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May 03, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.12: Like Lenin Said: Look For The Person Who Will Benefit

Night 30 at Bula Bula. Alex and the rest of them come back to camp after Alex's Operation Stab Mookie In the Back was successful. Alex has ill-deserved confidence that he can weasel his way into another three days. Earl is alarmed that the split-the-vote strategy he was against worked. Dreamz sees something shiny and wanders off.

For some reason, Stacy goes over to talk to Alex. She tries to butter him up, which is stupid because (a) why bother?!? and (b) it makes the rest of her Alliance nervous. So nervous, in face, that they send Boo over to break up the conversation, which will go in the Hamhanded Hall of Fame. Boo: "Stacy, they want to talk to you." Stacy: "Who does?" Boo: "Um, everybody except for you and Alex." Hurley on Lost is a better liar than Boo.

Alex says he's going to be "a ninja", and fake sleeping in so he can spy on people. Which makes him sound a little more like a slacker than a ninja, but whatever. He also says he's armed with nothing but "a smile, velvet gloves and a dagger in my pocket", which makes him sound a little more like a Byronesque fop than a ninja, but whatever.

The Alliance of Six is trying to decide who among them will become the Alliance of Four once the Alex unpleasantness is behind them. Everyone distrusts Boo, but Earl and Cassandra want to keep Dreamz in the quartet, while Yau Man feels more comfortable keeping Stacy along for the ride. Maybe Alex could exploit this, if he were spying on this conversation, as a ninja might do.

Reward Challenge! In a PETA-approved challenge, the Survivors have to rip into hunks of pork with nothing but their teeth and assemble the biggest pile of meat in five minutes. Yau Man rips off a couple of big chunks, but when Jeff does the measurements, Boo comes out a couple of pounds ahead of everybody else. It's a proud day for the South.

So Boo, along with Yau Man and Dreamz (silver and bronze), gets to go on a helicopter/whitewater rafting adventure. Earl gets to go to Exile Island (which is stupid because you don't really want to leave Alex alone with anyone at this point - not Kate-last-night on Lost stupid, but not brilliant). Boo also gets a mystery bag which will help him in the Immunity Challenge.

The adventure looks pretty freaking cool. They ride the chopper (or is it huey now? Who can tell?) around some majestic island scenery and raft through some spectacular landscapes with waterfalls. Only problem is, Boo won't shut up through the whole trip, which understandably pisses off Yau Man and ironically pisses off Dreamz.

Boo at some point says riding on the raft makes him feel like a giddy little girl. I don't even have a comment here.

They finish their tour with a picnic lunch, where a friendly Fijian delivers them all letters from home. Yau Man reads off his son's report card (he got a B in Algebra; Yau asks why it couldn't have been in Spanish). Boo learns that the horses and the family are all eating well. Dreamz gets an inspirational letter from his sister that actually seems to inspire him. Not bad.

Back to Bula Bula, where Alex is trying to figure out how he's going to stir things up. A ninja would know already.

Immunity is up for grabs! It's a 2-stage process, where the Survivors have to dig in the sand for some climbing tools. The first two to find them go up against Boo (for his climbing tools were in the mystery bag) and...well...climb a pole for Immunity.

Alex starts digging like a madman. Cassandra halfheartedly flops around in the sand without really trying. Alex, getting more desparate, starts chucking his sand into Yau's area. Not cool, man. Not cool. But it works, as he and Dreamz advance to the second round.

In the pole-climbing portion of the challenge, Alex tries to skip using the climbing tools, and gets 80% of the way up...and stops. Boo wins. Alex is in a world of trouble right now.

So now it's time for him to use his Harvard Law negotiating skills and get people on his side. He decides he'll wait for the others to come to him, since it makes perfect sense for people who aren't about to be voted off to make nice to the guy who is going to be voted off. And so here comes Cassandra. Alex starts telling her that he wants to help her vote for Yau Man (who won't be expecting it and thus won't play the Idol) to help her down the line. And not at all because it keeps Alex alive for another week. Like Lenin said...look for the person who benefits.

It's a dopey idea, but some of them are at least mulling it over. Cassandra has to look at the Earl/Yau alliance as a big obstacle in her future. Dreamz misses the point entirely when Earl winks at him as Alex is babbling away. Just let's not be stupid, Cassandra and Dreamz. Please?

At Tribal Council, Yau Man admits he's feeling a little bit of pressure, which is exactly the kind of weakness you don't want to voice in front of Cassandra and Dreamz right now. Jeff asks everyone, in turn, if they feel very worried right now; Alex is the only one who says yes. Earl sits back looking simultaneously smooth and devious. Can you tell I'm rooting for Earl?

They vote, and it quickly becomes obvious that Alex's Save Alex Plan didn't get a lot of traction. Looks like he'll have to be a ninja up at the Statesville Prison from now on. Anyone who put $5 on Dreamz to be the Last Remaining Horseman at 75:1 odds is feeling pretty good right now.

Next week: Axes are thrown! Yau Man wheels and deals! Alex's parting shot is that now the Alliance has to turn on itself. Alex, I think they all know that, and just decided they'd prefer to do it without you hanging around.

Posted by Michael at 09:44 PM | Comments (1)

April 29, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.11: Donny, These Men Are Cowards

Sad times at Bula Bula, as the Four Horsemen have been routed. Edgardo's been given the boot, and Dreamz has jumped ship to join Team Earl. Or, more accurately, to bounce around like a pinball and ally with whomever he's talking to at that exact second.

Shorter Team Alex postmortem. Mookie: "We're screwed." Alex: "Ya think?"

Dreamz, who for some reason is feeling a little bit of mistrust and suspicion wafting in his general direction, is talking to Team Earl, trying to figure out why they didn't all vote exactly the way he was expecting him to. He thinks it's because they think he's a liar; they patiently explain that they wanted to make sure the whole lot of 'em weren't triple-crossed. Now that's language Dreamz can understand. He doesn't go away mad, but he does go away. Win-win.

Now that it's 6-2, Stacy can revert from helpful, agreeable Stacy to the Ice Queen of Northern Vermont. She says Alex and Mookie, being in the minority, will be lucky to be offered any food. And she will never get her comeuppance! You hear me? NO COMEUPPANCE!

Dreamz goes on an ill-advised goodwill mission to the tattered remnants of his old alliance. "We got outplayed" he tells Alex and Mookie. They nod politely, rather than turn him over to the Brute Squad, which might have been my instinct were I in their shoes.

The Reward Challenge splits them into two teams. Orange: Yau Man, Mookie, Cassandra and Boo. Green: Earl, Stacy, Alex and Dreamz. One of them will slingshot balls out into a sea of mud, where the rest try to catch said balls with lacrosse sticks. I think they're lacrosse sticks, anyway.

There's a lot of pushing and shoving. There's a lot of yelling by Mookie at Yau, as Mookie doesn't think Yau is understanding Mookie's secret signals of where to fling the balls. There's a visit from the medical team, as something in Boo's legs pops and snaps audibly, and he grunts and groans in the mud for a while.

What there isn't is a lot of blurring out of body parts. Without any minx like Parvati or Danielle around, there's no point having this challenge in the mud, as it's mostly an ugly all-male production. Rest assured, I shall be sending a letter to Mr. Probst.

The Green Team wins (Dreamz wins MVP of the challenge). They get a seaplane ride to a spa, with showers, beds, food and many many products from one of the program's fine sponsors. As SurvivorBlog is a non-profit (hint), I won't mention them. They also tab Boo to go to Exile Island, since he's lived at Luxury Beach for most of the game, and he's too hobbled to mount a serious run at the Immunity Idol.

Boo frumps around Exile Island. He reads the first clue to the rehidden Idol, which indicates it's near a tree. He moans and complains, but his heart doesn't really seem to be in it.

The spa trip is pretty boring. Again, the hot tub scene with Parvati and Ozzie last time set the bar pretty high, so we have to be content now with some scenes of them lounging around in robes. Stacy, as gracious as ever, sniffs that it kind of sucks to have Alex around, since he's the prey and she's...well, not the predator, but one of those little birds that flutters around the predator because there's a steady supply of food.

They come back to camp. Alex is fired up! He's ready to bring it! Whatever it is!

Mookie decides the time is right to play his hunch, that Yau Man found Moto's Immunity Idol. He rifles through Yau's bags and his suspicions are confirmed. He and Alex giddily romp into the forest to play Sneaky Petes and discuss how this ill-gotten information can make their Alliance of Two into a full-fledged powerhouse. What I didn't mention earlier is that at the spa, Alex tried to appeal to Earl by talking up his sense of integrity and honor.

The two of them decide that their wisest course of action is to blackmail and strongarm Yau. They'll tell him, either you tell everyone you have the Idol, or we will. Um, OK. Meanwhile, their whole conversation is being sort of overheard by Cassandra and Stacy. The ladies can't hear much of what the dudes are saying, but the dudes are spooked by their audience.

So Mookie and Alex have to get to Yau before the girls do. They find him, tell him they found his Idol while searching his bag, and what is he gonna do about it? Yau cowboys up and says, OK, tell everyone. Mookie and Alex are nonplussed.

Somehow, Yau gets back to camp first and tells everyone what went down. Earl is full of righteous indignation that Yau's pack was searched; Dreamz misses the point entirely and starts ruminating about how the alliance of two can now take charge by possessing information that most of them had already guessed.

Commercials: Is there really a new pirate-themed reality show coming up? Should I blog that? Yarrrr.

The Immunity Challenge is a modified eight-way game of Battleship. Dreamz and Cassandra mistakenly participate in the sinking of their own ships, and Stacy wins by being in the right place at the right time.

Alex and Mookie decide that one of them is certainly doomed, so they're going to raise a little hell at Tribal Council before they go home. It's always a little amazing to watch people conspiring to overplay their hand.

Team Earl is trying to decide which of the Two Remaining Horsemen will go first. Dreamz misses the point entirely and says that Alex is better at collecting firewood, so he should stay. There's support for kicking Alex off now, since he might win a challenge down the road. Boo (!) comes up with the idea of splitting the vote, in case one of them stumbled on the new Immunity Idol or (more likely) picked Yau's pockets.

At Tribal Council, Alex makes a dopey speech about the importance of fair play and trust. Mookie then admits that he and Alex were playing "Amateur TSA" with Yau's packs. Jeff, who didn't just fall off a turnip truck, sees through their Grade-A baloney and calls them on it.

This, I'll remind you, is when Mookie and Alex were planning to "raise a little hell" at the Council. "A little" hell would be a very, very generous assessment of what happened. Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the hamsters of war.

Alex, possessed of a highly-tuned skin-saving gene, must have figured out that Team Earl will be splitting the vote, so he votes for Mookie to tip the scales. Looks like Mookie will be rummaging through sacks at the Statesville Prison from now on.

Next week: Alex is a ninja! There's meat!

Posted by Michael at 09:56 PM | Comments (2)

April 23, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.10: Certain Things Have Come To Light

We start on the set of Three Men and a Bonehead, where Alex is ruing the fact that Mookie has clued Dreamz into their possession of the Immunity Idol. And Mookie is ruing the fact that Alex remembers that they have the Idol, since Mookie's entire strategy seems to be predicated on using the Idol without Alex (and, to a lesser extent, Edgardo) realizing it. There's a lot of ruing going on. So Mookie hollers at Dreamz while Dreamz watches a bug.

Among the former Moto-II's, Boo is submitting an audition tape, trying to become a valued member of Team Earl. Earl doesn't seem completely sold, even when Boo throws in a glitter bag with scented soaps.

Let's go right to the Reward Challenge!

It's one of the best challenges in Survivor's arsenal: the Slam Book. Jeff makes everyone fill out a questionnaire regarding the loathsome and obnoxious habits of people's loathsome and obnoxious co-contestants. This is the challenge that broks Courtney two seasons ago, so let's get started. Each person who correctly guesses the consensus answers gets to smash a...well, thing, and help knock someone else out of the challenge.

First question: Who's the most trustworthy? Team Earl rallies 'round their captain, and he wins. All three Survivors who guessed right smash Stacy's thing and she's out.

Second: Who would you least like to take to dinner? Boo is the correct answer, and I can imagine Dreamz is beaming as everyone goes and smashes Boo's thing. He's out.

We then learn that Alex has a false sense of entitlement, that no one plans to hang out with Stacy after the show is over, that Dreamz smells the funkiest (Edgardo endearingly assumed it was himself), and that Stacy's the one who's most wasted this opportunity. I don't know which opportunity they mean, exactly, because if they mean the opportunity was to be a snoot about coffee, Stacy got her money's worth and more.

In the end, Cassandra guessed every answer correctly, so she gets to send someone off to Exile Island (bye, Mookie) and gets a feast on a yacht with three other Survivors. She disperses her Golden Tickets to Dreamz, Boo and Yau, figuring that Yau needs a good meal and she can make sure the other two realize the benefits of joining Team Earl. Even though Earl himself wasn't invited.

