Monday, February 13, 2006
Survivor Panama, Episode Two
This Game Isn't Fair
by Diamond
Previously on Survivor: Asshole Island, TJ opened up the new season and came up with an awesome name for the show, which I stole because it's not like I could come up with anything better. He also came up with some great tribe names, which I'm sure we'll be able to use for many, many episodes. Burnett went gimmick-wacky with four tribes of four divided by age, a ridiculous concept called Asshole Island, and another hidden immunity idol. However, his streak of creativity did not apparently extend to his casting decisions, because this group of losers is so unremarkable that I can barely tell them apart from each other or remember any of their names. Skulls were cracked, Shane revealed that severe nicotine withdrawal was going to pave his path to victory, Cirie's untethered boobs threatened to kill us all, a sea turtle committed suicide rather than subject itself to the blatherings of a bunch of soulless twits, and Team Scout made the brilliant choice to boot Tina, the only person on their team who had any discernible skills.
Credits. Commercials. You better buy your girlfriend diamonds from Kay Jewelers. If you don't, it's obvious you don't love her. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is starring in a new late-season replacement sitcom called "The New Adventures of Old Christine." If the fantastic title doesn't hook you, surely the prospect of yet another show doomed by the Seinfeld curse will.
We rejoin our Survivors on Night 3, in the Team Rudy shelter, in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm, where they are huddling together, trying to keep warm and stay dry, while at the same time not touch each other that way. But it's not working. The keeping dry part, I mean. Shane informs us that they had to do some emergency repairs, but they're still getting wet.
Shane: It's unbelievable, man! This place breeds bad luck!
I guess, if by "bad luck" he means "too much bitching" and "not enough working." God apparently agrees with me and proceeds to strike Shane with lightning. Unfortunately, we will find out later that Shane was not actually vaporized.
At Team Robbbb's camp, the guys are finding out that their "couple of loose sticks and a palm frond" isn't going to win any shelter-building prizes. I guess Aras's plan to use his Jedi yoga mind meld to repel the water didn't work. Oh well, at least it provides BobbyBobDawg the opportunity to practice his blow job technique.
At Team Scout's camp, the ladies attempt to start a fire, and even with the flint, they appear to be having trouble. Well, that didn't take long. Good thing they voted out Tina.
And finally, we segue over to Team Heidi, where Sally and Courtney are demonstrating their pole-manipulating skills.
Courtney: Oooohhhh! It's ripe! We can eat this right now!
Sally: It's gonna be so good!
They head to the beach, where all four girls are now eating and moaning with pleasure. Misty may actually have an orgasm, but later says she's going to cry. Her arm and hand, incidentally, are covered in nasty red sores. I think it's best if we don't ask where those came from.
Back at Team Rudy, Shane walks along the beach and engages in some self-flagellation over the fact that he misses his kid and has no idea why he came on the show, because it's not like he needs the money. We're only four days in, and we're already getting the soft, sentimental, I Miss My Family Music that usually doesn't show up till weeks into the show (conveniently around the same time of the family visit, not at all prompted by the producer's questions, I'm sure; but anyway, I'm getting way ahead of things).
Good time to figure this out. You couldn't have given it some thought in the, I don't know, what must have been weeks of casting process, and given your spot to someone who actually wanted it? And spared us from having to listen to your whining? You have seen the show before, haven't you? It's not like it's a mystery that you have to be away from your family for an extended period of time. Jesus. This can only end badly.
In his own words:
Shane: This whole scenario is so different than the way that I live my life, like, my life is very busy and it's always all the time, like, ADD, you know what I mean, psycho boy, and I have a real hard time with the nothin'-to-do part.
He then berates the sand fleas and yells at God to stop with the downpours. God laughs and launches another lightning bolt.
God: Suck on that, asswipe.
On to the reward challenge. The tribes file in, and Jiffy immediately throws a wrench into things by telling the tribes to go stand on a bunch of colored discs, men on one side, women on the other. Turning over the discs reveals new buffs for Terry and Danielle. Yes, they are going to pick two new tribes, kickball-style, alternating male-female, with each new person picking the next one.
Wow, this is FANTASTIC. This worked out so well the last time they did it this way. And one episode? That's all we get with the four tribes? I guess that's why Jiffy never bothered to refer to any of the four tribes by their actual names, since we'd never actually need to know them. It's not like I particularly cared for the arrangement, but it annoys me that it was presented as such a big deal, and then it wasn't. Obviously, it was only sustainable for a few episodes, max, but giving up on it after one just seems really lame.
Look, it's a given that the show needs to change a little every season, both in order to mess with the contestants strategies and make for good, fresh teevee, while at the same time, keeping the basic structure of the game intact, because that's what makes the show so popular. But the problem here is that Burnett is clearly out of ideas. He either comes up with new things like four small tribes, but then doesn't commit to them, or he comes up with things like Asshole Island, which are stupid, or he recycles shitty ideas from previous seasons. The first time we had a tribal switch, it was a huge deal, but after twelve seasons, the switching around has already been done every which way, and it's all starting to blur together, and it's just not interesting anymore.
Here's what I think would be great - and I had this idea way back around season 4 or 5, which was when it started getting stale - put everyone at the same camp. There have been hints at this before - at the beginning of Palau, and at the merge in Thailand. But those were only temporary situations - I would have everyone at the same camp and keep them there for the whole show. If you still wanted to maintain the tribal divide, you just have the two tribes at the same camp. What it does is provide lots of opportunity for conflict, particularly over whether the tribes should share resources, as well as for development of friendships and/or alliances between tribes early on. The show is most interesting when the alliances are fluid, so the more opportunity you give to the tribes to mix, the better, I say. Along those lines, I'd go even further - don't have stable tribes at all. Sure, that would be a pretty serious change to the game structure, but not so much that it would ruin it, and I think the show needs a big change. The way I envision it, all the contestants live at the same camp. You still have reward and immunity challenges, but you choose teams randomly at the beginning of each challenge. That way, you have a different mix of people voting at every tribal council. Alliances are harder to maintain because you never know if you're all going to be on the same team, and there could be a lot more power-shifting.
