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