Anyway, I've been told that my recaps have been running a bit long lately, and since there's no "All Pages" feature anymore, I can see how that can be annoying to rifle through. Besides, comedy is brevity, is it not? So in an attempt to keep things leaner and meaner and to appease the anti-length peeps, I'm gonna try to not fixate on every last detail (let alone ramble about things, much as I already have since beginning this post). Nevertheless, this week's show opened up with Nate visiting the Aitu camp. Those of you may remember that on the last episode (the one that aired before the clip show), Aitu won the ability to steal someone over from Raro. Well, they had picked Nate, and now the shoe salesman was hanging out, sizing up the rival camp. He noted that while yeah, Aitu may have had more space and yeah, Aitu may have had a better shelter, Raro on the other hand had waaay more hibiscus. Does somebody have an extra cap? Because I think Nate's got a feather to stick in it. A feather called HIBISCUS. Word up! High(biscus) five!

"Wow. The lack of hibiscus here is astonishing!"

Later on, Jessica (a.ka. Flicka) made the cardinal sin of talking about family business in front of company. Yes, she aired her grievances about the previous night's Tribal Council right in front of Nate, which allowed him to glean all sorts of information about the tribe. Jessica was pissed because she thought everyone was voting out Jonathan when in fact, everyone ousted Cao Boi, Jessica's big ally. "I just don't want it to be me next," she told everyone. WELL! In that case, everyone should just change their voting patterns! Jessica doesn't want to be next! Hey, let's just give her the million dollars now!

After all this Jessica babbling, Candice, Becky, and Yul gathered 'round to figure out what their best options would be. Originally, they were going to vote off some combination of Ozzy, Sundra, and Jessica, but now maybe they might keep Jessica around and vote Jonathan off instead. Didn't really make sense, but I had a feeling it was misdirection anyway; so I didn't think too much of it.

We then saw the opening credits, and afterwards, the tribes received their tree mail for the Reward Challenge. Along with a cryptic clue, each team received a Survivor Catalogue, from which the teams could select two items they were going to try to win. Over at Raro, Brad really wanted potatoes and peanut butter, reasoning that the carbs would be important for challenges and that potatoes would last a whole lot longer than bread. Unfortunately, his teammates all wanted bread, despite the fact that it would probably go moldy in about half a day. Brad was ultimately out voted, and Adam was none too shy about pointing this out. It should be noted also that Adam seems like a giant asshole. We here at the TVgasm offices agree that we've only seen flashes of his inner dick (wait, that sounds wrong), but we're sure he'll be unleashing his whiny wrath very soon.

We then headed off to the challenge, which had to be one of the most convoluted ever. Each team would have three swimmers and two puzzle makers. The first swimmer would grab a club, swim out to a platform, climb the platform, and the jump off the platform. While in midair, the swimmer would have to smash a plaster box that would then release a key into the water. The swimmer would have to then dive down, retrieve the key, and swim back to shore where the next swimmer would go out. This cycle would repeat over and over again until the team had compiled six keys. Oh, and each simmer had to swim out at least once, and each person could only return with one key at a time.

Well, once all six keys were back on shore, the two puzzle makers would then use them to unlock a treasure chest, inside of which were puzzle pieces. The players would then have to assemble a map of the world from these pieces, and the first to complete this would win reward. Shockingly, the challenge did not include any last minute climbing, torch-lighting, flag raising, or human maze navigating.

By the way, in an amusing turn of events, we saw that Aitu's picks for reward were potatoes and peanut butter. Brad had to be so jealous. Anyway, Aitu had to sit some people out, and so they chose Nate, causing Jeff to comment, "So you take Nate to keep him from competing with Raro, but you don't trust him to compete with your tribe." That would be negatory, Jeff. Stop trying to stir shit up!

Posted by B-side on November 3, 2006 1:30 AM