Last week, Coach’s Upolu tribe was able to turn the tables back on Ozzy’s Savaii tribe by winning back immunity in a decisive Immunity Challenge victory, despite the overwrought hand-wringing and melodrama by Brandon… you know, Russell’s nephew, who swore on Day One that he would never reveal his heritage but ended up blabbing it to everyone one week in. The kid’s bipolar personality is starting to become scary. In other news, Coach’s nemesis Christine was able to defeat Savaii’s first victim Semhar in the season’s first duel, and will now face “Papa Bear” Mark in the follow-up.
Duel #2. Normally we get some video of the just-ousted castaway meeting his opponent the night before, but we didn’t get that this week. Guess Christine and PB had nothing interesting to say to each other. Whatever. With Brandon, Edna, Jim and Cochran in the stands, Jeff lays out the rules: both duelers will toss small weighted sandbags, attempting to land them on ten small platforms various distances away from them. First to get all ten remains in the game. It turned out to be a very close contest, but Christine was able to edge PB out with a 10-9 victory, running her streak to two wins in a row. Whoopee ding.
Immunity/Reward Challenge
Today’s I/RC is a test of strength. Three members of each tribe (two men, one woman) will wear a pole on their neck and shoulders like a yoke, and members of the other tribe will take turns putting two ten-pound sandbags on them until they can’t hold them anymore; last team with a member still standing wins Immunity and three live chickens. I loved how Jeff described the options of having chickens as being able to eat “eggs, or… the other”, like he’s afraid the birds are going to freak out or something.
I was quite surprised that Ozzy and coach were not among the weight-bearers, and Dawn and Stacey both were. Keith and Albert go out first, leaving Brandon and Jim to bear the brunt of the weight… in fact, a Survivor record 240 pounds, which ends up being too much for both of them. Finally, it comes down to the two women in their 40’s, Dawn and Stacey. With 140 pounds on each of their poles, I thought that Dawn’s skinny frame would lose out to Stacey’s ample weight-bearing posterior, but Dawn proved something to herself, her tribe and a country full of TV watchers by outlasting Stacey and scoring victory for Savaii. Very proud of her, well done. And this makes three straight weeks that the Immunity Idol has changed locations. These are two very evenly-matched tribes, which is terrific.
Camp Life – Savaii
Ozzy, it seems, has become quite cozy with Elyse, so much so that we see the two share some hammock time together. This does not go unnoticed by Jim, who is determined not to let Ozzy take over the game the way Boston Rob did. He vows that Elyse has got to go soon. Which may be a good play… certainly Dawn and Cochran would be amenable to that plan, but it would also mean pulling either Whitney or Keith into that voting block to make it viable. Cochran, for his part, loves the plan, though he’s dead on in calling Jim’s smile akin to that of a “used car salesman”. Love the kid.
Tree mail this week brought with it… swimwear. Wow, didn’t know there was a Nordstrom’s nearby. Naturally, the sexy girls got bikinis, and middle-aged Dawn got a one-piece. Which is fine with her, she is a Mormon and possesses a fair amount of Mormon decorum, but as the oldest person on the tribe (only Jim is within a decade of her), she wonders how she can prove her worth to the youngsters of Savaii. She’s not a fan of Ozzy, that’s for sure. After the duel, Dawn joins up with Cochran in Jim’s secret coalition, stirring the pot hoping to make a big move. But like I said, this would still involve pulling in either Whitney or Keith. And since Savaii won immunity this week, that plot will have to be bookmarked until next week.
Camp Life – Upolu
I find it annoying that 90% of all of the camera time focused on Upolu since the game started has been centered on Brandon, Coach and Mikayla. I mean, there are five other people on this tribe (Sophie, Albert, Edna, Rick and Stacey), and their face-time combined doesn’t even come close to the prolonged soap opera that Brandon’s Survivor appearance has become. Finally, we get something actually relevant, when Brandon, in apologizing to Edna, relates to her that she’s not really a part of Coach’s inner circle. This shocks her, especially as she was the only one to not callously dismiss him when he stepped off the helicopter on Day One. Me too, actually.
