Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Go, Go, Golden Boy
By Miss Alli | Season 11 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.12.2005
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Steph continues destroying what's left of the public goodwill she once enjoyed as her team loses the reward challenge and she manages to be the one person incapable of showing grace toward Jamie, who clearly feels bad enough as it is. At the immunity challenge, though, the new Nakum (Steph's team) bests the new Yaxha (Bobby Jon's team), and the stars align for the four former Nakum to hang together and boot, most likely, Brian. Everything points to a foregone conclusion as we cruise into tribal council, but surprisingly, Blake has managed to act like such an irritating jackass with the stories heavily involving the word "dude" that both Danni and Bobby Jon ultimately vote with Brian, Gary, and Amy to get rid of him. It's not often the boot is genuinely a surprise, but this one sort of is. But really, the news is Steph, and how sad the sucking is. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Crocodile, Tears: The tribes were scrambled, and Brian, Amy, and Gary got the shortest end of the stick, winding up outnumbered by the former Nakum athletic mafia of Bobby Jon, Blake, Brandon, and Danni. On the other side of things, Judd, Margaret, Cindy, and Brooke wound up on a tribe with Steph, Jamie, Lydia, and Rafe, and that evenly split tribe wound up at tribal council. Judd decided to make the flip and team up with Jamie and Steph to boot Brooke. He also believed himself to be King Kong. Fourteen people left, which seems like...really a lot. It's still so painfully early.
Credits. Margaret must be just so pleased that her iconic shot shows her coated in mud. A mask, Margaret. Think of it as a cleansing mask.
It is night at the Maya ruins. We are at Nakum on Night 11, where they are presumably coming home from tribal council. Just so you can keep up, Yaxha is now 4-3 in favor of former Nakum, and Nakum is now 4-3 in favor of former Yaxha. So it's good to know this worked out in the way most likely to make me flap my lips with my finger like Daffy Duck. Unsurprisingly, Steph is griping to Judd on night-vision about how much she hates tribal council. I'm sure I'd be sick of it if I were Steph, too. Somebody should tell her they don't make you go if you win. Cindy blows on the fire. Margaret looks unhappy. Judd voices over that he's "feeling good" about his decision to boot Brooke. Margaret is not looking so happy.
As the group sits around the fire, Judd is executing the classic Defensive Maneuver ("Hey, I Have Nothing To Be Defensive About" variation). He insists that "it is a cutthroat game." Margaret concedes, as she sort of has to, that he's "absolutely right." He continues making the "we're all here to play" argument, and she continues not liking it, because he screwed her. I mean, they're both right. He's playing the game, but he screwed her. She goes on to argue in an interview that she's "sad" about Judd voting with Steph and company, which is sort of BS, because she's not sad -- she's frustrated, because she's hosed. Indignation is not a form of grief, really. She calls Judd "a traitor," which is (1) sort of true; (2) kind of meaningless; and (3) almost entirely irrelevant. Judd yells to Margaret that he doesn't "give a rat's ass" what anyone thinks of him after the game, and she does chose to take exception to that. I think it would have been smarter for him to argue there's no reason for them to be angry at him outside the game than to argue he doesn't care. He blusters about how as long as his family loves him, that's all that matters, and...why go that route? Why not just say there's no reason for anybody else to take it personally? I'm not sure "fuck you" is the smartest or the most logical response here, not that it wouldn't be really tempting. Judd interviews that he "can't wait till [Margaret] goes, too."