I don't know. Maybe it's a ridiculous idea, but there it is. I'll just sit here and wait for Mark Burnett to call me with an offer to help produce the next edition. Where was I, anyway? Oh yeah, we were picking new tribes.
So we have Terry as the first member of La Mina, and Danielle as the first member of Casaya. Danielle picks first, choosing "the cool guy" with the Boston tattoo. If you're like me, you're a little confused at this point, because she's talking about Shane, who is the last person you'd ever call "cool." So Danielle's judgment is immediately suspect. I also had a brief moment of panic because I thought the tattoo was for the city of Boston, and I was going to have to emphatically disclaim any affiliation with him. But then I remembered that he has Boston tattooed on his chest (along with a scattering of other bits of writing), Memento-style, because his ADD-addled brain probably can't remember his own son's name.
Terry picks Sally, which seems like a safe choice, for the moment. Shane picks Courtney. Sally picks Austin, calling him "the fast guy," which I don't recall seeing any evidence of, but I'll take her word for it. Courtney picks Aras, I guess because the froot-loops tend to stick together. Austin picks Misty. With all the younger women gone, Aras now has to choose one of the three older women. And he picks...Cirie? An odd choice, I have to say, given that Ruth-Marie is still there. She may be a lot older than Cirie or Melinda, but she's obviously way more athletic. Maybe she gives off bad yoga vibes or something. I don't know. Misty chooses Nick. Cirie chooses BobbyBobDawg. Nick quickly snaps up Ruth-Marie, Bobby takes Melinda, the last woman left, and in the final pick, Ruth-Marie chooses Astronaut Dan as this season's Mr. Irrelevant.
So in summary, La Mina consists of Terry, Sally, Austin, Misty, Nick, Ruth-Marie, and Dan, while Casaya consists of Danielle, Shane, Courtney, Aras, Cirie, Bobby, and Melinda. Anyone else besides me see a second coming of Ulong in our future?
Left without a tribe is Bruce, or as he is also known, Mr. Miyagi. Personally, I have a hard time calling him that, because I've never seen The Karate Kid, so it doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I like to think of him as "Painless," because his last name (Kanegai) sounds just like the name of the medical examiner in Presumed Innocent, "Painless" Kumagai. Of course, the original Painless was either incompetent or corrupt (I forget which; it's been a while), which does not bode well for Bruce. But anyway, the consequences of not getting picked are that Bruce gets sent to Asshole Island for three days and gets immunity at the next tribal council. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, on both counts. When he comes back, he gets to sit in on tribal council for whichever tribe loses, and then replaces the person who gets voted out.
Painless wastes no time getting away, and it's on to the reward challenge, for a raft and fishing gear. It's yet another mega-obstacle course, with the twist that the Survivors have to retrieve and carry six wooden snakes along the way. Kind of random, but okay. Mostly I think Jiffy just likes saying "wooden snake" a lot. The last two snakes are buried in a deadly pit of leaves. I think we can all guess right now which team will lose.
The tribes are pretty even for most of the race. Highlights include Austin getting whacked in the back with one of the wooden snakes; Shane falling off the balance portion and having to start over, because he sucks; Cirie landing crotch-first on Bobby's head (his actual head, the one on top of his shoulders; because otherwise, gross); and Jiffy helpfully yelling, "This is going to be a challenge for the snake wranglers! It's a lot to handle!" Oh sure, Iike we haven't heard that one before. Ain't always true, is all I'm saying. What? I'm still talking about the challenge.
In the end, as expected, Casaya is done in by the leaves, Jiffy's got nothin' for them, and La Mina wins the fishing gear.
Commercials. Guess what I won't be watching? Dr. Phil's Valentine's Day primetime special with Paula Abdul.
The new Casaya tribe heads back to their camp, formerly Team Scout's camp, where Shane immediately decides to rip the guys from his old tribe for that greatest of sins, wanting to work. Logic not being his strong suit, he has yet to make the connection between the "working" and the "shelter. Crazy, I know. Although I suppose when you have the ability to have God do your bidding when you don't want rain, shelter is not an issue. Shane reveals that he's "34 going on 12." I'm totally with him on the "going on 12 part" (though of course that's probably an insult to 12 year-olds, many of whom are more mature than this nitwit), but yikes, 34? Really? I'd say he looks at least ten years older, and not in a good way. That three pack-a-day habit has not been kind.
The tribe then inspects their new shelter, which Cirie says has kept them dry. Too bad none of the new tribe members ask who actually built the damn thing, because it would have been hilarious for Cirie and Melinda to have to admit it was the chick they voted out.
Cirie doesn't care for Courtney so much. She doesn't seem impressed by Courtney's fire dance, which mostly consists of her clapping and chanting "fuego, fuego, feugo" like an idiot, or with Courtney's declaration that she's "gangsta Hollywood" because she lives near Playboy Liquors or something. BobbyBobDawg does not seem impressed either, and looks like he'd like bust on her cracker-ass posing, but then thinks better of it after remembering that he's been seen wearing Amherst crew shirt.
Courtney likes having more people around. Shane just likes having girls around. And you know, I don't usually mind the use of "girls" when talking about women, as long as the context is informal (hell, I do it myself), but somehow, coming out of Shane's mouth, it's really, really skeevy, like, I imagine him in real life going after actual girls, the underage kind. He's just so icky. Melinda says she and Cirie don't fit in with the rest of the tribe, and if they lose the next immunity challenge, they're screwed.
Every summary needs a gratuitous picture, and I feel like I should be posting a picture of a shirtless guy, but, well, the guys in this cast really bore me. So instead you get this really cool lizard/iguana-type animal.
Yo, yo. Shane rounds up Danielle, Courtney, and Aras to be his iron-clad final-four alliance. He demands that they not make it dramatic and cheat on each other (because god forbid anyone should ever put their own self-interest ahead of their alliance's), and swears on his son's life. And then he threatens to find and kill anyone who betrays him. Wow, he's like Lex, but without the charm.
