BunkoSquad

Episode 12.1: The Boys played stickball for a while, then put their hopes in the hands of yoga instructor Aras, whose cunning plan was to fuse their energies or something by holding all their hands close together. OK. But it's still a bit better than the Girls' plan, which was to pooh-pooh a number of potential campsite locations, then watch bemusedly as Courtney, the fire dancer from (wait for it) Los Angeles, held an impromptu memorial service for a dead turtle they saw on the beach.

Episode 12.2: At Tribal Council, Jeff resists the urge to strangle the Casayas. Shane says that even though he was begging and pleading to be sent home, he didn't really mean it. Cerie and Melinda express their disappointment with being on the chopping block for no reason. And Bruce looks around like a guy who's just been drafted by the Washington Generals.

Episode 12.3: Bruce, the new Casaya arrival, took charge, showing the tribe how to filter water, keep a fire going, and not be attacked by bats. So of course Shane and Courtney got pissed; after all, they were firmly in control of this tribe until Mr. "I Have Wilderness Survival Skills" shows up and starts teaching them how to do stuff, and why they shouldn't drink sea water. Light dawns over Marblehead, and Aras starts to openly wonder if hitching his wagon to the star of a bipolar junkie and a tempestuous fire-dancer was really his wisest decision.

Episode 12.4: Casaya arrives to find its brand new [outhouse]. Some of them debate storing the wood there to keep it dry; Bobby has other plans for it. He wakes up, burps, grabs Reader's Digest, and off he goes, which is weird, because I thought that animals' digestive systems shut down while they're hibernating. Then Shane goes off on Danielle for not doing any work, leading her to grab a shovel and start whacking the beach. Cirie, who's fully completed the 180-degree turnaround to likeability, just giggles as she thinks about how pathetic the Dipshit Alliance turned out to be.

Episode 12.5: Casaya takes the feast back to camp, where apparently a 10-minute deluge has ruined everything. Their stuff is scattered; their fire is out. Sushi time! Cirie wonders openly if eating raw fish is healthy (she's standing in fetid stagnant water at the time) and Bruce whines that it's not the same without wasabi and ginger. Also, somewhere along the line here, Bobby opines that Courtney is "one of the 2 or 3 most annoying people in the history of the planet". Let's see: Hitler, Courtney, Pol Pot. Sounds about right.

Episode 12.6: Dan takes the news [of his impending eviction] in stride. This is La Mina, remember, home of the Camazotz-esque hivemind. If it were legal, he'd vote for himself. All he can do is go on and on about how the puzzle beat him. You get the feeling that 10 years from now, Dan will be sitting in a diner somewhere, babbling about how the puzzle beat him, with a comfortable 3 empty stools on either side of him.

Episode 12.7: Terry is determinedly, if stupidly, trying to flip some of the lesser Casayas to even out the numbers. He comes to Shane, then Cirie, then Bruce, with an offer they can most definitely refuse. "Why not leave your team, which wins all the time, and join this sinking ship that looks good on paper but constantly screws up when it counts?" Unfortunately for Terry, none of them are Adam Vinatieri.

Episode 12.8: Oh, incidentally, one suprise from the challenge: of all the people on the show, you'd think Danielle would have a little more experience hauling coconuts around.

Episode 12.9: Shane, Danielle and Cirie stomp back to the beach, rationalizing that the Reward wasn't so great anyway. To take their minds off things, Shane decides to announce that the humidity and the lack of laundry have caused Li'l Shane to itch and burn. So he drops his trousers to give Cirie and Danielle a look, and give the CBS censors years' worth of psychiatry bills. Cirie, a professionally trained nurse, responds the only way possible: laughing her ass off and telling him it's a variation of diaper rash.

Episode 12.10: [Shane and Courtney] are both severely ticked that they weren't chosen to go to the resort. Bruce, meanwhile, is miserable because his stomach pains have intensified. He's trying to take a nap, and is literally writhing around on the ground from the pain. Having to listen to Prince Doom and the Dutchess of Despair can't be helping; he looks like the woman in Airplane! who vomits when the nun starts singing "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" to her.

