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Episode Recap: Survivor Fiji, Week 3

2007-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

Episode: This Isn't Survival, It's Thrival
Original Air Date: February 22, 2007

Why do they have to load so many good shows on the Thursday schedule? Are the TV gods conspiring against me? Survivor, Smallville, and The Office are all on at the same time. My DVR can only record two shows at once! Come on, spread it out a little! And apparently two nights are just not enough to air American Idol. No, Fox had to get greedy and show it on Thursday this week as well. Or maybe it's because they have absolutely nothing else worth showing and they need Idol to fill all of the holes in their schedule. Curse you, Fox network! Curse you!

Day 5
Moto is living high on the proverbial hog and loving every minute of it. This morning a couple of the women have decided to paint the floor of their shelter. The show has actually provided them with can of paint and brushes. The castaways on Gilligan's Island didn't have it this good. "This is too easy," one of the Moto tribe members tells another as he finishes his cooked meal which he just ate on china with silverware.

Boo tells us, "This isn't survival, it's thrival."

Meanwhile, the emaciated members of Ravu are laying on the ground counting their ribs, since they're too week to do anything else. Suddenly, Earl returns from Exile Island. Somehow the other members muster up the energy to crawl to the beach to ask him if he brought any water. Earl tells us it was like "landing on a beach full of begging children".

Later, Michelle tries to use her eyeglasses to start a fire. She succeeds in getting some embers burning and the rest of the tribe help her grow it into a full-blown fire.

Rocky tells us, "I'd be scared to be the other team right now. We're so fired up it's rediculous."

Then he promptly falls over from dehydration.

Convoluted Rewards Challenge
Jeff seems surprised to find out that Ravu has done "what few tribes on Survivor have ever done" - that is made fire all by them little selves. Since they now have fire, they no longer need to earn it, so Jeff tosses them the flint.

The tribes will be playing for their choice of three rewards - their luxury items, exact duplicates of all the fishing gear Moto won during the last challenge, or a bowl of fruit. The challenge involves each tribe sending one member at a time to slide across what amounts to a giant Slip 'N Slide™, snag a numbered ball off of a hanging rope, and toss the ball into a basket. Whichever castaway gets the ball into the basket before the other castaway from the opposing tribe, wins a point for his or her tribe.

The truly unfortunate thing about this challenge is that elderly Yau Man feels it necessary to take his shirt off. The only thing worse than a scrawny, half-naked, sagging old man, is a starving, scrawny, half-naked, sagging old man. That is not a sight you want to see shortly before going to bed.

Another unfortunate thing about this challenge is that it is not enough for Moto simply to win. No, they have to spank Ravu hard. The final score was six to two. The tribes didn't even get a chance to send out all of their members. Moto sends Sylvia to Exile (this time she will not be immune from elimination), and chooses the fishing gear as their reward, because, hey, you can never have too much fishing gear.

Exile Island
The snakes! The snakes! This place is supposed to be overrun by these critters, but every time they cut to a scene with a snake, it looks like the same one. I think they show the same stupid snake five time during this episode alone. Maybe they only had two snakes and Earl killed one of them during the last episode.

The new clue tells Sylvia pretty much the exact location of the Immunity Idol. It's supposed to be buried deep under the threshold of the cave mouth back at camp. Sylvia better find it fast once she gets back. She's not exactly Miss Popular back at camp, and her dismal performance during today's challenge probably didn't help her chances much, either.

Moto Camp
Gary "Papa Smurf" isn't doing very well. He's having trouble breathing and he's experiencing sharp chest pains. The Survivor medics come and give him what is supposed to resemble an examination. Gary tells them he feels like there's a knife in his chest and he's so disoriented he's not sure he can remember his name. The medics tell him it's nothing serious, and to take some analgesics and get some rest. The guy is disoriented, can't breathe, and is having severe chest pains, so they tell him to take two pills and call them in the morning. Where do these medics work, an HMO?

Convoluted Immunity Challenge
Gary still isn't feeling the best, but shows up for the challenge anyway. Other tribal members wonder if maybe he should just quit.

This challenge involves rounds of individual tribal members going head to head with members from the opposing tribe in an eating competition. The castaways must scarf down giant clams, a squid tentacle, peanut worms, fish eyes, and pig snouts that still have hair attached. One would think Ravu would have this challenge in the bag, since they are all on the brink of starvation. But, no, Moto has to win this one as well. Even Gary participates, easily finishing his hairy pig snouts ahead of Anthony. Ravu will once again be voting someone off tonight.

Tribal Council and the Pre-Scheming
Before Tribal Council, Rocky had been campaigning to have Sylvia voted off. Actually, he had been instructing everyone to vote her off. He seems to fancy himself the Illustrious Leader of an imaginary alliance. Mookie, on the other hand, is determined to vote off Anthony, since Anthony didn't seem to be trying hard enough during the last challenge.

Sylvia tries to dig nonchalantly at the cave's mouth. Everyone is just a few feet away, so she doesn't want them to know she's looking for the Idol. The amazing thing is, no one seems to catch on.

The tribe gathers for Tribal Council and cast their votes. Before he counts the votes, Jeff asks if anyone would like to play the Idol. Sylvia doesn't have it. Jeff reads off the votes. It's pretty close - Sylvia 4, Anthony 3, and Earl(?) 1. I think this is the first time in a long time Jeff has had to read every vote. Sylvia is the third person voted off of Survivor: Fiji.

Next week - Gary is still sick. Liliana flirts. Rocky makes Anthony cry.

Episode Recap: Survivor Fiji, Week 2

2007-02-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Episode: Snakes Are Misunderstood ...We Have An Understanding Now
Original Air Date: February 15, 2007

Not to be mean, but has anyone else noticed the serious lack of eye candy in this season's Survivor, especially compared to last season? Cook Islands was swimming in both beef- and cheesecake, what with all those fit young people running around. It was like Survivor 90210. This time around, it looks like they filled the island with dumpy people just to balance it off with last season.

Day 4
The Ravu Tribe is doing its best to survive in Survivor Ghetto. Not only do they lack the "luxuries" of the Moto tribe living uptown, but they don't even have water (actually, they don't have fire to boil the bad water that's available to them). On Day 4 they've taken to licking leaves. Earl says they're getting so dehydrated that they're "delirious".

I'm telling you, it's only a matter of time before they start eating each other. Imagine that converstation at Tribal Council:

Jeff: "Uh, I can't help but notice you're missing a member of your tribe."

Castaway #1: "Yeah, we've already held our own 'Tribal Council' and uh, 'voted off' Earl."

Castaway #2: "Yeah, and he was delicious!"

Jeff: "Tell me about that... how does that change the dynamic of your tribe?"

Over on Easy Street, Moto is living the high life. They've got plenty of food, silverware, hammocks, a big couch, and pillows. Everyone has big smiles on their faces. Maybe they're getting a little too comfortable. Lisi gloats, "This game is so vicious, it's delicious."

Summing up everyone's feelings on the matter, Boo lets out a very contented fart.

Back at Ravu, everyone is desperately trying to rub sticks together to make fire. But they all quickly become exhausted due to dehydration. Yau Man later starts chopping open coconuts to gather coconut milk. Unfortunately, this job is taking a lot more time and energy than it should because Ravu's machete is dull. What? The producers have only provided these people a machete and a pot, and they can't even give them a sharp machete? Everyone eventually pitches in and several coconuts are opened, but at a very slow pace. The castaways are so weak that no one can chop more than a few cocounuts before they have to take a nap.

Over at Moto, Boo doesn't need deprivation or hardship to cause himself harm. First he jabs his eye pretty badly on the tribal sign, causing it to swell most of the way shut. His tribemates provide some first aid in the form of rinsing the eye with water, but it remains swollen. Then just a few minutes later he's chopping wood with an ax, much to the concern of his frightened tribemates, when suddenly he gashes his finger and his knee at the same time. More medical attention is provided. Now he has a swollen eye, a wrapped up hand, and a bloody knee. He decides to lay down in the hammock, but the hammock breaks loose and he falls head first to the floor. Since it was his head that took the brunt of the impact, nothing vital was affected. The scary thing is that this guy is a construction worker. One has to wonder how many times he's had to file for Worker's Comp.

Day 5
Sylvia returns from Exile Island and begins her first day with Ravu. She is shocked to find out the tribe has no fire and no water. She actually had fire on Exile, since they provided her with flint there. After seeing how bad things are at Camp Ravu, she probably starts missing the snakes.

Yau Man runs to hug Sylvia as she lands on the beach. But it's not because he missed her. The old man wants to know if she found the Immunity Idol. So as he's hugging her, he slyly looks over her shoulder into her bag. He tells us he was ready to "feel her up" to find the idol.

Sylvia soon begins to feel like she's an outsider with Ravu. She thinks it's because she missed the first day Ravu was together in their new camp. Of course, it doesn't help that the first thing she does when she arrives from Exile is to start bossing everyone around. After watching thirteen seasons of this show, you'd think that a highly intelligent person like Sylvia would realize that the one thing that will always get a castaway voted off is if he or she starts bossing people around. The boys in the tribe have a pow wow and agree that if they have to vote someone off, it will have to be Sylvia.

Dreamz of the Moto Tribe tells us about his experiences being homeless. He was first homeless at seven or eight, because his mother was on drugs. He and his family had to eat out of dumpsters. Dreamz thinks that being on Survivor is actually easier than being homeless. He wants to win Survivor so he can help his family.

Moto is still searching the island for food. They hack their way through the forest, they climb the highest hills on the island, they go where no man has gone before. They find nothing. Then Erica happens to be messing around a few feet away from camp and stumbles upon hundreds of pineapples. Earl is so happy, that he proclaims that he and Erica are getting married.

Day 6
Convoluted Immunity Challenge
Today the tribes are playing for both immunity and rewards in the form of fishing gear. Ravu will also be playing for flint, since they have no fire. The challenge involves each tribe rowing its catamaran out into the ocean to retrieve crates containing puzzle pieces which they must put together to build a flag pole. The first tribe to assemble their flag pole and raise it wins. The emaciated members of Ravu get off to a great start gaining an early lead on Moto by rowing past them and keeping that lead when they pull their crates to the beach well ahead of the other tribe. Ironically, it's the mental portion of the challenge, assembling the puzzle, that slows them down. Erica panics and starts screaming at her teammates. Moto is the first to build their flag pole and wins the challenge.

Not only will Ravu be going back to camp without fire, they'll also be voting someone off tonight. On top of all that, one of them will be exiled. Moto chooses to exile Earl.

"Watch out for the snakes," Jeff tells him.

"I'll eat them," he replies.

He's not so cocky when he actually meets a snake on Exile Island, however. He quickly jumps up and runs for his machete. He starts swinging at it, and it takes him a couple of whacks to kill the critter. Earl doesn't like what he had to do though. "I couldn't take that chance," he says, then turns apologetically to the dead snake, "Sorry, buddy. I don't like killing animals."

This is only slightly different from what my reaction would have been. I would have said, "AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Die! Die! Die!"

Pretty much the same thing.

At Camp Ravu everyone starts discussing who to vote off at Tribal Council. Sylvia is no longer the clear choice. Rocky wants Erica to go, due to her little outburst during the challenge. Anthony still thinks they should vote off Sylvia. Rita agrees. She and Anthony have seemed to form a little alliance.

Tribal Council
Jeff asks his asinine questions. Everyone says that Sylvia is bossy, which Jeff interprets as calling her "the leader". Sylvia says there's no way she could be the leader since she just came back from Exile. But she says she wants everyone to choose a leader tomorrow morning. Yeah, that's going to work.

The votes are gathered, tabulated, checked for hanging chads. Of the votes that are counted, it's five to two against Erica. Erica is the second person voted off Survivor: Fiji.

Next week - Sylvia digs around camp for the Immunity Idol. One of the male members of Moto experiences some sort of life-threatening emergency (or at least that's how it looks in the teaser).

Episode Recap: Survivor Fiji, Week 1

2007-02-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Episode: Something Cruel Is About to Happen ... Real Soon
Original Air Date: February 8, 2007

Fiji - remote tropical islands lush with scenery and replete with primitive living conditions. Why haven't they thought of taping Survivor in some place like this before?

They promise us there will be new twists this season, of course. One tribe will live the life of relative luxury in their camp while the other tribe will go without absolutely nothing. There are not one, but two Immunity Idols. And Exile Island is infested with "deadly" sea snakes. What the heck? If that's true, that's insane. Something tells me the snake situation isn't quite how they're portraying it. It would be awfully hard to insure the show if it were that dangerous.

The show begins with all nineteen contestants rowing together in catamarans to the same beach on the same island. Jeff tells us in the narration that "fear of the unknown" caused one contestant to drop out even before it was time to row to the island. Unknown? The show is in its fourteenth season, for crying out loud.

The group makes it to the beach, and afterward the atmosphere is so cordial you'd think there is a convention of Chronically Happy People taking place. It's always interesting to watch the social dynamics on Survivor descend from lovefest to Lord of the Flies. I'm still waiting for the season where it decends even farther into canabalism.

Everyone on this island came with a nickname. There's construction worker "Boo", male cheerleading coach (why would any grown man admit to that?) "Dreamz", and a bartender named "Rocky" because he looks like a young Sylvester Stallone. They're like rappers!

Soon, a herd mentality takes over as they all decide to do the same thing at the same time. Someone says, "You want to walk around?", and someone else says, "Hey, everybody let's walk around!" Then all eighteen castaways wander off in the same direction. It goes like that for awhile - "Hey, let's walk up here! Hey, let's look at this cave! Hey, let's climb this hill and look at the ocean!" Moo!

Jeff Probst is nowhere to be found, and the fact that they have not been split up into seperate tribes yet is obvious to everyone. Just as the castaways are about to go batty from a complete and utter lack of direction, Jeff flies by on a small airplane and drops a wooden crate into the ocean. The entire herd jumps on the catamaran to go fetch the crate. Once they get the crate back to the island, the big guys try to smash it against a rock to open it. One he-man after another tries and fails when finally Yau Man, a tiny old gentleman who originates from Borneo, walks up, picks the crate up once, and smashes it against the rock, opening it. He says he knew from "simple physics" that the easiest way to open it would be by smashing the corner, or the weakest part, of the crate against the rock.

The crate is full of instructions and maps of the island. The castaways are to search the island for a number of items, including parts to a toilet, and assemble them back in camp. They are to get this done by nightfall. The instructions tell the castaway that how they perform on this task will help determine their future on this island.

Alex, an attorney, says he knows that something is up. "This is Survivor," he tells us, "something cruel is about to happen ... very soon."

The castaways find all kinds of things to make their stay easier, including a complete set of pre-cut lumber to nail together with the provided hammers and nails in order to provide a shelter. They also find roof shingles and tons of tools, such as shovels and a level. Erica, a non-profit fundraiser, tells us it's never been so easy on Survivor, so she knows they're about to be thrown a "curve ball" at some point.

Back at camp, Sylvia is looking over the plans that have been provided. She's an artitect, so she provides direction to the group as they try to build the shelter. Of course, people start to whine immediately about her trying to "dominate". How dare a knowledgable person take charge of a complicated project! She should let us run around all willy-nilly!

Sylvia examines each wall post with a level and pronounces one of the posts "slightly askew".

This causes Rocky to pause. "Everytime someone uses a big word in a sentence," he says, "we get to take a timeout... What's 'askoot' mean?"

"It means not orthogonal," Sylvia explains. Well, that clears that up.

Sylvia worries that the crew will not get the shelter built by nightfall, and she's right. The shelter is still without a roof by the time it gets dark. That's a little problem as it starts to rain, forcing everyone to hide under a bamboo mat.

Day 2
The castaways finish building their shelter, which now includes a shingled roof, as well as a kitchen and outhouse ("small outdoor bathroom shed", for those of you raised in the city). Quiet little Yau Man actually manages to make tea for everyone. "You're the professor on this Gilligan's Island!" Earl tells him.

