Survivor 13.10 "I'm not gonna lose because you kids can't get your asses out of bed!"

BEFORE WE BEGIN

It's Christmas time! As a kid, I couldn't wait for Christmas, and now I sort of dread it, because I love "before Christmas" so much. As soon as it happens, then it's over, and you're as far away from Christmas as you can get. Don't get me started on the Niners losing that game to the LA ScRams of St.Louis, I'm still trying to get over it. Barry Zito has not signed anywhere yet--it's torture, because it gives me time to entertain ridiculous fantasies of his signing with the A's for one more year. OK, let's get to it...

GENERATION SNAP!

Here's a rundown of Cook Islands wildlife: whales rule, crabs rock, giant millipedes suck. So the show starts with Jonathan going out to fish while the kids sleep in at camp. While he's away, Adam jokes that they should wait until he gets back to start the fire, and have him do everything. Jonathan comes back and finds that there's no water in which to clean his fish and he gets bent, "It's like a dorm or something," he complains. He rants, "I'm not gonna lose because you kids can't get your asses out of bed!" "Shut up, fool," Nate says ABOUT him, not to him. Nate insists Jonathan's freak-out was uncalled for--the young 'uns are not knuckleheads and they all know what they're doing. Their MASSIVE losing streak says otherwise, but don't trouble Nate with the details. He's kinda clueless about stuff. Then again, so is Jonathan, who vents his frustrations to Parvati and Candice--the most unsympathetic ear in camp, who Jonathan still believes is his number one ally. He huffs and puffs further about the kids to us, "Do I have to be your dad or your boss to get you to do anything?" If you what you want them to do is vote you out, the dad/boss route is definitely a good way to go, Jonathan. Cue Opening Credits...

REWARD CHALLENGE---NOT!

At iTunes, A sore and battered Yul tells us the obvious--competing in all four members in every challenge is taking its toll, but they have no other options. They gather at the Reward beach and are shocked to discover that Raro had to vote out TWO players the night before. They're too shocked to even gloat about it--they're also probably staggered at the fact that rats Candice and Jonathan live on. Jeff takes Punchy back and says "Immunity, back up for grabs," for like, the 300th time. I'll bet you've never even said it once. Try it, its fun. Jeff points out that for a Reward, the teams must paint a new flag--yup, it's MERGE time, baby! Everyone gets stylin' pewter or brown buffs, I'm not sure which. But they're pretty cool. Adam tells us he's feeling pretty secure and in control since they still have a 5-4 margin on iTunes. Then he goes off to count some chickens that are waiting to be hatched. Jeff lets the tribes work out where they should live and Yul defers to Jonathan, Candice and Nate, who've all lived on both islands. They say Raro has more coconuts, and less rats. Aren't you glad you don't have to make major life decisions based on that sort of criteria? Then the newly formed tribe of nine boards a party yacht and everyone eats and drinks and be's merry. Nate gets his fade on, 'natch. Jonathan actually says something like, "That's not what we called it in MY day," like he's really old. Jonathan, you were born in the 60's for crying out loud, cool it with the Dad stuff. He is rightfully alarmed and irritated at Adam, Nate, and the girls, who get wasted--to the point of puking in some of their cases. A dignified and observant Yul takes it all in...

I TOO TONGA

The new tribe calls themselves Aitutonga. I miss the days when teams came up with names that weren't old names blurred into one. Remember the Pearl Islands naming themselves after Rupert's dead turtle> Or Lex's rhapsodizing about MotoMaji? Or whatever? Anyway, friendliness abounds. Nate is sure that his five is sticking together, though he allows for the possibility of using his friendship with "cool cat" Ozzy as a contingency plan should things change. A drunk Adam gets flirty and gropy with a bemused Parvati. When she reminds him of his shomance squeeze Candice, he leers, "You both can appreciate me." This Thanksgiving, I was thankful to NOT be Dumb Adam's girlfriend >:( Then he blathers, "Not only do I have to worry about being faithful, I also don't have to hurt my brain anymore with thinking because we have five people and they have four people, which is like having five apples and they have four apples and five apples is more than four apples and nothing ever, ever changes in the game of Survivor, not when one group has "numbers," so I'm going to sleep and not think ever again!" Meanwhile, Not Dumb Yul rationally decides to approach Jonathan, despite his betrayal, about joining back up with the Box Car Children, which would make him Grandfather. A bit of a reach, but that 50's Dad hat of his helps. Jonathan is skeptical--he's certain Ozzy hates him and would never trust him and he doubts Yul really trusts him either. Yul implies he MIGHT have the Idol, and that his team could use it to back-door Jonathan if he doesn't join up with them--AWESOME idea, Yul, very cutthroat! Jonathan tells us that if Yul DOES have the Idol, he might consider driving the kids batcrap crazy by flipping sides AGAIN...Yul then lets Sundra and Ozzy know that he does indeed have the Idol, and that he's planning to use it to get Jonathan to vote with them against one of the Raro kids. Ozzy is down with it, and while he still feels loyal to Yul, he too has Nate in the wings as a back-up plan. Parvati and Candice try to decide whether they should oust Ozzy or Yul tonight and Parvati shrugs, "Nate will do whatever we want." Ugh. Candice sidles up to Jonathan and tries to get him to spill about his conversations with Yul. He states the obvious: Yul is trying to woo him back over, but he doesn't admit to being REALLY REALLY interested in the idea. I loved that because stupid Survivor people always say things like, "Oh, he didn't talk about the game at all, we were just talking about fishing and stuff." A sure way to be sniffed out as a liar because all anyone does on that island is talk game. Jonathan gives away information Candice could already guess herself, without cutting off his options. He does lobby to boot Ozzy over Yul, but the girls want Yul gone...

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

I'm gonna miss Punchy, the Necklace never has the character of the Idol. It's a classic test of WILL, as the Survivor must wrap themselves around a (really high) pole for as long as they can. You gotta want it, to win it--who wants it more? Jungle Boy Ozzy grins in delight at his odds of hanging from a tree trunk longer than any of these city slickers. Adam is the first person out, probably because he's dehydrated and hung-over, plus he thinks he's a dead-bolt lock to remain in the game, so who cares? When Jeff asks Yul if he's surprised to see the muscle-bound Adam go out first, Yul muses thoughtfully about how it's harder for bigger people to support all their weight up high, "Which is why you don't see elephants climbing trees," he finishes. Everyone gets a good chuckle out of it, and Adam appreciates the excuse. Yul sighs about his nerdy reply, "I'm never gonna get a date again." Yul, should you ever be turned down again, which is highly unlikely after you become a millionaire, take my advice: take your shirt off. Jonathan is next out, then Nate and Sundra. Jeff asks Parvati about the new tribe name and she tells him, "W ejust did the same ol' same ol'; thing where you take half of our name and half of their name and pretend it means we're not divided." Jeff raves, "I LIKE it!!!" as he stares up at Parvati's bikini-clad frame. He's hungry like the wolf about her, I'm tellin' ya. Yul goes down after 51 minutes, and Parvati lasts an impressive hour and a half, as does Becky. The always tough Candice lasts 2 hours and 15 minutes before she finally falls, leaving obvious Ozzy the ultimate winner.

