Survivor: Brawls and Bananas

The editors sick NaOnka on us immediately after the credits.  She complains about how their tribe unity is fake, complains about personalities, complains about attitudes.  I’m already tired of her after thirty seconds.  Writing about her makes me want a nap.

Espada.  A group of old people including Marty and Jimmy Johnson decide to follow the calls of some howler monkeys, thinking that there’ll probably be some fruit nearby.  This is the kind of thinking that gets poop thrown at you.

When they find the monkeys, most of the Espadas keep their distance, but Jimmy J gets all up in their monkey grill, howling at them and making creepy monkey faces.

Fox programming, everyone.

“Jimmy is so inspiring,” Yve tells us in a delightfully ironic confessional (thank you editors).  “If I had Bradshaw with me, we could really talk to them,” Jimmy says.  For those of you that watch the Fox pre-game show, you know that incoherent howling is pretty much all Terry Bradshaw ever does anyway.

Later, Jill approaches Marty with the idea of showing the entire tribe the idol.  Marty looks hesitant.  I would agree with Marty, here: Holly is one psychopathic episode away from betraying him to the younger people after the merge.  That’s placing a lot of trust in a couple of crazy people.

La Flor.  Fabio wears the goggles and breathes onto the fire some more, marvelling at how the smoke inhalation makes him feel like headed.   “It’s like youre weed out here!” someone mutters, because clearly this guy has smoked a doob a time or two.  ”I want to be kept around for more than being funny,” he tells us.  That’s good, because you’re not funny.  You’re weird and people like to laugh at you.  These are two different things.

“Who wants to watch cartoons?”

“I think Fabio is stupid,” NaOnka says, because NaOnka thinks everyone but NaOnka is stupid.  “Even his hair gets on my nerves.”  Boy, she is delightful, am I right?

Back at Espada, Marty tells the tribe that he has an announcement and produces the idol.  They all clap for him, because they are idiots.  “You just strengthened this tribe so much,” Jimmy T says, because he hasn’t done the math yet and figured out that an alliance of eight freaking people probably means that someone’s going to spill the beans and screw them all.  HOLLY.

“The only way to play it was to make it appear as something for the tribe to use,” Marty says, “but the idol can only belong to one person, and that person is me.”  Good now, terrible once the merge comes and over half the players know what’s going on.  This guy is clearly smart and I really like him and Jill, but I’m not sure this is the best move.

MISTAKE!

Dan (the Italian guy who lost his shoes to Hurricane Crazy last week), tells us that he feels a bit weak and worries that the other tribe members will notice how slowly he’s moving.  We get a long close up of a large scar on his knee, left over from some sort of surgery.  “I’m as strong as any of the women, even though some of them are built like mooses,” he jokes.  Meanwhile, Alina (WHO?) and Kelly B are in trouble over at La Flor, on the outs from the ouster of Shannon last week.  Thus concludes our whirlwind tour of Players Who Will Be Used As Red Herrings later on.

Challenge time already!  I wonder when they’ll move to two challenges an episode?  I guess there’s just too much crazy in these people to justify taking that time.  We have so many racist stereotypes to corroborate, and only forty-two minutes to accomodate them all, I guess.

Today’s challenge is a race to collect ten barrels scattered throughout a field.  When all the barrels have been returned to the starting line, they must be set up in a pyramid.  Sandbags must then be tossed onto all of them; the sandbags can be thrown by any tribe member, and there are no limits on who goes when, so it’s up to the tribe to come up with the right strategy, and since this challenge is essentially an elaborate game of Bags, the strategy is “Hey, who’s done the most tailgating?”

The reward is a “sustainable garden” (are there garden’s that are not sustainable?) filled with herbs and delicious flavors to improve the bland rice.  The MEDALLION OF POWER! perk is that two barrels will be placed and bagged before the challenge, but the younger tribe declines to use it, thinking they can take on the old people head to head.

There is barrel rolling.

Human Donkey Kong

Both teams bring back their barrels and set them up almost in unison, meaning that the bag tossing portion will decide the competition.  Tyrone ends up being pretty good at tossing the bags, getting the older team out to a 6-2 lead.  He comes up short on the barrels that are farther away, and Benry (ugh, worst name ever) manages to pass him up through some skilled tossing.  Jimmy T starts to complain to Jimmy J and wants to be put into the game, but Jimmy J keeps Tyrone in, who continues to miss.  Jimmy T continues complaining (because that’s just how he rolls), and eventually Jimmy J relents, but by then it’s too late: Benry nails the last few bags and wins the challenge for La Flor, sending Espada to Tribal Council for the second time.

