Survivor 6.9 and Recap recap "Deena takes a walk"

What a great episode! And what a nice little break--Survivor can be a little exhausting for me, so I was glad to have the stupid clip show last week ;)

Morning at John le Carré, and Rob is playing with fire by stringing along the gullible but possibly capable of mass murder Sir Matt. Matt is literally grinning like an idiot and lapping up every lie that spills from Rob's mouth. Rob tells Matt that the other girls are resenting Deena's self-proclaimed leadership (not true--yet!) and that Deena is threatened by Matt above all others (Rob thinks this is true). Rob dispatches Sir Matt to "handle Butch." So, Matt and Butch are fishing and totally out of the blue Matt starts chanting in his usual serial-killer monotone, "We need a chain, like a chain link..." and I'm sure Butch's life flashed before his eyes. Then Matt, in full secret agent-mode starts raving, "I shall initiate all communication--myself, or my associate, Mr. Machete. I am your link to the others and now we will stop talking. I said stop talking, Mr. Machete! Why won't he ever stop talking?!" Yeah, Matt's a few Coors Light short of a Reward Picnic. Back at camp, the kids enjoy hearing Rob's tale about what a jerk he's being to Matt. Deena isn't laughing, but I don't think it's because she likes Matt. I think it's because she doesn't like laughing, as a rule. Anyway, everyone wants Matt gone because he's different.

Reward Limerick

If you have any skill with a spear
then a target, you should come quite near
Some have good aim
for others, a shame
But Matt fills us all with some fear

Everyone practices with ancient weapons and Matt tells Rob he's not gonna try his hardest to win and Rob suppresses a laugh while he shines him on, "Wow, Matt, you're really starting to understand this game!" In the actual competition, however, Matt doesn't take a dive and hits the middle of the middle of the middle of his target with a blow gun. He, Alex, Butch and Deena move on to the spear round where Deena whiffs. Rob is mucho irritated at Matt's proficiency--jealous of the weird guy no one likes and everyone wants gone, that's our pathetic Rob. Alex wins the final bow and arrow round and chooses his pal Jenna to join him for an afternoon of coffee-drinking and pastry-scarfing. Now that we've broken up I can admit it: Alex has a very disturbing and unmanly giggle. Jenna isn't unnerved, "I like, really like Alex? We both like, like to eat and he's like, cool and cute and stuff? So it was cool. And stuff. Did I say stuff? I meant to."

DEENALOO

Having embarrassed herself in the spear-throw, Deena pulls a Rich and Stoppid Sue (who always claimed their challenge suckage was strategic, yeah RIGHT) and tells us, "Being good at challenges is absolutely the worst thing you can do in this game! It puts a big target on your back and makes everyone HATE you!" Funny, runners up Kelly and Colby and winners Ethan and Brian won A LOT of competitions...huh, but yeah, okay, Deena, you TOTALLY meant to suck, I get it. Great strategy! She decides that Alex is an even greater threat to her than Matt and decides to bring him down. It's not that it's a bad thing to keep in the back of her head but it is SO DANGED early! She so could have gotten Rob and maybe Heidi to oust Alex AFTER Matt, Butch and Christy were gone--in other words, without violating the "Real Alliance." There are several alliances around, but this was, apparently, the main one. So she, Rob, Heidi and Christy are fishing--well, Rob is casting a net and the others are sitting around. And Deena asks Heidi, "How important is it to you that you advance in this game, Heidi--and remember, you ARE under oath." Let me interrupt myself to raise the discussion that despite all the talk about how crazy MATT is, Heidi is the one who's come undone. The once crafty schemer has unspooled into a twitchy, chittering ferret . In less than a month she's gone from nubile gym instructor to someone who you might find cackling in a rocking chair on some backwoods porch, cradling a sawed-off shot gun. Sling Heidi replies, "Mmmm, I'd like to win me a million dollars, mmmm hmmm." Deena nods, "And what do you think your chances are of beating Matt or Alex in a--" "Matt's not in the picture, mmmm hmmmm," Heidi insists, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as it tends to do these days. "Yeah, but if Matt wins immunity, don't you think Alex should go? I know you do." Rob gives a classic, "What the Frick" look but plays along, "What about Jenna? Will she go for it?" "Leave Jenna to me--I can finesse Jenna. I can finesse anyone. I have people skills, damn it, I don't care WHAT my last performance evaluation said!"