JONATHAN SCRAMBLES LIKE A SAND CRAB

Back at camp, everyone's all, "Gee, Candice, you're like SOOOO awesome," while grumpy grown-up Jonathan glares. The kids all decide that Yul is too smart to keep around and that he should be first to go. Elsewhere, Yul shows good faith by showing Jonathan the Immunity Idol. He tells Jonathan that he thinks he's an ideal Final Two partner because he's ticked off and, if Jonathan goes along with Yul's plan, betrayed everyone in the game. Jonathan goes back to the kids, who are all adamant about gunning for Yul. This makes Jonathan nervous since he's a nervous fella, and he's not entirely convinced that Yul hasn't set him up: the Box Car Children can still cast their four votes for him, and then he'd go when Yul busts out the Immunity Idol to save himself from the Raro votes. So Jonathan tries to cover his bases by raising the possibility that Yul has the Idol, and his votes could boomerang to one of them. This is so logical, and so "no duh," making the kids' reactions all the more awesome in their dumbness. Even when Adam and Candice admit that they don't have the Idol themselves, and they seem to believe that Jonathan doesn't either, they're confident that Yul doesn't. "He was only there for like, a DAY," Parvati scoffs, while Candice and Adam nod boredly. Jonathan picks his jaw off the floor and then goes off to scream, "It's like, they don't want to expend the mental energy to even RUN THE SCENARIO of "maybe Yul has the Idol"!!!!!!" He frets that he'll be deemed "a complete bastard!!!!" no matter what happens. Jonathan is good television, that's for sure. He's Hawk-Eye Pierce meets George Costanza. It would probably behoove him to stay aligned with the ding dongs, but I don't think he can abide listening to any of them for much longer. Then Dumb Adam tells Nate about Jonathan's concerns about Yul and Nate barks, "He can't come in here and tell us how to play the game!" Well...at least he knows how to play it, dumbasses. Jonathan lobbies Yul to oust Nate because he "owes" Adam and Candice for fighting to keep him around, which is not true at all about Candice--so Jonathan doesn't know everything.

Oh, and Candice and Adam make out.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

The jury is brought in, and Rebecca and Jenny are very smiley, ala Brad--still no hatin' in the jury box. Jeff opens up by asking if it's really a brand new tribe or if old alliances are still in play and Nate tells him honestly that he's sticking to what he's comfortable with--too bad for him that's come to mean Jonathan in recent days. Yul plays the Raro kids like the suckuhs they are when he acts all, "Gee, we iTunes people are just amazed we're still in the game! It's not like we have any real hope of beating their unbreakable alliance of five!" Then Becky brings up how close Adam and Candice are and Nate calls bullcrap, reminding her of how close SHE is with Yul. "I don't lie in his LAP," a mildly offended Becky insists. Parvati does her Betty Boop thing and chirps "Adam and Candice heart each other and they want to make babies together!" Jeff gets distracted for a few seconds, because Parvati was talking about sex...Parvati...sex...Parvati...sex, "Uh...so, Jonathan, how are...how's it going for you?" Jonathan blathers a bit about how he's had this great experience and how he's enjoyed "bonding with young people." He's a little Michael Scott too, isn't he? Anyway, tension runs high as the votes are read and Nate realizes he's the target of the four iTunes votes...wait...make that FIVE! Jonathan flips! Yul doesn't have to use the Idol! And suddenly the tables are turned! Parvati and Adam are stunned and Candice is pissed--yeah, betrayal's a real kick in the teeth, ain't in Candygirl? This is also a great move for Yul, Becky and Sundra because it removes the Nate option for Ozzy. In his exit speech, Nate tells Jonathan to kiss his ass--oh, there'll be some hatin' in that jury box now :D

Nate is eliminated in 9th place, the place formerly known as the first-juror slot. The first 9th placer was our beloved Greg of coconut phone fame. In the Outback, Alicia "I will ALWAYS wave my finger in your face" was booted while in Africa, Kelly was unfairly targeted by Lex when he wrongly assumed it was she who cast a meaningless phone for him. In the Marquesas, in one of my all-time fave Survivor moments, Johnny Pots and Pans wah-wah wah'd his way to the jury box when Neleh and Pappy flipped the tables on him and his boring alliance. In Thailand, buxom Erin was yet another uninteresting, unmemorable player to leave the show and in the Amazon, Dave the amiable "rocket scientist" was sent packing. Ryan-O, lover of pelicans flew away in the Pearl Islands and in Vanuatu, a very angry Sarge was betrayed by Twila who decided (temporarily) to side with the all-woman alliance. In Palau, Coby had an epiphany about his inner-strength, but that didn't stop him from imploding and practically begging Tom and company to vote him out instead of interloping Steph. In Guatemala good and handsome Bobby Jon said goodbye number two and last year, we lost good-guy Austin, who was quite likeable when he wasn't comparing himself to Jesus.

EVICTED SURVIVOR FUN FACTS

I wasn't able to get online to get fun facts last week! 11th place Rebecca won an Emmy for doing make-up on "The View." Sadly, putting foundation on "Elisabeth Filarski Hasselback didn't get her anywhere close to the Final Four. 10th place Jenny is a former local TV reporter in her native Chicago, and she still emcee's local events--you'd think she'd be more personable. I give her props for admitting to being a fan of "Stargate SG-!" though, you gotta let your nerd flag fly. Nate is an aspiring professional musician--he's now into hip-hop though he started playing violin at the age of 8. No surprise, he was a theater major. We will certainly miss his mouth, he's won of the most quotable Survivors of all time...

Peace Out! :D

Christine

Survivor 13.9 "It's not fun to know that people that you like wanna see you suffer."

Hey all, Happy Thanksgiving. I won't be able to do any writing over the holiday weekend, so I'm just gonna write a real quick review so that I don't get behind :) Let's go Niners! Three game winning streak, 5-5 record, they're actually being mentioned as a dark horse wild card team by actual experts. Hey, I'd settle for a 7-9 record come January. Ok, on to the Survivor...

WHITE PEOPLE SUCK

I don't want to pull a Cory from Real World: San Francisco ("My race is sooo boring!") but I'm trying real hard not to be worried about the possibility of the "most-diverse Survivor ever" winding up being the one where the white people screwed over the minorities. Seriously, an all-white final four would be kind of embarrassing, right? Well, what are you gonna do. I really only hate Adam and Candice...yes, I'm back to kind of liking Jonathan again--I know! I hated him last week! Every week, I change my feelings, and last week, I thought, I can't believe I actually ever liked the guy, and now, I feel kinda sorry for him, though his "Look at me, I'm a Jew on a camping trip, can ya believe it schtick is tres oy vey. When he was all "Who knew a Jew could climb a tree?" I was all, "Uh, Ethan could climb a tree, Ethan could do anything, so spare us the tired, self-deprecating routine, Jonathan. But I do respect how he freely admits that his impulsive decision to switch teams with Candice was a huge mistake and that he's made the game much harder on himself. Now he feels (rightly) that he has to bust his hump working, providing and hustling if he stands a chance of being kept around. Then we cut to Adam and Candice vowing to be the Final Two, which is so boring and terrible I can't stand it but I also feel, it's unlikely because they're so stupid. Right? Man, I wish crazy Billy had lasted long enough to make Candice really uncomfortable. Anyway Jenny and Parvati watch the canoodling couple from afar. Jenny glares while Parvati gushes about how cute they are, "They're like, the all-American couple, aren't they? So perfect and white and blond..." She prattles, as Jenny prepares to brain her with a large clam...

At iTunes, Ozzy says he's happy to be the underdog, at a huge 7-4 numbers disadvantage...because he's crazy. Tree Mail arrives, and the Survivors cram to learn what letter of the alphabet corresponds to what nautical flag. Yul tells us "We don't have any other strategic options except to win. We have to work together or we're screwed. He remains the most ripped guy in Survivor history--he looks like those comic book muscle guys where you're like, no one can have that many muscles. Kids, Yul DOES.

