Survivor: Hot Girl on Girl Action

This week, on Survivor: Girlfight!It’s Night 3 at Jalapao. With their newly acquired flint, the tribe attempts to start a fire. Well, everyone except Sandy, who is sitting and watching, helpful as she is. “Carolina played her cards terribly wrong,” says Sandy, who could not have played her cards worse if she were Topher Grace in Ocean’s Eleven. (“FLUSH! Allllllllllll red.”) “I think I’m underestimated,” she continues, falling back to that old reality show standby of pretending to be underestimated when you are, in fact, adequately estimated.

After the credits, we’re at Jalapao again. Joe talks about how they’ve been eating vegetables for days, and that he wants a little protein. They get the idea to go find a termite round and have themselves a little bug buffet, and they wander off to kick one over. It is as disgusting as you would think it is, particularly when they find some sort of giant worm inside the mound and we get a spectacularly disgusting close up. Thanks, HD television! The Chinese takeout I was eating the first time I watched this episode was mighty tasty during this scene.

Over at Timbira, Sierra still looks run down as hell. She talks about how she still needs to find the immunity idol to save her own ass. “I need someone to help me, though,” she says without really letting any of us know why. She grabs Brendan (citing the fact that he didn’t vote for her at the very beginning) and tells him everything while he looks on interestingly. Brendan helps her dig for the clue, and since they’re having a bit of trouble finding it, they end up with a giant pit out on the beach. Debra decides to go check on them, and when she wanders onto the scene, Sierra covers beautifully by telling Debra that they’re working to build a fire pit. Debra swallows it hook, line and sinker, and she heads back to the beach singing the praises of Brendan and Sierra. “Ooh, we can have a beach party!” she gushes hilariously while everyone else in the tribe looks on awkwardly, since, you know, there’s actual work that could be done instead of the digging of a fire pit. I’d be all, “Thanks for the fire pit. Now how ’bout we go find some freaking food? Jerks.”

Candace and some other Timbira members talk about food that they wish they were eating, which is always helpful. Candace goes on at length about how she wants to steam a fish in its own juices, citing specific spices and fruit. “I bet we could find most of that stuff,” Tyson says. Candace’s face lights up. “Really?” she says. Tyson, without missing a beat: “No, absolutely not. I just lied straight to your face.” Alright, Tyson. You win. Your offbeat, Mormon humor has swayed me.

Coach and Candace argue about cooking the rice and beans. Coach tells us that Candace has a personality like his, in that she can be very assertive and tell other people what to do. “I do it because it’s my job, she does it because its her nature,” he says. Yes, I am sure that the only reason you’re a pushy, elistist jerk is because you’re a coach; I bet you’d be Mahatma Ghandi otherwise. Ass.

“Normally, I’d go off and him and talk about how he’s overcompensating, but since we’re here, I just walked away. He’ll apologize,” Candace says. And apologize he does, in the absolute creepiest way possible, by telling her that he wants to kiss her and then attempting to lick her face. Who does he think he is, Joe Namath?

Back at Jalapao, the tribe members are settling into their misery, complaining about how dirty everything is. JT uses the adjective “smutty”, which seems inappropriate, but whatever. Everyone makes small talk, and Taj tries to offhandedly mention to everyone that her husband is Eddie George. For those of you who are not football fans (like Stephen, who has no idea who he is), this is a huge deal. There is no simple way to mention to people that you’re married to Eddie George without having them make a big deal out of it, so I’m not sure why she even tried. JT says the inevitable, which is that he probably needs the million dollars more than Taj does. Man, just wait until they find out about the SWV thing! I bet it will make them so weak in the knees.

Okay, that’s the last time, I promise.

Time for the immunity challenge already! This season’s Tackle The Shit Out Of Each Other challenge is essentially a game of basketball in the water, except: you can tackle the shit out of each other. The first team to three wins immunity, and fishing gear, and gets to send someone to Exile.

