You no like recaps?! (please say this in your mind like Hank Azaria in “The Birdcage”)
I like recaps.
You no like Survivor? (seriously, do it. Oh, and fan yourself sort of dramatically while you do!)
I like Survivor. I also participate in and run a Survivor pool most seasons and part of their buy-in is the promise of a weekly recap and I’m not going let the fact that I am wildly behind sway me.
First of all, I’m going to go out on a limb here and go ON RECORD that I’m pretty solidly sure that the vehicle that they give away this season will be a Kia BURREGO. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that a Burrego sounds like something you would order with a side of sour cream. Or maybe like a poorly bred donkey. You’d be wrong. You’d like to see one? WEEEELLL, that’s easy!
Go to the Survivor webpage on cbs.com and you’ll see that vehicle about 40 times. From different angles. Did you know that Kia has the “power to surprise”? I bet you didn’t! CASE IN POINT.
Did you know that the Burrego is a “new kind of luxury SUV?” THE POWER TO SURPRISE STRIKES AGAIN!
Moving on…..
The gang arrive in their street clothes, as usual. Will someone please explain to my WHY they don’t all show up in street clothes that just happen to be pants that have detachable legs that turn into shorts? And 10 pairs of underpants? And a tank top covered by a tshirt covered by a sweater covered by a hoodie covered by a puffy vest?
Let’s just say for kicks that Survivor frowns upon such accidentally helpful clothing for a 39 day stay on an island or in the wilderness– and your street clothes have to be just that. What’s wrong with jeans/sweats and a long sleeve tshirt? Or even more to the point, what in the name of Probst are they doing showing up in 3-piece suits and skirts with blazers? Why would one wear a tiny pin-up dress? Is one, perhaps, hoping that there will be a Janet Jackson-esque “wardrobe malfunction” that will benefit one’s career? Surely, surely they would think far enough ahead to realize that there is no way such a garment would last a month in the wilderness. Surely, these men had something other than thousand dollar suits to wear to dig in sand for puzzle pieces. Right? RIGHT?!
So, my current theory is that they are told to show up for a televised interview and then suddenly whisked to Africa, because anything else makes me want to punch myself in the face.
Moving on (again)…
Probst asks them to introduce himself. We discover almost immediately that Randy is a total turd-bucket. But sort of a smart turd-bucket who is only candid with the camera. I likes it. Crystal, the Olympic medalist says she won’t tell people about her SUPREME ATHLETICISM *cough* and Corinne reveals that she plans to the bitchiest bitch in the bitch history of Bitchivor. I briefly pause to consider past season women that trip the bitch fantastic and I realize that almost always they have curly dark brown hair!! And I plan to make a point of telling everyone my curly dark brown hair bitch theory until I remember that *ahem* I have curly dark br… anyway…
Jeff tells them that in Africa the elders make the decision (and pick the teams, it appears) and he makes Bob, the physics teacher from Maine, and Gillian, the nurse from the Sherwood Forrest, come forward to be the “Elders”. Bob, being a smart practical dude, picks a big strong dude.
Gillian, being a Baggins descendant, squints through her little spectacles and her wild curly steel grey hair and chooses Crystal, who looks like a giant, muscular, unstoppable woman — but then her team makes a series of strange choices, skipping over young bucks to chose middle-aged women and skinny little girls and guys. Bob’s team is so obviously dominating physically that it’s almost laughable. We know from past seasons that the big guys fade fast and are almost useless if they don’t get food. Again, I’m going to assume this was their “strategy” and not that they were just picking friends or people they thought would like them.
Gillian’s tribe is FANG – which is pronounced FONG and really annoys me because how cool is it to be on the FANG TRIBE? Very! The FONG Tribe? Not so much. Bob’s tribe is Kota.
Right away Jeff is all… individual immunity up for grabs! You have run up this giant hill and climb stuff and it’ll be really hard and the first one gets the idol and then he’s all – oh, but also first whole TEAM up gets this giant bag or rice and another of beans and corn! So, are you a TEAM PLAYER THAT LIKES TO EAT or a Selfish McSelferton?