Later on, Dreamz shares a little bit about his background with us. He says he's used to the living conditions on the island because he used to be homeless. No wonder he doesn't mind admitting he's a cheerleading coach. That's got to be a lot better than being homeless, no matter how much of a sissy it makes you. He tells us he's trying to 'make his presence known' to the other castaways at this point in the game. They become painfully aware of his presence come bedtime. He starts talking loudly about nonsense, and will not shut up, even when someone asks him to 'simmer down'.

"Who told me to simmer down?" he yells, "When someone tells me to simmer down, that just adds fuel to my fire."

That's a fire that keeps on burning. Later he asks, "How many white people we got here? [Dreamz is black] If you're white, raise your hand."

Rocky finally gets tired of it and takes Dreamz outside the shelter to confront him. Dreamz says Rocky is trying to "belittle" him. Rocky goes to sleep outside by himself in disgust.

Day 3
As the crew assembles on the beach for their first Immunity Challenge, they finally get to meet Jeff, which I'm sure will be the highlight of their whole Survivor experience. Jeff asks the castaways if they agree that Sylvia stepped up as a leader while they were building the shelter. They do, so he pulls her out and tells her to divide the group into two teams. After that is done, Sylvia is sent to Exile Island, which, Jeff tells her, she'll have to share with "thousands" of sea snakes. Once she is back from exile, she will join whichever team loses the next Immunity Challenge. The good news is that she's immune from getting voted off tonight and she will have an opportunity to look for one of the Immunity Idols amongst all those snakes. Whoopee.

The Convoluted Immunity Challenge
Each team is to pull a wooden "chariot" containing two of its members across a quarter-mile course, stopping every few yards on the first lap to untie bags of puzzle pieces from a hanging rope. Then they must finish the course and assemble the puzzle, which will spell out a list of numbers. They must then type those numbers into the computer in the hatch every 108 minutes ...sorry, wrong island show. Actually those numbers are the combination to a large wheel, which contains ... oh, for crying out loud. There's a chariot race and a puzzle. If you want more detail, record the darn show.
The Moto tribe wins this challenge. Their reward is that they get to stay in their nice shelter that they built. When they return, they will find goblets, silverware, hammocks, a bush shower, and a nice soft couch. The losing tribe Ravu will have to go live on another beach where they will be provided with only one pot and one machete. And, of course, they will vote someone off the island tonight at Tribal Council.
It's a lot like this season of Apprentice!

The Ravu castaways row to their new, far inferior campsite. They all seem pretty jazzed about the situation, actually. All of them except Erica, that is. She is not jazzed, and can't figure out why everyone else is.

Sylvia makes it to Exile Island, and yes, there are snakes everywhere. At least that's how it looks. There is at least one shot where Sylvia sees some snakes herself. I still don't buy it. There's no way they're going to throw someone in the middle of thousands of snakes. But I digress. Sylvia climbs the steps up the wooden tower and finds the clue to the Idol's location. The scroll says it's not on Exile Island, but somewhere back at camp. Enjoy the snakes!

As Ravu tries to scheme, plot, and manipulate to figure out whom should be voted off tonight, I realize there are just too many people still around for me to care. Last season, segregating everyone by race was a stupid idea. But splitting the castaways up into four small teams instead of two big ones was not stupid. The personal dynamic is much more fun to watch among smaller groups.

Rocky, Erica, and Jessica form a pretty tight alliance and appear to recruit Carl. They decide Rita should go. But there is another movement among the group to eliminate Jessica. Right now, the focus is on determining who is the weakest link. But no one discusses voting off elderly Yau Man. Perhaps it's out of respect for his age, or maybe everyone just assumes the weakest link must be a girl.

Tribal Council
Jessica, Rita, Mookie, and Yau Man all recieve at least one vote. See what I mean about there being too many people at this point? Jessica receives four votes and is the first person voted off Survivor: Fiji.

Next week - Ravu Tribe is weak from lack of water, Earl kills a sea snake, and Boo keeps injuring himself.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 15 FINALE ... and the Reunion Show

2006-12-17T18:11:00.000-08:00

Episode: This Tribe Will Self-Destruct in 5, 4, 3, ...
Original Air Date: December 17, 2006

We're down to the final five, and this contest is truly up in the air. Yul is definitely the smartest castaway, but will that be enough to put him in the final two? If he gets to the final two, will he find out that his skillful manipulation of the game has earned him enemies in the Jury? What about Ozzy? The fact that he's half-monkey, half-dolphin makes him the biggest threat, but will he be able to win every single immunity challenge that's left in the game? That's probably what he will have to do in order to make it to the final two.

As the episode begins, the realization suddenly dawns on Sundra that the alliance is going to start voting each other off pretty soon. She tells us that they've "never discussed" what they will do once only the four of them are left. Maybe Sundra's never discussed it, but she should bet that Yul and Becky have thought about it well in advance. Becky tells us that even though Ozzy is a part of their alliance, he's too much of a threat to keep around. She thinks they should get rid of him at their earliest opportunity. Unless they find some Kryptonite lying around somewhere, that opportunity may never come.

First Convoluted Immunity Challenge - Forget the rewards challenges. We're down to the wire now, and the eliminations are going to come pretty fast. The first challenge involves an incredibly complicated obstacle course made of ropes and a really difficult puzzle. Jeff says it's the most difficult puzzle in the history of Survivor. The castaways are to reach eight different points on the obstacle course and retrieve eight different bags of puzzle pieces. Once they've retrieved the bags, they will assemble a puzzle shaped like an eight-pointed, compass point star. The first to assemble the puzzle wins.
Yul gains an early lead and is able to retrieve three bags in the time it takes Ozzy to get his first. But Ozzy is just toying with us. After giving Yul and others this lead, he springs into action, swinging from the ropes with his toes while retrieving the puzzle pieces with his teeth, all while keeping his hands behind his back and his eyes closed. Ozzy is the first to retrieve all of his puzzle pieces and the first to assemble his puzzle. He wins Immunity, again.

Back at camp, Adam knows it's his last day on the island. But he wants to stir the pot one more time, just to spite Godfather Yul. He approaches Ozzy and Sundra with the possibility of forcing Yul to use the Immunity Idol at tonight's Tribal Council. If the three of them vote for Yul, while Yul and Becky vote for Adam, Yul will have to use the Idol and Adam will still be voted off, leaving the alliance on the island. This would be a smart move for Ozzy and Sundra, because it increases their chances of making it to the final two. It's an uncharacteristically brilliant plan for Adam. Where was all of this brilliant strategizing earlier when he was complaining to Candice about the game causing his head to hurt because it "makes you think all the time"?

First Tribal Council - As the Jury marches out, Nate is limping and using a stick as a crutch. What the heck? The guy spends over three weeks as a castaway, climbing trees for coconuts, diving for octopus, and performing one ridiculous challenge after another, but can't chill out a couple of days at whatever island resort they've housed him at without hurting himself? Hopefully, they'll explain that one on the Reunion show.
It's established early on during Jeff's interrogation that Adam is on his way out tonight. Because he has nothing to lose at this point, Adam decides to tell it like it is. He says that Ozzy's job has been to win the challenges for the alliance, and Yul has been controlling the game, but he has no idea what Becky's and Sundra's functions are. He says they've just been along for the ride. He also admits to trying to get Ozzy and Sundra to force the Idol out tonight, but they are "boring people" who don't take risks.
Jeff almost gets Becky to admit that the rest of them have been riding Ozzy's coattails so far, but she backtracks quickly. A knowing grin from Nate and others on the Jury reveal that they agree with Jeff on that one. Ozzy may be a favorite among the Jury.
The votes are cast and Jeff reads them out. There is only one vote for Yul (this maybe a dumb move on the part of Ozzy and Sundra). Adam is the 16th person voted off of this season's Survivor.

Day 38 - Tree Mail reveals to the remaining castaways that they will be competing in their final Immunity Challenge today. This is not what they had planned. Either they will be voting off two members tonight, or the Jury will be choosing from three final castaways instead of two. They do their little march along the torches bearing the names of the former castaways on the island. As each former castaway delivers a brief commentary, we find out that Jonathan lost over 30 pounds in 33 days, and Parvati thought she was actually "running the show" for awhile.

Final Immunity Challenge - Each castaway must stand on top of a high perch. A piece of the perch will be taken away every fifteen minutes until the perch is only half the size of a postcard. To make it fair, each perch is constructed in proportion to each castaway's foot size. The last castaway standing wins Immunity. The twist - this time the Jury will choose from three castaways instead of two.
Becky falls off early, while the other three castaways manage to stay on their perches until after the final piece is removed. Ozzy teases us by almost falling several times, but is able to recover each time. He tells Jeff the hardest thing for him is the sweat, which is making him itch in "the nether regions". (TMI, Ozzy! TMI!!) Yul is the next to fall when, after squatting on his perch for over an hour, he decides to stand up. Both Ozzy and Sundra stay on their perches for over two and a half hours. Both seem to be on the verge of falling when Sundra finally loses her balances and drops from her perch. Ozzy wins the final Immunity Challenge, in spite of his itchy nether regions.

Back at camp, Ozzy and Yul discuss whom to vote off at Tribal Council. Ozzy decides he doesn't want to choose between Becky and Sundra. He thinks that two of them should vote for Becky, and two for Sundra. That way, it can just be left to a tie-breaker. Yul lets Ozzy think he'll go along with that plan, then secretly offers the Idol to Becky. It's a risky move for Yul. Becky worries how it might look to the Jury. Sundra asks Yul, "There won't be any surprises at Council tonight, will there?"

Yul shakes his head "no".

"Did she ask you for the Idol?" Sundra asks.

"No."

Poor, sweet, naive Sundra.

Second Tribal Council - Nate is still limping, and he's wearing a pink shirt. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would go pink. What the heck's been happening since he's joined the Jury?
Jeff indirectly asks Yul if he gave away the Immunity Idol. Yul and Becky both deny it. The votes are cast and there is a tie between Becky and Sundra. Jeff asks the girls if either of them have the Idol. Sundra shakes her head. Becky shakes her head.
For the tiebreaker, the girls must build a fire that grows tall enough to burn through a rope. They have a machete, coconut husks, pieces of wood, and a piece of flint. 3o minutes go by, and neither girl has been able to get a fire going. The Jury is starting to look bored. An hour goes by, and still no results. Every one is on the verge of falling asleep. Finally, Jeff stops the girls and tells them to switch to matches. Another half hour goes by and still no fires. As Jeff tells them, they've been on the island for 38 days, they should know how to start a fire by now. Sundra starts a promising fire, but it goes out. She then announces that she is out of matches. Becky keeps going and finally starts a fire that grows quickly and burns the rope. Sundra is the 17th person voted off Survivor.

Day 30 - Two young native woman row to the island in a canoe loaded with cooked food for the castaways. Yul and Ozzy are there to receive it, but Becky is nowhere in sight. Ozzy thinks it's symbolic of how the vote will play out tonight. He thinks the he and Yul will receive the majority of the votes since they've been the strongest, but Becky will fare poorly, "especially," he says, "after that embarrassing display of fire-making skills last night".

Becky tells us she's played "a very social game", and she's proud of it.

Final Tribal Council - Nate is still limping. The three remaining castaways give their "please vote for me" speeches. Yul pleads from the standpoint that he's played "every aspect of the game". He no longer denies his leadership role, but says his plan was not to play an "individual" game, but to bring people that he cared about with him. Yes, he's had to deceive some people, but he never deceived anyone that was loyal to him. Becky says she knew she wouldn't be the strongest, fastest, or smartest player, but that she would have to rely on her social skills. Jonathan just shakes his head. Ozzy is the only player who has nothing to explain or apologize for. He wouldn't have to say anything, but he manages to make himself look even better by painting himself as the underdog and reminding everyone how he fed them.
Most of the questions from the Jury are along the lines of "why do deserve to win instead of the other two?", or in Becky's case, "why are you even here?" Under pressure, Becky turns on Yul and reveals that he offered her the Idol, but she turned it down since she's such a nice person. Brad asks Ozzy to tell him something about himself, and Ozzy works the Jury by crying as he talks about his absent Father. Jonathan asks Yul if he were running for office, how could he justify all of the deception. Yul responds by stating Survivor is just a game and that he would never do anything like that in real life, even if he is really good at it. Jonathan then accuses Ozzy of acting arrogant and entitled, and asks how giving a million dollars to such a person would make the world a better place. Ozzy totally turns it around by stating that he would take the money and finish college, since he's had to pay for it himself. Candice asks Yul a question, but says if he answers with any words other than a "yes" or "no", that she will not vote for him. Yul answers "yes", but then messes up by responding to a follow-up statement from Candice.
The votes are cast. Jeff gathers them. He says the castaways will have to wait until they get home to see who won.
Next scene - Jeff walking on to a stage in Hollywood before a studio audience. The stage looks like the Tribal Council set, but everyone is all cleaned up and shiny. Yul is the only one who doesn't look different. Ozzy, on the other hand, has put on some weight and no longer has any facial hair. Jeff slowly reads the votes one by one - Yul...Ozzy...Yul...Yul...Ozzy...Ozzy...Ozzy...Yul. Yul and Ozzy are tied. It comes down to the last vote. Jeff points out that if the last vote is for Becky, it will have to go a tiebreaker. He looks at the parchment - it's not for Becky. The winner of Survivor Cook Islands is Yul.

Reunion Show

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Here's the highlights.

Adam reveals that he made a deal with Yul to get Jonathan voted off. If Yul made it happen, Adam would vote for Yul during final Tribal Council. Adam held true to his word and, as Jeff puts it, that was the "million dollar vote".

Becky reveals that there was no romance between Yul and her.

Jeff tells Yul that he couldn't tell if, during the time he was naked in a hot tub with Parvati and Ozzy, if he was really happy to be there, or if he thought it was his worse nightmare. Yul says he "just wanted to get the [Heck] out of there", but felt he had to stay to keep Parvati from strategizing.

Yul says the first thing he did after coming home was to buy so much food at Costco, that it wouldn't all fit in his fridge. He ate the excess right there.

Ozzy learned to swim in his family's pool. He learned to spearfish a few years ago when a friend showed him how. He's fantasized about being stranded on a deserted island since he was a kid. After he got back home, he missed the island so much that he fell into a "deep depression". Jeff asks him if he knows whether or not his father has been watching the show. He says he doesn't, but the man he considers his father is in the audience. He starts to cry again.

Jeff asks Jonathan if he was a villain. Jonathan responds by saying it's a game, and there's no villains in games. "There's no villain in Monopoly!"

Sekou performs a song he wrote about Survivor. (It's ok - don't go out an buy the cd).

Stephannie felt betrayed by Nate, feeling he should have 'had her back' since they were both Black. Rebecca also felt betrayed by Nate, not because of the race issue, but because she thought they were close.

Brad thought he had done a good job of combating the Asian stereotype of "nerdy" and "bookwormish". This from the guy who relied on his ability to solve puzzles.

According to Adam, though there was some romance with Candice on the island, they live separate lives now, so they just going to be "good friends".

Nate admitted to having some feelings for Parvati while on the island.

Everyone laughs at Parvati as she explains that she's a "model" boxer.

JP is now a professional model.

Billy, who is wearing the exact same clothes he wore on the island, says his professed love for Candice was just "in the heat of the moment". (That's not what he said in an interview on a local Orlando radio talk show the morning after the episode in which he got voted off aired. He said he realized after watching the show that he had misunderstood Candice, but that he still wanted to go out with her and planned on asking her out after the Reunion show.)

An online vote had been held to determine the "cleverest" player. The vote was very close between Ozzy and Yul, with Ozzy winning by less that 1%. As a result, Ozzy will be awarded a 2008 Mercury Mariner.

Next Season - "Survivor Fiji". One tribe will live luxuriously while the other will have almost nothing. Exile Island will have two Immunity Idols and deadly sea snakes.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 14

2006-12-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

Episode: I Have the Advantage ...for Once
Original Air Date: December 14, 2006

It's Day 34 and Adam and Parvati know the chances of both of them surviving the next Tribal Council are pretty slim, as in Nicole Richie slim. Despite having turned on Jonathan the night before, the other four castaways are still in their alliance and seem very tight. Adam and Parvati talk things over and conclude they must come up with a plan soon - and win the next Rewards Challenge so they can decide whom is sent to Exile Island.

