Anyway, as the group of unpicked people thinned, Melinda wound up the only girl remaining. She had the privilege of joining Courtney and Aras on tribe Casaya, leaving just Bruce and Dan for La Mina's Ruth Marie to choose. Who would it be: stocky Asian guy or sickly Albino dude? I would have picked Bruce, but that Ruth Marie -- she's a fickle one (either that, or she's deathly afraid of older Asian men). She picked Dan, which meant Mr. Miyagi was left all by his lonesome. Probst tried to scare him into thinking he'd be going home (kind of like Palau's Wanda and that other dude with one testicle), but we knew better than that. Obvies he was going to Exile Island (THUNDER CLAP!! DOOOM!!!). But before Bruce could be shipped out for some one-on-one time with himself, Jeff alerted him that he would be safe at Tribal Council. Yes, Bruce would be spending the next three days on Exile Island, and he would return at Tribal Council where he would take the place of whoever was voted out. I likey.

Well, Bruce headed off to his island getaway, leaving the rest of the survivors to compete in this weeks' reward challenge. The producers set up an elaborate obstacle course (as usual) which called for teams to untie six wooden snakes. First tribe across the finish line with all its snakes would win fishing equipment. Fantastic. Well, Jeff flapped his arms, and the survivors were off. Nothing particularly memorable happened during this challenge, although poor Bobby took a hard hit when Cirie fell on his head, her massive frame surely causing momentary paralysis. Seriously, if she had done that to Dan, his head would have simply popped right off.

Anyway, La Mina eventually won the reward, which sucked for Casaya, but hey, no big deal. It was still early in the game, and the new tribe was happy to simply return to their camp and get to know each other. Like Shawna from Amazon, sourpuss Shane suddenly seem reinvigorated now that some girls were around. He immediately bashed the older guys to his new tribe mates, complaining about how they just wanted to work all the time. Yeah, what's the deal with that "work ethic" and desire to "build a shelter"? Why can't they just sit around and talk about how awesome Franz Ferdinand is or how much they listen to Indie 103.1 and KCRW? (Sorry, those are uber-trendy things that Los Angeles hipsters like to babble about.)

Later, Cirie showed off the older women's shelter to Casaya, bragging, "We have not been wet at all."

"I'm so impressed. Why?" asked Courtney. Yeah, why was the shelter so damn good? Oh, that's right. Because TINA built it. I'm sorry. I'm still bitter. Any time such a wonderful mullet is taken from us, I tend to lash out.

Anyway, the Casaya gang soon gathered around to talk about whatever, and Courtney expressed some of that naive early optimism about her tribe, saying, "I like our name. I like our color. I like our people!" Yeah man. If only there were a dead tortoise around to mark the occasion. That would be like so symbolic, man!

Of course, Courtney's Earth Mother tendencies soon proved to be a predictably thin veil over perhaps her true nature: Hollywood poseur. Within seconds of talking with Shane, her inner-hipster came out as she commenced all sorts of bragging and one-upsmanship. She clucked about being "gangsta Hollywood" and being able to walk to such trendy spots as the Spider Club and Avalon. But perhaps she was most proud of living near the seedy Playboy Liquor (Wilcox and Franklin, for all you stalkers out there), which would have seemed really hardcore, had not a crepe restaurant just opened next door.

We then saw a random shot of Shane waddling away, and was it just me, or did he walk around like either a) he had hemorrhoids, b) he just took it up the ass, or c) both? Nevertheless, Melinda could tell that she and Cirie were screwed. After all, they had no trendy Hollywood stories to tell, and let's face it, they were the only fat ones. It's survival of the hottest in reality TV.

Sure enough, an alliance quickly formed on the tribe, and it did not include Melinda and Cirie (or Bobby, for that matter). Shane was the mastermind, and he recruited Courtney, Danielle, and Aras, saying, "Can we not make it dramatic and cheat on each other five people in? Let's just the four of us go to the four. Done. No more discussion about it." Okay. We'll see how long this lasts. Before we could really let the skepticism set in, Shane then went and committed the cardinal Survivor sin: "I swear to you on my son's life," he said. Ooooh. Dangerous move. Just ask Vanauatu's Twila. This was already spelling bad news for Shane, but just in case we weren't sure just how dumb he was, he then tried some brazen scare tactics, threatening, "Here's the deal; if any of you screw me, I'll find you and kill you. I'm serious." Yup, that's really gonna win 'em over.

Why couldn't Shane have adopted a tamer, Jim Croce type of alliance, like the one that Dan and Terry had started last week? Those two guys, now on La Mina, were so excited about their secret alliance that they immediately spilled the beans to Austin and Nick, inviting them to join along. The younger chaps agreed, which was awesome for Dan who was already brimming with golly-gee excitement. "Terry and I have a fantastic relationship and a strategy that's going to take us all the way. So, it's great!" he told us. Simmer down, Space Patrol. This is Survivor, not kickball.

Posted by B-side on February 13, 2006 4:24 PM