Before the challenge begins, a rainstorm hits the beach, because Brazilian Jesus loves when these guys tackle each other and he wanted to make this challenge as cinematic as possible. (“You know those hilarious Youtube videos of Brazilian Soccer Goalies getting kicked in the nuts? Those are me too. You’re welcome.” – Brazilian Jesus Statue)

The challenge begins. People are tackling each other. And tackling each others ome more. These challenges are always difficult to recap, because…it’s literally just a bunch of tackling, which is awesome to watch, but not so much fun to read. But please believe me when I tell you that this challenge is awesome. Let’s touch on some highlights:

During one round, Sandy contributes to the challenge by grabbing Erinn from behind by her bra and showing off like an idiot by riding her like a bucking bronco. How does that help, at all? Is she contributing to her team at all by taking both her and Erinn out of the equation? Man, I hate her.

There’s one round where all the girls compete against each other, and there is a mad cluster of hair pulling and tackling. Taj and Candace get into it throughout the challenge, but most nastily here, when Candace attempts to stop Taj when she has the ball, and Taj totally freaking stiff arms her with one hand.

Timbira scores the first two goals, and then Jalapao comes raging back and scores the next three to win the challenge, thanks to a lot of effort by Stephen, of all people. When Jalapao gets to send someone to Exile Island, they choose Brendan. WHY? Have these people not learned the folly of sending the strong to get the immunity idol?

This year, however, there’s a twist to Exile Island, announced by Jeff via superfluous note: Brendan gets to choose a member of the winning tribe to join him. He chooses Taj. Time for a Millionaires Camping Trip! Man, if these people had any idea…

Back at Jalapao, everyone celebrates, because now they don’t have to worry about being that crappy team who never wins an immunity challenge, and also because they won’t have to eat bugs anymore, now that they have fishing gear. JT and Stephen seem to have formed a bond, working together to catch some fish for the tribe. Stephen tells us that JT has really taken the lead, and even though he realizes that he’s going to look like the leader’s “goofy, awkward right hand man”, he’s glad to have a friend and to have a better shot at sticking around awhile longer. He even uses the word “smitten”, which seems…inappropriate. Turk and JD don’t even use words like that.

Now we get our first glimpse at Exile Island, which is a phenomenal looking sand dune, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Man, they keep outdoing themselves with these locations. I know I bitch about the nasty bugs, but this show is totally awesome in High Def. After finding their provided machete, water and rice, Taj and Brendan come upon two urns, one for each of them to choose. Taj’s is empty, and Brendan’s has a note in it, which he is required to open in private. It is, of course, a clue to a hidden immunity idol. The clue tells him that the idol is back at “tribal homelands”, which he doesn’t seem to understand means that he needs to look back at camp. The person who ends up with the note each episode also gets the option to mutiny and return to the opposite tribe, which Brendan states unequivocally is not going to happen.

Taj tries to get Brendan to show her the note, and at first, Brendan not having it. To her credit, Taj doesn’t even bother to ask him what it says. “Listen, do you want me to help you find it?” she tells him, not even beating around the bush. She tells us that she’s a little worried about how revealing the secret of her husband will affect her game, since she knows everyone is probably thinking that she doesn’t need the money. “Everyone has a cause, and my is that I want to be here, so hell, I’m gonna make that happen as long as I can.” Good for her. This is not Communist Survivor.

It probably wouldn’t have hurt to lie, though. Just saying.

He finally shows her the note, and Taj is like “Um, that means the idol’s at camp, dummy.” Brendan deduces that this means that there are two idols, and that this idol is a different idol than the one that Sierra was looking for. They wouldn’t have shown us this if it weren’t true, I don’t think, so that answers the question of whether Sierra’s idol is game-long or not: it isn’t.

Once Taj and Brendan realize that they’re going to have absolutely nothing to do since there’s no idol to look for, the two of them begin to get to know each other. They make a lot of small talk about not much, which is ironic because they have a lot in common and are essentially hiding the exact same secret from each other. They also decide to work together to get sent back to Exile again and find the idol together, so we’ll see how that turns out. How can you share it if you’re on separate tribes? And if you do work together to find the idol and make the merge, wouldn’t that make people pretty damn suspicious? There’s going to be a lot of added variables this season because of the twist. I’m liking it, particularly because the per-merge part of the game has gotten a little stale lately, and this is just the thing to spice it up.