Rewards Challenge - The rewards challenge this week is simple. The castaways are to roll around in a pool of mud until they're completely covered (Yes, I realize that's entertaining enough, but there's more). Once covered, they are to each run back to a bucket and try to fill that bucket with mud from their body. The only restriction here is that they can not carry mud back to the bucket in their hands. Once the time is up, the three castaways with the most mud in his or her bucket will get to spend the night at a spa where they will be able to eat, get liquored up, and wash their clothes (hopefully not in that order). The castaway who finishes this challenge in first place gets to decide who gets exiled. The important thing is that there are plenty of beef- and cheesecake shots of healthy young people rolling around in mud and then slowly moving their hands down their tone bodies to wipe it off. Thank goodness they waited until Jonathan was gone before they rolled out this challenge. We can all be grateful for that. I really didn't need to go to sleep tonight with that image in my head. Anyway, in a shocking turn of events, Ozzy wins this challenge (try not to be too amazed), easily gathering twice as much mud as everyone else by carrying it in his wild, tangled, Little Orphan Annie hair. Parvati and Yul take second and third place, respectively. Ozzy sends Adam to Exile Island.

Rain starts coming down in buckets as Becky and Sundra return to camp. Other people might use the rain to wash the caked mud off of their filthy bodies. But the girls decide they'd rather sit in their little shelter and eat. They can resemble human beings again later. Becky is convinced after watching Ozzy in this last challenge that it might not be smart to keep Monkey Boy around through the final four. She thinks he might need to be eliminated at the next Tribal Council. Of course, he'd actually have to lose an Immunity Challenge, which might not happen if he continues to use his super powers. It might help if someone hit him in the legs with a big crow bar. Where's Tonya Harding when you need her?

Meanwhile, Ozzy, Yul, and Parvati are on their way to the spa via a small private plane. They weren't allowed to wash off before boarding the plane, so they have to ride the entire way covered in mud. One has to feel sorry for whoever has to clean the plane after this. They arrive at the spa, take long hot showers, get massages, eat a hardy meal, drink some booze, are entertained by Hula dancers, and skinny dip in a hot tub. (What is it about alcohol that makes people want to take off their clothes?) Parvati spends the entire time at the spa flirting with Ozzy. She believes he might be her only hope to crack the alliance. This concerns Yul because Ozzy seems to be cracking. Or maybe he just seems to be on Crack.

Exile Island - Between all the repeat visits there by Jonathan, Parvati, and Candice, that little island probably hasn't seen this many white people since James Cook's little voyage. Adam does his impersonation of a Klingon by cracking open the shells of little things he finds crawling around the island, then eating their innards without bothering to cook them first. "Who needs a fire when you can eat stuff raw?" he asks.
Just like the last time Adam was exiled, a monsoon comes, causing him to shiver bare-chested while curled up in the fetal position under a couple of branches he's managed to lean up against the fake ship. When will these people learn to wear a shirt?

Yul, Parvati, and Adam return from the spa to a chilly reception from Becky and Sundra. Before long, Becky pulls Yul to the side to tell him that it's time for Ozzy to go. Yul agrees that Ozzy is a threat, and not just because his jungle upbringing enables him to win every challenge. Yul thinks that several members of the Jury see Ozzy as someone who is just trying to play a "straight-up" game instead of spending his time scheming and plotting. They bring Sundra into the discussion, and she's of the same mind at the moment. The three decide to wait and see what happens at the next Immunity Challenge.

Immunity Challenge - The castaways must each carry four bundles of puzzle pieces across a balance beam, then assemble the pieces to construct a maze. By tilting the maze, they are to roll two canon balls into two side holes in the maze. The first one who finishes this task will receive Immunity. Ozzy grabs one of the bundles and leaps bare-footed onto the balance beams. While the others struggle to keep their balance, Ozzy uses his long chimpanzee toes and gains an early lead. He is the first to get his bundles across and starts to assemble his puzzle. Adam and Sundra, on the other hand, can't balance themselves to save their lives. Neither of them manage to get any bundles across during the entire challenge. Yul and Parvati do manage to get their bundles across and start assembling their puzzles. For a while, it looks like it might be close between Yul and Ozzy. But Yul discovers he's assembled his puzzle incorrectly just as Ozzy finishes his. Ozzy finishes well ahead of everyone else and wins Immunity.

This is getting monotonous.

Politics begin as soon as the tribe gets back to camp. Adam approaches Godfather Yul to beg for mercy at tonight's Tribal Council. Yul assures him that Parvati will be voted off instead. Later, Parvati approaches Yul to beg for mercy. Yul assures her that Adam will be voted off instead. Knowing better than to take Yul at his word, Parvati and Adam try to turn Ozzy. Yul figures out what their trying to do and confronts Adam. Adam fears the Godfather, so this makes him nervous.

Tribal Council - Yul brings Jonathan his hat, and Jeff makes a big deal out of it. Is Yul doing this to get Jonathan's vote during the final Tribal Council, he asks. Lots of time is wasted speculating on this, until Yul finally admits that is one of the reasons he returned the stupid hat. Other inane questions are asked. At one point, Parvati says that Yul has played the game "seamlessly". The votes are cast and counted. Parvati is the 15th person voted off this season's Survivor.

Next Week - The season finale.

This Sunday - The live reunion show.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 13

2006-12-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Episode: Arranging a Hit
Original Air Date: December 7, 2006

It's Day 31 and Parvati is still incensed at Jonathan. She would like to take his head off, so she decides to practice on some coconuts with a machete. Unfortunately, she misses the coconut at one point and splits her thumb open instead. The Survivor medical team are called on to the scene and deliver the bad news - though she will only need a stitch to keep the thumb together, they'll have to amputate the nail.

"No!" she screams, "not the nail! Oh God, why me?! If I can't keep the nail, just let me die!"

...Ok, maybe that's not exactly what she said. The medics remove her nail and and stitch her up right there on the beach. Parvati isn't getting off the island that easy. Half a thumb or not, she's just going to have get voted off like everyone else. She's actually very brave through the whole thing, but, alas, no lollipop.

Convoluted Rewards Challenge - The castaways each receive a surprise this week in the form of a visit from a family member. The family members are paraded out soon after the castaways arrive at the challenge site. Yes, shockingly, there are people who are actually willing to admit to being related to these losers. Jeff tells the castaways that their loved ones will even get to compete with them during the challenge.
In the challenge, each castaway is blindfolded and must use a bucket to gather water from the ocean. Then they are to toss the water to their loved ones, who will try to catch the water in his or her own bucket, then dump it into a bigger bucket. Once there is enough water in the big bucket, a flag will raise. The first castaway whose flag is raised will get to spend time with their loved one on another island while partaking in a "spectacular picnic" of fried chicken, meatloaf, and apple pie. ("Spectacular" is a relative term when you've been living off of stewed octopus for 30 days.)
Tossing water from a bucket while blindfolded to someone else to catch with another bucket is as hard as it sounds. While Ozzy and his mom get off to a good start, Becky ends up throwing more water on her poor sister than into the bucket. Jonathan and The Little Woman gain an early lead, thanks to his wife getting the bright idea of wringing out her blouse, then her hair, into the bucket. But in the end it is Thumb Girl and her dad who win the challenge, just barely edging out Jonathan and Mrs. Rat.
As a reward, Parvati gets to choose which of the other castaways will be sent to Exile Island. Hmm... who will it be? Is there anyone Parvati has the slightest bit of hard feelings towards, anyone at all? Lo and behold, she chooses Jonathan, of all people. Who would've guessed? He's shipped off to Exile Island. But first he stops to stick his tongue down his wife's throat. He must have not wanted to be outdone by Adam's makeout goodbye with Candice.
As another part of the reward, Parvati's dad gets to choose two other castaways and their loved ones to join him and Parvati on the "Spectacular Picnic" - the Picnic Extravaganza, the Picnic to End All Picnics. (It sounds like a commercial for a car dealership) But Parvati and the other castaways are not allowed to coach him at all as he chooses whom to bring. Still, he picks out Adam and Adam's dad, as well as Sundra and Sundra's mom.

Mitiaro Island - the site of the the Ultimate Picnic Extreme! The three castaways and their loved ones are greeted by a large group of local villagers who take them to a "sacred cave", where they take part in an annual ceremony which involves sprinkling some anointing oil in the cave's pool of fresh water, then jumping into the pool. After the castaways and their folks jump in, all of the villagers join them. This is what people do when they have no Playstation.
After the dip in the cave, the castaways are finally brought to the Greatest Picnic of All Time, where they are treated to exotic South Pacific delicacies such as fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and biscuits. There must be a KFC on the island somewhere.

Day 32 - Ozzy, who has whined about being the sole Provider of Nourishment since the beginning of the show, is concerned that he's helping Parvati and Adam win challenges by providing them with food. (For the Love of God, let it go, Ozzy!) He convinces Yul and Becky that they should actually hide the food they gather. They start off by tossing their coconuts into the woods before the others get back from the Incredible Picnic Experience (now it sounds like a theme park ride). They are put to shame, however, when the others do return and start sharing a ton of food they brought back from the picnic. Parvati and Adam then try to take advantage of this time without Jonathan to convince everyone else how nice it would be without him.

The Convoluted Immunity Challenge - Jonathan returns from Exile Island, smiles broadly, and greets everyone with an enthusiastic "Hi, Guys!"
An Arctic breeze blows by as he gets one chilly response from everyone else, including the other members of his own alliance. I'm not sure, but I think it starts to snow on the Island.
The challenge is once again so ridiculously complicated that I lack the will to describe it in detail. But it basically involves a floating obstacle course, tying a bunch of sticks together to make a pole, and trying to reach some rings. Ozzy, or as he's known back home, Lord of the Apes, runs across the top of the water, leaps over the entire obstacle course with a single bound, and wills himself back on the beach before everyone else gets a chance to start. He takes his time on the beach while he assembles his pole, but this is just to tease everyone else into thinking they have a chance. Yul actually seems to almost catch up, but it's for naught. Ozzy assembles his pole and retrieves the rings, winning yet another incredibly stupid challenge.

The weather back at camp continues to descend to sub-zero temperatures as everyone seems to be giving Jonathan the silent treatment. Jonathan knows something is up, but no one is telling him anything. He corners Yul, who tells him he will do everything he can to keep him in the game. Later, we see Yul tell Ozzy that he doesn't want either Jonathan or Adam in the final five. Adam tries to convince Yul to have the alliance vote Jonathan off tonight. Yul says he feels like The Godfather, trying to put a hit out on somebody.

Tribal Council - The five former castaways who make up the Jury so far file in. Let me tell you, Candice cleans up nice! But I digress. Jeff asks his usual sort of questions that reveal he's been watching the tapes. Adam says that Jonathan has no integrity. Jonathan responds by taking credit for saving several of the remaining castaways from elimination. The votes are cast and counted. One vote after another reads Jonathan's name, except for one that reads "Johnny Blue Eyes" (evidently an example of Ozzy's sharp wit). Jonathan is the fourteenth person voted off of this season's Survivor. Candice mouths the words, "Good job" to Adam. If Billy were still around, he would've thought that Candice was talking to him and mouthing the words, "I want to be the mother of your children."

Next week - Adam and Parvati have a plan. Becky and Yul consider turning on Ozzy.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 12

2006-12-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

Episode: You're a Rat
Original Air Date: November 30, 2006

If there is such a thing as overplaying this game, Jonathan seems to have done it. It's just after Tribal Council, where half the tribe discovered that Jonathan had betrayed them and flipped sides yet again. Parvati is not a happy camper. "I'm literally sick," she says, "I just want to take Jonathan's face and puke all over it."

In the midst of the argument, Jonathan blurts out that Yul has the Immunity Idol, so he had to switch sides.

"I hope you're happy with second place," Parvati says, "because you've played yourself out tonight."

She may be right. It would be hard to imagine Jonathan going any farther than second, which is most likely why Yul wanted so badly for him to re-join the former Aitu alliance.

Day 29 - The castaways are gathered for a "Survivor Auction". Each castaway is given $500 to bid on a number of items, some covered, so that no one knows what they are. The castaways are allowed to borrow money, but they can not share food. Jonathan makes out with a hot dog with french fries and a beer, an entire pepperoni pizza, and finally some gear to brush his teeth with. Apparently he figures he can't win anyway, so he has nothing to lose by making even his own alliance hate him. The only other castaway to come away with decent food is Ozzy, who gets a never-ending ice cream machine (he gets to eat all the ice cream he can while the auction is taking place). Parvati bids almost all of her money for a bubble bath, having outbid Jonathan, whom Jeff calls "the one guy that nobody here wants to see take a bath". Sundra bids for and wins a covered item, which turns out to be the only gag item - a sea cucumber in a jar.

There is one item that Jeff will only describe as "something that will give the person who wins it power in this game". Becky bids all of her money, plus some of Yul's and wins the item. It is a note that tells Becky to choose one person to send to Exile Island and take all of their money. Yul points out that Adam and Candice each have $500 left, so Becky exiles Candice. Poor Candice! She's been to that little island three times already. The last time made her cry. Sending her again just seems cruel. Jeff brings up the Immunity Idol. Yul decides now is the time to let the cat out of the bag and tell everyone he has it.

I always enjoy the nature shots that play as the show comes back from commercial break. Underwater, an interesting-looking creature (a giant eel, maybe?) pokes his head out of his rock and opens his mouth. Behold, the beauty that is Nature in all her glory. Wait, the creature looks like he's gagging or something. Suddenly, he coughs up a whole other animal, unidentifiable due to it being half-digested. Nice. I look forward to going to bed with that image in my head.

Maybe Jonathan is just tired of being in the game. He seems to be going out of his way to make everyone hate him today. Back at camp, he decides to gloat about all the food he got to eat. "I never would've eaten all that food in the real world."

Just to make his point, he stands up and burps for all to hear and smell.

Becky starts waving her hand, "Whoa, I could definitely smell the pepperoni in that."

The rest of his alliance huddle to talk about how obnoxious he's being. "I definitely wouldn't want to see him in the final four," Sundra tells everyone.

Others in the alliance seem to agree.

Meanwhile, poor Candice is on Exile Island for the fourth time, crying a river. "It's really hard being sent out here again," she says, "I really miss Adam. I just need a hug."

I don't even like her that much, but I almost want to give her a hug.

The Convoluted Immunity Challenge - I absolutely draw the line with this challenge. It is way to convoluted to describe in detail. I will say it involves remembering things like "How many poles were used in that one Rewards Challenge three weeks ago", a lame obstacle course, and lots of Math. And as if it weren't convoluted enough, it takes place in two rounds. Adam, of all people, ends up winning this one. Since Math was involved, I would have considered Mr. "This game makes you think too much" at a severe disadvantage. But he wins it easily.

That afternoon, Parvati, Adam, and Candice plead their case to Yul for voting off Jonathan, even though he's a part of Yul's alliance. It's gotten to the point that three of them don't care about winning as much as staying on the island longer than Jonathan. They hate him that much. They tell Yul that, since he (Yul) is the "ringleader", if he doesn't get rid of Jonathan tonight, it will not bode well for him when it comes time for the Jury to vote.

Lo and behold, Mr. Popularity himself walks into camp at that moment and grabs a coconut that Adam had been eating, and proceeds to eat it himself. Parvati yells at him for it, and he responds by trying to give the coconut back, stating that he had just picked it up to "share" it. Evidently wanting to push the other castaways to the point of murdering him, Jonathan later convinces the rest of his alliance not to share the fish that he had just caught with the other three castaways.

Yul is always thinking. He takes Becky to the side and tells her that he needs to insulate himself from the Jury. Their alliance currently has five people, compared to the three others left on the island. If they vote Jonathan off tonight, he reasons, the alliance will still have four people, which will be enough to eliminate the other three castaways later, and he'll suffer no retribution from the Jury.

Tribal Council - Everybody hates Jonathan. Parvati, Adam, and Candice slam him hard during the Council meeting and no one from his alliance speaks in his defense. It looks bad for him. Everyone votes. Not Jonathan, but Candice is the 13th person voted off this season. Adam tells her goodbye by making out with her in front of everyone.