On Exile Island, Mookie fumes and steams and bitches and moans about Cassandra. Who does she think she is, punishing someone who's clearly working against her? Mookie reads over all the Idol clues, then throws them aside, pronouncing them "useless". Which is at least as ironic as anything Alanis Morissette came up with. He (half-correctly) guesses that Earl has the other Idol, and wishes there were some way to get word to the others in his Frat Pack.

On the luxury yacht (pronounced Throatwobbler Mangrove), Boo is slamming margaritas. Should make him easier to butter up. Yau's salute - "proceed carefully" - is straight out of the Toastmasters' Handbook. Cassandra and Yau are doing something that falls somewhere between buttering Dreamz up and breaking him down like the POW's in The Manchurian Candidate.

When they come back, we see an interview with Dreamz, where he seems to have come to the sad realization that, although he's in good shape to become kingmaker, kingmakers never become kings. I think he thinks that, at this point, he's going to be a vital and instrumental part of either Earl or Alex winning a million bucks.

So here's how he handles that. He tells Alex that Team Earl has Alex in their sights (including making a sloppy Lord of the Rings analogy), then goes over and starts excitedly yelling something to Earl and Cassandra. When Earl tells him to slow down and enunciate, Dreamz announces that Mookie is holding Ravu's Immunity Idol. This has the effect of scraping a needle across a record (you kids may have to look that reference up) and Earl is silenced. Dreamz is either the worst spy ever, or he's lying, or both.

Now to the Reward Challenge, which involves the Survivors balancing on little tiny footholds while holding their weight up with their arms. It looks about as exciting as it sounds, and you can tell that it's killing Jeff that he can't really shout out updates.

Yau Man wins. He is a freaking Jedi knight.

Now it's time for scheming, and all hell is breaking loose. Stacy, who I thought was a reliable patsy on Team Alex, gets totally convinced by Yau to flip to Team Earl. Mookie actually parts with the Idol, figuring that Alex would be Team Earl's first target.

Then Dreamz runs over to Team Earl and tells them this. OMGWTFBBQ. He's like counter-counter-counterspying at this point. Stacy says (and my regard for Stacy shoots up from zero to an actual integer) that since Team Alex is planning to defend Alex, Team Earl should whack Edgardo instead. I had to watch this twice to make sure it was actually Stacy, and not Sun Tsu.

So Dreamz goes running back to Alex, and does not tell him about this shakeup. Oh, Dreamz is gonna be popular tomorrow! So we're heading into Tribal Council. Team Earl is planning to vote off Edgardo, though Team Alex thinks it's Alex. Team Alex is going after Cassandra to satisfy Mookie's bloodlust.

At Council, they all admit that this was the most chaotic day ever. Yau, wearing the Immunity Necklace of Shark's Teeth, says that this is the first time he's come to a vote not thinking he was going to be kicked out, which is really cute for some reason. Dreamz sayz it'z time to separate the snakes from the rats, which means that (1) he's been doing his homework, and (2) I'm not sure he's thought through the ramifications of his playing Agent Saboteur.

The votes are cast. Jeff asks if anyone wants to play the Immunity Idol; Alex steps forward and turns it in.

The votes are read, and it's never been more obvious that a staffer arranges them in the pot for maximum suspense. The first three are for Cassandra, then one for Mookie (which was cast by Dreamz, who I think either has 11 plots going at once or has absolutely no follow-through at all, and I'm not sure which it is), and then the gloves come off and five votes in a row come through for Edgardo. Ciao.

Team Alex looks appropriately stunned and saddened. Jeff announces that the Idol will be reburied and new clues will be written. Rocky, on the Jury, looks around like he's never met any of these people before. And Edgardo's torch is snuffed; looks like he'll be failing at archery up in the Statesville Prison from now on.

Edgardo's Two Minute Hate is that he gambled and lost (spoken like a true European playboy) and that he thinks Cassandra is evil. Next week: Dreamz learns about consequences! Mookie seaches Yau's stuff and finds the Idol! Jeff might get a new hat!

Posted by Michael at 07:22 PM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2007

SurvivorBlog Will Be Delayed

This was perhaps the most complicated episode ever. Plus, after the show, I went outside for a walk to take advantage of a bizarre meteorological phenomenon where cold water wasn't plummeting out of the sky. Freaky. Might be a sign of End Times. Review'll be up soon.

Posted by Michael at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.9: I Wouldn't Hold Out Much Hope For the Tape Deck

Previously on Survivor: Mookie gets up pretty early in the morning! Lisi snoozes! Lisi loses!

We open on a suspicious Camp Raro, where Edgardo and Alex are having concerns - well-founded concerns - about the wisdom of letting Mookie have physical possession of the Immunity Idol that the Three Musketeers dug up together. Mookie swears up and down that he'll never turn on them. Somehow they believe this.

Then a panoramic look at the Stately Moto Mansion: its luxurious bed, its fully stocked china cabinet, its ample toilet paper. Not that this is foreshadowing or anything.

Treemail! Everyone gather up your personal belongings - no rewards, no flints - and fill your canteen, because you've got a ticket to Exile Island! Kind of defeats the purpose of the "Exile" bit, but what are you gonna do. Everyone seems to think that this has something to do with a merge.

At Ravu, they immediately make plans to make their 4-6 advantage into a legitimate majority. They decide that Dreamz will win over Cassandra, and Mookie will win over Michelle. I don't think the guy from Numbers can come up with an equation that will make this plan work.

They all row out to E.I. and are a little miffed that Jeff isn't there with instructions and a hat. They wander around aimlessly griping, which is totally different than what they usually do because it's on a different island. Alex wins back some major BunkoSquad points when he asks, "Is this where the cannibals come in?"

At the top of Exile Island tower (Careful! Don't slip in Lisi's tears!) they find another note, instructing them to paddle back to Moto. Mookie is psyched, since he's the only one left who has never known the singular joy of using a bed or a toilet. Well, presumably in the last three weeks only.

Moto's been robbed! They wander around aimlessly (I sense a theme) and note that the bed, the food, the china cabinet, the Wii, the jetpack, the wine cellar, and the toilet are gone. So are the tape deck and the Creedence tapes. Mookie, understandably, looks particularly crestfallen.

The good news is that they have a new flag to paint, and get to pick a new tribe name. They come up with Bula Bula, which either means "Hello" in Fijian or is a sign that Yale's dastardly Skull and Bones Club has stuck its pernicious tentacles even into ridiculous game shows.

The Survivors mull over the new dynamics, since the 10 castaways seem to be in a total of 4,542 rock-solid alliances (I counted). Stacy and Michelle are convinced that the boys will probably turn on one another before they touch the girls. If only Totally Hetero Rocky were still around to disprove that theory.

Everyone's feeling good. Mack Daddy Earl knows his ducks are in a row. Alex and Edgardo feel confident that Stacy hasn't flipped. Dreamz knowz he'z on the "outskirts" [sic] but he thinks that's a good place to be. And Boo is ready to lie in the weeds for a while, then reclaim his position of leadership. Which means he must have been Assistant Manager of a Sizzler at one point, and they're saving his old apron, because I haven't seen him in a position of leadership once since this whole clambake started.

Every alliance except Boo's Army of One seems to be pretty united in thinking that Boo's going to be first to go. Alliance #562 (Yau Man, Dreamz, Cassandra, Mookie) announce that Stacy will be next, which leads Mookie and Dreamz to conclude that the Moto-II alliance is stronger than the Ravu-II alliance (maybe they took off their shoes and realized that 6 toes are more than 4 toes) and that doesn't bode well for either of them.

Now people are going to debate this next bit for years to come. As tactical maneuvers go, it ranks somewhere between a pissed-off Crash Davis telling batters which pitch Nuke is about to throw, and Nixon authorizing the Watergate break-in. Mookie tells Dreamz about the Idol. You may recall that three people found the Idol, and Dreamz was the fourth remaining Ravu-II. Which means they never told him about it when it was just the four of them. Which means Mookie just admitted that Dreamz wasn't part of their club, they were going to vote for him next if they had to, and they're blatantly only telling him now because Mookie fears what Dreamz will do with the information that Mookie revealed to Dreamz in the previous sentence.

Then consider that Dreamz has a big mouth, is as volatile as [ed. note - look up a volatile chemical here to make us look smart], and already is suspected of having ties to one or more Moto-II's, and it's clear that Lisi sprinkled some Stupid Juice on Mookie before she left.

Smooth move, Ex-Lax. Alex and Edgardo start to wonder about this wisdom of hitching their wagon to the star of a guy who made friends with Rocky.

Immunity Challenge! Jeff, as cunning as a weasel, splits Bula Bula in two, and says that even though we're merged, there will still be a team element to this challenge. Winning team gets steaks, losers get a note read to them by Jeff. In orange: Edgardo, Yau, Earl, Cassandra and Boo. In green: Dreamz, Michelle, Stacy, Alex and Mookie. They have to paddle canoes, untangle puzzle pieces, assemble puzzle.

Yau Man rocks the untangling part, making this frail little old computer geek the most Challengeworthy Survivor since Terry, and Orange gets out to an insurmountable lead. Jeff reveals his little note, which says that the Green Team will not go back to camp, will not collect $200, but will take the Short Bus Railroad directly to Tribal Council. No scheming, no plotting, no mercy.

The Orange team eats steaks (Boo actually looks like a hell of a competent chef) and speculates about who's not going to come home. Earl, understandably, is worried about Michelle; Edgardo is worried because the whole rest of his alliance is out there somewhere. Boo shows enough self-awareness to say that he's very lucky not to be out there himself. I make a mental note to go get a steak as soon as the show ends.

It's nighttime, and the Greens are arriving at Tribal Council. Was it a five-hour walk, or were they put in Isolation Chambers, like in the lightning round on Family Feud?

***FAMILY FEUD TANGENT***
I was watching some blooper/hilarious-TV-moment show the other day, and there was a scene of (possibly Australian) Family Feud where the question was "Name a place where you would toast somebody". One of the contestants buzzed in and yelled out, "A grille!" Everyone laughed, the host cracked up, the contestant looked mortified. Finally the host composed himself, called out "Show me a grille!" and of course it was the number five answer. People. Don't know whether to love 'em, or hole up in the Idaho mountains to escape 'em.
***TANGENT ENDS***

At Tribal Council, Jeff starts poking at the wariness and the unpreparedness [ed. note - that can't be a real word] of the five people sitting before him. He finally lays it on the line: "Dreamz, tell me why people should vote off Stacy". He diplomatically answers, "'Cuz it ain't me". Damn good answer, actually. He tries to get everyone to name names, and everyone diplomatically says nice things about the others.

Then Alex.

JEFF: Alex, tell me why you might vote off [Dreamz/Stacy/Mookie]?

ALEX: I have no reason to vote off [Dreamz/Stacy/Mookie].

JEFF: Why might you vote off Michelle?

ALEX: Because she must die.

I paraphrase a bit, but I hope I accurately conveyed what a cold-blooded assassin Alex turned into there for a second. Frankly, I rewrote this section nine times just to make sure I didn't include anything that would make Alex come after me. Mookie and Dreamz gulp, seemingly having gotten the message.

So it's Michelle. Guess she'll be using her eyeglasses to start fires up in the Statesville Prison from now on.

During the commercials, I quickly tacked up some posterboards and drew charts of who's left. There are two three-person alliances (Yau/Earl/Cassandra and Alex/Stacy/Edgardo) that seem pretty solid. Dreamz and Mookie are free agents, and Boo is just biding his time waiting for Team Boo to assemble. This is going to be some kind of ride.

Next week: Dreamz and Mookie fight! Cassandra makes a mistake! The front-page story in the Bula Bula Tribune: MOOKIE HAS AN IMMUNITY IDOL!

Michelle's exit interview is very bubbly and self-affirming, then she realizes she has three days of hanging out with Rocky and Lisi coming up, and she stabs herself in the throat.

Posted by Michael at 10:24 PM | Comments (1)

April 05, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.8: They're Gonna Kill That Poor Woman

I've met a lot of people in my life. Some of them have delusions of grandeur. Some of them think they're something they're not. Some of them have wild mood swings. Some of them laugh at inappropriate times. Some of them have either no self-awareness, or a self-awareness that's so far from reality that you wonder if they're actually aware of a whole 'nother person, possibly 400 miles away.

Meet Lisi. She brings it all to the table.

When we rejoin Ravu, they've kicked Rocky out, and are now openly tanking the season for draft picks. Mookie, Edgardo and Alex have risen early and are planning to use the given clues to dig up the Immunity Idol. These are the clues that were given to Mookie by Lisi, who on Exile Island was given every clue under the sun, possibly including a GPS tracker. The only way they could have made it easier for Lisi would be to wrap the Idol in the clues and put it in the clue bucket.

Lisi and Dreamz slumber on.

