In this episode: a tribe reshuffle, Elsie’s pout, a mysterious injury and a few happy campers.
I remain puzzled about all those little guys scurrying about during the credits - when will we ever meet them? Are they carrying Mark's hair-care products?
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Cocky Lisa big-headedly thanks "all those who believed in me and kept me here". She sounds like one of those bubble-headed movie starlets receiving an Oscar and thanking her fans. Don't flatter yourself, duckie, nobody believes in you. They're merely putting up with you, and you've run out of chances.
If Viwe hadn't been seen as even less useful, you wouldn't be around. Grant warns her again, but she still isn't listening. To camera, she smugly says she'll have to get off her ass and get to work, but she isn't looking forward to it, because "it drains you so much!" How on earth would she know? When did she ever discover the effects of hard work?
At Bajau, they're enjoying the combination of fire and food. And they’re praising Hein. He was after all the first Survivor contestant ever to make fire without any special equipment. But is he still needed as much now? Elsie continues to grumble and lie around. Nobody trusts Rijesh. He resents Amanda for not trusting him, and threatens to "screw her over" if she doesn't do so - thus proving that she is right not to trust him.
Nichal is supposedly saving his strength, though you wonder what for. Grant has been careful that nobody should discover that he's an attorney, (understandable, given the popularity of lawyers) but he says he doesn't want them to think he's smarter than he is. Is that really a major risk? Wouldn't his nasty tattoos protect him sufficiently?
Up the creek without a paddle?
The reward challenge involves paddling a canoe, filling a basket with fish, and then tossing the fish hand-to- hand to weigh down a scale. In the strenuous part, it's Hein and Dyke versus Mandla and Irshaad. As usual, the women side-step the really hard tasks. Elsie is awfully eager to volunteer to sit this one out. Of course.
Surprised they didn't use Wonder woman Lisa, but somehow she's never actually put to the test. They can win fishing gear - goggles, flippers, a bag of rice, and a harpong (presumably a very smelly form of harpoon). It's a wholly one-sided contest. Hein and Dyke know exactly what they're doing. The other pair paddles in a bemused way, getting nowhere and drifting around. When they eventually reach the platform, Mandla jumps on, and Irshaad bizarrely paddles off and can't get back to fetch him.
You rarely see a pair of contestants so comprehensively hopeless, and they lose by a huge margin. Irshaad should never have volunteered for a task if he knew he had no relevant skills, but he later says that as nobody else offered to do so, he assumed none of them could paddle either.
Dyke apparently knows exactly how to use all the fishing equipment and is literally a very happy camper. (Where exactly does he do his "landscaping", to have gained so much maritime experience?) He's raving about the beauty of the ocean floor now accessible to them, and doesn't notice that nobody is listening.
Rijesh, the self-proclaimed Puppet master, is becoming more unpopular and not recognising that he is at risk. They've all noticed that he tells different stories to different people. As Bajau prepares a feast, the tribe has split into two groups - Angela, Hein, Dyke and Amanda, versus Elsie, Nichal and Rijesh. Great tactics, O Puppet master!
Elsie somehow manages to maintain her perpetual pout.
Flummoxed and re-shuffled
But the next challenge flummoxes them all, by mixing the tribes unexpectedly and suddenly ruining alliances. It also has the effect of protecting the truly useless. They are re-allocated by randomly drawing buffs from a bag. The Iban Blues are Irshaad, Angie, Rijesh, Amanda, Elsie and Dyke. The Yellow Bajaus are Angela, Nichal, Hein, Lisa, Lorette, Grant, and Mandla.
The push-of-war
Now they have an immediate challenge, with each tribe pushing a bar against each other within a circle, to see who can push the others backwards and reach a target. The losers will go directly to tribal council.
In the push-of-war (no tugging required) Iban is overwhelmed, and Bajau triumphs. But the ending is interrupted by Elsie screaming wildly. She has apparently been hurt, seemingly getting her arm and fingers squeezed when she foolishly placed them while the equipment was rotating. When replaying this section, it wasn’t clear what happened. She appeared to bizarrely turn and start to walk away, sideways. Mark sees something amiss, and warns everyone to be careful, but we can't see what it is he's responding to.
Much ado about almost nothing
She seems to be over-reacting to a marked extent, and seems really keen to be injured. This could be for one of two reasons: either she wants to attract sympathy or wants to have an honourable excuse to go when she is voted out, which is likely. This way she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that no one likes her.
Thus there's a short pause for her to receive medical attention and assessment. It’s extremely noticeable how nobody else seems to be in the least bit bothered, while Elsie performs and screams. There's no sign of blood. When the medics attend her, they pour some water on her left elbow. When she re-appears, she has light bandages on the 4th and 5th fingers of her right hand, and a bandage round her left elbow, but she's able to carry her shoes in one hand and her torch in the other, without any apparent trouble.
A dysfunctional family
And so to a slightly delayed daytime tribal council. Elsie continues to try to milk the situation for sympathy. She announces that she "physically can't move her fingers", though later as she becomes animated, and they appear to be moving fine. She insists that she "could have lost a finger" and that she was "in shock". She seems so sorry for herself, while nobody else shows any sorrow at all. Mark is smiling broadly. And she speaks with peculiarly inaccurate nostalgia of her beloved former tribe, where, she insists, they were just one large and happy family. Good grief, was there some brain damage and amnesia involved in this incident?
Angie and Irshaad feel somewhat at risk, as a minority in the group, but there's such an obvious scapegoat, that they'll have time to secure their places, if they choose to.
When it comes to the voting, Elsie votes for Angie, for no clear reason, and everyone else appears to vote for Elsie, even Rijesh. Some family that was! She gives huge hugs to Rijesh and Amanda, without showing any trace of disability or pain. Surely there's nobody on either team who regrets her departure. Her carping, kvetching, and negativity will not be missed, by viewers or participants.
(Professor M.A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, September, 2007)
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