Over at La Mina, Terry approaches Austin and Nick about the possibility of forming a four-person alliance with him and Astronaut Dan. Nick agrees, but seems less than enthused. Sally then asks Austin to talk to Nick about forming a four-person alliance with her and Misty, to which he also seems to agree.
Lest we forget about him, we must take a trip out to Asshole Island to visit with Painless. We see him receive a second clue to the whereabouts of the hidden immunity idol, along with the first clue that Misty got, about "why" fate chose her to be the first one out there. Normally, I'd take issue with the inappropriate use of quotation marks to indicate emphasis, but in this case, I suspect that's actually the clue, probably having something to do with the letter "Y." Given that the majority of the contestants are stone-cold idiots, my guess is that in order to guarantee that someone actually finds the idol before the season's over, the producers painted a big red "Y" somewhere on the island and put the idol on top of it. Anything less obvious would probably be too much for them to handle (with the possible exception of Astronaut Dan, who is smarter than all the rest of them combined). Anyway, the new clue is that the idol is not present in a certain marked-off portion of the island, and that it's above the tide line. Which Bruce interprets as being right against the cliffs. I'm not sure how that necessarily follows from the clue - above includes a lot more territory than at, but whatever. Trying to divine the motives of Survivor contestants is always a dubious prospect.
Painless says being on the island is no big deal, just a mere inconvenience. He tries to make a fire and breaks the flint. Well-done. Then he practices some sort of martial art because it helps him prepare for battle, or something. You're going to make me call him Mr. Miyagi whether I want to or not, aren't you? FINE. By the way, for a 58 year-old guy, dude is ripped.
Night falls, bringing more rain, and now the island is not so much inconvenient, as evil. Rain is evil!
And that is it for Asshole Island, because watching one person with no one but the crew to talk to and nothing to do is boring. As far as the gimmicks go, this one may (key word: "may") be interesting with respect to the effect it has on the game, but from a viewer's standpoint? It's a total dud - it's going to be mostly the same for every person who gets sent there. They'll sit around, they'll look for the immunity idol, and that's about it.
Commercials. JC Penny also wants you to know that diamonds are the only way to say "true love." Although rubies might work too. As a general rule, if your phone doesn't reach all the way to the stove, and you don't have a cordless, it's probably best not to make phone calls while cooking, whether to credit card companies with endless automated phone trees, or to anyone else, really. Is everyone at Mohegan Sun like this Jessica Sparsky person? Because if they are? It's not really a draw. I'm just saying.
Back at La Mina camp, the tribe is preparing to use its new fishing equipment. Terry takes some practice shots with the spear and demonstrates how to use it. Most notable about this scene are the dark blue knee socks Sally is inexplicably wearing. Seriously, why? Why would she wear those? I am choosing to believe that she has a circulatory disorder, or is possibly a burn victim, and that the socks are some sort of medically necessary pressure garment-type socks, because I cannot believe any sane person would wear those voluntarily (with a bikini, anyway; they might be acceptable with a long skirt, but that's as far as I'm willing to go). It upsets my worldview too much to think otherwise.
Sally and Nick get the honor of taking the raft out to fish first. We see a bunch of flying fish jumping out of the water, so we know there are certainly plenty of fish out there. Sally tempts fate by saying she should probably practice some more, because she doesn't want to lose it. That's not a bad idea, but might have been better had she thought of it while back on land, or in shallower water. And what do you know, it shoots off her arm and floats sadly down to the bottom, out of reach.
Learning of this development, Terry is none too happy, his dreams of being the new Tom now going down the drain. Poor Terry. First he's upstaged by an astronaut (surely he must have thought he'd have the coolest job this season), and now this.
Well, no matter. It's time for the immunity challenge. Jiffy asks the tribes how they're doing.
Misty: We're all flowers and sunshine and rainbows over here. *twinkle*
Shane: I don't know how they can be all positive. I'm not going to lie. I am a freakin' psycho.
Jiffy: Okay...uh, let's get to today's challenge. The goal is to work as a team to transport a giant zombie head from the ocean to the beach.
The emphasis is all Jiffy's. I think he's trying to make everyone cower at the scariness of the giant zombie head, but it just comes out sounding ridiculous because he takes it so damn seriously. Also, can I just ask here what the connection is between Panama and zombies? Does Panama have an actual history of zombies, or is Burnett just making shit up now? I know the themes are always pretty hokey, but at least they always seemed to have some connection, however tenuous, to the history and/or culture of the location. But seriously, zombies?
Anyway, the challenge: each tribe has a boat with a bunch of holes. Five members sit in the boat and bail it out, while the others go in the water and drag the large crate anchoring the boat towards shore. Drag the boat onto shore, hook it to a hitching post, pull the anchor onto shore, then put the giant zombie head onto the giant zombie body, and win the immunity kebab.
Highlights: Casaya is "absolutely inept," according to Jiffy's play-by-play, even going backwards at one point, Shane is useless (unsurprisingly), and, despite Jiffy's attempts to make it appear close, La Mina kicks Casaya's ass and wins immunity.
Commercials. Even the dulcet tones of Kiefer Sutherland cannot convince me that a partnership between Verizon and MCI is a good idea. No. Just No. This commercial with the doctor killing the fly and then the mother and daughter think they killed the husband? Like, what is that an ad for? Does anyone know?
Back at Casaya camp after the immunity challenge loss, it's the fucking Shane show again. He hates to lose. He's beat. He's wiped out. He wants a cigarette, a coffee, and a big sandwich. He wants to call his kid. I want to poke my own eyes out.
Shane: This is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. I am NOT well.
I won't argue with the "not well" part, and while I agree that coming on this show was clearly a colossally stupid move, somehow I have a hard time believing that in all of his 34 years, he's never done anything stupider. I think it would be a mistake to underestimate his capacity for stupidity, is what I'm saying.
