Well, every good merge calls for a good feast, and the gang all opened that infernal crate and pounced on its savory innards. There were drinks and snacks and arts & crafts for a new flag. What else could a person want? (Except for electricity, running water, a refrigerator, shelter, bug spray, a car, some money, a tooth brush, a candy bar, maybe a cheeseburger, a pillow, some blankets, clean clothes, did I mention running water?)

Everyone then stuffed their faces with grub; although, no one can quite stuff their faces the way Shane can. I'm pretty sure he's about three or four million years less evolved than the rest of us are from cavemen. Try this one out for size: eat with your mouth closed, SHANE.

After lunch, it was time to expand the shelter, and it didn't take a genius to anticipate Shane getting annoyed with Terry's take-charge attitude. There's only enough room for one alpha-male on this island, buckaroo. And by alpha-male, I mean scrawny, paranoid lunatic. Sure enough, Shane told us, "It's hard to tell, but I think that Terry does not have the Immunity Idol. Next time he doesn't get immunity, he's out." Oh wonderful. This could only lead to a wonderful backfire.

My dreams of a total Tribal Council disaster came even closer to realization as Aras told Shane, "We'll let Captain America take the lead." (And yes, Captain America was their term for Terry).

"Let Terry build it [the shelter], then we'll vote him off," Shane responded. Excellent. You all shall perish!

Meanwhile, Terry began his official campaign to win over a Casaya member. Shouldn't be difficult, given all the rifts, but then again, one can never underestimate Terry's incredibly lame attempts at scheming. Well, actually, I shouldn't say "scheming." Terry doesn't actually scheme. Instead, he offers deals. Dumb deals. For instance, he gave Bruce the chance to be top five! GREAT! That's like that season (I think it was Palau) when someone offered a person to be top seven. Why not just offer someone top fifteen at that point?

Just in case there was any doubt on this savory deal, Terry then said he'd shake on it AND look Bruce in the eye. "I'm a mad of my word," Terry said. Yeah, like that time he voted off Dan. Oh wait...

Sensing that Terry was trying to turn Bruce, Shane and Aras devised a little strategy to win back their Mr. Miyagi. They decided to make him feel like he was the leader, which meant the two guys kept saying things like "You're the leader now, Bruce!" And because Bruce is something of a chump, he totally fell into it -- not questioning why these people who had always been antagonistic to him were suddenly deferring to him on all questions. For sure, Bruce did notice that people were fawning over him a little more. He even bragged about being in a power position to us -- always a dangerous move. Cocky swing voters never last long.

Well, when simple deal making doesn't work, there's always another way to turn someone: bash them in the face with a machete! Yes, in what looked like a fairly painful accident, Nick managed to strike Bruce right in the grill with his machete. Basically, he was sawing away at a piece of rope, and in a brilliant move, Bruce stood RIGHT OVER THE ROPE so that when it inevitably snapped, the machete went flying forward, swiftly chopping him in the face. This caused a gash in his lip and a chip in his tooth, and they way they were talking, I thought Bruce might need a special visit to the Exile Island Plastic/Oral Surgeon. But in reality, while it may have been painful, Bruce seemed to get over it pretty quickly, and his lip didn't look so bad. Either way, not a great way to ingratiate yourself, NICK.

He should have known Nick was in the Cobra Kai.

Later on "Merge Beach" (and yes, that was the overly technical name CBS temporarily named this campsite), woeful machete victim Bruce painted the tribe flag, and let me tell you something, this flag was about ten times better looking than any other homemade one in the history of the game. Normally the merged tribes create a garish concoction that looks a hair better than some pre-school hand paint disaster. Anyway, the new tribe was called Gitanos -- the Spanish word for gypsies -- which would have made sense had any of them been, you know, gypsies.

Sensing that Bruce may not be as easy to turn as he would have liked, Terry then tried to work his "magic" on Shane, offering him top six if he were to bring Cirie into the fold as well. Of course, Shane wasn't into this offer because, well, it was completely dumb, but that didn't stop Terry from approaching Cirie. "Our group of four would like to offer you and Shane the opportunity to take the burden of Tribal Council off your shoulders for the next two weeks," he said. Why so formal? It's not like this was an invitation to a garden party.

Luckily, Cirie saw right through this scheme, telling us, "It's like a dictionary salesman. I mean, I already have an encyclopedia collection here, and you want to sell me a dictionary?" Sure enough, Cirie and Shane both turned down Terry's wonderful invitation, thus ruining any shot they had at turning a Casayan. The problem here was that Terry was making random deals that really offered no upside to any of these people. He needed to scheme more -- get in their heads. He and his cohorts needed to expose tensions, stoke the paranoia. At the very least, get them wondering what the pecking order will be like once the La Mina folk are gone. Once everyone's sufficiently angry at each other, that's when you make the deal. Gotta get them vulnerable.

Posted by B-side on March 31, 2006 2:52 PM