Great Mayan Pyramids! What a premiere! I know I say that about all of the season openers but this one was for sure the most amazing ever!
Mark Burnett wisened up to the fact that the most recent seasons have been a cakewalk with regards to the actual survival aspect. The teams have gotten big food rewards and Home Depot building tools for Jeff’s sake. It’s been more like Club Med Palau/Vanuatu/Panama at times than Survivor.
This season, Burnett decided to bring in a little of his other show Eco Challenge to spice things up and torment the contestants. Brilliant. I had read all these articles and quotes about this season that claimed it was the toughest season ever, which I dismissed it as the usual pre-season hype. Except it’s true! It’s mind-crushingly, body-breakingly true!
Survivor Guatemala started with Jeff informing 16 new contestants that they were going to be given a helping hand in the form of two tools – Palau’s Bobby Jon and Stephenie. Hey, who you calling tools, Jeff?
When they saw the tools, the contestants did something very surprising. Instead of hissing and making the sign of the cross while discussing among themselves how undeserving it was that BJ and Steph would get a second chance at the million, they cheered and welcomed them with open arms.
The hell?
Even stranger was that this seemed completely sincere. The contestants were overjoyed to learn the two contestants were going to be on their respective teams. They interviewed about how hard-working Bobby Jon was and how awesome Steph was.
Steph is official tool for Team Yankee…Yangtze…Yahtzee, the team in blue.
Lydia talked about how Steph’s awesomeness had inspired her. Lydia is no longer dead to me. Brian talked about how his team was going to win all their challenges because Steph was on it. You’d think supposed Survivor fanatic Brian would recall that Steph’s team lost almost every single challenge back in Palau.
Bobby-Jon is official tool for Team Niknaks…Nunchuck…Nukem, the team in yellow.
Farmerboy Brandon talked about how BJ seemed a bit dim despite his many valuable qualities. I think someone’s jealous that there’s another alpha-farmer on the show besides him. Brandon clearly fancies himself the redneck joker of the pack. I don’t hate him yet, as I did with Big Tom and Redneck Killer James, but a few more of those bad premature evacuation jokes and I will.
The contestants somehow took the news that they were going to be competing against two of the toughest and most determined Survivor contestants ever as good news, so they were all the more horrified by the subsequent bad news that they faced an eleven mile trek through the jungle just to reach camp.
The trek was not as bad as it sounds. It was way worse, especially for Nukem. With BJ at the helm, they quickly took the lead in the race to the ruins, but they paid a heavy price.
First Toothy Blake (is there a law that guys named Blake must have distracting teeth? Blake from TAR 2 was also very toothy) walked into some thorns. This caused him to fall to the ground, writhing in agony as Margaret tended to his wounds.
Aw, did po’ widdle Bwake get a few forns in his dewicate skin?
The massive thorn wounds in his shoulder caused him to throw up repeatedly on the trek. I wish that the show had left it at Blake’s barfing but no such luck, for this was the episode of graphic vomiting. BJ, Judd and Jim all became quivering, heaving wrecks as well, and Nurse Margaret once again came to the rescue.
She has quickly asserted herself as a very valuable member of the team. At one point, BJ really did look like he was about to go into shock and Margaret was always at his side, helping him to get through it. She was his Mary Magdalene, one might say.
It’s interesting that only the guys, Brandon excepted, suffered from dehydration. I suspect it was because the guys were overexerting themselves without taking enough water breaks while the women were conserving their strength more, in anticipation of the long journey. I can definitely see BJ pushing himself to extremes until he literally collapsed from exhaustion.
Yahtzee did not sacrifice the health of their members to win the challenge and managed to avoid dehydration. Steph and Gary emerged as leaders. Well, Steph led. Gary mostly got them lost and was really tall.
Gary has assumed a false identity so that the others don’t target him for being a has-been professional athlete. Yeah, I don’t get it either. He claims to be one Gary Hawkins, landscape guy who’s definitely not a former football player. If someone recognises him as Gary Hogeboom, former football player and current cannibal, he will simply deny everything.
Perfect plan, Gary. I’m sure no-one will see through your clever alias of Gary Hawkins, even if it does share a first name and initials with the semi-famous guy you so closely resemble.
I think he’s overestimating his fame if he thinks he even needs to use a fake identity. BJ and Steph are bigger celebrities than he is among the cast-members.
Despite being abused by howler monkeys sent by monkey-whisperer Cindy to slow their progress. Yahtzee managed to catch up with Nukem but were hampered by the fact that Lydia and Amy are damn slow and will be the first to go come Tribal Council.
In the end, Nukem won by next to nothing, thus proving that the teams are on more of an equal level than Ulong and Koror ever were. If this had happened last season, Ulong would never have even found the ruins. They would have gotten lost and crossed the border into El Salvador. Several days later their bones would have been found by hikers, picked apart by vultures.
Nukem’s prize was that their camp could be set up among the ruins they had toiled so hard to reach. Which was good because the guys could collapse on the spot without any further trekking. Yahtzee got in their boat and set off sadly to their slum of a camp, looking back longingly at Nukem’s prime real estate.
They immediately set to work at the slums, building a nice enough shelter. Based on the one second, out-of-context shot I saw of Jamie lying under the shelter, as well as earlier when he wanted to sleep ten more minutes while they were on their trek through the jungle, I’m going to make a wild guess and say he’s the lazy ass on Yahtzee.
Going into the Immunity Challenge, doubts filled my mind about Steph’s role as Yahtzee leader. Was Steph still doomed to loserdom, even when on a team with actual skills?. Was it her who caused her team to lose all the time? Was she cursed?
Turns out my fears were unfounded when Yahtzee won the IC involving moving boats over logs. It was once again very close. The dehydrated men of Nukem suffered mightily. Skinny girls like Morgan and Danni found themselves trapped under the boats but it didn’t matter too much because they made perfectly good log substitutes.
Steph’s reaction was what made the Yahtzee win so wonderful. The fighter and perpetual loser finally tasted victory. In a flash, the legacy of Ulong was erased as Steph cried over the fact she would not have to go to Tribal Council for the first time ever.
Great moment. Hopefully next week will be BJ’s turn to win an IC so he too can wash the foul taste of Ulong out of his mouth.
Back at Nukem, it was clear who was going to leave at TC. Jim had suffered from dehydration and popped his bicep on the way back to camp. Plus he was old and thus already earmarked as a weaker link.
Sure, the show tried to drum up some suspense as the girls discussed the guys’ weakness. Well, Margaret and Brooke discussed it. Danni mostly pouted while Cindy was off somewhere, possibly chatting to a croc.
But we all knew that BJ was safe, sick as he was. Blake too. Sick guys recover. Sick, old guys with injuries don’t, at least not fast enough to compete in challenges.
At TC, the editors didn’t even show any of the tribe voting, so obvious was it that Jim was about to be Lynched. He was overwhelmingly voted out. His own vote went towards Margaret for reasons I cannot possibly comprehend. Perhaps he deliberately threw his vote so he could go? Was there conflict between them of which we were made unaware?
Jim disappeared into the jungle, forced to make his way through the wilderness and find civilisation alone. Didn’t I say Guatemala was tough? They even send elderly people with shoulder wounds out into the wild by themselves to die. Muahahahaha!
This season is clearly not for the faint of heart or stomach.