Meanwhile, Jenna and Alex are chattering about how much fun the young, not-deaf not-Matt people are. Even though Deena is in their alliance, they don't know where her head's at. Alex says, "She's only three years older than me but she's so OLD. I mean, she's got a career and a family...people in their thirties aren't supposed to be grown ups....ARE THEY!?" Jenna shrugs, "Dude, I don't even want to THINK about being 30, and it's like an ETERNITY away, thank GOD! You start to get like, wrinkles and stuff? But anyways, I'm worried about Deena. She's like, always trying to work a different angle." Unlike the declining Heidi, Jenna's got her brain intact--she's not book smart, she's boob smart but she don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows either. Back at camp, Deena tries to wrap her back-stabbing with a bow of fair-play, "None of us have chance to win against Alex. If we get rid of him, then we can all compete against each other on an even playing field." It's unclear what Rob's true feeling are here. He tells us he and Deena have a secret alliance to the end, and I'm sure he's threatened by Alex. He seems to be playing along--and certainly has Heidi believing he's down with the plan. Deena couldn't be more pleased with herself, "Rob and I are in total control of this game, and when I say Rob and I, I mean I. I have just engineered the kind of departure that will go down in Survivor history as one of the greatest most-strategic moves EVER!" And she's right...in a manner of speaking. "I'm smarter than Rob. I'm thinking 24/7 and I have back-up plans for my back-up plans," she chuckles smugly before adding a fake self-deprecating, 'My head hurts." You're not fooling us Deena! A lost-looking Heidi sits by the river and mutters, "Mmmm, this is getting interesting, mmm hmmm." Heidi's head? ALWAYS hurts.

That night, a very wired Alex and Jenna return to camp. Deena, who's not naturally warm, gives them a very warm welcome, "Oh, you're back! Oh my goodness, we missed you both sooooooo much!" and it's soooooo fake. Alex and Jenna have brought back some smashed up cookies back, a nice gesture they almost ruin by putting on a three-act play to announce it. Matt and Butch are out fishing (working, the morons) so of course creepy Rob wants to eat their cookies, "They're on the outside looking in, why shouldn't we eat their cookies?" Rob is a very small person. Out on the boat, Sir Matt practices talking like a human with mixed results, "Truly, it is the fondest desire of my heart that I would catch a "goddamned" fish." Then Butch had the unbelievable misfortune of being bitten by a dead piranha. When they return, they're very happy to have some cookies. As things settle sown, Heidi takes Jenna aside and tells her all about Deena's plan to oust Alex. Heidi tells us, "Mmmm, Alex and Jenna are my original alliance, mmm hmmm. Well...Shawna and Deena were in my original alliance first, and then it was me and Roger and Dave...maybe I don't know what original means, mmmm hmmmm." Anyway, Jenna tells Alex that Deena is starting trouble and that Rob is apparently on Deena's side. Alex confronts Rob who confirms Heidi's story--Deena wants Alex out after Matt. Alex decided, "Well, here's MY plan: we get rid of Matt and then we get rid of Deena," and he points a lot. Rob does the head-nodding "yes sir" stooge thing he's so good at. It's actually a damn smart way to play the game, but I wonder how long his ego can take it.

Sometime in the night, Heidi gets bit by "something," probably a spider. As Rob puts it, "her knee has swollen to the size of one of her breasts." Let me just add that John le Carré has the cutest tribe flag EVER, with an alligator that looks a smiling Godzilla. I'm picturing it on my wall even though I know it will go for thousands of dollars. DRAT!

Immunity Limerick

Ever wonder why food is called grub?
Be it burgers or soup or a sub?
Well here in Brazil
you can have your fill
of grub that is actually GRUBS

It's the gross eating challenge even though no one seems to clue in except Butch. Everyone thinks its gonna be a choice of immunity or food (thanks to the actual and very misleading immunity poem) a la the stand-on-a-pole. When Jeff tells them everyone gets to eat they all cheer except Butch--who may have watched the show before. He chuckles, "There's a catch, guys." More like a wretch, pleh >:p Jenna can't eat the grasshoppers and is first out. Jeff accuses her of being confident but she pleads wimpiness. Heidi doesn't move on either. Next up is grubs and Rob and Butch aren't fast enough. Rob likes them though, and finishes his ration on the way to the loser bench. Deena has become so focused on her plan to oust Alex that she's practically cheering, "Matt, Matt, he's our man! If he can't eat it, none of us can!" It's pretty bizarre because Alex hasn't been a jerk like Roger. I understand him as a threat, but the clues to his becoming Deena's sworn enemy are hidden in the Byzantine depths of Deena's over-agile mind. Alex and Christy can't survive the crispy beetle round leaving Deena and Matt to the final course--a five or so inch long LIVE and squiggly larvae!! It is SO GROSS AND SCARY! And Sir Matt swallows it whole without even killing it, causing the everyone to applaud his effort. He's freaky and weird...but I think everyone is genuinely impressed. I know I was. Yeah, he's a nut-job, but I'm kinda rooting for him to keep winning immunity, just because everyone's against him and he doesn't know it.

