Survivor may be the original CBS reality show (and it's the one I watched first; the only one I watched from the beginning), but these days I find it only third my affections among CBS's trio of stalwarts, with The Amazing Race ahead of it, and Big Brother a perhaps-surprising favorite of the three.
While it is true that Survivor offers a blend of TAR's exotic locations and Big Brother's strategy, it's sort of a weak mix of two flavors perhaps served best alone. With the Race going to interesting places all over the world at a breakneck pace, Generic Island #18 isn't that interesting. (Thank non-existent god that Jeff Probst doesn't give producer-mandated "multicultural experience" insights any more.) And the use of the Head of Household position in Big Brother to focus the eviction drama on only two people at a time means that the stakes are higher; if you've been nominated, it's harder to escape the danger you can see looming. On Survivor, you can always have a group just gang up on some outsider at random, which is less interesting than it sounds. (And a week in the hot seat is different from a couple hours' milling around before Tribal Council, plus the longer game [almost double the "39 days"] takes a psychological toll.) BB's constantly-shifting power dynamics (since anyone, no matter how outnumbered, can win HoH, and nobody can win it twice in a row) requires the Houseguests to dance through the raindrops to stay safe; Survivor, the occasional Hidden-Immunity-Idol and blindside hijinx aside, is still mostly about "get a strong group, get the numbers during the tribal stage, and kick everyone else out"…the basic "Pagonging" strategy that Richard Hatch invented, way back at the beginning.
I mean, you know it's bad when the "these two Tribal Councils were painfully predictable; the person who needed to win immunity didn't, the majority didn't make a deal, the target was voted out…let's just smush them into one episode so it's not SO boring" episode is has now become a staple of each season, for pete's sake. Benefits of an edited show, I suppose, but I much prefer BB not knowing who the winner is going to be, and thus never knowing what will turn out to be important, and trying to show everything. In the end, I now find Survivor to only offer grade-B adventure and grade-B strategy, and I can't put in the level of the shows that IMO have mastered those respective areas.
But hey, placing third out of three shows I still love and regularly watch isn't exactly a bad thing, right? And it's the first to make it to 25 seasons, so congrats on that.
Previously on Survivor…Jeff Probst wore blue bush shirts, had many, many man-crushes, and generally preferred that the women not speak at Tribal Council. The editors routinely ignored minor players until it was their turn to get voted out, which became slightly embarrassing when Anonymous Jenn Lyon (4th place, season 10) dropped dead a few years later from breast cancer, and the producers wondered if maybe they should have let her have more than one line an episode, after all. Freed from needing to portray any sort of "reality", the editors constructed a whole season where Russell Hantz was supposedly an evil mastermind (by filming 9 trillion of his "I'm so clever!" confessionals) and ignored the actuality where he was an obvious sacrificial goat that the rest of his alliance dragged to the end because they knew nobody would vote for him, then compounded the fact by bringing him back two more times. (The last of which times he was so annoying, his tribe simply threw a challenge so that they could vote him off, before he "discovered" an Immunity Idol as a present the producers had left under his pillow.) And people (well, me) hoped that Season 25 would be a "contest of champions" featuring only winners, instead of the random "all-star" seasons that toss in producer favorites, regardless of whether they're any good at the game. (Seriously, enough with the Cirie, already!)
But instead, it's just another season on another island, to my (extremely-limited) knowledge.
Oh, and The Facts of Life was nearly cancelled after Season 1 (pulled off the air after just four episodes and dragged back on in the spring because the show it spun off from [Diff'rent Strokes] was such a huge hit), so the producers made Molly Ringwald and her guitar hit the road and cast a new foil for Princess Blair…an obvious lesbian, er, "tough girl", named Jo…
—wait, what? Shhhh, you'll see…
And we're off! Here's Jeff, at the helm of a power yacht!
The Philippines have lots of islands, some of which are remote and beautiful and not at all like the remote, beautiful islands on pretty much every season of Survivor. Sharks, snakes and spiders are out here, not that the insurance underwriters would let the cast be in any danger, so you can pretty much forget about that. We have three tribes of five this year and let's meet the contestants! Stunt-casts first, of course.
