Survivor: Kota Wins, We All Lose

This week on Survivor: the reward challenge pretty much dares you to “That’s What She Said” your television. After the tribal council in which we were all relieved of having to watch GC, Ace eyes the other members of the Fang tribe and wonders who will be his “Benedict Arnold”. Just like Benedict Arnold, Ace’s accent switches sides. Zing!

In the morning, Matt chisels a hole into a rock, hoping to make a ring to remind him of his dog and his girlfriend. Which one is the ring for? Also, the rock he’s carving is enormous. I see no situation in which it could become a ring, unless Matty’s planning on making one of those rings that pimps wear that go on more than one hand and spell your name or the word “CRUNK” in capital letters or something.

Matty tells us that he’s just looking for any opportunity he can at this point. “If somebody approached me with a legitimate plan that might work, for sure I’m on board.” Cut to Ace talking to Matty in the forest, suggesting that they use Sugar and Ken to create a majority and eliminate the other players. Matty then swears on his girlfriend and Ace thinks for a moment before swearing on his mother’s life. I will never understand the concept of swearing on people’s lives, because it means nothing. You break a promise so another person dies? Whatever, idiots. If I swore on my mom’s life, and I had to make a decision that meant breaking that oath for a million dollars, my mom would be like, “Nicely done, honey.”

Over at Kota, we get an extended montage of Dan eating the shit out of some food. Apparently everyone is getting pretty tired of his constant gluttony. Seriously, that’s the whole scene. There is bitching from Corinne and an extended montage of consumption. Oh, filler. You make my job so easy.

Fang, in contrast, is running pretty damn low on food. Like, “let’s home the merge comes soon so we don’t die” low. That’s pretty terrible. Time to go hunting, fools. Ace lies on his back over in the hut, just like he does in every damn shot. He tells Sugar that he’s fairly sure that everyone knows she has the idol. Sugar then offers to give it to Ace, for what appears to be no reason whatsoever. If everyone already knows you have it, why does giving it to someone else make any difference? It can’t be stolen, that’s part of the rules. Whatever, it’s Sugar. She tells us that she knows Ace is untrustworthy. “He’s kind of a snake, but he’s my snake” she episode titles for us. Ace celebrates the fact that he now has the idol and an alliance with Matty, thanks to choice bits of idiocy from both parties. Hey every, let’s trust the guy who talks like the every single villain from Die Hard!

Reward Challenge. Today the teams will be carrying a giant snake and chasing each other around a course until one and catch the other one from behind. (That’s what she said!) When a player gets tired, they can drop out, but the other Survivors will then be responsible for carrying more of the snake’s weight. Chasing ensues, and you will be surprised to hear that Fang is somehow not good even at running in a circle. Kota catches up to them almost immediately until Kelly and a few others drop out, leaving only Ace, Matty and Crystal to drag the giant snake around. The start sprinting and get a little bit of distance, but Crystal eventually tires as well, and when the snake is too large for two people to carry, Kota catches up and wins the reward of breakfast pastries. Crystal starts to cry. I’d feel sorry for her if she weren’t so heinous. And guess what? Sugar is going to Exile Island. I never get bored with this show, but we’re getting close.

Back at Kota, there is some discussion about how to delegate the pastries. Charlie tells us that he took charge immediately to prevent Dan from gobbling them up like he’s a member of The Mamas and The Papas. Dan, as usual, is completely unable to read a room (or African savannah) and gets all active in the conversation, not noticing all the eye-rolling that is occurring around him. Randy, however, has figured all of this out. “I’m definitely going to start distancing myself from Dan,” he says, ultimately hoping to be brought into the original Kota alliance. If Randy ends up pulling a Denise and settling for fourth place with these people, I’m going to be really disappointed in him. He’s already overcome so much to get into my good graces, including the non-ironic wearing of a Hawaiian shirt and the use of the phrase “cancer on the tribe”.

Over at Exile Plains, Sugar chills in the hut for the millionth consecutive time. She begins to cry because she feels guilty that she gets to hang out and eat while the rest of her tribe starves. I get that she’s a sensitive person and all, but I’m not sure I’d feel as terrible that people like Crystal and Ace aren’t eating as she is. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d reenact the chocolate cake scene from Welcome To The Dollhouse in front of them if given the option.

