Survivor Recap: Coacha Nostra

37 Comments

1. 1
   crankyguy
   Posted November 20, 2011 at 9:00 pm

   What I wanna know is that if Edna is a medical doctor, then how did she miss the hydration question?

2. 2
   Pikey
   Posted November 20, 2011 at 11:46 pm

   Now that the word is out about Whitney and Keith having a relationship (after her secret marriage to someone else), it is obvious that they are making eyes at each other. Could Survivor be better at match making than The Bachelor/ette?

   I am with you, PottyMouth, in that Benjamin had better not win – I am sick of them bringing back old contestants until they win the million. All fresh blood (that is not recruited but actually applies to be on the show) would be nice to see.

   Looking forward to your next recap in two weeks!

3. 3
   itchy
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 12:21 am

   What makes this show even more boring is the editors’ insistence on tossing out red herrings and laying it on so thick it becomes obvious that nothing at all will happen. At this point, as soon as they show someone scrambling to make a “big move,” it’s pretty much guaranteed they will not and instead, we’ll be wasting the next 30-40 minutes on a fake storyline.

   You suck, Survivor. You used to be such a great show too.

   They seriously need to rethink this show. Or just stop making it.

   Meanwhile, ever since Cockring jumped ship, they’ve stopped showing the prayer circles. What gives? I’d love to see his reaction when they insist he pray to jeebus.

   Also, they all had these giant blocks with letters and true/false written on them RIGHT BEHIND THEIR SEATS. None of them noticed them before TC?

   Also, shouldn’t they have targeted Coach instead of Edna? What’s the point of keeping him around? (unless the producers have instructed them that Coach is off-limits, of course.)

   Yet another suckass season. Sigh.

4. 4
   Snootchy Bootches
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 3:21 am

   Not related to the show, I know, but the dehydration thing reminded me of this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html

   The most ridiculous comment in it: “A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.” I think I know of 21 people who were drinking something else!

   Anyway, on to the actual show. I disagree with those who say this is a boring season. I am being fully entertained by it. I’d love to see Coach get to the end and then Cochran win it instead. Yeah yeah yeah… I know it won’t happen, but I would be so happy if it did!

   Thanks for another great recap!

5. 5
   itchy
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 5:14 am

   Cochran can conceivably win if he pulls out an amazing speech at the final TC. Something along the lines of, “look, I played you all” and then perform some kind of wicked Kung Fu display.

   Snootch, the answer to your question is at the bottom of the article: “Prof Brian Ratcliffe, spokesman for the Nutrition Society, said dehydration was usually caused by a clinical condition and that one could remain adequately hydrated without drinking water.
   He said: “The EU is saying that this does not reduce the risk of dehydration and that is correct.
   This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim.”

   In other words, this commission is trying to hold the line against the creeping commericialism of ultra-liberal capitalism.

   Which is a good thing. You’ve seen how pizza is now officially considered a “vegetable” in the US?

6. 6
   Snootchy Bootches
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 5:42 am

   But their statement is still bullshit. Yes, other beverages can keep a person hydrated. But what is IN that beverage that does the actual hydrating? Yep. Water. And while being dehydrated can be caused by other things besides not drinking enough, drinking water may not cure the underlying cause, but it can keep the person from being even more dehydrated. And finally, lets face it. Most people who are dehydrated are dehydrated because they haven’t drank enough liquids. I could see if they were putting this ban against claims made by drinks like Vitamin Water or any other energy/sports drink. But water? Sometimes common sense needs to be used. But at least they tried to protect us from bananas that were too bent. Glad they are spending so much money and effort on these earth shattering regulations rather than doing something like… Oh I don’t know… FIXING the Eurozone maybe? LOL

7. 7
   Enrique's Mole
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 5:54 am

   I’m routing for Albert “Easy on the Eyes” or Ozzy “the Super Douche” to win. Actually, I’d love for Ozzy to win so he could cram it in Benji’s and CockRing’s faces. “It” of course being his fish crotch.

8. 8
   considerthis
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 6:44 am

   How many words has the Cowboy spoken this season? Still can’t recall his name. Should have had a QUADRUPLE elimination episode and spared us the last 2 episodes.