Holy crow, it's future MLB Hall-of-Famer Jeff Kent! A real pro athlete, rather than the marginal Gary Hogebooms and Steve-the-mostly-anonymous-Raider-guard (he was one of the guys in the tribe who whacked Russell, remember? Old as hell, but won a Super Bowl for John Madden, a lifetime ago)…wow! Jeff's supposedly a bit of a prick, but still, you'd have to be a complete idiot to trade him for Carlos Baerga, I'm just saying. (Okay, it still hurts.) He's followed by some twerp with a Frankenstein tattoo (is he famous? He didn't give his name) and then…here's Blair Warner! Er, Lisa Whelchel, fresh from her committed Christian marriage where she can teach you to ignore the sexual attraction of your still-single female co-star and find true happiness with your pastor hubby…as long as you ignore the fact that he pings the gaydar louder than you and Nancy McKeon put together. (And those girls did surely ping, as many a YouTube video attests.)
Both Kent and Lisa have decided to not tell their fellow castaways who they are. That makes sense. No one will ever remember your being on 17 years' worth of baseball cards and countless episodes of SportsCenter OR your nine-year run on a hit NBC sitcom that gave George Clooney his start, nuh-uh! Totally anonymous, you'll both fly below the radar, I'm sure!
(God, I hope they're on the same tribe. "Hey, don't I know you?" "No, no, I'm nobody. Hey, don't I know you?")
Probst teases a bunch of people getting injured and sick, and then tells us that three former players—
OH, CHRIST!
—are returning for a second shot—
SERIOUSLY, CHRIST!
—tormented by what might have been, if only they didn't get sick/injured/blah/blah/blah.
Look, I'm not one who opposes the use of returning players. I love some All-Star seasons (Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains was great, and Big Brother All-Stars was the year that got me hooked on that show) and I don't necessarily mind the "old players mixed with new" formula either. I think it's worked out fine all three times that Big Brother tried it, but this is three out of the last four Survivors that they've done this, and it's always the same. (BB did it differently each time.) They've got to be scraping the bottom of the "familiar faces" barrel for this and I frankly don't care if these returnees, whomever they might be, caught a disease before. (God, James Clement has been med-evacced twice already from this show…if they bring him back again, I'm going to think that they're trying to kill him.)
This has the potential to suck as badly as The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, where almost half the teams were people who lost to Victor and Tammy Jih in TAR 14, answering the hardly-burning question "who would have won if the people who beat all these mediocrities weren't there"?
And it looks as though Colton Cumbucket, er, Cumbie, everybody's favorite pissy gay racist screaming queen cartoon from last season, has been invited back. Oh, joy. What classy representation, Probst. I can remember when the gay contestants were people who weren't blatant stereotypes…but that's going back a long, long time.
Let's meet the losers, er, returning stars, shall we?
Oh, thank non-existent god, no Colton. But still, we get a clot of "why bother?" contestants. Here's Russell Swan, the "other Russell" from Season 19, who nearly killed himself from heatstroke. Yes, perhaps he might have held the Galu tribe together if he'd stayed (they did have a huge majority…Purple Power!), but he was out before the merge. "What might have been" is that he could have finished 9th or 10th instead of 14th or whatever. Thrilling.
And here's Jonathan Penner, who had BETTER f'ing recognize Lisa, given that he too once starred as the romantic lead on a network sitcom. (With Tea Leoni in The Naked Truth. So that's two TV stars [even if they do bill Jonathan as a "writer" on this show] and a Hall of Famer. Not exactly the "ordinary Americans" Jeff used to refer to in the opening episode of each season.) Now, I love Jonathan, but in Season 12 (Survivor: Cook Islands), he was ultimately responsible for his own demise; he made a flat-out bad move in making the double-flip back to Yul Kwon and his group, just because he didn't like the "Raro" tribe he was on. He burnt everyone's trust and killed his own game. Now, granted, that was the season where the tribes were racially divided (the title could have been Survivor: Race War) and the uncomfortable truth is that Raro was the "white people" tribe, and they were kicking butt the whole game, much as the editors tried to ignore this. (When Jonathan defected, they had four of their original five players in the game, as opposed to 2 of the 5 blacks, 2 of the 5 Asians, and Ozzie Lusth was left as the Last Latino Standing.) Perhaps Jonathan (being Jewish, despite the baby-blue eyes) didn't want the story of that season to be "White Power!" any more than the producers did. But still, bad move.