"The kiss was nice," Jeff says, "but maybe if there were more love, he would have given you the Immunity necklace."

Next week - Parvati accidently cuts herself with a machete, Yul feels like "the Godfather, putting a hit out on somebody."

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 11

2006-11-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Episode: Why Would You Trust Me?
Original Air Date: November 23, 2006

It's Day 25 and Jonathan, having barely survived two Tribal Councils, decides it would be a good idea to start bossing around the rest of Aitu. He's a little perturbed at the kiddies this morning for not having a pot of boiling water ready by the time he was back with his daily haul of fish. He tells us, "It's time for them to see that my way is best."

I think I've figured out Jonathan's brilliant strategy:
1) Ally yourself with someone(Candice) who can barely stand you and isn't the least bit loyal to you.
2) Alienate four people by jumping ship and joining the other tribe.
3) Insist on leading every challenge, then lose every challenge.
4) After barely escaping elimination in two Tribal Councils, assume that you are safe and start annoying the poop out of your tribe mates by bossing them around.
5) Catch a lot of fish.

Brilliant!

Over at Raro, Yul is feeling a little achy and tired. Sundra tops that by showing off a humongous open gash on her knee. After playing with a flap of skin, she says, "I wonder what that means when it's falling off."

Just when you thought watching a bunch of filthy, half-naked people couldn't get any more pleasant.

The tribes arrive at what they think is going to be their Rewards Challenge only to find out that it is time to merge tribes. After a short deliberation, they decide to live at Raro's camp based on the criteria of "more coconuts, no rats". The castaways then get to board a catamaran where a feast, including wine and beer, is waiting for them. Adam eats so much he starts to toss his cookies, much to the chagrin of Jonathan, who asks, "Is this the way to compete in a physical challenge?"

Considering Jonathan's pathetic performance in every single challenge so far, one has to wonder what his excuse is.

Later, the politics begin anew almost immediately after everyone arrives back at camp. Nate seeks out Ozzy to start... something. What that something is exactly, is unclear. Both already belong to other alliances, and neither one is talking about jumping ship.

Amazingly, Yul and Becky decide that Jonathan would be the best candidate for the fifth member of their alliance, since he's a "rational" player. Even more amazingly, Jonathan turns them down. He doesn't think Ozzy or Sundra will trust him, and says he doesn't know why Yul would trust him. The only way he would consider flipping is if Yul had the Immunity Idol. Yul thinks about spilling the beans and admitting he has the idol, but decides not to take the chance of Jonathan blurting that bit of news to his new buddies.

Meanwhile, Parvati and a drunken Adam are getting cozy in the Tribal shelter. "What about Candice?" she asks him.

"You can both appreciate me," he says.

Yul finally admits to the rest of his alliance that he has the Immunity Idol. He is able to convince them that he should use it to persuade Jonathan to join them. For some odd reason, they all seem enthusiastic about the plan.

Nate and Parvati are convinced that Yul is a brilliant mastermind and should be the first to be voted off. Jonathan and Candice believe that Ozzy should be the first to go. If Yul does have the idol, Jonathan reasons, either he (Jonathan) or Candice will have the second-highest number of votes and would be the next to be voted off.

The Immunity Challenge - The challenge is pretty simple this time. Each castaway is to hang on to the top of a pole for as long as he or she can. The last castaway remaining wins Immunity. Adam, the heaviest member of the tribe (counting muscle mass), falls off after just 9 minutes. It must've been all of that gourging and over-drinking on the catamaran. Jonathan doesn't do much better and falls off shortly thereafter. Maybe he should try overeating and drinking next time.

Meanwhile, Candice the Tribal Pixie decides she doesn't need both hands and starts to hang on one-armed. Nate starts to strain and slide down the pole. The other castaways seem to be straining. Candice starts doing exercises on the pole. After several minutes, other castaways start to drop off. Some of them, such as tiny Becky, lasts over an hour. Two hours pass and it's between Candice and Monkey-boy Ozzy. It starts to rain. It starts to thunder. It starts to flash lightening. Candice slowly slides down the pole. Ozzy wins immunity. (Shocking, isn't it?)

The Scheming - Yul shows Jonathan the idol and basically tells Jonathan if him if he doesn't join Yul's alliance, they will vote him off the island. "I want to go into the final two with you," Yul says, "Sundra and Becky haven't made any enemies, but you do have enemies."

Without spilling what he's just learned, Jonathan tries to see if he can convince the former Raro members not to vote off Yul. "What if he has the idol?" he asks.

The other castaways are convinced Yul does not. Nate is dead-set on seeing Yul leave. "Yul's too intelligent. I don't want that boy thinkin' no more."

Jonathan then goes back to the former Aitu members and agrees to join their alliance. They all agree to vote off Nate. It suddenly occurs to Yul that Jonathan may just be saying he'll join their alliance so that they don't vote him off this round.

Meanwhile, Adam's head is hurting from all the thinking. "This game is bananas," he tells Candice, "It has you thinkin' all the time."

He then decides he's tired of all the thinking and starts to make out with Candice.

Tribal Council - Jeff asks Parvati about what's going on between Adam and Candice. She says they're in love and want to make babies. Nate points out the romance between Becky and Yul. Who cares?! Vote already!

Everyone votes. Jeff reads the votes off one-by-one. Of course, it comes down to four votes for Yul, and four for Nate. The final vote is read - the 12th person to be voted off is Nate. Jonathan did in fact flip.

Next week - Everyone hates Jonny.

As the closing credits roll, Nate tells the camera that Jonathan is a "stanky fruitcake", and invites Jonathan to kiss his [butt].

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 10

2006-11-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

Episode: People That You Like Want to See You Suffer
Original Air Date: November 16, 2006

It's Day 22, and nervous Jonathan is still sweating like Anna Nicole Smith at a spelling bee. He knows he barely avoided being voted off at last Tribal Council, thanks to Brad, who had already ticked off the rest of his tribe before Jonathan arrived. So now we find him still working his dough boy posterior off - climbing trees for coconuts, diving for fish, gathering clams, all in a desperate attempt to make his new tribe think he's valuable. He tells us he realizes he made a mistake when he jumped over to Raro with Candice. He calls himself "a wandering Jew without a tribe".

Meanwhile, Adam and Candice are making up for lost time by closely examining each other's tongues. Candice tells Adam that she totally trusts him. He trusts her back. I've said it before - it's amazing how easy it is for most of us to trust someone we think is cute.

Jenny is not so happy about the young couple reconnecting. She likes her little alliance just the way it is, thank you very much. And she doesn't need Adam getting distracted by Candice. Adam, on the other hand, is ready to ditch the alliance and team up with Candice.

The Rewards Challenge - Before the challenge, each tribe receives a "tree mail" which consists solely of a board painted with naval flags and corresponding letters. Aitu spends their time cramming and memorizing which flags correspond with which letters. Later at the challenge, Jeff explains what the flags are all about. For this challenge, a large unmarked compass map is laid out on the beach for each tribe. They are to use a small compass to find four specific compass points on the beach compass map. Under each of the pre-determined points is buried a treasure chest containing naval flags. Once a tribe has dug out all four chests, they are to use the flags found in the chests to spell the word "victory".

I think I just felt myself get dumber by typing that description.

Once again, Aitu, The Little Tribe That Could, works together like a well-oiled machine. They quickly locate each chest and cooperate to dig them out and put the word puzzle together. The members of Raro, on the other hand, once again run around like a bunch of chimpanzees with Attention Deficit Disorder. Not only do they have trouble locating the right compass points but they can't even remember which compass points they were supposed to be looking for in the first place. Digging in the sand seems to be difficult for them as well, as Rebecca manages throw as much sand back into the hole as Jonathan digs out.

Part of Raro's problem has to do with the their choice to sit out Nate and Parvati, their two strongest competitors, for this challenge. Perhaps Jonathan wants to prove his worth to Raro by insisting on doing as many challenges as he can. But it turns out he's the best player Aitu has, if you get my drift. Next time, if Jonathan is playing for Raro, the members of Aitu should have to play with feral cats in their pants, just to make it fair.

In the end, Aitu retrieves all four treasure chests and spells the word even before Raro gets a chance to start digging for their fourth chest. Aitu's reward is a trip to a nearby island where they will be able take part in a feast and drink some local wine. They also get to choose which member of Raro gets sent to Exile Island. Poor Candice gets exiled again. Brad claims the choice is a result of strategy this time. Sure, Brad, sure.

Later, Candice is on Exile Island eating the most disgusting bit of sea life I've ever seen. She says it's a sea cucumber. I think I'd rather eat my dirty socks. Anyway, she tells us how she's really bummed to be exiled again and then starts to cry. She says it's really sad how "People that you like want to see you suffer", then tries to put a positive spin on her situation by saying she hopes this will be "a learning experience" for her. Maybe she'll learn whatever it is she didn't learn all the other times she's been exiled.

Aitu is having a much better time at their feast. When they first arrive, an islander who appears to be dressed like a tribal chief, comes out and starts yelling at them. The subtitles reveal he's saying something like "Welcome to our island! Want some pineapple?"

But it sounds like he's cussing out Aitu.

Then a bunch of islanders come out and lift the members of Aitu on to special wooden chairs and carry them to the feast. The castaways are lavished with food, wine, and entertainment, as the islanders dance for them. Two plus-sized island ladies take a shine to Yul and start to dance dirty for him. One of them even falls on the poor guy, much to his horror. Even so, a good time was had by all.

Raro is not having such a good time. Some of them express their disappointment with Rebecca, who they say hasn't really shown much strength in any of the challenges. What they fail to realize is that they all suck.

At one point, they receive a "tree mail" regarding the upcoming Rewards Challenge. They are given a map of islands to memorize. Everybody tries to make sure that Rebecca memorizes it. She doesn't seem to realize she should be insulted.

The Rewards Challenge - More swimming and puzzle assembling. Each tribe is to swim out to four buoys, dive down, and retrieve four sacks containing names of islands. Once all four sacks are retrieved, the tribe is to match the names with corresponding numbers on a map. The winning tribe will have immunity. The losing tribe will receive a bottle with a very important message in it. They are not to open the bottle until after they have voted at Tribal Council.

When it comes time for Raro to decide whom to sit out, Jonathan insists on taking part in this challenge. Apparently he's afraid there may still be members of his tribe who don't yet understand what a big loser he is. Maybe he hopes to prove it again on this challenge.

The challenge begins and Aitu builds early momentum by first sending Flipper, I mean Ozzy, out to swim to the first buoy. Yul goes next and continues the momentum. Raro is never able to catch up. Aitu is able to finish the puzzle before Raro can even start it.

There's not a whole lot of drama back at camp. Some members are in favor of voting off Rebecca. Jenny says it's due to her "overall performance, productivity around camp, and performance on the challenges". She makes it sound like a performance review.

Nate, on the other hand, is not happy about voting off an original member of the tribe instead of Jonathan. "He's not family", he says. Nate has had too much sun if he thinks any member of his "family" wouldn't vote him off the island just to get more peanut butter.

Adam and Candice agree with Jenny on voting off Rebecca. But Adam tells us later that Jenny is a threat to his girl Candice. He says Jenny might be next to go after Rebecca.

Tribal Council - Brad comes back as the first member of the Jury. Through Jeff's insightful and probing questions, it is revealed that Jonathan's crazy fisherman routine has paid off. After catching 22 fish in the last two days, he's finally earned the respect of his new tribe. Adam states that the criteria for his vote tonight will be purely productivity.

The votes are counted, and Rebecca is the 10th person voted off this season of Survivor.

But wait! There is still the message in the bottle that needs to be read. Jeff tells Parvati to open the bottle and read the message. It tells the tribe they must vote off a second person tonight. No time to scheme or manipulate. Just go vote.

The votes are cast and counted. The 11th person voted off Survivor is Jenny.

Next week - Jonathan gets snippy with the rest of the tribe, Yul thinks he's figured out a way to change the game, Adam and Candice tongue wrestle some more.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 9

2006-11-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

Episode: Mutiny
Original Air Date: November 9, 2006

The trouble with five-member Survivor alliances is that you usually end up with one airhead. In this case, it is Candice who has the wind rushing around inside her cranium. At the beginning of Day 19, Jonathan gathers the other four members of his Aitu alliance (Yul, Becky, Sundra, and Candice) and tries to come to an agreement on strategy. Candice confides to us that she doesn't want the alliance to survive the merge because she wants to get back into an alliance with Adam and Parvati. Of course, why would she want to stay in an alliance that has kept her in the game this long? Sure, keeping the alliance together would guarantee that she gets into the final five, but why would she want that? Why, that might actually help her win the game!

Amazingly, Jonathan starts to talk privately with Candice about the possibility of flipping alliances after the merge and joining Parvati and Adam as well. But one has to wonder if Jonathan is just saying that to keep Candice on board for now. If so, it doesn't seem to be working. Candice tells us later that she doesn't trust Jonathan and he has to go.

A number of contestants have suggested voting off Jonathan because they don't trust him. Is it because he manipulates the vote to keep himself and his allies on the island? Isn't that the whole point of the game? Let's see - "Outwit, outplay, outlast". Nope, I don't see any mention of "outtrust". Maybe these castaways are confusing Survivor with the Boy Scouts.

Over at Raro, the position of Tribal Airhead seems to belong to Brad. Raro, too, is worried about the imminent merge. One would think Super Puzzle Boy would be trying extra hard to get in the good graces of the rest of his tribe after his failure to swim during the last rewards challenge. But during a conversation about the merge, after the rest of the tribe concludes that they have nothing to worry about for now since the tribes are still evenly numbered, Brad says, "Then it's every man for himself."

Brad could've just said, "Vote me off at next Tribal Council. I'm an idiot."

Convoluted Rewards Challenge - Before the challenge begins, Jeff tells the castaways that any of them may commit "mutiny". In other words, any castaway may choose to switch sides and join the other tribe. He gives them 10 seconds to decide. Candice steps forward. About one second later, Jonathan steps forward as well. They are then told to join Raro.

This presents a few different possibilities:
1) Both Jonathan and Candice are as dumb as a box of rocks (not even the Pet Rocks, but the dumb, undomesticated kind).
2) Candice is dumb, but Jonathan doesn't see himself surviving long as the only caucasion in his alliance.
3) Candice is dumb, and Jonathan is really attached to her, rendering him temporarily dumb.
4) These two really, really connected with Parvati and Adam when they were all on the White Tribe and think they will have a better chance teaming up with them (if so, see possibility #1).

After the mutineers switch sides, Jeff explains the next Rewards Challenge, which involves two guys stuffing two girls into a barrel, and rolling them across a bunch of speed bumps, then swimming the barrel with the girls inside out into the ocean and back. There's some flags and an ax involved, but who cares. Whoever thinks up these challenges have too much time on their hands and are way overpaid. Anyway, the prize for the winning tribe will be the chance to drink coffee and eat pastries in a "relaxing environment" (because we all know what a stressful environment a remote tropical island can be) and read letters from the folks back home.

Aitu wins this one easily, mostly due to the fact that they still have Flipper (also known as Ozzy) on their tribe. Raro can't even swim the barrel where they're supposed to, and end up embarrasing themselves. As a result, Aitu gets to chose which member of Raro will be sent to Exile Island. They don't even have to think about it and quickly banish mutineer Candice.

Later, Aitu is sent to a little cabana where they can put on bath robes and eat pastries. A sudden rash of crying and hugging breaks out as they read the letters from family. Yul says, "We're a family out here, guys."

... or maybe they're just crazy from being in the sun too long.

Meanwhile, Jonathan is trying to make nice with the rest of Raro, his new tribe. He admits to us later that his mistake may have been trusting Candice too much. See possibility #3 above.

Nate puts it best when he speaks to the camera later, "I knew Candice was coming over, but my man Jonathan rolled over too with her. He must be smokin' some good stuff if you think you're just going to just roll up into our crib and start stirring some waters... You really think we all have your back after we just watched you sell out your other tribe? Are you dumb?"

Nate also tells us that Jonathan will be the next one voted off of Raro, even before Brad.

