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