All the bitching leads up to Shane asking Courtney and Danielle to vote him off. Excellent! Remember when I said he reminded me of Lex? Turns out he's actually the bastard child of Lex and Osten. Lesson to Mark Burnett: there's a difference between people you love to hate and people you just plain hate. Guess which one Shane is? Better casting, please.
Courtney and Danielle are, as you would expect of people who've just been told one of their alliance-mates wants to quit, perturbed, and they try to convince him to stay. Courtney, getting deadly serious, looks at him deeply and says, "Don't fall down on this moment" like it's the fucking Olympics or something, and Shane is the star player everyone is depending on, and not an easily replaceable, high-strung, loose cannon freak. Cirie, speaking for the entire viewing public, says if he wants to quit, let him quit! Aras has other ideas, and gets his yoga mind meld working at exactly the wrong time. Yes, he convinces Shane to stay.
Aras then decides that with his alliance stable and in the majority, he might as well be an asshole. Because what's the point of going on Survivor: Asshole Island, if you're not going to take advantage of the opportunity to live up to the name? He unilaterally decides to tell Cirie and Melinda that one of them is definitely going home. Shane helpfully reveals the four-person alliance. Courtney, in a rare lucid moment, is pissed, because it's stupid to tell everyone else what your alliance is.
The whole thing is just weird. On the one hand, Melinda and Cirie should be the first two voted out. They have no obvious skills as far I can tell - they're not athletic, they don't appear to be particularly intelligent, and they don't seem to have made any efforts to stand out as hard workers. Really, their only value is as alliance-mates who'll do whatever you tell them (only of value, of course, if they're actually in your alliance). So as strategies go, voting them out makes all the sense in the world. Also, while honesty on Survivor is highly overrated, in my opinion, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing in a case like this, because if the person really has no hope of staying, at least they won't be blindsided at tribal council. However, despite all that, Shane and Aras (rhymes with "Our-Ass") manage to carry it out in a way that is totally ooky. Like, it made me feel bad for Cirie and Melinda, despite the fact that both are totally useless (as well as the fact that Melinda is a dead ringer for the field hockey coach at my high school who was a total bitch). How did that happen? Courtney says that if the instability continues, it will be hard to know that Shane will be there for the rest of them. If?
Cirie and Melinda compare notes about which one of them they think will go first. Melinda cries and says it's not fair. Good lord. Have we become so jaded that we've forgotten the immortal words of the patron saint of bitches, Jerri? This game isn't fair! It's about winning! And if you want to get technical about it, how exactly is it not fair? As I outlined in detail about, Cirie and Melinda suck. That's a pretty good, and fair, reason to vote them off, even when done by people who are assholes. God, can we get this over with already?
Tribal Council. Mr. Miyagi enters, returning from his three days on Asshole Island. Dood, I totally forgot out him.
Jiffy: Shane, you're an unmitigated disaster, in all respects. What's that all about?
Shane: It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. No one in my life that I love has ever died. I've never gotten sick or hurt, never suffered any personal failure, never been dumped. Six days on a tropical island? Worst thing ever. But the answer to your question is yes.
Jiffy: Cirie, how much do you hate these people?
Cirie: I'm human, Jiffy. So, a lot.
Melinda: I don't think there's anything that Cirie or I did or didn't do that you could point to and say, you should have done that better.
I think the key here is "didn't do," and I could think of a whole bunch of things, but we've discussed that already.
Jiffy: Melinda, if they vote you out, will you be okay with it, or will you blow a gasket? You know the best TV comes from people getting pissed off.
Melinda: That quitter Shane can bite me.
Jiffy: Cirie, if it's you tonight...six days? How disappointed will your family be?
Cirie: *whimpering*
Jiffy signs off by saying the tribe seems "a little all over the map," which, roughly translated, means, "this tribe is a giant vortex of suck, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you at many tribal councils to come."
Voting. Melinda votes for Shane with a little head-waggle. No others are shown.
Two votes for Shane. Big mystery who those were from. Everyone else votes for Melinda, including BobbyBobDawg. Interesting that we never saw a second of him doing any strategizing with anyone, despite the fact that the four-person alliance was so out in the open, and he was clearly not part of it. Which means either that he's totally isolated, and voted for Melinda just because he knew that's who they were voting for, or he has a secret alliance with some of them, which was hidden because it's ultimately successful. My guess is the former, but we'll just have to see.
Melinda leaves, Mr. Miyagi gets formally initiated into the tribe, and Jiffy sends them on their merry way.
Melinda's Family Moment: Melinda's Mom, Dad, and yippy dog can't wait to give her a big East Tennessee hug.
Commercials. The Amazing Race starts Tuesday, February 28. Bruck, you certainly have your work cut out for you, after that Family Edition debacle.
Next time on Survivor: Misty tries to live up to her name's reputation. Shane provides another reason to hate him (as if you needed more) when he tries to kill Astronaut Dan. And then he accuses someone else of being crazy.
(As always, thanks to TJ for the awesome vidcaps!) ¶ 8:13 PM
by Diamond
Previously on Survivor: Asshole Island, TJ opened up the new season and came up with an awesome name for the show, which I stole because it's not like I could come up with anything better. He also came up with some great tribe names, which I'm sure we'll be able to use for many, many episodes. Burnett went gimmick-wacky with four tribes of four divided by age, a ridiculous concept called Asshole Island, and another hidden immunity idol. However, his streak of creativity did not apparently extend to his casting decisions, because this group of losers is so unremarkable that I can barely tell them apart from each other or remember any of their names. Skulls were cracked, Shane revealed that severe nicotine withdrawal was going to pave his path to victory, Cirie's untethered boobs threatened to kill us all, a sea turtle committed suicide rather than subject itself to the blatherings of a bunch of soulless twits, and Team Scout made the brilliant choice to boot Tina, the only person on their team who had any discernible skills.
Credits. Commercials. You better buy your girlfriend diamonds from Kay Jewelers. If you don't, it's obvious you don't love her. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is starring in a new late-season replacement sitcom called "The New Adventures of Old Christine." If the fantastic title doesn't hook you, surely the prospect of yet another show doomed by the Seinfeld curse will.
