Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Removal Of Rudy
By Miss Alli | Season 8 | Episode 2 | Aired on 02.04.2004
Ethan emerges from the water, saying that his spear bounces off the fish. Damn rubber spear. Damn plastic fish. As Jenna explains, Ethan came back empty-handed, when he was trying to make a case for how he could stay. As she further explains, however, Rupert went right out and returned with a fish. He does indeed come back almost immediately with a little bit of protein for the group. Ethan high-fives Rupert about the fish, but understandably, he is not actually pleased, as he has pretty much just proved the opposite of what he had in mind -- that no one needs him for food, because Rupert is Food Guy. Rupert is the Rocco DiSpirito in the crap-ass Italian restaurant of your Survivor experience. The rest of the team is ecstatic, though, and Rupert points out that while it's not a big fish, it will give up some meat. About a bite and a half per person, it looks like to me. But still, very cool -- more for the point it makes than for its actual ability to fill bellies. Ethan says, "Rupert goes out, five minutes later, he comes back with a fish. Great." Oh, stop whining, ya big baby, before somebody carves a pacifier out of a tree stump and stuffs into your trap. As my nephew Little A would explain it, Ethan's going to wind up as the first guy with a hand-carved nuk-nuk.
"I'm trying to find my niche," Ethan interviews as the tribe eats the fish, "and it's not workin'." That's because you've alienated your tribe, dear. Jenna and Jerri don't like you because you're a dog, Rupert doesn't like you because you f'd up the challenge, and Rudy doesn't like you because you're full of crap, and he's not. So that's why you can't find your niche. It's not that complicated.
That night, Saboga makes its way to tribal council, back to the Treehouse of Horror. When they're all seated, Jeff asks Rupert how fire has improved life for them at camp. Rupert says that prior to getting fire, they were "sad." In fact, they were "whipped." He says that winning the challenge and giving everybody fire was a great boost for the tribe. Jerri smiles with what appears to be genuine delight. "Let's talk about today's challenge," Jeff says, as Ethan sighs miserably and rolls his eyes. Yeah, why talk about challenges? That is so boring. Jeff says that it looked to him like they were shoo-ins at first, because they got their boat up first. What went wrong? He asks Ethan what happened. "We made a silly mistake," he says. He says that they should have pulled the boat out of the water. He doesn't mention sitting in the boat, throwing the bucket...there are a few details left out of his version of the story, mostly involving the screw-ups that were attributable to him. It's interesting how Jerri said earlier that everyone was blaming himself or herself for losing; the exception seems to be Ethan, who is in fact the most blameworthy. Ah, irony. Jerri is asked if the loss today set them back. "It's our second time in a row here, and that always sucks," she says.