REWARD CHALLENGE

Yul is unthrilled and surprised that Raro got rid of Brad instead of either Jonathan or Candice. Then iTunes hears the shocking news that Brad is a juror. I'm still confused about how the numbers will work out for that but, whatever. The challenge is for an authentic island party, complete with "homebrew," and alky Nate gets so excited at this idea that he grabs both his bff Adam and outsider Jonathan in a "Oh my gosh we're gonna get faded!" hug and Jonathan kinda worms out of it, because he's SO lame. I'm guessing he wanted the other tribe to think he didn't think they were gonna in or maybe he's trying to say, 'I'm an outsider, guys, I'd love to come back at the Merge," but Nate is trying to include him, and I don't get why he dissed that. The challenge is hard, two people from each team race out and have to dig a really deep hole at the right co-ordinates, which they get after they dig up the next set (Jeff gives them the first one). All you need to know is iTunes rules and Raro sucks. Raro sits out Rebecca, Parvati and Nate and the looks of irritation and embarrassment at the other's inability to do anything right? Priceless. 'Adam and Candice, confused," Jeff snips at one point, because he loves him some sentence fragments, though Jenny and Jonathan seem even worse. When Adam and Candice watch the others' struggle, they seem almost bored. Where's the passion? Candice only seems concerned about losing because she knows she's going into Exile. Parvati can't understand why iTunes keeps winning--it's called team. And character. iTunes gleefully sends Candice back to Exile again.

POOR CANDYGIRL

Candice cries as she eats a gross sea cucumber--she is tough, I'll give her that. She says "It's not fun to know that people that you like wanna see you suffer." Um, well what did you expect, honey? You backstabbed them. Still, her tears were refreshing, because I was beginning to think she might be a robot.

LOCAL FLAVOR

Itunes is greeted by a scary yelling dude, who subtitles tells us is actually very friendly. Yul, Becky, Ozzy and Sundra delight as they are carried into the village on litters by the singing Cook Islanders. Sundra refers to her tribe as "The Four Orphans," which is sweet--they're like the Boxcar children, sans the mystery solving and rich grandpa. They dance in a lightening storm and even Yul (whom Ozzy calls a "complex and intellectual guy") relaxes and gets his party on. Ozzy claims that "Raro doesn't know what's coming!" I wish that were true but math is math--or is it?

RARO SUCKS

Everyone lazes in the shelter except for Jonathan, who shares his disdain over their inability to see that their laid-back Raroness isn't working for them. He decides to work his butt off to try and inspire them, even though they're way more likely to use him and throw him away, which would be his own damn fault for switching teams. Then he goes fishing and he hangs the fish off his crotch in a disconcerting way--it is both comic and unappealing. Jonathan thinks they can't afford to get rid of his providerness, but Nate was succeeding before he arrived, he's just taking a "You do it" break. Raro gets Tree Mail about memorizing a bunch of island chains by sight. Everyone thinks Rebecca needs to step it up and contribute which may mean she's in trouble or may be a red herring. Anyway, Parvati tries to help Rebecca by coming up with some memory devices, but Rebecca doesn't seem to be into it. I continue to warm up to Parvati--but she better not screw over Nate in support of Adam and Candice.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Jeff is wearing the unfortunate canary yellow shirt. Candice is brought in, and it occurred to me that iTunes should have sent Nate, Parvati or Rebecca--because they sat out in the Reward challenge ant thus, they'd have to play, exhausted perhaps, in this challenge. I guess revenge is too sweet to pass up. Jeff points out that Candice has spent more time in Exile than she has with her new tribe, and Ozzy sneers at the happy face she tries to put on that. Since I'm pressed for time, I won't explain the challenge. Upshot: iTunes rules, Raro sucks, Itunes wins immunity again! Oh, and Jeff praises Parvati's strong swimming skills--I really do think he's over Julie and he's moving on to Parvati, "Don't stand so close to Jeff!" Raro gets to bring home a secret bottle of mystery that Jeff arms them not to open until Tribal Council. I'd love to see what the penalty would be for defying Jeff's orders, but no one dares...I almost cried when iTunes won, I heart them so much--how can you not?

MYSTERY BOTTLE

Everyone speculates about the bottle and most theories are that it'll be about the Merge, that Jeff will dispatch them to iTunes after Tribal Council, or something. Why Jeff would put something as ho-hum as the Merge in a secret bottle of mysterious mystery escapes them. Adam's brain starts to hurt from thinking, so everyone stops. Not before Candice makes the only sensible observation, "It's something bad. If it was something good, wouldn't they give it to the winning tribe?" Everyone sort of agrees to dump Rebecca next, and Adam and Candice plot to oust Jenny next because she's onto their scheme to like, make-out and stuff all the way to Final Two. A Millipede of horror arrives, just when you thought it was safe to watch Survivor. Nate and Parvati bond and throw around names. He'd rather keep their original Raro Five together and kick Jonathan, despite the fact that Nate likes Jonathan and appreciates his hard work.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Everyone enjoys seeing Brad, stylish and dapper in what I believe may be Tribal Council's very first blazer. Brad can't pretend to be solemn or ticked off, and it's laughs and smile all around. He's enjoying the hotel :) Jeff points out Raro's general suckitude at challenges, and everyone talks up how they work hard and can't figure out why they keep losing. When Rebecca says everyone goes out "clamming and octopussing," yes, she just made octopussing a verb, Jonathan has to get all 'ooh, ooh, Jeff, I caught the MOST fish, more than anyone!" As if this helps at all. Jonatham either they notice and care, or they don't. Brad seems impressed when he hears that Jonathan has caught 22 fish in 2 days, but he doesn't get to vote until the very very end. Jonathan can't contain his "Thank-you-very-much-ness" when Parvati says it's cool to have him around. Candice looks irritated, like, "Uh, Parvati, I thought we agreed that Jonathan was LAME!" Then again, it's Candice so she could be serious, sad...she has two faces: smiling, and not smiling. Adam claims tonight's vote is all about productivity, which is true if they oust Rebecca, but sometimes that's something people say when they don't want to reveal or admit to alliances. People love not owning up to really obvious alliances in Survivor. Anyway, in Thailand, Porn-Star Brian and company loved to use productivity as the reason they were picking off the other tribe one by one, even though that wasn't the case. Just ask hard-working Jake...on second thought, don't it'll just rile him up. Anyway, Raro winds up saving the mutineers and ousting one of their own, Rebecca, who seemed to lose her spark some time ago, so no real loss. Even Nate voted her out. She's seemed very sad and withdrawn and not all that interested--or interesting as she was when she was plotting with Nate and making with the funny. Someone gives Rebecca one of those smiley faces on their vote that always comes off snotty to me, even though I know it's meant like, "This doesn't mean I don't like you as a person, I do."

Rebecca is ousted in 11th place. In season One, Joel was ousted for laughing at a sexist comment that Gervase actually made--he also warned Pagong that if they didn't vote as a tribe against the other tribe they'd be picked off. Pagong naively decided that wasn't "fair", many of them voted for Jenna, and Hatch and company took control of the game. In the Outback, the balance of the entire game changed when tough competitor Michael passed out and burned his hands in the campfire, causing him to be airlifted out of the game. In Africa, angry, lazy Lindsay got her butt kicked by a tree, and then Lex, Tom and Kelly. In the Marquesas, Gina fell victim to a numbers game and was ousted by allies Pappy, Neleh and Krazy Kath. In Thailand, it was good riddance to Dumbb Robb and his stupidd skateboardd while in the Amazon, we said goodbye to one-time hostage Shawna, the girl who's fatigue was cured by an influx of boys to her all-girl tribe. In the Pearl Islands, Trish stupidly and fatally plotted against Rupert and failed while in Vanuatu, young dude John K. was booted by Sarge in favor of Twila, a move Sarge would quickly regret. In Palau, strong, quiet Ibrehem was yet another doomed member of the tribe that never won Immunity. In Guatemala we lost Amy, the tough and witty cop way to soon and last year, Dan, Dan, the astronaut man was sold out by Terry. Whatever, Navy guy.