Meanwhile, I'm a little confused by the dynamics of Ravu-II. Edgardo, Mookie and Alex seem allied pretty well - they are digging for the Idol together, after all - but they sort of seem like they consider Lisi a trusted member of the alliance, and sort of seem like they think Dreamz fits their fratboy posse a little better. Which, if you're keeping score, means that this tribe of five has a loose five-person alliance. That may have won the game for Aitu last season, but I don't think these knuckleheads can pull it off.

They find the Idol. They agree to keep it between the three of them, and they'll use it at the exact right time with a well-thought-out consensus. I can't possibly see how this could go wrong. Mookie, alone with the camera, invokes the "Possession = 9/10 of the law" law that was established in Finders v. Keepers (1964).

Lisi, the defective detective, wakes up to see Mookie smoothing out the ground where he'd been digging. "You diggin' for the Idol?" asks Lisi, who clearly wasn't just forcibly and bodily ejected from the turnip truck. "Uhhhhh....yyyyeah...." replies Mookie, who then gets to listen to Lisi talk about how she's going to look for the Idol too, real soon now.

Lisi interviews that she's not going to let them slip one by her, saying - and I want you to read this next bit carefully - "you've got to wake up pretty early to fool...me". If you're just joining us, that is pretty much exactly what happened, down to the nanosecond.

Finally we switch over to Moto, where the idle rich are awakened by the arrival of some authentic native Fijians, who don't even for a second totally and completely remind me of the Molombo Tribe that Ted Striker and Elaine taught basketball and Tupperware to. Boo and Michelle greet them with a culturally-aware "¡Ola!"

The native Fijians have come to dance. Or at least teach the Survivors to dance, since the Reward Challenge will involve...well, dancing. One of the Motos will have to sit out, and Yau Man can't physically volunteer fast enough. The lessons go pretty well; Earl snickers at Boo's white man dance, which may be a little myopic on Earl's part, but then again, put a beer in Boo's hand and he'll look ready for a Phi Kap kegger, the way he's dancing.

Ravu is undergoing similar preparations. It's Lisi and four guys, and for a second, I wish Rocky was still with us, because seeing Rocky dance with four guys would lead to a magnificent Rocky soliliquy on the depths and purity of Rocky's heterosexuality. It's a shame.

Lisi interviews that she doesn't really take challenges all that seriously. I see a career as a motivational speaker in her future; at least, I can see her living in a van down by the river.

They trudge into the outdoor Fijian dance hall, adorned in war paint and palm fronds. There Jeff explains that the teams will be judged on their appearance, technique, and spirit by three Fijians. I can't help but think that the three are an accountant, a baker and a seamstress by day, rather than authentic native dance interpreters, and I can only hope that CBS is paying them in cash. BRING IT ON!!!

Moto's dance, led by Earl, is solid. Ravu's dance is OK except for Lisi, who's an utter train wreck. Dreamz even punctuates it with a backflip. Not bad. The judges confer (or maybe they're talking about Jeff's hat - they're speaking Fijian) and say that both teams were equal on appearance and spirit, but Moto wins on technique, possibly because, if you're just joining us, Lisi was a train wreck.

Moto wins a Fijian feast, and the joy of sending Lisi back to Exile Island. Which is too bad, because I think what Ravu needs to hear on their way home is Lisi telling them that she doesn't take challenges too seriously.

On Exile Island, Lisi jibber-jabbers for a while. I think they probably edited it, since it seems like the sun rises and sets twice during her speech.

Back at Moto, Earl and Michelle are having their morning breakfast meeting, which features coffee, muffins, and a little strategy discussion. They've decided they like Boo a little; Stacey, not so much. They think that she's going to glom onto Edgardo and Alex if they merge, so they should get rid of her before that happens. Michelle says that Boo's been helpful, and that she and Stacey are carbon copies of one another who "serve the same function" at Moto. Whatever that is. I realize she's right, and there's a 40% chance that I'll have to edit this paragraph and switch all the names around.

Treemail is an arrow, and a note suggesting that the Immunity Challenge might involve...an arrow. Mookie offers loads of archery tips, and Edgardo says that archery's where he's going to shine, so obviously no one on this team has heard of the word "hubris".

They arrive at Reward Challenge Beach, where Lisi dances her way in from the Exile Island Shuttle. Bet they wish they were given the arrows before she arrived, huh? Jeff explains that they'll actually be firing blow darts, spears, and then, finally arrows, at some targets. The blow-dart challenge is close, but Boo..well, blows...better than anyone else. The spear challenge is a fiasco; only Yau Man puts it anywhere near the bulls-eye. Moto's got a lead.

Moto (courtesy of Yau Man again) puts them close to winning the bow-and-arrow challenge, then Edgardo of Locksley steps up to the line. Music swells, Maid Marian fans herself, the Sheriff looks on nervously...and Edgardo's shot comes nowhere near the target. Here's where I would have played the music on The Price Is Right when someone effs up Plinko. Wrong network, sadly.

Now comes the scheming. The strategizing. The shifting of alliances. The volatile negotiations. And this week, it's all coming from (wait for it) Lisi.

First, she tells Alex she's ready to go. She's lived on Moto, she's lived on Ravu, she's lived on Exile Island. What more could a girl ask for?

Thirty seconds later, she's talking about who she's going to ally with after the merge.

Forty seconds after that, she's trying to foment an ouster of Dreamz, because he's not part of the alliance that Lisi apparently thinks she's still in.

Twelve seconds later, she interviews that she doesn't really feel like she belongs on the team, because they're all a bunch of losers. I spend the next minute and a half nearly choking on a Pringle.

One minute after that, she tells Alex she's having "second thoughts" about being ready to be voted out. Honey, I've been watching. Your "second thoughts" left the station a long time ago. My unofficial count says these are your forty-seventh thoughts. Lisi puts the "tease" in "multiple personalities".

Tribal Council! The Jury comes in in the form of Rocky, who's a sadder and wiser man. We hope. Lisi tells Jeff that for some reason, this group can not come together. Wait till the votes are counted, toots. Dreamz says he's noticed that Lisi isn't trying, that she wants to be voted off, that she told everyone she probably wants to be voted off, and he's happy to vote her off.

Lisi counters with "I never give up! You give up!"

They volley a few more times, then Dreamz sticks in the dagger. He asks Edgardo, Mookie and Alex in turn: "Do you still want to be here?" They all say yes, they do, thank you for asking. He then asks Lisi the same question. Eleven hours later, she's still on her first sentence, but hasn't answered the question.

Jeff breaks up the contretemps and tells them it's time to vote. Dreamz votes for Lisi: "I've been waiting for this a long time." Lisi votes for Dreamz: "You're a grown man! Consider a name change!" I hope Lucy Van Pelt comes along someday to teach Lisi some people skills.

And suprising zero viewers and only 11 of Lisi's personalities, she's voted out. Looks like she'll be doing her totally-insane-person act up at the Statesville prison from now on. Or maybe she'll show up at camp tomorrow as if nothing happened. God only knows. Her Two Minute Hate is to call the rest of Ravu losers again, and to point out that the kettle is black.

Next time: A big shakeup!

Posted by Michael at 10:17 PM | Comments (3)

March 29, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.7: Man, That Creep Can Roll

(Prenote: I choose this season to give each SurvivorBlog entry a Big Lebowski quote, and this season, there's bowling. I mean, how cool is that? If, next week, the Survivors slam White Russians and someone loses a toe, I'll know the producers are reading this.)

Previously on Survivor: Rocky and Anthony bitch and whine! Yau Man digs my earth! None of them know along the line what any of this is worth! (It would sound a lot better if Hendrix was singing it; trust me.)

Yau Man and Earl have settled into Moto Camp, and it's time to christen the road show of "Earl Creates a Diversion While Yau Man Digs For the Immunity Idol". Hey, it worked twice when they were blowing up the Death Star. Earl leads everyone off to try to recover a boat which apparently ran aground near the camp (did you know about that boat until tonight? I didn't). Yau Man finally uncovers the Idol, almost literally does a happy dance, speaks in tongues, and basically acts with the same restraint as that kid in the commercial who opens up the robot on Christmas morning.

Then Yau clinches his position as the Smartest Castaway by actually covering up the hole in the ground. Pretty nice subterfuge, there.

Lisi, showing more self-awareness than I'd have expected, says she knows her freakout at the last challenge was a bad idea, but she's been thinking some deep thoughts on Exile Island. Whatever that means. And she's looking forward to hanging out with the dudes, even though she knows it's going to be a "sticky situation". Anyone who wants to send me a printable joke here, I'm all ears.

Back to Moto, where Yau gives the camera all of the insight on race relations and harmony that they were hoping for last season. He and Earl are tight as can be, for two guys who come from the same state. And they seem to trust each other implicitly. "I never expected to ally with a big strong black man," he interviews. Word is bond, Yau.

Reward Challenge! It involves flamethrowers, but I dare not hope that Rocky and Lisi have a medical emergency in their future. I'm at the point now where I don't just want to see them voted out; I want a Nightmare on Elm Street thing where several of the Survivors die grisly and ironic deaths before plucky Yau, Earl and Cassandra kill Freddy Krueger, or at least shelve him till the next sequel.

Moto keeps just missing their targets, and Ravu wins its first challenge ever by setting stuff on fire. If the reward challenge is "smash the department store window", we might have a game here. Earl gets sent back on the Exile Island shuttle. Rocky and Dreamz exchange the most long-awaited man-hug since Roger Dorn suckerpunched Rick Vaughan, then pulled him back up to his feet.

Ravu's reward is a chance to experience authentic Fiji, assuming that authentic Fiji involves hot dogs, billiards and bowling(!). At least there's an authentic Fijian there to welcome them. Rocky challenges his teammates to see who can "put the most food in their piehole", then bows himself out of the challenge, since his piehole is badly needed for shouting and complaining purposes.

They eat, they drink beer, they bowl, they play some video golf simulator (I'm no Tiger Woods, but Rocky's drive posture makes him look like a bit of a sissy). Lisi says she feels more comfortable being around a bunch of guys; thankfully the producers edit out the part where she enters their burpin' and fartin' contest. Rocky, continuing his quest to look more masculine than a mustachioed, leather-chap-clad cowboy, says of his bowling stance, "Everything about me is pretty". Lisi laughs that laugh that makes blood vessels pop in the back of my eye. Mark it zero, Dude.

A perfunctory look at Earl, who's dubbed Exile Island "Earl Island". That was going to be my joke for this paragraph, jerk. Earl does spend his time sketching a pretty cool Earl Island logo in the sand.

Back to the Fiji Fun Center, where most of Ravu is feeling glutton's sorrow. Mookie and Alex beat feat for the gents', while Rocky, who as you remember decided talking was more important than eating, berates everyone for eating so much. I'm now trying to decide if it would be more fun to see Rocky offed by Freddy Krueger, or by Kevin Spacey in Seven.

Time for another pop-in at Moto, where for some reason, Boo is convinced that Yau Man will be first to go. Let's see, one one side you have Earl, Yau and Michelle. One the other side, you have Boo and Stacy. Then there's Cassandra, who's been treated like crap by the latter two and has been getting friendly with the former three. Yeah, Boo, those numbers add up.

While the other Motos snooze, Yau Man starts creating a false idol, which would get him in big trouble with the ancient Israelites, but could throw a sock in someone's soup if they're dopey enough (Boo) to fall for it. Hee hee.

Immunity Challenge! Five of the six teammates will be blindfolded; the other one has to guide them, one by one, into a penned-in area where they have to whack a skull (real? Jeff only knows) with a club, then recover puzzle pieces. Michelle decides to be the yeller for Moto, Lisi for Ravu. The tiebreaker is that they have to call a square dance.

Ravu quickly switches to Alex yelling, because the sound of Lisi' voice is that enjoyable. Boo famously reveals that he may not know his left from his right. Mookie keeps slamming into things. Michelle, at one point, gives orders so enthusiastically that she goes flying off the platform. Boo takes over, possibly already having forgotten that he doesn't know left from right. Despite this not inconsiderable handicap, Moto solves their puzzle first and wins!

So now the only question is whether the BunkoSquad "See Ya Rocky" Party or the "Adios Lisi" Party is scheduled for tonight. Alex and Edgardo, showing some actual brainpower, figure that Rocky is slightly more annoying, much more abrasive, and has a 1-13 record in challenges. I think their decision is made.

Dreamz is exhibiting a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome, saying Rocky really isn't as bad as he thought, and maybe he should jettison Lisi. Rocky says Lisi has to go, because all of Rocky's decisions who to vote out have been good decisions. Mookie just wants to do whatever will keep Rocky from hollering at him. Lisi's socks feel dirty, so she goes to the sea to wash them off. This tribe is a piece of work.

At Tribal, Jeff mostly is hoping to poke Lisi's brain wounds until she snaps. She's wearing a cloak of sanity, though, and says that coming back to the game recharged her. Rocky says the group is tight, and really looks like a man (well, a doofus) who doesn't know he has minutes left to live. They vote.

