Here are some things we learned from last night's episode:
1) Christine is still scrappy. She is the kind of person the casting folks over at Survivor must love. She's got the attitude and will never give up. She will never be one of those girls who decides to quit the game because she's uncomfortable or homesick. She'll press on. She beat Papa Bear (ugh...) in a super close challenge that was fun to watch. I didn't know who to cheer for & I like it when that happens, right? I felt pretty sad for ol' PBear when he got sent home, but... for a guy who "always wanted to be on Survivor" he shoulda had more fight in him from the get-go.
2) Baby Hantz. OK, well we really didn't learn anything new about Baby that we didn't already know. He just kept on with the crazy. Started by apologizing to Christine, who was seriously surprised, though "wasn't sure if she buys it..." Then got all nutso when Stacey told him (sort of) that Albert, Mikayla and Sophie were their own little group. He runs right to Coach (of course) and tells him. Coach, bless him, lost it. "STOP IT!" yells our favourite women's soccer coach - slash - orchestra conductor. Coach tells him - correctly (again, when did Coach get to be the balanced one?) that he's got to stop believing everything he hears. Hee. Then, instead of putting his tail between his legs, our favourite baby nephew - slash - loco ex-con turns it around on Coach & asks him, "How many times have people screwed you on this show?" adding, "I tend to be a good judge of character." Uh-huh. Especially if that character plays football in her underpants.
ASIDE: There's been a lot in the media lately about this whole lingerie football business. About how it "empowers women" and how they're just as tough as men football players and blah blah blah. I don't buy it... You? What's next? Lingerie hockey? It's not empowering if you got to sell it with your panties. Just sayin'....
3) OK, back to the show. Right. Cochran makes a deal with Jim to try to vote off Elyse next, though doesn't entirely trust him because he has "suspiciously white teeth." Well said. Dentists everywhere say, "Whaaaaaaat?"
4) Ozzy is a serial reality TV dater. He can't help his jungly Jesus self. Remember how he dated Amanda when they were on TV together? Yup, he's at it again. This time it's Elyse. On her part, it's either a super smart move, or the worst move ever if the Toothy Jim/Cochran plan works out. We'll see.
5) DAWN! Dawn is pretty much my favourite player right now. I completely love that she started the game off as such a complete mess, but then totally turned it around. Got her head on straight, but is still a little bit on the outs in that she's not in the pretty people alliance. That said, Dawn's working her magic. She's holding her own with the youngsters (note: Dawn's only 40) and she's playing nice. I liked her not making a huge deal of the fact that she wasn't comfortable running around in her underpants 'cause she's Mormon (take note Baby Hantz... Dawn does not start off every other sentence with, "Because I'm a Mormon...") I liked that when the swimsuits did show up and all the girls ran out in their skimpy bikinis, Dawn was the first one in there with, "Oh, your swimsuit looks really cute on you." Girls eat that stuff up. Then, Dawn pulls a huge coup and wins the dang immunity challenge (and the chicken reward!) for her team. After the strong men are beaten, Dawn is up against Stacey holding a bar with about 140 lbs of sandbags on it. Stacey is "holding it up with her butt" says Jeff. Stacey drops and Dawn hangs on and the pure joy on her face when she wins is, well, joyous to watch. "I did it!" she says, almost crying, in a bit of disbelief as her whole team congratulates her with a huge hug. Sniff... I know you were happy for her too. Now, think about this - Dawn herself probably doesn't weigh much more than 140 lbs and they had been out there holding that thing (admittedly not 140 lbs the whole time) for over half an hour. Not easy. Then again, Dawn's had, like, 9 kids or something like that... so probably she's a bit tougher than we think. Rather, tougher than we USED to think. Dawn rocks.
6) Stacey did not lose well. Here's the thing... when you lose a challenge for your team, you've still got to play the social game. You've got to kind of be humble and say, hey dudes, I'm really sorry I lost, I feel pretty bad about it. This was not Stacey's tactic. No one will debate that Stacey did, in fact, do a great job. She hung in there a long time holding that weight on her arse. More than most people probably. But, she lost. But then she pretty much told them all to talk to the hand. "I did great." Ummmm, yeah, but you still lost. Suck up a bit. Then there's the fact on top of that that Stacey's.... well... a little crusty around the edges. She's not super nice. She made friends with Christine and then when Christine got the boot, she really hasn't (as far as we see, anyway) tried to chum up with anyone. Bad idea. She even said it herself, that if she's got to lie, she'll lie (I think it was "I gotta lie to kick it." Whatever.) and that she's got to "git in to fit in"... Then git!
7) Edna is pretty much the opposite of Stacey. Edna is in sort of the same position in that she knows she's not a top-tier group member. (I enjoy how Sophie actually calls their alliance "Five Plus Edna"....) Edna, though is working hard at her social game to make up for it. Thing is, she's working SO hard at it that she's annoying the hell out of people with the asking and the talking and the laughing and the walking on Coach's back (what?) Really. As Stacey herself put it, "Edna is scrambling like eggs in a hot skillet." True, but it's at least a strategy, annoying as it may be. IF, by some crazy reason Edna makes it to the end... you know what? She's got this in her back pocket. She can say, yeah, I wasn't the most physical player, but I was the one who was nice to Coach on day one, and I was the one who got to know something about each one of you. I know how Rick likes to shoot buffalo and how Mikayla got her modelling contracts and the real reason Brendan is loco. Right? We've heard it before where a jury member goes up and says, yeah, you're there but what do you know about me? (Insert argument here about why that doesn't really matter... but it sorta does.)
8) Baby Hantz should really go home... 'cause he's a but nuts and 'cause he's the proverbial "loose cannon". At Tribal Council, my boyfriend Jeff asked exactly the right question..."What's upsetting you right now?" So Baby started crying and going on about how he wants to restore the Hantz name, blah blah, blah. And how he "wants to be someone God's proud of." And it's hard to really tell how to take it. On one hand, dude is obviously sincere. On the other, if I'm Uncle Russell, I'm thinking, "I don't need your sorry loco Christian ass restoring my family name... I'm Russell Freaking Hantz." So, Russell was a "villain" on Survivor... Big whoop. He's not Hitler. Ease up.
9) At the end of the day, annoying, bony niceness beat out crusty, strong crabbiness. Stacey got the boot. If there's another thing we learned, it's that Stacey did not want a hug. I just about blew my drink out my nose when I was watching and Coach says, "Let's all give her a hug," as she gets up to go. The rest of them (can you imagine Rick biting his tongue here?) reluctantly get up and try to hug Stacey, who was having none of it. And Coach tried... hard. Heh. I'm thinking, I've watched Stacey on TV for a grand total of 3 hours and I KNOW that she's A) not exactly the huggy type and B) not going to be interested in hugging people who just voted her out of the game. How does Coach not get this? And yay Stacey for calling them out on it. "It's not real," she told Jeff. SOOOOO true. It's not. It's like when people vote people out and then go "love yooooooou"..... uh, no you don't. You don't love them. You don't really like them. You want them gone so you can get a million bucks. You hug them so you can feel better about voting them out, not to make them feel any better. Jerks. Anyway, I suddenly became a Stacey fan and again am not sure now who to cheer for between her and Christine. Either way, there'll be a crusty, scrappy woman fighting it out at Redemption Island for a couple more episodes and you know either one would love to come back to the game and stir up trouble. For Coach.
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