In this tale of now two teams - one gets along famously and is full of pretty nice people, while the other has some nice people and some that are simply insufferable. Guess which one wins? Sadly, it's the one with the insufferables. Team yellow - Skupin's tribe - are self-destructing and full of crazy. Have they ever been to Tribal Council? Nope. So sad, because there are some people who need to go away.
Skupin is one of them, maybe? As much as we may like Skupin for his accident-prone hijinx and wild pig killing, he is apparently not aware that he is difficult to live with. Dude has been eating all of the team's rice... raw. Yes, uncooked, by the handful, like it's popcorn. He figures that it'll 'cook' in his belly because our body temperature is 'close to 100'. OK, well I hate to get all sciency on you, but you are also smart people and you, dear Survivor fans, know that Skupin needs a bit of a shake in the brain department. Sure, body temp is 98.6 Farenheit. That's 37 degrees Celsius. Uhh... the last time I checked, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius... which is about 212 Farenheit. So, you see where this is going, right? Not only is the rice not 'cooking' in his stomach, but it's actually not very good for you and can cause all kinds of unfortunate gastrointestinal issues.... not really what you're after when you're on an island in the Philippines. See...
http://www.livestrong.com/article/415189-what-are-the-effects-of-eating-raw-rice/
Anyway, so we've established that killing pigs, not science or self-awareness, is Skupin's forte. What he isn't, however, is mean. He seems like a pretty decent guy (unless you're opposed to the whole pig killing thing, but that's another debate entirely.) This puts him at odds with the folks on his tribe who are not at all decent people. Tops on that list are Pete and Abi, with Artis as a possible runner-up. Pete and Abi are bullies. They figure they are running the show... and maybe they are to an extent - it's hard to tell when they've never been to Tribal Council. Pete does have the idol. Abi, meanwhile, is continually negative, bossy and just weird. As RC put it after they forfeited a win at the reward challenge, Abi is like a little Brazilian bomb just waiting to explode.
If you missed it, there was a Survivor first, where there was a stalemate at a challenge and the teams themselves decided on a compromise. It was 3 teammates pushing a huge ball in the mud trying to score on the other team. After an hour, neither team had moved the ball more than a foot or two either direction. They were exhausted and muddy (and can we talk about how awesome Lisa was at holding back Denise?) and to win, would have had to score THREE times! So Skupin and Penner come up with a plan. Penner's team will take the reward in exchange for giving Skupin's team the rest of their rice supply... which as we know, was pretty low because it's all sitting in Skupin's belly waiting to cause vomiting, nausea and indigestion. Both teams reluctantly gave their blessing to the deal.
Artis was the most angry about it on team yellow. He wanted the win. However, he was not the one competing - he was sitting out with guess who? Abi. Yup. That girl is useless. Artis and Abi combined to be the biggest complainers about the rice deal - go figure. Over at team Penner, the group enjoyed a good reward picnic and a morale boost of letters from home. However, once they got back to camp, they realized that oh yeah, we're going to be kind of hungry now. No worries, says Penner, I'll go fishing. He tried & tried and only came up with 2 teensy fish. Again, the ones who weren't doing anything about it were the first ones to complain. Carter - who we really haven't heard from as of yet - is now not shutting up about how hungry he is and how his body can't take it and how he'll lose if he has to starve...blah, blah, blah. Sure enough, he dropped the ball - literally - in the immunity challenge.
The challenge was where one person shoots a ball with a sling-shot thingy and the team has to catch them in these lacrosse-type nets. Jeff should KILL at this, right? Well, he did... just not as much as Malcolm, who kills at everything. Sadly, team yellow took it yet again. Carter wasn't the only one to suck at the challenge. Katie, once again, also didn't perform very well and Jeff-the-host was sure to point it out to everyone. "Katie, once again, not performing very well." Yeah, we got it Jeff.
