Of Wild Dogs and Badassery

Yep, I'm late again. Well not for this week, but for last week.  Aaaaaah, I'll get it together eventually.  Forgive?

Well, it's coming down to the wire on this fun season, non?  We had Tina, Laura & Vytas competing in the duel, and if it's a puzzle, you know Laura is going to win it. That lady is a puzzle machine!  I'd be surprised if she doesn't make it back into the game. Did you see her daughter's face, though, when she said she'd be back? Ciera's face said, "Actually, I'd rather if you didn't."  Truly, my prediction is that Ciera will get herself voted out and will have to compete against mom in a challenge and will lose, and her mom will get back into the game.  I'm seeing an all-mom final... or at least a couple of moms maybe.  These moms are tough. And they stick together!  Once Laura finished the puzzle, she helped Tina finish so that she could beat Vytas. And she did beat him by about a second!  I kind of wanted Vytas to stick around, but I also enjoy that he now gets to hang out with Aras at Ponderosa and on the jury.  Right?  How much fun is that?  Jeff is sad to see that storyline go, though, didn't you think?

This is the point in the game where we see who's really playing and how well they play.  Hayden and Caleb come up with an idea to blindside Tyson, as everyone can see that he's controlling the game. So they tell Ciera, who immediately tells Tyson, who then decides that Caleb should be the one to go because he's so likable. Sounds simple so far.  But then.... Ciera makes it a bit too obvious that she's tight with Tyson. So now Hayden & Caleb are worried. They come up with a pretty smart plan. They tell Tyson the truth - sort of. They tell him that it's pretty much Ciera working both sides to pit the fellas against each other. Yeah, we were thinking of voting for you because she made us think that you were gunning for us.  Right? Sounds plausible. And Tyson considers it. Chats with his bestie, Gervase about it.  They decide to go with their gut instinct on which alliance to trust - which becomes painfully clear for everyone at the challenge.

Jeff gives the famous option of participating in the challenge (holding a rope that holds up a bucket with 25% of your body weight in it.) or feasting on... a ton of meats, bread and iced tea.  Tyson, Gervase and Ciera opt for food.  Usually a dumb move in Survivor. In this case, though, they all trust in their alliance and know they also have Monica, who chooses to compete to show her kids that "there's not just one badass at the head of the household."  And then she won it! Monica is my new favourite. She's playing a good alliance game, has distanced herself from her crazy hubby and has won three challenges!  She IS a badass!  I recall the first time she played, she was just the 'football player's wife' and this time she's really her own player.  Not sure, but I think she could beat Tyson.  (As an aside, the absolute best thing of the night was Tyson's absolute shamelessness in eating all that food in front of his tribemates. Digging in like a wild dog, throwing bones over his shoulder, and then going into great detail to describe the feast once back at camp. "Yeah, the steak was the best. It was so soft!"  Prompting Ciera to say, "The skin on the chicken was my favourite!"  Nice. And somehow they don't annoy people with this. What?)

So we shouldn't have even fallen for the idea that Ciera was going home, because we should have known that Tyson had his four.  He even played the immunity idol - though he didn't need to.  It was 4-3 for Caleb over Ciera.  Now Hayden and Katie are going to have to do some awesome scrambling.  It's gonna be good. And with that, I throw a chicken bone over my shoulder and bid you adieu.

I'm baaaaaack. Brothers vs. Mothers.

Sorry for the very late post once again.  Is anyone still reading this thing?  I hope so.  Apologies anyway - just had my first real days off in about 3 weeks, got sick, and before anyone thinks I'm getting all complainy, I promise I do love, love, love my job and also that it's evening out again time-wise.  I knew what I was signing up for, just maybe underestimated doing that AND a Survivor blog.  When Mark Burnett asks me to be the official Survivor blog writer, will you guys vouch for me that I'm normally not such a deadbeat? Thanks! You're the best.

OK... so here we go. Tonight's episode was a doozy. Of course, since Laura M. got back in the game and there was no one at Redemption Island, they needed another 3 players for their "duels" right?  Aras got blindsided last time in a pretty smart move by Tyson & Gervase. By the way, Tyson with a giant bun on top of his head is one of my favourite Survivor looks of all time. (And for real, I have searched the internets and cannot find a picture of it. Sad.) I digress. They needed two more people to join Aras at Redemption, which is where tonight's episode got 'er done.

