After far too much of a recap of previous events, Tom and Rupert set to work early, the busy drones, complaining of being hard workers who "get none", while the Robfaddah lies abed with his harem.
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They try in vain to encourage Rob to join them. Rupert catches a bundle of fish, while Tom waits impatiently for his chance to use the famous three-pronged spear. Tom at last manages to catch one, which looks like he filched it from the aquarium in his doctor's waiting room. But gee, guys, this is getting nearly as boring as The Block.
MM have lost their Mojo
At MM, they've truly lost their Mojo. Jerri was kvetching and complaining yet again. She seems terribly bothered about all the Weather they've been having there, and still can't understand why the rainy season has, well, so much darned rain.
Tree Mail brings a can of green paint, and there are rumours of another merger. It isn't easy being Green, as Kermit used to point out. MM debate earnestly what they're supposed to do with the paint. They are suspicious and not sure whether it's truly body paint. In their case, yellow would be a more appropriate colour.
Paint a bit of a pointless exercise
Lex says: "We don’t want to show up looking like a bunch of freaks covered in paint." Really, Lex? What kind of freaks would you rather turn up as? Mind you, this heavily illustrated man later makes the sensible observation, as regards body painting, "My canvas is full". Alicia solemnly informs us that: "We know something is going to happen." Now there's the wisdom of the Amazon. The other team happily daub each other with their red paint. Actually, you'll notice that we never really discover the purpose of the paint.
So what do we have at this stage in the game? NoMojo, with Lex, 3 girls, and nobody to do any work; and Chirpyer with Rub, 3 girls, and two temporary guest workers. Lex seems content to have eliminated all the more effective males in his group, even if this dooms them to continuing to lose every challenge.
The numbers game
They gather looking bedraggled on their sorry little mat. Jeffi instructs them to assign themselves numbers within their tribes. As it's not clear what effects this will have, they need to be cautious. Maybe it's not good to be high or low, middle could be safest. He says the last two of the Chopstix "will have no say", whatever that means, but as usual, they pay him no heed. So they line themselves up as Rob, Tom, Alicia, Ambre Solitaire, and leave their two inherited Sabogan refugees to the end, with Rupert last of all. At Mogo-NoMojo, the line-up is Lex, Shii Ann, Kathy, Jerri, also placing their lone Sabogan last.
Tom and Jerri? Can that be right?
Then they're told to each pick somebody with whom to have a private chat, and some potentially intriguing pairings result. Lex selects Rob, so the two bosses can plan the game; Tom picks Jerri (maybe he's thinking of the cartoon pairing), but looking lecherous and hoping for something more than mere mouse-meat. Shii Ann picks Rupert, Jenna and Ambuh pair up. And Alicia and Kathy are left, unpicked, to each other, and pretend to be delighted by the prospect.
At least Uncle Jeffi provides a snack lunch, with a basket of fruit, cheese and crackers. Then they're told to line up "in any order", but stick to their picnic-pal order. They’re told to drop their buffs, and Tom looks excited till he recognises that it's to do with losing or swapping those dingy little tribal neckerchiefs.
Amber separated from her herd
They gain a new one, by pulling one out of a jar, the colour determining which tribe they'll go home with. In this supposedly random process, something most peculiar happens, with one single exception, they all end up in the opposite tribe to where they started the day, still together in their original tribal formation. Only Amber is actually swapped to a new tribe, and to her shock and horror she is no longer in the Great Tribe of Rob!
And so Robfaddah and Ambuh are separated. Almost as tragic, Rupert and Tom lose their beloved fishing spear. Rob looks most displeased, scowling, and is later heard muttering about "serious consequences", as if Jeff will wake to find a horse's head in his bed the next morning.
Amber looks truly disenchanted, and announces that: "I feel like I'm the one who got screwed here."At least she got the past tense right, for those days may be over, for a while at least. Now, Jeff DID say something, didn't he, about how the last two would have no say in the matter - so why did she wander to the end of the line? Having heard very little from Amber so far in the series, in this episode she seems to keep on speaking to the camera, without actually having anything interesting to say.
Exchanging a slum for luxury
Otherwise the main impact of the Great Swap is that they exchange campsites and possessions. MochaMocha gets a dandy improved shelter, but remains unskilled at winning challenges. They're ecstatic at all the good stuff they're getting for nothing. Kathy, pretending she hasn't seen it all before (remember, last episode she examined all of this to select her team's potential prize?) and she exclaims at all the remarkable amenities this camp has, from swings to toiletries.