We rejoin our Survivors on Night 3, in the Team Rudy shelter, in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm, where they are huddling together, trying to keep warm and stay dry, while at the same time not touch each other that way. But it's not working. The keeping dry part, I mean. Shane informs us that they had to do some emergency repairs, but they're still getting wet.
Shane: It's unbelievable, man! This place breeds bad luck!I guess, if by "bad luck" he means "too much bitching" and "not enough working." God apparently agrees with me and proceeds to strike Shane with lightning. Unfortunately, we will find out later that Shane was not actually vaporized.
At Team Robbbb's camp, the guys are finding out that their "couple of loose sticks and a palm frond" isn't going to win any shelter-building prizes. I guess Aras's plan to use his Jedi yoga mind meld to repel the water didn't work. Oh well, at least it provides BobbyBobDawg the opportunity to practice his blow job technique.At Team Scout's camp, the ladies attempt to start a fire, and even with the flint, they appear to be having trouble. Well, that didn't take long. Good thing they voted out Tina.
And finally, we segue over to Team Heidi, where Sally and Courtney are demonstrating their pole-manipulating skills.
Courtney: Oooohhhh! It's ripe! We can eat this right now!
Sally: It's gonna be so good!
They head to the beach, where all four girls are now eating and moaning with pleasure. Misty may actually have an orgasm, but later says she's going to cry. Her arm and hand, incidentally, are covered in nasty red sores. I think it's best if we don't ask where those came from.Back at Team Rudy, Shane walks along the beach and engages in some self-flagellation over the fact that he misses his kid and has no idea why he came on the show, because it's not like he needs the money. We're only four days in, and we're already getting the soft, sentimental, I Miss My Family Music that usually doesn't show up till weeks into the show (conveniently around the same time of the family visit, not at all prompted by the producer's questions, I'm sure; but anyway, I'm getting way ahead of things).
Good time to figure this out. You couldn't have given it some thought in the, I don't know, what must have been weeks of casting process, and given your spot to someone who actually wanted it? And spared us from having to listen to your whining? You have seen the show before, haven't you? It's not like it's a mystery that you have to be away from your family for an extended period of time. Jesus. This can only end badly.
In his own words:
Shane: This whole scenario is so different than the way that I live my life, like, my life is very busy and it's always all the time, like, ADD, you know what I mean, psycho boy, and I have a real hard time with the nothin'-to-do part.
He then berates the sand fleas and yells at God to stop with the downpours. God laughs and launches another lightning bolt.
God: Suck on that, asswipe.
On to the reward challenge. The tribes file in, and Jiffy immediately throws a wrench into things by telling the tribes to go stand on a bunch of colored discs, men on one side, women on the other. Turning over the discs reveals new buffs for Terry and Danielle. Yes, they are going to pick two new tribes, kickball-style, alternating male-female, with each new person picking the next one.
Wow, this is FANTASTIC. This worked out so well the last time they did it this way. And one episode? That's all we get with the four tribes? I guess that's why Jiffy never bothered to refer to any of the four tribes by their actual names, since we'd never actually need to know them. It's not like I particularly cared for the arrangement, but it annoys me that it was presented as such a big deal, and then it wasn't. Obviously, it was only sustainable for a few episodes, max, but giving up on it after one just seems really lame.
Look, it's a given that the show needs to change a little every season, both in order to mess with the contestants strategies and make for good, fresh teevee, while at the same time, keeping the basic structure of the game intact, because that's what makes the show so popular. But the problem here is that Burnett is clearly out of ideas. He either comes up with new things like four small tribes, but then doesn't commit to them, or he comes up with things like Asshole Island, which are stupid, or he recycles shitty ideas from previous seasons. The first time we had a tribal switch, it was a huge deal, but after twelve seasons, the switching around has already been done every which way, and it's all starting to blur together, and it's just not interesting anymore.
Here's what I think would be great - and I had this idea way back around season 4 or 5, which was when it started getting stale - put everyone at the same camp. There have been hints at this before - at the beginning of Palau, and at the merge in Thailand. But those were only temporary situations - I would have everyone at the same camp and keep them there for the whole show. If you still wanted to maintain the tribal divide, you just have the two tribes at the same camp. What it does is provide lots of opportunity for conflict, particularly over whether the tribes should share resources, as well as for development of friendships and/or alliances between tribes early on. The show is most interesting when the alliances are fluid, so the more opportunity you give to the tribes to mix, the better, I say. Along those lines, I'd go even further - don't have stable tribes at all. Sure, that would be a pretty serious change to the game structure, but not so much that it would ruin it, and I think the show needs a big change. The way I envision it, all the contestants live at the same camp. You still have reward and immunity challenges, but you choose teams randomly at the beginning of each challenge. That way, you have a different mix of people voting at every tribal council. Alliances are harder to maintain because you never know if you're all going to be on the same team, and there could be a lot more power-shifting.
I don't know. Maybe it's a ridiculous idea, but there it is. I'll just sit here and wait for Mark Burnett to call me with an offer to help produce the next edition. Where was I, anyway? Oh yeah, we were picking new tribes.
So we have Terry as the first member of La Mina, and Danielle as the first member of Casaya. Danielle picks first, choosing "the cool guy" with the Boston tattoo. If you're like me, you're a little confused at this point, because she's talking about Shane, who is the last person you'd ever call "cool." So Danielle's judgment is immediately suspect. I also had a brief moment of panic because I thought the tattoo was for the city of Boston, and I was going to have to emphatically disclaim any affiliation with him. But then I remembered that he has Boston tattooed on his chest (along with a scattering of other bits of writing), Memento-style, because his ADD-addled brain probably can't remember his own son's name.