And when Jonathan returned for Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites, he was playing a good game, and you could believe his "dying declaration" (as he was being evacuated) that he could see his way to victory…but he was out in 12th place. Long, long way to go. I like having him back, but I'd rather it was in a proper All-Star season…the idea that "cruel fate" has kept him from winning is just silly.
Less silly, though, is our last contestant. Clearly this is an achievement that Jeff Probst and his fellow producers are proud of, because here is Michael Skupin. One of the stars of the second season (Survivor: The Australian Outback), he suffered perhaps the most horrific fate in the show's history when he was tending the tribe's fire, inhaled too much smoke, got lightheaded and fell into the ring of fire (like Johnny Cash, but less-musically), being severely burned. And he was the leader of a dominant faction (albeit still only in the middle game) and very much liked, so he could well have won. I know that the show has tried to bring Michael back for pretty much every single "returning player" season they've done, but he's been busy with his ministry in Michigan, and turned them down.
Along with Schoolteacher Bob Crowley (Season 17 winner), I consider Mike to be one of the most decent and likable people ever to play this game, and he played it quite well, and was "robbed by fate" if anyone ever was. But…he looks kind of old now (it has been 11 years, after all) and I can't help wondering if both he and the show are doing this just to say they did it, rather than in a more organic manner. Still, it's interesting enough that, if I were the type of blogger who would go back and edit out some of my vitriol from earlier in the post, this is what would make me do that. But I'm not, so I won't. Cautious and curious now, I'll admit.
"I think that to dwell on 'what if?' would cheat what the adventure was for me." Like I said, Mike is just class. Maybe the producers wouldn't like his undercutting their premise that way, but I'm cool with it.
Probst wonders if one of the veterans will win, or if a new star will emerge, as we see pictures of Artis (an older black man), Carter (a young blond guy) and a dark-haired brunette I wasn't able to ID in the credits, which come next. Since the show is edited after completion, I'm guessing those aren't the first three vote-offs, if you know what I mean.
Credits: Mike has Lisa on his tribe, so we can look forward to lots of thought-provoking religious discussions. (Well, maybe not on this show.) Jonathan has Jeff Kent (and will surely recognize him, easily) and Russell has Frankentwerp, who is named "Zane". Note to parents: nobody cool has been named "Zane" since Zane Grey, over a century ago. Stop it. Seriously, stop it.
Probst arrives to greet the contestants, still on their boat. They are already sitting in three groups of five. Jeff (Probst) asks Jeff (Kent) what he thinks of three tribes, rather than the traditional two, and Kent says that the numbers are really small and if they lose, Tribal Council will involve lots of scrambling. Oh and Probst calls him "the guy in the maroon shirt", as if he didn't have a hand in the stunt-casting. Yeah, surrrre.
Probst calls on Frankentwerp, who says he's glad as long as there aren't celebrities. (Which seems kind of random, I think.) This makes Lisa twitch, of course, because people recognize her all the time! (You get the feeling she's kind of hoping to be spotted? Yeah, me, too.)
Probst then actually calls on a woman, a girl named Roxanne, also on Russell's team and asks if she's seen the injuries that happen, and Roxanne says the most horrific she's ever seen was Russell's and she gives a freaking Heroic Ode, going into detail after detail in a way that couldn't be any more blatantly scripted if Probst were holding the fucking cue cards. The spotlighted brunette from before (who's on Kent's tribe) even gives Probst a "who are you trying to kid with this bullshit?" look, as seen here:
Six and half minutes into the show, and already the players are suspicious. Might be a new record there, Jeffy.
Probst then spills about the twist (before they even reach land? Lame). Artis seems slightly miffed, but a random cute blonde on Russell/Frankentwerp/Roxanne's team is like "What? Were we supposed to have watched the show before? Gosh."
The Losers get on the big boat and Probst tells their tales of woe, which basically make them look very bad. "Hey, here are some players who didn't get voted out by their tribemates…they couldn't even beat nature, never mind their fellow competitors! Yay?"
Okay, what he actually says is "All of these players have one thing you don't: experience." Yeah, experience at nearly DYING. As someone who has survived two brushes with death, let me tell you, that's not really the kind of experience you want. Just sayin'.
Mike recognizes Lisa instantly, and as he later tells us, almost called her "Blair". Heh. Seriously, this is like the worst attempt to go "incognito" that I've ever seen. At least cut and/or dye your hair, girl!