Later, Jonathan can be seen working his dumpy, middle-aged butt off gathering coconuts while the rest of the tribe sunbathes. He knows how stupid his decision to mutiny was, so he takes Adam to the side to start up an all-white alliance with him, Parvati, and Candice. Adam is actually amenable to the idea.

Convoluted Immunity Challenge - Four members from each tribe must row a glass-bottom boat over three underwater targets, line up the cross-hairs in their boat's glass with the target, so they can drop a canonball onto a spring which will release a pair of buoys to the surface. Once they have hit all three targets and retrieved all six buoys, they must row a shore and use the buoys (one of which has a clue, the others each have a letter painted on them) to form a word.

Raro gets off to an early lead by hitting two of their three targets before Aitu is able to hit their first. But the Little Tribe That Could catches up when Yul realizes he can see the spring through the canonball hatch, making it unnessesary to line the boat up with the targets. Raro, on the other hand, starts to veer off course and is getting frustrated with Aitu's new momentum.

Jeff shouting his usual blow-by-blow commentary doesn't help, "Raro still hovering right over their third target... Raro still unable to hit their target... Raro not paying attention when they released that last canonball."

The last line actually provoked a response from Jonathan, who had just released that last caononball. "Oh, please, Jeff," he mutters.

"What was that, Jonathan?" Jeff shouts out.

"I said, 'Oh, please, Jeff'."

Jeff continues his commentary, "Jonathan getting frustrated - at me."

In the end, Aitu finishes the challenge before Raro is even able to hit their third target. Someone from Raro will be going home tonight.

Back at the Raro camp, Jonathan still believes that he and Candice are tight. Candice tells Parvati that she and he are definately not tight. Nate tells Adam they have to vote Jonathan off, but Adam tells Nate they should keep Jonathan around for a while and vote off Brad, since Brad could possibly join Yul and Becky after the merge. He actually manages to convince Nate.

Nate takes Brad to the side in an effort to make him think they'll be voting off Jonathan. He tells him, "We got numbers, Homey. Know what I'm sayin'? We can keep our family tight and chop them up like poop."

Nate is like a poet.

But later, Candice, in an obvious attempt to get Jonathan voted off, tells Adam that Jonathan was talking smack about him and that it was Jonathan's idea to send Adam to Exile island a few days back. This makes Adam angry, so he goes back to Nate and tells him that he wants to vote off Jonathan instead of Brad.

Tribal Council - The only thing worse than answering Jeff's insipid questions would be having to do it in the rain. That is exactly what happens as everyone gets soaked, including Jeff. Things look bad for Jonathan as no one has anything nice to say about him. But in the end, Brad is voted off as a matter of strategy.

Next week - Candice's real reason for switching tribes comes out as she gets all cuddly with Adam. A new twist that "turns this game on it's head".

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 8

2006-11-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

Episode: Why Aren't You Swimming?
Original Air Date: November 2, 2006

It's Day 16 and Nate, who has been "kidnapped" from the Raro tribe, is sitting around the campfire with Aitu. The Aitu members try to pump Nate for information, but he's the one who winds up getting an earfull when the topic of Cao Boi's elimination is raised.

Flicka (Jessica) says, "'Kay, so like, I was totally bummed because, like, I totally thought we were voting, like another way. And like, I totally voted for Jonathan and stuff. And like, then you guys voted for Cao Boi, so like, I'm like, 'No way!', 'cause you guys totally didn't tell me. And like I just want to be like, on the same page and stuff."

Yul is not happy this discussion took place in front of Nate. Meanwhile, Nate is taking notes and thinking about how his tribe can use this intel to their advantage.

Yul, Becky, and Candice meet to discuss the status of their alliance. Jonathan is missing from this discussion for a reason. Yul tells us the original plan was to vote off Ozzy, then Flicka, then Sundra, leaving just the allied four. But now the rest of the alliance is afraid Jonathan might be too much of a threat once the tribes merge. They wonder if they should just vote him off now.

Later, the teams receive a "Survivor's Catalog". That means they get to choose their reward should they win the next Rewards Challenge. Aitu chooses potatoes and peanut butter, while Raro chooses bread and peanut butter. I guess none of these people are on the Atkins Diet.

The Convoluted Rewards Challenge - In this challenge, a member of each tribe is to take a wooden club, swim out to a platform, climb the platform, smash a clay case containing a key, dive down to retrieve the key, and take it back to shore. Once all six keys are retrieved in this manner one at a time, two other members of the tribe will unlock cases holding puzzle pieces. The first team to assemble the puzzle, which is a map of the world, wins. Each team must choose three swimmers, and two, uh, puzzle putter togetherers.

Aitu chooses to sit Nate out for this challenge. "Interesting," host Jeff Probst says, "Aitu kidnaps Nate to keep him from competing for Raro, but then doesn't trust him to compete with their own tribe."

Amazing! Jeff figured out their whole evil plan all by himself! He's a genius!

The contest begins and Aitu sends out their athletic mutant Ozzy first, while Raro inexplicably starts off with Rebecca. Ozzy runs on top of the water to the platform, uses his heat-vision to burst the clay case, then blows the key back to shore with his super breath, all before Rebecca reaches the water.

Meanwhile, as Rebecca runs across the beach to the water, it is obvious no one has ever introduced her to a sports bra. Seriously, as she's running, it looks like she almost slaps herself in the head, if you know what I mean. Rebecca is still trying to climb the platform just as Ozzy returns to the beach and Aitu sends out their second swimmer.

Back at the beach, Nate looks over at his Raro tribe and notices young buck Brad is not among the designated swimmers. "Why aren't you swimming?" he asks him.

"Because I'm good at puzzles!," he says.

Uh, Brad, the puzzle has only six pieces. There are puzzles designed for five-year-olds that are more complicated. I think Raro could've spared Brad's puzzle-related super powers on this challenge.

In fact, Raro must be questioning this decision as Rebecca is still having a rough time. Rebecca has finally managed to climb the platform and smash the clay box, but is still trying to find the key as Aitu's second swimmer, Yul, smashes the box and finds the key. Exhausted, Rebecca heads back to the beach without the key. Aitu has sent out their third swimmer while Rebecca is still trying to make her way to the mat to tag the next Raro swimmer. As she comes out of the water, her top has come up and she is truly swinging free (the screen has been fuzzed out for the benefit of us back at home). Rebecca finally reaches the mat, tags Adam, and collapses. In spite of a strong effort by the rest of the tribe, Raro is never able to make up the lost time. Aitu finishes the challenge before Raro even gets to start on the puzzle.

Aitu is ecstatic - peanut butter and potatoes all around! Woo-hoo! But they also get to choose which member of Raro gets exiled. They choose Adam. Nate returns to mope with the rest of the losers on Raro.

Later, Aitu has returned to camp, and is bonding over their peanut butter. "I'm in love with everyone I see right now," Candice says.

In the absense of utensils, everyone is sticking their grubby fingers into the jar and licking. Evidently, the Double Dipping Rule does not apply here. Apparently, neither does simple hygiene.

The atmosphere is not quite so mirthful at the Raro camp. Rebecca is distraught and blames herself for the tribe's loss. Nate, however, places the blame on Captain Puzzle Boy. In Nate's opinion, Brad should've been swimming. "I don't know if he was cold, or didn't feel like getting wet, or he's just a Nancy-boy..." Nate tells us.

Jenny and Parvati agrees with Nate. "I wanted to punch [Brad] in the mouth," Parvati says.

Adam, on Exile Island, is griping about the rest of his team and how he's tired of losing challenge after challenge. He reflects, "It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys."

Words to live by.

Later that night a storm rages through. Adam manages to construct a tiny shelter from parts of the fake wrecked ship, but still has to spend the night curled up in the fetal position.

Day 17, Aitu - Ozzy, King of the Jungle, has managed to catch yet another critter for consumption. This time, it's a bird. Look, those people on Gilligan's Island were marooned for like seven years and I don't remember them ever having to kill a single bird. They got to eat all kinds of tasty treats, like coconut cream pies, and Skipper never even lost any weight! These people, on the other hand, can't survive a month on the island without slaughtering everything in sight.

The tribe is grateful, though. "Ozzy is amazing," Candice says, "He's like, half-animal, half-man, part fish, part monkey, part Lord-knows-what."

Ozzy decides to try to use his position as Mighty Hunter and Giver of Food to his advantage. He senses he might be the next one voted off, so he tries to form an alliance with Candice and Flicka. "If I'm voted off," he asks them, "what will you eat?"

The Convoluted Immunity Challenge - In this challenge, the tribes must each contstruct a staircase, then ascend that staircase to a platform. Once on the platform, three tribal members must each swing down on a zip line to a platform in the ocean which holds three bags of puzzle pieces. Each of the three tribal members must then swim back to shore with a bag, climb back up the platform, and give the pieces to the other three members who will assemble the puzzle. The first tribe to assemble the puzzle will win immunity.

Once on the zip line, and then in the water, Ozzy gives his tribe an early lead, thanks to the fact that he is part dolphin and was raised by monkeys. It looks like it will be another easy win for Aitu, but suddenly Raro pulls ahead in the puzzle portion of the challenge and wins, in spite of Brad being nowhere near the puzzle.

It's time for the scheming to begin amongst the Aitu tribe. If the Jonathan/Candice/Yul/Becky strategy goes according to plan, Ozzy is next on the Hit List. But no one trusts Jonathan, not even the members of his own alliance. This is ironic, considering Jonathan has so far been true to the alliance and is not the one considering voting off one of his own. Flicka campaigns hard to get Jonathan voted off. Jonathan, who has been oblivious to the scheming, returns from hunting clams and decrees the alliance needs to change its plans and vote Flicka off, since they may need Ozzy for the last challenge or two before the tribes merge.

Tribal Council - More idiotic questions from Jeff. The voting proceeds and the votes are read. Flicka is the eighth person voted off of this season's Survivor. As the closing credits roll, and everyone is shown voting, the count is six to one, with Flicka voting for Jonathan. The others may not trust Jonathan, but apparently they are also too afraid to go against him.

Next week - Most of Raro start to distrust Brad. There is a twist in the challenge.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands - Week 7

2006-10-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Episode: A Closer Look
Original Air Date: October 26, 2006

After 6 whole episodes of Survivor, do you feel like you need a review of the season so far? Do you miss Billy, Sekou, and the other castaways that have been voted off the island? Do you wish you could watch more dramatic footage of the tribes trying to make fire from bamboo?

Me neither.

But CBS is giving it to us anyway tonight with "a closer look". Tonight we "revisit the first 18 days". Ah yes, the first 18 days, it seems like it wasn't very long ago when I saw the first episode... Oh, wait, it wasn't very long ago. However, we are promised "never before seen footage". So basically, this is a clip show of all the stuff that wasn't good enough to make it on the air the first time.

Instead of doing a blow-by-blow recap this week, I'll just provide a bullet-point list of the new stuff:

- Before the tribes merged, Cao Boi tells his Asian comrade Yul, "When the tribes merge, we'll be looking out for each other. That will be the difference in our culture versus others."
Great prediction. I wonder if he learned that in one of his dreams.

- Footage of the night Raro won the wine shows that Stephannie can not hold her liquor. After just a few sips from the bottle, she can't even sit up. When it's time to go to sleep, one of the other girls has to walk her to bed.

- Demonstrating the equality between the races, neither the black nor the white tribe can paddle a canoe.
The Black tribe is very excited to find their canoe, then promptly tip it over as soon as they get into it. After tipping it over several times, they give up and pull it ashore, or rather the girls pull it ashore and lift it onto the beach, while big, strapping men Sekou and Nate standby. "I don't know, I've never been on a boat that did that," Sekou says as the camera pans over for us to see the crossbeams that were supposed to be attached to the boat to keep it from tipping lying on the beach.
But they have a reason for their naval ineptitude, and one of the girls explain, "We have an excuse. Our people had a really bad experience with boats 500 years ago."
Meanwhile, Adam and Candice from the white team have so much trouble steering their boat in choppy waters that they strand it on a sandbar far from the beach and swim ashore.

- Billy on the Latino tribe tried to form alliances with both the men and the women separately, thinking he was "playing both sides".

- After losing the first Immunity Challenge, members of the Black tribe feel particularly guilty. They are concerned about "what people will say" about black people.
They really shouldn't worry. Anyone who judges an entire race based on whether a handful of half-naked lunatics can assemble a boat out of bamboo on a reality TV show is an idiot. Sure, probably somewhere there's some hillbilly picking his one remaining tooth, saying, "Yeah, ok, they got Collin Powell and Barak Obama and that Tiger Woods feller, but didya see them ones on Survivor? They cain't even make fire outta two sticks! That's why ain't none of 'em no good."
But do you really want to worry about what Cletus thinks?

- After Yul finds the Immunity Idol on Exile Island, he does a very smart thing and destroys the clue along with any evidence the idol had been found. He even constructs a tiny raft out of coconuts and sets the empty idol chest adrift in the ocean. Then finally we are treated to footage of Jonathan, Candice, and Adam digging up the entire island trying to find an object that isn't even there any more. That is something that was sorely missing from the regular episodes.

- We are shown new footage of Parvati being a hoochie, or as she puts it, "doing what I do best".

- The day leading up to JP getting voted off, we see just how clueless the rest of the tribe kept JP. The tribe, especially Stephannie, played him like a fine violin. If you recall, the whole tribe originally agreed to vote Stephannie off, after she pretty much volunteered. Later, the girls get together and decide to form an alliance to vote off JP instead. In the new footage, after changing the minds of almost the rest of the tribe and turning them against JP, Stephannie approaches him to tell him goodbye, as if she's resigned to leaving the island. JP falls for it hook, line, and sinker, even giving Stephannie a hug to console her. In the background, Rebecca can barely keep from laughing.

- After narrowly avoiding elimination at Tribal Council, that night Christine confronts the rest of Aitu for calling her "annoying". The next day, she still can't let it go and gripes about it some more. Of course, this smart move gets her voted off that night.

Next week - Things get awkward with Nate hanging around the Aitu campsite.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 6

2006-10-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Episode: Plan Voodoo
Original Air Date: October 19, 2006

Last week, Raro tribe was down to five women and three men. The women had decided to take advantage of this opportunity by banding together and forming an alliance. Yet, when the time came to scheme about who should be voted off, it was between two women. Way to close ranks, sisters.

Raro, Night 14 - Christina, self-appointed master chef, confronts her tribe mates about comments they made during Tribal Council. It seems no one bothered to inform her that they had considered her bossy. Adam counters that he did tell her she was being annoying. Later, Christine tearfully tells us that, as a policewoman, she's survived being shot and she'll survive this. Well, being shot is certainly similar to being told you're bossy - to a crazy person. There must be something about Survivor that just makes the contestants lose their minds. I'm still waiting for the cannibalism to erupt.

Aitu, Day 15 - Super Outdoors Man, aka Ozzy, is out spearing fish. Jonathan, who accompanied him in the row boat, remarks to us that even though the team benefits from Ozzy's strength, as an individual he's the biggest threat. Jonathan says, "If the merge were to happen today, I wouldn't want him around."

That's exactly what I've been saying here for the last six weeks. Showing off your superior survival skills will eventually come back to bite you on the butt.

Later, Jonathan and Cao Boi have an argument about whether to bring the Immunity Idol to the Reward Challenge, which isn't required. Jonathan thinks to bring the idol would be to rub Raro's immunity in the faces of the Aitu members. But Cao Boi thinks they should bring the idol because it helps him feel "holy". Someone should remind Cao Boi that he is a Buddhist.

The Reward Challenge - Aitu shows up without the Immunity Idol. For this challenge, three members of each team will wrap themselves around a pole. Two members from each tribe will try to pry the three members of the opposing tribe from the pole one-by-one and drag them a certain distance across the sand. The first tribe to successfully pull all three members of the opposing tribe off the pole and across the sand wins.

The prize is a feast of lamb shanks, bread, and apple cider. Puddles of drool form under the malnourished tribes as Jeff announces the menu. There is a twist, though. The winning tribe will be eating their feast at Tribal Council, for both tribes will have to vote someone off tonight, regardless of which team wins. However, as the winning tribe eats, they will get to listen in on the losing tribe's Tribal Council meeting.