So, there's a lot of time on the clock--oh yeah, the bottle of mysterious mystery! Jeff asks teachers pet Parvati to open and read the bottle after he snarfs at their lame merger theories and fantasies about feasting. Everyone smiley and excited, but when Parvati reads off the news that they will now have to vote out a second person, jaws literally drop. "That's not fun," Parvati says, sadly. Parvati kinda reminds me of Mackenzie Phillips--pre drug meltdown. She could easily join Cao Boi in my "One day at a Time" remake. Jonathan looks especially bummed because he was so happy a moment ago about dodging the bullet with his name on it. Nate keeps thinking about the fact that had THEY won today,m iTunes would be down to two members and they'd be sitting pretty. Oh well, to bad you guys suck at challenges. Then he says something like, "This is whack arnoldland." Closed-captioning, coward that it is, didn't even bother trying to figure it out but Jonathan agrees, just to be safe. Jeff taunts, "There is no sign of a Merge, it could be tomorrow, it could never come." And we din never Merge in Palau, so there's a precedent to that. No one is thrilled at the prospect of facing the red-hot Itunes in another Immunity Challenge. Adam laments the fact that Rebecca stood out as the weak link on the struggling tribe, but no one else does--this vote will be hard. This is a dream-come-true scenario for me, I have always longed for a vote that has to be made with no time for any kind of discussion. The outcome wasn't too exciting or unexpected: Jenny is given the boot 4-2. She and...Nate, I think, vote for Jonathan, who can't believe his good fortune. I kinda felt bad for Jenny, but then I remembered what a bitch she was to Cristina--Karma's a bizzle. In her exit speech (they didn't show Rebecca's, for whatever reason) Jenny basically says that she was impressed with how hard Jonathan worked to prove his worth and she would've worked harder herself had she known there was chance of her being kicked out. Uh, whatever.

Jenny finishes in 10th place. In Season One, the capable and grounded Gretchen was a surprise victim of the no-longer-secret Hatch alliance. In the Outback, Smarmy Jeff lost in a tie-breaker, back when past votes were your ticket out the door, instead of your inability to start a fire. In Africa, Clarence Black finally paid the price for eating those infamous beans while in the Marquesas, Boston Rob aka Chachi was sent home much earlier than he ever dreamed--didn't hurt him in the long run, did it? In Thailand, clever Shii Ann overplayed her hand, siding with the other tribe after the "merge" only to realize to late that the Merge hadn't actually happened. She was the only likeable person on the Thailand cast though, thus making her an All-Star (Kinda like how the Kansas City Royals got to send Mark Redman to the All-Star game this year). In the Amazon, cranky Roger found out that young guys will pick hanging out with scantily clad babes over guys that are always bossing them around, in a heart beat. In the Pearl Islands, things got really confusing. First, each tribe voted out two members: the muscular yet weak Osten and meathead bully Shawn, who were both replaced by the horrible Burton and the worse Lill. The following week we lost "He of the 120%" Andrew, who deserved better. SO we say that Osten, Shawn and Andrew all tied for 10th. Whew. In Vanuatu, Crazy Rory was sent home before he delivered on his threat to burn down his camp and in Palau, sweet, wise and gorgeous Bobby Jon unexpectedly lost a fire-building contest to Steph. In Guatemala, nice-guy farmer Brandon rode of into the sunset and last year, another good-looking nice guy, Nick, was voted out.

Next up: and Yes, it's on tonight, Jonathan yells at the kids and Yul and Ozzy plot to flip the game, so a Merger must be coming soon. I predict that Jonathan will flip in a New York minute to help and I can't wait to see Adam and Candice gone. Please? We'd be soo thankful :)

Peace Out!

Christine :D

Survivor 13.8 "He's slim shady right now, straight up."

The 49ers have won two games in a row, a nice distraction from my "Barry Zito Leaving Oakland" watch. The Red Sox look to be ponying up zillions of dollars for a Japanese phenom, so there's one team I hate that probably won't pursue him...anyway, go Niners! And now, on to the episode...

LIP SERVICE

In the pre-credit teasers scene, we see Jonathan giving some kind of hard-sell peptalk to his alliance of Sundra, Yul, Becky and Candice. He keeps saying all this stuff like, "It's us five, it's us, we're strong, we're the five strong, final five right here," while everyone else nods and avoids making eye-contact with him, I guess in fear of "connecting" with him. Yul chimes in that they need to remain strong or they're toast. Candice tells us that she's not crazy about this arrangement and she wants to hook back up with Parvati and Adam asap, "Because they're like, my friends, not because I miss being around other hot, young white people or whatever." Roll credits...

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

A gorgeous rainbow embraces iTunes island, but the "serious business" music draws our attention to Candice and Jonathan, as they discuss how great it would be if they could get Raro back together after the merge. Jonathan frets, "We have to screw them over before they screw US over. And it's not racist because I'm Jewish, right? I'm ethnic! I just want to be back with my original tribe who I feel much, much more comfortable with!" He actually says something to the effect of having "the four Caucasians in the Final Four," which makes white America UNCOMFORTABLE and then he blusters, "I am determined not to be the guy that made the move too late." Seriously, what is he babbling about? He's in a good alliance, what is his malfunction? Well one is, he trusts Candice. After he gushes about how close the two of them are (remember, he also thought he could get Jeflicka to do what ever he wanted), she tells us that she doesn't trust him, doesn't like him, and wants him gone...

At Raro, everyone's discussing the Merge, which they seem to feel is imminent even though there's 12 people left in the game and the Merge has never happened earlier than 10 but, whatever, expect the unexpected. They're all feeling tight and bonded when Brad casually and stupidly says, "And then, after the Merge, it's every man for himself, I can't WAIT! Well, I'm gonna go fish so you all can talk about me, BYE!" ANd everyone at Raro is like, "The hell? Does Brad want to ditch us?" Nate explains, "He's slim shady right now, straight up." Translation: "I am telling you the truth, Brad is an untrustworthy individual." Nate then tells us how disappointed he is that he can't trust Brad, whom he likes, and then he distracts himself by demonstrating how fake he's gonna be to Brad while he's setting him up for the slaughter. Parvati, Jenny and Rebecca all agree that Brad will be discarded as soon as they don't need his vote to eliminate iTunes.

WHITE FLIGHT

At the Reward Challenge, no one at Raro seems upset to see that Jeflicka is gone. Adam grins, "Thank goodness she's gone, she was like, not hot enough to be here." Rebecca seems relieved to see that Sundra escaped the axe. Then Jeff rather unceremoniously--which is weird in Survivor--lays this twist on them: He'll give ANYONE the chance to switch tribes right now. Yul, who likes his ducks in a row, seems perplexed at the very idea of mutiny. Jeff counts down 10 seconds and Candice steps off the iTunes mat and declares herself a member of Raro. Jonathan impulsively follows her lead, and suddenly, iTunes is down 8 members to four and looking...basically screwed. Ozzy is disgusted, unaware as he is that he was next on the chopping block and he's suddenly gained three bestest buddies, and Yul is stunned, "I thought we had a pretty good game plan and I'm very surprised," he says in an evenly disappointed Ward Cleaver voice. I too was floored by this, just because Candice and Jonathan were in such a good alliance. They weren't on the outs--well, Candice wasn't, anyway, and if they were gonna screw over their alliance,e why not wait until the Merge and do it on the down-low? Instead, they've just hung a big light on the fact that they suck and can't be trusted. Ozzy is unfazed, "Doesn't surprise me," he sneers, "If they don't have the backbone to stay, they'll get theirs." Candice looks nervous. Or bored...or...oh, hell, I can't pretend that I can read Candice, though her irritation at Jonathan's like, TOTALLY copying her is pretty hard to miss.