And nobody since Clubber Lang has gotten such joy out of saying that Rocky has hit the mat. Looks like he'll be pissing everybody off up at the Statesville Prison from now on. Unfortunately, Jeff announces that he's the first member of the Jury of the Damned, so we'll be seeing his sorry puss trotted out every week from here on out.

Jeff's Words of Wisdom show that he has no idea what's actually going on at camp: that Rocky was totally taken by surprise, and it could happen to you. Well, if you're a callous, loud buffoon, maybe. Rocky's postgame interview is a little more shouting and bitterness.

Next week: Lisi sobs! Boo dances! Ravu digs! No Rocky!

Posted by Michael at 09:31 PM | Comments (2)

March 22, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.6: Without Batting An Eye, A Man Will Refer To...

Morning on Ravu! Rita's gone, and the rest of them are being eaten by flies. Pestilence! Famine! Next week on Survivor: the massacre of the first-born!

There's treemail, and the Survivors tramp down to the beach. Jeff asks one member of each team to step forward, so Edgardo and Earl do. Jeff informs them that early focus groups indicate that this show is about as popular with the public as "A Panda Bear Slowly Bleeds to Death" on FoxNature, so he orders everyone to drop their buffs. That always sounds like it should be more interesting than it ever turns out to be.

Because they're shuffling the tribes! As fun as it would be to bring back Sylvia to screw everything up again, everybody gets to pick someone - but it has to be from the other tribe. There's a touching moment as Rocky picks Dreamz to be on his team, then they run towards each other for a 25-mph head-butt. Which may not be the last time tonight you hear "Rocky", "butt" and "head" in close proximity.

The new teams are: Earl, Boo, Michelle, Cassandra, Yau Man and Stacy on this side, and Edgardo, Mookie, Alex, Rocky, Dreamz and Anthony on the other side. Lisi, the odd girl out, will go to Exile Island and come back to whichever team has to vote someone out, making this Immunity Challenge about as important as the battle of Gettysburg.

Lisi goes on a soliliquy about how maybe this would be a good time for her to be out, since no one picked her. Jeff asks if she's ready to leave; she talks for about 20 minutes (or did it just seem that way?) while Jeff keeps needling her, playing out the rope for her to hang herself. Boy, some tribe's going to be pleased when she shows up.

Edgardo picks a buff out of a bag at random, and the first team I mentioned gets to go to Camp Moto (Easy Street) while the second team goes to dismal Camp Ravu. Everyone has a surprise waiting for them at camp; I hope the new Camp Ravu's surprise includes a tape measure.

The new Motos go as berzerk as you might expect. Earl, in particular, is pleased as pie with his new team, that he created. He lounges on the bed, eats cheese (that was part of their surprise), and perceptively notes that Cassandra was on the outs at Moto-I, so she may be an easy person to swing over to vote with the Ravu-I-Moto-IIs. If that's confusing to you, you're still way ahead of Boo, who sits there and considers all the ramifications of the shakeup. The look on his face is exactly the same look he'd have if he showed up unprepared for a Trigonometry final in only his underpants.

Meanwhile, there's no tape measure at Ravu-II, but the testosterone is so thick you could whack it with a broom. Rocky, trying to bond with the manly men, says he loves the ladies, but he's really happy to be with all guys. Rocky, that is the gayest-sounding thing in the history of Survivor, and I haven't forgotten about Brandon the bartender.

Meanwhile, Anthony interviews that he's having horrible flashbacks to the high school locker room, and thinks that maybe being a kind, sensitive soul is not a good long-term positive when you're rooming with the Duke lacrosse team. If I were Jeff here, I'd forcibly switch Boo and Anthony, then make all the challenges crossword puzzles.

Back to Moto-II, where Cassandra is not wasting any time showing that she knows which horses to back. While Earl and Yau Man fish, she brings them cups of coffee (which they hadn't had much of in the Black Hole of Fiji, and thankfully there was some coffee left that Stacy hadn't dumped on Dreamz' head).

Somewhere in all this, we go back to Exile Island. All of the snakes have left the area thanks to Lisi's presence. She babbles for a while, but it seems to have sunk in that it might be a good idea for her to develop some sort of mechanism between her ears and her mouth, that might filter some of the things she says. Something called...let's say a "brain".

At Ravu, the presence of the Moto-I's seems to have a salutary effect on the situation. Dreamz and Mookie go fishing just as the Great Underwater Sponge and Fish Migration of the South Seas occurs; they're hauling in nasty-teethed specimens by the bagful. Rocky, Alex and Edgardo are catching crabs (quiet, you) by the bucketful. And Anthony is tending the fire. I'm honestly surprised that Rocky isn't making him wear a pink apron. Alex says he's loving the manliness! Just like the Village People!

Rocky says, "On paper, we're a superpower!" Unfortunately, you're playing on sand, not paper.

Immunity Challenge! It's actually a pretty good one, as everyone's strapped into some kind of deal with long sliding sticks, and they have to use communication and teamwork to negotiate said deals around a maze. It's mostly communication and teamwork at first, but every time they round a corner, Stacy winds up all in Ravu's business, and there's entanglement and pushing and shoving. I think Dreamz actually gets bisected at one point. Moto wins!

Which means that Ravu gets to vote someone out, then welcome Lisi. Astronauts have gotten into spacesuits, immediately after a cabbage dinner, with more enthusiam than I'd be feeling right now.

So the politicking begins; will they kick out Anthony, who's reserved and polite and thoughtful (which translates into Ravuian as effeminate), or will they kick out Rocky, who's boorish and bullying and sounds like he's played football for 10 years without a helmet? What the hell do you think they'll do?

There are some fireworks at Tribal Council, and Rocky tells Anthony he's got to stand up for himself and not let bullying pricks like Rocky push him around. You heard me right. Anthony finally snaps (in a somewhat reserved manner) and points out that in a tribe that loses and loses and loses, there is some reason to keep your mouth shut, conserve your energy, and concentrate on doing something other than losing, as opposed to shouting your way through the day.

Rocky won't let it go - he knows that if Anthony goes, he has no one to bully, and if he himself goes, he'll be shouting at the chambermaids at the hotel, which isn't as satifying. So he gets in every ounce of venom he can, while the other Ravu-IIs bury their heads in their hands and start actually looking forward to the Lisi era.

They vote, and it's Anthony in a landslide. Looks like Anthony will be tending the fire and tending the sorrow in his heart up at the Statesville Prison from now on. Next week: something happens. I wasn't paying attention because I had high hopes for Anthony's Two-Minute hate, but was disappointed there too. I love this game!

Posted by Michael at 06:28 PM | Comments (1)

March 20, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.5: Sittin' Here, Enjoyin' My Coffee

Two weeks later.... (sorry for the delay; I had bracket fever)

Previously: Rocky's a jerk! The comfortable are afflicted! Lisi's a bonehead!

We start off at Ravu, where Yau Man is starting to panic because the Immunity Idol is so close and yet so far away. He says, "I sort of know where it is and I don't know how to get to it!" Sounds like me at 14 when I first realized about girls. He talks to Ladies' Man Earl, who has received some of the clues as well; they agree that Earl will lead the other Ravus on a pointless expedition to get Yau Man some quality digging time, and they'll go into cahoots to figure out how best to use it.

Earl takes Anthony on a character-building hike to the top of the mountain, where they take in the majestic view and Anthony realizes that even if he's hungry and miserable, and his self-esteem has taken a repeated beating at the hands of simpleton Rocky, that at least he got a nice majestic view out of the deal.

Yau Man's exploration for the Idol goes about as well as my quest for a date in middle school. The less said the better. (Though if you're over 18 and email me, I'll send you the joke I was tempted to use here)

Treemail! The tribes receive a catalog of what they can play for at the Reward Challenge. The landed gentry at Moto go through it like it's the Robb Report, finally settling on the flatscreen TV and the 24-hour valet. Ravu thinks some potatoes would be nice, then eats the catalog.

Earl says, "They [Moto] are the Fresh Prince of Bel Air; we [Ravu] are Good Times." It actually looks more like Sanford and Son to me, but I'll defer to Earl's judgement where African-American sitcoms are concerned.

Reward Challenge! Moto's playing for toilet paper and a coffee set; Ravu wants potatoes and fishing gear. The winner takes all, so Moto can probably supplement its income by renting out some of their superfluous fishing gear to the natives. 'S'good ta be the king.

The challenge is a series of one-on-one giant pillow fights with the loser being knocked into the mud. Rocky and Dreamz start trash-talking, and then take their contretemps into the ring. I dare hope for a second that the scrappy Ravus will turn their lean and hungry fire into a victory. It's come to the point where Moto is so irritating and smug that I'm actually rooting for Rocky.

Nope. It's a freaking massacre. Jeff almost has to invoke the mercy rule, as the fat-n-happy Motos win 7-1, with the one Ravu triumph being Yau Man against flimsy little Stacey. If it's any consolation, Ravu, there might be some nutrients in that mud you'll have to lick off yourselves. Earl goes off to Exile Island.

Moto's back at home, basking in their undeserved wonderfulness. But no idle rich they; there's coffee to make. And here's where I completely lost it; Stacey and Lisi give Dreamz crap because he doesn't know how to make coffee with the French press they won. I know how to use a French press, but I worked at Starbucks for two years. Dreamz was HOMELESS. When you're homeless, you don't always pick up on some of the little tricks that yuppies use to convince themselves they're getting the authentic unfiltered taste of Sulawesi (again, I can say that; I worked at Starbucks, and Sulawesi is the best).

Lisi and Stacey are so annoying and patronizing, in fact, that even the frat boys at Moto notice and are alarmed. Now THAT is annoying and patronizing. I don't know if the producers purposefully made Stacey and Lisi look like the Heathers or what, but I'm praying for Christian Slater to stroll into Moto with a bomb strapped to him.

Stacey and Lisi, blissfully unaware of how....inhuman is the only word...they're being, are just sittin' there enjoyin' their coffee.

Earl's Idol clue is "Still right under the cave, dummy". He correctly points out that if they don't have a shovel, that doesn't help.

Ravu is having its 45th straight post-loss rally session. Actually, Rita and Michelle are yapping away about lip gloss and other banalities. Rocky says he wants to take a shirt and hang himself. He's so perturtbed, in fact, that he seeks out the company of Anthony without kicking sand on him.

Back at Moto, Alex is trying to explain to Lisi and Stacey, in one- and two-syllable words, that they're being stupid by excluding Dreamz and Cassandra from their reindeer games. He doesn't try to appeal to their sense of decency (he's smarter than that), but tries to make them see that after the merge, Dreamz and Cassandra will flip and stab them in the back. Edgardo groks him, but I don't think it's sinking in with the Heathers. So Alex makes a team speech trying to bring them all back together. And it's a sad day when the Harvard Law student is the one injecting a note of decency and humanity.

Dreamz, unfazed by the ostracizm, zayz he'z engaged in a genozide against Ravu. Is it too late to hope for a localized tzunami?

The Immunity Challenge is a big game of Memory. The underfed and fuzzy Ravus falter early. Lisi screws up her turn (and almost plants her face into the dirt while hopping off the bench, like how sweet would that have been). But Rocky screws up last, and Moto wins again. %$#&.

Ravu comes back to camp, defeated and dejected (I just copy and paste that sentence now.) Rocky offers a mea culpa for blowing the challenge, but everyone else agrees that it's hard to think straight when everyone is yelling out instructions at you. Somewhere, Erika is nodding grimly. Anthony seems to think he's off the chopping block, but there's still some conspiring in his direction. Rocky starts going around telling everyone that Rita's talking too much and should go next. Who died and left Rocky kingmaker? Oh, that's right - everyone who allied with Rocky in the past.

At Tribal Council, the area seems to be decorated with actual skeletons. Maybe Erika wasn't nodding at that last scene. Rita tells Jeff that she keeps morale up by telling interesting stories, causing Rocky to nearly projectile vomit. When asked if he trusts his tribemates, Yau Man says his philosophy is "love many; trust few". Never would have thought Yau Man sees life the same way as Hugh Hefner.

They vote, and Rocky's "The Person I Hate The Most At This Particular Moment is Rita" campaign pays off. Looks like she'll be talking about lip gloss up in the Statesville Prison from now on. Jeff tells Ravu he admires that the tribe is showing a little bit of a will to win, like he expected no one would show up for Tribal after a Jonestownian suicide pact.

Next week: Major shakeup! I can only hope it involves Lisi, Stacey, rope, and fire ants.

Posted by Michael at 09:20 PM | Comments (2)

March 08, 2007

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

SurvivorBlog may again be delayed a day or two. It is not - I repeat, NOT - time to panic. I'll be out for a while; the state has asked for a massive volunteer effort to administer emergency pregnancy tests to every woman who's been within 15 miles of Foxboro in the last six years.