Terry picks Sally, which seems like a safe choice, for the moment. Shane picks Courtney. Sally picks Austin, calling him "the fast guy," which I don't recall seeing any evidence of, but I'll take her word for it. Courtney picks Aras, I guess because the froot-loops tend to stick together. Austin picks Misty. With all the younger women gone, Aras now has to choose one of the three older women. And he picks...Cirie? An odd choice, I have to say, given that Ruth-Marie is still there. She may be a lot older than Cirie or Melinda, but she's obviously way more athletic. Maybe she gives off bad yoga vibes or something. I don't know. Misty chooses Nick. Cirie chooses BobbyBobDawg. Nick quickly snaps up Ruth-Marie, Bobby takes Melinda, the last woman left, and in the final pick, Ruth-Marie chooses Astronaut Dan as this season's Mr. Irrelevant.
So in summary, La Mina consists of Terry, Sally, Austin, Misty, Nick, Ruth-Marie, and Dan, while Casaya consists of Danielle, Shane, Courtney, Aras, Cirie, Bobby, and Melinda. Anyone else besides me see a second coming of Ulong in our future?
Left without a tribe is Bruce, or as he is also known, Mr. Miyagi. Personally, I have a hard time calling him that, because I've never seen The Karate Kid, so it doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I like to think of him as "Painless," because his last name (Kanegai) sounds just like the name of the medical examiner in Presumed Innocent, "Painless" Kumagai. Of course, the original Painless was either incompetent or corrupt (I forget which; it's been a while), which does not bode well for Bruce. But anyway, the consequences of not getting picked are that Bruce gets sent to Asshole Island for three days and gets immunity at the next tribal council. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, on both counts. When he comes back, he gets to sit in on tribal council for whichever tribe loses, and then replaces the person who gets voted out.
Painless wastes no time getting away, and it's on to the reward challenge, for a raft and fishing gear. It's yet another mega-obstacle course, with the twist that the Survivors have to retrieve and carry six wooden snakes along the way. Kind of random, but okay. Mostly I think Jiffy just likes saying "wooden snake" a lot. The last two snakes are buried in a deadly pit of leaves. I think we can all guess right now which team will lose.
The tribes are pretty even for most of the race. Highlights include Austin getting whacked in the back with one of the wooden snakes; Shane falling off the balance portion and having to start over, because he sucks; Cirie landing crotch-first on Bobby's head (his actual head, the one on top of his shoulders; because otherwise, gross); and Jiffy helpfully yelling, "This is going to be a challenge for the snake wranglers! It's a lot to handle!" Oh sure, Iike we haven't heard that one before. Ain't always true, is all I'm saying. What? I'm still talking about the challenge.
In the end, as expected, Casaya is done in by the leaves, Jiffy's got nothin' for them, and La Mina wins the fishing gear.
Commercials. Guess what I won't be watching? Dr. Phil's Valentine's Day primetime special with Paula Abdul.
The new Casaya tribe heads back to their camp, formerly Team Scout's camp, where Shane immediately decides to rip the guys from his old tribe for that greatest of sins, wanting to work. Logic not being his strong suit, he has yet to make the connection between the "working" and the "shelter. Crazy, I know. Although I suppose when you have the ability to have God do your bidding when you don't want rain, shelter is not an issue. Shane reveals that he's "34 going on 12." I'm totally with him on the "going on 12 part" (though of course that's probably an insult to 12 year-olds, many of whom are more mature than this nitwit), but yikes, 34? Really? I'd say he looks at least ten years older, and not in a good way. That three pack-a-day habit has not been kind.
The tribe then inspects their new shelter, which Cirie says has kept them dry. Too bad none of the new tribe members ask who actually built the damn thing, because it would have been hilarious for Cirie and Melinda to have to admit it was the chick they voted out.
Cirie doesn't care for Courtney so much. She doesn't seem impressed by Courtney's fire dance, which mostly consists of her clapping and chanting "fuego, fuego, feugo" like an idiot, or with Courtney's declaration that she's "gangsta Hollywood" because she lives near Playboy Liquors or something. BobbyBobDawg does not seem impressed either, and looks like he'd like bust on her cracker-ass posing, but then thinks better of it after remembering that he's been seen wearing Amherst crew shirt.
Courtney likes having more people around. Shane just likes having girls around. And you know, I don't usually mind the use of "girls" when talking about women, as long as the context is informal (hell, I do it myself), but somehow, coming out of Shane's mouth, it's really, really skeevy, like, I imagine him in real life going after actual girls, the underage kind. He's just so icky. Melinda says she and Cirie don't fit in with the rest of the tribe, and if they lose the next immunity challenge, they're screwed.
Every summary needs a gratuitous picture, and I feel like I should be posting a picture of a shirtless guy, but, well, the guys in this cast really bore me. So instead you get this really cool lizard/iguana-type animal.
Yo, yo. Shane rounds up Danielle, Courtney, and Aras to be his iron-clad final-four alliance. He demands that they not make it dramatic and cheat on each other (because god forbid anyone should ever put their own self-interest ahead of their alliance's), and swears on his son's life. And then he threatens to find and kill anyone who betrays him. Wow, he's like Lex, but without the charm.
Over at La Mina, Terry approaches Austin and Nick about the possibility of forming a four-person alliance with him and Astronaut Dan. Nick agrees, but seems less than enthused. Sally then asks Austin to talk to Nick about forming a four-person alliance with her and Misty, to which he also seems to agree.
Lest we forget about him, we must take a trip out to Asshole Island to visit with Painless. We see him receive a second clue to the whereabouts of the hidden immunity idol, along with the first clue that Misty got, about "why" fate chose her to be the first one out there. Normally, I'd take issue with the inappropriate use of quotation marks to indicate emphasis, but in this case, I suspect that's actually the clue, probably having something to do with the letter "Y." Given that the majority of the contestants are stone-cold idiots, my guess is that in order to guarantee that someone actually finds the idol before the season's over, the producers painted a big red "Y" somewhere on the island and put the idol on top of it. Anything less obvious would probably be too much for them to handle (with the possible exception of Astronaut Dan, who is smarter than all the rest of them combined). Anyway, the new clue is that the idol is not present in a certain marked-off portion of the island, and that it's above the tide line. Which Bruce interprets as being right against the cliffs. I'm not sure how that necessarily follows from the clue - above includes a lot more territory than at, but whatever. Trying to divine the motives of Survivor contestants is always a dubious prospect. Painless says being on the island is no big deal, just a mere inconvenience. He tries to make a fire and breaks the flint. Well-done. Then he practices some sort of martial art because it helps him prepare for battle, or something. You're going to make me call him Mr. Miyagi whether I want to or not, aren't you? FINE. By the way, for a 58 year-old guy, dude is ripped.