REWARD CHALLENGE

The reward is for a coffeehouse day with pastries, coffee and letters from home. Everyone is motivated. Two players get rolled in a barrel over an obstacle course, then floated out to see while flags are gathered, and a rope is cut and a flag is raised, you know, standard obstacle course. And after Jonathan and Candice became the Quisling twins, it's pretty freakin' hard not to be rooting for iTunes all the way, and sure enough, Instant Karma strikes, thanks to Super Ozzy and strong and steady Yul. Candice can only watch mournfully from her caught-in-a-current barrel as her old team kicks her traitorous booty. Ozzy taunts Jonathan, "Mutineers are the first people to die, man," and Jonathan, wearing that kooky 1950's "dad" hat he likes to wear is all bemused and oblivious while new tribemate Rebecca stands behind him with a look of approval--for Ozzy. Have fun, Jonny boy. The newly reduced iTunes gang gleefully sends Candice into Exile...

I'LL HAVE A NO-FAT MOCHA HALF-CAF BOX OF MEMORIES, PLEASE

At the Survivor Coffee House, Yul gives his tiny tribe the kind of sincere, and appreciated pep-talk that Jonathan was incapable of at the beginning of the show. Then they all get to put on clean, dry robes, drink coffee, eat donuts and read letters from home, as well as see pictures of one another. It is a great bonding experience. Sundra gets weepy over a letter from her young son, and the day ends in a group hug. "We're family out here," Yul affirms, perhaps silently cursing the recent prodigals who've probably doomed his chances of not using the Hidden Immunity Idol early on. I'm certain he also totally "gets" why everyone told him he couldn't trust Jonathan. Hopefully he can still blindside them with it at some point. I'd have to think that Candice and Jonathan at least (not so much Dumb Adam) would be smart enough to realize that it suits them to let the others (including one another) think they have the Idol themselves and that voting for them is risky. Meanwhile, on Exile Island, Candice has no remorse about selling out her old tribe, "I just wanted to be with my friends. Who just so happen to be white. I'm not prejudiced, okay? Like, I hate Jonathan and he's white. He's always going around saying were "tight" and all, but like, I never trusted that dude in the first place and plus, he's hella old, he's like 35 or something and he has kids--lame!" Then she impressively lights a fire all by herself and bitches about how Jonathan has a head start on bonding with Raro while she's out of the game. Karma's a bizzle, Candygirl. Cue the mocking trumpets of wah-wah.

JONATHAN FINDS NEW PEOPLE WHO WON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH HIM

At Raro, Jonathan is trying his very best to fit in with the cool kids of Raro. Emphasis on TRYING. He's like Jack Lemmon in "Glenngarry Glenn Ross" meets Michael Scott from "The Office." It's kinda hard for me to totally hate Jonathan because I can totally sense the nerdish outsidery childhood that spawned his grandiose desperation, but still, he sold out Yul, who's had his back for weeks while everyone else told him Jonathan was sketchy (including sketchy Candice). Jonathan keeps saying stuff like, "I took a big step into the unknown" and "Now I get to meet all you folks," and then he waits for some applause. Instead, the camp is overrun with chirping crickets and baying wolves. If Ozzy was there, he would have made a dramatic dinner out of those metaphoric critters. Jonathan goes on, "Are you SHOCKED that we came here!? Wasn't it DARING!?" Rebecca avoids eye-contact then shoots him a "Whatever, a-hole," look when he's not watching. Every time he stops talking, the silence overwhelms him and he has to go on, "It was totally crazy to do this, but we were the last ones of our kind left so jumping back here made sense." Because, that's the way to endear one's self to people of color--tell them you were scared to be a minority amongst YOUR diverse tribe so you came over here to realign with the only white people left in the game. In private, Jonathan seems to have determined that he's the guy that made the move too late, "Candice jumped so I jumped, and now I gotta figure out how not to be the first guy they get rid of if we lose." Cut back to: Jonathan raising eyebrows and hackles as he gallingly describes himself to the others as "a loyal person." He tells us he plans to earn everyone's trust by being "non-threatening" and working his tail off, but we all now Jonathan and know that he's gonna run around trying to make eye-contact with everyone and freak them out--they already all look like they wish they could give him back. Nate tells us, in his usual, colorful way, "He must really be smoking some good stuff if he thinks he's gonna roll in here and start stirring things up. You really think we'll have your back after we just saw you sell out your other tribe? Are you dumb?" Nate also says that this raises Brad in his estimation, because Brad COULD have flipped himself to get back with Yul and Becky, and yet he chose to remain with Raro. Then Nate tells us that Jonathan will DEFINITELY be the next person they vote of the tribe, so we savvy Jonathan haters sigh in frustration because we know that means it's somebody else. Later, everyone chills as Jonathan works overtime to ingratiate himself to them by tending the hell out of the fire. Adam gives him a bland, dumb Adam compliment: "You're good at camp." Jonathan sees an opening and starts sucking up to Adam and talks up the idea of an all-White Final Four, "It's all about trust, and apparently, I only trust white people," Jonathan tells him. Adam doesn't seem all THAT fired up about "getting the Klan back together", as it were, but he is smart enough--I know, I can't believe I said that either, but he does wisely see the value in keeping Jonathan around since Jonathan's very interested in keeping Adam around...

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Candice returns from Exile, and is greeted fairly warmly by Raro, and not just the white people. She gets a big hug from Jenny, who may be just thinking, "Yay, someone to stand on in the totem pole besides Brad!" Jeff explains the cool challenge: Both teams will row glass-bottomed boats out to sea, and then look for underwater targets. Then they'll drop cannonballs on these basket-targets, which will release buoys, which will be used to spell a magic Immunity-granting word. Because Raro can't sit anyone out in back-to-back challenges, they have no choice but to play the four people who did NOT take part in Reward Challenge: Rebecca, Jonathan, Brad and Parvati. Nate and Adam are unthrilled that Candice and Jonathan's arrival forced them to sit four members in the first challenge, and now they can't play their A-team. Raro has steering trouble immediately, but iTunes squanders their lead when they can't seem to aim to save their figurative lives. Raro only needs to get three sets of buoys and they have their first two before iTunes scores even one direct hit. Then Raro starts drifting out to sea a little, while Yul gets the swing of things and brings his team back into the game. When Raro accidentally releases a cannonball for no reason, Jeff mentions it in his annoying commentary and Jonathan rolls his eyes, "Oh, PLEASE, Jeff." Jeff is taken aback, "Jonathan, getting frustrated by ME," he huffs. When iTunes gets their third and final set of buoys, Parvati has to scold Jonathan into trying to win instead of bitterly watching iTunes row into shore. Raro doesn't really have a prayer though, since the six lettered buoys are part of the easiest so-called word puzzle in Survivor history. The clue says the letters form the name of the ship from the most famous mutiny in history and it takes all of 20 nanoseconds for iTunes to come up with Bounty. Raro is still floating helplessly off shore as Parvati moans, "Are you kidding me? Son of a..." it is unclear whether she self-edited or was CBS'd.

