Grid Effect

For those who haven’t seen the movie To Die For, then don’t worry about that post’s title. But essentially it is comparing her to a woman who convinces a high schooler to murder her husband so she can advance her career without the hindrance of a spouse. That might seem a little harsh, I mean, Maretto at one point in time was at least expected to be charming.

Usually we wait until the day of the following episode to write about this. But last night’s episode was probably one of the bigger jokes we can remember from the show, and it can’t be put on hold for a week. Besides, that episode of The Office was too bizarre, we’re still trying to decide if we liked it or not and need to wait until later in the day to transcribe our thoughts on it.

Do you mind if I pull a Stephen Colbert for a second? Good, I CALLED IT! But I really wish I hadn’t. For starters, Natalie either got the worst edit in the history of reality television, or she is the most abominable personality to ever appear on Survivor, either way it is an unflattering debut for someone we were supposed to be watching for the past two months. Is this how all her interviews went and since she was such a peripheral player the production team thought better than to put her on camera talking about how integral and conniving she is? Or did she spend the majority of her camera interviews picking her giant pug nose and scratching her head with a rock?

We spent all night having nightmares about it, we figured our few readers should at least experience some induced nausea.

We mean no disrespect, but it was entirely preferable when she was seen and not heard, and presumably let Alexis do the talking for the both of them. Of course, looking at her is not something we aspire to do either, so please, by all means Survivor contestants, feel free to send her home as soon as possible.

Now, some might consider this sour grapes because we stated yesterday that Jason was now our vested rooting interest, if for no other reason then how maligned he’s been all season. To which we would respond: Please tell me you’re kidding. No, the reason our tone is so disapproving is the manner in which everything was carried out. “Blindsiding” a person who hasn’t had any alliance members for the past week seems mislabeled, we think calling it an overly complicated tedious mess is much more accurate.. Sure, Jason wasn’t expecting it, but he’s a moron. This is the same kid who thought the immunity idol was a stick with a smiley face on it, who thought last week’s vote was about saving him rather than booting Ozzy, who just seems vacant on a general basis. Nice job in booting the most gullible of all the gullible players who’ve ever played this game.

Again, we have no problem with them voting him out, because he was entirely too trustworthy, and too desperate to make any rational decisions so he was just stalling the inevitable. But the way the girls carried it, particularly Natalie, and to a lesser extent Alexis and Parvati, was nauseating. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone quite as vile as Natalie on this show, while others have been smug or dislikable, she has both those qualities plus the additive bonus of being undeserving, condescending, misinformed and egotistical all at the same time.

Shouldn’t there be a limit to how many crap metaphors one uses that mean exactly the same thing, and just become more and more convoluted? (This is asked of James as well, who has a real aversion to apples.) And better yet, does Mark Burnett have to keep throwing them on the air? Her interviews probably ate up a solid ten minutes of camera time, and if she were explaining the cure for cancer, then sure, it would be justified. But when every interview is some morbid explanation of how they’re, “picking off the guys one by one….flossing her teeth with his (Jason’s) jugular”, then we probably only need to hear that once.

We have no idea what Amanda was thinking. Of the bottom four left (Amanda being five), she is the only one we considered having the capacity to make a power play against what’s probably the most pitiful “power” alliance we’ve ever seen this late in the game. So either she is content with aligning with the women, thinking even if Cirie and Parvati are lying to her (I really have no idea where there loyalties lie), she should be able to run circles around them in challenges, or we were giving her too much credit. It may be the former, but when the competition is so underwhelming, Parvati and Natalie are actually immunity threats when standing next to her.

So why even chance it? Would it really have been that difficult for either Amanda, Erik or James to tell Jason he is getting played, implore him to use his idol and the four of them can boot Parvati? Now that would have been a blindside. Not going to such great lengths to boot someone with no friends and no brains.

I don’t expect a game plan like this from James or Jason, since history has proven them to be a little too dimwitted to pull it off. Erik seems like an idiot to us, though we don’t really know anything about him. But Amanda? Didn’t she seem at least remotely impressive in China? No? It might be a situation where from the inside looking out, it seems a lot less obvious than from the outside looking in. We really have no idea what the editing left out, but she said she exhausted all options without us seeing her do anything, are supposed to just take her at her word? Because as far as we can tell, neither Erik, James or Amanda did a fucking thing, all content to just “not go home” on that particular day. As if going home four days from now will be anymore rewarding.

We’ll leave it at this, and recap the finer points from last night’s episode next Thursday, but damn it was frustrating to watch when the solution seemed so simple and favorable for anyone we would consider even remotely redeemable.

Office review later.