So it's got to be Katie, right? She's the weakest link. (For a sec, I thought, why don't they get rid of Carter instead 'til I remembered that he'll do whatever he's told, which is his selling point. Katie has more of a brain, therefore more of a chance to make her own move or come up with an idea.) But then, it looked like Jeff was going to make a big move and take out Penner. After chatting about it, Jeff and Carter were sitting there when Penner came up to them. Carter says, "What do you think? Katie or Penner?" Heh heh. He covered it up pretty well... and went, ".....errrrr, Katie or Denise?" but it still made Jeff shake his head.
So were you all yelling at the TV like me for Penner to play the idol? Well, the clever editors pulled a good one on us, because clearly Penner knew what we didn't - that he was safe. Though, he did shoot Jeff quite a look when his name came up on the vote (Katie's)... and then immediately realized that oh, he was OK after all. Did Jeff-the-baseball-guy seem pissed to you? Was he pissed at Penner for the slip, or was he pissed that they didn't get rid of Penner when they had the chance? Or, was he pissed at Jeff-the-host for constantly prodding him about his former career secret. "Hey Jeff, have you ever played any other games that involve strategy?" Heh. So, yeah, as you can tell, Miss Delaware was the one who had to go.
You know what will stop team yellow? A merge. It looks like it's going to happen next episode. All of a sudden Pete, Abi & Artis will not be in a majority. Hopefully. There's a good chance Malcolm will stay true to Denise and vice versa. Do Skupin and Penner have a bit of a bro code? I think maybe. Folks on the outs of team yellow like Lisa and RC will hastily hop over to another alliance that'll have them. The strong guys always get targeted once the merge happens, so if I'm Pete, I'm thinking about a good way to use that idol, or deflect towards cranky old Artis.
So let's review...
Needing to go away: Pete, Abi, and possibly Artis, but I still haven't heard enough from him. I'm on the fence about Artis.
Needing to quit whining: Carter.
Needing to cook his food and keep his mitts off everyone else's food: Skupin
Strongest under the radar players and possible swing votes: Lisa & RC
Looking the strongest right now: Penner, Jeff, Denise and Malcolm.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Baseball Player Jeff > Jeff Probst Stalker
Great episode! As expected, poor, sad, hungry Malcolm & Denise were split up into the other tribes. Malcolm went to the yellow Skupin tribe, and Denise went over to the red Penner tribe. There was a reward challenge off the bat for coffee & muffins & cookies that team yellow won, thanks in part to Malcolm. Denise did fine in her part of the challenge too, fyi, but overall her team lost out. (As an aside, there was a particularly good part where Abi was up against Dawson - the challenge was to knock the other person's idol off a thingy that they held in one hand. Can't remember who won, but somehow Dawson pulled Abi's hair, which caused a tsunami of whining and accusations of "Don't play like a bitch!" Really? How much more can I not stand Abi? She's horrible. End rant.)
Both Malcolm & Denise were fantastically happy to be with a group of (potential) winners and to be in a camp with a tarp and other essentials. Malcolm is especially sitting pretty with the immunity idol in his possession. Soon, everyone wanted to be his best friend. As he put it, "It's like being the star quarterback from the other school..." and he's going to enjoy every bit of it while he can.
Right away, Pete approached Malcolm and told him the lay of the land, who is allied with who, that he's got his own immunity idol and that he wants to vote out Skupin. Nice, right? RC, who's on the outs with her tribe since Abi turned into a lunatic, is not giving up either. She figures she might as well try to be nice & flirty with Malcolm - can't hurt.
Over on team Penner, things weren't quite as effervescent, but Denise did manage to get herself in an alliance right away as well. Jeff pretty quickly asked her if she wanted to be the 4th member of their alliance & Denise jumped on that bandwagon, no problem. So, happily (I think), both our former team-Russell-mates are doing just fine, thank you very much.
Not true for Dana (the old Denise, but the real Dana) who got sick. And by sick, I mean not just some sniffles, but full-on fever, barfing, feeling miserable kind of sick. Can you imagine how bad that would feel at home on your couch and then imagine being somewhere where you couldn't get warm or dry? I don't blame Dana one bit for packing it in, and neither did her teammates. It was her decision in the end, as the medics told Jeff that she could continue if she wanted to... but man, I don't know about you, but I think I'd want to get the hell out of there. It was super nice to see how supportive her teammates were (even Katie, who was devastated by her exit, alliance-wise) and especially Penner. He's the Alan-Alda-Dad of the group.
