Lunacy Caused By Maggots

Sorry I'm a little late again. Apparently am still on island time. Plus that whole overnight flight thing with no sleep sorta put a damper on my get-up-and-go yesterday. I know, excuses, excuses, blog girl - suck it up!

I did catch up on the show yesterday & am fully loving it still. No surprise that Julie got the boot in Pensacola Rob's continued domination of the game. No surprise that Mike & Matt beat David (oh, doesn't he wish it were a puzzle?  He is SO good at puzzles (she writes, sarcastically)). And no surprise that Phillip is a lunatic. Not to say there weren't surprises, though. 'Cause there were. 

The Duel becomes a "Triel" (What?)

Right... let's start there... though there's not much to tell you except that now 2 people are allowed to stay at RI and one goes home.  Maybe it's so that poor Matt has someone to talk to (besides the Lord) and doesn't lose his mind.  Or maybe it's a complicated algorithm allowing for the right amount of people left over by the finale on May 8th (seriously, how is that possible?)  At any rate, it was the old 'house of cards' challenge and Mike & Matt kicked David's butt. I am glad that David is a jury member.  I didn't like him much in the game, but I do think he's a clever viewer who should come up with some great questions at the final Tribal Council. Next week it looks like ol' Matty has a bit of trouble with the 'going nuts' aspect of the game.  Poor Matty. I love that Rob knows that Matt is his only real competition in this game too & that he's sending people who can beat Matt (at least potentially, right?) at challenges. The last thing Rob wants is for the challenge Superstar, God-fearing, nice guy, trusting, sweet, handsome, ponytailed, and now kinda pissed off Matty to come back to the game. That would suck if you're Rob. Mike has a chance. He's strong, he's handsome, he's clever, and... oh, no ponytail.  Oh well.

Crazy Phillip (and no, I am not a racist.)

Then there's Phillip.... So last week he starts with the whole wearing the bird feather on his head thing in homage to his 'Cherokee ancestors' (seriously, how do so many Americans have Cherokee ancestors?  I'm thinking Phil's ancestors may have driven Jeep Cherokees...) and then something to do with becoming a Buddhist and meditating on said ancestors who told him to keep on with the relationship with Rob for now, and something about Bird being 'the Word'... (yes, I did make up that last part.)  It's a bit difficult to pinpoint where the maybe-acting-crazy-to-throw-people-off Phillip starts and the maybe-really-crazy-because-that-seems-really-crazy Phillip ends.  The bird feather thing I think is the latter.... a bit of homage more to Coach Ben Wade than to Phil's ancestors. But the rice incident...? 

The Rice Incident Breakdown

• The teams do not share, even though they are one tribe.
• Therefore, team Steel Wool has more rice per person than team Rob.
• This makes people cranky.  Phil stole some of their rice to even things out.
• Team Rob's rice container got mouldy and got maggots in it. (Did this make you go, "Yum, rice!"?)
• Team Rob spread out the rice on a blanket, picked out the maggots and then needed somewhere to put the leftover good rice.
• They asked Julie & Steve.
• Julie & Steve said, "Uh, no. Sorry." (And why wouldn't they? Screw you, big team!)
• This angered Phillip further.
• At some point Julie got so fed up with Phillip she stole his swim trunks and buried them, forcing him to spend all his time in those horrible, saggy, faded Y-fronts. *shudder*
• This angered Phillip further and caused him to start wearing his Survivor buff as a sort of loincloth in front of his pink panties (which, with the buzzard feather, looked extra crazy, but completed the look.)
• During one of Phillip's angry speeches, Steve called Phil crazy.
• Phillip took this as racism. Somehow Phillip associates being called crazy with stuff which goes back generations and makes him think he's being put down for being a black man.
• Something about black men 'self-distructing' and 'going off'
• Millions of different coloured people watching collectively think, WTF?
• Phillip, continuing his now about race tirade, uses the n-word in reference to Steve's reference of Phillip as crazy.
• Follow?

So People Are Pretty Fed Up With Phil and Say Dumb Things

That blonde girl, Ashley (??) at one point said the second dumbest thing so far this season (after Steph's comment about Sarita "sucking at life") when she said something like, "I'd rather die than spend any more time around Phillip."   Really, idiot?  So dumb.

My Boyfriend, the Therapist

Jeff was pretty brilliant at Tribal Council. First, he couldn't believe what he was hearing (but that's kind of normal with anything involving Phillip.) Then, he got the facts straight.  Then he deftly diffused the situation by mediating something like this... "So can we all agree that we don't understand what it's like to be a black man and that to Phillip, Steve's comment could have sounded racist?"  OK.  "And can we all agree that we ALSO don't know Steve's state of mind and how he meant that comment and that there's good reason to think he did not mean it that way?"  OK.  Phew! Thanks, Jeff!  And then, "And who stole the shorts?"  Julie puts up her hand, proudly.  "I stole them and buried them and covered them with a rock!  Ha!"  Quite funny and reminiscent of the Alligator Shoes Incident of last season.  Perhaps the show should make Phil's hidden shorts the next immunity idol?  And perhaps they should appoint Jeff Probst to some sort of committee on race relations in America.... Jeff: "If this was a therapy session, I think it was quite successful."  Hee.

So, yeah, Julie got voted off as the next most likely person to beat Matt at Redmption Island.  Steve's kinda tired & sore (plus, they'd sorta look like they were punishing him for the racist comment, which I don't think anyone else believed was actually racist) and Ralph isn't really useful.  Speaking of Ralph, his latest votes were for "Philite" (a few episodes ago) and "Phile" (this episode).  Wow. I hope he's kept around just for the fun misspellings.  I'd love to see what he does with Ashley or Andrea. 

Coming  up, it's fairly obvious that Ralph & Steve aren't long for the game, but things will get super interesting when the Rob-group has to start turning on each other.  Rob would be the obvious choice to oust, but those girls (except maybe Andrea) are so stupid, they won't turn on him.)  Grant will be a target because he's awesome.  And yes, Phil will become a target because he's crazy... not because he's black.  Truly, everyone's just against the maggots in the rice. Rally around that, people!