Episode 12.11: Cirie decides that now would be a good time to contribute something to her fellow castaways, and goes fishing. Incidentally, I may not have showered enough praise on Cirie; she's awesome. The Greek chorus of sanity among the Bonehead Brigade. I think CBS would do well to cut to interviews with her in future seasons. I think ESPN should have her as a sideline reporter for Monday Night Football. I think some fishing show could hire her, since she actually catches a damn fish!

Episode 12.12: [Shane]'s genuinely and utterly shocked when he's voted out. Terry puts his hands over his face, realizing that everyone he's bringing to a reward winds up dead in a ditch right after. That will certainly help his popularity. Shane yells at everyone else that he'll be eating chocolate ice cream in a minute (I guess it will take him 58 seconds to massacre a cigarette first), and off he goes.

Episode 12.13: Terry could slip the idol to Danielle (this is the last chance he has to use it), wait for Aras and Cirie to vote for her, then she can whip out the Idol and it's goodbye, Cirie. But you know, and I know, and Jeff knows, and Danielle knows, and random sailors in the Panama Canal know, that Terry's not the type of man who leaves his ass out in the wind. He's not giving her the Idol.

Episode 12.14: Now that it's too late to help anyone, Terry reveals that he's had the Immunity Idol all along. Cut to more reaction shots of jurors, who look like Steve Martin and Martin Short in Three Amigos when Chevy Chase empties his completely full waterskin. Thanks for nothin', Terry; this will certainly be a feather in your cap if you make it in front of the jury.

Episode 13.1: So in the first fifteen minutes, we saw the Latino tribe saying they should win because they're used to living on tropical islands and fleeing places on boats, we saw the Asian tribe saying they're lighter and more mobile because of all that rice, we saw the African-American tribe talking about how they have to "represent", and we saw the white tribe stealing chickens from the oppressed minorities. I think I just heard the UN disbanding.

Episode 13.2: Cao Boi's sense of humor is grating on the other Asians at Camp Puka. He's still plucking evil spirits out of the others via the bridges of their noses, but when the lights are out, he likes to tell Asian jokes. Not like Zen riddles, but like "How many Bhutanese does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" And the others think he's not funny, and he's perpetuating the stereotype of Asians as unserious-minded goofballs. Or something.

Episode 13.3: [Jessica]'s one of those people that agrees with the last thing they heard. She's the reason people wave signs outside the polling place on Election Day. Jon, and Ozzie, and Cao Boi, and everyone else seemingly, explain their great strategies to her, and she sits there, smiling and uncaring, like a dog in an algebra class. Jon's a particularly crappy salesman; he pitches his plan to her, she says "Well, I don't know", and he immediately pitches it again. And it sounds different than last time - even to me, and I ostensibly know what his plan is. This tribe has trouble written all over it.

Episode 13.4: At Camp Raro, we get a charming portrait of Princess Parvati and her minions. She's mad at the boys for sitting around eating while the girls weave (maybe she's conveniently forgotten the male/female ratio of the last Immunity Challenge), but she can't be too mad at the boys, since she needs them worshiping her and groveling at her feet. So she flashes them her huge...teeth, and quietly seethes to the camera about how domineering and manipulative J.P. is. I'd assumed J.P. was just your garden-variety chump, but he's gotten under Parvati's skin. If nothing else.

Episode 13.5: Adam uses the new fishing gear to somehow come home with an octopus wrapped around his shin. Not as titillating as having Nate wrapped around his torso, perhaps, but what are you gonna do. Christina leaps up and announces that she's got the perfect recipe for octopus, crabs, and coconuts. I believe it's called "Octopus, Crab, and Coconut Soup".

Episode 13.6: Yul shows an amazing poker face, considering (a) Cao Boi never thinks for a second that Yul has the Idol (which he does) and (b) stabbing Cao Boi with a spear right now would probably constitute self-defense in the eyes of any jury.

Episode 13.7: Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are actually making me start to hate baseball a little.