Night falls, bringing more rain, and now the island is not so much inconvenient, as evil. Rain is evil!
And that is it for Asshole Island, because watching one person with no one but the crew to talk to and nothing to do is boring. As far as the gimmicks go, this one may (key word: "may") be interesting with respect to the effect it has on the game, but from a viewer's standpoint? It's a total dud - it's going to be mostly the same for every person who gets sent there. They'll sit around, they'll look for the immunity idol, and that's about it.
Commercials. JC Penny also wants you to know that diamonds are the only way to say "true love." Although rubies might work too. As a general rule, if your phone doesn't reach all the way to the stove, and you don't have a cordless, it's probably best not to make phone calls while cooking, whether to credit card companies with endless automated phone trees, or to anyone else, really. Is everyone at Mohegan Sun like this Jessica Sparsky person? Because if they are? It's not really a draw. I'm just saying.
Back at La Mina camp, the tribe is preparing to use its new fishing equipment. Terry takes some practice shots with the spear and demonstrates how to use it. Most notable about this scene are the dark blue knee socks Sally is inexplicably wearing. Seriously, why? Why would she wear those? I am choosing to believe that she has a circulatory disorder, or is possibly a burn victim, and that the socks are some sort of medically necessary pressure garment-type socks, because I cannot believe any sane person would wear those voluntarily (with a bikini, anyway; they might be acceptable with a long skirt, but that's as far as I'm willing to go). It upsets my worldview too much to think otherwise.
Sally and Nick get the honor of taking the raft out to fish first. We see a bunch of flying fish jumping out of the water, so we know there are certainly plenty of fish out there. Sally tempts fate by saying she should probably practice some more, because she doesn't want to lose it. That's not a bad idea, but might have been better had she thought of it while back on land, or in shallower water. And what do you know, it shoots off her arm and floats sadly down to the bottom, out of reach.Learning of this development, Terry is none too happy, his dreams of being the new Tom now going down the drain. Poor Terry. First he's upstaged by an astronaut (surely he must have thought he'd have the coolest job this season), and now this.
Well, no matter. It's time for the immunity challenge. Jiffy asks the tribes how they're doing.
Misty: We're all flowers and sunshine and rainbows over here. *twinkle*
Shane: I don't know how they can be all positive. I'm not going to lie. I am a freakin' psycho.
Jiffy: Okay...uh, let's get to today's challenge. The goal is to work as a team to transport a giant zombie head from the ocean to the beach.
The emphasis is all Jiffy's. I think he's trying to make everyone cower at the scariness of the giant zombie head, but it just comes out sounding ridiculous because he takes it so damn seriously. Also, can I just ask here what the connection is between Panama and zombies? Does Panama have an actual history of zombies, or is Burnett just making shit up now? I know the themes are always pretty hokey, but at least they always seemed to have some connection, however tenuous, to the history and/or culture of the location. But seriously, zombies?
Anyway, the challenge: each tribe has a boat with a bunch of holes. Five members sit in the boat and bail it out, while the others go in the water and drag the large crate anchoring the boat towards shore. Drag the boat onto shore, hook it to a hitching post, pull the anchor onto shore, then put the giant zombie head onto the giant zombie body, and win the immunity kebab.
Highlights: Casaya is "absolutely inept," according to Jiffy's play-by-play, even going backwards at one point, Shane is useless (unsurprisingly), and, despite Jiffy's attempts to make it appear close, La Mina kicks Casaya's ass and wins immunity.
Commercials. Even the dulcet tones of Kiefer Sutherland cannot convince me that a partnership between Verizon and MCI is a good idea. No. Just No. This commercial with the doctor killing the fly and then the mother and daughter think they killed the husband? Like, what is that an ad for? Does anyone know?
Back at Casaya camp after the immunity challenge loss, it's the fucking Shane show again. He hates to lose. He's beat. He's wiped out. He wants a cigarette, a coffee, and a big sandwich. He wants to call his kid. I want to poke my own eyes out.
Shane: This is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. I am NOT well.
I won't argue with the "not well" part, and while I agree that coming on this show was clearly a colossally stupid move, somehow I have a hard time believing that in all of his 34 years, he's never done anything stupider. I think it would be a mistake to underestimate his capacity for stupidity, is what I'm saying.
All the bitching leads up to Shane asking Courtney and Danielle to vote him off. Excellent! Remember when I said he reminded me of Lex? Turns out he's actually the bastard child of Lex and Osten. Lesson to Mark Burnett: there's a difference between people you love to hate and people you just plain hate. Guess which one Shane is? Better casting, please.
Courtney and Danielle are, as you would expect of people who've just been told one of their alliance-mates wants to quit, perturbed, and they try to convince him to stay. Courtney, getting deadly serious, looks at him deeply and says, "Don't fall down on this moment" like it's the fucking Olympics or something, and Shane is the star player everyone is depending on, and not an easily replaceable, high-strung, loose cannon freak. Cirie, speaking for the entire viewing public, says if he wants to quit, let him quit! Aras has other ideas, and gets his yoga mind meld working at exactly the wrong time. Yes, he convinces Shane to stay.
Aras then decides that with his alliance stable and in the majority, he might as well be an asshole. Because what's the point of going on Survivor: Asshole Island, if you're not going to take advantage of the opportunity to live up to the name? He unilaterally decides to tell Cirie and Melinda that one of them is definitely going home. Shane helpfully reveals the four-person alliance. Courtney, in a rare lucid moment, is pissed, because it's stupid to tell everyone else what your alliance is.