And now it's the traditonal "60 seconds to grab supplies!" exit from the boat. Nobody seems able to find a machete. Penner's tribe knocks everything into the water, including their two live chickens, which get free, and Kent may have twisted his leg. "MLB Hall of Famer injured and out of Survivor, 50 seconds into the competition." Heh, now that would be lame.
Skupin/Blair's tribe loses a lot of fruit. One of the girls on Penner's tribe got a chicken back, and Jeff Kent is still worried he tore a ligament. 17 years in the big leagues and you get a major injury getting off a boat. Damn, it's so embarrassing that I'm almost rooting for it.
After the (nonexistent) ads, Russell's tribe (Matsing) makes land, and Russell calls a meeting to tell everybody he's not going to be a leader. Apparently he thinks that was his downfall last time, rather than overwork and dehydration. (I guess you could argues he pushed himself to that because he thought it was demanded of him as a leader…but that's a stretch.) Ironically, he seems to be demonstrating lots of leadership in running his "I'm not leading" meeting.
We then get a montage of Russell completely running the show, telling Roxanne where to cut the bamboo and so on. Capped by the guy who isn't Russell or Frankentwerp telling Random Blonde that they should "do what Russell says for now, and deal with him later". Nice strategy, Russ!
Blonde's name is Angie, and Other Guy is Malcolm (a bartender) who finally tells Russell that he lived in the South Pacific for a year and he knows all this stuff. So much for his "Let Russell do it" strategy, huh? Guess Malcolm isn't any better than Russell at keeping to the rear…or at least the Middle.
Malcolm instructs and coaches Russell in how to make fire, and Russell (who has never lacked enthusiasm for grunt work) goes and does it. As Twerpy Zane notes, they got fire within the first hour. Zane is impressed by Russell, Russell is impressed by Russell, and Malcolm remembers that he wants the target off his back and goes to giggle with Angie, saying that "I let [Russell] make fire", which isn't quite how it went. Angie is already semi-crushing on Malcolm, having noticed that of the three guys on her tribe, Zane is creepy and Russell is black.
(Note: there is no evidence that Angie is a racist, nor does she express herself in any way that lends credence to that theory. I just note that the hot blonde girl and the hot white guy have immediately paired off. Self-selection, yay?)
Penner's tribe, Wounded Knee (er, "Kalabaw") comes ashore, and Jeff really did hurt himself. He's trying to play it off, because he doesn't want to be a target. Aww.
While Jonathan goes swimming and enjoys the experience, Kent holds a meeting about how they can't let the veteran win. Heh, it's a "rise up against the establishment" speech…from the guy who probably earned over $50,000,000 in salary over his career. That's ballsy, I have to admit. In a confessional, Dana, a wiry blonde beautician ("cosmetologist"), expresses similar anti-Jonathan thoughts.
Mike's tribe comes ashore. RC, an investment banker who has got her nicely-large breasts in a traffic-sign-yellow bra (seriously, this is the Chiquita banana of bras), says she already trusts Abi, the other non-Lisa girl on her tribe. But not enough to tell Abi that she's a banker, because people don't like folks who forge documents and steal people's homes from them, for some strange reason. She compares banking to Survivor, because when you get caught cheating in Survivor, President Obama gives you immunity, just like on Wall Street.
(To be fair, if someone can prove the bank used false documents to illegally foreclose on them, and they can jump through all the hoops in the Banker Amnesty Bill, they could receive as much as $2000 from the settlement. That's totally enough to buy a new house! If you're named Barbie, at least. Or, "Fido".)
Abi wants to bring Mike and Peter (the "dumb" strong guy who hasn't had a line yet in the show) into their "alliance". Sucks to be Artis and Blair, I guess. BTW, Abi's eyes are about on a level with RC's jugs, due to their height difference, but she does seem to be trying to look up, not at. (So far.)
Abi is Brazilian, talks a lot, seems to have no game beyond "flirt", but Peter (an engineering student, so presumably not *that* "dumb") thinks he can use it. RC solidifies the girls' alliance with him, saying that she doesn't trust "the older lady". (Clearly, she was a Natalie fan, and hated that Blair stole the spotlight.) Then she goes and gets Mike on board. Mike doesn't seem hugely thrilled, given that his reaction is "I've gotta start somewhere and this is a good place to start", but he had decided that he was going to go with the "flow" of the majority and while he wouldn't have made a "three-minute alliance", if that's what they want, he's glad to be in it.
