dwell on the regret” before starting the second event.

In the carrot tower-building event, Mathew takes one of the spare peas from Alex’s bowl. He builds a pretty decent carrot tower, but his pea rolls off the top of it just before Alex blows his whistle, prompting him to curl up in the foetal position on the floor, with his head buried in one of the cushions.

In the pea-catching event, Mathew becomes increasingly frustrated by the fact that he can’t even see the peas being fired at him. Eventually, Alex starts firing multiple peas at once, but Mathew is still unable to catch one.

In the pea-throwing event, Alex confirms that Mathew must throw his pea towards the river. Mathew – who is already having an absolute nightmare of a task – points out that this is into a quite strong wind, which he demonstrates by dropping the task brief, which blows straight across the temple in the opposite direction. To solve the issue, Mathew uses a pencil to make a hole in one of the carrots, then pokes the pea inside the hole. However, before throwing his pea-loaded carrot, he decides to take some practice throws with some of the other carrots. He manages to throw his pea the second furthest distance, and so earns the silver medal.

Mathew immediately regrets his practice throws, when instructed to retrieve his pea for the final event. He finds several of his practice carrots in the field before eventually finding the one with a pea in it.

In the studio, Greg voices his concern that they're only on the first episode of the series, and Mathew appears to be “close to the edge”. Mathew assures him that what they’d just witnessed was “not even close to my lowest ebb”, and that “I remember that fondly, if anything”.

Alex confirms that it had taken Mathew over 2 minutes to find his carrot in the field.

He earns one silver medal (for pea-throwing), so he comes joint fourth with Stevie, and earns 2 points.

(Written by Karl Craven and proofread by M3 / Andres Sanchez)

(Illustrations collected and adjusted by: David Fuller)