The only funny part of the Dana situation was when Jeff came in with the medics, we discover that Dawson has a huge crush on him. I mean, being my former boyfriend, I totally understand it. But the girl sounds a little bit nutso. She says something like, "All of a sudden, Jeff's there and I want to go hug & kiss him, but it just wasn't the right time." Ummm.... you think? Let's all be thankful for her restraint. Cut to shot of Jeff taking the sick Dana out of the game on a boat, rubbing her shoulders. Cut to (imaginary) shot of Dawson watching the show later at home, desperately wishing she was Dana.
So right away, team Penner is down a person for the immunity challenge. (I didn't think they'd still vote a person out if someone left voluntarily, but apparently they do!) In the challenge one team Skupin person has to sit out. Abi right away throws up her hand. Jeff: How many challenges have you competed in so far? Abi: Two. Then Jeff, 'cause he's awesome at drawing attention to the obvious, must have mentioned 5 times how Abi was sitting out AGAIN. Heh heh. I know they haven't been to Tribal yet, but how she could not be the first one voted off is beyond me. We can hope.
Anyway, the challenge was super close at the end, but between Katie being slow off the start of the obstacle course (again, Jeff must have rubbed that one in about 5 times... "the team has caught up, no thanks to Katie's struggle at the start".... etc.) and Dawson's inability to cooperate well with Penner at the puzzle part, the red team came up short. It was obvious that the choice would be between the two girls. Would it be the former Miss Delaware or the future Mrs Probst?
I think Katie won out over Dawson for a couple of reasons. She's probably somewhat less annoying. Aside from the last challenge where, yes Jeff, we know - she struggled.... she's overall been better at challenges than Dawson. She right away talked about it calmly to her tribemates, said she was sorry for her poor performance and truly felt pretty bad about it. I think the tribe wanted to give her another chance. And then there's Jeff... the baseball guy, not the host. Dawson was the only one who knew that Jeff's a former baseball star. Jeff didn't know for sure that she knew his secret, but he had a feeling she might. At one point, she's taunting him with, "I'd like to date an athlete, you know a football player or maybe a basketball player.... but not a BASEBALL player... they're just a bunch of grown men standing around doing nothing...." etc. Which made him laugh, but also gave him a hint that she might know about him. So, we didn't see it go down, but my bet is that Baseball Jeff made a pretty good case to Penner and Mute Carson that Dawson should be the one to go, and why the heck wouldn't they go along? Then the three of them just tell Denise, and bam! No more Dawson.
When Jeff the Host snuffed Dawson's torch, she looked deeply into his eyes... and latched on. Gave him a huge hug and a kiss (on the cheek, thankfully) and off she went into the night. I'm guessing that this is her reward anyway, and that she didn't care that much about the million bucks in the first place. If I'm Jeff, I'm watching my back at this point and not answering my hotel room door late at night. Stay in and read my blog, Jeff! For her last words, Dawson went on about how Baseball Jeff now owes her a bunch of the money if he wins (and a house and a car and a pink gun??? What the....?) Ummmm... that's idiotic. Not entirely sure why she wouldn't try to save herself by outing Baseball Jeff (not that it would probably matter at this point, but she could still cause some trouble!) except that for some reason she thought she was totally safe and Katie would be the one going home. Dumb. Probst likes his ladies smarter than that, girlfriend.
Final point... have we all noticed that Katie is wearing mascara? What the....? Was this her one luxury item that she had to have? Who the #@*& thinks that they should wear mascara on Survivor? I guess the former Miss Delaware does. Thing is, she gets rained on 17 hours a day, so mostly, it's running down her face giving her raccoon eyes. Not especially flattering. Cut to imaginary shot of Katie watching the show, thinking, "Dammit, I should have brought WATERPROOF mascara as my luxury item!!"