9. 9
   gerritv
   Posted November 21, 2011 at 7:02 am

   I’m still wondering what that guy with the handlebar moustache and cowboy hat (Ricky Ticky Taffy?),does? It’s like he’s the lighting guy that they stick in there to fill out crowd scenes.

10. 10
    gerritv
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 7:08 am

    @Itchy – Oh and thanks for clarifying that was a red herring at the end of Ozzy’z spear!

11. 11
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 7:34 am

    The idea of a Rick win is a worse case scenario to me. I HATE the seasons that get ruined by being won by someone that you didn’t even notice until the last couple of episodes. Though, now that I think on it, they would have given him more airtime in the edits if he was the eventual winner, so I guess there is probably little worry in this outcome.

12. 12
    Moli
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 9:37 am

    Is it bad that I want CockRing to win. I’m just a sucker for the underdog, butttttt I think at number 7 he is at a terrible disadvantage. His best bet is to play the ‘I’m so worthless no one will vote for me’, he can get to the end and pull a ‘HaHa, I am a secret evil genius mwhahahahahaha’. Hmmmm, too much?

13. 13
    Moli
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 9:40 am

    BTW, I have never seen anyone so suntan resistant as CockRing! How is it even possible????? And all the while Albert is getting more chocolatey by the hour

14. 14
    zbird
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 10:48 am

    Mmmmm….chocolatey Albert goodness. *sigh* Where was I? Oh yeah, laughing at the recap (especially all of the Coach “I am not the boss, but…” captions) and gerritv’s comments. I love puns! And I have an inkling that you might be onto something about the cowboy.

    And I am also at a loss about why they were even thinking of targeting useless Edna instead of Coach. WTH? It makes no sense whatsoever, and as much as I’ve enjoyed looking at his loveliness, frankly, Albert (along with the rest of them) deserves to go if he’s all talk and no action. But I’ll be sad nonetheless. :’(

15. 15
    BellicoseBaby
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 10:57 am

    Did they ever say that Cochran was Jewish? I don’t recall…The name Cochran is Scottish/Irish (not that a name tells someone’s story). Is he the Celtic Woody Allen?

    I LOVE Ozzy. Seriously, love him. Love his skin-diving, coconut palm climbing ways. He knows his social game is, er, weak. And it’s cool that he enjoys his time at Redemption Island after we’ve seen a few contestants reduced to puddles after time there. I always liked Survivor better when there were elements of survival, and when challenges were “carry this sack of rice on your back while walking knee deep in the ocean without someone passing you,” as opposed to all these spitting and shuffle board challenges.

16. 16
    BellicoseBaby
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 11:00 am

    Oh, and the “Dear God,it’s me PottyMouth” – brilliant!

    I always enjoy your recaps – thanks!

17. 17
    LAC
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 11:05 am

    Albert is getting more chocolately every episode and ummmm…..what? Oh, and the strategy is ummmm…there. :p

18. 18
    Moli
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 11:23 am

    Lol@zbird and LAC, that is a whole cup of heaven…GAWD. CockRing looks more Jewish than Jesus!!!!! If he isn’t someone converted in his family a generation or two ago. Seriously, why hasn’t Benji’s name even come up? Are they all drinking the Kool-aid, damn what flavor is it…Red(snickers)? I swear I want that dick Ozzy out ASAP, I can’t believe how muck I liked him during his season…Tarzanesque crush even

19. 19
    vallegirl
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 11:49 am

    Albert and Sophie know that Coach Benjamin Wade has the HII so they’re not targeting Coach Benjamin Wade but getting at his underlings. Can’t blindside him as long as the acolytes are scurrying around bringing him back information. He’s really never been an immunity threat so once his HII is worthless he’s probably gone.

20. 20
    Mister_Dangerous
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    Albert and Sophie may have lost their chance to take out Benjamin with the exit of Dawn and Whitney cause I can’t see Rick or Brandon turning against Benjamin.

    I want Cockring to win but would be happy with Albert, Sophie, Brandon, or Rick winning.

    I want the next immunity challenge to center around hitting OZZY in the nuts with a coconut.

21. 21
    cattyfan
    Posted November 21, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    I don’t get the Cochrane hate (or how love of left-wing politics and Christian hate factor into comments on this show.)

