Grid Effect

Continuing our day long break from Wire irreverence, we bring you this Survivor recap of last weeks episode. It’s eventful yet telegraphed. Outside of Tracy arising from fans tribe purgatory, we probably could have mapped out the entire episode for you after seeing the first ten minutes.

Pre-credits scene, the favorites are not exactly jubiliant about the results from the night before and Cirie is still on a bit of a power trip. Jonathan and Cirie are still arguing and she is really killing any good will she earned from her original season. If she is voted off tonight it wouldn’t be too soon. Plus, I didn’t watch the original all-star season, but was it also this contentious? They all seem regretful about not winning originally and will regret coming back for a second go-around even more if they lose again. Have these people never heard of the double transgression theory? I’m not sure it applies to appearing on Survivor twice, but you can make it work.

Back with the favorites, they are all speculating about who was booted and they speculate correctly with either Yau or Eliza. Someone catches and eel while Alexis encourages them to behead it, she is quite medieval, that girl. Natalie (I hate throwing these names out here like anyone knows who I’m referring to, just know that Natalie is the half-pug) is voicing over Chet’s lack of contribution around camp. He does seem to just be idly sitting in the water, Mikey seems to take this, much like everything, too personally. Of course all these contestants do. 90% of the time, when someone does nothing it’s either because they are fatigued (the case here) or because everyone lets them (Jenna Morasca).

At the favs, James is offering Eliza some help with her weakened state. He and Ozzy discuss how they made a mistake voting out Yau instead of Eliza, and despite his awesome lack of perception, even James realizes this. They even talk about it right in front of her, which draws an eyeroll that shifts the earth’s axis (it’s funny because her eyes are like bowling balls), James responds to her petulance in kind, “your sick and you’ve got attitude?”. She voices over that nothing would make her happier than to see her entire tribe become stricken with cancer. Lot of morbidity from this season’s cast.

At RC, the fans revel in amazement that Yau is gone. Once that os over, Jeff explains that the challenge is taking colored coconuts each with a letter from an underwater bin then unscrambling a one word puzzle. They’re playing for live chickens. Ozzy and Jason are the first out to the cage while Ozzy spends about five minutes under water while moving all the coconuts towards the opening his teammates will subsequently take there coconuts out of. If there were a challenge God in Survivor, it would most definitely be Ozzy, he’s like the fucking terminator.

Are we sure he isn’t Aquaman?

The strategy works as the favorites finish their puzzle before the fans even finish gathering their coconuts. We liked how James solved the puzzle for his team by asking if the word it spelled was actually a word, then mocked his teammates for letting him be the one to solve it. A little, shall we say, cocky self-deprecation goes a long way on our book.

Over at the fans camp, who have yet to win a reward when it isn’t inclusive with the immunity, lament the state of their tribe and camp. Again. That pretty much sums up every interaction with these people, really.

On exile, Kathy has thrown in the towel in regards to finding the idol. Ozzy, being the competitor he is is now looking for the idol himself. He doesn’t really understand how immensely strenuous this finding this thing is, but if anyone can endure it handily it’s him, since it involves swimming from one island to the next, and naturally he discovers its locale in about two minutes of camera time, with limited sunlight. He shoves it in his hat and holy Christ, he shoves it in his bag without Kathy being any the wiser. It is fucking. bad. ass. he also assembles a fake idol and puts on a ruse that he is looking for food, even at one point plucking some sea vermin out of the water and jokingly asking if she wants to eat it. Since Kathy for whatever reason doesn’t think any of these people she for some reason admires would ever lie to her, she doesn’t even look or act suspicious. He plants the fake idol where the original was, and it is outrageous. He, of course, is assuming there is anyone left in this game that can still find the thing, or that if anyone can they’ll actually buy that the wooden log he carved is an idol.

With this, I think we have a new frontrunner. Ozzy is in a strong alliance, is a challenge beast and now has an immunity idol that no one knows about, at least not at the moment. In addition, he knows of a fake one as well.

Back at the favorites, Cirie is harassing the chicken, and for whatever reason Eliza follows suit. She and Parvati discuss Jonathan “the liar” and Eliza points that out emphatically. Jonathan sidles them intentionally and describes how painful it is, and it’s pretty apt. If anything Jon needs to approach Ozzy and James and try and beat some sense into them should they try and vote out Penner. They can pull Amanda in with all the guys and get rid of either Elize or Cirie, but that is probably wishful thinking.

At IC, they hand back the immunity idol without joking around about it. Incredible. Probably the biggest surprise this season. The challenge consists of collecting necklaces and placing them on a decoding wheel that creates a three word phrase: “Tribe stays intact”. Chet isn’t allowed to sit this challenge out so they bench Kathy. I’m sensing a theme with this tribe. The favorites begin unlocking their, uh, locks beforehand and take a decent lead. Ami is really under the radar this season, I just saw her for the first time I think. The favorites are in this large contraption they have to maneuver through the woods with, they’re doing it pretty masterfully and it looks like Chet is going home unless Joel decides to save him for no reason again.

In short, the favorites win in a landslide as Probst makes abundantly clear for us. They do everything they can to ratchet up the suspense, but the fans are sending one of their teammates home. It seems like the challenges that involve the most luck are the ones the fans thrive in. Its amazing we’re going to be at a dead 8-8 heap here.

Back at the favorites morale is low. Once again. This tribes temperament fluctuates like Carcetti in his primary race. Mikey wants to keep Joel around for as long as possible then “chop his head off” right before merge. I hope his powers of foresight are powerful that he knows exactly when the merge is coming. Now that would be impressive.

The old birds are sitting in their cave and worrying about their fate, at the very least the older blond wants to attempt and maneuver some. Joel is explaining to all the female contestants what’s going to happen and the older blond plays him like a fiddle putting it in his head that he has to get rid of Mikey like he said he would and just all but calls him a pussy. She even refers to herself as intuitive as a reason he should listen to her, which is somewhat meta, because her intuitiveness is impressive as she is playing to his insecurities right now. If anything, her intuition should be a reason for him not to listen to her. She breaks down the simple math that Joel needs to get one more vote with the three of them in order to vote out Mikey. We go to tribal with Chet saying he believes he’s going home.

At TC, Mikey voices his disdain with ineffectiveness at challenges and Tracy wisely points out that in both of the challenges they lost this episode the older teammates were sitting out, so his logic is faulty. Joel is quick to concede that his physical strength, and physical strength in general isn’t the be all end all of challenge skills. Jason halts Probst from sending everyone to vote, emphasizing the importance of the vote they’re about to cast, which upsets Probst and annoys me. We go to the vote, Chet votes for Mikey and Jason (I think) votes for Chet asking him to please leave. Well, its not really his decision now, is it? They read as such:
Chet
Chet
Mikey
Mikey
Chet
Mikey
Mikey
Mikey
What in the hell, Tracy is my new favorite contender on this tribe. God, that handily was like the easiest manipulation I’ve ever seen in this game, she convinced it was in Joel’s own best interest to keep her and Chet around. Who the fuck did they convince to vote with them? Did I miss it because I was looking at my keyboard? It’s interesting how they keep shooting their tribe in the foot at the insistence of the physically strongest yet least reliable teammate. Or I suppose this was more at Tracy’s insistence.

In his parting word, Mikey talks about the weakness of his current tribe and while it is self-congratulatory and an ill-advised attempt to save face, I can’t say I disagree with him about the description.

Tonight: We’re already switching tribes and people start to get a little intense, Joel talks about his insatiable desire to murder yet again.