Anyway, at the deluxe challenge, teams had to send three people out into a field and collect four giant puzzle pieces. Two more people would then assemble the pieces in a tricky brain-teaser order. First to complete the puzzle would win... toys? Yes, the victors would receive soccer balls, hula hoops, and a pinata that they would take to a nearby Panamanian fishing village. Oh, and at that village, they'd get to eat their hearts out at a traditional barbecue. Let's just hope Sally doesn't get her hands on those toys. I already have visions of that piñata happily resting on the ocean floor.

The winners of this challenge had a few other perks as well. Aside from receiving immunity, they also got to pick someone to go to Exile Island, and that person would get to skip Tribal Council. Essentially, the winners could grant someone individual immunity. Best case scenario: Casaya wins, the nutty tribe stays wonderfully intact, Sally goes to Exile Island, the Boys Club has to eat itself alive. Alternate: La Mina wins, tribes even up, Cirie goes to Exile Island, Shane possibly goes. Worst case scenario: La Mina wins, Shane sent to Exile Island.

Anyway, the challenge began, and Terry took a quick lead as he untied his puzzle piece. Shane, meanwhile, fell rapidly behind. Maybe he was still smarting from nearly getting steamrolled by the Terry Train just moments earlier. Nevertheless, Shane seemed incapable of untying his puzzle piece, going so far as to gnaw at the rope with his teeth. I sort of thought he might yell at the rope, blame it for Bobby going home. And then he'd blame Courtney for causing the rope to be too hard to unravel.

Eventually, Shane freed up his puzzle piece, but by then, his tribe had fallen woefully behind. Danielle tried her best to catch up with La Mina. Unfortunately, this meant exposing her underarms which had early tufts of arm pit hair rapidly growing. Yech. Must... Keep... Eyes... On... Enormous... Breasts...

While Casaya toiled, La Mina began their puzzle, and let me just say, this wasn't some simple jigsaw puzzle. This was a tricky brain teaser that involved many rotating parts. Still, this would be cake for someone with an analytical brain, someone with a math and sciences background, someone with a penchant for problem solving -- you know, like all those people at NASA. See what I'm getting at? This should have been Dan's forte, but instead of methodically working through the puzzle, he and Sally freaked out, putting random pieces in random places, hoping to haphazardly stumble onto the solution. This afforded Casaya the chance to catch up, and before long, Bruce and Cirie had placed two of their four pieces. Well, we all knew how this would wind up. Casaya easily sailed to a come-from-behind victory, thus ensuring that our favorite nutballs would live to see another day -- another day for them to gripe and grouse about each other. And with thirty minutes left in the show, we knew there'd be drama aplenty coming up. A Tribal Council like none other!!

Well, before Casaya could head off to the BBQ, they had one last order of business to attend to. Who would they spare from Tribal Council (crossing my fingers for Sally. Crossing my fingers for Sally). Their choice: SALLY! YES!! At this point, there was jubilation all throughout the TVgasm offices. We get really happy when people's plans go awry and underdogs escape elimination. Yes, this was the perfect scenario, and this episode was rapidly becoming more and more of a gem as the minutes ticked on. Between all the scheming and conflict and now this twist, this was reality gold. All we needed was that crazy Tribal Council to send this one off the charts.

Anyway, Casaya celebrated their victory with some general enthusiasm, capped off with Shane giving Cirie a nasty smooch on her head. I'm sure she'll cherish that experience greatly. We then cut to commercial, and when we returned, poor Sally was poking around Exile Island, hoping to find the immunity idol which we all knew was no longer there (Terry had it, in case you forgot). The producers even gave her another clue to the idol's former whereabouts, which was fairly cruel in my estimation. But "fairly cruel" often translates into me being happy, so hey, I'm not complaining.

Meanwhile, the Casay Clan docked at the aforementioned fishing village where they were greeted by eager children, food, and peppy Survivor music. Good times, good times. But you can never dine in the third world without taking a moment to reflect, and like clockwork, the music suddenly became emotional and inspirational as soaring strings told us, "Hey, let's take a minute to soak this all in." Cirie commented a little about how the children reminded her of her nieces and nephews, but thankfully, she didn't get all sentimental and cry. There were a few chin quivers, but mostly, it was a dry event. The touching moment was soon cut short by Shane who wasn't reflecting about his son but rather bartering for a cigarette. I suppose this was way of saying "Winners never quit, and quitters never win." We then saw footage of Shane orgasmically inhaling smoke, his body almost writhing in ecstasy. "This is probably a really bad decision," he said, clearly happy for the first time in several days. But because we don't want to send out an improper message to America's youth, Shane then randomly commented, "It shows me how devastating nicotine is to the body on every level." The sincerity was just oozing right through the television. Thanks, TheTruth.com!

Posted by B-side on March 10, 2006 2:24 AM