At first, Aitu gets off to a big lead, thanks to Candice. She doesn't look it, but she's quite the scrapper. Rebecca and Parvati, two bigger girls, have the hardest time trying to pull her off the pole. When they finally succeed, she fights them off and wraps herself around the pole again. Once they detach her from the pole for good, she fights them all the way across the sand. In the meantime, her fellow tribe mates are able to remove two of Raro's members from their poles.

Apparently, Parvati's boxing skills don't come in handy here. Whenever Parvati's name is displayed on the screen, "boxer" is listed underneath as her occupation. However, a quick check of her bio on the CBS Survivor website reveals that she's part of a boxing league made up entirely of models. Wouldn't that be like having a football league made up entirely of Girl Scouts? What's the point? One can imagine the phrase "not the face!" is heard a lot at these "boxing" matches.

Back to the challenge. Nate is the second member of Raro to be pulled off of his pole and manages to put his tribe back in the challenge as he gives Aitu's Jonathan and Yul the fight of their lives. Even as Jonathan and Yul are dragging him across the sand, he manages to jump up and tackle Yul to the ground. It doesn't gain enough time back for Raro, however, since Parvati and Rebecca are still trying to drag Aitu's Candice across.

It starts to get close, however, when Raro's Brad and Adam are able to rip Aitu's Ozzy right off the pole. It comes down between Aitu's Becky and Flicka dragging Raro's Christina and Raro's Parvati and Rebecca trying to pull Aitu's Sundra off her post. Christina starts off by whining that Flicka (Jessica) is "choking" her but then starts to fight dirty herself, including pulling Flicka's hair, kicking Becky, and trying to pull Flicka's pants off. But tiny Becky and Flicka are too plucky for Christina. At one point, as all three of them are tangled together, Becky and Flicka decide just to start rolling across the sand. It works and Aitu wins the challenge.

This was as violent as it sounds. When the dust settles, big red, nasty scratches can be seen on Ozzy's neck. Cry-baby cop Christina is holding her neck.

Jeff announces there will be another twist at Tribal Council.

Back at the Aitu camp, Cao Boi tells Yul his plan for figuring out who has the Immunity Idol. It came to him in a dream. In his dream, he was dealing with supernatural beings. Then a shaman lady tells him he needs an American Express card (I am not making this up). He asks her why he needs an American Express card, to which she answers by showing him items he needs to buy. She tells him he needs to buy three of each item. Cao Boi, believing that the number three is signifigant here, hatches a plan whereby three of the tribe will vote for Jonathan at Tribal Council and three will vote for Candice. Since Cao Boi believes that one of these two must have the Immunity Idol, this will force that person to reveal himself/herself and use it. This scheme would also succeed in weakening the alliance. Cao Boi calls it "Plan Voodoo". The plan is actually brilliant, the kind of brilliant plan that only a crazy person could come up with. The funny thing is that neither Jonathan nor Candice have the idol. Yul, the first person Cao Boi shared this ingenious plan with, is the one possessing the idol.

Meanwhile at the Raro camp, Christina is trying to make nice with the rest of her tribe. Having narrowly escaped being voted off the previous night, she's nervous about tonight's Tribal Council. Nate, who is impressed with the effort she made during the last challenge, is inclined to vote Jenny off instead. Once again, even though there are four women and only three men, the vote is going to come down between two of the women. You've come a long way, baby.

Back at Aitu, the scheming gets complicated. Jonathan tries to pull his alliance (called the "white alliance" even though only two of the members are white) of Yul, Candice, Becky, and Sundra together to vote off Cao Boi. But Cao Boi's "Plan Voodoo" seems to be winning some over, simply because the girls have decided that Jonathan isn't trustworthy. Becky says it's the way he "looks at" people. Paranoia, one of the first steps on the road to cannibalism.

Tribal Council - Aitu, today's winning team, arrives first. Cao Boi is holding the Immunity Idol on his lap. Jeff asks him what he plans to do with it. Cao Boi sets it down and says, "It's another member [of the tribe]."

Jeff asks Ozzy what's up with the idol. "Sometimes you bring it to challenges when you don't need to. Tonight you brought it to Tribal Council when you didn't need to."

Ozzy explains how Cao Boi feels "connected to" the idol. I think he should've responded truthfully, "Cao Boi is frickin' nuts, man!"

The vote is taken. Cao Boi is the sixth survivor eliminated. Since Cao Boi and Flicka are the only ones who didn't vote for Cao Boi, it's apparent that the girls don't distrust Jonathan as much as they thought. It's also apparent that everyone thinks Cao Boi's name is spelled "Cowboy". The remaining members of Aitu adjourn to the jury section to eat their lamb and listen in on Raro's Tribal Council.

After Raro files in and takes their seats, Jeff announces that before he gets to their Tribal Council, he owes Aitu some food. So, while Raro watches, Jeff hands Aitu a big pot of lamb shanks, big rolls of fresh bread, and a jug of apple cider. The look on Nate's face as he watches the other tribe eat reminds me of the way my dog looks at me when I'm eating dinner.

After Jeff solicits comments from Raro about Christina, he tells Aitu that they must "kidnap" a member of Raro. The person they choose will come over to the jury section, eat some lamb, stay with Aitu through the next immunity challenge, and be immune from tonight's Tribal Council. Aitu chooses Nate.

The vote is taken, and Christina is the seventh person voted off Survivor. She and Brad were the only members who voted for Jenny. The rest voted for her.

Next week - The presence of Nate causes stress in the Aitu camp. Ozzy kills even more fish.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 5

2006-10-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

Episode: Don't Cry Over Spilled Octopus
Original Air Date: October 12, 2006

Raro - Day 12, morning after Tribal Council. The tables have turned on the manly men of the Raro tribe. After losing their alpha male JP to a female alliance, they no longer feel they have the freedom to sit around revelling in their own testosterone. Instead, the three remaining boys spend the morning scrambling around spearing small animals and gathering a humongous pile of wood in an effort to prove to the women how much they need the men.

They still don't get it. You could go around killing every defenseless little critter on the island. You could start fire by rubbing your own chest hairs together. You could build a bamboo mansion for your tribe, complete with jacuzzi and wet bar, and no one in the tribe would care. Sure, they might act incredibly grateful after you've done the work. But when it comes to Tribal Council, it's all about who you've ticked off or who feels threatened by you. It doesn't matter that you've single-handedly saved your tribe from the brink of starvation with your secret earthworm souffle recipe which you've been saving just for this occasion. If you're on the wrong side of the wrong person when it comes time to vote, your butt is toast. Afterward, your tribe mates will be relaxing in that jacuzzi in the bamboo mansion feasting on your earthworm souffle, while they laugh about how easy it was to vote you off the island.

In Raro's case, a much smarter strategy for any one of the men would be to ally himself with the women, then try to cause some friction between at least two of the women by the time the other men are voted off. Of course, if these people were smart, they wouldn't be on Survivor in the first place. We're not exactly dealing with a group of Mensa members here.

Aitu - This morning Cao Boi is busy spearing fish while Candice, Sundra, and Becky are absorbed in the important work of comparing each other's armpit hair. For some reason, Cao Boi doesn't see this as a productive use of time and complains to the camera about the girls' lack of work ethic. Maybe the prize in the next challenge will include some Epilady products.

The Challenge - The tribes are gathered at the challenge site and given instructions. Each tribe will be split into four pairs. Three of the pairs from each tribe will each be strapped together while each member will be holding on to a rope which is attached to a pulley and supporting bags of sand. One pair from each tribe will be loading the bags of sand for the opposing tribe. The first tribe that drops all of its bags loses (once one member of a pair drops his/her bags, that pair is out). The winning team will receive a box containing more fishing supplies (because apparently there are still a few fish still alive within spearshot of the island), cooking spices (because octopus can taste rather plain), and wine (because the castaways still have a few shreds of their dignity left). Sorry, no Epilady.

Raro decides the best strategy is to spread the weight out among Aitu's three pairs, while Aitu decides to first load almost all of the weight on to Raro's Nate and Adam. Eventually, each of the Aitu contestants are holding up from five to fifteen pounds apiece while Nate and Adam are each holding up 30 pounds with only one arm. First, one Aitu pair drops their bags, then a pair from Raro drops their load. Another Aitu pair drops their bags. Nate and Adam, visibly straining under the weight, pull the ropes close to themselves while tightly clutching each other. It is somehow both incredibly manly yet borderline fruity at the same time. Cao Boi makes a crack about what a 'handsome couple' Nate and Adam make. Nate responds by singing "Ebony and Ivory". Finally, the last Aitu pair drops their bags while Raro's Nate and Adam are still hangin' strong. Raro wins the challenge.

As a result, Raro gets to choose which member of Aitu is sent to Exile Island. They decide for some reason that it would be best to send someone who has been before. Jonathan is once again exiled.

Raro - Day 13. Adam starts the day with an octopus stuck to his foot, and really, who of us hasn't started a morning in that situation? Though it probably would have been immensely entertaining to watch how this happened, the episode leaves us in the dark about the cause of Adam's predicament. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say Adam was not employing proper octopus-hunting technique. This is just the sort of thing that happens if you go around hunting octopus all willy-nilly.

The creature is pried from Adam's foot and Brad remarks, "That is like, lunch and dinner."

He must be right, because as we all know, octopus is definately not breakfast food.

Later, Christina is preparing lunch. No, actually she's supervising. The stupidest thing a castaway can do is to boss other castaways around. The second stupidest thing is for a castaway to assume she is valuable because of some wilderness survival skill she brings to the group. Yet Christina, who is pretty proud of being the tribe's cook, is simultaneously doing both this morning. As Jenny says, "Anyone can cook coconut stew."

She's right. I think I saw Rachel Ray do it on her show the other day.

Christina's stupidity is compounded by the fact that just two days earlier JP was voted off for acting pretty much the same way. It doesn't take long for Rebecca to whisper to Jenny, "Is it horrible if I ask for [Christina] to go next?"

Making matters worse, Christina drops the pot of octopus, spilling octopus nuggets all over the beach. Then she tries to blame it on Jenny. (See what I'm saying about no Mensa members here?)

Aitu - Because resources are running out near their camp, Ozzy, Cao Boi, and Flicka decide to paddle the canoe out to a nearby island to examine its resources. Evidently, they've killed every living thing on their own island and want to see if there's anything they can kill on the next island over.

Yul, Becky, and Sundra take this opportunity to approach Sundra about joining their alliance. With Jonathan, who is currently on Exile Island, they will have five if Sundra joins. She says she's with them, but confesses to the camera, "that could change five minutes from now." Whether she's talking about the fact that her fellow tribe members have accepted her, or her commitment to the alliance is unclear.

Meanwhile, Cao Boi, Flicka, and Ozzy reach the other island and discover they've actually reached Raro's camp. The Aitu trio thinks it's hilarious, but Raro is not amused. Cao Boi sits down, makes himself comfortable, then proceeds to talk on and on about Chinese astrology. Some members of Raro start to yawn, but Cao Boi is not one to be discouraged by mere social cues. Much like a relative who invites himself to your house then doesn't leave until he's eaten all of your food, Cao Boi ends the conversation by asking if he and his tribe-mates can take some coconuts and noni from Raro's island. He's told no, so logically Cao Boi asks for some of Raro's cooking spices. Surprisingly, Raro doesn't think that's such a great idea. The Aitu trio leave empty-handed.

Exile Island - I was disappointed last week when we weren't shown Candice frantically searching for an Immunity Idol which wasn't even there. But this week, we get to see Jonathan digging a huge trench way into the night. In the morning, he concludes, "Either the idol's been found, or I'm a moron."

Why can't both be right?

The Incredibly Convoluted Immunity Challenge - In this week's Immunity Challenge, the tribes must assemble three "stepping poles" on the beach, then run to the water where they will be transporting two of their members by means of the stepping poles from one platform to another. Once both members are on the second platform, the rest of the tribe must climb on to the platform, then jump off and swim to a tower with a much smaller platform. All eight tribe members must climb the tower and find some way for all of them to fit on or above the small platform. The first team to accomplish this will win immunity.

Aitu achieves an early lead but quickly loses it when their stepping poles fall apart. From then on it is fairly close until Raro reaches the tower first and is within one person (Rebecca) of fitting their whole tribe on the small platform. Rebecca tries to step up to the platform, and succeeds in pushing her entire tribe off into the water. Aitu gets everyone on and wins the challenge.

Back at the Raro camp, the confused manipulation begins. At first, there is a unanimous agreement that Christine should go. But later Stehannie comments to Nate how she'd love to be home eating mashed potatoes and gravy. Of course, Nate takes this as proof-positive that she wants to quit the game and tries to convince others to vote off Stephannie.

Tribal Council - After some prodding by Jeff Probst, it comes out that Christina's been pretty bossy (Jeff's obviously been watching the tapes). Christina, acting surprised to hear this revelation, apologizes for "offending anyone" and says she'll work on it from now on.

Jeff then asks if the tribe has been honest enough with each other. Honest? This is Survivor, for Pete's sake! That's like asking a boxer if he's been hitting the other guy politely enough. Sometimes I think that a chimpanzee with a severe learning disability could ask more intelligent questions than the ones Jeff comes up with.

The vote is taken, and Stephannie is the fifth survivor voted off the island. As the closing credits roll, it is revealed that the vote was seven to one, with Stephannie voting for Christine.

Next week - An argument erupts in the Raro tribe, Cao Boi believes he's been told in a dream how to find the Immunity Idol, and regardless of who wins the Immunity Challenge, both teams will be voting someone off.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 4

2006-10-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

Episode: Ruling the Roost
Original Air Date: October 5, 2006

Poor little Ozzy. As the episode begins, the Aitu tribal members are coming back from Tribal Council, having just voted off Cecilia, Ozzy's teammate from the former Latino tribe. Ozzy's not too happy about it either. "I feel like I'm on the outside," he confesses to the camera, "To lose to the only former member of my tribe, the person who helped me lay the foundations of everything these people are going to enjoy, makes me feel like crap. If they want to vote me out, they should do it soon so I don't have to keep catching food for them. I just don't feel like playing along anymore."

Aww.

It's kind of hard to feel sorry for this guy after he convinced his old team to throw a challenge just so they could vote off Billy. (Yes, I know it was a couple of episodes ago, but I'm still bitter.)

Ozzy's words here reveal a misunderstanding about the nature of the game. Specifically he whines about the fact that he and Cecilia "laid the foundations of everything these's people are going to enjoy". Look, demonstrating your superior outdoorsman skills gets you absolutely nowhere in Survivor. When it comes to Tribal Council, no one cares if you killed a herd of wild boar with your bare hands, then field dressed them, cooked them, and served pork chops for dinner to your entire tribe that day. No one cares that you alone erected the two-story, eight bedroom shelter out of twigs and dolphin snot. All that stuff only makes you seem like a threat and earns you no brownie points with anybody.

The fact is, you don't "earn" your way out of getting voted off. You either scheme and manipulate your way out of it, or you stay way under the radar. This show has run for 13 seasons now, you'd think some of these people would get a clue.

Day 9 - Candice returns from Exile Island. We are not treated to any footage of searching in vain for the Immunity Idol. This is disappointing. I would've liked to see her on all fours digging in the sand for something that isn't there. The other members of Aitu ask her why Raro chose her for Exile. Some speculate that Adam and Parvati were behind it and wanted to protect Candice from Tribal Council. Unless there's something going on that wasn't shown on camera, I think these people are getting paranoid. Cannabilism should erupt any time now.

At Raro, resentment is brewing amongst the girls against the guys. While the ladies are hard at work improving the shelter, the guys are just sitting around drinking coconut milk, reveling in their manliness, and probably comparing six packs.

These he-men figure the simple womenfolk will need their masculine strength to get through the game. Later, one of the manly men ask the others if they thought the girls were annoyed about them laying around. JP isn't worried, "Even if they are, what [are they] going to do to us?"

He then goes on to brag to the camera about how strong he and the other three guys are. "We're way, way stronger than the men on the other team," he says, then most likely leaves to stare at his own muscles some more.

