Survivor: Joel’s Paranoia Is Bigger Than His Head

This week, on Survivor: Tracy is totally awesome. Finally, someone to like!The day after the Yau-Man Tribal Council, Jon decides to bring up the whole Cirie affair again, which is probably not the best idea considering that her perspective on the situation is way different than his, and neither one is true. Also, our perspective is probably off too, considering that we saw editing straight out of A Clockwork Orange for most of last week.

Cirie decides that Jon is bitter, and tells him that he’s obviously just pissed that she chose not to side with his alliance. Jon, in turn, calls her “disgusting”, and why do All-Star seasons always ruin the fun people? Kathy and Lex, Janelle, Diane, Uchenna and Joyce. It is a reality TV epidemic, people.

Over at the Fans tribe after the credits, Jason catches an eel, which they decide must be just like hot dogs. I’m sure some of the same parts are in both. As people tend to the fire and chop wood and whatnot, Chet just sort of lies around in the water. Doing nothing. Natalie (wait, who?) tells us that she’s just been trying to keep her head down so far (yeah, no shit, who knew there was a Natalie on this show?), and Chet is making himself stick out by acting so lazily. She would like to vote him out. Mikey concurs, and we get a montage of him shooting sideways glances at Chet as he roams in and out of consciousness in the water.

Over at Malakal, Eliza is not feeling very well. I probably wouldn’t feel very well if I had to hang out with Parvati and James either, especially with them making out and whatnot. She lies in the fetal position by the water and tells us that she’s just trying to get through these few days without being voted out. If you’ll recall, Eliza is the queen of not quite getting voted out, so I think she’ll be able to manage.

Eliza has soon migrated over to camp, where everyone else is cooking and lounging around. James abruptly turns to Ozzy and is like, “We shouldn’t have voted out Yau-Man with her useless.” Wow, what a jerk. Eliza is hilariously like, “Um, dude? I’m sitting right here.” James takes umbrage at this, because how dare she question his need to insult her to her face! He goes, “Oh, so now you’re sick AND you’ve got attitude!” I can tell you that I’ve had the following conversation at least six times this week:

Person I am talking to about this episode: “Wow, when did James turn into such an ass?”

Me: “Um, did you SEE last season?”

Reward Challenge! There is a cage full of coconuts below the water out in the sea, and some of those coconuts have letters on them. Five people will take turns swimming out and grabbing the letter-nuts, bringing them to the surface. Once they’ve all been collected, three people on the beach will unscramble a word, which will win you reward. The reward is three hens and a rooster, which is cool and old school.

The challenge begins, and Ozzy immediately starts being awesome, picking out four coconuts with letters and rolling them all to the front at the same time. This allows the Fans to take a short lead, because their people are rolling the letter-nuts out one at a time. Once Ozzy comes to the surface with the first one, the Favorites just start going down and grabbing the cocounuts rapid fire, and soon they have a huge lead. All the letter-nuts are retrieved and on the surface being unscrambled pretty quickly, and James has a random idiot savant moment where he’s like “Is the word triumphant?” and then the Favorites win. I love how they show James as the MVP of this challenge, when Ozzy is the reason they won. Editing, you are currently my nemesis. Pistols at dawn!

The Favorites decide to send Kathy to Exile Island again, and they also choose to send…Ozzy? That seems unwise. Like, literally the most unwise thing you can do in that situation. If anyone fully realizes the power of the idol, it’s Ozzy, because it’s basically the reason he got as far as he did. Also, he needs it more than anyone else because he knows he’s going to be done for after about five or six more TCs. So…that was idiotic. Not that I expect anything less from these people after what I’ve seen so far. Wow, this season is lame.

After the commercials at Exile Island, Kathy is really excited to be meeting all of the favorites. She tells us she wishes that she was on their tribe. What, you are not enjoying the company of Joel? Kathy tells us that she’s sort of “over” looking for the idol, so she’s not even going to bother. Yeah, there’ll be plenty more opportunities for you on All-Stars 3, because I’m sure you’ll be around a long time. Ozzy is like “Um, I’ll just be over here…um…searching for clams.” And then he slides out of the side of the frame all Homer Simpson style, going to look for the idol. Of course, since he’s Ozzy, he finds it with no problem. Now, I really like Ozzy, but you will remember that Probst in pre-season interviews was like “James getting voted out with two idols is no longer the dumbest mistake in the history of the game.” That quote may not bode well for Ozzy, I’m thinking.

Also, it turns out that the giant dumb hat Ozzy wears has come in handy, because he’s stashed the idol inside it and he transfers it from hat to bag when he returns to camp. While Kathy is wandering around talking to walls and whatnot, Ozzy tells us that he’s “going to take a page from Yau-Man’s book” and he starts carving a fake idol. When he finishes up, it sort of looks like a pointy stick, so I’m thinking it may not fool very many people, but then again: Parvati.