First up: The Eating Challenge. Let me just say I'd have been out immediately upon seeing the shot glass full of worms. Caterpillars? What were those things?  At any rate, they were moving and crawling on outta there - or trying to anyway. They were on their own episode of Survivor: Caterpillar!! And... well... maybe one of Ciera's caterpillars won the million bucks (Yay! Way to go, little guy!) because she pretty much spit 'em all out and then tried to comb her tongue with her fingers to get the feeling of crawly things off of it. Monica was the only girl to make it to round 2: pig intestine, and then worked her way to round 3: Grubs! with Gervase. Poor Gervase got beat by the grubs in his own season, and now Monica beat him out again. Imagine eating all that grossness only to come in second. At least it's protein?  Right? Sure. So Monica is immune for the first go-round at Tribal Council.

Vytas looks like he's in a good spot. It's either going to be him or Katie, and he works the guys, makes a bunch of good points about the girls potentially getting an alliance together, and maybe could they keep him a day or two more?  Then... Tribal Council. He loses his mind. Goes after Monica, calling her a doormat. Tells the whole tribe that he wants revenge for voting out Aras. Basically gets himself kicked the heck out. Done.

Interestingly, Monica was supposed to write down Katie, changes her mind to Vytas to get back at him (unnecessarily) and then goes and tells everyone about it, making her what you call a "loose cannon."  In Survivor speak, you don't want to ever be a "loose cannon." That means your alliance can't really trust you not to do something crazy. They all know she's paranoid and crazy anyway, but she's not doing herself any favours.  A football star's wife ought to keep her mouth shut, as if I'm someone in this game, I'm keeping someone like her around til the end. Between her & her hubby, they've made enough enemies and uh, they have lots of money.  Same goes for Aras and Tina, at least money-wise.  Hayden too.  Tyson and Gervase are sitting in a pretty lovely spot, game-wise, as is Caleb, as long as everyone completely forgets about Colton.

Right, so where are we?  Oh yes, the show writes itself with the battle of the brothers pitting Aras and Vytas against each other.  OF COURSE they've ended up at Redemption Island, with both brothers feeling like they need actual redemption from the other one.  And Vytas shows up there like a big baby telling Aras that it's his fault they ended up there.  Aras tells him that he'd be glad if Vytas gets back in the game. Vytas says he can't say the same. Sheesh. And so it begins!  You just can't write this stuff... or can you?

Next immunity challenge is a balancing of coins on top of a sword, so could be anyone's game. Katie of all people takes it. Tina is in the background the whole time:  "Good job, sweetie!" "Atta girl!" "Take your time!"  Was anyone else telling Tina to shut up, or was that just me?  I guess it worked, though.  With Katie having immunity, the spotlight fell on Tina, who tried valiantly to find the immunity idol with everyone babysitting her along the way. The great part was Tyson (who has the idol) telling us that part of him wanted to tell everyone he had the idol so that they could all go back and nap. Of course, she didn't find it, though she really tried to fake us out, even reaching into her bag at Tribal Council to pretend that she had it. Nope. She also fought really hard by trying to put the spotlight back onto Monica by telling her she's on the bottom of the alliance and at the very least creating more paranoia.  Delightful. You've gotta like Tina and how she really does know the game and seems to be able to say all that stuff yet remain likable. In the end, she just wasn't in the majority alliance and had to go. Tina will fight it out with the brothers next time to see who goes home.

In the meantime, Ciera and Laura are the only remaining 'couple' and Ciera is ready to turn on her mom, which is hilarious. Laura is a super annoying mom to have out there. She is hitting on the boys. She dresses way too young for her age. She beats her daughter in challenges. If I'm Ciera, I'm not bringing any of my boyfriends home to meet my mother for fear that she'll take 'em. Right?  So, it's hopefully Ciera's time to outshine her overbearing ma and stay in her alliance.  If she can take out her mom, she could go to the end. It's tough to say if she'd get any votes because she'd certainly get there more as the 3rd throwaway vote, but it all depends if the other people make more enemies along the way.  Sometimes being the quiet one is a good thing.