Grid Effect

Let me just start off by saying how ridiculously disproportionate Thursdays are for television vs. the rest of the week. This Thursday it’s even worse, with South Florida playing the game of its program’s short history tonight at Rutgers, combined with the Indians making a play for the World Series. How to sort all of this out is beyond me, but tis good to have such trivial concerns.

We open at fei-long, and Jean Robert realizes that he could have gone home, and that his poker instincts are going to kick in, meaning he’s going to stop being a prick all the time, and Courtney is a goner teh next time they’re summoned to tribal, so he has at least one more freebee. They sort of argue with each other, but its a lot more tame than their camera interviews.

Zhan Hu, PG is marking the days while Dave continues to do all their work, never the less much of their rice is moldy, which contaminates all the rice for me, but they just seperate the discolored rice with presumably clean rice. Sherea is losing her cool and confronting Dave, but since she never does anything around camp, she’s the last person that should be doing so. She, for whatever reason wants to throw away some shells that he wants to bring home to his mom. It’s fairly petty. Dave talks with the athletic little Asian fellow “Frosti” in the water, he tries to reassure Dave, but its so completely transparent that we don’t need the following interview to clear the air.

At Fei Long we discover RC is at tribal council, which means nothing. The reward is food, and they’re ecstatic.

The RC consists of two teammates carrying little flaming balls of fire across a course with giant chopsticks (like pool queues), we do this until one of the teams score three times. Despite the minimal physical requirements, Fei Long still opts to bench Courtney. Which, when is she a commodity as opposed to a liability? Anyway, the challenge itself is pretty damn boring, they try to add some excitement with the firework that the balls set off when they’re dropped in the shoot. But even when I go to a live fireworks showing, I’m usually drunk have my back to the display in a fruitless attempt to meet women. But whatever.

Long, monotonous story short, Fei Long wins and kidnaps Dave.

Dave is overly animated at camp, and busts his ass there as well. James fends off Dave when he tries to hug him, that’s about the best highlight the castaway is involved in.

Todd points out how nuts he is, and plays nice in order to curry the idle clue, which he hides in the buff he is wearing on his head. Dave asks him if he believes “turnabout is fair play”, which isn’t really what he’s trying to ask, but its how he chooses to phrase it. I think what he’s trying to say is “If I scratch your back will you scratch mine”. Todd however, proves to be the little survivor that could, and now has access to all the clues that have been issued. He has three of them, Jaime has two. And with the former, it’s a matter of sheer luck.

At Zahn Hu, they’re pleased that Dave is if only temporarily, the other tribes problem. But now the rest of the tribe is unsure of how to take care of themselves. Sherea hangs out in the shade and watches everybody. For all her incessant bitching about being aggravated, she sure is fucking aggravating, I’m really, really starting to dislike her. History has proven that in order to utilize this strategy, you either have to be in a majority alliance or a classically attractive woman, neither of which does Sherea fall under the description of. I would say its a selective edit, but she admits as much herself. Kind of boastfully at that. Fucking twit.

A family brings Fei Long some food and we hear lunch lady Denise speak for the first time, I think, ever. It appears her anonymity wasn’t exactly a secret. Jean Robert knows Mandarin and translates for the family and his tribe. We’re all impressed. And a little flummoxed.

Last week he was a pig, this week he’s a hero.

Aaron and Denise go fishing with the family, and they do it by sending out a series of ducks, to go catch fish for them, but tie their throats with a loose, little knot, so they do not swallow anything. James, for whatever reason misinterprets Jean Roberts translation as direct orders. James is starting to seem a little too menacing.

They finish preparing the food, Denise rather oddly explains the experience. We’ll leave it at that.

At IC, the tribes are paring off and throwing these meteor hammers (Ropes with two solid objects tied to the ends of them) at some porcelain vases behind the opposing team that are protecting said vases in “Chinese armor”. And while the challenge is certainly original, they ruin it with these ridiculous “graphic effects” in which they zoom in on the flying hammer and make this weird sound effect every time the throw scores a point. So not only is it generic and distracting, it’s also suspense killing. Fei Long wins, much on the back of James, though Jaime for Zhan Hu takes out two vases in one throw to tie it. But Amanda scores the go ahead point, which Zhan Hu fails to counter. So much for Sherea’s “strategy” (read: self-interest) of preserving her health for challenges.

Back at Zhan Hu, Dave is still annoying everyone, but thanks to Sherea’s lack of initiative, there is a outside shot he’ll get to stay. He even tries to plead with PG and some white guy in a backwards hat, but when someone is willing to say to your face, “I don’t know who I’m voting for yet” instead of bothering to lie and say, “Oh, no dude, you’re safe”; you should be fairly skeptical. Sherea explains how she is looking out for number one, like it’s an admirable trait, really I’d be happy if both of them were sent packing, but since that’s not a possibility, I really don’t care. And it makes this extremely non-suspenseful.

At TC, Dave explains that he never wanted to be a leader, and that its been a tremendous burden. No one put a gun to your head, idiot. Sherea explains that she is attempting to rest herself for the challenges and that is how she contributes, like she’s in a different situation than everybody else. Also, she hasn’t done anything so exceptional that it warrants her camp laziness. Dipshit. Anyhow, they vote, they read as such:
Dave
Sherea
Dave (He at least recognizes he’s obviously going at this)
Dave
Dave
Later, man. I’m just glad he’s no longer going to be burdened. He leaves without even a goodbye gesture. It’s amazing how much self-awareness homeboy lacked.

Tonight aforementioned white guy in backwards hat confides to Jaime that he’s a virgin. And there’s a promise of some tremendous “twist”, M Night Shamalyan style.

In his parting words, Dave pulls the, I gave it everything I had, and if they can’t see how wonderful I am/was, then it’s their problem. Even refers to himself as “priceless”. Yes, in the sense that we never quantify human life, but in any other manner of speaking, not so much.