It's sunny again, for a change, but the torpid bunch sit around chatting idly, about the weather and personal animosities.
Apparently, so we now discover, Jenna and Shii-Ann don't like each other. According to Jenna, “When she opens her mouth, it makes me want to put a gun in mine." (Even Rupert seems to find her increasingly annoying). According to Shii Ann, Jenna is a bossy bitch. Blah, blah, blah. Certainly Jenna has taken over the bossing role since Alicia left. Shii-Ann seems to have begun to recognise that she has "very few friends". Uh, let's be accurate Shii-Ann – that’s no friends.
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Jenna stirring again
Jenna also busies herself trouble-making, pointing out to Rupert that he works so darn hard at hunting the fish, and nobody shows their appreciation for all his hard work (If you ever read Eric Berne's classic "Games People Play", she's playing a skilled game of "Let's You and Him Fight"). It works. Rupert gets in a moan, because the other folks didn't help to clean up after the last fish-supper he provided, so he cooks a fresh fish just for himself. But hold on there, wasn't it Rupert who, deciding that his sheer awesome beauty alone wouldn't be enough to keep him there to the end, chose the role of provider, to strengthen his position? And doesn't a provider, well, provide?
Anyhow, Jenna keeps blathering on about it, not that the others seem to care much. Indeed, the others say they're very content for Rupert to eat his fish as he pleases. What's actually annoying him most is that Jenna seems to feel she alone should be specially privileged to share in his catch, and just won't stop stubbornly pressing for this special relationship. She insists it's not her fault that she's an iddy-biddy little fing who couldn't go fishing, because the tides would "literally" crush her against the rocks. She soon makes us regret we missed that spectacle.
Not a family feast
Maybe this phoney issue about food is to foreshadow the next exciting reward challenge, which is all about Food. Really nasty Food (this wouldn't be Fear Factor, oops! sorry, Survivor, without an episode of eating horibly disgusting things, now would it?) But there's a new wrinkle. It is combined with the perennial Visit of the Relatives. And this time it's the relatives who have to eat the unpleasant Panamanian food items (no, Cynthia, not a Panama hat among them, that would have been such a pleasant alternative) while the Survivors sit round and watch.
And so - enter the march of the relatives, accompanied by dramatic music and floods of tears. Let's see, there's Amber's mom, Cheryl, first. Then Rob's younger brother Mike, a pleasant looking lad. Followed by Shii Ann's mom, Lilly. Then comes Tom's son, Bucky Bo. I kid you not. Bucky Bo. Isn't that cute? Wild are the ways of the goat farmer! A nice fellow, but he doesn't look as if he's going to rank amongst the genius group. This guy's almost dim enough to qualify as American President! Then there's Jenna's apparently beloved brother, about as annoying as her. Was he called Jonna?
Finally, there's Rupert's wife, Laura. They promptly go into such a long clinch, as she eagerly climbs the north face of Mount Rupert, that Jeff has to ask them to break it up. The challenge winner gets to spend the night with their relative. Hmmm. Now we'll see Rupert genuinely motivated.
Eating contest from hell
Anyhow, onto the Ugh! eating contest. You have to eat everything on your plate, even if it's crawling off it at the time, and apparently can't drink water to help it down, though this isn't made very clear. And then the ugliest part of all, you have to pull horrible faces and opening your mouth wide, tongue out, to demonstrate that you have indeed swallowed the nasty object.
The menu is absolutely disgusting. First up - fish heads from Thailand. They do remarkably well, but Cheryl can't quite manage in time, poor thing. Then Lilly faces flying cockroaches from Panama, and can't devour them fast enough. Laura is confronted with Fafaru (a horrible concoction of rotten fish) and can't tolerate it.
Jenna's Brother feasts on crispy Tarantulas from Thailand, but, as he washed them down with water, contrary to the rules, he's disqualified. Isn't that actually the worst outcome you could face? Not balk at it and give up, but to eat the disgusting stuff, and then be disqualified? Jeff carefully tells us that the enormous spiders are "cooked" and thus non-toxic. I wonder how they cook a tarantula? Couldn't find a recipe on the web! Finally, just when it's looking as if nobody can win, Bucky Bo takes on the some disgusting live grubs from Australia, and swallows it in one. He wins.
