Grid Effect

Needlessly brilliant episode Last Thursday. We don’t recall these early, seemingly inconsequential ousters being so entertaining, but we’ll take it. Onto the recap…

Pre-credits scene, we open at Fei Long and they are rehashing the Sherea departure, and JR is somewhat disappointed about the verbal berating he took from Courtney and Sherea. Courtney hates everyone, which sounds like its more her problem than all of her tribemate’s. We don’t really like anyone here either, but we realize it’s us.

Back from the credits, PG is assuring James that they “like” him, and think he’s “cool”, probably because they realize that since throwing away their throwing plan, they are essentially at his will, and they don’t even realize he has the idol and knows about the second one. You either have to commit to a plan or avoid it altogether. Of course, given he has an idol none of them know about, one of them would have been sequestered in a hotel somewhere by now.

With his tribe at the riverbank, James breaks off the first one and its a piece of wood with no wording on it, so he picks off the second one and it’s what he’s looking for. He doesn’t get a chance to put the fake wooden plaque back before his tribe returns.

Back at Fei-Long, Courtney is still livid about everyone not voting the way she wants, then complains that they pander to JR more than she appreciates. She is taking it entirely too personally, and Todd lets the mediator in him slip away and starts trying to rationalize with her, irrationally. Todd is talking entirely too much again, and in a long-winded explanation claims he needs his “numbers”, which JR is a part of, then forgets he’s on national television and calls her a bitch with some disdainful overtones. So much for that magnanimous demeanor.

Erik and Jaime find the loose piece of wood pried off the fixture and contemplate whether it’s the immunity idol or not, they keep it just in case.

At night Jaime rummages through James’ things, and this always bothers me. It’s dark, and she feels two pieces of wood, one in each leg of his sweatpants. She assumes it to be two idols, and at this point I’m not sure why she would think her idol is still valid, because why would James still be holding onto a fake idol. But, either way, it doesn’t really hurt to try with the pathetic looking thing she has. Really, it just wreaks of desperation, and that’s kind of where they are right now.

James recognizes that the faux-idol is nowhere to be seen, and he rightly assumes that one of them is under the impression they’re holding the idol. He ponders the prospect of her pulling an invalid idol at Tribal Council, and it is somewhat amusing to ruminate on.

At IC, they merge after a short tangent from Probst. Jaime exasperates that she’s excited to have the idol. They get new black buffs and are staying at Fei-Long’s camp, since they’ve won the majority of the challenges, Probst sends them off to a feast and emphasizes that the “GAME NEVER STOPS”. It seems pretty transparent, but after not eating anything in addition to all the distractions…well, I’d like to think I’d read through the lines there, but I probably wouldn’t.

They eat, drink and are generally merry. They watch a Chinese contortionist show or something. Amanda pontificates a string of run of the mill Survivor platitudes, her and Todd share an obscene look (We get it kids, you’re always scheming) and JR makes a couple lewd remarks about the flexibility of the performers. That pretty much sums up the reward “experience”. Oh, and everything about Courtney reminds me why we’ve turned down several job offers in New York.

JR likes his position and as long as Courtney’s around he’s always up for consideration. Courtney touches Frosti in an innocently provocative manner, he does not begrudge her this show of affection.

They toss around the idea of new team names, they throw around some weird jokes that are essentially along the lines of “are buffs are black, and so is James”, and “Zhan Hu’s buffs were yellow, and they had two east Asian members”, they have to be able to cast better than this. Anyhow, they come up with the tribe name “black fighting wind”. I’m not even getting into the details as to how they arrived at this, because what little detriment it is to my health to type them out, they’re too asinine to justify it.

Probst spontaneously shows up at camp and its to hold the IC. And, sure enough, it’s a memory challenge about their feast. Long story short, it comes down to Frosti (who claimed to have a pedestrian memory) and Jaime, and the former wins immunity.

Back from IC, PG tries to chit chat with James, which, he’s really not the type, or so it seems. She asks if they’re “still cool” and as vague as that is, the context of the conversation I cannot illustrate its true vagueness. Literally, that could mean anything. James of course goes straight to Todd about Jaime’s fake idol, and they both chuckle over it, as does Amanda. They all want Jaime out because she’s the only legitimate threat but also consider Courtney because she’s so off the cuff, James also calls her a bitch, which is not terribly surprising.

I figured throwing this picture up is well advised, since you could have watched this whole season and still not know who Frosti is.

JR wants PG gone because he kind of enjoys her company, then makes veiled threats toward Todd about his inability to win if JR feels he is slighted. Everyone is slighted in this game sans one player, JR. At least to some extent. Speaking of bitches, Todd doesn’t really give a favorable interview here, and everyone in this season really gives you a reason to dislike him.

PG and Jaime are going back and forth about their best move. I don’t understand, from their end, why regardless of whether or not they have the idol, why wouldn’t they grab their remaining four original Zhan-Hu members (the two of them, Frosti and Erik) and approach Courtney about the prospect of getting rid of JR? Because she’s pretty militant about it. At the very least they could force a tie, and that’s better than where they stand. Maybe they did and it was edited out because Courtney stood PAT, but it seems unlikely for some reason. I mean, they were relying on James, but after what they tried to do to him and Aaron, how delusional do you have to be to believe anything he says? When the first conversation you have with someone in Survivor upon waking up in the morning is you asking, “Do you think we’re loyal?” And his response is, “I think you’re loyal to each other”; that is generally not a man to be trusted. Or at least that’s how I was raised.

Jaime tells virtually everyone, including Todd and Frosti about the idol, which is a bad idea regardless of where she stands with the HII. In fact, it would be a much better plan if she didn’t have what she thought was an idol, and was attempting to throw the opposing alliance off guard with their vote. Essentially, sacrifice someone in her alliance for her own benefit.

JR expresses his desire to get rid of PG beforehand, because he likes her, which has some sick twisted brilliance to it in an self-reverse psychology type way. Like he doesn’t trust his judgment around her. And our response here is: her, really?

At TC, there’s a little tension in which JR pontificates about Courtney being a threat because no one will emphasize voting her out due to her ineptness at challenges. But he doesn’t quite articulate it all that well. PG rallies against him just so JR is dragged through the mud again (not that he doesn’t deserve it), and if I were him it would be a little unsettling. It seems like when your name circulates this much at every TC, I can’t think of a reason to “like your position”. They vote, Jaime votes for JR, Frosti gives a peace sign and we see Courtney write a “J”…Jaime interrupts the proceedings to play what she thinks might be the Hidden Immunity Idol. Probst explains the rules of the idol, then throws the thing in the fire after announcing she is mistaken. There’s a smattering of chuckles, the votes are read:
JR
Jaime
Jaime
JR
JR
Jaime
Jaime
Jaime
Jaime
Probst anoints her the first member of the jury, which means we have three contestants at the final vote (what with the even number of jury votes otherwise). Not a terribly surprising episode, and I really can’t remember this much deliberation and drama over such a predictable voting. Makes for a good season, I suppose.

In her parting words, Jaime concedes that she is too nice for the game and that James wasn’t very trustworthy. I really have no idea what she was expecting, nor do I think she realizes how little he actually considered siding with her. Also, too nice? She conspired to have him booted by throwing challenges, and only changed her mind when her original plan didn’t work, in addition to rummaging through his private things…Yeah, you’re a real fucking sweetheart.

Tonight: Todd out thinks himself again and obviously regrets giving not one, but two idols to James, and wants to vote him out (with two idols? Clearly not going to happen, given that he’s already a threat in the physical IC’s doesn’t help either) and there is seemingly some decent strategy.

South Park recap coming later. It was semi-topical, at least in my household.