Back at Timbira, Candace and her amazing breasts begin to complain about how Coach wasn’t giving it his all at the challenge. “He’s like these old ladies I go to church with, who wear the big hats, but…they ain’t on the up and up, you know?” she says. No, I do not know. Worst metaphor ever. Are the church ladies with the big hats getting some hot secular girl-on-girl action on the side? That’s what I’m going to assume.

Candace not only dislikes Coach, she dislikes all Coaches. “I don’t see the point of any coach, anywhere,” she says. Excuse me, madame, but I believe that a certain Coach Eric Taylor would have something to say about this.

Debra (whom I am growing to dislike, due to her constant inanity) immediately goes to Coach and tattles on Candace for wanting to get rid of him. Debra would still like to get rid of Sierra, but Coach decides that since Candace has opened her mouth, she’s a “poison apple” and needs to go. What happened to systematically eliminating the weak and keeping the strong? That went out the window pretty quickly, which I’m sure shocks all of us.

Brendan returns to camp to warm greetings. When they ask him about Exile Island, he tells them all the details exactly, except he very wisely lies about a few key things: he tells them that Taj get the clue instead of him, and he tells them that Taj is on the outs with her tribe (which may be true, but I doubt it. He’s trying to hide their alliance). Coach pulls Brendan aside to tell him that they’ll be blindsiding Candace, and that he’s planning on telling Candace and Erinn that it’ll be Sierra going home. Coach then goes to Sierra to let her know she’ll be staying around for awhile, and she doesn’t seem all that excited about it, frankly. I didn’t think it was possible to out-quit Chet, and yet: here we are.

Back at camp, Candace and her boobs tell Erinn that there’s no way in hell she’s getting voted out. “If I end up going home, there is mad shadiness going on,” she smirks. Has the seen the show before? They could change the name of the show to “Mad Shadiness And Also Some Camping” and no one would even notice.

Tribal Council. This is Probst’s first chance to asks Sierra about getting the votes at the beginning, so of course he jumps on it since it’s the most obvious place to go. She talks about how part of herself “wanted to give up” (that part being…all of her). Candace addresses the elephant in the room by stating that she voted for Sierra because she just didn’t seem like she wanted to be there as much as everyone else. Indeed, that seems like the case. There are termites slowly dissolving in the stomachs of the Jalapao members who are more excited to be on this show than Sierra.

Probst asks Candace whether she’s meshing well with the rest of the group. She replies by telling him that she thinks she is, and then Jeff gets Coach to say that no one would say anything anyway, and you have to go with your intuition regarding whether you fit into the group. Well, since Coach himself probably has no idea how people actually see him, or rather he believes that people who see him negatively are simply below him, this statement is more than a little ironic.

When Brendan gets asked about Exile Island, Coach hilariously buys in completely to Brendan’s statement about the clue, to the point that he’s stating unequivocally that Brendan is telling the truth, 100 percent of the time. Phenomenal. How awesome is this going to be halfway through the season when the editors are tired of him and just make him look ridiculous as much as possible? Oh, the Lisi edit. By the way, did you know that Lisi fell?

After a brief (and stupid) interplay between Erinn and Debra about how you can’t trust people after six days that is not worth talking about, it’s time to vote. We see Candace vote for Sierra and Sierra vote for Candace, and that’s it. When Jeff pauses before reading the votes to give the contestants an opportunity to play the idol, Sierra doesn’t make a move, so looks like that idol is out of the running. The first vote is for Candace, and the next is Sierra. The rest are for Candace (well, one vote is for “Candance”, whomever that is) and then Candace is dunzo. Bye, Hootie McBoob!

Man, this season has promise. I mean, think about it: at this point last season, we had Ace being a douche, GC being a douche, Randy becoming a douche after being cool for one episode, Corinne being a douche, Crystal being a douche, and Gillian being annoying and trying to get everyone to eat poop. Now? We have, like, one unlikable person and Sandy, who is mildly annoying but not necessarily unlikable. Well, unless you are me, in which case, GET HER OFF MY TV SCREEN.