Posted by Michael at 07:14 PM | Comments (1)

March 05, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.4: Oh, No No No...He Has Health Problems

It's the dead of night at Camp Ravu, and the tribe is returning from another in a string of depressing events. At the Tribal Council, they screamed at Anthony...questioned his manhood and integrity...broke his spirit...and voted out Sylvia. But whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?

Anthony continues to get made stronger when they arrive at their filthy camp. Rocky's shut off what internal filter he has and is laying into Anthony. Anthony sobbingly interviews that he's always sort of hated himself and this isn't helping. I don't know -- I think if you're going to hear your faults enumerated, the voice of the internal critic has nothing on Rocky's "yo"- and "bro"-peppered oratory.

Rocky says he'd only put up with Anthony's "whining" if it was coming from a broad. That's a broad, not abroad; he probably won't put up with whining Belgians either.

At Camp Pleasant, Lisi and Stacey are basking in their luxurious surroundings, their wonderful food supply, and their general Motoan awesomeness, as if there's any reason they're in this tropical Eden other than Sylvia pointed their way in Episode One. It's not like either of you gals has carried a challenge yet, is all I'm sayin'.

But there's trouble in paradise. Gary's still having trouble breathing and seeing and smurfing and thinking. He's also being eaten alive by bugs. Lisi interviews that she doesn't want to have to babysit him through the day, as that would cut into her badly-needed idling time.

Reward Challenge! The prize is a lot of fish and rice and exotic spices, and hopefully ginger and saki. The teams line up on balance beams, and have to wriggle around (or over, not to spoil the surprise) one another to get everyone onto a platform. Lisi starts flinging Motos into the water one by one, until someone tells her to go over them while they crouch.

Despite an early lead, Ravu manages to settle back into their comfortable position of screwing everything up. I think the blame here is 20% Anthony, 20% Mookie, and 60% Total Lack of Communication. Rocky might see it differently. Moto decides to send Yau Man to Exile Island. Maybe they figure he'll find the Idol, since he's proven he's the only Ravu who I'd trust to find his own ass with a map of his pants.

Another loss, another Rocky Freakout! "Is this your farewell speech? Farewell to the troops?" Rocky's post-traumatic tirade is about a 8.2 on the meter. This tribe needs a motivational visit from Alec Baldwin...Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. Earl and Anthony go foraging; Earl says he's going to try to get Anthony's back.

At Moto, with all the creature comforts taken care of, they're ready to take a step up Maslow's pyramid. Liliana is giving back rubs to all the men; Lisi is skeptical about Liliana's "little diabolical Mexican mind" and how she might be using her sex as a weapon, despite the warnings from Pat Benater.

Back to the Papa Smurf deathwatch. He re-recounts his symptoms. So Moto has a choice. Pull a Weekend At Bernie's stunt to keep their number advantage, or bring in the medical team. The medics go to work on Gary as Dreamz worries that he's losing his only friend on the island. Remember the old Smurf Atari game? It was meant for little kids, so the smurf never got killed in the game...he just got tired. Well, Papa Smurf just got tired. The medics smurf him away to the medical boat and out of the game. And here's where today's Big Lebowski headline quote comes from.

Alex thinks this is bad news for the tribe. I guess in the sense of "it's a no-hitter in the 4th, and the batter just hit a long ball barely foul", it's a bad omen, but Moto still has all their pitches working. It will take a monumentally bad decision to shake up Moto! (ed. note: find an mp3 of an ominous chord to stick in here somehow)

Rocky's pregame pep take for the Immunity Challenge involves total nudity. So if you're scoring at home, that's total frontal Survivor nudity from Richard, Shane, and Rocky, if you don't count Parvati, Yul and Ozzie's hot tub escapades last year. If you're not scoring at home, this show probably won't help stir things up.

Jeff breaks the news about Gary to Ravu, who try to look seriously sad. The Immunity Challenge involves locking people up in cages, hopping over lilypads, and rowing a boat to form a human pyramid and rescue one more person. Now this would have been a cool Atari game. There's also a little sealed mystery bottle to be opened by the winning team.

Ravu starts failing early. Rita gets herself hung up on the lilypads for an awfully long time. But Mookie and Earl get the boat going, and it's actually shaping up to be a close race. Lisi, on the sidelines, cackles.

On the final lock, Stacey fumbles and stumbles with the keys, but they unlock Cassandra and get to the finish line. Moto 154, Ravu 0, if you've lost count. They open the little sealed mystery bottle which gives them a dilemma.

They can (a)switch to Ravu's dank cave but keep Immunity, or (b)stay in the stately pleasuredome but go to a Tribal Council. Considering they are up against a team they've beaten handily and repeatedly, early and often, and they only have a one-man advantage, I have to seriously think about keeping Immunity if I'm Moto. If they go to Tribal Council, they lose their advantage, they expose whatever cracks in the tribe have been hidden by their winning streak, and they maybe make Rocky show up at a challenge with no pants on. I don't take that risk if I'm Moto, but then again, I'm not in a position where I have to sleep in a dank cave if I pick wrong, so it's easy for me to say. But I think this is a Bad Decision.

Dreamz gets down to brass tacks, and says it's obvious that either Lisi or Cassandra has to go. "There's two people we can afford to lose, and I'm not pointing fingers" he says, in possibly the most self-negating sentence ever. Alex says he likes Lisi and wants to kick off Cassandra. Dreamz says he's all about fairness, which is charmingly naive, since he's not aware that there's a five-person clique forming around him. Liliana and Cassandra have a tete-a-tete, where Liliana says that she likes Cassandra a lot, but she doesn't want to make waves.

Then we're treated to a long - LONG - shot of a snake puking out a mass of ectoplasm the length of its entire body. I am so glad I don't have Hi-Def.

The Moto Brady Bunch meets and says that either Cassandra or Liliana(!) should go. Alex is pushing hard for Cassandra, Lisi is pushing hard for the diabolical Mexican Liliana. Edgardo, who is apparently one of the in-crowd, doesn't say a word. Boo, by the way, hasn't hurt himself yet this episode.

Jeff's in his glory; he gets to make his "ritual of tribal council" speech one more time. The Tribal Council mourns Gary a bit, then Lisi goes on a soliliquy about Dreamz' soliliquy, then Dreamz says no one interrupted his "shaquilla". Liliana says she's strong and should stick around; Alex nods and a very relieved Cassandra says some very nice things about Liliana. Liliana is completely missing the handwriting on the wall.

Boo doesn't impale his hand with the pen, so that's good. Lisi holds up Liliana's name and snarls, "The Alliance is five...not six". Man, I've turned on Lisi; I can only pray her destruction is legendary. Liliana watches the votes pile up in her direction and is shocked. "I'm so shocked", she says as she gathers her torch. "If you didn't get rid of me now, I was gonna beat ya", she says on the way out. Well, yeah, toots, that's why they voted you out.

Next time: Misogyny from Alex! Snippiness and yelling from (you'll never guess who!) Rocky and Dreamz. Liliana's Two Minute Hate is that everyone who voted her off is a liar and a weaking. I guess she'll be doing her diabolical Mexican backrubs from now on up in the Statesville Prison.

Posted by Michael at 10:01 PM | Comments (1)

March 01, 2007

Forestalling the Inevitable Panic

Going to the Bruins game tonight. SurvivorBlog may thus be delayed a day or two.

So my one TV note of the day is this: What does it say that I feel light-hearted and refreshed, just because of the fact that Jack didn't appear in last night's Lost?

Posted by Michael at 03:48 PM | Comments (1)

February 22, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.3: The In-N-Out Burger is On Camrose

Last Week: Ravu's licking leaves! Moto's living large! Sylvia's little liked!

So here we are at Day 6 of Survivor: Fiji. And it's starting to look like a weekly showdown between the Bill Walsh/Joe Montana/Jerry Rice 49ers and the Rod Rust/Marc Wilson/Hart Lee Dykes Patriots. It really is that bad.

Rocky of Ravu sums it up when he says that his tribe "might be the biggest group of losers Survivor's ever seen". Maybe he can take comfort in the fact that his group of losers is getting smaller, at regularly-spaced intervals. They come together for a huddle, and Rita tells the group they have to start thinking of team before individuals. Good call; if you can't rally 'round a bunch of snippy starving people, you clearly have no team spirit at all.

While Ravu is on the verge of trying to catch ants for their six molecules of water weight, Moto is having a different problem: ants keep crawling up through their hardwood floor and nipping at them in their luxurious beds. So they paint the floor to close off the cracks. They have paint. Wouldn't it be easier to have Art Garfunkel come by with his compressor, and create a total vacuum outside the camp, and blow the ants out the front door? If only they had an inanimate carbon rod!

Back at Schaefer Stadium, Earl comes back from Exile Island. The Ravus - the ones who are able to stand - surround him and ask him if he has any water or fire or chocolate, but Yau Man fortunately doesn't give him the full pat-down.

Then Michelle, the miniature little lady on Ravu who I haven't really liked from the beginning, saves the tribe's collective butt by using her eyeglasses and the sun's rays to start their first fire. Now they can start torturing ants!

Reward Challenge! Ravu proudly admits they have fire; Jeff tosses them a flint as a present. I'm surprised Jeff just takes their word for it. Moto does some patronizing congratulating, then tells Jeff they've managed to cobble together a PC and a crude Wi-Fi network.

The challenge itself is pretty cool; the Survivors have to squeegee their way down a giant Slip-N-Slide and grab a numbered ball, which they then have to reenact the Pop-A-Shot at their local bar or arcade. It's Best-of-9, so let's go round by round:

Moto has their choice of reward: fresh fruit, more fishing gear, or their luxury items. They take the fishing gear, and presumably Jeff and the camera crew eat all the fresh fruit, then are killed by a maniac with a pointed stick. They also elect to send Sylvia back to Exile Island, figuring she can boss around the sea snakes for a little while.

Moto gathers for another parade down Broadway. Dreamz says they're not going to take any prisoners, not even women and children, which could mean Fiji will experience another coup d'etat before the season is over. The only ant in the ointment is Gary, who's hurting after his fall-down. He can't breathe, he can't stand up, he can't think straight. Sounds like it's time to trade him to Ravu for a draft pick. But instead they summon the medics, who look him over and say it's not a cracked rib (which was the Moto consensus) but probably some muscular injury. They pronounce him fit to continue. Alex the Harvard lawyer, trying to look deeply concerned, says that Gary should put his health over the game. I think Alex has computed that 1/16 gives him a better chance than 1/17.

Immunity Challenge! We haven't seen the nasty food challenge for a long time, so Jeff has assembled a collection of unpleasant Fijian foodstuffs, and the Survivors prepare to chow down. Not quite the In-N-Out Burger, huh? Again, round-by-round, with the Iron Chef ingredients of choice:

So Ravu goes back defeated, again, and Sylvia's worried she'll be kicked out, again. And rightly so. Someone actually has the bright idea that, just in case she has the Immunity Idol, they should have a couple people vote for someone else they don't like, so Sylvia's one vote won't turn around and bite them. They make Anthony their designated patsy, because he apparently whines a lot and didn't eat all his pig snouts at dinner. Rita, for one, says she's going to vote for whoever she wants, regardless of tribal consensus. This is the same Rita, you'll note, who started the episode by preaching teamwork.

Sylvia, who's decided that the Immunity Idol is buried right in Ravu's cave, starts idly digging in the sand right in front of everybody else. No one seems to notice. You'd think Earl at least, who's been to Exile Island and has seen the clue that the Idol's near camp, would keep an eye on her.

At Tribal Council, Jeff eyes the raggedy Ravus like he thinks bringing in Norv Turner might be the only answer. He starts asking about trust and strength, and Ravu takes this golden opportunity to start bitching and moaning about Anthony. Mookie, in particular, was furious that Anthony didn't seem to be trying his all in the challenge, so he's beasting Anthony about that, and his work ethic, and everything short of his hipster engineer hat.

The voting is tense. Anthony and Sylvia trade votes until it's 3-3. Then a vote for Earl! (I suspect Rita.) That means the final vote will be a tiebreaker...and it's Sylvia. Who doesn't have the Idol. Looks like she'll be doing her bossing around and overorganizing from now on up at the Statesville Prison. Jeff's Words of Wisdom are that maybe a little honesty might unite Ravu. Honesty. It's such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.

Next week: Gary's dying! Liliana's turning on the sexy! Ravu gangs up on Anthony!

Posted by Michael at 09:41 PM | Comments (2)

February 15, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.2: So You Have No Frame of Reference

Ravu is hurtin'. It's only Day 4, but they have no fire, no water, no brains, and no prospects. They're licking leaves to stay hydrated. They're moaning and complaining. Yeah, Jeff, this idea will fly.

Meanwhile, Moto is living the life of luxury. And in the ennui of the idle rich, insanity is breaking out in the form of Lisi. She's making a strong bid to inherit the Courtney/Flicka "wacky punk rock chick" crown. She's making Munchkin voices and saying things like "so vicious, it's delicious". Her tribemates are laughing, at the moment, with her.