After yet another crushing loss, Crystal feels a little cryer’s remorse back at camp. “Don’t view my tears as a sign of weakness,” she tells everyone at camp. That’s just how Olympic Champions celebrate: by blubbering helplessly. Crystal then decides that Kelly is talking shit about this for some reason, and then she freaking follows her out into the woods to chew her and Ace out for thinking that she’s weak. Well, then, don’t cry in front of them. Crystal makes her insecurities more obvious than almost anyone who’s ever been on this show, and that’s saying something. Anytime she snaps at someone, it’s to compensate for paranoia, or fear, or to mask a weakness. Crystal then gives us what is possibly the best line in Survivor history: “At some point, we all get depressed. It’s just that mine come out through my eyes.” OH MY GOD. Mine come out through my eyes too! We’re so alike!

I can’t be the only one who went there, can I?

At Kota Randy, Marcus and Bob have somehow captured a large turtle. There is several minutes of finagling as they try to figure out how to get it back to camp without losing any of their more important fingers. When they get it back to camp, somebody offers up a neat turtle soup recipe, and before you know it everyone is eating the shit out of some turtle. Another opportunity to make a Fred Flintstone hard hat, wasted.

Immunity Challenge. Today, the tribe divides into three pairs. Each pair will navigate an obstacle course to retrieve some sections of flagpole and bring them back to the start, at which point the next pair can go get the next set of poles placed farther out on the course. Once all the sections have been brought back, the first tribe to put their pole together and hoist their flag wins the challenge.

You know how this ends, right? God help me, I was actually rooting for Fang somehow. The whole thing actually ends up being agonizingly close and tense, with Fang actually overtaking Kota for a good part of the race. When it comes time to put the flag together, Ace tries to take charge and do the whole thing himself while Kota works as a team, finishing the puzzle first and winning the challenge. Don’t let your sadness come out your eyes, Crystal!

Back at camp, Ace seems pretty convinced that Kelly should be the next to go. Matty takes Ace out into the jungle and suggests getting rid of Sugar in order to flush out the idol. This is how you can tell that Matty is kind of…not smart. “Hey, we’ve had an alliance for roughly twenty-four hours, why don’t we vote out your biggest ally?”

Ace is unsurprisingly not warm to this particular concept, trying to tell Matty not to worry about the idol without giving away the fact that Ace himself has it. It’s typically idiotic and the exact opposite of smooth, which is what Ace seems to think it is. While he tells us this in confessional, an elephant sidles up to the water behind him and goes for a swim. It’s not often that there is a literal elephant in the room, so thank you to the one elephant in Gabon with a sense of poetic integrity.

Crystal talks to Matty about potentially getting rid of Ace, and Matty predictably objects to this, arguing that they need Ace for challenges. “Have we won any since he showed up?” Crystal says quite saliently. Wow, this is almost enough to make me like Crystal. Well, it’s totally not, but they should have gotten rid of Ace awhile ago.

Crystal suspects something’s going on with Matty, because Crystal always suspects something with everybody, and of course she’s freaking right, because if you’re paranoid about everything all of the time, you’re going to be right at some point. Crystal tells Ken about this, and Ken then takes it to Matty. Matty then fesses up to the fact that he made Ace a promise on his girlfriend and dog, which is a stupid thing to say. He doesn’t even tell Ken that he’s part of the deal and protected.

Ken, being the only serious player on this entire tribe, decides to create a little backup plan for himself, since the whole “ally with Matty” thing isn’t exactly going according to plan. He actually goes to Sugar and offers to partner with her, which is a surprising and intelligent move on his part. When Sugar tells him that she gave the immunity idol to Ace, Ken recognizes the complete ridiculousness of that situation and tells her to get the it back, explaining that it does no good to just give it away when everyone already knows that you have the damn thing. Sugar’s idol is like that one friend who finally tells you he’s gay after you’ve known it for ten years, and then who’s surprised when everyone’s like “Um, we know?”

Sugar then goes to Ace and actually takes back the idol, instead of telling Ace that they need to knock out Ken like I was pretty sure she would do. Man, Ken keeps surprising me with these really interesting moves. If he manages to distance himself somehow from Crystal, I might be able to start actively rooting for him.

Tribal Council! Crystal fingers Ace for the most recent loss before going completely nuts on Kelly for insinuating that her crying showed a weakness. Quit being so insecure about it! Sadness come out my eyes too. Kelly tries to retort bitchily, but the English language gets in Kelly’s way, as it has so many times before. “Um, I never said she was weak, but when somebody cries, it’s just like why are you crying, and something’s like, um…you’re just not stable.” I’m not sure, but I think that sentence is the title of a Fiona Apple album.

Time to vote! Everyone votes for Kelly but Kelly herself, so…she’s done. Next week looks cool, though: the Kota tribe will finally have to vote someone out, but only because there’s a double tribal next week. I dunno, I just won’t feel right if I don’t get to watch Fang lose on Thursday.