Survivor: Nonsense

Tonight’s episode begins at Espada, where Dan is still complaining about how terrible everything is.  Always groundbreaking, this show.  Tell us more!  I’m riveted!  ”I can’t go twenty more nights with this rain,” he says, exasperated, complaining that he may quit.  I wouldn’t worry about making it the whole twenty days, buddy.  Not happening.  Holly gets all superior in confessional, whining about how she almost quit until Jimmy Johnson pulled her back from the brink with his creepy Texas sorcery.  ”JUST SUCK IT UP AND FINISH!” Holly shouts from confessional.  She has Natalie Syndrome, that one.

Get the camera up her nose.

After a shortened credits sequence, Yve pulls Holly to the side to get the story on Tyrone’s eviction.  She was left out of the loop (and was the other vote for Na Onka), so she feels pretty vulnerable right about now.  Holly explains to Yve that she wasn’t told because everyone thought she was in an alliance with Tyrone.  “Well, I thought you and I sort of had each others’ backs, and now I doubt it,” Yve says pitifully.  Holly tells Yve not to worry about being eliminated since Dan really wants to quit.  “I’m most definitely going to use that to keep myself in the game, since I want to be here and there are people that don’t,” she says.

Who is this, again?

Let’s check in on La Flor, shall we?  Marty and Jill are up early (as old people do), talking about the kids these days and their music.  “I felt like our old tribe was some kind of serious drama, and over here we’re on Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Marty says.  Wow.  That is one current reference!  He should have subsituted “serious drama” for “Point Break”, if he was going to go the Keanu route.  Missed opportunity, that.

Anyway, Jill and Marty seem only slightly worried that they’re in the minority, thinking that they’re probably safe, at least for a bit.  Brenda, however?  She has different ideas.  “It’s still old versus young.  Well, it’s old versus young plus Jane,” she says.  Jane’s done a good job endearing herself to the younger members of La Flor, so they want to keep her around.  Brenda says that the next time they lose, the plan is to drop three votes on Marty and three votes on Jill, and then no matter who uses the idol, the other will be sent home.

Challenge time!  Tonight both tribes will be heading to Tribal Council.  Good, there are still entirely too many of these people around in episode six.  Let’s axe some bitches.  The tribes will be competing for individual immunity this week; there are even nifty little necklaces customized with each tribe’s logo.

Clearly someone took a trip to the Claire’s at the Nicaragua Mall.

Each tribe member will use a rowing paddle to dig up a rope ring, which they will then have to toss into a toilet seat bucket strapped behind their backs, and then they will take the ring and hang it on a post nearby.  The first person to put three rings on their post will win immunity.  The two immunity winners will then face off for reward, which is the now-standard dinner and a show: a feast while watching the other team’s Tribal Council.

Espada lost a coin flip (of course), so they’re going first.  Surprisingly, Holly is actually the first one to get a ring, which I would not have guessed.  Before you can blink, she has two and then three, and damn, Holly just won individual immunity, yo.  Did not expect that outcome.  I would have put money on Benry, frankly.  Paisley one-piece, represent!

“I WIN, SUCK IT UP.”

La Flor’s turn.  Everyone at La Flor is actually pretty good at this, and about six people put up two rings each pretty quickly.  It’s a race to the finish that Jill ultimately wins (yes!).

So it’s Holly and Jill facing off in a ring toss for the reward.  Watching two middle aged women compete in a carnival game is as riveting as you would expect, let me tell you.  CBS, everyone.

I think they might be onto something here, actually.  There’s an hourlong drama in this, right?  It’s got to be better than The Talk, anyway.

I think she may be hiding some pot in that paisley swimsuit.

Anyway, Jill eventually wins, so La Flor will be going to Tribal Council first, will vote someone out, and then they will eat a delicious meal while Jeff berates Espada.  Back at camp, Jill thanks Brenda for picking her to be on a team together, and then they all hug and chant.  That is not a joke, it is a thing that happens.  “That cheer?  It was all totally fake,” Brenda tells us.  Gee, it was?  But the vast majority of group cheers are just so authentic!

“The truth is that this is our worst case scenario, so we’re going to have to come up with a backup plan,” Brenda admits.  Sash and Brenda hash it out, ultimately deciding to split the vote between Marty and Kelly B.  They’ll tell Kelly B that they’re splitting the votes between Marty and Jane so she doesn’t get suspicious.  This way, they can flush out the idol and at worst rid themselves of someone who would win a million dollars out of sympathy.  Have you guys ever heard of someone winning this show out of sympathy?  In fact, the person who needs it less wins most of the time.

Meanwhile, Marty is working on Fabio over in the shelter.  “I haven’t told anyone this, but I’m a grand master in chess,” he stage whispers.  Fabio is legitimately impressed at this news.  “Have you ever heard of  Guillermo Vilas?  He’s a Peruvian Grand Master.  When I was a kid, I beat him twice.”  This for real impresses Fabio, who literally says, “Well, I’m taking orders bro.”  Shit, that’s all it takes?

“Which one is chess, the one with the chutes and the ladders?”

Of course, the whole thing is a lie.  “It makes total sense that Marty’s a grand master,” Fabio says, ”You can just see him doing all these numbers in his head, and I was like ‘Sign me up!’”  Wow.  He’s really easily influenced.  I think all the smoke he’s inhaled (both from the campfire and from, ahem, other sources) may be affecting his decision making.

Back at Espada, Holly is ready to complete her jump to the young alliance.  “I KNOW THE FOUR YOUNG ESPADA MEMBERS HAVE THE NUMBERS ADVANTAGE, I HAVE TO GO WITH THEM!” she Natalie/Haydens again.  The young folks have two options: Yve or Dan.  Obviously, Dan’s been complaining about the conditions.  “I don’t need the money, why am I doing this?” he asks himself.  Um, because you’re an interesting and dynamic television personality?  No?  You mean, your casting (and just about everyone else’s) is completely off the mark this season?  Hm, nevermind then.