Back to miserable Ravu, where they're trying to break open coconuts for the two fluid ounces of water contained within. Rocky eats a raw clam, then makes a big speech about eating a raw clam. I'm more than a bit surprised that Rocky's not trying to drink seawater yet. Ravu looks like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of Survivor.

So back to Yankee Stadium, where Boo, the construction worker, from (wait for it) the South, is having problems. He's got something in his eye, and you know how I feel about eye things, so let's pluck a random paragraph from a random Wikipedia page while they sort this out.

Written records for Ford begin after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the introduction of the manorial system, when the manor of Ford was held by the Heron family. A substantial stone castle was built at Ford in 1287, in order to protect the Manor from the constant border warfare waged between the Scots and the English during the medieval period.

OK. The thing is out of Boo's eye, so he immediately starts chopping wood with an axe. His depth perception is messed up, his eye is still almost swollen shut, and he's swinging an axe around. NONE OF THE OTHERS SAY ANYTHING. And they're still surprised when he plants the axe into his hand and bleeds. Dreamz is giggling as he recounts all of Boo's injuries, like Boo's the Black Knight or something. For good measure, Boo's hammock collapses as he recuperates. This man is on the wrong team.

Back to Hell On Earth, as Sylvia arrives to find the Ravus dying a slow death. The camera zooms in on Sylvia's canteen, as if we're supposed to hope that the Ravus will descend upon her like a colony of vampires. Instead she gives a couple of hugs, and...

Yau Man frisks her! He's subtle, I think, but he definitely gives her the full once-over. He must be from the Italian part of Borneo, what with those Roman hands. He also sneaks a peek into her satchel, but he doesn't see the Immunity Idol because she doesn't have it. He also ascertains that she is not the player brainwashed into killing the Queen. Play Ball!

Sylvia interviews that she's a little worried being the odd man out on Ravu. She thinks coming in late might hurt her chances of being part of the group. Um, Sylvia, they're licking leaves and lying around 22 hours a day. Not exactly a juggernaut. I think you have time to catch up. Of course, she starts suggesting activities, which is just what the rest of them want to hear.

Back to Moto and a Personal Glimpse of Dreamz, his shattered childhood and how he feels like this is much easier than anything he's had to overcome in the past. Are we watching the Olympics?

And because Moto is well-fed and dull, back to Ravu. Erika, Earl and Rocky are leading a fruit-finding expedition to the top of their island's highest hill. Which is different than Tim Hardaway's...never mind. They find some inedible baby mangos and trudge back to camp, where Erika almost literally stumbles over a patch of pineapple plants. They all eat pineapple, Earl says he wants to marry Erika, and they're set to go to the Challenge doing their best Carmen Miranda impressions. Good times all around.

Treemail! It basically says "A RACE AND A PUZZLE", and I'm starting to think that Jeff and the Reward/Immunity Challenge Committee have run out of ideas. The tribes prepare for the challenge: Moto with some face-painting and a round of mimosas, Ravu with desperation, particularly Sylvia, who figures she's the Ravu with the most to lose. She has no frame of reference. She's like a child who walks in on the middle of a movie.

The challenge is, surprisingly, a race and a puzzle. Specifically a kayak race and building a flagpole. Ravu gets an early lead, but they choke on the puzzle (Erika is particularly unhelpful, shouting at the others that they're doing it all wrong) and they lose. Their prize would have been fire and fishing gear, but Moto is on a higher level, so they win an espresso machine and some waterskis. Earl is dispatched to Exile Island, to be torn apart from his new fiancee.

Everyone at Ravu pretty much knows Sylvia's a goner. Sylvia knows it; the rest know it. It's a done deal. So, naturally, Rocky and Mookie start figuring out who should go instead. Erika's name comes up prominently; all the pineapple karma she built up was cashed in by her puzzle freakout. Anthony and Michelle are leaning towards kicking out Sylvia (Michelle particularly seems to be sharpening her knives), but Rocky somehow seems to get at least tie-worthy numbers on his side.

On Exile Island, Earl kills a sea snake, then apologizes.

Tribal Council. Jeff, looking concerned that they'll have to merge 9 Motos and 2 Ravus, starts trying to figure out what Ravu's (ahem) strategy might be. Erika says her puzzle freakout was just her way of trying to help. Sylvia says that they should wake up tomorrow morning and pick a leader, and I wonder who she'll recommend. They vote. We see Rocky voting for Erika, saying "she's the biggest threat".

I'd like to explore that for a moment. First of all, your tribe has no fire, no water and no plan. Planning ahead at this point is like the guy falling off a 50-story building plotting which balcony he'd like to bounce onto once he hits the ground. Second of all, you may recall (if you're not Rocky) that last week he started a 3-person alliance with Jessica and Erika. Jessica got voted off last week, and Rocky is now voting off Erika. So to recap, people who ally with Rocky have a 100% fatality rate.

Anyway, Erika is voted off, and I suspect Michelle may murder Sylvia in her sleep before they start horsetrading on who the King and Queen of Ravu will be. Erika's shocked, and interviews that she hopes they win, but if they don't, they better remember voting her off, and they better start ruing the day. She herself is not ruing her panic attack at the Challenge.

Next week: Ravu starts a fire! A member of Moto is down! Boo probably cuts his ear off!

Posted by Michael at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.1: Keep Your Ugly...Goldbricking Ass Out Of Our Beach Community

PREREVIEW NOTE #1: This season, I aim to give each episode's writeup a title taken from The Big Lebowski. Why can't there be a castaway named Larry?!?

PREREVIEW NOTE #2: This is going to be hard for me to write tonight. I have a heavy heart, trying to imagine what this country will be like without Anna Nicole Smith. Say what you want, we'll miss her...um....acting? Singing? What the hell did she do?!? Well, we'll try to muddle along.

Survivor Fiji is underway! Exile Island has sea snakes! There are two immunity idols! One contestant bailed out before they even got to the island!

So nineteen castaways row their little skiffs towards what, frankly, looks like a stunning beach. They're all a little miffed that Jeff isn't there to greet them with a wave and a cryptic welcome. They stumble around a bit and introduce one another. Let's meet some of the players.

There's James/"Rocky". Everyone says he looks like Sylvester Stallone. He does, a little. He also talks like a guy who's still recovering from a 2x4 blow to the head, so it's remarkably apt. He also has a "BOSTON" tattoo on his arm, which worries me, since after Boston Rob, the Mooninite scandal and the 06-07 Celtics, our civic pride is on thin ice.

There's also "Dreamz", a cheerleading coach(?) who used to live on the streets. So living on a beach in Fiji ain't no thing to him.

We also meet Yau Man, a Yodalike Asian man who immediately starts field-stripping some coconuts. He mentions he's from Borneo; some lady asks "Oh, what's that near?" He should have answered "Switzerland", because I'd have loved to see the knowing nod in reply, but he just says it's kind of like Fiji. Let the man open the coconut!

They've all formed a nice little Jeff Probst cargo cult, so they're delighted when Jeff whizzes by in a little plane and chucks a box into the ocean. Rocky and some other lunk (possibly named "Boo") try to smash the box against a rock. I hope it's 36 days' worth of eggs. Yau Man finally gets the idea to slam the box at its corner, which reveals a scroll. No eggs.

The scroll has directions to a treasure trove of lumber, furniture (including a toilet seat) and stuff, along with plans to build a remarkably large shelter. Thanks for keeping the surprise, CBS, so we don't have any inkling that one tribe will get to build the shelter and then have to go sleep in a ditch. Nice poker face.

They build the shelter. One castaway, named Sylvia, is an architect in real life, so she takes charge. Which is good, in that the shelter gets built, but not so good, because there are few more vulnerable than a Survivor who displays competence and initiative.

Luckily, some of the Survivors are already looking at the big picture, which is more important than shelter. A Macy Gray-hairdo'ed lady named Erica starts fishing for an alliance, among people she's known for 15 minutes. A Eurolunk named Edgardo gets flummoxed when someone uses the word "askew". Naps are taken. We're underway!

They don't get the shelter done before nightfall. The roof still isn't attached, so of course it rains all night, and they all have to huddle together. Here's where Dreamz reveals an interesting strategy. Keep talking all night, while everyone's trying to get to sleep. He's just trying to get the Dreamz name out there, y'all. Branding. So Rocky gets up and the two of them start shouting about whether or not they're shouting at one another. I didn't expect an existential joust from Rocky and Dreamz this early, to be truthful.

Morning! Jeff finally does a popin, and asks them if anybody's stepped up as a leader. Yeah, Sylvia, everyone says. Jeff says, great, Sylvia, get over here and pick two teams. Don't worry so much about spelling at this point...

The Moto tribe: Cassandra, Liliana, Stacey, Lisi, Dreamz, Boo, Gary (Papa Smurf), Alex and Edgardo. The Ravu Tribe: Michelle, Erica, Rita, Jessica, Rocky, Earl, Yau Man, Anthony, and Mookie. Feel free to clip this paragraph for future reference, but please, don't take scissors to your actual monitor.

Jeff says that Sylvia, having established leader cred, gets to go lead her own tribe of sea snakes on Exile Island. But it means she gets immunity, and will join whichever tribe muffs the first challenge. She's whisked away, and Jeff says the tribes will race for Immunity...but wait! There's more! The winning tribe gets to go live in the Malibu of Fiji (where more accoutrements are even now arriving), while the losers get to start over on a new beach, with nothing but an axe and a dream. Didn't see that coming, CBS!

The challenge is to drag a chariot across the sand, picking up puzzle pieces, then building the puzzle. The two teams trade the lead for a while, but Jessica fumbles Ravu's puzzle and Moto wins. Winners jump and hug, losers hang their heads.

(Commercial Interlude: The Dennis Hopper retirement commercials annoy me, like you might have guessed. Telling Baby Boomers how they're going to redefine retirement? Yeah, like they ended corruption in Washington and war and rewrote the book on everything. Why shouldn't the Baby Boomers be playing shuffleboard? Don't they got to get themselves back to the garden by now?)

Sylvia gets the first clue to the hidden Immunity Idol, which is that it's hidden back at camp. The camp she won't be going back to. Awesome.

Ravu starts plotting against people they've known for an hour. Jessica, Erica and Rocky form an alliance that they immediately declare unbreakable and unstoppable, and announce their intentions to go after Rita for no particular reason. Earl and Yau Man correctly note that Jessica botched the challenge, and that should be reason enough to give her the boot.

The Tribal Council appears to be held at the summit of Big Thunder Mountain. Jeff asks the vague questions you'd expect him to ask of people who haven't really had a chance to work up a good hate for each other yet. A couple of them say they wouldn't be surprised to be voted out; a couple of them, including Jessica, say they would be surprised. Get ready to be surprised, Jessica.

NEXT WEEK: Dehydration! Boo cuts himself (a Boo-boo-boo?)

Posted by Michael at 09:30 PM | Comments (1)

February 06, 2007

SurvivorBlog 14.0

Too soon. After all the Survivor commercials during the Superbowl, I feel like I'm already spent. Wasn't the last season over just yesterday? Aren't Sundra and Becky still hacking away at their flints?

Anyway, I will do my best to keep the torch burning (see what I did there?). I'll also note that this season takes place in Fiji, which just had a coup d'etat led by a strongman named Frank Bainimarama. So I'd like to ask everyone to get their "Cruel Summer" jokes out of the way right now.

Posted by Michael at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2006

You Know Where To Ask For A Refund

You know what? I just can't bring myself to do a Survivor recap for the last episode. It was pretty boring. Yul was cool, and deserved to win. Ozzie was cool, and would have deserved to win. I had a personal $take in Becky winning, but she sat there in the Final Three, useless, like Michigan being honored at halftime of the Ohio State/Florida game. Half the jury didn't even acknowledge her when they asked their questions.

When the thing you remember most from an episode is that it took two Survivors two hours to start a fire (and the second hour, they had matches), it's probably not worth it.

So....um. Sorry.

Posted by Michael at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

You Can Stop Hitting F5

I didn't take a lot of notes the first time around, so the final installment of SurvivorBlog 13 might take a couple of days. Just think of it as a prolonged session of watching me try to start a fire.

Posted by Michael at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

December 17, 2006

Welcome, Perverts

Just checked my stats. My careful placing of the words "Parvati" and "nude" close together is doing wonders for my Google traffic. And whoever was looking for "Parvati pees"....um. Get help.

Posted by Michael at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2006

SurvivorBlog 13.14: The Sickeningly Sweet Science

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
And cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving I am leaving", but the fighter still remains
- Simon & Garfunkel

The boxer. The most maligned, yet romanticized figure in sports. A purveyor of sheer, unbridled brutality, yet capable of incomparable grace and dexterity. Rocky. Raging Bull. Howard Cosell and Muhammed Ali, turning boxing chat into a metaphor for the entire Sixties. It's right at the junction of primal rage and ordered civility.