Next week it looks like we're going to see a monumental mud-fight! Woo hoo!
Both Malcolm & Denise were fantastically happy to be with a group of (potential) winners and to be in a camp with a tarp and other essentials. Malcolm is especially sitting pretty with the immunity idol in his possession. Soon, everyone wanted to be his best friend. As he put it, "It's like being the star quarterback from the other school..." and he's going to enjoy every bit of it while he can.
Right away, Pete approached Malcolm and told him the lay of the land, who is allied with who, that he's got his own immunity idol and that he wants to vote out Skupin. Nice, right? RC, who's on the outs with her tribe since Abi turned into a lunatic, is not giving up either. She figures she might as well try to be nice & flirty with Malcolm - can't hurt.
Over on team Penner, things weren't quite as effervescent, but Denise did manage to get herself in an alliance right away as well. Jeff pretty quickly asked her if she wanted to be the 4th member of their alliance & Denise jumped on that bandwagon, no problem. So, happily (I think), both our former team-Russell-mates are doing just fine, thank you very much.
Not true for Dana (the old Denise, but the real Dana) who got sick. And by sick, I mean not just some sniffles, but full-on fever, barfing, feeling miserable kind of sick. Can you imagine how bad that would feel at home on your couch and then imagine being somewhere where you couldn't get warm or dry? I don't blame Dana one bit for packing it in, and neither did her teammates. It was her decision in the end, as the medics told Jeff that she could continue if she wanted to... but man, I don't know about you, but I think I'd want to get the hell out of there. It was super nice to see how supportive her teammates were (even Katie, who was devastated by her exit, alliance-wise) and especially Penner. He's the Alan-Alda-Dad of the group.
The only funny part of the Dana situation was when Jeff came in with the medics, we discover that Dawson has a huge crush on him. I mean, being my former boyfriend, I totally understand it. But the girl sounds a little bit nutso. She says something like, "All of a sudden, Jeff's there and I want to go hug & kiss him, but it just wasn't the right time." Ummm.... you think? Let's all be thankful for her restraint. Cut to shot of Jeff taking the sick Dana out of the game on a boat, rubbing her shoulders. Cut to (imaginary) shot of Dawson watching the show later at home, desperately wishing she was Dana.
So right away, team Penner is down a person for the immunity challenge. (I didn't think they'd still vote a person out if someone left voluntarily, but apparently they do!) In the challenge one team Skupin person has to sit out. Abi right away throws up her hand. Jeff: How many challenges have you competed in so far? Abi: Two. Then Jeff, 'cause he's awesome at drawing attention to the obvious, must have mentioned 5 times how Abi was sitting out AGAIN. Heh heh. I know they haven't been to Tribal yet, but how she could not be the first one voted off is beyond me. We can hope.
Anyway, the challenge was super close at the end, but between Katie being slow off the start of the obstacle course (again, Jeff must have rubbed that one in about 5 times... "the team has caught up, no thanks to Katie's struggle at the start".... etc.) and Dawson's inability to cooperate well with Penner at the puzzle part, the red team came up short. It was obvious that the choice would be between the two girls. Would it be the former Miss Delaware or the future Mrs Probst?
I think Katie won out over Dawson for a couple of reasons. She's probably somewhat less annoying. Aside from the last challenge where, yes Jeff, we know - she struggled.... she's overall been better at challenges than Dawson. She right away talked about it calmly to her tribemates, said she was sorry for her poor performance and truly felt pretty bad about it. I think the tribe wanted to give her another chance. And then there's Jeff... the baseball guy, not the host. Dawson was the only one who knew that Jeff's a former baseball star. Jeff didn't know for sure that she knew his secret, but he had a feeling she might. At one point, she's taunting him with, "I'd like to date an athlete, you know a football player or maybe a basketball player.... but not a BASEBALL player... they're just a bunch of grown men standing around doing nothing...." etc. Which made him laugh, but also gave him a hint that she might know about him. So, we didn't see it go down, but my bet is that Baseball Jeff made a pretty good case to Penner and Mute Carson that Dawson should be the one to go, and why the heck wouldn't they go along? Then the three of them just tell Denise, and bam! No more Dawson.