At John le Carré, Deena's pre-vote clueless arrogance surpasses that of her third nemesis Roger (after Joanne and Jeanne, before Alex). "Alex made a HUGE blunder by not winning immunity because unlike me, he REALLY needed it. If MY ass had been on the line--whcih it SO isn't, I would have tried to win, sure. But everyone's onboard with *my* plan, the girls are falling in line and Alex is going bye bye." She tells Jenna that Alex has to go and Jenna plays along, even violating the sanctity of the pinky swear to assure Deena of her loyalty. Deena gloats, "I convinced Jenna that I was right--I'm REALLY good at telling people what to do." Deena personifies that cliché about leadership, that if you think you're leading, and you look behind you and no one's following you then it turns out you're just taking a walk. Jenna tells us, "Deena was in an alliance with me, Rob, Alex and Heidi--you know, the young people who aren't deaf? Or Matt? And she like, totally betrayed us so now she's gotta go." She tells Alex that Deena is indeed mobilizing for an assault on him and he speculates (clearly unaware of her close bond with Rob) that Deena wants an all-girl final 4 (a temptation I think Deena would eventually resist). Alex and Jenna do fret about Rob's loyalty, a seed of mistrust that may bloom later. Deena shores up Christy and Rob's support. She does her best with Rob--she plays on both his insecurities and his ego by reminding him of Alex's charm and its effets on Heidi and Jenna and then praising him for managing Matt and by extension, Butch. "It's all falling together," Deena brags, "God himself could not sink this ship!"

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Dave the juror is wearing clean pants but doesn't otherwise look all that different then he did in the game. Jeff, wearing that gorgeous bright blue shirt of his, sigh, wonders how the spider-chomped Heidi is holding up, "Mmm, I'm getting better, mmm hmmm." When she says that athletic ability and intelligence are her two strongest assets and she's now lost one of them, Jeff jokes, "Which one?" Which totally undercuts my ability to make a cheap joke at her expense--thanks a lot, Jeff! Dave doesn't seem at all amused, but the jury usually looks pissed. I heard first season's Jenna reveal on a radio interview that while she looked bitter and enraged it was actually all she could do not to laugh out loud at the silly seriousness of Tribal Council. Jenna's ouster was what made me realize what a new and incredible show Survivor was, by the way. She kinda annoyed me--she was always crying and whining about her kids and I wasn't sad to see her go but she had sort of become the show up to that point and I remember realizing with some shock the following week, "Jenna isn't gonna be on the show anymore...how are they gonna do this show without Jenna?" Other shows don't vote out main cast members every week--at least not back in the 20th Century, they didn't. Jeff tries to clue in Deena and Alex to the forces working against them, "Deena, have you noticed any shifts in power?" Deena can barely contain her glee and it's all she can do to stop herself from springing up and screaming in Alex's face, "You're going DOWN, pretty boy! Because I'm Deena and I say so!" Instead she rattles off some Survivor clichés about never being sure and anything can happen and the game has really only JUST NOW begun, bah blah blah. Alex responds to the same line of questioning by musing over the relative ethics involved in Survivor, and whether or not it's okay to stab someone in the back. Deena is to busy ogling Alex's back to notice the shiny knife he's sharpening. When Jeff asks matt if he really needed immunity this week, the consistently clueless Matt shakes his head, "Oh certainly, while the Immunity Necklace is a rather amusing bauble but I know from my detailed knowledge of the inner-workings of the tribal politics that I surely did not need it." Although Deena's sudden obsession with Alex makes baffled Matt's ravings almost true, I suppose. Right before the vote, Alex defends the fact that he really wants to win to anyone threatened by his performance thus far. Deena sniffs that the only thing that separated her from Matt was a big ol' bug and Rob looks like he wants to punch her in the face and I'd applaud him for it. Hey, sweetie? That big ol' bug was the price of Immunity this week--something you were to arrogant to consider needing. So bye bye, and that WAS in that annoying sing-song you so like to employ :)

Christy and Deena are the only ones who vote for Alex, while everyone else casts theirs for Deena (or Denna). Jenna is to the point: "You lied to me, you betrayed me you screwed me. Now screw you." Deena mistakenly labels Alex "what's standing between me and the big prize." Actually, it's her tremendous ego. Alex rails, "You couldn't keep your word for 3 days--and I'd love to go against you in court because you're the worst liar I've ever MET!" He should be worried about the best liar he's ever met--Rob--but he doesn't know it. As usual, Rob pretends to be shocked by the vote. Predictably, Deena doesn't wish the others good luck and then doesn't own up to her own hand in her demise. On The Early Show, she claims Heidi and Jenna were afraid of losing "their snuggle bunny," instead of admitting she made a promise and broke it and THAT scared them because they couldn't trust her anymore. I think Rob should be concerned about Alex, but think this week will be back to status quo of ousting the outsiders, and Butch will go cuz he's like, old? I really do think Matt might win-out in terms of immunity--we'll see! Deena leaves in the 8th postion, where we lost weepy Jenna whom I discussed earlier. THis was also the place of the best ouster in the history of Survivor--Evil Jerri :D Still brings happiness and joy. Brandon was Out of Africa at this point as was Smuggly lame duck Zoe and Ken the Cop.

As for the recap, it was typically lame--this one time, Jeanne and Joanne went looking for food and they found a PINEAPPLE!! And everyone ate it and it was soooo good--can you believe they cut that out? The only really interesting thing was the rather disgusting reveal that Jeanne was so mad about Joanne's ouster than she intentionally baked manioc cakes full of mold to the others. What ever happened to Baby Jeanne? Deena sued her ass, is my guess. Have a great week!

Peace! Christine :D