The whole thing is just weird. On the one hand, Melinda and Cirie should be the first two voted out. They have no obvious skills as far I can tell - they're not athletic, they don't appear to be particularly intelligent, and they don't seem to have made any efforts to stand out as hard workers. Really, their only value is as alliance-mates who'll do whatever you tell them (only of value, of course, if they're actually in your alliance). So as strategies go, voting them out makes all the sense in the world. Also, while honesty on Survivor is highly overrated, in my opinion, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing in a case like this, because if the person really has no hope of staying, at least they won't be blindsided at tribal council. However, despite all that, Shane and Aras (rhymes with "Our-Ass") manage to carry it out in a way that is totally ooky. Like, it made me feel bad for Cirie and Melinda, despite the fact that both are totally useless (as well as the fact that Melinda is a dead ringer for the field hockey coach at my high school who was a total bitch). How did that happen? Courtney says that if the instability continues, it will be hard to know that Shane will be there for the rest of them. If?
Cirie and Melinda compare notes about which one of them they think will go first. Melinda cries and says it's not fair. Good lord. Have we become so jaded that we've forgotten the immortal words of the patron saint of bitches, Jerri? This game isn't fair! It's about winning! And if you want to get technical about it, how exactly is it not fair? As I outlined in detail about, Cirie and Melinda suck. That's a pretty good, and fair, reason to vote them off, even when done by people who are assholes. God, can we get this over with already?
Tribal Council. Mr. Miyagi enters, returning from his three days on Asshole Island. Dood, I totally forgot out him.
Jiffy: Shane, you're an unmitigated disaster, in all respects. What's that all about?
Shane: It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. No one in my life that I love has ever died. I've never gotten sick or hurt, never suffered any personal failure, never been dumped. Six days on a tropical island? Worst thing ever. But the answer to your question is yes.
Jiffy: Cirie, how much do you hate these people?
Cirie: I'm human, Jiffy. So, a lot.
Melinda: I don't think there's anything that Cirie or I did or didn't do that you could point to and say, you should have done that better.I think the key here is "didn't do," and I could think of a whole bunch of things, but we've discussed that already.
Jiffy: Melinda, if they vote you out, will you be okay with it, or will you blow a gasket? You know the best TV comes from people getting pissed off.
Melinda: That quitter Shane can bite me.
Jiffy: Cirie, if it's you tonight...six days? How disappointed will your family be?
Cirie: *whimpering*
Jiffy signs off by saying the tribe seems "a little all over the map," which, roughly translated, means, "this tribe is a giant vortex of suck, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you at many tribal councils to come."
Voting. Melinda votes for Shane with a little head-waggle. No others are shown.
Two votes for Shane. Big mystery who those were from. Everyone else votes for Melinda, including BobbyBobDawg. Interesting that we never saw a second of him doing any strategizing with anyone, despite the fact that the four-person alliance was so out in the open, and he was clearly not part of it. Which means either that he's totally isolated, and voted for Melinda just because he knew that's who they were voting for, or he has a secret alliance with some of them, which was hidden because it's ultimately successful. My guess is the former, but we'll just have to see.
Melinda leaves, Mr. Miyagi gets formally initiated into the tribe, and Jiffy sends them on their merry way.
Melinda's Family Moment: Melinda's Mom, Dad, and yippy dog can't wait to give her a big East Tennessee hug.
Commercials. The Amazing Race starts Tuesday, February 28. Bruck, you certainly have your work cut out for you, after that Family Edition debacle.
Next time on Survivor: Misty tries to live up to her name's reputation. Shane provides another reason to hate him (as if you needed more) when he tries to kill Astronaut Dan. And then he accuses someone else of being crazy.
(As always, thanks to TJ for the awesome vidcaps!) ¶ 8:13 PM
Comments:
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Yea! A new summary!
But...
Never seen Karate Kid?
Not even Karate Kid: Attack of the Clones?
For shame.
I loved the summary, of course. (I wanna do polls next time, dammit!!) And I love that you quoted God on the record. He's usually only "sources close to the Vatican" on this stuff.
Next time you speak with the Big Guy, ask Him to please let Shane die now. So painfully that even Mr. Miyagi can't heal him.
P.S. Hilary Swank in "The Next Karate Kid"
pps... my secret word is "noqcfccr," which is a good nickname for Nick, I believe.
But...
Never seen Karate Kid?
Not even Karate Kid: Attack of the Clones?
For shame.
I loved the summary, of course. (I wanna do polls next time, dammit!!) And I love that you quoted God on the record. He's usually only "sources close to the Vatican" on this stuff.
Next time you speak with the Big Guy, ask Him to please let Shane die now. So painfully that even Mr. Miyagi can't heal him.
P.S. Hilary Swank in "The Next Karate Kid"
pps... my secret word is "noqcfccr," which is a good nickname for Nick, I believe.
Diamond, this was an excellent read. I love the vidcap of the knee socks as worn with a bikini.
Thanks for the entertainment. It's way better than watching the show.
Thanks for the entertainment. It's way better than watching the show.
Thanks, D. I may as well announce this here and now: I'm not watching. I am now officially completely reliant on my compatriots for information on this swill. I appreciate your great work.
Love your idea for the new show format. I'm sure ready to see something new.
Thanks for the summary! Nice job!
Thanks for the summary! Nice job!
Brilliant!
You have these fools pegged.
Loved it!
( and the cool iguana lizard thing was a great photo to use)
Thanks for a terrific morning read!
You have these fools pegged.
Loved it!
( and the cool iguana lizard thing was a great photo to use)
Thanks for a terrific morning read!
Awesome!! Absolutely awesome. Much funnier than the actual show (how did I miss Bobby practicing his technique and the knee socks?)
As far as stupid things that Shane has done in his life, I think that naming his child "Boston Powers" (say it outloud) should be right at the top of the list.
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As far as stupid things that Shane has done in his life, I think that naming his child "Boston Powers" (say it outloud) should be right at the top of the list.
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