When Jeff the Host snuffed Dawson's torch, she looked deeply into his eyes... and latched on. Gave him a huge hug and a kiss (on the cheek, thankfully) and off she went into the night. I'm guessing that this is her reward anyway, and that she didn't care that much about the million bucks in the first place. If I'm Jeff, I'm watching my back at this point and not answering my hotel room door late at night. Stay in and read my blog, Jeff! For her last words, Dawson went on about how Baseball Jeff now owes her a bunch of the money if he wins (and a house and a car and a pink gun??? What the....?) Ummmm... that's idiotic. Not entirely sure why she wouldn't try to save herself by outing Baseball Jeff (not that it would probably matter at this point, but she could still cause some trouble!) except that for some reason she thought she was totally safe and Katie would be the one going home. Dumb. Probst likes his ladies smarter than that, girlfriend.
Final point... have we all noticed that Katie is wearing mascara? What the....? Was this her one luxury item that she had to have? Who the #@*& thinks that they should wear mascara on Survivor? I guess the former Miss Delaware does. Thing is, she gets rained on 17 hours a day, so mostly, it's running down her face giving her raccoon eyes. Not especially flattering. Cut to imaginary shot of Katie watching the show, thinking, "Dammit, I should have brought WATERPROOF mascara as my luxury item!!"
Next week it looks like we're going to see a monumental mud-fight! Woo hoo!
Friday, October 12, 2012
I'm Blue, La Ba Dee, La Ba Da
Back after holidays - what kind of Survivor blogger chooses a Wednesday to Wednesday holiday? And yes, I know the serious bloggers blog from their phones, or maybe they're super fancy and have laptops or iPads, but that's not me. Apologies to y'all.
So I've got 2 episodes to catch up on. I did see the majority of last week's episode on the plane. Missed a bunch of the beginning when they had to come on to tell us how to buckle our seatbelts, etc. Really, are there people out there who don't know how to buckle the seatbelt? Anyway....
I did gather that Pete - who we haven't heard much from up 'til now - all of a sudden figures he's the King. He's one of those guys who thinks he's controlling the game - and maybe right now he is. In last night's episode, he played a clever trick on his former ally, RC. He knew where the hidden immunity clue was & placed it so that it looked like it had fallen out of RC's bag, then made sure crazy-pants, Abi saw it. Natch', Abi lost her mind on RC. Poor RC... "I didn't DO anything!" Abi won't hear of it. No, you know what you did - you are dead to me. Imagine being a friend or family member of someone this irrational. These are the people who end up on talk shows.
The good news here is that Lisa (can I just call her Blair, please?) is no longer the weirdo. The focus is on the feud between Abi & RC and everyone else can pretty much sit back & watch. Blair wisely just stayed out of it. Skupin so far hasn't had many more bleeding out the eyes incidents, and I'm starting to love Artis. I want to know mor about Artis. So far he is mute, but still somehow interesting... what's with that?
Things have shaken up in the red team too. Penner all of a sudden isn't on the outs any more. Yay! He was super smart to show the idol to Jeff and try to bond with him. Jeff was hesitant at first, but then I think actually grew to like Penner, who he has more in common with than any of the younger tribemates. Last night they brought in Carter, who we also hadn't heard from yet. Carter seems about 16, non? I'd have to look him up in the official bio, but he must only be 18 or 19, right? He's super cute, yet not that smart. I think he's pretty content to just follow the older men and not really come up with any ideas on his own....which will help Jeff and Penner down the road. Will Carter be swayed later by the ladies, though? He is that age... it's possible Katie the beauty queen could get him to switch sides. Oh, so did I mention that it's now girls vs. boys on the red team? Yes, Penner, Jeff & Carter vs. Katie, Dawson & Dana.
