This week's episode started on an optimistic note: sunrise in Panama! Waves were crashing against the shores, pelicans were grooming their feathers, and sun was shining all over the land! Surely, the spirit of Survivor had taken hold of Mother Nature. Unfortunately, the tribe members didn't seem to care about the natural beauty of their environment. Everyone was still reeling from Austin's revelation at Tribal Council that he was, in fact, much stronger than he had acted (that is, when he's not puking and shitting from bad beans). For those of you who may have forgotten, last week, Austin spent a lot of time acting weak and lame, but in a bizarre move, he revealed that it was all an act at Tribal Council. No one was more floored by this than the typically gullible Courtney, who said, "I was like 'Oh my God! What have we done?'" Uh, you fell for a completely lame ruse, that's what you did. To be fair, Courtney could get fooled by a palm frond. And I'm sure it's happened before.

Austin, meanwhile, realized that maybe it wasn't so smart to, you know, reveal his hidden agenda. That whole "hidden" thing loses its cachet when it's no longer HIDDEN. "Now in retrospect, that was so stupid to let them know my plan!" he chided himself. Exactly. This is why you're an "author," not a strategist.

Elsewhere on the island, Aras and his cronies were busy plucking snails out from under rocks for a little makeshift escargot buffet later in the day. "These snails are like members of La Mina: slimy and hard to get out," Aras said. Hey, hey. That was sort of mean. And furthermore, La Mina has been very easy to get out. If anything, Shane's the slimy one that's hard to get out. Make him the snail!

Alas, Aras had already decided upon his forced analogy, and even worse, he now was calling Austin a slimeball (on account of that whole Tribal Council thing). Listen -- you can call Austin a lot of things: goofy, weak, diarrhea-prone. But slimeball? C'mon now, Aras. At least he doesn't fashion his hair into a faux-hawk every time he heads off to an Immunity Challenge.

Anyway, we cut to a lizard scurrying, which I took to represent the last fleeting shreds of Shane's mental stability, and then it was back to Master Manipulator Terry. He still had this deluded notion that maybe he could get one of the Casaya girls to switch over. Perhaps he'll extend another formal invitation like last week: "The members of La Mina request your presence in their alliance. Tea and crumpets shall be served at 4 PM, followed by a tasting menu of local snails, beans, and dirt."

Unfortunately, before Terry could do any major wheeling and dealing, a cryptic piece of tree-mail arrived, and with it a clue that said something about politics and guts and whatnot. After some minor speculation by the Gitanos braintrust, we then cut to the standard beach reward challenge setup where we learned this week's convoluted task.

The way this latest challenge worked was that the group would be split into three teams, each with a boat and a hundred coconuts. The teams had to put their coconuts in their rivals' boats, and once they were done distributing them, they could take off in their boats (now loaded with other people's coconuts), row out to a pontoon, grab a fishing net, and then come back to shore. The first team to successfully come to shore and unload all their coconuts and flag into a box on the beach would win. Très complicated-sounding but really not that tricky.

Well, Aras, Sally, and Bruce made up the first team. The second group was all women with Cirie, Danielle, and Courtney. And finally, Terry, Austin, and Shane comprised the last trio. Probst waved his arms in his signature style, and the challenge began. Off the get-go, I had many questions. Okay. Only one question: what was going on with Shane's shorts? He looked like he'd found some banana hammock lying under the coconuts. I know the excess thigh exposure was probably due to some coincidental wedgie or something like that, but man, that looked disturbing.

Anyway, at Aras's urging, everyone dumped their coconuts in the men's boat. Well, almost everyone. Bruce seemed to be having trouble as his coconuts went bouncing around the beach like oversized Mexican jumping beans. Eventually, everyone jumped in their boats and began paddling to the pontoon (the all-girls team was last and had to dump their coconuts into their own boat. Doh!). In what seemed like three seconds, the men's boat and the mixed boat reached their fishing nets, leaving the women at the gate. If it made those poor ladies feel any better, Probst then officially assessed their situation: "No shot in this challenge!" Ouch! At that point, he should have just waded into the water, flipped their boat over, pointed, and laughed.

Posted by B-side on April 9, 2006 9:47 PM