Survivor: A Map? For Real?

This week on Survivor, people get the crap beat out of each other, rock a slip and slide, and are provided with detailed directions for no reason whatsoever.We open on our first post Tribal Council night vision of the season, where everyone is discussing the fact that getting rid of Gillian was likely their best bet. Crystal tells us that Gillian was a “major physical weak link”. She does not add, “Oh, and also she was annoying as shit. I still have nightmares about her accent.” Randy tells us that he doesn’t believe that it’s possible to win with the Fang tribe over shots of GC attempting to break a large chunk of wood into pieces, and succeeding only in making himself look like an escaped mental patient. That’s when you know might be doomed: when you’re locked in a battle of wits with a piece of wood, and the wood is winning decisively.

Credits. Hey, did you hear that Gabon is “Earth’s Last Eden”? The population of Eden, North Carolina does not approve.

On Day 7, the Fang tribe has already consumed half of their rice supply. Randy, who has mysteriously become the voice of reason despite the fact that his skull has been caved in, addresses the situation by suggesting that they stop eating three square meals a day and reduce that number to two. GC is the only one who disagrees, telling Randy there’s no reason why GC himself should be punished for the wasteful sins of people who have already been voted out. Yes, I’m sure Michelle and Gillian were total hogs. Douche.

Randy rolls his eyes at this, telling us that GC is a cancer on the tribe. It took all the way until episode three for someone to bust out that old gem, huh? As further evidence of this, GC approaches Randy while he snoozes in the hut. “So, are you the leader now or something?” GC says. Randy becomes indignant, telling GC (as I’m sure he has a hundred times already) that it was decided that the tribe did not need a designated leader. GC is trying so hard to stick that tag on someone, and it’s obvious that he wants someone blame when he inevitably fucks everything up. I mean, Randy is the leader all of a sudden because he still wants to be eating in a week’s time? Whatever.

Over at Kota, Marcus fishes in his underwear. He somehow manages to do this without exposing himself. On a side note, ten people e-mailed me a link to the footage of Marcus falling out of his pants during last week’s premiere. I love it when you guys e-mail me and all, but it’s actually TVGasm policy that all wang-related news items be emailed directly to Flipit. Hey, I don’t make the rules, people.

Charlie breaks down Kota’s alliances for us: Paloma and Kelly are tight, Sugar has buddied up to Ace, and Charlie himself is still in bed with Corinne, Jacquie and Marcus (he wishes!). He tells us that Bob has no alliance to speak of, but that he is “definitely woo-able”, which is not a word. We see evidence of Paloma and Kelly’s newfound friendship as they bond over how much they dislike Ace. “I want to gag every time he opens his mouth,” Paloma says, citing the fact that he tries to order everyone around all the time. Meanwhile, Sugar cuddles up to Ace in the hut. “Ace and I have some kind of connection,” she states. Poseurs tend to run in packs, as I’m sure you’re aware from watching The Hills.

Kota receives treemail about the upcoming reward challenge, which hints that the winner will be getting some sort of bedding. At this, Ace declares that Kota should sit their stronger members, since the reward isn’t really essential and they want their best possible squad to compete for immunity. He’s totally right, but he says it in that tooly way he has that makes people, well…want to barf. In fact, Paloma looks on with a revolted look on her face, as if Ace just told her that he punches terriers in the face during his leisure time.

Reward Challenge! This year’s variation on Beat The Crap Out Of Each Other involves two poles in the ground; one member of each tribe wraps themselves around the pole and two members of the other team will attempt to extricate them from the pole and drag them across a line about fifteen feet away. The first tribe to two points wins the aforementioned bedding and gets to send someone to Exile. In Round 1, Dan and Ace are at the poles, while Charlie/Marcus and GC/Matty are tasked with dragging them across. Charlie and Marcus work together to get Dan away from the pole and begin to drag him. GC manages to get one of Ace’s arms free, but then he just sort of gives up and takes a breather while Probst rightfully berates him. As GC relaxes, Dan is dragged across the line and Kota is awarded the first point.

Before round two, Ace orders Paloma to take the pole position for the next round, and she reluctantly agrees. Paloma is so tiny that Randy and Crystal really have no problem just picking her up and dragging her by her ass across the line, so Fang actually gets a point and ties the score. The final round is really hard fought and entertaining to watch as Dan fights Marcus and Bob and Crystal and Matty work their asses off to get Ace closer to the line. At one point when Crystal starts to lose steam, Dan screams at her from across the course to get it in gear, since he can’t hold out for too much longer. Crystal takes inspiration from this and overpowers Ace, literally picking him up and hurling him over the line, making Fang the winners of the challenge. They are understandably overjoyed to have finally won. And good for them! I bet the Oakland Raiders are so jealous right now.

Back at Fang’s camp, they spend a long time doing that thing where your whole group rehashes how awesome something was as a way of bonding. They all tell us that they’re finally starting to feel like a real team, and hopefully soon Geppetto Probst will recognize that and make them a real boy. Over at Kota, Ace tries to rationalize the fact that they got beat by a group of jokers by calling the competition a “strategic withdrawl”. Is he Karl Rove? What is happening? Paloma tells us that she’s pretty angry at Ace for making her take the pole position when Crystal is such a ginormous specimen of woman. Over at the pier, Charlie, the members of his alliance and Ace discuss how disappointing Paloma’s performance was. Ace makes sure to throw in some praise for Sugar to keep her out of the fire, but no one really responds. Ace tells us in confessional that Paloma has pretty much “crossed and dotted the Ts on her contract of death”. Wait, Ace dots his Ts? His writing must be mad illegible, yo.