Leaving this Better-Grouse-and-Gardens idyll, we switch across to the roach motel down the beach, and its much less splendid accommodation. Their former opponents are shocked at the filthy and neglected slum they're inheriting, with no wood, threatened by high tide, and there is not even a cooking pot. Rob is crestfallen (yep, check out that crest! It's fallen, all right), and issues a press release saying that he won't be able to sleep.
At least each group finds a nice basket of more snacks and bottles of wine. Jeff must have been raiding Room Service at his luxury hotel. One wonders whether someone carefully sneaked in and put a chocolate on everyone's bed?
Romeo and Juliet are parted
But the producers are hammering home the Romeo-and-Juliet-are-parted theme, and keep showing us Rob as a tearful, wistful lad (boy, is he full of wist!). He seems genuinely moved. "They got my girl over there. They suck."
Back at the Sheraton, Jerri is getting orgasmic over having a good toothbrush to scrub her fangs, erhm, teeth with. There should have been an age restriction (like only for viewers under 1 and really into large mouths) or health warning on this episode, as we see far more of Jerri's mouth than is good for anyone to see.
Amber is bothered by all these strangers touching "our stuff". Now, wasn't it Ambah who so recently welcomed them and told them to "make themselves at home? Did she expect them to refuse the invitation?
Anyhow, Treemail, and the usual awful verse (one might say these messages go from bad to verse. Or did I already say that?) For immunity, they face a quiz about all previous Survivor series. It's bad enough to be expected to recall events from previous series, but to have memorised the names of all previous contestants suggests the whole bunch of them urgently need to get a Life.
Copious padding in this episode
It would have been more challenging if they'd had to answer individually (how many of them bothered to watch shows and episodes that didn't feature themselves?) But instead, they can confer as a group, making it easier and less revealing. There are scraps of flashbacks of previous episodes, as part of the copious padding in this episode. The scoring is close, but Tom seems to think that his game took place in the famed African country of Nairobi. He probably remembers that as the airport where he bought all his duty-free Liquor.
Jenna, amazingly, even remembers the exact name of the disgusting bug larva she had to eat in her series. Maybe as soon as she got home, she dashed to the local Institute for Tropical medicine to check up whether or not it could be fatal.
The M&M's win immunity this time. Rob uses the occasion to mutter significantly to Lex something about how if Lex looks after Amber, he'll in turn look after Lex. Nosy Kathy overheard this, and sees it as a "Godfather move". Well, Duh! They agree that Rob would probably keep his word on this deal; and more likely, would be unpleasantly vengeful if they did evict Ambah.
Amber takes aim at Jerri
Back at the Tilting Hilton, Amber has suddenly woken up and starts playing hard. She works on Shii-Ann and Kathy to persuade them to join her in voting out Jerri. She kneels to Kathy, who rather likes this approach, but can't think of anything Amber can do for her right now. She has, for the first time, made a move of her own, and made an unlikely deal with the others, who she personally can't possibly reward for saving her?
Lex insists on telling Jerri that it's her turn to go. I don't think he's being compulsively honest, but rather taking a sadistic pleasure in bringing the bad news of impending execution to the victims. Jerri insists that once Lex has done Rob this favour, Rob'll rub out Lex as the next item on the agenda; whereas she, always friendless, can't threaten Lex at all. Logic doesn't work with Lex, though.
Goodbye to Jerri
And so, at Tribal Council, Jeff cheerfully suggests to Amber that she's the obvious choice for eviction this night, a pretty reliable sign that she'll be safe. And so it is that unlovable Jerri, the dentist's day-dream, is voted off. Jerri Can? No Jerri Can't. It's really hard to miss her, as she failed to make any notable contribution either to our entertainment or to that of her tribe mates. So why on earth do her team-mates so earnestly simulate sadness at losing her? She has whined and whined, ostentatiously avoided all forms of work. The key to her eviction though, seems not to have been all-round good taste, but everyone else wanting to stay on the good side of Rob (while I remain to be firmly convinced that he HAS a good side, within this game). Even Lex and Kathy are cautious about crossing him. Where does his effective power come from?
Notice how the things that the editing of the show seem to point towards so clearly, never happen? It's the very opposite of a Spoiler. A Spoiler is when someone who has somehow discovered what happens in next week's episode, tells you about it and spoils all your fun. What shall we call this routine technique in Survivor, when they hint heavily that X will be booted (and then you know X won't leave) or that Y will happen (and Y doesn't). Any suggestions?
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