By the way, it has occurred to me that I've been calling Denise Dana up 'til now. They look NOTHING alike - Denise is the super fit older (and again, by older, I mean not 20) sex therapist on the blue team. I love Denise. More on her in a bit. Dana is the short, spikey haired blonde on the red team. She's firing the girls up to band together against the boys. I can't tell if I like any of the red girls yet, though I'm leaning more towards Dana than the other two.
Aaaaaand then there's the sad, sad blue team. No wonder they're blue. In last week's challenge, both Angie & Russell struggled on the diving portion. Russell, for all his muscley upper body, couldn't get back up onto the platform. He's obviously a fit guy, but doesn't seem to have much stamina. Perhaps he works out lifting weights, but never does anything else? Anyway, Angie just couldn't dive. Perhaps because of her floatation devices? Possible. At any rate, she hasn't done well at any challenges. I did enjoy that Denise (not Dana) and Malcolm took responsibility off the other two by saying that they could have just done the whole thing but somehow felt the need to let the others have turns, costing the game. Angie & Russell, meanwhile, just blamed each other. Angie - who GAVE UP - kept going on about how Russell shouldn't have given up. Huh? And how she 'would have kept going'.... except that it was easier not to.
(Quick aside.... in that challenge, it was pretty much RC that won it for the yellow team. She's pretty much an excellent swimmer, but seems to have not gotten any credit for it now that Abi has declared her a witch.)
So Angie was the first to go. You can't blame the blue team for getting rid of her. Russell has a little more athletic ability, though possibly more annoyingness (is that a word?) Though, I probably would be more annoyed by Angie and that doe-eyed thing that she does. I hope she got her cookies.
On last night's episode, the three blues came out swinging. Unfortunately, the other two teams got to sit out 3 people, so they each picked their girls to sit out in what was essentially a strength challenge. (Aside again - aren't you not allowed to sit out the same person in back-to-back challenges? Is this still a rule? 'Cause some of those girls sat out last time for sure.) This leads me to my love for Denise. Not only is she a good player and reasonable, nice human that I think I'd get along with (vs. say Abi, who I'd have trouble not punching....) but she's also a machine! She carried those heavy pots of rice better than a few of the men did on the other team. The blue team was actually in the lead for most of the game, but then Malcolm lost out to Jeff (who, uh, should be able to hit something with a ball....) and Artis... in what was a HUGE nail-biter of a challenge. Came down to the last second... amazing challenge. Didn't you feel sorry this time for the blue team? They all really, really, gave it their all & if it hadn't been the fourth loss in a row, you'd just think, well, you were close. But no. So you feel sorry for them.... until Russell takes a pot of rice and smashes it on the ground. Sigh.
Everyone looks on while Russell has a total tantrum meltdown. His teammates are mortified. The other teams look on somewhat amused. Russell starts chatting it up with God... "Why, Lord? Why can't we win a challenge?" Jeff just asks him what the what is up? Russell - I kid you not - goes on about how his body was created by God to be perfect... so he is the perfect being.... or something like that. Dude is as delusional as Angie. Malcolm put it really well (how much are you starting to love Malcolm?) when he said that Russell is not at all self-aware. He keeps trying to lead, while not thinking that he's leading and not realizing that no one wants him to lead. He does not know he's annoying. He talks a lot about himself without any idea about how anyone else is reading him. No attempt to adapt to others. Uh, he's a perfect being, why would he need to?
So Malcolm & Denise did a magnificent job in fooling Russell into thinking that each one might vote for the other one. Malcolm comes up & says that yeah, Denise should probably be the next one to go because she's not as strong as him & Russell (which is not at all true, but totally plays into Russell's inflated ego.) Then Denise comes up and tells Russell that they should vote off Malcolm because he's such a huge threat. Meanwhile, the 2 of them are tight and in no way are going to keep Russell. He could have shaken things up had he found the immunity idol.... but he didn't. (Did you love the Survivor editing team focusing on the rice bucket and even giving it a flash as he walked right by it for the zillionth time saying, "I know there's going to be like a flash on the screen as I walk by and I'm going to look stupid." Yup. Sorry. Could have happened to any of us. But it happened to Mr. Perfect. (Cue sad Charlie Brown music.) Master T is going home, super disappointed.... back to his weights and DJing for MuchMusic.