YUL WOULDN'T BE TRASH-TALKING YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK, JONATHAN

Jonathan and Candice reconnect, sort of, and he's thrilled that she's back because he feels it takes some of the heat off of him since he's not the only newbie. Plus, he and Candice trust each other, he insists. That is of course stupid, because Candice can't wait to run him down to her young pals. Parvati is all, "Dude, what's up with you and Jonathan, he's all telling everyone that you guys are like, hella tight and stuff, like, how tight are you?" Candice sighs, "Uh, NOT! He's like totally lame! I couldn't believe it when he followed by off the mat--I thought he and Yul were all BFF anyway!" Adam and Nate confer in the shelter, and Adam lobbies to keep Jonathan around and dump Brad, because Brad can hook back up with Becky and Yul whereas Jonathan is persona non grata and doesn't stand a chance of realigning with his old tribe. No, Adam did not actually SAY persona non grata. It's a good argument--not really a TRUE argument, because in Survivor, you can't say no to votes. If Jonathan wanted to flip back to vote with Yul and the others, of COURSE they'd take him up on it, they'd have to if it meant their survival. Still, it has the smell of truth--Adam probably does BELIEVE it's true, and since Jonathan and Candice jumped at the first chance to reunite the original white tribe, I suppose there IS some validity to it, and Nate seems to buy it, though he does feel a smidge of loyalty to Brad since Brad didn't choose to flip at the Reward. Adam says that Brad and Jonathan need to be the next two to go, and he doesn't really care what the order is.

So it's all set: Brad's a goner, Jonathan's a goner but his exit is on hold, and everyone hearts Candice for no discernible reason. Seriously, it's not like she sucks, really, I just don't get it. She seems really aloof and "so what," yet everyone seems pretty stoked to have her around, except maybe Rebecca, who is wisely concerned about the white people getting together and going to the Final Four. Hopefully everyone's just looking it as Candice flipping pre-merge instead of post, but they still intend to boot her early on. Candice is dangerous, you can't trust her. Anyway, Nate tells us he plans to "put a Denzel on and play Brad like it's all good." Translation: He is going to put on an Oscar-worthy performance in order to dupe Brad into thinking he is in good-standing with the tribe. Then he goes to Brad and blathers about "keeping the family together and chopping the others up like poop. Ehhhh, yeah. I don't know what that means and I don't wanna know. What I DO know is I can't imagine Denzel Washington saying it. They basically just rag on Jonathan and Candice, "What is this, a refugee camp?" Nate jokes and Brad is left feeling that everything's status quo. Meanwhile Candice is stirring things up with Adam. First, she spins this sob story about how badly she missed him and Parvati and how terrible it was to be on iTunes, even though she seemed perfectly fine over at iTunes. Maybe she was a little bored...or maybe she was depressed enough to hang herself from a palm tree, what do I know? The girl is inscrutable to me. Anyway, she tells him that she felt just so awful every time he was sent to Exile, and that it was always Jonathan's idea to sent Adam--he thought Adam was scared to go and that going over there would "break" him. Which sounds over-the-top enough for Jonathan to have really said it. Adam takes this as an affront to his manhood and starts raving about wanting to "beat his ass," which is something young men say when they want to sound tough though it always sounds kinda gay to me. Candice coos, "He's threatened, that's all," and again, I can't tell if she was trying to calm him down or egg him on. Watching them is like watching Britney Spears and Chris Klein in an MTV production of "Body Heat." It's odd, too, because Candice doesn't seem to be a dumb person, but she does seem socially dumb to me. She really does appear to have switched tribes and shredded an alliance that was working for her because she wanted to, like, hang out with her friends and she's also being very blase about Jonathan's blind devotion to her, which could be very useful to her--even Dumb Adam gets that. So then Adam goes to Nate and Nate calls Jonathan a punk and they both talk about beating Jonathan's ass TOGETHER, which sounds even more queer than before. Then they decide it may be too late to switch the vote away from Brad, even though it seems as simple as whispering Jonathan to everyone before the vote but, whatever. Nate tells us, "We want to take a brick and beat Jonathan in the head with it." That's a real nice sentiment for the Family Hour, CBS. While you're obscuring the butt cracks, maybe you could edit the death threats. Kids are watching--Jonathan's kids are watching, sheesh!

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Ah, Jeff's wearing the dark blue, always his best bet. He asks Brad what he thought about the mutiny and he raves about Candice, "I thought Wow, that's one gutsy gal--now she has four people lined up against her, I wonder what that feels like, to have people all geared up and anxious to vote you out of the game?" Nervous coughing ensues. Jonathan pouts because Brad didn't mention that he was a gutsy guy. Jeff asks Jenny if she's thrilled to just have two new people to kick to the bottom of the Totem pole and she skirts the issue by saying how great it's gonna be to merge with iTunes and "pick 'em of like zits," a colorful phrase she blames on hanging around Mr. Soundbite himself, Nate. Jeff asks Candice if she's concerned at all that Raro doesn't seem the least bit concerned that they're at Tribal Council, meaning that she might be toast and she says no, that Raro is always having a good time and that's part of what caused her to mutiny and he jumps all over that, mocking her for ditching her old tribe and alliance just because Raro has more fun and she huffs that fun is not the ONLY reason she switched. She claims that Raro "wins when it counts," despite the fact that Raro has lost it's last tow challenges since she came aboard. Then Jeff asks Jonathan if HE's concerned about his status and flop-sweat Jonathan is all, "Of COURSE I'm concerned, I was the second guy off the mat--maybe it was only a second later but still, the perception may be that I'm expendable." Candice shoots him a withering look at his pathetic attempt to imply that he didn't jump off the mat ONLY because she did first. Then Nate joins the Candice is the Awesomest Fan Club, praising her competitive spirit and pointing out that she's the only girl who's been Exiled and that she's returned from their "with her head held high." Which is true--she has proved herself to be tough and capable, I just don't approve of her mercenary character. Jonathan is once again told by someone, this time Nate, that he should chill out with all the "leadership" in other words, stop telling everyone what to do, and he once again insists that he's not bossy nor aggressive nor patronizing and he doesn't understand why, all throughout his life, people having been calling him these things. But, then Brad seals his fate, if it wasn't sealed already, by blithely admitting that he doesn't trust everyone in the tribe, thus offending everyone in the tribe. He gets voted out, and clueless Jonathan exchanges a "Isn't this great!?" look with Candice, who quickly stashes the knife she's been sharpening up to stab in the back with. Then Jeff stuns everyone, myself included, by naming Brad the first member of the jury. The jury has always been made up of the 9th-thru 3rd place finishers in the game, so not only is this way early in the game to have a jury...it's also gonna be an even-numbered jury, unless someone gets kicked off the jury or maybe...the fans will be the tie-break...or maybe I suck at math? Time will tell....

Brad is evicted in 12th place. In season One, Bible-thumping Dirk was sent packing by Hatch's crew. In the Outback, Kimmi, the judgy vegetarian who stopped bathing went home while in Africa, as a result of the game's very first tribe shake-up, dumb, arrogant Silas was cut down. In the Marquesas, Gabe was voted out when all his hippy-dippy nonsense about building a better society started sounding to his tribe like "I don't care whether we win or not." In Thailand, Stephanie the hella boring lady firefighter left, and no one remembers while in the Amazon, another tribe switch-up happened at tough-tawkin New Yawkuh Jeanne was voted out. In the Pearl Islands, the forgettable Michelle left--she was friends with bullies Burton and Shawn? Oh, who cares. In Vanuatu, poor Lisa paid the price when Evil Lesbian Ami misunderstood something Lisa said and in Palau, James who should've been Jim Bob was voted out of the Incredibly Shrinking Tribe. In Guatemala, Smart Brian left us far too early and last year, Bobby, the King of the "overshare," Mr. "I just dropped a deuce," was bid adieu.

EVICTED SURVIVOR FUN FACTS

Brad is a marketing director for the men's division of Lucky Brand jeans. He is a surfer and was a football and track star in high school, so yeah, I still really don't know why he didn't swim in that challenge a few weeks back. He lists "American Idol" as one of his favorite shows--me too, and I'll bet he's fun to watch it with.

Next up: WHO KNOWS!? I love it! I've gotten this off later then planned, and I don't like to make predictions when the show has aired, even when I haven't seen the episode, but I'm gonna do it anyway: Next out will be Jonathan or Sundra--Becky and Yul need Ozzy to make the merge because he might be targeted before Yul.