When the La Flors go to carry their reward back to camp, Kelly B sees an immunity idol clue in the fruit basket and volunteers to carry it.  The bad news?  So does NaOnka.  You know how this is going to end, right?  CATFIGHT!

RAWR

At least they have the good sense to wait until they get back to camp to have it.  NaOnka emerges victorious, grabbing the clue and sashaying off.  NaOnka’s alliance members are happy that she snatched the clue away, but mostly everyone’s pissed that the bananas got smushed in the scuffle.

On Jersey Shore, this is significantly dirtier.

“I guess you could say I got ghetto,” NaOnka tells us.  Then she goes on for-fucking-ever, getting gross and racist and just generally being terrible.  “Yeah, I’ll fight her again if I have to, I’ll shove her leg right off!”  Man, NaOnka is really obsessed with Kelly’s leg.  She’s going to steal it like Tony Soprano’s sister did to the housekeeper soon, mark my words.

Then NaOnka pulls the clue out of her ass and shows it to Brenda.  The end.

So classy.

Back at Espada, Jimmy T starts bitching immediately about how wasted his talents are.  Take them to South Beach, bro.  “I’m not being taken seriously.  I feel like I’m being wasted,” he whines.  Jimmy T then starts bothering Tyrone about refusing to leave the game.  “This isn’t Little League, not everyone gets to play,” Tyrone says.  He has a point, but also that’s not a valid argument when only one person plays  Then Tyrone refers to himself in the third person, so: dead to me.  It’s too bad, you got off to a good start last week.

While all of this is going on, Marty watches, licking his lips at the prospect of going to Tribal Council.  He really wants to get rid of Jimmy Johnson, who he sees as a threat because of how easily everyone seems to like him.  He tries to convince Jill, and she doesn’t really care.  “To me, Danny, Holly and Jimmy are all the same person,” she says.  Yeah, with differing levels of crazy.  “You’re the puppet master,” she shrugs at Marty before returning to her chores.  Man, Jill is kind of awesome.  She knows it’s way too early to play, so she’s just letting Marty dig his own grave.  I kind of already want her to win.

Even if she does, you know, make this face.

Montage of Marty approaching different Espada members about Jimmy.  Danny is down to vote for him because it means his knee is out of the spotlight, Jimmy T is down because he’s upset over the challenge.  The only person hesitant is Tyrone, who has “comeone else in mind”, implying Danny.  Down at the lake, Jimmy plays the sympathy card, telling the women that he may not see them again after tonight.  They unconvincingly coo at him, even though it’s totally obvious that they’re voting his ass out shortly.  Oh, and everyone is calling Jimmy J “Coach”, which is just inappropriate.  I don’t see Jimmy Johnson surviving an encounter with some Amazonian midgets.

Tribal Council.  Jimmy T almost immediately starts bitching again about how he didn’t get enough playing time in the Immunity Challenge.  Oh my god, we get it.  “So, you essentially went to Jimmy Johnson and said ‘Put me in Coach, I’m ready to play?” Probst says, winking at us.  It would have been totally awesome if Jimmy T had been like “Yes, I did it today! Look at me! I can be! Centerfield!”

Probst reveals his membership in the John Fogerty fan club.

Jimmy T continues, whining about how he hasn’t really had an opportunity to sit down and talk to Jimmy Johnson.  Probst’s response:  “How is it that you  seriously haven’t talked to Jimmy effing Johnson?  Dude is famous!” Jimmy T whines some more about how they’re both leaders and he didn’t want to take the time.  Probst, tiring of Jimmy T’s bitching, shifts the discussion to strong vs. weak members of the tribe.  After Jill calls Dan out for being slow, Probst takes a survey of each member, asking them whether they think that they’re weak.  Jimmy J is the only person who answers truthfully: “I’m the oldest, and probably one of the weaker ones, yes.”  The music treats this as a big revelation.  The unsurprised faces of the Espada treat this as boring, which is what it is.

Time to vote!  We see Jimmy T vote for Jimmy J, and we see Jimmy J vote for Dan.  When Probst reads the votes, Jimmy Johnson is voted out unanimously.  Wow.  Can’t say I’m sad about this; perhaps we can focus on someone else now.

Next week: NaOnka gets grosser, which I did not think possible.