The Convoluted Challenge comes early this episode. For this challenge, two tribal members will be hooked to a rope which in turn is tangled around a complicated obstacle course. The other tribe members will push and pull the two in, under, and around the course until it is completed. Once the obstacle course is completed, one tribe member is to swim out and then dive under water to retrieve a wooden wheel that has numbers painted on it. The wheel will help the tribe to decode a word puzzle back on the beach. The first team to decode the puzzle wins a set of pillows, blankets, and hammocks, and gets to choose a member of the losing team to be exiled.

Aitu wins this challenge pretty easily, in spite of all the rugged manliness that exists on the Raro tribe. Ahh, sweet, sweet irony.

As a result, Aitu must choose a member of Raro to be exiled until the next Immunity Challenge. They choose Adam. Since he will be brought back before the next challenge, Adam will not be immune from the Tribal Council.

Back at camp, Ozzy spears several fish to feed his tribe. He's pretty proud of himself. He tells the camera that the fact that he's able to provide food for his tribe gives him "power". How much do you want to bet he's voted off in a couple of weeks?

Cut to Raro. One can imagine that JP has been taken down a peg by his tribe's recent loss. Instead, he's not only back to laying around and doing nothing, but he's also bossing everyone else around, even demanding that people bring him food. Even the Tribal Hoochie Parvati is frustrated with him.

That night, Parvati and Nate sit around the fire talking strategy. Parvati's shameless flirting has paid off. Nate tells her, "You know I got your back... You have no idea how tight you and I are."

He goes on to tell her that there's no way that he'll let her be voted off by the guys.

"But JP's the one calling the shots. He's making those decisions," she points out.

"Right now the ball's in his pocket," Nate concedes, while mixing metaphors, "but it can easily leave."

For now, they agree to "just let the king sit pretty", in Nate's words.

The next day at the Aitu camp, the tribe is walking through the woods when Ozzy says, "See, those are the boobies."

Unfortunately, he's talking about the birds called "Boobies". They contemplate having a booby dinner that night, but think better of it. My goodness, people, can't you leave at least some of the wildlife alive on the island? How much do you have to eat anyway?

Cao Boi, however, decides he wants some eggs. He climbs the tree and knocks the nest out from under the mamma bird sitting there. Below, Jonathan discovers the nest didn't contain eggs, but a hatched baby bird instead. Everyone feels bad, and Jonathan, who is holding the baby, looks like he's about to cry. Thankfully, the baby bird is still alive and they return the nest and hatchling back into the tree.

Both tribes converge for the Convoluted Immunity Challenge. For this challenge, four tribe members must assemble a stretcher and run through the jungle with the stretcher until they reach the beach. Once at the beach, one tribe member will swim out to release another tribe member who is tied to a ship's mast. Both the "rescuer" and the "rescued" tribe member will then swim back to shore while they hold on to a single lifesaver. The rescued tribe member will then lay on the stretcher while the other four carry her back to the starting line.

That's plenty for any challenge, right? But no, there has to be more. Once back at the starting point, the remaining three tribe members will try to make a fire from a hatchet, flint, and some straw. The first tribe, not only to build a fire, but build a fire that blazes big enough to burn through a rope and drop a flag, will win immunity.

I think I've developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome typing the details of that challenge.

Raro gets off to an early lead, being the first to assemble their stretcher and reach the beach. But the incredibly fit Ozzy comes from behind, almost running on top of the water half-way to the ship's mast. He easily swims past JP to rescue Candice. Aitu reaches the starting point first and gets started on their fire. However, Raro arrives shortly thereafter. Cao Boi from Aitu gets a little fire started but looks like he's about to lose it and have to start over. Suddenly, he starts waving the smoking hay around like some kind of madman.

Jeff keenly observes, "Cao Boi is either going to be a hero or look really silly."

In the meantime, Raro can't start a fire to save their lives. Jenny eventually cuts her hand with the hatchet.

Cao Boi's crazy hay waving works, and Aitu's fire is saved. It eventually grows big enough to burn the rope. Aitu wins and Raro hasn't even started a fire. So much for Team Testosterone.

Back at the Raro camp. Stephannie, maybe in a moment of weakness or maybe because she's had too much sun, tells everyone that she's the "weakest link" and pretty much states that she would understand if the tribe voted her off. At first, the rest of the tribe agree to take her up on that. Then a couple of the girls realize that voting one of their own off would make it harder to protect themselves from a male alliance. A plan is hatched among the women to vote off JP. The only woman not fully on board is Parvati, who isn't sure it's wise to vote JP off at this point.

Tribal Council. Jeff asks Jenny if Raro has a leader.

Jenny hesitates, then says, "Um, no, not really."

When Jeff asks her what she means by that, she responds, "You're trying to put me on the spot, aren't you?"

Duh, Jenny. It's Tribal Council. Haven't you ever watched the show before?

The votes are cast. JP is voted off.

"Holy crap, you guys outwitted me big time," he says. Then, as he's walking away, he turns around, smiles, and says, "That was pretty good."

Personally, I think JP could be "outwitted" by a developmentally challenged chimpanzee, but I have to give him credit for being a gracious loser.

As the closing credits roll, we see that the only two people who didn't vote to eliminate JP were Nate and JP. Even Brad and Adam voted for him to leave.

Next week - Cao Boi isn't happy with the girls' work ethic, while Becky, Candice, and Sundra compare armpit hair.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 3

2006-09-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

Episode: Flirting and Frustration

Original Air Date: Thursday, September 28, 2006

During the review of last week's episode, we find out what made Billy think that Candice is in love with him. At the end of the last challenge, Billy turns to the White tribe and says, "I'm next."

Feeling sorry for Billy, Candice says, "We love you."

Billy smiles and responds, "I love you."

So Billy wasn't crazy, just hard-of-hearing.

Day 7 - Cao Boi of the Asian tribe is still talking. He hasn't stopped since he got on the island.

Brad reflects, "I have had a coming to Jesus in my own mind about Cao Boi - the guy just does not shut up. I don't think he's all there ... and don't think he will ever be there, unless he's medicated."

All of the teams are called together and find out that's it's time for desegregation. Four people, two guys and two girls are chosen by lot to be team captains. These team captains are to choose teams. The women are to choose only women and the men, only men. Suddenly, flashbacks of being the last one chosen for softball at gym class are going through my mind. Cao Boi has the destinction of being chosen last.

After the teams are chosen, Jeff hands an egg-like object to each of the team captains and tells them to squish it as hard as they can. This results in the team captains being splurted with red or blue dye. Sometimes I wonder if I'm watching Survivor or something on Nickelodeon. Jeff then tells them that the two red teams are to combine and become the new Aitu tribe while the two blue teams will combine and become the new Raro tribe. So there will be two tribes now.

So this grand "social experiment" of splitting the teams up by race lasted an entire six days. Boy, I sure learned a lot from those two episodes. Sociologists and human behavior experts will be studying the data accumulated from that 2 hours of television for years to come.

Nate of the new Aitu tribe is happy about the change. "It's like they took us out of the ghetto and took us to Bel Air."

Members of the new Raro tribe start to bond as well. "You're not Asian," Cao Boi tells roller girl Jessica, "but I love you. I think you're awesome."

Careful, Cao Boi. Those three little words are dangerous on these islands.

Speaking of which, Cecilia tells Candice about Billy's claim of "love at first sight". "I have to ask you something. Don't be offended, but..."

Everyone has a big laugh as a result. If I were Billy, I would have to go into hiding and change my name after this episode aired. Embarrassment City.

Back at Aitu, Parvati decides her strategy will be to flirt with all the men. That should make her real popular with the other women. An opportunity opens up as once again, Nate's butt crack begins to peek over his pants. "Your pants are falling off, Nate," she says.

"You're on top of everything," he replies. It's kind of hard not to notice.

Meanwhile, an alliance forms on the Raro tribe. Becky and Yul, formerly of the Asian tribe, team up with Jonathan and Candice, formerly of the White tribe. They decide they need a fifth member, and Jonathan says he's confident he can get roller girl Jessica ("Flicka") to join. "I can get her to do anything we need her to do."

But when Jonathan asks Flicka, she doesn't seem too excited about joining. She agrees to join, but confesses to the camera that she's not comfortable with it. "I'm just here to make friends... and, you know, just go as long as I can without feeling fake."

It seems like there'd be a lot easier ways to make friends than getting stranded on an island with a bunch of half-naked people who are mostly concerned about how to vote you off so they can win a million dollars. But that's just me.

In the mean time, because he 'trusts her', Yul confesses to Becky that he found the Immunity Idol while he was on Exile Island. He says he might even use it on her behalf at some point. Becky then repeats to Yul how she trusts him as well. It's funny how easily we trust people we think are cute.

Later, Nate of the Aitu tribe kills a little octopus while spear-fishing. "I felt like the Mack!" he says.

"That's a lot of meat," Parvati smiles as Nate, "You need it. I bet you could eat that whole thing yourself."

This girl's about as subtle as a jackhammer.

Finally, we get to this week's challenge which, surprisingly, isn't all that convoluted. Each team is placed at opposite ends of a large roped circle set in knee-deep water. Each team member is tied by rope to the rest of his or her team, and has to carry a satchel packed with fifteen pounds of sand. The point of the challenge is for both teams to race around the course until one team catches up to the other. The first tribe to tackle a member of another tribe wins.

This challenge is much more difficult than it sounds because the teams have to race through knee-deep water. A tribe member can decide to quit at any time. However, he or she must then give his or her bag of sand to the nearest teammate to carry for the rest of the race.

Shortly into the race, Aitu adopts a strategy of having all of their women drop out, leaving the team lighter and more agile ... at least in theory. It doesn't take long for Raro to gain on them. Raro drops some of its members and gains even more on Aitu.

As Aitu closes in, Yul sees that trying to outrun them is hopeless and declares his intention to "just fight them". Alright! Rumble!! Yul, who is at the rear of his team and closest to Aitu, turns around to stand his ground. But his much weaker teammate, Cao Boi, is also targeted by Aitu and is quickly tackled. Aitu is declared the winner.

As a result, Raro will be voting off one of their own at Tribal Council. This week's twist is that the winning team, Aitu, is able to choose a member of Raro to send to Exile Island. That means whomever they choose will be spared elimination at Tribal Council.

Raro chooses Candice for exile, which completely torpedos the little alliance that had begun to form. Cao Boi, who seems to get along a lot better with non-Asians than with Asians, forms another alliance with Ozzy and all of the remaining women, except for Becky. They decide to vote for Becky. Even Flicka is convinced to go along. Yul takes Cao Boi to the side and seems to convince him to vote for Cecilia instead. Cao Boi then talks to Flicka about voting for Cecilia. All of this scheming is a bit too much for Flicka's little head to handle. It'll be interesting to see if Yul will be true to his word and step in with his Immunity Idol to keep Becky in the game.

Tribal Council convenes and as everyone is shown casting their vote, it appears that it could go either way between Cecilia and Becky with Cao Boi and Flicka being the swing votes. Jeff reads off the votes. Cecilia is voted off.

As the closing credits roll, we see that both Cao Boi and Flicka voted for Cecilia.

Next week - Parvoti's upset that some team members aren't pulling their own weight around camp, while Cao Boi disturbs a bird's nest.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 2

2006-09-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Episode: Dire Straights and Dead Weight

Original Air Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006

This week's episode opens with the "Hiki" (Black) tribe. After four days without clean drinking water, the team is desperate to start a fire. They take turns striking their machete against their newly-acquired piece of flint over and over again until finally, after a lot of frustration, Sundra succeeds in starting a fire. I expected to see a victorious Tom-Hanks-in-Castaway kind of declaration, "I... HAVE MADE FIRE!"

Instead, Sundra looks around and says, "Um guys, it's lit. What do we do now?"

The team gets together and builds the fire bigger, enabling them to boil much-needed water. As they dance around the fire, part of the screen is blurred out directly behind Nate. Apparently, Nate is smiling at both ends, if you get my drift. And this guy isn't even a plumber. I would think that minimal behavior when on national television would be the ability to keep your britches up.

Next, the "Aitu" (Latino) tribe. They've just speared a bunch of fish and crabs and are pretty full of themselves. "Latinos are just good workers," Ozzy says, "It's in our blood."

They next decide to challenge themselves with catching a couple of the chickens, which are now running free on the island. It's odd, because they're free, but they never seem to stray too far from the castaways. It's like they're taunting the tribes, messing with their minds. Evil chickens.

The tribe members devise a plan that involves setting some bait out, then dropping a net over any chicken that comes near it. It sounds so crazy it just might work. However, the planning stage of this brilliantly complicated plan takes a while as Ozzy and Christina disagree about how to execute it. This is completely understandable. You can't just go out and hang a chicken net all willy-nilly. I mean we're talking about outsmarting chickens, for Pete's sake - evil, jungle chickens.

Eventually, they hang the net and trap a chicken. Shortly thereafter, Christina walks off into the Jungle, noticably upset. Ozzy provides some insight, "Christina and I don't get along, because one thing, she's a cop. And also just the fact that I'm ten years younger than her. And I understand. If I had a fourteen-year-old telling me what to do, I'd get a little [ticked] off myself."

He goes on to add, "I feel like I've shown what I offer to the tribe, so I'm comfortable with my standing in the group."

Ozzy doesn't get it. In this game, your teammates don't care if you're Crocodile Dundee. They don't care if you can make a fire just by looking at kindling, or that you can catch fish with your teeth. They don't care. If you annoy enough of your teammates, or worse, if you're so good you look like you might be a threat, your butt will get voted off the island. But for now, it seems like Christina is the only person annoyed by Ozzy.

"Puka" (Asian) tribe. This tribe is also busy attempting to thwart the evil chicken menace. Yul is trying a slightly different approach from that of the Black team - he's placed bait under a crate propped up with a stick tied to the end of a long string. He manages to catch two chickens at once this way. At least now we know that if there is a Great Chicken Uprising, humans will be able to defeat them quite easily.

Evidently turned on by Yul's mad chicken-trapping skills, Becky forms an alliance with him. To have an effective Survivor alliance, you really need at least four people. But that may not be the kind of "alliance" these two have in mind.

"Raro" tribe (Team Whitebread). Jonathan comes back from Exile to find that no work has been done on the shelter since he's been gone. He and Jessica immediately start building a floor for the little shack.

Adam seems irritated that he wasn't consulted on this decision, and complains that whether or not the shack should have a floor should have been put up to a vote. "I think this is the dumbest thing to be doing this," he gripes, then asks Jessica, "Why do you think you'll sleep better if it's raised than sleeping on the ground?"

"Because it's cold and wet."

"How will it being raised change that?"

"Because we won't be on the cold, wet ground." Duh.

After failing to get support for his position from either Candice or Parvati, Adam declares, "I just don't want to waste energy," like he's got so much else to do while he's on the island. How selfish of the other team members to disrupt Adam's busy schedule of tanning and gossiping with the girls by working on their shelter! The jerks.

Back to the Latino tribe, Day 5. Everybody is busy spearing fish, gathering coconuts, and cooking food. Well, everybody except Billy the Heavy Metal guy. He mostly spends his time sitting around. I guess Ozzy hasn't given him the speech about hard work being in Latino people's blood.

Billy describes his philosphy this way, "I've been trying to conserve my energy because A) I don't have a lot of energy to burn, and B) I think it's stupid to waste your energy on things you don't know anything about. Since they know more about spearing fish and getting coconuts and whatnot, I'll just let them burn the energy and I'll just go ahead and have some of whatever they catch."

That's a brilliant Survivor strategy! Lay around while the rest of the castaways do all the work, then eat their food. Brilliant! There's no way anyone would vote you off the island if you do that.

Meanwhile, at the Asian camp, Cao Boi is leaving one of those nasty red marks on yet another patient. This time Jenny has the headache and needs some of Cao Boi's Vietnamese mojo. She asks him not to leave a mark on her head like Brad got on the last episode, but winds up getting two. She's happy anyway. Dr. Cao Boi's headache therapy obviously works. It just seems like a violent way to get rid of a headache. Later that night, Cao Boi starts telling a bunch of Asian jokes to his team mates, who are not amused. Why doesn't he just volunteer to get voted off?