Peace Out! Christine :D

Survivor 13.7 plus recap recap "It's hard to soar like an eagle, when you're surrounded by turkeys."

So, the clip show took me by surprise the week before last, I guess due to the World Series. I'll do a quick recap of the recaps, there was nothing too shocking or really, too interesting, but it was pretty fun.

RECAP RECAP

Much discussion about the racial segregation of the tribes. Jonathan presumes correctly that the Asian tribe, for example will be made of people from completely different countries, and he points out that he's on the White tribe, but he's also Jewish, so their not all the same either. The Black tribe feels under particular pressure to send the right message and "represent" for all black people. When Nate and Sekou (You've forgotten already, haven't you) struggle to get the canoe to stay afloat, Nate quips that it's understandable since "our people had a real bad experience with boats 500 years ago." At "old Raro", Adam and Candace take their canoe out and get stick on a sandbar. The current is too strong for them to paddle it in, though they struggle mightily to do so. Their muscles are quaking with cold and fatigue by the time they finally decide to ditch the boat and swim to shore. Then later, Parvati snarks, "At first, like, I felt all like, bad for them because they were like, all purple and tired and whatever, but then I was like, DUDE, we hella needed that boat, losers!" Parvati sucks, but the sequence was pretty exciting, and should've stayed in, I think. We see that Billy aggressively tried to make alliances with all of iTunes, and then he says, ignorantly, that he's gonna be the first guy in Survivor history to side with the women, even though every single male winner of Survivor has won in part because of strong alliances with female players. As I've discussed many times, it always behooves men to make allies of women because of the physical nature of the challenges and also, the game's strongest relationships usually come down to issues of genuine compatibility, not gender or race or orientation or whatever. When Hiki loses the first challenge, they feel especially bad, fearing America is watching and thinking "the black people lost". They pick themselves up and get over it, though. Cao Boi tries a hard sell on Yul, insisting that the Asian tribe has stronger cultural ties to one another. Cao Boi REALLY wanted it both ways, didn't he? All he does is pick on the Asians and make them uncomfortable and then he insists that they be loyal to him. I like him, but he's been so hard on Yul and Becky, blaming them for not protecting him when doing so would have jeopardized them because everyone else was getting so tired of his crap. We get little interviews from all the evictees, and they're all boring, except Cao Boi, who feels the need to insult Yul and Becky;s parents for not raising them right. Whatever, dude. We get to see Yul's elaborate attempts to cover up any evidence to his finding the idol, even setting the box he found it in adrift on a little homemade raft. So, THAT won't be available for auction after the show. Then we see Jonathan and Candace's fruitless searches for the Idol during their exiles, fruitless because it was gone, and then we see Adam's fruitless search, which is because he's an idiot and doesn't have even the vaguest clue as to where it should be even though the show gave him...you know...clues. We see Rebecca snarking about how Parvati walking around in her bikini is like "watching a movie" to the guys, and how Parvati's very secure right now. Nate remarks on how fun Parvati is while Adam like how she wears her buff as a mini-skirt, something which would probably cause me to hang myself if I gave it a try. We get a nice scene of Stephanie singing "Amazing Grace" at the Merge party (way better, yet less memorable than Jerri's deleted rendition of Fiona Apple's "Criminal"). We see Nate's stunned anger over the rest of the tribe's decision to oust JP. JP remained clueless until the hammer fell, but Nate knew, and chose to vote against Stephannie anyway, in protest. Later, we see that a lightweight Steph couldn't hold her wine at the party, getting sleepy and slurry after just a few sips. Then we got to hear Ozzy bitch and moan about the lazy girls( Candace, Sundra and Becky) benefiting from all his hard work. Guess what, jungle boy: it's the only reason why the princesses haven't knifed you in the back, so be grateful and hop to it. That was pretty much it. Now, onto the real episode that aired last week, 13.7...

LOOSE LIPS SINK RELATIONSHIPS, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY WEREN'T GREAT TO BEGIN WITH

As you may recall, Nate had been "taken hostage" at the double Tribal Council twist, so he was at iTunes when the show began. They did the "let's show a scene from tonight's show before the credits" again, which I enjoy, I hope they keep doing it. Nate answered a lot of really basic questions about their island: "you have more space, but we have more coconuts" whoop-de-doo, while HE wound up getting the actual insight into Tribal politics, when Jeflicka complains to Yul and Becky, in front of Nate, that she doesn't want to be left out of the next vote, and she's eager to vote out Jonathan. Becky nods politely but doesn't give Jeflicka any sort of assurance at all. Trust me Jeflicka, you won't be left out of the next vote...not exactly. Then Yul, Becky and Candace have a confab where they discuss getting rid of Ozzy or Flicka next, then getting rid of Jonathan before Sundra because he's stronger (even though she was supposed to be their 5th, not their 4th). Yul is calmly unpleased (imagine Yul angry--you can't do it, can you?) about Jeflicka's indiscreetness. It's all very interesting, and the fact that we're getting to SEE all this, leads me to believe it will fall apart at some point. We'll see. Then every gets excited about Tree Mail, which includes a Survivor Catalog. For the Reward, each team gets to pick two items from the book that they'll get if they win. Everyone mocks the dreaded sewing kit. At Raro, Brad lobbies for the tribe to pick a sack of potatoes and a bunch of peanut butter, but Parvati and Adam are like 4 year-olds (Sorry, four year-olds, that was uncalled for) and sit their whining, "But you caaaan't have peanut butter without breeead for saaandwiches!" Adam then shrugs, "Dude, it's 3-2, dude, we voted." Brad goes off to sulk.

REWARD CHALLENGE

The tribes' choices are revealed, and lo and behold, iTunes picked the potatoes and peanut butter, instead of bread at peanut butter. And once again it must be said: Best-fed Survivor tribes EVAH! The challenge is really hard. Survivors must swim out far, one at a time, with a club, climb a platform, jump off and swing the club to break a box that holds a key, retrieve the key from the ocean floor, then swim back. Once they have SIX freakin' keys the others work on a puzzle--a kick ass map of the world. Hostage Nate is chosen to sit out, which is smart--his strength will be sorely missed by Raro, and it's asking too much to expect him to try to help the other team win something he won't even partake of himself if they win. Ozzy was showing a millimeter of butt crack, which CBS protected us from. Ah, what Janet Jackson has wrought. Ozzy dominates, while Rebecca is so exhausted by the time she gets to the platform, she can't even climb it. Nate is peeved that Brad elected NOT to swim in the challenge, "I'm better at puzzles" Brad insists, which is all well and good but why limit your team to only one man in such a physical competition? Candace gives Raro a shot at things when she can't find her key--which unbeknownst to her has remained in the box she only partially broke. She too has to return without a key. Parvati may be annoying but she's a good swimmer, and does her part to get Raro back in the game. At one point, an exhausted Yul and Candace hold one another in a dramatic embrace that looks like the cover of a romance novel--if I had screen-cap powers, I woulda definitely saved it for you all. iTunes gets all their keys first and Jonathan and Becky get to work on the puzzle while Jeff berates Parvati, "You've got to keep moving!" even though she's clearly just exhausted and doing the best she can. I agree with you, Jane, someday one of these fatigued, hungry, beaten up Survivors is just gonna go off Jeff and he's gonna have it coming with all his, "So and so, not pulling her weight," crap he likes to do, after which he goes back so some nice hotel and takes a shower while his assistant fetches him a cheeseburger. iTunes wins Reward and they choose to once again send Adam into Exile.
Turns out Adam and Parvati didn't have to worry about eating peanut butter without bread no matter what happened...

