Grid Effect

So, we didn’t take any notes during the episode last week, was James referring to his injured digit? Or was he trying to be menacing with this faux-threat? At this point in the game with no numbers and no strategy, the only way James could be menacing is if he was physically so a la Joey on this season’s Real World. Yeah. I watched the Real World last night after basketball because Orlando was pwning Detroit, fucking sue me.

Anyway, James’ untimely and unwanted (at least from the producers standpoint) departure from the game was only a small fraction of this episode. He probably had the best reappearance of a medical evacuation ever though, showing up to tribal with an IV. It reminded me of South Park’s parody of the 2000 election in which Mr. Garrison brought in the dying kindergartner to vote for class president.

His appearance at Tribal Council was only the tip of the iceberg, because this episode was probably the best use of the immunity idol since Earl turned it against Alex and his gaggle of cronies. Mainly because it was nice to see it effectively used for once and Amanda was absolutely radiant when she played the thing. It’s nice to see that while my one Survivor (semi but was fading quickly) crush is dispatched, a new one is making a name for herself.

It wasn’t so much that she played it as it was how she played it. From the get-go when she came back from immunity challenge to empty her bag (presumably a little over-eager to do so, but those are bygones at this point), to aligning with one other person (Parvati, bleh) to assist in distracting everyone else while she dug for the idol, to seeing where everyone stood before she actually went in search of the thing, to that fucking Oscar worthy performance at Tribal Council and her subsequent strut up to Probst to put the idol in play, we thoroughly enjoyed the entire spectacle. The only way it was getting any better is if they voted out Natalie instead of Alexis who was literally on her last leg anyways, or if Natalie just spontaneously combusted into flames.

It looks like they’re posing…whatever, do your thing doe (dough? I’m never certain) eyes.

But I think the decision to vote out Alexis was part of the strategy on Amanda’s part. Since Amanda wanted vile Natalie out of the game and Parvati wanted Alexis (I have no fucking clue why, and just when I’m beginning to change my opinion of Parvati, she insists on some shit like this and kills any perceived good will), it was a good compromise to make so Parvati doesn’t run off and tell the other four people about the idol. So even though I disagree with the actual final decision, I concede that it was phenomenal game play.

In other news, Erik could make a bit of an immunity run in the next few episodes. You wouldn’t expect it because he has the hair of a 55 year-old woman and the physique and mindset of a twelve year-old boy (look at his squealing excitement to have is brother and Jeff Probst within close proximity of each other), but he’s deceptively competitive, and aside from Parvati in challenges that require balance and agility he’s in pretty good standing in everything else. We actually let out an audible yelp when he took the target challenge in such convincing fashion.

We’ll never figure out why all the women didn’t just aim for only one person’s bottles in their alliance if their ultimate goal was to have an all female final five. But we suppose that their SURVIVAL instincts kicked in (Huh? Am I right or am I right, people? High five!). Either that or they are over-confident, unoriginal idiots. Historically speaking on Survivor, that has traditionally been the case.

The reward challenge and actual reward were kind of bland. We never much care about the “besmirch each other behind their backs then embarrass everyone by way of Jeff Probst” challenge. At least Alexis got that one taste of victory before being ousted, but ironically enough the person she sent to immunity ended up leading to her torch being snuffed. Why is everyone this season so apprehensive to go to exile island when they know damn well that there is an immunity idol to be had?

Nothing much else happened, we were happy to see that alliance have to turn on each other after their ugly cockiness last week, and judging from the previews last week we expect to see more of the same.