Edna, for her part, takes the news in stride, using it as motivation to up her social game. Which is a very good strategy, but you have to be careful not to do it too much. Stacey – whose strategy seems to be to do nothing at all, EVER – thinks Edna has already passed that point. Whatever, lady, at least Edna’s trying. All you’ve done since the game started was to have one conversation with a person that everyone else hated and is now living on RedIsle. But she does have a point, and Edna this week turned her chatterbox up to eleven. Not good.
After losing the I/RC by a whisker, Stacey felt proud of having lasted so long, but wasn’t convinced that even an impressive showing could save her, seeing as how she got several votes thrown her way two TC’s ago. While Coach tries to pick up his tribe’s spirits by throwing out a bunch of sports clichés, Edna begins to wonder if her number is up. Strangely, she chooses Stacey of all people to confide her suspicions to. Meanwhile, Stacey continues to say nothing at all… except in interview, where she makes plenty of noise. She doubts that Edna could have even lifted 20 pounds, and I’m not sure she’s wrong. I put both of them at about fifty-fifty to go out next.
Sensing the end may be near for her, Stacey finally approaches Coach and basically begs him to keep her over Edna. True, she’s pulled her weight around camp and in challenges far more, and she also hasn’t been an annoying chatterbox. But she also hasn’t smiled or laughed once that I’ve seen, and when you give off gloomy, negative vibes, it affects people. Plus, I’m sure Coach hasn’t forgotten that Stacey allied herself with Christine, which in itself makes her guilty by association.
One bit of last-minute pre-TC drama, one that even warranted the show’s editors using the creepy twinkly music to illustrate the point. Stacey convinces Brandon that Mikayla, Sophie and Albert have a separate alliance, and then Brandon goes right to Coach with this information. Coach takes all of two seconds to tell Brandon to stow that shit right quick. Why, Coach explains, would Brandon believe a word Stacey says, when she’s scrambling for survival? Brandon retorts that Coach got himself hornswoggled in his previous two appearances, and Coach replies that that’s because for the first time, he’s actually playing the game instead of just posturing, which is true enough. Both Coach and Sophie confess in interview that Brandon’s unpredictability and naivety may be his undoing, no matter how noble his intentions may be. Coach is totally right, and I look forward to seeing whether he tames the tiger or cuts him loose.
Tribal Council. Jeff opens the Q&A by asking Stacey about her performance at the I/RC, and Stacey replies that she accounted herself admirably, which is true. After Coach seconds this sentiment, Jeff asks Sophie whether strength is still a major factor in deciding who to keep around. Sophie responds cryptically that the best strength is “strength in numbers”, meaning that if you merge with equal numbers (and the way things are going, that may very well happen), you have to be sure that the people on your side are trustworthy.
Jeff then proposes some “group therapy” by asking various people what annoys them the most about someone else. Rick says Albert snores. Good to know Rick can even talk. Brandon says Edna is too talkative, which she… denies. Edna says that Stacey is aloof and not easy to talk to. Mikayla’s annoyance with Brandon is simply that knowing who is uncle is makes her feel uncomfortable. Jeff then quizzically asks Mikayla that if he’s a good kid at heart, what does it matter who his uncle is, and she replies that “blood’s blood”, and methinks that another set-to between the two is forthcoming. For the moment, however, Brandon reiterates that though he loves Uncle Russell, they are not the same person, and their strategies are not the same either. And then he breaks down crying. Oh jeez, kid, grow a pair already.
Voting time. One by one they vote, and not one of them are previewed, which tells me this is going to be a landslide. Jeff collects the urn, and out come the slips. Edna. Stacey. Stacey. Stacey. Stacey. And… Stacey. Boo-hoo. Not surprising at all. Shrugging off Coach’s fake-as-hell attempt to hug her goodbye, Stacey’s torch is snuffed, and off she goes with a duel against her one and only ally in the game. Should be interesting.
Next week: a disgusting-looking eating challenge. Great. Also, Coach apparently hates his real first name. Sounds like gripping TV to me.
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