Episode Report Card Miss Alli: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Fans And Favorites Are Neither
By Miss Alli | Season 16 | Episode 1 | Aired on 02.06.2008
Tribal council. Jeff has them grab their torches, fire represents life, etc. Jeff asks Jon how arrival at camp was for all of these experienced people. "Cake," says Jon. He says that shelter was fine, food was fine...the only problem was "overconfidence." Jeff asks Eliza how big a deal a player's prior reputation is, and she admits that it's in the mix. That said, Jeff returns to Jon to ask whether his reputation can be an advantage. Jon says that everyone was surprised by his "real" self, and here, he starts in again about how he's not really bad, he really just misses his family, blah blah. "Am I being a crappy dad by being here?" he wonders out loud. Let me help you out: you are being a crappy dad by being this person. You can be this person in Palau or you can be this person in L.A., and as long as you're this person (that is, a person with a raging case of narcissism), you will be a crappy dad. But Probst says instead that he's not really a dad yet, and...way to miss the lay-up, dumb-ass. Jon goes on about how he had no idea how having a baby would change him, and so forth. Jeff asks him whether he really wants to go home, or whether he just had a "bad afternoon." Jon says that last time, he was a jerk, and if he wants to be awesome now, then "so be it."
Jeff asks Yau-Man why he's smiling at all this. Yau-Man says it's because, obviously, your first suspicion is that it's a trick, because it's such a weird bunch of stuff to say. Jeff asks Ozzy whether it's just that "Fairplay can't hack it, it's much harder than he remembered, and he wants to go home." Ozzy -- who for some reason seems to have mind-reading powers in this scenario -- somberly tells Jeff that it's not that at all. Jon starts defensively insisting that Jeff can say whatever he wants, but that he doesn't need to "put on a little show." Since he can't do anything except put on a little show, I don't know quite how to take that. If he couldn't put on a little show, he'd melt like the Wicked Witch Of The West. (Spoiler!)
Jeff asks Jonathan about Jon's reputation for "scams and lying." "What is he doing?" Jeff asks. "I think he's asking us to vote for him," says Jonathan. He says that somebody has to go, Jon wants to go, and he's going to go. In other words, "I don't give a fuck what he's doing; if he says he wants to go, I'm sending him." ["I don't know why that isn't everyone's response: when someone volunteers to go, why talk him or her out of it? That means it's not you!" -- Wing Chun] "So it's a quit," says Jeff, because Jeff always has to establish whether he can throw you on the pyre with the other quitters and burn your torch and feed the ashes to a leopard and damn your soul to hell. Jon denies that he's quitting. And then Jeff starts going around to the other contestants, all, "Yes or no answer -- is this a quit?" Who gives a fuck? Seriously, why is the label so important? Did Jeff make a bet with someone that Jon would quit? Eliza says no, because as far as she's concerned, it could be misdirection. In other words, quitting is quitting -- quitting is "Jeff, I lay down my torch." This is just "Hey, you guys, I'm ready to go, so go ahead and vote for me, but I'm not officially going to resign."