Chase and Benry are of the opinion that Yve should go, since taking Dan to the merge will be advantageous for them since he sucks at everything and is generally miserly.  “The only person that I really trust is Na Onka,” Chase says with extremely poor judment, “Benry and Alina could switch sides whenever.” Yeah, but people would have to remember that they’re there first.

Yve begins to campaign for Dan to leave, pulling Na Onka and Alina to the side so she can NARC on him.  “Also, I know the three people on the other side more intimately than you guys do!” she says.  Alina is suitably unimpressed, since this is probably more of a reason to knock Yve out than keep her.

“I just showed up last week, and even I have no idea who this old woman is.”

Chase continues to lobby to get rid of Yve, since Dan’s easy to drag along. ”Do not follow your heart, follow your gut!” Na Onka says to Chase.  Seriously, what does that even mean?  Is Chase in love with Dan?  I must have missed that particular storyline.

Over at La Flor,  Brenda takes Jane aside to tell her to vote for Marty.  “Aaam as thieek as peanut butter and jelly with the La Flor traaaabe!” Jane says excitedly.  She is genuinely psyched to get rid of Marty and Jill, both of whom she really dislikes.  Meanwhile, Sash takes Fabio aside to tell him the plan as well, except now that Fabio’s been wowed by Marty’s fake chess skills, he doesn’t want to vote him out.  “I like Marty, he’s a really smart guy.  Now that he’s let me in on some of his secrets, I kind of want to keep him around,” Fabio says.  I do not understand, but whatever.  These people are all semi-retarded, as we will discover shortly.

Marty asks Sash who to vote for, and Sash tells Marty to vote for Jane.  Marty then decides that voting for Jane is probably safer than trying to shake things up.  How?  Do you think you can sneak through to the merge?  I don’t get it.  Everyone is dumb this week.  “The idol is only going to buy me one more Tribal Council anyway,” he says.  True, unless you had kept it a secret and used it to eliminate someone from the other alliance, which you can no longer do because you want everyone to know how smart you are.

Tribal Council.  La Flor’s going first, since they get to eat and watch Espada after they finish.  Probst asks Marty about the “disparity” on this tribe, since there are five young people and three old ones.  Marty tells Probst that he’s just glad that the tribe is all about winning, since then he doesn’t have to worry about that so much.  When Sash points out that Marty also has revealed that he has the Immunity Idol, Marty tells Probst that he told the team so that he would seem honest and so they could be unified with no secrets.  Probst points out the obvious duality in this, and Brenda agrees, pointing out that Marty’s motives were probably a litle more sinister than he says.  “He’s obviously making it seem more noble than it really is,” she says.  That’s exactly how I feel about NBC keeping Outsourced on the air.

Probst asks Jane if she’s worried about going home, and Jane says that’s always a worry when the young people are in the majority.  Brenda interjects: “She doesn’t have to worry about the younger team, she has to worry about Marty and Jill voting her out.”  Wow, incredibly bitchy.

Marty isn’t about to back down, though: “I don’t understand that. Me and Jill are two, you guys are five.  She doesn’t have to worry about me and Jill doing anything.”

“I’m the only interesting person here, Jeff.”

Brenda unwisely continues, trying to pin the fictional plan to vote Jane out on Marty.”But what did you tell me today?”  Marty, “La Flor made the call, I didn’t make that call.”  Wow, how can he feel comfortable about the vote after that exchange?  Brenda essentially just telegraphed exactly what was about to happen.

Marty mouths to Jane that she should vote for Brenda, but Jane is not having it: when it’s time to vote, we see her vote for Marty.  “Don’t ever fluff off a Southern woman!” she whispers.  What’s with Survivor contestants and fluffing?

When it’s time to read the votes, Marty declines to play the idol, which I thought was a huge mistake.  As expected, there are two votes for Brenda, three for Marty and three for Kelly B, so it’s a tie.  Logically, Marty is screwed, right?  Wasn’t their plan to flush out the idol and/or evict him entirely?

You’d think, except when the revote happens, Kelly B gets eliminated in a landslide.  How the hell does that happen?  I guess they really didn’t want her around, but now Marty stays in the game with the immunity idol.  What were they thinking?  This season just keeps making me want a nap.

But not as badly as this makes me want a lobotomy.

La Flor sits down to enjoy their feast as Espada marches in dejectedly.  They dig in and Na Onka can’t watch; she looks off to the side the entire time.

“That feast is a bitch.”

“Dan, you can literally hear the ice cubes clinking in the glasses,” Probst says, making a feeble attempt to rub it in.  “If it’s not a martini, it doesn’t bother me,” Dan responds.  Yve tells Probst that nothing bothers Dan because he doesn’t want to stay.  “There are times when I haven’t been happy, and I say stuff,” he admits.  There’s an in-depth discussion about how Dan really wants to quit and is shitty in challenges, but I’ll spare you the details because we’ve all heard it a million times.  “I think Yve is an arrogant person,” Dan says, trying to take the heat off of himself.  “I’m not the one who talks all about my Ferraris, and six cars and three homes,” she responds.  “I do!” Dan says matter-of-factly.  Hey, at least the guy knows himself.

Time to vote; we see Dan vote Yve and Yve vote Dan, and that’s all we get.  You know what that means: blowout!  Yve is voted out unanimously, because this episode makes no sense whatsoever.  She looks dejected as her torch is snuffed.  Man, this season make no sense.

Bye, stranger!