Mark your calendars because this episode of Survivor featured one of those rare events you only ever see every blue moon, like Halley’s Comet. Steph’s tribe won immunity and Bobby-Jon’s team was forced to go to Tribal Council for the second time in their lives.
How did this happen? When the tribes competed in the obstacle course Reward Challenge, it was business as usual with Steph’s Nukem losing horribly to BJ’s Yahtzee.
It was a truly embarrassing display indeed. Yahtzee had time to win the challenge, go swimming in their new crocodile cage reward, get hungover after consuming margaritas, judge a contest between BJ and Blake as to who can pee furthest, attend Jeff’s nuptials to his jailbait girlfriend, and return to the obstacle course before Nukem had even completed the first obstacle.
Shameful. But Nukem didn’t believe in assigning blame. Judd, in a rare moment of charity, said “We lost, it happens. You can’t blame anybody.”
Quite right, Judd. Except for the part where you’re wrong and I totally can. Jamie lost the challenge single-handedly. No argument.
The bum seemed even more out of it than usual when he was assigned the first obstacle of cutting the rope with a sharp stone. On the other team, Brandon hacked at it like any intelligent person would but Jamie just looked at it like it was some terrifying mathematical equation and cut at it half-heartedly.
For some reason the rest of Nukem didn’t feel the need to tell him to chop the thing like Brandon did, but I suppose that wouldn’t be any fun because then they might have deprived themselves of the opportunity to whine about how much they suck later.
Yahtzee beat Nukem just as Jamie finally managed to get through the first rope. Since his brain had checked out a long time ago, he had to be told that the challenge was over by his tribe. I wish they hadn’t said anything. It would have been great to see him still at the rope-cutting hours later when the sun had gone down.
This is what separates us from the other primates, Jamie. Our ability to use tools. Learn it or go back to swinging from trees and eating bananas.
Because of Jamie’s utter ineptitude, Yahtzee got to enjoy the best reward ever – basically a pool and deck to sunbathe on. Beady-eyed crocodiles watched sullenly, angry they no longer had a shot at Bobby-Jon Tartar or Blake Steak. Nukem may have lost the challenge but I think we can all agree the real losers are the hungry crocs.
Meanwhile Nukem bemoaned their fate as total looooosers. Or rather Steph took on the burden of bemoaning for the rest of them. Did you know that Stephenie hasn’t had much luck with her tribes and has ended up in losing tribes every time? If not, she’ll be glad to tell you again and again. She’s working on an epic poem about it right this instance. It will rival the Odyssey once it’s done.
Steph also took delight in repeating her new favourite catchphrase: “I am so sick of losing”. You know what I’m sick of, Steph? You
saying that same thing over and over and over again like you’re some unholy broken record entitled “Steph needs to shut the hell up before I throw her to the damn crocodiles”. CAN IT with that nasal Jersey whining of yours.
In one confessional she tried to channel the Steph of old who we loved by talking about how she wasn’t going to cry in front of the other castaways. Hey, Steph? The “I am a strong woman having a rare moment of vulnerability but I must remain stoic” thing you want to come across doesn’t work so well when every single moment we’ve seen of you is lamenting your lot in life.
But all that is not directly Steph’s fault, right? The editors are the ones who have spliced together every whine she’s nasaled to present her as this haggy woman. Her whining probably constitutes only 17 hours of the day rather than the 24 we’re being led to believe, right?
If only I could retain my Steph-love by blaming the editing. Sadly, just so she could rub it in that she’s now become a jerk, she had a bitch session about her supposed friend BJ where she trash-talked him for his ‘obnoxious’ celebrating. She derisively called him ‘girly’ and ‘really, really gay’.
That was the moment Steph lost me forever and I began wishing that BJ would have many, many chances to celebrate as girly and gay as he wants. Besides being insulting to girls, gays and BJs, it’s just inaccurate. It’s BJ. He celebrates like he does everything else – in his benevolent caveman way.
Sadly BJ did not get the chance to celebrate again at the Immunity Challenge. But before that could happen we got to see a Big! Religious! Divide!
At Yahtzee, cultures and religions clashed when people prayed at meals and Brian said it wasn’t his thing but he wasn’t going to say anything to the others. That’s it. Not exactly the Crusades, that.
