This week's big shew opened up with wayward Mr. Miyagi clone Bruce (RIP Pat Morita) joining Casaya, taking the place of recently ejected Melinda (RIP sweet, plump woman). The tribe couldn't have been happier to receive the fresh blood. After all, they had been pretty useless around camp, especially seeing that up until that point, their wilderness expertise resided in Courtney, bestower of elaborate tortoise funerals. Well, Bruce had great news for Casaya: "You just got the most important person of everybody." Ego much? Look, Bruce, we love your can-do attitude, but are you really the most important person of everybody? What about Jeff Probst? Or Mark Burnett? Or God??

Oh, I can't be mad at Bruce. He really is the best. Nevertheless, the Most Important Person of Everybody, or MIPOE (not to be confused with the country of Meepos), revealed a secret trick to preparing water: filtering it through three t-shirts. Oh. Wonderful. Sounds totally sanitary... in a non-sanitary, disgusting sort of way. Listen, no offense to anyone, but the last thing I want is my drinking water seeping through the same cloth that's soaked up the sweat from Shane, Cirie, Courtney -- or even worse -- ALL THREE! But don't worry, this special method is sure to rid 90% of the water's bacteria. Great. So you have to endure all that nasty filtration and then on top of that still risk cholera. Bruce, you suck now. Unless, of course, you somehow cause Shane to contract a worm. Then you're awesome again.

Speaking of Shane, he was not happy that there was another alpha-male on the tribe, especially one that had a nineteen years of wilderness training. Whatever, Bruce. Big deal. Shane has nineteen years of cigarette training. So there! "It grates on my nerves," Shane said of Bruce's pedigree, adding, "I just want him to shut up!" Seriously, there just aren't enough words to describe how annoying Shane is. I can't stand the guy, and yet, sadly, he's the perfect villain. And you know he's going to just get more and more paranoid and ridiculous, sort of like Jamie from last season (who incidentally I totally saw on Parental Control two weeks ago. He played the asshole boyfriend -- surprise, surprise. No mention of Survivor on the show, but he was labeled as an aspiring model. We'll let him know if there's ever a second season of Manhunt).

Anyhoo, back to the show. Despite its dubious scientific merits, Bruce's filtration method won over the tribe. Courtney did have a few reservations though. "I'm shocked and awed that this method actually gets bacteria out of the water," she said. Well, technically, it doesn't. I could just imagine Bruce piping up and saying, "Yeah, it totally works. Whenever I take students camping, nine out of ten kids don't come down with massive, explosive diarrhea."

The next morning, we headed over to La Mina, where food was hard to come by. This was represented by a nasty snail slowly creepin' along. And when I say nasty, I really mean it. This thing looked like it had just traveled through a pile of soot -- which may or may not have happened, actually. Anyway, we then saw the gaunt and emaciated Ruth Marie who looked like she just emerged from... well... would I be a bad Jew if I made a Holocaust joke? Probably. So I'll just move on. We then saw Misty who appeared to be the All You Can Eat Midnight Smorgasbord for all the island's insects. Blotchy would be an understatement. I don't understand why the bugs liked her so much whereas Sally was traipsing around as if she'd just stepped out of a Noxema commercial.

Oh Sally. Sally, Sally, Sally. Because of her, La Mina had no fishing spear. As a result, they had to fish the old-fashioned way. I mean the old-fashioned way -- a spool of wire and a hook and that's it. Medieval, as Nick said. The good news was that the guys were able to catch one fish after another. The bad news was that they were all poisonous puffer fish. Now, I've seen puffer fish before in books and nature specials, but there was something disturbing and oddly gross about watching the poor fish bloat up there on the raft. It looked like it might pop and be all nasty -- especially when one of the guys began poking it with a stick. Make it stop! Make it stop! Toss it back in the sea!

Luckily, Terry caught a tiny fish which was predictably named Nemo (funny, I don't remember that fish being eaten by humans in the Disney version. Must have been the director's cut). I don't know how Terry managed to hook Nemo, but I imagine the fish was drawn to his entrancing yellow shirt with purple, vertical stripes. Anyway, the tribe dined on the flesh of Nemo's corpse -- lucky fin and all -- and at the Reward Challenge, they appeared reinvigorated and ready to compete. But then again, same went for Casaya who had been restored to life now that Bruce was on board. "We feel a hell of a lot bettah... Bruce is the save-yah [savior]," Danielle said in that oh-so-familiar Boston accent. Hey Ambah, check out the new girl on Survivah!

Posted by B-side on February 20, 2006 3:50 PM