WINNERS EATERS, LOSERS GRIPERS

A bunch of iTunes crabs have their own party, while everyone gets all orgasmic about the peanut butter and we get yet even more hoyay between the iTunes women (but NOT Becky). At Raro, a blown-out Rebecca blames herself, but Nate and others blame Brad, who they feel should clearly have opted to swim today. Brad argues that the team "always chokes at the end," so he felt he was needed there, but he does relent and admit he was wrong. Nate stalks off to catch food for the exhausted tribe, and goes so far to call Brad (who is most likely gay) a "nancy boy." Watch yourself, Nate. Jenny and Parvati also bitch about Brad, "I wanted to punch him in the mouth," Parvati grins, which would've REALLY helped the show loose the "boring" tag that many have hung on it this year. I'm enjoying it, I don't know what else to say. In Exile, Adam is growing unhappy with his tribe, "It's hard to soar like an eagle when your surrounded by turkeys," he insists. You know he read that on a trucker hat and loved it so much it was his Senior yearbook quote. Anyway, he faces the roughest night in Exile so far, as a massive storm pummels him and all he can do is huddle in the fetal position in the shipwreck, and wait for it to pass.

OZZY THE AMAZING

Ozzy catches a bird, and wants help killing it, and no one wants to do it, especially the squeamish Jonathan Livingston Booby. Becky also averts her eyes as stalwart Yul goes off to do the grisly deed. Candace then rhapsodizes about Ozzy, "He's amazing--he catches fish, he catches birds, he climbs trees, he gets medicinal plants. Too bad for him Yul and me and the rest of the pretty pretty princesses have no plans to keep him around after the Merge." Later, Ozzy and Jeflicka try to lobby a hammock-bound Candace into getting rid of Jonathan. Ozzy seems to now be very aware that it's his providing skills ALONE that are keeping him around, that he's not in the power clique, and so he's got to keep playing that card and hoping for the best. For some reason, his awareness of all this makes me less anti-Ozzy, who was so arrogant early on. Candace, who's very hard to read, seems to be interested in what they're saying, though she could be merely feigning interest. I do think Candace is ready to zag from her alliance with Yul and the others if need be, which is a smart way to play the game.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Adam returns from Exile, and Jeff commends him for surviving the onslaught. "I was in pain," Adam admits. He's so beaten up, that Raro puts him on Puzzle duty, instead of swimming, which can't be a good thing. The challenge has all the players putting these giant stool sort of things in these circles in the ground until they form a make-shift stairway that the team can use to ascend a platform. Then 3 players uses a zipline to get to these floating bags of puzzle pieces, and then the other three assemble the puzzle after all the bags are retrieved. iTunes chooses to sit out Jonathan which is interesting because he is so physically strong. I found it a bit odd, since there's no punishment for resting one of the girls each time. The competition is tight, and once gain, Jeff picks on Parvati--Either he hates her, or he's trying to mask a thing he has for her for her--or maybe, he wanted Raro to win because that would even out the tribes at 6 and 6? I dunno. Anyway, Sundra, Becky and Jeflicka try to assemble the puzzle before Adam, Rebecca and Jenny, but Adam is not the handicap you'd expect with the puzzle, mainly because he just stands there as Jenny snatches the pieces out of his hand and almost single-brainedly solves the puzzle herself. Raro wins Immunity!

CBS EDITORS TRY TO BUILD SUSPENSE

We get a lot of Ozzy and Jonathan talk, even though Jeflicka is the obvious choice, being out of the loop, unaligned and not single-handedly providing a surf and turf buffet every night, ala other outsider Ozzy. Candace does complain that Jeflicka is making a nuisance of herself with her "paranoia," but since she's the only one thought Plan Voo Doo was in effect, and she's the one that's gonna go home tonight, one has to wonder if Candace knows what "paranoia" really is. Because, in the words of the great Johnny Fever, if everyone really IS out to get you, paranoia is just good-thinking. Sundra, Becky, Candace and Yul go back and forth on who should get the heave-ho. They seem to feel that they can say with confidence that they didn't need Jonathan to win the competition, even though they LOST without Jonathan. And even though I think he is a player, and I really didn't like the way he tried to strong-arm Jeflicka into a plan that he knew didn't benefit her one bit, I grow increasingly irritated at Candace and Becky's insisting that he's untrustworthy and playing to hard when they're clearly playing just as hard and have plat-out lied to Cecelia and Cao Boi and Jeflicka, so who are they to get all high and mighty about who's being "honest." I think they're wise to see that Jonathan WILL be seeking other options, if need be, but he's no more shifty than they are, with all their backdoor shenanigans. Ozzy becomes the latest to got to Yul and tell him of his mistrust for Jonathan ("He never gives any information, he just asks for it,") and Yul continues to be perplexed by it. "I don't see it," he shrugs, still confident he can trust Jonathan. Nobody seems to have any inkling when the Merge will happen, even though it's never come earlier than when there are 10 people and it's never been later than 9 people, and that was the ONLY time, when the teams lived together but were still two tribes, in Thailand, when Shii Ann got screwed over.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Jonathan once again is asked, one presumes as a white man, to give the PSA speech about how even though they were initially broken up by race, it's personalities that determine who one aligns with in "Survivor." Jeflicka claims that everyone gets along, which is frustratingly true to those that clamor for more conflict, and admits she feels especially close to Ozzy. She's really sweet, and Yul agrees, telling Jeff it's nice to have someone around who's not all that interested in the game. As usual, Jonathan has a big, paranoid reaction to any diplomatic comment that Yul makes, especially when involves praising "Not Jonathan." Ozzy says he realizes he's seen as a threat, but going out as a provider seems like a good way to go if it's his time. It's not, Jeflicka goes out 6-1, and she naturally votes for Jonathan.

Jeflicka is voted out in 13th place--she's the first member of the original all white Raro tribe to be voted out (and the only one NOT to be sent to Exile). In Season One, Survivor's first black woman Ramona was pukey and weak, and probably ready to go, but her declaration that Poor Jenna was her first ever white friend, shortly before Jenna cheerfully voted her out left a bad taste. In the Outback, emaciated Mitch could barely speak and stand, but it was only Colby's last minute decision to side with Tina against Jerri that sent him packing instead of Keith. In Africa, the lazy youngsters cut down "Did your mama nevuh hug ya'?" spouting Linda, and in the Marquesas, a tribe-shuffle separated boobacious Sarah from the only person who had any use for her (see: boobacious), Boston Rob. In Thailand, Ghandia's drama became to much for her tribe, and so was writing her name down correctly. In my favorite TC faux pas, an irritated Jeff had to have a sheepish Clay explain who he meant when he wrote "The Denver Diva" on his card. In the Amazon, the "younger, prettier" girls got rid of Joanna, who was afraid of accidentally worshipping a false idol whenever the tribe won Immunity. In the Pearl Islands, Rupert and the good people got rid of Burton the bully, but Mark Burnett sold us out by letting him back in the game later. In Vanuatu, sweet, gently Bubba was cut down by the ladies while in Palau, Angie, the Illustrated Girl was the latest in the long line of the doomed tribe to be doomed. In Guatemala, Nurse Margaret was sent home in an ugly and memorable Tribal Council during which she was verbally abused by a drunken Judd. Last season, Terry and his boy's club got rid of Ruth Marie, which rubbed Dan the wrong way.

EVICTED SURVIVOR FUN FACTS

Jeflicka is from the "real" Northern California, the people that hate it when Bay Area folk like me say we're from Northern California. She was raised near Redding and moved to artsy, potsy Chico when she graduated high school. She's a fire-dancer like last season's Courtney but waaay less of a poser, and yes, Jeflicka does indeed work the Roller Derby circuit. She lists Legend, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal as her favorite films so...movie night NOT at Flicka's!

Next up: Yet another Twist. I love it. Peace Out :D

Christine