Back at Camp Favorites, Eliza is doing her best to deflect attention off of her and on to Jonathan. She takes Parvati for a walk in the woods, telling her all about how Jon is a much bigger threat and how untrustworthy he is (which is not actually true, because he’s one of the easiest people to predict, if you think about it). While they’re talking, Jonathan comes up behind them, ostensibly dragging wood in or something, and they don’t hear him until he’s right on top of them, so he’s basically overheard the whole thing. Smooth! Even Parvati figures out that Eliza is sort of full of it, so now we know how effective that whole maneuver is. Dude, Parvati and Jon hate each other anyway; you don’t have to push it that hard.

Immunity Challenge! This episode is moving fast. The challenge involves getting into one of those contraptions that has a bunch of sliding steel poles on a spoke, so the people on opposite ends have to work together to get around a bunch of obstacles. First everyone has to unlock themselves, then you navigate around the course so that each person hooked up to the thing has to grab a necklace from these stations. Once all six people have necklaces on, you bring them to the other two people, who will use the necklaces to decode a puzzle wheel and decipher a phrase. On a side note, I hate explaining challenges. Worst part of the job. Best part of the job? My cable bill is now tax deductible. I’m kidding, one guy reading from the IRS!

Don’t audit me, please.

Um…to continue! The challenge begins; some of the fans have trouble unlocking themselves and getting going, probably because their hands are trembling. They’re like this close to James! He’s a modern day Rupert. Now’s your chance to ask him for an autograph! Anyway, the Favorites amass a considerable lead as a result, and the Fans just can’t catch up. They’re, like, halfway through their necklace collecting when Eliza and Cirie decode the phrase and win immunity for the tribe. So, the fans will be going to Tribal Council, where whoever Joel is afraid of the most will be voted out. Boy, Mary is terrifying!

The Fans return to camp, thinking that this is going to be an easy one. I mean, how can you not get rid of Chet? Tracy, however, is not having it. By the way, I love Tracy now. Tracy, knowing that it will be bad for her if Chet gets voted out, tries to talk him into working it so that he can stay. His response is to lay in the shelter like a starfish, because he might be too weak to utter actual words at this point. Cut off one of his arms! Then you will have two Chets. This is a process you can repeat until you have a voting majority.

Since the starfish idea is not one that will work, Tracy decides to take advantage of the most obviously influenced person on the island: Joel. Since Joel is one of the most paranoid, Tracy just appeals to this side of him. She absolutely works the shit out of him for five minutes. She tries to appeal to his logic, about how now is the only time that the three votes of the minority (her, Chet, and Kathy) can be used to accomplish the ouster of Mikey. This, of course, is not true. However, it is awesome. Here’s a rough transcript of the conversation:

Tracy: “What happens when Chet gets voted out, huh? You’re next! Mikey is the boogey man! He is Bloody Mary! Say his name three times into this mirror! You’ll die, I swear!”

Joel: (silence)

The look on Joel’s face: “OMG, you are so right! It’s like that one time when they told me not to feed the Mogwai after midnight, and then I fed the Mogwai after midnight, and then there were Gremlins everywhere! Even in Trump Tower! And in this metaphor, I am Trump Tower! I will not be infested with gremlins! Just you watch!”

And then there is an abrupt cut to Tribal Council, without any additional intrigue at all, which made me thought that this was (as this kind of thing has been so many times before) a complete and utter ruse, and that Chet would inevitably end up going home. Jeff starts asking about keeping the tribe strong physically, because what else do you ask about when the gay is holding you down? People start talking about how the weak members of the tribe are holding them down, until Tracy awesomely redirects the conversation by going “Wait, so the people who are sitting out of the challenges are the ones responsible for the losses? Explain that logic.” And then: silence, because the answer is that the leadership is to blame and should be voted out immediately, and no one wants to say that because then Joel will try to vote them out. You guys, Tracy is awesome. I cannot wait to watch her work Joel’s paranoia over and over again until she is the last one standing.

Probst gets ready to tell everyone to vote, and Jason is like “Wait! I have something to say.” And he then proceeds to very emphatically plead with the rest of the tribe to vote out the weak members, instead of playing the game. Sounds like Jason is not in favor of what is about to happen. Jason, of course, votes for Chet. Mikey also votes for Chet. We see Tracy vote for Mikey.

Probst goes to count the votes. After the first one for Mikey is read, he is unalarmed. After the fourth? He knows it’s over. Joel sits there and smirks like he had anything to do with what just happened. Man, I cannot wait to watch him go down.

Next week: the tribes get mixed up, and Chet gets dragged around the course like one of those dogs who hates being on a leash.

Three recaps in a week! Eat that, social life!