Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Rumblings Of Mutiny
By Miss Alli | Season 7 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.12.2003
Spotting that Rupert has wandered a few feet away from the action and the cameras (for once), the aforementioned Ryan-O kicks off Operation Save My Own Oft-Displayed Ass by having a chitchat with Burton, who appears to be setting up the grill for today's breakfast service. Ryan-O asks Burton whether he and Lill have a "pact" as far as voting. Burton doesn't entirely answer the question, explaining that he and the Scoutmistress are close primarily because they have been through the same punishing experience. I would, for my own purposes, kind of like to think the experience involved Burton being trained in some kind of knot-tying, but apparently, he's referring to the fact that they were both Outcasts, in case anyone has forgotten. Ryan-O asks Burton how far he thinks Burton will be able to get in the game. Burton doesn't know. Ryan-O reminds Burton that "the four of them" (meaning Rupert, Christa, Sandra, and Jon) are close buddies and will probably boot Burton as soon as it gets down to that. True, that. Ryan-O proposes an alliance made up of himself and Burton, together with Lill and the Darrah/Tijuana Tag Team Of Morganite Women United For The Impassioned Pursuit Of Lying Around. Burton is noncommittal. In an interview, Burton describes exactly what we just saw happening. Thank you, Redundancy Theater. That was a fine production. And a good show, too. Burton mushmouths that there are a lot of possibilities for the game, and anything can happen, and things are still up in the air, and you never know, and sometimes things don't go the way you plan, which is why you should have life insurance. Or something. In a rather brilliant edit, Ryan-O's lament that Lill bolted on the Morgan tribe is followed by a shot of a bunch of little fish apparently attacking a big jellyfish-looking thing. There's no loyalty, man. Not even among the fish. A resolute Burton then sets out to give his dirty, thin boxer shorts a dunk in the water during a good old-fashioned fish-spearing. He still looks, I have to say, disturbingly hot.
Now, the heavy hammer of metaphors and semi-nudity takes a welcome swing at us as Burton pursues his prey. His shorts ripple in their sheer, non-metaphorical way while he goes after and successfully snags a stingray. (There's pretty much an unequivocal essentially-naked ass shot along here, if you're into that kind of thing. Which, as you know, I am.) So Burton is a successful predator...DO YOU GET IT? Back on the beach, he removes the ray from the spear while it's still alive, and he gives it a couple of stabs with his knife. As he does, he seems to jump a little. "These things don't have electric...stuff in them, do they?" he asks. Oh, Burton. I'd love to see your electric stuff. Um, sorry. Anyway, Ryan-O assures him that the rays are not wired. For some reason, the fact that Ryan-O answered this question and is an apprentice electrician made me laugh. Because logically, if you want to know whether a fish is electrical, you'd ask an electrician. If you wanted to know if it was tasty, you'd ask a chef, wouldn't you? At any rate, a nervous Burton asks if Ryan-O is sure about this answer, but just then Rupert comes over to help out or kibitz or whatever will make him look important. Burton encourages Rupert to stick his finger under the stingray's skin. Rupert does so, and then jumps back. "Wow!" he says. Apparently, this is indeed a shocking stingray. In an interview, Burton describes it as "a pretty good charge" that the thing was giving off. They go a few rounds of "Wow, that really hurts -- hey, now you stick your finger in it!," kind of like the old Saturday Night Live sketch where they keep tasting the bad milk, going, "This tastes terrible -- here, try it!"