Reaction: Taskmaster, "My presumably scrotum" | Series 19, Episode 3

It’s week three of Taskmaster series 19, with our contestants Fatiha El-Ghorri, Jason Mantzoukas, Mathew Baynton, Rosie Ramsey, and Stevie Martin. I sincerely hope that the title of this week’s episode doesn’t filter this newsletter out of your inbox. 

These contestants continue to be a delight, individually and as a group, and the studio banter is solid, helped along by Mantzoukas’ deep improv experience. But El-Ghorri is also a studio favorite—good-naturedly taking the piss out of Baynton, and thinking way, waaaay outside the box with this week’s prize task. Speaking of…

The Prize Task

• This week’s prize task is the best thing for a middle-aged man to keep on his bedside table. I was a bit disappointed at first—a curtained photo of mum is weird but fine, a quill is weird but weak, a book of poetry is lovely but perhaps a little too earnest for our Taskmaster Greg Davies. (The poem Baynton mentioned, Mary Oliver’s “When Death Comes,” is gorgeous and uplifting in its own way, just not a Taskmaster way.) And then El-Ghorri brings what is perhaps my favorite prize of the first three episodes: an orange with the word “audacity” written on it. This is how you do weird. ”Something that middle-aged men have a massive supply of is audacity.” So here’s what you do: “Wake up in the morning, juice it, drink that audacity so you don’t inflict it on anybody else.” Preach. 

• I’m not surprised Mantzoukas won this one, even if a 200,000-lumen light somewhat negates the point of keeping a flashlight on your bedside table. The equivalent of 5,000 iPhone flashlights ain’t gonna keep you from fully waking yourself up, bruv. But the video of Mantzoukas shining it in an empty theater was pure Taskmaster catnip, and he gets the full five points. 

  

The Other Tasks

• The first task: Answer the cheese phone. Not the sneeze phone, nor the bee’s phone, nor the pea’s phone, nor the knee’s phone. You know (and Mantzoukas said as much in the studio) that Little Alex Horne was absolutely delighted with himself for all that wordplay. 

• Last week in the comments, Shaun mentioned how S14 contestant Sarah Millican made a point to always look under chairs, leading to Little Alex Horne leaving a note under a chair that said, “Hello, Sarah.” So I was delighted to see that Mantzoukas looked under the table and was rewarded with a missive of a letter, even if reading it aloud counted against his time.

• I was legitimately surprised that Baynton and Martin both found the phone using only their sense of smell. That must have been some stinky-ass cheese. (It looked to me like some sort of blue cheese—not even Limburger?!—though I guess a nice Gorgonzola will get pretty noxious if it’s been out a while.)

• I honestly don’t even know what to say about Baynton’s presumably scrotum, except thank you to the producers for pixelating it. And did anybody else notice he was still clutching that miniature grater as he crawled around the house?  

• The second task: Move the most cushions from one bin to the other without Alex seeing what color cape you’re wearing. Poor Ramsey, tripping and disqualifying herself immediately for the cushions touching the ground. After being mean to Little Alex Horne during the task (“I imagine this is what your house is like… Empty.”), she whispered to Davies in the studio, “I was on my period.” One does get clumsier when one’s estrogen drops. 

• And poor Baynton, thinking he’d done this task well, not realizing he’d also immediately disqualified himself for “moving the bin one meter for no reason.”

• And poor El-Ghorri, who does not like ducks, bruv. 

• I liked that we got a bit of range with the contestants’ tactics. Mantzoukas running around the back was brilliant, as was Baynton using an armful of cushions to obscure his cape from Alex’s view. Bummer that everybody was disqualified, but rules are rules.

• The third task: Paint the best picture of the Taskmaster and his assistant having fun. I feel like we’ve seen a lot of similar tasks in previous seasons. It’s hard to make these feel fresh at this point, even with the various restrictions and rules. But our contestants certainly brought a lot of energy (and in Mantzoukas’ case, chaos, obviously) to it. El-Ghorri and Ramsey’s approach of painting directly on the palette and then using that to print on the canvas was A+.   

  • Mantzoukas to Davies, in a plea for more points: “I gave you a big dick!” 

• The live task was to do the Taskmaster’s previous instruction, like a jet-lagged game of Simon Says. Not the strongest live task—though maybe my expectations were set too high after the first episode’s raisin-spitting—but I do love the chemistry and camaraderie on the teams. 

Elsewhere in the Taskmaster Extended Universe 

• There’s a good chance you’re already following Taskmaster on Instagram, but if not, you’re missing out on some fun extras, like this Wiki wormhole.
• Davies and Horne talk to British podcast In Creative Company about Mantzoukas’ Hollywood energy and smashing things on set.

Until next time: Baynton has won every episode so far. Is he going to take the whole thing? Or do we have an underdog who will come in from behind? (It won’t be El-Ghorri, but I want it to be El-Ghorri.)