What an immensely frustrating episode. Almost every single thing I didn’t want to happen this episode ended up taking place. The Axis of Evil hogged all the good luck and ended up experiencing the best rewards and good challenge performances.
Judd won the Reward Challenge and got to stuff his porcine face full of lobster and steak, while Jamie won Immunity, putting paid to any plans (hypothetical or otherwise) that his allies might have had of voting him off.
To top it all off, yet another sweet member of Yahtzee (aka the Walking Dead) was voted off. Poor BJ, my dim yet sweet caveman, was voted off after a surprise twist where Gary revealed he had found the hidden immunity idol.
This has to be the season with the highest number of sad eliminations one right after the other. If I wasn’t already desensitised to seeing my favourites go home, I’d be really depressed right about now. I suppose I should prepare myself for Gary and Danni’s inevitable eliminations in the next two weeks because it’s just that kind of season.
How could this happen? How did Jamie, the assy caveman, end up beating out BJ, the friendly caveman? That alone makes BJ’s fate a terrible one. I expected him not to last very long after the merge, sure, but I was holding out a small hope that he’d be able top beat out his rival, Jamie.
Instead, poor, sweet BJ is voted out and Jamie lives to grunt and scratch his way to the million.
Damn that Jamie. His “You hurt my feelings” whinefest at the start of the episode was pathetic. What a baby. He can dish it out but he can’t take it. All BJ did was call him classless, which was a lot nicer than I’d have been. It’s not like BJ spat upon him and insulted his mother’s honour at last week’s TC.
Everybody reacted to the big baby’s reactions with their usual mix of indifference to hate. Rafe claimed that unless Jamie learned from his experiences and gained some maturity, he would vote for him. Stop being such a tease, Rafe. You let me down last week so I’m taking every moral proclamation that comes out of your mouth with a grain of salt.
Aside from Jamie’s whinefest, the Axis of Evil did treat the Walking Dead marginally better. Judd found the time to get defensive over his behaviour and made a comment about how the Yahtzees would treat them the same way, were the positions reversed. Having seen the way the Yahtzees treated people like Brian and Amy before they were voted off, I think we can safely say that Judd is full of *bleep!*.
Because the universe is as full of *bleep!* as Judd is, the big ape won lobster and steak in the Reward Challenge. I liked the set-up of the RC in theory because it rewarded people based on challenge performance so perpetual flounders like Lydia got to eat badly.
But in practice, all the people I wanted to do well did rather badly. Gary got a single slice of pizza while BJ got a lone baked potato. Only Danni did well, getting herself a nice plate of spaghetti bolognaise. Thank God. You could practically see every cell of her body striking up an Hallelujah chorus when she learned she was going to be eating actual food.
The RC also saw Jamie do a seemingly selfless thing and give up his food reward so everyone else could eat one plate better than he did. I could give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him when he said that it was because he realised he was being an ass and was trying to make up for it, but come on.
What he really realised was that this is a social game and his behaviour was causing all of the potential jury members to hate him so he decided to try this new and unfamiliar behaviour known as ‘humility’. Even Rafe was sceptical of the new Jamie, now with sensitivity training and selfless gestures. And you just know that Rafe wants to believe the best of everyone so if he sees through someone’s selfless gesture…
Still, it was nice to see Jamie feast on water and nuts while the others got actual food. For a brief moment, I was horrified that he’d get to eat proper food anyway when Jeff told Judd he could choose two other people to eat at his table with him, but even Judd was sick of his whiny ass and chose BJ and Steph instead.
Argh, Steph! My right hand was itching for a bitchslap when Jeff said that and she started crying like Miss Universe because she was so sure she’d be chosen. I was praying that Judd would somehow choose someone else and that she’d be left sitting there like a fool, too pissed off to eat another bite. But naturally Queen Stephenie, the wonderfullest and magicallest Survivor that ever was, was the one picked for the special treatment, just as she knew she’d be.
BJ on the other hand was as gracious as ever when he was chosen. Having been on the receiving end of having to watch people stuff their faces like greedy pigs, he showed awareness of the other contestants who were not lucky enough to sit at Judd’s table.