    If the people on the jury could bring themselves to use logic instead of emotion, they would see that Cochrane made a move that kept him in the game. The problem is too many of the players are too spiteful to admit he played a better game than them.

    I want to see Ozzy and Coach both lose. I’m rooting for Sophie or Cochrane.

22. 22
    carol
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 12:40 am

    this would never happen but a final three with Cockring, Ozzy and Benji would be awesome. Then, Cockring busts out some speech that wins everyone over and he gets all the votes. Ozzy has another hissy fit and tries to push Cockring into the fake fire that is at the super-size* vote reveal. Then Benji would just sit there saying it was his plan all along as the ‘coach’ to Cockring.

    *super-size because it is always the best part of the final episode, when Jeff ‘travels’ with the votes and the contestants appear to have doubled in size and fallen face first into a cosmetics counter all in a matter of moments. Yes, I realize that many months have passed, but it is always great to try and figure out who everyone is again because they usually look so different.

23. 23
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 1:56 am

    Carol, that would be a dream ending!

24. 24
    itchy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 3:34 am

    Snootch, you’re missing the point: they’re only preventing the drinks corporations (many of whom are really only selling bottled tap water) from placing health claims on their products as a marketing tool.

    Dehydration isn’t usually caused by not drinking water — in our part of the world, it’s usually the result of an illness or other medical condition. (It’s different in the tropics, where, yes, one needs to drink a lot of water, any water). And in that case, drinking water is not always the wisest course and in fact could be dangerous, if only because it might mask the underlying condition.

    They’re also not saying people should drink other beverages. Just that we already get plenty of hydration from many different sources (food, primarily).

    Think of it as the equivalent of those Kinder commercials claiming that, by eating their products, kids will somehow be drinking milk. I still scratch my head over those.

    This article is really just the Telegraph’s version of a screaming tabloid-like headline, trying to sell their newspaper. 3/4ths of the article is just (conservative, anti-EU) posturing, the real truth to the matter is revealed in the last couple of paragraphs.

    As for Cockring’s jewhoodedness, I’ve mentioned elsewhere that my very first kiss was with an awesomely pretty Jewish girl by the last name of Cochran while dancing to the scratchy vinyl tones of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in the darkened basement of a suburban New Jersey Bat Mitzvah party. So, sure, it could be an Irish/Welsh name too. But this kid? He defintely graduated from the Woody Allen School of Cringeworthy Nebbish Stereotyping.

25. 25
    Moli
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 6:02 am

    @carol I love your ending and I thought I was the only one who struggled at the final tribal/reunion show!

26. 26
    theo
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 7:13 am

    At this point my philosophy is ABC – anyone but Coach. Or i guess it should be ABB – anyone but Benjamin. He has become the new Russell – someone who in many ways plays a good game, manipulating people and events to his advantage, and getting to the final, but in doing so is so unlikable that he could take a corpse with him and lose the vote. I really hope Sophie and/or Albert get rid of him and go to the end, or Ozzy, cocky as he is, comes back from Redemption and goes on an immunity streak. I seriously would like to see Cochran win over Ben.

27. 27
    crankyguy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 11:58 am

    This past summer, I saw a “did you know?” blurb on a 12-pack box of Coke that consumption of Coca-Cola can keep you hydrated. Is that a health claim? And even if it is, why should some committee of bureaucrats have the right to keep it from being said?

    To answer my own earlier question about Edna, maybe she was thinking about the minimum amount of water the average person needs, and she thought that one gallon was way too much, especially for someone of her slight stature.

28. 28
    itchy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    These weren’t bureaucrats, this was a committee of scientists. The really amazing part of this is that they were not, apparently, in the pockets of the major food corporations. I’m still stunned.

    Think of what that means when Coca-Cola –COCA FUCKING COLA — starts making health claims for its product. As if drinking coke or any soft drink is in any way good for you. It’s precisely because the food industry has been allowed to do whatever the fuck they want that most of America (and the UK for that matter) looks more like your avatar, crankyguy, than human beings.

    Who’s going to pay the medical bills for the obesity/diabetes explosion? Not to mention the huge drop in productivity resulting from the masses of unhealthy people and their unhealthy diets. And the generations of brain-addled who have never actually seen real food?