So not sure what's going to happen now. Are they going to merge into 2 tribes? If so, will they split up Malcolm and Denise? That would suck. Or will they make them keep doing challenges on their own? Would love to see the two of them kick butt. Would love to see them go to the end. Even Malcolm & Russell were so cute how they went on and on at Tribal Council telling Jeff how Denise is such a threat because she's SO nice (Russell: She'll win the million bucks and then you'll write her your own cheque to cover the taxes...) Really lovely. And yes, Denise, who used to be Dana, is a huge threat.
Next week it appears as though the medical team comes in for team red. Who is it for? Is it Jeff & his bum knee? He is used to having a trainer at his beck & call, so maybe. Or is it something more sinister? Hmmmm.... Will have to watch & see. And I promise a more timely blog next week.
So I've got 2 episodes to catch up on. I did see the majority of last week's episode on the plane. Missed a bunch of the beginning when they had to come on to tell us how to buckle our seatbelts, etc. Really, are there people out there who don't know how to buckle the seatbelt? Anyway....
I did gather that Pete - who we haven't heard much from up 'til now - all of a sudden figures he's the King. He's one of those guys who thinks he's controlling the game - and maybe right now he is. In last night's episode, he played a clever trick on his former ally, RC. He knew where the hidden immunity clue was & placed it so that it looked like it had fallen out of RC's bag, then made sure crazy-pants, Abi saw it. Natch', Abi lost her mind on RC. Poor RC... "I didn't DO anything!" Abi won't hear of it. No, you know what you did - you are dead to me. Imagine being a friend or family member of someone this irrational. These are the people who end up on talk shows.
The good news here is that Lisa (can I just call her Blair, please?) is no longer the weirdo. The focus is on the feud between Abi & RC and everyone else can pretty much sit back & watch. Blair wisely just stayed out of it. Skupin so far hasn't had many more bleeding out the eyes incidents, and I'm starting to love Artis. I want to know mor about Artis. So far he is mute, but still somehow interesting... what's with that?
Things have shaken up in the red team too. Penner all of a sudden isn't on the outs any more. Yay! He was super smart to show the idol to Jeff and try to bond with him. Jeff was hesitant at first, but then I think actually grew to like Penner, who he has more in common with than any of the younger tribemates. Last night they brought in Carter, who we also hadn't heard from yet. Carter seems about 16, non? I'd have to look him up in the official bio, but he must only be 18 or 19, right? He's super cute, yet not that smart. I think he's pretty content to just follow the older men and not really come up with any ideas on his own....which will help Jeff and Penner down the road. Will Carter be swayed later by the ladies, though? He is that age... it's possible Katie the beauty queen could get him to switch sides. Oh, so did I mention that it's now girls vs. boys on the red team? Yes, Penner, Jeff & Carter vs. Katie, Dawson & Dana.
By the way, it has occurred to me that I've been calling Denise Dana up 'til now. They look NOTHING alike - Denise is the super fit older (and again, by older, I mean not 20) sex therapist on the blue team. I love Denise. More on her in a bit. Dana is the short, spikey haired blonde on the red team. She's firing the girls up to band together against the boys. I can't tell if I like any of the red girls yet, though I'm leaning more towards Dana than the other two.
Aaaaaand then there's the sad, sad blue team. No wonder they're blue. In last week's challenge, both Angie & Russell struggled on the diving portion. Russell, for all his muscley upper body, couldn't get back up onto the platform. He's obviously a fit guy, but doesn't seem to have much stamina. Perhaps he works out lifting weights, but never does anything else? Anyway, Angie just couldn't dive. Perhaps because of her floatation devices? Possible. At any rate, she hasn't done well at any challenges. I did enjoy that Denise (not Dana) and Malcolm took responsibility off the other two by saying that they could have just done the whole thing but somehow felt the need to let the others have turns, costing the game. Angie & Russell, meanwhile, just blamed each other. Angie - who GAVE UP - kept going on about how Russell shouldn't have given up. Huh? And how she 'would have kept going'.... except that it was easier not to.
