Leading candidate for the title of most supercilious competitor in the history of competitions, must be the podgy Richard Hatch.
When not repeatedly dropping his drawers, he has also published one of the most uninviting books of the decade,"101 Survival Secrets : How to make $ 1,000,000, Lose 100 Pounds, And Just Plain Live Happily." Amazon.com helpfully records that it is "published in English", disappointing those of us seeking the Urdu edition. He offers his simple rules for a better life.
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Richard's rules for a better life
These are:"(1) Quit your pathetic job. (2) If you don't love yourself, change until you do. (3) Worry is a wasted emotion. (4) Happiness is success. Success is happiness. (5) If it really is your"only"vice, get rid of it. (6) Stop pretending to be so damned polite. In fact, just stop pretending. (7) For me, being fat sucked. (8) You aren't doing anything you don't want to be doing. (9) Diplomas and degrees won't make you a better person. (10) Find friends who challenge you. And when they stop challenging you, find new friends."
Hmm. We don't all find our jobs pathetic. He's a perfect example of how excessive self-love can make you loathsome. Worry is sometimes very useful. Success in life is surely so much more than mere happiness. I do wonder, however what's the "it" he refers to as "your only vice". I don't think he ever pretended to be polite, but at least I'll accept his invitation when discussing him. I doubt that being fat is the only thing that sucked about him. Never mind the diplomas and degrees, in his case, one doubts whether a radical makeover, plastic and brain surgery, might make him a better person.
Of dafts and rafts
This week's tree-mail seems to be accompanied by a load of bamboo, so they start twittering that they'll have to build a boat. Or maybe a Chinese take-out restaurant? But no, indeed, they have to build a raft.
Amber points herself towards the camera, one of her major talents, and announces her profound realisation that the note said that the challenge is to build a raft, and that the hardest part of that challenge, in her expert opinion, will be to build the raft. Duh! Actually, for some of these guys, the hardest part is probably reading the tree-mail note.
Rupert seems enthused and wildly over-ambitious about it, once again, which does not bode well for the Samoosa tribe. Maybe he's planning to build into it one of his infamous bidets. Rupert and Ethan start measuring their logs, the grubby chaps. The CocoLoco bunch have a simple plan in mind, pile the logs and tie them together, and sit on it. Amazingly, when they drag their pile of logs into the water it does indeed float, even with Rich perched atop it like Venus De Milo arising from the waves. Mind you, how fast it can move in any particular direction awaits to be seen.
Sue a grievance hunter
Chimera's raft is more complex, with two bundles of logs and some cross-struts. Tom seems to have found a hidden supply of booze, and is muttering and ogling Alicia's breasts. Sue chooses to take offence at this. Don't we all know people like that? Not content with being offended at whatever someone might say to them, they busy themselves by getting offended by proxy at things other people say to still other people. She seems to be avidly hunting for grievances.
Losers' tribe dissolved
Then they're gathered on the Challenge beach, their three different piles of logs sitting side by side. They have to paddle out and rescue some stranded tribal mates, despite the overpowering temptation to just leave them there. The prize will be fish-hooks and a spear, which thrills Rupert, who feels nobody's complete without a spear. Jeff announces that the losing tribe will be dissolved, probably assuming it'll be the usual losers, and the two winning tribes will each get the chance, alternately, to pick one of the losers to join them. Kathy appears to have a target tattooed in the middle of her back? How apt! Her hair looks like macramé or knitting.
Pickaloser starts
MochaJava's raft looks a mess, but moves surprisingly well, and they win. Chimera manages second place, and bad old reliable Soboko loses again. And so the great PickaLoser process starts. Toyi Toyi chooses Ethan (every good tribe needs a scapegoat), and Jerri (well, she's a lot prettier than Rupert); Chipera chooses Rupert (they must need some holes dug), and Jenna becomes the one nobody wanted but they have to take her anyway, and she looks deeply displeased. Jenna tells us that in her old tribe she had "complete control" and will now have to start all over again. Dream on, girl. And Subaru is no more.
At Hocus Pocus, remarkably, it's Jerri who finds the last key, though it's not clear how, but they find that half their rice is spoiled, because they were daft enough to have left the wooden box out in the rain.
Forlorn old Ethan goes off fish hunting again, and manages to get one small critter, barely enough for even one decent hors d'oeuvre. Rich is scornful, and soon returns with two large ones. As he waddles nudely towards them, one of the women exclaims "It's huge!". We're not sure which of the fish managed to impress her so much.
