I am very happy with the twists they’ve introduced in this season of Survivor; They’re not major enough to radically change the nature of the game negatively (like a certain Dead Man’s Island from a certain local version) but they are big enough to throw a spanner in the works.
I’d almost feel sorry for Jenny if I wasn’t laughing so much at her sour face when she was eliminated.
After having lost a whole bunch of Immunity Challenges in a row, Raro was in need of a shake-up. Jonathan was the one who tried to bring about that change by becoming the Ozzy of his new tribe and bringing in enough fish to stock uShaka Marine World.
“I am a wandering Jew,” Jonathan joked as he climbed trees with considerably less monkey-like skill than Ozzy. No, Jonathan, we’ve already discussed this; tribes divided by religion is next season’s big gimmick. Your thing is race, remember?
Candice’s strategy to stick around was to hook a different kind of animal. She was being obnoxiously affectionate with Adam, kissing him, holding his hand and rubbing his head when it started to ache from thinking too much. Maybe our master Flirtician Poverty should take notes?
Primates often show affection by picking ticks and lice from each other's fur.Aitu was happy to be outnumbered. “We love being the underdogs,” Ozzy informed us. Really? That’s good because it’s time for a Reward Challenge: the Underdogs vs the Dunderheads. Again showing their strategic genius, Raro decided to blow their wad on this challenge and sit out all the worst people instead of waiting until the Immunity Challenge to do so.
"Another thinking challenge? Yep, we're screwed."The challenge involved a good amount of thinking: teams had to remember flag codes and understand how to navigate properly. No prizes for guessing which team failed horribly at the thinking. Raro put the “ass” in “I desperately need a compass” when they couldn’t figure out where to dig. Jeff was very bitchy in his commentary about Raro. That’s why we love him.
"I learned this at school. South is down on the floor and North is up in the sky."
"Oh for the love of..."Aitu won easily and once again sent Benedict Candice to Exile Island. She ate some disgusting-looking slimy thing and wept. How could they do this to her? Why did they hate her so much? All she did was betray her tribemates by going over to the other team. Some people are so unreasonable.
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to eat some worms.By contrast, Aitu were living it up by going to an Umu, which is what they call a party in the Cook Islands. They were greeted by a shouting man and for an exciting second, it looked like the native islanders were going to seize them and sacrifice them to their volcano god.
The Islanders greet Aitu with their traditional chant of "I like to move it, move it"Turns out the shouting was their version of a greeting. The traditional native tribe (i.e. actors from the local tourist village) welcomed Aitu “as warriors”, as Ozzy put it. Bitch, please. Digging and swimming well does not make your skinny asses warriors. Let’s see how well you do in a spear-each-other-to-death challenge and then we’ll call it a warriors’ welcome.
"Please enjoy this lovely meal of our leftover garbage...I mean, a scrumptious feast."Cook Islanders definitely know how to party. They were dancing crazy. As they waited for someone to bring out the karaoke machine, a large woman, who must have been Poverty’s distant cousin, took a shine to Yul and began molesting him. Yul was dragged kicking and screaming to the dance floor where the two of them engaged in a traditional Cook Island mating dance that the native woman had learned from watching hip-hop music videos. Yul finally escaped her amorous advances by rolling up into a protective ball like an armadillo.
"How about some body shots, big boy?"
"Ooh, I love this song! My humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps."
"Defensive posture, defensive posture!"Back at Raro, Jonathan was still trying to get his tribe off their asses and doing something productive. He led by example, catching fish by using his crotch as bait. Treemail arrived with a brand new lesson plan: learn the names of the South Pacific islands. Another task involving study and brain power? Yep, Raro were screwed.
Hey, at least they're not piranhas.Jeff had another surprise waiting at the IC. The losers would get a bottle with a note inside, no doubt telling them how useless they were. Raro lost again. The good news is that Rebecca didn’t collapse this time. Jeff threw the bottle at Raro. It did not knock anyone on the head. Damn.
Two things were on Raro’s mind: who to vote out and what that damn bottle contained. Raro didn’t seem to value fishing skills much and Jonathan’s name was bandied about. Rebecca’s name came up as well for her crimes against swimming, her lack of contributions around camp and her general boringness.
Jenny especially had it in for Rebecca and was more than happy to break up the “five team alliance”. Teams, Jenny? No wonder Raro keeps doing so badly if she thinks they’re all on separate teams.
"Tee hee, this is perfect for checking my reflection in."So it was Nate and Rebecca who wanted to get rid of Jonathan and basically everybody else who wanted to get rid of Rebecca. The suspense was not killing anyone. In the TC, Raro claimed to be a family. Yeah, a family of losers. They also made the ludicrous claim that everyone goes fishing on the tribe. Oh come on, fishing for compliments or fishing your underwear out of your butt does not count.
Brad looked very snazzy at TC. Very GQ. No tropical shirts for him. Hey, there’s a reason he’s a fashion designer. Rebecca was soon voted out and left without a word. They didn’t even give show her final words over the credits. Ah well, I’m sure they would have been boring anyway.
The best part came next. Raro opened the bottle and found out that they had to vote another person out that night. Ha! Awesome. Jonathan looked worried, Nate looked as if he’d just learned he had a terminal disease and Jenny looked as if Jeff had just announced he’d made slippers out of her cat.
The tribe voted. Jenny and Nate voted for Jonathan; the rest all voted a now thoroughly pissed-off Jenny. Brilliant. That’s a blindside no-one saw coming. Jenny and her bitchface left and she snotted in her final words about how she would’ve prepared for this had she known. Oh wa wa wa, cry me a river.
Next week: Is it the freakin’ merge yet?
Brain Yul tells
Pinky Ozzy his super secret foolproof plan to take over the world.