Just imagine the challenge for the producers, to fly in all these disgusting live insects from different countries, despite all the customs regulations that ordinarily would have prevented this. When most of us may face extensive questioning when entering the country with a wholly innocent bag of clothes, I wonder what sort of conversations these guys have with the customs officer? "Anything to declare, sir?" "No, only half a dozen fried tarantulas, and some live Australian Witchetty grubs." "That's fine sir, so long as there are no cigarettes or liquor."
Tom’s victory dance from Hicksville
Now, we all knew that Tom can manage a nasty variety of victory dance, but you ain't seen nothing yet, till you see Tom dance with Bucky Bo! And his dance chant now is the repeated query: "Who's yer Daddy?" I didn't know that paternity was in doubt, but he does keep asking. Indeed, when eventually Bucky bows out and is speeding off across the waves. Tom's calling "Who's yer Mama?" Good grief, has he even met this young man before today?
As for the reward, it's hardly an enthralling prospect for the viewers for Tom and Bucky Bo to spend the night together (Rupert and Laura are looking disappointed, though). But wait! They get to invite another survivor to join them! Isn't that downright kinky? Tom ponders this opportunity. Jenna, unable to shut up as usual, yells "Take Rupert!", for some unaccountable reason. But Tom eventually chooses to take - Rob (and his brother)! He later tells his son he thinks Rob will take him into the final two, though he's more incoherent than usual. Yes, Tom, just after Rob loses the next presidential election, running against Bucky Bo. However, there's nothing especially exciting in the way they spend the night, eating pizza and drinking beer. Rob tells his brother that he doesn't trust Tom.
Later, Rupe, at Tom's suggestion, takes Bucky out fishing, but the kid manages to lose some important part of the second best spear. (What's stirring in my memory, folks? Was it in Shakespeare's will that he left his wife, his second-best bed? I always wondered who got the best bed.)
Immunity challenge – same old, same old
Next tree-mail provides a bucket and a message. Yes, the immunity challenge is the old lighting fire in buckets, pouring water in buckets. Gee, they don't waste much time thinking up new challenges, do they? How many times have we seen this one before? The matches, the firewood, the bucket, the tower. Y-a-a-w-n!
For a while it looked as if Shii-Ann would pull off an unbelievable second success, but in the end Tom won, mainly because all the others ran out of matches. So we're subjected to another of his gruesome victory dances. Talk of Dirty Dancing 2!
Shii-Ann can see exactly what's coming, though she tries a frantic set of negotiations and wheedling. She tries with Tom, Rupert, even Amber, trying to push them towards voting Jenna out, but to no avail. Even Tom is sick of Jenna, but with all the heavy-handed programme hints pointing to the loss of Jenna, we can be sure she's safe for at least another week. Tom's a shrewd player, never threatening, never looks like he'd win or be any other sort of risk to anyone else, so he cruises towards the final four.
Shii-Ann for the chopping block
And so to Tribal Council, and the jury look odd as they enter. Is Kathy ducking the camera so we won't see her peculiar appearance? She looks as if she's had major plastic surgery, but is scared to so much as twitch a facial muscle, in case the stitches unravel. Maybe it was a severe overdose of Botox. Alicia just looks plain furious, and if looks could kill, this would be a massacre. For once, Jeff is somewhat clever, knowing how much Shii-Ann likes talking drivel. He sets up the opportunity, and she's off! Babbling on about everything she can think of, relevant or not.
Though she was plotting to get Jenna voted off, this week it's Shii-Ann who goes. Blah, Blah, blah, as she herself might have said (if she wasn't so busy yakking). The inevitable happens, and everyone votes for Shii-Ann. Well, except for herself. She votes for Amber, having said she'll vote against the person she thinks will win the contest. So Shii-Ann is off. Permanently. In her final comment to camera, she cheerfully acknowledges Amber's skills, "As one she-devil to another!"
The others head back to camp, and normal life is resumed, if you can call it normal Rupert fishes, Jenna grumbles, Tom gets drunk, and Rob/Amber snuggle together.
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