Over at Exile Plains, Sugar arrives and chooses to take the clue instead of the comfort. She gets the same clue that Dan had last week, but she also gets a freaking map that takes her directly to the next clue. Are you serious, show? Just give someone the damn thing, if you’re going to do that. Sugar attempts to follow the map and ends up getting lost in the jungle. This causes her to start crying, because that’s exactly what you should do when you get lost: cry until someone helps you. She tells us that she decided to do Survivor because she thinks it might help her with her dad’s death. Now, I’ve never lost a parent and I have no idea what that feels like, but I do feel like it’s kind of bad form to share that information with America at the first opportunity, you know? Also, way to give me something that I can’t mock. What a downer.

So anyway, thanks to the map Sugar finds the first clue, and then the second, and then the third, and then…she finds the idol. (My notes: Seriously?) She’s all “I found it and the lawyer couldn’t!” Well, you had a map. I mean, good for her for finding the idol and all, and she did figure out the clues, but on the other hand: map.

Back at Kota, Bob tells Ace that he’s thinking he’s voting for either Paloma or Sugar when they have to vote someone out. Ace spends a lot of time insinuating that Paloma is worthless in a bid to save Sugar, but Bob is not biting. In fact, he takes this information to Corrine, telling her that Ace is really worrying him with his obvious attempts to keep Sugar out of the crosshairs. Corrine takes this opportunity to tell Bob about her alliance with Marcus, Charlie and Jacquie, inviting him to join and create a solid majority. Corrine voiceovers that she thinks Bob appreciates it when you speak to him directly, so she tried to take advantage of that and lay things out for him. My question is this: if Bob is worried about an alliance of two, what makes you think he’s going to be overjoyed at the news of a four person alliance? Bob is a smart guy, so you’d think his new targets would be now Corrine and her friends, because they’re now the biggest threat to his long term safety. I don’t see how this news can be comforting to him.

A treemail arrives that contains swimsuits, so these people finally have something else to wear besides their skivvies. It’s the end of the underwear era, and it’s only episode three. The Immunity Challenge is actually pretty cool: there are these two slip and slides set up, and tribe members have shoot down them and retrieve some tiles from the water at the bottom. Once all the tiles have been collected, one tribe member uses them to solve a mathematical puzzle which will reveal the combination to a safe. The first team to open the safe wins immunity.

The challenge is really entertaining to watch: Fang actually begins in the lead, but when Susie takes her turn, Corrine catches up to her and overtakes her. Kota actually ends up ahead by a full rotation by the time all of their tiles are collected, giving Bob some extra time to solve the puzzle. Since the puzzle is pretty difficult, Fang is able to do some catching up, and the challenge culminates in a very tense race between Ken and Bob to get the safe unlocked. The teams cheer on their respective dorks, and after several failed attempts by both people, Ken manages to deliver the right combination, giving Fang their first immunity challenge victory. I guess this means GC won’t be going home, which is too bad.

Back at Kota’s camp, Sugar takes Ace out in the boat to tell him that she found the immunity idol. He immediately starts referring to it as “ours”, which is gross and obvious. Later, Ace hangs out in the water with the Swimfan Alliance, where they seem to be in agreement about getting rid of Paloma. Paloma herself watches all this from the sidelines, chewing on a piece of grass. “My strategy is to be like the animals and just watch,” she says. “And then I’m gonna prounce(sic).” Maybe she should “prounce” on a dictionary before taking further action.

Said prouncing commences immediately as Paloma takes Corrine aside, telling her that Ace deliberately set her up to fail by putting her on the pole against Crystal. She works Corrine over pretty well, to the point that Corrine begins to consider the possibility of removing Ace from the equation. Corrine finally says what we were all thinking: “We can get rid of Paloma later,” she says. “I don’t trust Ace, and I’m not sure his accent is real.” Please, everyone in Florida talks like that.

Armed with a new conspiracy theory, Corrine broaches the idea to Charlie of eliminating Ace. He immediately calls Ace out for trying to make Sugar look competent during the reward challenge, and they agree that Ace is going to be a threat to them down the line. “I dislike so many damn people on this tribe that it’s a toss-up,” Corrine says. That’s the way I feel about The Amazing Race this season.

Tribal Council. Probst asks Marcus whether anyone in their tribe immediately jumped out as an interesting variable. Marcus fingers Ace, causing Paloma to state that Ace attempts to be the “head honcho” all the time. When Probst pokes her, Paloma tells Probst that she’s “not going there”. Kelly then nonsensically tells Probst that Ace is an asset because he’s condescending. People look around quizzically, astounded at her idiocy, even though she’s just looking for an excuse to berate Ace in a public setting. Probst asks Ace whether all of this attention worries him when it comes to the vote tonight, and he says that it does. Paloma totally calls him out, announcing that he didn’t even bring his bag with him. Burn! Good for her. You can tell she totally knows she’s leaving and is just pulling out all the stops.

Voting! We see Paloma vote for Ace, and Ace vote for Paloma. When Jeff tallies the votes, there are two for Ace (the other came from Kelly) and the rest are for Paloma, and she’s gone. That’s too bad, I think I would have liked her sassiness.

Next week: some sort of twist!

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