Could you eat fish eyes, dried frogs, live baby squid and cockroaches? Some people will do anything for money. CyberShrink comments.
In this episode, Angie the Grinch is a sharp-tongued little biddy, always griping, who complains vigorously about pretty well everyone else. She's the instructor who put the Boot into Boot Camp. In what is coyly called Reski's Revenge, they experience diarrhoea, after over-indulging in meat after their starvation diet.
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Lisa cheerfully reminds us that they have no spade and no toilet paper: "It's shit!" she helpfully and insightfully reveals. See what a university education does for you? Oddly, she literally has some difficulty in calling a spade a spade.
Angela and Amanda are so smug and self-satisfied after getting rid of Rijesh, that they now torment Irshaad, their next target. They complain about him being lazy, though they're at least that lazy and useless themselves, and at least he doesn't spend his time sneering and trying to hurt others. They complain that "he's messed up in four challenges", though they have not exactly distinguished themselves in the challenges either - at least he has treid.
The Ibanites and the Bajauans
The days of the Ibanites and Bajauans must be numbered - surely the merge can't be far ahead. Mandla expresses what others must be feeling - he's sick of Angela queening it over everyone else, acting as Hein's consort. He consoles himself by nibbling extra meat in the dark.
The women in this game have no hesitation about grabbing unearned power when it's available. As in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, they want to be treated as equals, but some of them insist on being more equal than others. The Bajauan group decides to take a gift of some of the meat to their hungry opponents in Iban - mainly because they'll look good, and the meat will spoil very soon, anyway.
The yucky banquet
As they approach the reward challenge, Lisa correctly guesses that this will be the one involving "eating poofy stuff". Did I mention she was eloquent, as well as hard-working? I think it's Angela who specifies that there are some things she just won't eat: "Private parts I don't do."
It is indeed that challenge, and it involves platters of such delicacies as fish eyes, dried frogs, live baby squid and cockroaches. The prize will be their choice of either a bundle of soap, shampoo, insect repellent, etc., or a wok and some rice. Dyke is faster than Grant at devouring the day's special, a plate of dried frog, cockroaches and beetles. Hein is faster on the baby squid. Irshaad beats Angela on the fish eyes, and Amanda, though at first appearing squeamish, doesn't squeam at all, and beats Lorette in eating the fresh and mobile prawns. So Iban wins, and chooses the food prize.
At Bajau, Hein happily continues to be Angela's sugar-daddy. She flatters him carefully, but doesn't seem to notice that the courtiers of King Hein would very much like to dump her should the opportunity arise. The apparent shark attack in the lagoon we were promised in last week's trailer, turns out to be another crude joke from Hein, who had found a moribund small sharklet.
At Iban they're still troubled by rats, and the Ratty Queen, Amanda gets ever more whiny. Peculiarly, she says she doesn't fear the rats, she just has a rat phobia. Amanda admits that she's so smelly, you could smell her underwater.
The immunity idle
At the immunity challenge they sit out Lisa yet again. Unbelievable. Hein seems to make all these decisions without ever consulting the others. Is he tactically trying to increase the chances of Lisa getting evicted, rather than his consort? It's a complex game, involving carrying blazing torches across a balance beam while the opposing team tries to knock you off by swinging sandbags. Dyke proves remarkably clever and agile, and Mandla, representing the other side, hasn't a hope. Somehow he just fails to learn from his mistakes. Mandla loses badly.
The tribe sounds very impressed with Dyke's achievement. Angie continues to obsess about her pathological lust for driving Irshaad out - she'd almost rather have seen her tribe lose the challenge, so as to get rid of him sooner. "I don't respect anything that comes out of his mouth". There is nothing rational about this, as he is no possible threat to her, but she is snobbishly opposed to him and just won't let go. She keeps poking at him and provoking him, while he tries in vain to ignore this and to remain calm. One suspects that Angie was the sort of kid who enjoyed pulling the wings off flies.
Lisa squirms
In Bijou, Mandla is very aware that he lost it for his tribe, but he's not at risk so far. At Tribal Council, Mark intelligently pursues his earlier observation that Lisa keeps sitting out challenges. She notices the risk of this being recognised, and feebly complains that such decisions are taken so rapidly that she has no time to protest. Of course this is nonsense, as she can and should, discuss this before any challenge, to ensure her participation. But she has this peculiarly passive attitude towards the game, preferring to leave everything to everyone else, from chores to decisions.
Hein's comment is absurd. He says the girls are not excluded as the weakest tribe members - it's just that they always put forward their strongest players. Huh? When it comes to the vote, Lisa votes for Hein, explaining that this is to show him that nobody's safe; and everyone else votes for Lisa. Even Grant, though his ballot is hard to read, and he seems to vote for "Lisa-Jane". So, still with that curious grin fixed to her face, Lisa wanders off into the dark.
Next time, not surprisingly, Irshaad's sufferings continue, and Hein is injured, placing Angie at risk.
(Professor M.A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, October 2007)
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