The King is Dead!! The King is Dead!!

I really thought Brenda was smarter than that.  I know Brenda thought she was smarter than that. Perhaps therein lies the rub.  More on that later.

It was a good episode, non?  (Do you know you can leave comments on this site?  Do it! I dare you.) It was good and it was a little bit weird.  The good part was in the strategizing. We're seeing some excellent game-play, and oddly, some non-existent game-play.  Seriously, what is WRONG with Purple Kelly?  She's essentially mute, she's not very good at anything except French braiding her hair, and she is not playing the game.  I guess she wanted a vacation?  Even when she won reward & her team was sitting around having a nice talk & enjoying some food, Fabio says to her, "You don't talk much."  She replies, "No. I don't. Weird, huh?"  Yes, weird.  She won't win, but the sad part is that she'll be a completely ineffectual jury member.  She'll likely vote based on something lame like who's prettier, and her jury question will probably be something like, "Ummmm.... it's hot out, huh?"  Right.  What a waste.  Would way rather have Jill or Tyson or any of the Jimmies.  Sigh. 

The team that won the reward, did so handily.  It was Purple Kelly, NaOnka, Jane, Chase & Fabio.  I'll spare you the details except that my boyfriend Jeff was especially punchy in his commentary.  "If this was for life or death, you guys would be DEAD!"  "Yellow team making NO progress."  "Brenda tries to walk on the barrel... yeah, that'll work.... for a minute."  And something about Benry jumping off the barrel in a loser's salute or something like that... Hee. 

Then the show gets a little weird.  The winners go enjoy their time tobogganing down a volcano (cool!) and riding in a helicopter (cool!) while the losers go back to camp to find a fire has destroyed most of their stuff. Now, first of all, whose bright idea was it to shelter the fire with wooden crates?  The weird part (to me, at least) is that they didn't even show the reactions of the winners when they got back to camp.  Must have been boring, I guess.  In my mind it went something like this:

Fabio:  "Whoooooa!  Dude, this is CRAZY!"
NaOnka:  "What is wrong with you people?  Who's the dummy that came up with that idea?"
Jane:  "We-yull, ah guess ah'm gunna hafta take y'all behind the woodshed and whip ya."
Chase:  "Brenda, you're pretty."
Purple Kelly:   (*insert cricket noise here*)

Anyway, the immunity challenge is worth mentioning because Survivor MacGuyver Jane won it.  And it was a strength/endurance challenge again.  She was up against both Chase & Benry at the end & she kicked their butts.  At one point she just about quit and my boyfriend Jeff talked her out of it.  You can tell he (like the rest of us) kinda loves Jane. (I'm not jealous.)  He tells her, "Don't you quit now! You can do it!" And she did.  Heh. Of course she tells us after that her strength comes from cutting dogs' nails and lifting all those 80 lb dogs.  Seriously.  I have an 80 lb dog.  Maybe lifting my dog should be my new workout....

So then the strategizing. Holly snaps out of vacancy again this episode to talk to Jane about how they need to vote off Brenda because she showed how powerful she was last vote.  (Btw, Holly reminds me of the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall.  Anyone?)  So all of a sudden it looks like they have numbers to vote off Brenda.  Holly, Jane, Dan, Fabio and Benry are all in.  NaOnka, who was Brenda's bff, figures it might be time to make a power play and break up Sash & Brenda.  Chase... oh Chase.... Chase is on the fence, or so it seems at the beginning.  His idea is to vote out Benry because he's a "threat".... How he figures this is beyond me.  He shows everyone that he's still sucking up to Brenda & just like when he picked the girls over the guys in last week's challenge, can NOT see that he's backing the losing horse.  Numbers, dude!  Thing is, Chase is sweet on Brenda.  Chase would do anything for Brenda.  It's sick.  Everyone else can see it, even Brenda who pretty much can't stand him.  Benry sees it & tells us, "Chase needs to grow a pair...." while even Holly looks brighter when she says, "What the #%!* is wrong with Chase?" 

So Brenda's strategy is to talk quietly and reason with her alliance of Sash & Chase.  (Oh yeah, at the beginning of the show, Brenda tells us that she can see why people see her & Sash as King & Queen.... only "Sash is more of a Queen, and I am the King."  Hee.)  Brenda is too good for scrambling. Even Jeff asks her at Tribal Council... "Are you above scrambling?"  "It's not my style, Jeff."  Cut to Alina on the jury, "She's so irritating!"  Hee.  And Marty.... all clean shaven and put together... fantastic!!  His facial expressions did not disappoint. 

For a minute I thought that Sash might make a huge move by giving her the immunity idol, and then voting off NaOnka.  Now that would have shaken things up a bit.  But he did not.  AND just to rub salt into the wound, both Sash and Chase ended up voting for Brenda in the end!!!  I'm not too surprised that Sash flipped on her, but I was surprised that her lapdog Chase did.  How's that for loyalty?  The funniest part was that Purple Kelly voted Benry.  Apparently no one sees the need to inform her of any plans at all.  Maybe they just forget she's there.... Brenda should have scrambled.  She should not have been so high and mighty. She should have not been such a tyrant as King.  And she will not forget.  There will be some awesome girl fighting if NaOnka makes it to the end... I think it'll be Jane vs. NaOnka vs. someone inconsequential. Unless of course NaOnka gets in trouble next week like the previews show... but it's never as bad as they show us, is it?  I'm dying to watch Ponderosa to see how Brenda is welcomed by Alina & Marty.  Hee!  Can't seem to get the videos this year, though, because we're in Canada... Boo, CBS!!!