Which leads us to Parvati.

Not just a boxer - a Foxy Boxer. As Television Without Pity describes it, boxing of the "'I throw a punch and -- oops, I lost my top!' variety". You think Mike Tyson was misunderstood.

Actually, Parvati's pretty easy to understand, as we begin day thirtywhatever on Survivor Island. She and Adam survived the ouster of Jonathan, and they're talking strategy. "We need to get one of the four Aitus to join us." It's breathtaking in its simplicity.

Treemail! Yul brings back a bad poem and a bucket of mud, which leads everyone to guess that the Reward Challenge involves...well, mud. "Naked mud wrestling", suggests Yul, which probably gives Parvati an experiential advantage over, say, Becky.

It's not quite naked mud wrestling. It's "cover yourself with as much nasty-ass mud as possible and squirt it into a bucket", which I believe is the state sport of Arkansas. You're not allowed to carry mud in your hands or arms, so the Survivors improvise, carrying it in their hair (Ozzie), back (Yul), cleavage (take a guess), or not really anywhere (Sundra). Ozzie, adding "yak" to his Manimal resume, blows the field away by transporting 45 pounds of mud in ten minutes. He can't be beaten.

So Ozzie wins, and the two runners-up (Parvati and Yul) get to join him for a spa weekend. Ozzie also gets to send someone to Candice Island; he picks Adam, of course. "Sorry, bro," he says. The spa-bound three do a group hug; covered in mud, they all kind of look like Oscar statues.

Becky and Sundra, still covered in mud, trudge back to camp just ahead of a torrential downpour. You'd think they would stay out and wash some off, but they huddle in the tent. The Becky-shaped mudball tells the Sundra-shaped mudball that she's getting really scared of Ozzie, because he wins almost every challenge and is currently singlehandedly leading the NBA's Atlantic Division. She starts to muddily speculate it might be time to shave him off the Alliance. Sundra, I think, tries to respond, but only mud comes out.

Ozzie, Yul, and Parvati will get hosed down when they get to the spa, so they're flying in a plane, crusting in mud, sitting on plastic seat covers. Think about that the next time you bitch about the accomodations on Southwest. They shower (not together, but don't go anywhere), get massages (not that kind, but seriously, hang on), and pig out on food and booze. Things are leading up to...

Adam on Exile Island. Damn. You know when someone's really clever and sharp, sometimes you say "No flies on him!" Well, Adam literally has flies on him at Exile Island. That's all I'll say about that.

ool.jpgBack at Rancho Relaxo, the massage, the food, the fluffy robes, and the liquor have all combined to melt the cares away. And away with the cares goes Parvati's bathrobe. To the hot tub! Three nude Survivors lounge around, and Parvati says being there with two boys makes her so excited she pees her pants - "except I'm not wearing any pants!" Read the sign (left), tootsie.

Meanwhile [insert clumsy segue here - ed.], Yul is pissed [awesome! - ed.] that Parvati's so blatantly flirting with Ozzie. He's worried about him going over to the dark side. Probably at the exact same second that Becky's wondering the same thing. Not that these two have a bond. Yul's trying to figure out how to get Ozzie to keep his eyes on the prize.

Finally, the three come back to camp. Becky says she missed Yul (O RLY?), and the two of them get together and verbalize their unspoken common uncertainty about Ozzie. Yul agrees, but also says that he's underestimated Parvati; she's working Ozzie hard, and in the immortal words of Bell Biv Devoe, that girl is poison. Never trust a big butt and a smile, Oz.

The Reward Challenge is a balance beam walk followed by assembling and manipulating a giant simple Labyrinth board. Would it spoil the suspense to say that Ozzie wins in a landslide? No? OK.

So now, common sense dictates that either Adam or Parvati has minutes left to live. Adam, to his credit, goes to see Don Yul and lays it on the line. "I know it's either her or me; I'd like to nominate her." No subterfuge there. Parvati says she knows she's in trouble because she's a threat, but Adam's kind of a threat, too. I'm not sure if this strategy is remarkably clever or incredibly stupid, but I sure have my suspicion.

Ozzie's lounging in the tent with the two worried ex-Raros. Adam gently and subtly asks if there's any way he'll switch. Ozzie says he'll do whatever it takes to win. Adam chooses to interpret that as a maybe. Yul, Becky, and Sundra start to fret that the stupid-sell actually might be working, so Yul goes in the tent and basically reminds Ozzie not to be stupid.

Now, because there's been so little stupid pointless controversy this season, Yul wonders if he should bring Jonathan's hat to Tribal Council, since Jon asked for it back on his way out. They get there, Jon picks up his hat -- which he DID NOT KNOW Yul brought. Jeff immediately makes a thing out of it, asking if Yul's starting to try to butter up the jury, particularly Jonathan, who was so innocently and cruelly stabbed in the back before he got to stab Yul in the back. Yul's all like, don't make this a thing, Jeff. But then some of the other Survivors start making it a thing, accusing Yul of playing to the jury. Yul probably feels like the guest of honor at the wrong roast. The Jury giggles. I think if you're going to play to this Jury, you'd do well to bring your best Senor Wences impression; it's that level of intellectual discourse.

The only suspense is 1% whether Ozzie will flip, and 99% whether it's Adam or Parvati going. The first vote (which is, of course, the one we saw already) is for Sundra. The second is for Parvati, and that's the ballgame. Looks like she'll be doing her Foxy Boxing from now on up in the Statesville Prison.

Boring Words of Wisdom, boring Parvati final shot. Still, a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest. Lie-la-lie, lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie, la-la-la-la-lie.

Next: It's Over!

Posted by Michael at 09:45 PM | Comments (1)

December 07, 2006

SurvivorBlog 13.13: Someday, And That Day May Never Come

The Seven Against Probst trudge back from a traumatic Tribal Council, only to face the far greater trauma of unflattering night lighting. Jon says he's OK with being the bad guy and not being trusted, which is good, because it's not like he has a choice.

The next morning, Parvati is gamely trying to help in the kitchen. Since she learned last week that fish have to be converted from cute Finding Nemo cast members into tasty Gorton's filets, she cleverly deduced that there's some work involved turning a raw coconut into a pina colada. So she's axing away at a coconut...whap...whap...thhhwwwwwwwp. Which is the best onomatopoeiatic word I can think of for an axe slicing through Parvati's thumb.

She sits down, dazed - well, a little more dazed than usual - and Becky and Sundra wrap a buff around her injured thumb. The fishermen return, and Adam admits he's a little creeped out by fingernail injuries. You may be aware that I freak out and puke when confronted with eye trauma. Some people faint at the sight of blood. Adam can't deal with a split fingernail. Jon is openly hoping that Parvati will either have to be Medevacced to New Zealand or bleed to death, but the Survivor medical staff lets her off with one stitch and a bandage.

Reward Challenge! Jeff says the challenge is to use a small bucket to fill a large bucket, which sounds about as exciting as a challenge of hopscotch. But there's more! The loved ones are here! Jon's wife (wait - Jon's straight?!), Parvati's dad, Adam's dad, Becky's sister, Yul's brother, and Ozzie and Sundra's respective moms emerge from behind a tree and come over for hugs and banter.

And the challenge suddenly gets a bit more interesting: it's a wet T-shirt contest! Well, it turns out that way. The Survivors are blindfolded and have to fling water at their loved ones, who are in charge of the large bucket. So it's pretty wet and wild, and Jon's wife gets the good idea of wringing the water out of her shirt, but Parvati and her dad wind up winning. I think Ozzie scoops up a flounder in his bucket at one point.

So Parvati gets to pick someone for Candice Island (it's Jonathan; quelle surprise) and Paparvati gets to pick two more Survivor/loved one combos to join them for their adventure. He picks, without any help, Sundra's mom and Adam's dad. Ozzie, Becky, and Yul bid adieu to their family members, and a strange group heads back to camp.

They putter around camp for a while. Parvati shows her dad that she's surviving; Adam and George throw the old pigskin around; Sundra and Mom collect firewood. Ozzie bitches that Adam and Parvati are having a good time, and in fact still alive, because of the food he's brought them. As a waiter, you think he'd be used to being treated like crap by the customers, but what are you gonna do.

So he and Becky and Yul make a pact that they'll hide some of the food and not continue to be servants to the slackers. I love these guys so much.

The others visit a native village where they dance, get lei'd (quiet, you), and go to an underground cavern with a pool. The natives explain that they used to sacrifice virgins here; Parvati looks around nervously then jumps in. Sundra makes the Survivor producers very happy when she interviews how cool it is to learn about other cultures. She also realizes that Adam and Parvati are OK people without Captain Jonathan Bringdown around.

Then they pig out on fried chicken, corn, and biscuits. They don't call 'em the South Seas for nothin'. Pass the grits!

Ozzie's "Hide the Food" scheme takes a little bit of a hit when Parvari, Adam and Sundra come back with takeout. It seems the waiter has become the waited. Becky has the good sense to look a little sheepish, though 50 bucks says the takeout was Sundra's idea.

Jonathan returns from Exile Island with his literal feather in his cap. No one says hi. The Immunity Challenge is a convoluted nautical obstacle course; Ozzie takes form of Mountain Goat and gets out to a huge lead (quelle surprise encore), the girls flollop over some wet barrels, and no one really makes a serious run at Ozzie.

At camp, Jonathan is lingering around with a giant target planted on his back. Sundra tells him - not a bit convincingly - that their original plan to take out Adam is still on. Jonathan doesn't quite believe her. Since she's the only one who even says a word to him. I almost kind of feel bad for Jon.

Adam tries to sell Yul on the idea of Jonathan going home instead of Parvati or himself. Yul interviews that he kind of feels like the Godfather, being asked to perform a hit on someone. He tells Adam that what he asks for is not justice, and if Adam had shown him respect from the beginning, he would have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, he doesn't slap him and yell "You can act like a man!". That would have been awesome.

Jon comes to Yul for his audience. He does everything short of Sallozzo's "I'm not that clever" speech; luckily, Sonny isn't around to tip the family's hand. Yul wishes Jon good luck, as best as his interests don't conflict with Yul's.

Jon tries to rationalize to himself, or the cameramen, that it would be a bad idea to vote himself off.

Tribal Council! Adam says he doesn't think Jon deserves to stick around; Jon asks why, and Adam (Adam!) delivers the line of the episode. "It's your integrity. You don't have any." I'll beat the dead horse one last time, and say that Adam has had any number of chances to get rid of Jon; the multitude of ex-Raros on the jury can testify to that. Jonathan starts talking about trust and debts owed and all that crap.

The votes come in, and as soon as the third Jonathan vote is revealed, he knows his goose is cooked. His exit line - "I want my hat back at some point" - is not quite "'Tis a far, far better thing...", but oh well.

Jeff's Words of Wisdom - well. He says that trust is an issue, because Jonathan trusted in them. HOGWASH, Jeff. No one trusted Jonathan. The Superfriends trust each other, and rightly so. Adam and Parvati have no choice but to trust each other. Jonathan never fit in, he screwed everybody over at least once...and Jeff says there will be lingering trust issues? Hogwash, I say.

Next Week: Will Ozzie flip out of the Superfriends? Will Yul and Becky cut him off before he gets the chance?* Can Yul trust that fat Clemenza?

*Note to Yul and Becky...you do NOT want to go into the Finals against Adam or Parvati with the jury full of ex-Raros. You don't want this. Promise.

Posted by Michael at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2006

SurvivorBlog 13.12: No Cure For Cancer

And then there were eight. First we have the Superfriends - Yul, Becky, Ozzy and Sundra. Nothing's gonna stop them now. Secondly, we have what I've taken to calling the Moronage a Trois - Parvati, Adam, and Candice. What they lack in intelligence, work ethic, and competence, they make up for in winning smiles.

And of course, Jonathan. The lone wolf. The man without a tribe. Beholden to no one, barely tolerated by all.

We begin with them coming back from the Tribal Council where Jon turned colors again and glommed onto the ex-Aitus. Candice is seriously mad at Jon; her opinion of traitors is notably malleable. Parvati says she's so mad at Jon she wants to throw up on him. Adam sits there like a bobblehead doll.

Jon sits and takes the verbal abuse. He says, well, what if Yul had the Idol? Then we'd vote for him, and they'd bounce it to me. Law of the jungle, baby. Kill or be killed. And the nitwits say, no way Yul had the Idol. Jonathan says, he did. I saw it. And the nitwits still don't believe.

The next morning (Day 29 on the island), Sundra is cluing Parvati into some of the facts of life. Namely, that fish don't turn from cute, aquarium-ready fish into delicious, edible fish just like that. Someone has to...well, gut them. Parvati says she wants to throw up (Is this episode Parvati's cry for help?) Sundra thinks it's funny that Parvati has never gutted a fish; Jonathan sets his OutrageMeter to 11. He goes over and complains/sucks up to Aitu a little more, just in case they'd forgotten he existed in the last 15 minutes.