Back at Wounded Knee, Dana bonds with Jeff because he's from Austin, Texas, and has a ranch south of San Antonio…and she's from the south side of her trailer park. Or from a trailer park in the South, one or the other. Meanwhile, Dawson, a girl who sells insurance, says she dated a guy who was really into baseball and so she knows who Jeff Kent is. I'm torn between noting the sexism inherent in the idea that Dawson can only know Jeff because she dated a guy who was into baseball (at least in Gary Hogeboom's season, Danni Boatwright recognized him on her own, being a sports talk radio host and all…although she did note that her dad was a big Cowboys fan) and wondering Jeff actually told them his name was "Jeff Kent" and expected them not to know him. It's especially funny because Jeff's lying about everything else…he's actually from southern California, not Texas. (Although, having spent some of his career with the Houston Astros, he might well live in Texas now.)
Back to The Facts of Tandang, where RC and Abi in their banana-bras are trying to bond with Blair, who's talking about her "ministry for moms". The reticence she sometimes shows (trying to make fire while everyone else goes gathering) is making RC more and more suspicious. Mike interviews that he thinks Lisa should be playing the "Hollywood star" card to impress the younger players, although he allows that they might be so young they've never heard of the show. Still, two words: George. Clooney. You'd wow the kids with that, for sure.
BTW, Lisa lost all her TV money in the crash of 1987. That won't get on RC's good side; you'd think she could have waited at least until RC and her buddies tanked the derivatives market in '08, right?
That first night, Mike tells Lisa that he knows, and he thinks she should tell people. She demurs. Aww, it's cute how he still wants to bone Blair, 20 years after the fact. He says he'd like to keep her around, but he doesn't see her doing much on her own behalf.
Day 2
At Russell World, Denise, a 30-something prostitute (er, "sex therapist") is chatting with Frankentwerp, who is, I'm sure you'll all be shocked to learn, a high school dropout. She notes that he has some morbid tattoos, including a death date for a loved one, and wants to learn his story.
Zany Zane goes and makes alliances with everyone. No, literally, everyone. He even tells Russell and Malcolm that he's already allied with everybody else, and then he goes off to make an alliance with the cameraman and the sound guy, feeling good.
Malcolm, not being an idiot, realizes that Frankentwerp has basically confessed that his alliances don't mean shit to him. So he makes an alliance with Denise, figuring that she's smarter than Angie, if not as hot. He tells her that he doesn't want to be "sitting in Russell Swan's shadow" as if Russell was famous for anything other than passing out. (Although I guess you wouldn't want to be literally in his shadow, in case he passes out again.) Dude wasn't even the most famous "Russell" on his own season.
Back at Nick at Mike, Skupin decides he's tired of his team sucking ass and he sets to work. And promptly cuts his hand (on the machete), his forehead (on a tree branch) and his foot (on something on the beach). It's a wonder this guy lasted 18 days last time. Peter is amused that Mike managed to injure himself on Day 2, because he doesn't know that Jeff Kent wrecked his knee on Minute 1.
Mike then cuts himself AGAIN, digging coconut out with the machete. I swear, it's like "Wound Bingo" with this guy. Peter points out that they haven't been in any seriously dangerous situations, then jokes that when they get fire, "we'll see what happens". Heh.
At Wounded Knee, Jonathan searches for the Hidden Immunity Idol while the other five huddle from the rain in a cave and talk smack about him. Are we sure he's played this game before?
Katie (the spotlighted brunette from the boat) turns out to be a former Miss Delaware. The makes her the First Runner-up among Stunt-Casts on her tribe. In the event that Jeff Kent can not complete his Stunt Cast duties, Katie will assume his responsibilities as the Stunt-casted member of Wounded Knee. I wonder if Dawson ever dated a guy who was really into the Miss U.S.A. pageant?
Jonathan has searched all the interesting trees and so forth when he remembers that at camp, in addition to a machete and a pot, they had an ornate box with a rice bag in it. He searches the bag and finds a clue that says "it's right under your nose, you fucking idiot." (Well, pretty much, anyway.) He decides that the Idol is somewhere under the camp or in the rice pot or whatever. Meanwhile, the camera helpfully zooms in on the ornate carving on top of the box, to remind us about the China season, where James grabbed two idols that were, you guessed it, the ornate carvings visibly on display at camp. Apparently Jonathan, who played with James the very next season, never bothered to go back and watch James's season and learn to be on the look out for visibly-handicrafted items. Idiot.
