At the immunity challenge, the tribe filed in, and Aras made a particular jackass of himself by sporting a high faux-hawk. Here's the thing: you're stranded in the wilderness. Fashion and style really don't matter anymore. The fact that he actually went and put water in his hair to preserve his faux-hawk is just so sadly narcissistic. I'm surprised he didn't fashion a Von Dutch hat out of palm fronds and seashells.

Anyway, this week's immunity challenge was the first endurance test of the season. The survivors all had to climb up to a horizontal pole, latch on, and then hang on upside down for as long as possible. That's it. Poor Cirie -- she'd be done in about three seconds flat. Well, everyone climbed on up and assumed their positions. It sort of was like a modified elephant walk as nearly everyone had their heads stuck in someone else's asses. An appropriate visual image for this show, I suppose. We then cut to the smoldering afternoon sun, and when we came back to the challenge, a whopping three minutes had elapsed. Wow. This was hardcore!

As predicted, Cirie fell first and took a spot on the sand. Seven minutes later, Probst engaged in his favorite pastime: provoking the players. "You start to feel your muscles cramp..." he said, hoping to get inside all their heads. Honestly, he just loves screwing with people. Soon Aras dropped, which was surprising. I figured a yoga instructor would be able to meditate through such adversity, but that's assuming Aras actually is a yoga instructor, not some aspiring pretty-boy actor -- like Shane. But then again, he didn't need immunity, so who cared, right?

Well, Bruce and Sally dropped next while Shane bargained for food from Probst. Dude, you just ate at the merge feast. Maybe this guy has a parasite of some sort. Either that, or he's just a total idiot. Yeah, probably that last one. Well, Probst said no food, to which Shane promptly grunted and dropped too. Oh, how I would have laughed had Probst then carted out a cheeseburger.

Danielle and Courtney gave up next, leaving only the three men of La Mina on the pole. After about twenty minutes, they began negotiating, but that really led nowhere. Ten minutes later, Austin dropped out, leaving Terry and Nick. It was a close race, but at the forty minute mark, Nick couldn't hang on any longer. He fell, leaving Terry to win immunity. This meant that Probst got to drape the new immunity idol -- or immunity bib, really -- over Terry's head. Terry LOVES immunity!

Back at camp, La Mina scrambled for some sort of last-ditch effort to save itself. Terry considered using the idol as a bribe -- a stupid idea, if you ask me. Austin, meanwhile, saw the writing on the wall and could tell it would either be him or Nick going home. He approached Bruce and asked if he could have a prayer with him. When Bruce said yes, Austin suddenly flung his arms around him and embraced him, saying something about Jesus in the process. Bruce put up with it pretty well, but you could tell he was thinking, "Uh, I said we could pray, not make out."

Austin then told us "I'm going home. There's no question about it." So clearly he wasn't. But who would be?

Well, we then found Nick sitting by himself, saying that his one goal was to make it to the jury. That's all he wanted. One more night. Sorry, Nick. You just sealed your fate. Adios.

As La Mina all sat around and twiddled their thumbs, Shane called a Casaya powwow to discuss their voting strategies. Basically, it came down to Nick or Austin. Well, in typical sore loser form, La Mina balked at this cocky assemblage, despite the fact that Casaya at least did it off to the side. Terry even chastised some of the people, asking if they could have been nicer about strutting their power. Oh be quiet, Terry. It's Survivor, not the prom.

Well, because it was obvious that this would be a La Mina loss, Tribal Council wasn't particularly exciting. Jeff grilled everyone about all sorts of things, but even he couldn't get persnickety about anything this week. Austin revealed that during the immunity challenge, he was pretending to be weak, which was an odd thing to 'fess up to, considering it was a secret strategy and whatnot. Still, everyone was SHOCKED by this development as we then cut to various people with their jaws hanging. Obviously, this footage was culled from some other parts of Tribal Council -- maybe a time when Jeff revealed an inappropriate secret -- like he has a third testicle or a nipple on his butt.

Probst then ventured into the rare world of sound effects as he said, "Shane, the second you guys found out there was gonna be no food to tempt you down, it was plop, plop, plop!" Sadly, this was not followed by a "choo-choo!" noise or a "Meeeow." I don't know why Probst would meow, but I'd welcome it. Nay, encourage it.

In an effort to spice up this Tribal Council, Probst continued to paint Casaya as an exceedingly cocky tribe. I think this may have been an attempted misdirection -- one that would have us thinking that the bottom would fall out from under them -- but considering that absolutely no camera time had been devoted to a possible Casaya ouster, we knew that this cockiness would lead to no big surprises.

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