Many people are enjoying the youtube series “Darkhorse” with Shane Tusup and Ilaria Cusinato. I am not one of those people. Through five episodes I had completely avoided it. On episode six, a friend texted me and finally broke my will.

I sat down to watch Episode 6. I made it halfway through before I got kind of queasy. I took a break, swallowed hard and watched to the bitter end. Then, I decided the only productive thing I could do was rank the worst parts of what I just endured. Here, in descending order (with time stamps) are those parts:

5. “It’s like getting your first tattoo” (5:50). Shane makes his fourth (fifth?) attempt at explaining to Cusinato why she is crying during her weight session.

4. “That’s a big boy’s shit right there” (6:38) ???????????

3. Money shot of Tusup lifting (6:50). One overall theme of the video is that we get a ton of Tusup talking and an alarming amount of Tusup working out. Cusinato is barely heard from, but she fares better than the Hungarian teenage boy. Speaking of:

2. Tusup “fake” chokes a Hungarian teenage boy (I’m purposely leaving his name out of my blog post because he’s a minor). Time stamp 7:46. Following that there is an awkward attempt of Cusinato to do the same.

1. “Your body is handling it well” (4:56). This is the point halfway where I had to turn it off. Cusinato is in tears on the ground, and Tusup has spent a couple of minutes lecturing up to this point as Cusinato gets increasingly upset. Since this is a project by Tusup I can only guess that these are the parts of his coaching that he actually wants us to see. Although to be fair, he comports himself here way better than any swim meet I ever saw him at.

Will I continue to watch? Maybe, but for my own sanity hopefully not.