Somewhat off-balance
Now they face an Immunity Challenge, which is very marginally less watery than the others, walking across balance beams, albeit over splashy ponds, and fetching flags, aiming to collect 20. Rich, who can't seem to stop chuckling with hubris, says he thinks they'll win, and if not, "who cares? There's lots of people to get rid of!"
So they're all off, wobbling and falling. Tom does better than we'd expect and Rob proves to be brilliant at scampering across. "I'm not as strong as some", he explains, "but I'm tougher than any of 'em!" Rupert seems about as well-balanced as an extremist politician, and falls off everything. He looks as if he could manage to fall over even when lying on the ground. Rich soon shucks his pants, presumably recognising that this makes him tactically even less appealing to meet on a beam.
The Big Incident at the beam intersection
Then there's the Big Incident. Sue and Rich confront each other at a balance-beam intersection. She stubbornly blocks his way, so he cheerfully squeezes past her, grinding his unappealing bare groin into her, with a sneering sort of giggle. Sue goes ballistic with ridiculous outrage, uttering a bleeped-out yell, and thereafter grumbling incessantly. She had rather invited such a physical confrontation, and of course he was happy to be offensive to her. That's his style. Wonder why he chose Sue, hardly the most inflammatory beauty on the beach. But then he's gay, so maybe he was selecting mainly for offence-value, or like many viewers, he mistook her, in the heat of the moment, for a man in a bikini. It's hard for viewers to decide whether Sue's steaming about it is justified or not, as whatever action there was fell within Richard's customary cloud of mosquitoes.
Shimera wins immunity. Rupert seems to be laughing at how dysfunctional he was in this challenge. Sue is still steaming over the effrontery of Richard, and hopes he gets voted off. She says what he did was completely uncalled for, and certainly I heard nobody calling for it. She endlessly whines that "he screwed me over!", which would have been rather hard to achieve on a balance beam.
Colby and Ethan bond a little, as Colby proposes getting rid of Rich, who he describes as a cancer on the tribe, who will "fester and spread". Then Colby, Ethan and Lex enlist Jerri in this noble cause. Then Colby negotiates with Richard, Lex with Kathy and Shii-Ann, Shii-Ann with Kathy, Kathy with Jerri - this is getting like a square-dance!
Wheeling and dealing
Rich meanwhile bobs around in the lagoon, puffing like a walrus. Shii-Ann and Kathy hesitate, not because they like Richard, but because they fear that with him gone, they'll be next for eviction, and Jerri and Shii-Ann flirt with the Hatch to dump Colby. Mrs Hatcher wants Colby gone, presumably because the studly Colby won't dance with him, vertically or horizontally. Kathy remains inscrutable, or at least difficult to scrute.
Jerri's being as slimy as ever and says she's keen to be rid of Colby as some form of revenge for the Australian series (oh, let it go you silly girl!). She's seething and lusting to push Colby out, and trots off to Rich to tell him that people have approached her to get rid of Rich. Mrs Hatcher seems to have become aware that his grand incoherent plan is unravelling.
And so to Tribal Council, and more chat from Jeff. Asked how they'll choose who to vote out, Colby says his vote will be based on "cutting out the cancer" and Kathy says she wants the "power players" out, which is nonsense, of course, as she'd need to vote for herself. As they vote we see two unsurprising votes - Rich votes to evict Colby, adding absurdly that Colby could have trusted him (what, trusted him to stab him in the back?) and Colby votes for Rich, saying he had been almost convinced to support Rich, but "my gut told me not to". Yes, Colbster, Rich has that affect on many people's guts.
Hatchets out for Richard
After the routine miracle of the votes, so that Richard's vote for Colby comes out first though put in much later, the other votes turn out to be for Richard. Chuckling, he shouts "I've been bamboozled!"(at last they found something useful to do with all that bamboo!) His final word seems to be "Whoops!"before he wanders off down the path, tantalisingly muttering: "Food ! Food !" Maybe his next book will be"101 more Survival Secrets: How Not to make $ 1,000,000, gain 100 pounds, and Just Live Plain." Mercifully, he leaves with his pants on.
In the Snippets from next time: Shii-Ann is seething about Colby, denouncing him as "Captain America" with his perfect teeth and his blah blah blah. Sue Hawk continues her hysterical seething about the Hatch-attack, calling herself "humiliated and totally spent".
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