The Latino tribe. As if he hasn't endeared himself enough to the rest of his team, Billy is snoring so loudly that no one else can sleep. Ozzy suggests to the rest of the group that they "throw" the next day's challenge so they can vote Billy off the island. JP is all for it, but Christina is dead-set against it. She thinks it's wrong and will make the tribe look bad. She decides Ozzy is not to be trusted.

Morning of Day 6. The Latino tribe is still discussing losing the challenge on purpose. Ozzy keeps saying how Billy will hold them back. Hold them back how? By making the tribe lose a challenge? Isn't that what they're planning on doing anyway? There is no logic in Ozzy's argument. He and the others just don't like Billy (for good reason). Instead of pretending it's some sort of creative strategy, why not just say, "We're all tired of this guy. Let's lose him."

Convoluted Challenge 2. All of the tribes are gathered at the challenge site. First, they must listen to Jeff tell the story of James Cook. Then, while tied together by rope, they must traverse an obstacle course, climb some scaffolding to retrieve several wooden planks with answers on them, then cross a rope bridge and proceed to a board with a list of questions on it and line the answers up with the board. If they are not %100 sure they can remember all of the details of the story Jeff told them, they can choose to stop and read the same story in a book that's been laid out for them. Of course, if they do that, they can lose valuable time.

However, they must do this with only four members instead of five. One team member must sit out. Billy begs the rest of his team to let him sit out, but they choose Oscar instead. Hmm, how odd - they make the tall athletic guy sit out in favor of the fat lazy guy. Yes, odd indeed.

The race starts and all the teams run straight past the book. All the teams except the Latino tribe who stop at the book and carefully read its contents. What a strange strategic decision. Between the four of them, they wouldn't be able to remember a few details from a simple story? Hmm...

As the three other teams are climbing the scaffolding and retrieving their answer planks, the Latino team is just now starting the obstacle course. Yet, they don't seem to be in a hurry. I wonder why. Don't they see that the other teams are far ahead of them?

The Asian and White tribes get their planks and run to the question board while the Black tribe has only a couple more planks to grab. The Latino tribe gets to the scaffolding and starts leisurely removing answer planks. The White and Asian tribes finish the challenge at the same time and the Black tribe crosses the rope bridge and makes it way to the answer board shortly thereafter, leaving the Latino tribe way behind. As Ozzy spies the other teams progress from his spot on the scaffolding where he is slowly untying an answer plank, it almost looks like he's smiling. Now why would he be doing that?

As the Black tribe finishes answering the questions, the Latino tribe is just now crossing the rope bridge. Wait, is Ozzy purposely swinging the rope bridge to make his team members fall off? No, he couldn't be. Confirming his loser status to the world, Billy is the only tribe member to actually fall off the rope.

The challenge is over, with the Asian and White tribes tying for first place and the Black tribe in third, or second, I guess. The two winning tribes win tarps to put over their shelters while all the tribes except for the Latino tribe win immunity. So thanks to Ozzy's clever strategy, not only will the Latino tribe be a man short, but they won't have those tarps either.

The Latino tribe gets to choose who from the other tribes get exiled. They choose Yul from the Asian tribe. Once Yul gets to Exile Island, he follows the simple clue and promptly finds the immunity idol. When Jonathan came back from Exile Island, he told his team mates that he "looked everywhere" for the idol. I don't think he even really tried.

Back to the Latino tribe. Billy concludes that it's "looking pretty bleak" for him. Thank you, Captain Obvious. But Billy plays it smart and approaches Christina, who hates Ozzy. Christina knows she's the next to go if Ozzy remains in control of the tribe. She approaches Cecilia who feels badly about throwing the race. Cecilia comes on board. This could be a huge upset.

Throughout the episode, Ozzy and Oscar keep talking about how they can't "trust" Billy, without giving a reason why. Yet, they are the ones who threw the race.

Tribal Council. It comes out that the team did indeed throw the challenge. There is some bickering back and forth and suddenly, out of nowhere, Billy reveals that he's in love with Candice from the White tribe.

"Candice?" Jeff asks in disbelief, "from the Raro tribe?"

"Yeah," Billy explains, "after the last challenge, we sorta mouthed the words 'I love you' to one another."

Jeff tactfully asks Billy why Candice would be in love with him. This is a reasonable question. After all, most women do seem to have the odd habit of only falling in love with men to whom they've said at least two words. They can be picky that way. Billy responds, "It was just love at first sight, a rapport kind of thing." Then he concludes, "I'm dead serious."

Billy is crazy, and not in the good way.

Each member votes. The votes are read. Billy is the second castaway voted off the island.

As the closing credits roll - footage of how each tribe member voted is shown. Everyone, even Christine voted for Billy. Maybe she and Cecilia were a little creeped out by his hallucinated love affair with Candice. Having a stalker on the island could get a little awkward.

Next week - Parvati makes her moves on Adam.

On a more serious note: When the Black team was trying to start a fire, there was once again talk about how the pressure was on for them to "prove" they can start a fire, since they're the African-American team. Last week, I thought this kind of talk was silly. After all, there are Black senators, brain surgeons, astro-physicists, writers, and Supreme Court Justices. I wondered why anyone would think that Black people need to prove they can paddle a boat or make a fire.

But reflection on this has led to me to realize that this feeling didn't just come out from nowhere. Obviously, race relations in America still have a long way to go if the everyday experiences of at least some Black people move them to feel this way. Maybe racism is a bigger problem than most of us would like to admit.

So, maybe this season's Survivor is a beneficial, thought-provoking, "social experiment" after all.

... nah.

Episode Recap: Cook Islands, Week 1

2006-09-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Episode: I Can Forgive Her But I Don't Have to Because She Screwed With My Chickens
Original Air Date: September 14, 2006

Do you find yourself longing wistfully for the days before Desegregation? Does the term "separate but equal" sound like a pretty good idea to you? Do you ever wonder why people can't just go be with their own kind?

Nah, me either.

Yet, in an apparent effort to turn back the clock on American race relations 40 years, Mark Burnett and the other powers that be at Survivor have chosen to divide this season's batch of contestants into tribes based on their ethnicity - Black ("Hiki"), Latino ("Aitu"), Asian ("Puka"), and White ("Raro"). CBS calls this a "social experiment". Social experiment my grandmother's bunyons. This decision was made in order to create controversy, which in turn creates "buzz". And "buzz", good or bad, will almost always translate to higher initial ratings for any program.

But really, the segregation isn't the worst aspect of this season's Survivor. What bothers me is this - if you're White, who the Heck are you supposed to root for? If you root for the Home Team, you appear to be racist. If you root for one of the other tribes, you appear to be either trying too hard not to appear racist, or you seem like a reverse-racist (whatever that is). Fortunately, I've decided to avoid this conundrum altogether by hating all of these losers equally right off the bat.

My disdain is based on a prejudice that is rooted deep inside me - not for any particular race, but for Survivor contestants in general. I would make an exception for the contestants in Season 1 because they didn't really know what they were getting into. But anyone who had seen Season 1 would know that signing up for this show means signing one's dignity away for the off chance of maybe winning a million dollars. They know they will be giving up their dignity because there's something about being half-naked, sun-burnt, hungry, and stinky that causes people to be somewhat less than polite. By "somewhat less than polite" I mean what is supposed to be a friendly contest eventually descends into Lord of the Flies. And by "eventually" I mean by the end of the first episode. Then there's the added charm of showing the worst side of yourself to millions of people each week. So how can I be expected to care about anyone who chooses to do this?

But on to the episode. It starts out with all 20 "castaways" frantically scurrying about an old wooden ship trying to grab what supplies they can and throwing them overboard on small wooden rafts. Jeff Probst tells us the castaways have two minutes to scavenge what they can before they have to jump off the boat and row to shore. Among the supplies - chickens. That's right, live chickens. Here's another thing - apparently chickens can float. I did not know that. But we find that out as one of the castaways throws one of the poor birds overboard. It misses the raft and lands in the water, bobbing easily on the surface. Thirty seconds into the first episode and I've already learned something.

As the hapless castaway jumps into the water after his chicken, Jeff yells out, "That's right! Get that chicken! You're gonna need that for food!"

That Jeff, always being helpful.

As the teams row to shore, Billy (Heavy Metal Musician) from the Latino tribe has the best line. "I don't know about you," he says to the rest of his tribe, "but I feel like this is *** backwards, like, our parents got on a raft... and paddled away from an island, and here I am paddling back to an island."

Billy later goes on to say how he thinks the Hispanics have an advantage since they're from tropical climates. Judging from his Heavy Metal clothing ensemble, including long black pants, his parents never taught him how to dress for a tropical climate. Once his team arrives on the island, Billy takes charge and announces he knows how to build a hut and that he'll 'just explain it to everybody so that we're all on the same page'. His position as Resident Carpentry Expert is short-lived, however, as it soon becomes clear that cutting bamboo is too much of a challenge for him. Ozzy steps in and finishes the building work.

Meanwhile, as the Asian tribe rows to shore, their oldest member, Cao Boi (pronounced "cowboy"), remarks, "I can't believe a bunch of Asians who are so little weigh so much. All that rice."

"No more Asian jokes," another tribe member responds.

"Don't make stereotype," yet another chimes in.

"We made it!" Cao Boi proclaims after reaching land, "My second time as a boat person."

Cao Boi, a long-haired refugee from the Vietnam war, will probably be the first voted off of his tribe. He's already getting on everyone else's nerves. He even says himself that he's concerned about being on an all Asian team. According to him, he's never been accepted by the Asian community. "I just don't fit the stereotype," he says.

Of course then we find out he's a nail salon manager. OK, Mr. Outsider. You rebel, you.

Cut to the black tribe. One thing all of these team members agree on is the importance of "representing". Rebecca (make-up artist) puts it this way, "Because we're divided by race, now we have to step up to the plate and show that, yes, Black People swim. Yes, Black People know how to get on a boat and paddle. I mean, we don't just run track."

Proving that Black people can paddle a boat. Martin Luther King would be so proud.

Sundra (actress) thinks her team may be at a disadvantage, "It has nothing to do with race... we're a bunch of city-slickers."

Nate (retail sales) sees another problem. "Black people don't like to be told what to do."

But Sekou (I think he made up that name for Survivor), a jazz magician, proudly states for the camera his ability as a "warrior and leader" to bring the group together. Yes, maybe there's hope after all, and it's name is Sekou.

Lastly, my peeps, Team Whitebread. Speaking to the camera, Adam (copier sales), makes the first official "I Am Not a Racist" speech of the contest. He comments on how it doesn't matter to him what ethnicity his team mates are, but what matters is what kind of people they are. In other words, "I'm not a racist".

Most White people have made this speech at some point in their lives. I don't know who we're trying to convince. It's not like someone has to accuse us of being a racist in order for us to give this speech. Usually, it just comes out of nowhere, as if to say, "In case anyone was wondering... I'm not a racist."

What strikes me, though, is how two of the girls on this tribe are dressed. Jessica, the tatooed roller girl, is wearing blue stockings, while Candice comes dressed in a blue button-down blouse and long pants. Have you seen the show before, ladies?

Jessica, who says her friends call her "Flicka" (no, she hasn't seen the movie) gets off to a good start by accidentally releasing the tribe's chickens. They quickly dash off to the jungle to heed the Call of the Wild and fulfill their destiny as Jungle Chickens. Jessica, however, doesn't seemed destined to last long in this contest.

Jonathan (writer) is not happy. "I could forgive her [Jessica]," he says, "but I don't have to. She screwed with my chickens."

I think we have an episode title.

Back to the Black team. They've discovered their water barrel. Score one for the city kids. Unfortunately, the water is not clean and needs to be boiled. They need fire. In order to solve this problem, "Warrior Leader" Sekou gathers everyone around while he rubs a little piece of wood against a bamboo pole. "OK, everyone," he instructs, "focus your energy."

Apparently, the energy was a little unfocused as all Sekou succeeds in doing is to carve a groove into the bamboo pole. "I need a break," he declares, then promptly collapses on to the raft. His team mates, especially Stephannie (nursing student), are unimpressed. I don't see the old warrior lasting too long.

It's the second night, and everyone on the White tribe is cold. In order to conserve body heat, they decide to form a "cuddle puddle" as one of the girls puts it, and line up on the ground for a five-way spoonfest. I would've chosen a different approach, for instance, oh I don't know, putting some clothes on. All of the guys are bare-chested at this point and the girls aren't much more covered. I know I saw these people wearing shirts earlier. In addition, it's obvious that Candice and Adam are really enjoying the cuddling.

Later, during the daytime, Brad (Fashion designer) on the Asian tribe has a bad headache. Cao Boi offers his official diagnosis, "You got a bad wind."

I don't know, but that sounds to me like someone farted in Brad's face or something.

Cao Boi proceeds to treat Brad by squeezing the bejeezus out of his forehead, leaving a nasty red mark. "He did that to your face?" one of the girls ask. Facial disfigurement notwithstanding, Brad's headache is cured and he's happy.

Finally we get to the first challenge. Each tribe has to race to a "puzzle boat", put it together, paddle out a certain distance, light a torch, paddle back, use the pieces of the boat to build a replica of the Empire State Building, or some other crap. I don't know. Jeff loses me about half-way through the explanation. All I know, is that there's puzzles involved in at least two parts of the challenge.

As it turns out, the Asian team is really good at solving puzzles. But the Latino team is really good at paddling a small boat in the ocean. Must resist urge to make obvious jokes about stereotypes. Both teams are neck-and-neck for the lead until the Asian team pulls ahead at the end by solving the second puzzle and climbing the tower first.

The White and Black teams were not so impressive. The White team was third to put their boat together and managed to paddle out to light their torch and be almost all the way back before the Black team even had their boat together. Unfortunately, they were slowed down by their boat coming apart while they were in the water, as well as their apparent inability to paddle.

Great, thanks to these guys, now White people have to prove we can paddle a boat.

Eventually, the White tribe manages to come in third, leaving the Black tribe in last place. This is unfortunate for the Black tribe as they now will have to vote one of their own off at Tribal Council. However, they do get to choose someone from any of the other teams to spend two days on "Exile Island". "Exile Island" is evidently even more sparse than where they are now. However, there is Immunity to be found there if the exiled castaway can find it. Can this show possibly get more convoluted?

"Chicken Man" Jonathon (who had stolen a chicken from the Asian team before coming to the island) is chosen for exile. Jeff notes that the two men on the Black tribe took it upon themselves to make this decision without consulting the women. Fascinating.

Once on the island, Jonathon expresses how "shocked" he was to be chosen. He seems to make a half-hearted effort at solving the clue provided him for finding the immunity and then talks about how cold he is and how he misses his wife. I wonder how his wife feels about the "cuddle puddle".

Meanwhile, the Black tribal member discuss who should be voted off. They're divided down gender lines. The women seem to want to vote Sekou off (big surprise), while the men are just afraid of the women. Simple math, 3 against 2. They would've been smarter to try to drive a wedge between the women early on. Stephannie had already remarked how the other two women were already much closer to each other than she would be to either one of them.

The guys talk about how the women would not be able to get along without them. "They can't build a fire. They can't even build a hut," Sekou says.

What he seems to forget is neither can he.

Regardless, the guys decide to attempt to convince Stephannie to ally herself with them. Sekou points out that because of how close the other two women are, once the two men are voted off Stephannie will be next. He also talks about he's the one who can 'bring the fire'.

"But we don't have any fire yet," Stephannie replies. She later remarks to the camera that the two men are also close, so either way she's in the same boat.

I may be wrong, but I think Sekou's efforts are too little too late.

The tribe gathers at the Tribal Council, which takes place in the middle of the SS.ObviouslyFakeShipwreckedShipSet. Jeff asks his typically insightful questions ("Nate, what's the feeling of this tribe?). The tribe votes. As the votes are read, it quickly becomes obvious that the vote is between Sundra and Sekou. It also becomes obvious that no one on the tribe can spell "Sekou".

Finally, Jeff reads the last vote. It's for Sekou.

Next week - The Asian tribe gets tired of Cou Boi's Asian jokes and the Latinos take "drastic measures" in response to Billy's slacking.