Especially Gary, who was staring at them hungrily like the
cannibal I once thought he was. He did not seem all that thrilled to see Judd and Steph gorge themselves on food and booze. It’s not my idea of a good time either so I’m sure that we were sharing similar vindictive thoughts of diarrhoea and food poisoning.
There was one upside to Judd’s boozy dinner. Drunken Judd! This time around, we were spared a rant against any of the contestants like the glorious meltdown at Margaret’s final TC, but there were a few special shots of him falling down and hitting himself with a tree.
Judd made even more of a drunken ass of himself when he threw up in the shelter and doomed everyone to sleep with the stench of vomit stewing around them for the rest of the season. There are not enough yucks in the world. I bet Jamie’s ‘subtle suggestions’ that he made last week that the Yahtzees sleep outside don’t seem so bad now.
Speaking of Jamie, things finally seemed to be going my way when the other contestants seemed to seriously consider voting off Jamie instead of one of the Walking Dead. Steph herself said that he was a loose cannon who might scupper her evil plans. His paranoia and odious personality was bad enough that his RC gesture be overlooked.
The stupid git was so suspicious and self-obsessed that he somehow misinterpreted Gary’s clear statement that he was willing to vote for BJ over him as Gary saying how he
was going to vote for him.
Jamie, you doofus, just because your mouth is big enough to tell the person you’re about to vote for that it’s them doesn’t mean that everyone else’s is too. I can see how it must be hard living among creatures so much more advanced along the evolutionary scale than you, but at least try to think like the homo sapiens do, you dumb troglodyte.
All hopes that the troglodyte would be voted off for his complete inability to play the game well were dashed when he won the Immunity Challenge. Argh! Hate! I was so rooting for Rafe (where did his balancing abilities come from anyway? Is this really the same guy who couldn’t get up a ladder in one challenge?) over him, but evil triumphed again.
To top it all off, I was sure that Judd was going to find the itsy bitsy immunity idol because he had gotten a clue as to its location along with the food reward. Brilliantly, Judd decided to fool the others using a diversionary tactic worthy of…well, Gary Hogeboom actually.
What could be cleverer than telling everyone that the clue had said the idol was absolutely to be found somewhere on the ground when the clue had really said it was up a tree? Surely no-one could see through this devilishly clever ruse?
Never mind that anyone with half a brain could easily figure out that he wouldn’t dare give away his advantage and would thus know that the itsy bitsy idol was not on the ground at all. But I wouldn’t want to ruin the giant ape’s satisfaction at how clever he was being by pointing out just how dumb he was actually being.
Gary, no stranger to pathetically bad lying, saw through Judd’s deception. Well, duh, Judd kept wandering around looking upwards and even Judd’s not stupid enough to think that the ground is up.
I loved how the show made it seem like no-one ended up finding it and then sprang the lovely surprise on us at TC that Gary had in fact discovered it and was safe from voting. All I want to know is how he managed to keep it a secret. This is the same man whose fake identity is so poorly constructed, you can practically see the duct tape on his head.
How the hell did Gary not tip everyone else off by walking into camp saying “Boy, that sure was a fruitless search for the hidden immunity idol. Pity I did not find it up a tree. Nope. Not in any way whatsoever,” and suppressing a shit-eating grin?
I reckon Gary is actually learning how to lie well from his time in the game. When Jeff asked him if Gary had ever lied during the game, you know what he answered? “No”. Not “No, you must be confusing me with another Gary who’s a professional liar. I’m just a simple landscaper,” but a bold-faced “No”. He’s no Rob C yet but he’s learning…
At least until next week when he’s probably going to get voted off. I’d try and keep my hopes up, but my remaining threads of hope dissipated about three weeks ago when Amy left.
One last thing about Gary: why on earth did he vote for Cindy? Is that who the Axis of Evil told him to vote for and he just went for it? Why is he trusting the Axis when he should be working his butt off to get a couple of member of the Axis to join him and Danni and…no one. Because BJ’s gone.
Sigh. I’ll miss BJ. At least he made the jury this time.