Russellville. Russell is cooking the rice, and finds the clue. (Producers not taking any chances the idols won't be found, are they?) He goes off to read it in private, which means "down the beach a bit, in plain view of Zane, who's in the ocean making an alliance with some coral". Zane says he can't trust Russell. Man, if you can't trust your alliance, whom can you trust?
Day 3
Challenge time! The tribes arrive at the site, wearing face paint. Carter has a Devil's Cross, Dawson has random tribal dots, and Katie has covered her cheeks like she's wearing a mud mask. Angie has a big blue "M" on her chest, apparently having already pledged her heart to Malcolm. (Or just because her tribe is "Matsing", but I like my theory better.)
The challenge calls for the six-player tribes to divide into three pairs: one running/carrying, one rowing/diving, and one pair of lazy slobs who will solve the puzzle. The first two tribes to finish get one of the two immunity idols, which look like startled chickens.
Diversely enough, the first three pairs are a pair of guys (Russell/Zane), a pair of girls (Dana/Katie) and a mixed pair (RC/Artis). RC and Artis are first back, handing off to Mike and Pete. Russell has to pull Zane over the line, as Zane is out of breath and wants to make an alliance with an oxygen bottle. And Dana and Katie are dragging ass because they are helpless females, or so Probst probably believes. He scolds them as they finally return to the beach.
Mike and Pete get their chest and head back. Meanwhile Jeff and Carter are completely smoking the Malcolm/Denise alliance and take over second place. Back on the beach, Russell looks disgusted.
Lisa and Abi start the puzzle for Mike's tribe, which would worry me because Lisa might have lost her brains back in the 1987 stock market crash, and Abi doesn't seem to ever have had one. Jonathan and Dawson get to work on the puzzle, and, eventually, so do Roxanne and Angie (neither of whom wanted to do the puzzle) for Matsing.
Surprisingly, Lisa knocks it out of the park. Jonathan nips her at the very end to get his team the better fire kit, but they both leave Team Russell in the dust. (And Russell himself? We'll see.)
Jeff asks Russell what went wrong, and he takes the responsibility for assigning people tasks, as the leader. Dude, that's why you didn't want the job, remember?
Back in Russell-Land, Russ is giving everyone a pep talk, when the Zaniac admits he sucked, he wasn't physically up to it, and he wants to go home. (Perhaps he's going to make an alliance with the sequester house?) Well, Russell doesn't mind that, obviously.
But wait! IT WAS ALL A SWERVE! InZane is trying to see if his tribe loves him so much that they'll overlook the mea culpas and keep him anyway. He's trying to shrink the target by putting himself up on the block. It's a full-on "I'm weak" play, the question being whether this is the right time for it. But, as Zane the Brane says: "I'm playing chess the best I know how and hopefully, I'm about to king me." Yeah, don't look for him at the World Chess Championship any time soon, I'm thinking.
Hey, guess what? Angie is a former Miss Utah Teen! That puts her, like, seventh on the Stunt-cast depth chart. Seriously, Russell is more famous than she is. She is ungodly hot, though. I wonder if Katie will recognize her and call her out?
Angie complains to Roxanne that Russell was a terrible leader and should go home. We don't hear what Roxanne says, because Angie never shuts up. She then goes to encourage Zane, which encourages him because he thinks his strategy may be working. Of course, he needs to get two more votes…
Malcolm is also willing to "persuade" Zane, but Zane points out that he's pretty sure Russell has an Idol. Zane, honey? Russell has a *clue*, and the first clue is usually something like "There's an Idol. Good luck, sucka!" It's not every season where the Idol is literally on top of the clue and the clue is like "You haven't found it yet? Dude, how stupid are you?" Now that Zane has scared off his own potential voters, Denise and Malcolm are more "he did really suck at the challenge and it's probably not the time to carry weaklings". So he may have overplayed the "weak" card. Russell, meanwhile, is still clueless. He's faulting himself for acting like a leader, but doesn't believe he's in danger.