They run. Danny (GC, if you’re nasty) races ahead without regard to the team. He’s on the girlie team and not liking it. As expected, Gillian is all OOPSY! OH FIDDLE! WHOOPSY DAISY! and is like 20 miles behind everyone else. NOT EXPECTED is that Crystal the SO CALLED Olympic medalist is right there with her… falling, sliding, unable to climb, moving at a sloth’s pace. Was this a strategic move to not play her strength up right away? It would have been easier to believe or comprehend if she didn’t have GIANT GLEAMING PULSING MUSCLES ALL OVER HER BODY.
At the end of the hill climb, it appears that Matty is trying to get Gillian up the hill by forcing his hand up her rear end. While not conventional, it would certainly make ME move faster. Kota wins the rice, beans and corn and everyone makes their way to their camps for the first time.
Over at Kota, everyone LERVES Bob From Maine. He builds stuff and climbs stuff and fixes stuff. He’s Ozzy, 35 years from now. Everyone is all, “Whoa! How does Bob know how to DO stuff!” and Bob is all, “When I don’t know how to do something, I go to the library and look it up.” And they were all, “What’s a library?”
Back at Fang, Gillian is all “We didn’t really suck, in fact we are victorious in our losing! We are awesome! Also, I LOVE ELELPHANT DUNG!” She has an unsuccessful go at trying to get people to eat the poo. Clearly, she’s a little bit of a nut-job. MEANWHILE, Ken and Michelle go off somewhere and talk… and it’s one of those cases where it’s obvious that Ken is getting THE WRONG IMPRESSION about Michelle and when they cut to him talking about how he hasn’t kissed a girl since high school, you start to figure out why… and she’s all THEY ARE STUPID, I HATE THEM, THEY ALL SUCK EXCEPT YOU… which is when you could practically see the thought bubble over Ken’s head that probably, they were going to DO IT soon… and then he tells her to eat a termite, but not just a little termite a GIANT GROSS QUEEN TERMITE WITH SPRANGLY CRAP COMING OUT OF ITS HEAD and she ….. totally…….. eats it….. and Ken stares at her mouth open and tells her, “That’s hot”, just like Paris Hilton… and Ken starts mentally choosing names for their future children.
Back at Kota, Ace has gotten bossy, except he keeps telling the camera that he’s just “giving suggestions” so that when things work wonderfully, they can be “his ideas”… except that everyone is sneaking behind trees and saying things like, “DO YOU THINK WE COULD STRANGLE ACE IF WE ALL JUMPED HIM AT ONCE?!” , but he has this cocky, swaggery British accent and looks like Vin Diesel crossed with Chris Daughtry (but with tiny red underpants… I’m just sayin’).
Charlie, who is openly gay, has fallen deeply for Marcus who is openly NOT. They keep trying to strategize except it goes like this:
Marcus: So, let’s have an alliance.
Charlie: I’d like to fall into the pool that is the blue of your eyes.
Marcus: So, what should we do at tribal council?
Charlie: You know, I just feel this deep, deep connection with you.
Later that night, Randy bashes his head. Gillian tells him to WAIT UNTIL MORNING, even though she’s, you know, a nurse – and this is the one redeeming contribution she could bring to the group. They call the medics, who stitch Randy up and then leave him looking like the Dad that gets suckered into the playing Hospital with his kids… he has like 47 yards of gauze wrapped around his head, as if a lobotomy were just performed.
The immunity challenge that day is one of those climb up and over and under and then dig up some puzzle pieces and then put them together sort of deals. I would say that finding buried puzzle pieces in sand skills should be at the top of one’s Survivor resume. Kota is done before Fang hardly even finds 1 bag, which isn’t surprising because even though there are a bunch of people it appears that Fang has decided that only 1 or 2 people should be trying to win at any given moment and the rest should just sit there yelling, “FASTER! YOU CAN DO IT! FASTER! COME ON!” at the 2 people actually putting out effort.
Back at Fang camp, everyone decides that Michelle is a “Negative Nancy” and they are torn between voting for her and for NutJob Gillian.
At tribal council, GC complains that they have no leader, which makes everyone suggest he do it. They vote off Michelle, who is the angriest sweaty, pimple-faced person who mistakenly thinks she’s totally hot I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t even wave goodbye to Ken, who realizes in that moment that his “Mario & Princess live happily ever after in the castle” dream is over…..