Reward Challenge! And it's one of those fun ones, where every Survivor is issued $500 American cash, and Jeff auctions off several items. For some reason, I had a flashback to an old Dungeons & Dragons game (weren't there some auctions of mysterious items?) and so I will attempt to tell the story of the Reward Challenge as if narrating a D&D adventure.

Jonathan bids $100 on a mystery foodstuff; it is a Hot Dog of Many Toppings, along with a glass of stout mead (well, beer). I should point out that Survivors are allowed to share money, but not food. Jonathan fails a dexterity check and fumbles some of the beer onto Parvati the Tooth Queen. She calls a party foul, which does no damage to Jon. Parvati then bids 360 gold on a piece of cake and a Bubble Bath of Infinite Comfort. She strips to her bikini, which raises her armor class, as well as Adam's...interest, and sinks into the healing waters.

The next item is a mystery envelope. Becky, with a loan from Yul, goes deep into the bidding. Jeff says that, within the envelope, there's an item of significant power. Please, be a vorpal sword, please, be a vorpal sword.

(I can't keep this D&D thing going anymore. If you want the whole episode told this way, sign up for BunkoSquadPlus. It's $9.95/month.)

No, it's a note, saying that Becky can pick somebody to go to Exile Island, and take all their money as they leave. No one on the planet is shocked that it's Candice, and Becky gains 1,200xp and promotes to 2nd-level thief (sorry). Candice storms off to the boat she knows so well. Parvati angrily loofahs her back.

The next item up for bid is the use of a soft-serve ice cream machine for a few minutes. Jon bids $400, all he has left. Ozzie bids $420. Jeff grins and says, "The magic number." OK, suddenly now we're in a Cheech & Chong movie? This episode is moving way too fast. Ozzie stumbles over to cure his munchies, and Jeff throws on "White Rabbit".

Jon wins a pizza; Sundra wins a sea cucumber (you knew there was going to be one dud prize); Jon wins some personal hygiene items. I don't know where he came up with the extra money; I hope he plucked it from Adam while Adam was leering over either Parvati or Jon's french fries. Somewhere along the line, Yul reveals to one and all that he has the Immunity Idol. Adam and Candice still don't believe him. Jeff calls the auction closed; Jon gargles us into the commercial break.

Everyone but Candice comes back to camp. Jonathan burps a cloud of pepperoni in Becky's general direction. Classy with a capital K. He stalks off and everyone starts complaining about him. Adam says he's a dirty, dirty rat. Possibly the longest coherent sentence Adam's put together in a while.

Cut to Candice, boo-hooing on Exile Island. She says she's mad that she's realized that Jon is going to last longer than she will. I think she's really sad because she's all alone and wasting valuable Adam-cuddling time. What are he and Parvati up to?

Immunity Challenge! It involves math, memory, trivia, and strength. I won't even go into detail because it was pretty boring; suffice it to say that even though it involves math and trivia, Adam wins. He's happy. Candice looks sad, and pensive.

Now begins the horsetrading. The Moronage A Trois approaches the Superfriends with what's actually a reasonable request: just kick Jonathan off. Seriously, that's all they want. They admit that they're OK with being picked off after that; they just want Jon to go first. They appeal to Yul's long-term interests by saying that they'll soon be on the Jury of the Damned, and what Yul does with Jonathan now will impact the decision in the Final Two.

While they're plotting (and the ex-Aitus all admit that they don't like Jonatham much either), Jonathan is stalking around camp like the Grim Reaper, if the Grim Reaper were not a skeletal, black-clad, ominous figure with a scythe, as usually portrayed, but rather a pudgy, shirtless Jew in a scuba mask.

Jon makes a final pitch to the Superfriends, coming back with a couple of fish and hinting that the five of them should have a meal, while Adam, Parvarti and Candice canoodle in the tent. The smell of fish wafts in their direction, and Candice storms out in a rage. She yells at them (Jonathan) for not sharing, she accuses them (Jonathan) of being inconsiderate louts, and she says she hopes they (Jonthan) are happy with their rudeness. She tries the desperate gambit of trying to get Jon to think Yul was talking smack about him. It looks like Candice is going down, so she doesn't want to leave anything in the chambers.

They get to Tribal Council, eyes blazing like a hundred suns. The Jury trots out; Nate looks not unlike Rudy from the Fat Albert gang. Candice, finding a little more firepower, lets Jon have it. She (and occasionally Adam) call him a rat, a cancer, a cancerous lab rat, a ratty lab cancer, etc. They tell Jon that nobody likes him. The Jury giggles and nods. Yul tries to make the peace. Nobody wants peace. It's pig-pile time, and everyone's got Jonathan-related grievances to air. He's the most hated person on the planet!

So Candice gets voted out. That makes sense. She gives Adam a long, wet kiss goodbye. Somewhere in America, Billy's writing a monster ballad. She waves toodle-oo and probably heads back to Exile Island, since it's hard to sleep in an unfamiliar bed. Jeff is too overwhelmed to offer any Words of Wisdom.

Next week: The Jonathan tumor spreads! Parvati cuts herself! It's not a tumor! Yul's the Godfather!

Posted by Michael at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2006

SurvivorBlog 13.11: Shut Up, Jonathan

It's the morning after at Raro: the morning after the double elimination of Rebecca and Jenny, and the morning after Jonathan, who by any rational analysis would be long gone, somehow survived. So he tiptoes out in the morning to catch fish. When he comes back, the cast of the Real World is just stirring, and when Jonathan gently suggests that fire and water would sure make his fish taste better, they start working. Jonathan interviews that he can't believe he's doing all the work for them. Jonathan, it should be pointed out, loves talking more than anyone else on the planet; he gets more interview time per episode than Becky and Sundra have had throughout the series.

Nate's all like, don't tell me what to do, Jonathan. Because he clearly resents Jon's outsider status. Though not enough to save Brad, Rebecca, and Jenny before getting around to kicking out the interloper. (Note: I realized after I wrote this that Nate didn't vote for Jenny, but the point stands.)

Aitu, the Superfriends, are showing some evidence of mortality. Sundra has a gaping knee wound, and even Yul is fatigued and feels crappy. If they keep wearing down like that, they may only slightly beat Raro next time around.

But there is no next time around. Jeff summons everyone to the beach and tells them the merge has come. Boo. Aitu's still outnumbered, but they no longer have the advantage of kicking Raro's ass at challenge after challenge. They don their new joint-tribe buffs and head to the former Raro camp, where the coconuts are plentiful and the rats not so much.

And how do they get there? A luxury cruise! Take that, Jenny! They sail in a fully-stocked dining room, with complimentary beer and wine. Adam, showing the kind of determination and will that will surely mean success in life for him, drinks too much and starts heaving over the railing. Nate's hammered, too. There goes the "stupid frat boy" stereotype. Jonathan is disappointed about this behavior, and lets us know. There goes the "talky neurotic Jew" stereotype. This show is breaking down barriers.

Nate's getting to be pals with Ozzy, but he still tells us with a straight face that the original Raros will stick together. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that Brad, Rebecca and Jenny all slipped his mind. Ozzie's starting to look a little like Johnny Depp, if you're interested. Adam and Parvati snuggle; Adam flashes that annying grin. Yul and Becky start discussing whether to start letting people know Yul has the Immunity Idol.

Now, I have mixed feelings about this decision. Jonathan, clearly, will go where the momentum is, so waving the Idol in his face might work. But he also has betrayed the ex-Aitus, so he thinks the only way to keep around is to stick with the ex-Raros. And since the facts actually back up the sad fact that the game is centered around Jonathan at the moment, Yul doesn't tell Jon he has the Idol (though he drops enough painfully obvious hints). The good thing about springing surprises on Jon is that he can't keep his mouth shut while considering anything, so you really know where he stands.

Yul and Becky do tell Sundra and Ozzie about the Idol. They're pleased, but not too surprised. The cheerleaders (Parvati and Candice) want to kick Yul off, because he's really smart and capable. No one comes to Raro Beach and starts thinking, dammit!

The Reward Challenge (the individual immunity necklace looks exactly like what Mola Ram wore when he ripped out that guy's heart in Temple of Doom) is simple. Cling to a pole for as long as you can; last one to fall wins. The beefcake guys drop right away, then they all fall off except Candice and Ozzy. Ozzy, drawing on his rhesus-monkey animal power, hangs on for the win as Candice slides off. Imagine this paragraph stretched out to 10 minutes, with Jeff narrating.

How does Parvati have polished toenails at this point in the game?

So this clears everything up for Aitu. Ozzy's off the chopping block, so one of two things happen.

>1) Ex-Raros think Yul probably has the Idol so they vote for Becky or Sundra, or 2) Ex-Raros don't think things through, so they all vote for Yul, leaving the second place person kicked out when Yul shows the Idol. My money's on the Raro's-not-that-smart option.

Option 3, of course, is that Yul tells Jon about the Idol, assuming that Jon will flip right back over like the frontrunner he is, and then he can pick which ex-Raro (probably Nate or Adam) to jettison. The risks of this, of course, are that Jon will tell everyone, or that Jon will realize that joining ex-Aitu clinches fifth place for him. Yul even tells Jon he wants to be against him in the Finals, but knowing Yul, he'll keep his alliance with Becky right up to the end and let fate take its course.

Jon goes to the Raro brain trust and mentions it's possible that Yul has the Idol, and how would we handle that? Adam and Candice figure that since their combined brainpower couldn't find the Idol in twelve days, there's no way Yul could have found it in only one. Jon starts to think he's a little too smart for the Raro Moron Alliance.

Adam tells Candice that Nate is thinking too much. Adam and Candice agree that thinking is hard, and changes people. Then they smooch.

Jon goes back for a clandestine meeting with ex-Aitu (well, clandestine enough that Raro doesn't notice). They say that if he joins up with them, he can pick which of Nate and Adam goes. Jon tells Candice nothing happened. Jon, who is the center of the entire universe, interviews six or seven or 47 times that he doesn't know what he wants to do, and every choice he could make would make him an enemy somewhere. Hard to believe, since you're so likeable, Jon.

Tribal Council! Jeff asks Parvati what's up with Adam and Candice; she says, "They love each other! And they want to make babies!" I can't tell if she's being silly, or if that's really what she sees. God, I hate Raro.

Sadly, Jon gives a big farewell speech, but he's probably not leaving, so he'll get to give another one before too long. The votes start coming in: four for Nate, four for Yul. One left to see which way Jon thought the wind was blowing.

And it's Nate. Nate has the scowl to end all scowls as he stomps off the beach. Jon looks pained. Candice, Adam and Parvati look like it's penetrated their thick heads that this is bad news. Yeah, with Jon not on your side, and Yul still with the Idol, I think maybe it is bad news for you guys.

Jeff's understated Words of Wisdom are that this vote significantly shakes things up. Nate gets his money's worth on his Two Minutes' Hate, ripping Jon up and down. It's pretty good material, and I hope to see a few more people cursing Jon on their way out.

Next week: Aitu isn't sharing food! Candice suddenly doesn't like traitors! Everyone hates Jonathan!

Posted by Michael at 10:56 PM | Comments (1)

November 16, 2006

SurvivorBlog 13.10: Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

Everyone at Raro is recovering from the mutiny and the kicking-off of Brad. Jonathan's recovering by imitating Ozzie, trying to bring back lots of fish. You might say he's the sole provider, but I won't. I also won't call him the Wandering Jew - he does that himself. I missed that tribe, back in the ethnic-division portion of the season. Candice and Adam are recovering by talking strategy, and how they're together till the end. Adam, if he's thinking at all, has to be thinking that he would be a guaranteed winner if he gets into a final with Candice, since she has four blood enemies over at Aitu. That's giving Adam a lot more credit than I probably should. And Parvati (deposed as Queen Bee) is having a little Girl Talk with Jenny, about how Adam and Candice are all kissy-kissy and want to be together and have babies. Beautiful, treacherous, not terribly bright Aryan babies.

I'm sure they have nothing to worry about, though, as the next scene features Adam and Candice lying in the tent, as Candice tells him all the places she's hurting so he can kiss it and make it better. Finger...thumb...lips...Credits! Thank God.

We come back to Aitu (henceforth referred to as the Superfriends, assuming I remember). Treemail arrives, and it's homework! They have to learn all of the nautical flags, and the Superfriends - who are strong and smart - immediately have a cram session. Ozzie makes particular note of how to signal the letters "F" and "U" for when they all get back together again.

They gather at the beach, and Yul is bummed to find out that Brad got kicked off. How can he forget the mutiny, when there is always something there to remind him? He will never be free; Jonathan will always be a part of....he.

The challenge involves a compass, some digging, some chests, and a puzzle. Raro starts screwing up right away. Aitu'