(Quick aside.... in that challenge, it was pretty much RC that won it for the yellow team. She's pretty much an excellent swimmer, but seems to have not gotten any credit for it now that Abi has declared her a witch.)
So Angie was the first to go. You can't blame the blue team for getting rid of her. Russell has a little more athletic ability, though possibly more annoyingness (is that a word?) Though, I probably would be more annoyed by Angie and that doe-eyed thing that she does. I hope she got her cookies.
On last night's episode, the three blues came out swinging. Unfortunately, the other two teams got to sit out 3 people, so they each picked their girls to sit out in what was essentially a strength challenge. (Aside again - aren't you not allowed to sit out the same person in back-to-back challenges? Is this still a rule? 'Cause some of those girls sat out last time for sure.) This leads me to my love for Denise. Not only is she a good player and reasonable, nice human that I think I'd get along with (vs. say Abi, who I'd have trouble not punching....) but she's also a machine! She carried those heavy pots of rice better than a few of the men did on the other team. The blue team was actually in the lead for most of the game, but then Malcolm lost out to Jeff (who, uh, should be able to hit something with a ball....) and Artis... in what was a HUGE nail-biter of a challenge. Came down to the last second... amazing challenge. Didn't you feel sorry this time for the blue team? They all really, really, gave it their all & if it hadn't been the fourth loss in a row, you'd just think, well, you were close. But no. So you feel sorry for them.... until Russell takes a pot of rice and smashes it on the ground. Sigh.
Everyone looks on while Russell has a total tantrum meltdown. His teammates are mortified. The other teams look on somewhat amused. Russell starts chatting it up with God... "Why, Lord? Why can't we win a challenge?" Jeff just asks him what the what is up? Russell - I kid you not - goes on about how his body was created by God to be perfect... so he is the perfect being.... or something like that. Dude is as delusional as Angie. Malcolm put it really well (how much are you starting to love Malcolm?) when he said that Russell is not at all self-aware. He keeps trying to lead, while not thinking that he's leading and not realizing that no one wants him to lead. He does not know he's annoying. He talks a lot about himself without any idea about how anyone else is reading him. No attempt to adapt to others. Uh, he's a perfect being, why would he need to?
So Malcolm & Denise did a magnificent job in fooling Russell into thinking that each one might vote for the other one. Malcolm comes up & says that yeah, Denise should probably be the next one to go because she's not as strong as him & Russell (which is not at all true, but totally plays into Russell's inflated ego.) Then Denise comes up and tells Russell that they should vote off Malcolm because he's such a huge threat. Meanwhile, the 2 of them are tight and in no way are going to keep Russell. He could have shaken things up had he found the immunity idol.... but he didn't. (Did you love the Survivor editing team focusing on the rice bucket and even giving it a flash as he walked right by it for the zillionth time saying, "I know there's going to be like a flash on the screen as I walk by and I'm going to look stupid." Yup. Sorry. Could have happened to any of us. But it happened to Mr. Perfect. (Cue sad Charlie Brown music.) Master T is going home, super disappointed.... back to his weights and DJing for MuchMusic.
So not sure what's going to happen now. Are they going to merge into 2 tribes? If so, will they split up Malcolm and Denise? That would suck. Or will they make them keep doing challenges on their own? Would love to see the two of them kick butt. Would love to see them go to the end. Even Malcolm & Russell were so cute how they went on and on at Tribal Council telling Jeff how Denise is such a threat because she's SO nice (Russell: She'll win the million bucks and then you'll write her your own cheque to cover the taxes...) Really lovely. And yes, Denise, who used to be Dana, is a huge threat.
Next week it appears as though the medical team comes in for team red. Who is it for? Is it Jeff & his bum knee? He is used to having a trainer at his beck & call, so maybe. Or is it something more sinister? Hmmmm.... Will have to watch & see. And I promise a more timely blog next week.
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