"This is part of the ritual of Tribal Council because, in this game, fire represents life. As long as you have fire, you're still in the game. When your fire is gone, so are you." It's always nice to hear, I admit.
Zane tells a labored onion metaphor about how the more he learns about Russell, the more he realizes how much better Russell is. Denise says that she would have preferred no returning players, but Russell has been a big help in dealing with the constant rain; he's kept their fire going, and that's huge. Russell lays out the mea culpas and says he hopes everything he's done for the tribe outweighs his flashback to leaderdom. Roxanne says she has a military "background" (huh?) and that she's cool with following leaders. Angie says that she ran track in high school and told Russell she wanted to run, but noooo. Zane says he quit smoking the day the game started (gee, he's a smoker? I never would have guessed…a trashy, uneducated, tattooed guy smokes, what are the odds?) and he told everybody he couldn't run. Denise says you can blame anything on leadership, but I can't really tell if she's saying that Russell should be blamed, or if he makes a convenient scapegoat; she's a little cryptic here.
Zane says "I told everybody, send me home if you want'", which is a notable backtrack from his saying he *deserved* to go. Jeff is all "Russell, you're off the hook!", but Russell can smell what Zane is cooking now, says he's been to the dance before and that people can say stuff like what Zane is saying and "it can be coded". I wonder if his use of the word "coded" here is his way of reminding Roxanne (who's also black) that people like White Trash Zane and Miss Utah Teen sometimes have a not-that-hidden inclination against non-whites, and she wouldn't want to be the only African-American left on the tribe. He says "I'm ready to be here, let's be clear", which Zane smirks at, thinking both that he fooled Russell with his "vote me out" ploy, and that Russell is going to be going home. But Russell's words both reference his survival skills and the perception that Zane isn't committed to the game, which may be a ruse, but it's one that Zane put out there, so there's a chance that people would believe it.
Voting: Roxanne seems sad, which may be bad news for Russell. Angie is clearly itching to send Russell's big black butt out of here, but that doesn't mean she's necessarily right that they have the votes, just that she thinks they do. Still, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on Russell losing, 5-1, even if Malcolm/Denise do seem like possible swing votes. Jeff goes to masturbate, er, "tally the vote". (Seriously, I wonder what he does while the producers arrange the votes for maximum drama [he really doesn't seem to know the results beforehand]…grab a coffee? Check his email? Do stretches? He's off-camera and presumably where he can't see or hear the production people either…rubbing one out seems rather unlikely but wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility.)
Jeff washes his hands, comes back, and asks if anyone is playing an Idol. Russell grimaces, bitterly, and Zane smiles at that news.
"Once the votes are read, the decision is final; the person voted out will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately. I'll read the votes." I wonder if somebody, somewhere, has tallied exactly how many times Jeff has said that? Anyway…
We see Russell's vote for Zane, Zane's vote for Russell, and then a second vote for Zane, which should be bad news for Zane. I really don't think Roxanne would go down with the good ship Russell and that Russ would be more likely to lose by 5-1 than 4-2. But I could be talking through my hat…let's see.
A third vote for Zane, and he's toast. Fourth vote makes it official. (And the little frowny face means it's probably Angie's and I misread her body language.) Not a bad play, but he overdid it. He should never have raised the question of whether Russell had an an idol. See ya, FrankenTwerp.
And my copy doesn't have Zane's last words ("I tried to play chess, but Russell triple-jumped me. That's the way the game goes.") or the scenes from next week. Oh, well.
WRAP-UP: Not thrilled with the amount of stunt-casting, the generic setting (the seasons on land tend to be more interesting, I generally feel) or Yet Another Returning-Players Season, but I am interested in Jonathan, Mike, and Jeff Kent enough to at least be intrigued. (Lisa seems like toast, and the beauty-pageant contestants, while hot, don't really seem likely to be big-time players.) Of the newbies, I'll keep an eye on Malcolm, Peter, and Dawson (and RC's gigantic boobs, which might even be natural) but as is usually the case with Returning-Player seasons, the new cast doesn't get a lot of airtime early on. We'll see. If I made it through Season 19 ("I'm so clever, these people have no idea how much I'm playing them!" "Thanks for the interview, Russell. Have another Immunity Idol") and The Coronation of Bahstahn Rahb, Finally, At Last (Season 22), I can survive anything, I guess.
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