America’s Next Top Model is where the real religious conflict is at.
At Nukem, Lydia went insane from the heat and started dancing and acting like a crazy person. The others watched and laughed
at with her. So that’s why she’s been kept around so long. She’s the tribe’s official dancing monkey/court jester.
Before you knew it, it was IC time. Faced with the challenge of catching balls in a giant net, Steph immediately went into strategic mode and gave her team advice on what to do. Laughter rang out throughout the land as viewers contemplated the inevitable defeat that comes from Steph’s so-called strategies. Miracle of miracles, Nukem actually won and Steph was briefly vindicated. Damn.
Jamie, obviously not having had the pleasure of attending one of Steph’s “Why obnoxious celebrating is bad” lectures, whooped like a tool and made an assholish spectacle of himself to the other team. I’d call him a bad winner but I would rather bring up his horrible RC performance and call him a loser again. Loser.
The losing Yahtzee were forced to choose between Blake and Brian for the next vote.
One the one hand, there was Blake, the ‘golden boy’ (tm Amy), whose perfection is so great, we must all strive to be like him. The rest of the tribe were ensorcelled by his gleaming teeth as he told tales of his perfect life back home with his perfect girlfriend and her perfect boobs. Who could possibly hold a grudge against such perfection?
My new favourite, the possibly gay Yahtzee cheerleader Brian could, of course. He made fun of Blake for loving himself so much he couldn’t stop talking about himself (
God, I know!).
His brilliant plan this week was to bait Blake into talking about himself so much that Danni and BJ would realise what an idiot he was and vote him out. BJ? Yes, I can see it right now. BJ’s moment of realisation that Blake is his intellectual inferior in between knocking down coconuts with his head and burping the alphabet.
Despite his delusions of Hatchism, I love Brian. I could see myself hanging out with him in real life, not talking about religion and farming and making jokes about magical beetles to people (even though I also like Amy, the scared beetle thing was ripe for mockage).
His belief that he is in any way a mastermind is actually rather endearing to me. You can see he loves the game and is trying so hard to be the next notorious strategist a la Hatch. He’s like a kid trying on big people clothes and he’s just so cute when he talks about his grand scheme and his master plans or whatever.
So Brian’s plan was to convince one of the Ex-Nukems to vote for Blake and thus give the Once-And-Future-Yahtzees the majority. He and Gary hit a wall when they asked Brandon and BJ to vote Blake out but found a willing ear in Danni.
Danni found herself in the same position as Judd last week except she was far less obnoxious about it, thank god. Instead of pretending she was King Kong and beating her chest, she expressed discomfort with being the swing vote. Don’t do that, Danni. Embrace swing voting because if one uses one’s position as swing vote wisely, one can do very well indeed. See Cesternino, Rob.
At TC, it came down to the golden boy and Brian. Once again, Brian was the worst and dorkiest ‘mastermind’ ever when he presented us with this jewel as he voted for Blake: “You may be the golden boy, but I’m the platinum”. Oh, Brian, ya big goober. You’re so cuuuute.
Danni ended up voting with Brian, Amy and Gary, and Blake was voted off. As that paragon of perfection walked off, the birds stopped singing and the world shed a tear that someone so amazing could fall.
The question we’re left with is whether Danni did the right thing in switching tribal loyalties. It was dumb when Judd did it last week and it’s not much better this time around. The only consolation is that Blake may have been strong but Yahtzee in general are stronger than Nukem, so voting based purely on physical attributes isn’t as important here.
But like Judd, I don’t think it’s a game-losing move. It’s early days and there’s no reason to believe that people will vote based on tribal loyalties come the merge. The fact that the tribal switch was so early probably helped Judd and Danni because it ensures that those tribal loyalties aren’t too deeply ingrained.
One thing that could’ve contributed to Danni switching that I remembered was that Brian was the one who she told about Gary’s past during the IC a few weeks ago. I get the feeling they have a bond, maybe from before the game started? I’m not sure what’s going on there but it does strike me as interesting.
Don’t forget that next week’s episode will be pre-empted by a documentary on Neanderthal battles for dominance…oh wait, that’s just BJ and Jamie grunting at each other. Sorry.