    I don’t understand people who whine about less government. The fact is, the government has pretty much taken a hands-off policy toward the agro-industrial food industry for the past three decades.

29. 29
    crankyguy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    I don’t understand people who whine about less government.

    Fair enough. You don’t have to. I, on the other hand, don’t understand why some people think that government needs to protect people from things that should be a matter of common sense. I don’t consume sugar water myself, but if I did, I wouldn’t want even a scientist telling me that I can’t. There is probably something that you like to do that somebody thinks is a bad idea, and don’t tell me you would not be pissed if that somebody has a government job where he or she can make you stop doing it, even if it’s in the service of the “common good.”

30. 30
    crankyguy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Itchy, maybe I could go for some government regulation against the restaurant where I had lunch yesterday. My first warning should have been the menu description of their French dip sandwich: “served with tasty au jus.” My common sense failed me, and I ordered it anyway. The jus turned out to be tepid colored salt water, obviously mixed from a commercial broth powder of some sort.

31. 31
    itchy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    My wife could give you a whole list of things I like to do that she considers a bad idea. This web site, for one…

    The vast majority of people are quite helpless when it comes to modern marketing methods. Advertising isn’t some innocent jingly pasttime — it’s hard science. It’s the science of manipulating people to do what you want them to do. It’s an extremely powerful tool. Or weapon, if you will.

    In this case, the weapon has been directed at the American consumer (well all consumers, but we’ll stick to America here). These corporations and their products and their manipulations of people’s consumption are directly responsible for our current health crisis — which is nothing compared to what is to come. We’re already paying the price for this — every single one of us.

    Surely, you don’t believe corporations should be allowed to lie to people and misrepresent their products with no restrictions, no rules, no limits?

    But here’s the thing. I’m not necessarily asking our governments to ban these products. All I’m saying is that corporations should be required to tell the TRUTH about their products and be prevented from LYING about their products.

    That’s all this commission has done. No one is saying these companies can’t sell their products (even though bottled water is entirely unnecessary, harmful to the environment and ridiculously expensive). All this commission has done is say that these companies may not LIE about their products by promoting them as some sort of health food.

    The fact of the matter is, the real driving force behind the “less government” movement is greed. The only “government” the people funding this movement (the Koch brothers, etc.), who will also be the only people actually to benefit from any reduction is government, is the “government” that prevents them from taking more wealth away from the rest of the country.

    But honestly, if people are really against the government, that’s fine by me. Just do me a favor: Stop being such hypocrites. Stop driving on the roads I paid for, take your kids out of the schools I paid for. Stop using the water and sewer systems I paid for. The electrical grid too. And you (you plural — nothing personal here) might as well stop eating, since the vast majority of your food has been subsidized by me and my tax dollars. Oh, the list goes on.

    The whole idea of “less government” is pure nonsense. What we really need is some way to insulate the government from corporate influence.

32. 32
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Yeah yeah yeah… I say if journalists don’t have to tell the truth then why do advertisers? I’d rather get news that isn’t politically biased and have my chocolate candy claim that it will make rainbows shoot out of my ass than know the news is lying to me while my bottled water isn’t.

33. 33
    crankyguy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 2:36 pm

    OK, I get it. You’re a big-government guy. A lot of people are. I don’t know you, so I just hope this love of government is not because you make your living in a government job and are paying for roads, water, etc., with MY money.

34. 34
    itchy
    Posted November 22, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    Heh, nope, no government job for me. I’m not corrupt enough.

35. 35
    Enrique's Mole
    Posted November 23, 2011 at 7:50 am

    Getting back to Survivor – I saw a promo implying that Coach Benjamin Wade and Ozzy-Bear might be in a final two alliance?! Hmmm…

36. 36
    cattyfan
    Posted November 23, 2011 at 9:26 am

    Survivor related, but not from this season. Ethan’s cancer has returned.

    “That sucks” doesn’t begin to describe it.

37. 37
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 26, 2011 at 3:42 am

    OH NO! I was very sad to see Ethan leave the Amazing Race because I always liked him. Very sad to hear his cancer is back. I hope they are able to get it in remission again.