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
And Amanda comes out, and her bathing suit is a little less revealing than her last one, so that's a relief. She's got full-sized boy shorts on, instead of the cut-halfway-up-the-cheek ones that created so much trouble least season. She's also put on a bit of weight, which is good. I don't think the fans much care. They've already seen her ass; what's left?
Now, Jeff points out that they need one more "Favorite," and now it can be told. So Jon runs out from behind the rock with the "Will Lie 4 Food" baseball cap on, and it's kind of like...you know how sometimes, there's the one guy who was kind of the cut-up or the mascot at your high school or your college? And he didn't really have friends, but everybody kind of liked to have him hang around, because he was entertaining, like he was the "that guy will do anything" guy? And he'd be, like, running around naked with a Pop-Tart stuffed in his ass crack or whatever? And you'd laugh, and it was neither really with him nor at him, it was just...near him? Okay. If you go back to your reunion ten years later, and everybody has been doing all these great things, and they're all excited about their lives, and then he shows up and he's exactly the same? You kind of want to be generous enough to find it sad, and to feel bad for him, but secretly, you just think he's gross and you're so over him and you want him to go away so you can talk to the grown-ups. And this is like that.
Anyway, Jon does the thing with the fingers (read: "Pop-Tart in his ass"), and Jeff says, "Jonny Fairplay, who already looks intoxicated." Ha! Now make no mistake: that is not pretend or playful hate. That is real hate. Jeff Probst, according to many published reports, had this dude barred from attending Survivor functions. As in, "You can't come." As in, "Yes, it will be full of obnoxious asswads, because that's the nature of the beast, and yes, it will be full of show-offy drunks, but if you are there, you will spoil it." Jon is wearing a button-down and khakis, and Jeff asks if Jon is dressing like him (like Jeff, that is). "You want to know what you're playin' for?" Jon replies. So...that's his best mock-Jeff-Probst line, then. You guys, I fear that he may not be a genius. "I'm actually impressed," says Jeff. "I like to know that you have aspirations to get out of your current place in life." Yowza. Jon looks stunned, clearly is caught off-guard with nothing to say, chokes on his tongue for a minute, and then finally croaks out the lame-ass "Good to see you, Jeff, always a pleasure." Tracy tells us that Jon is a "pig," and that she would love a free moment to kick him in the shins. What I love about that line is that she doesn't really get all exercised about it, saying she thinks he's an immoral lying blah blah, she just says he's a pig and she wouldn't mind kicking him in the shins, which is just the kind of dismissive but disgusted attitude Jon warrants.
The rain is really, really coming down, as Jeff assigns the tribe names and hands out buffs. Alexis ("Motivational Speaker") says that she loves the fans/favorites split. I'm really tempted not to like her because of that phony-ass job title (I'm not sure how many twenty-four-year-olds are qualified to be motivational speakers), but her bio indicates a lot of work to improve girls' self-esteem, says she's an athlete (which I was recently complaining they don't have nearly enough of when it comes to women), and says she's working on a book about the psychology of girls called Comatose Barbie, which is a fucking awesome title. So now I hope she doesn't suck. She also makes the very fair point that the favorites have the advantage of experience, but they also have the disadvantage of being known, as far as their strengths and weaknesses. I hate to agree with anyone I don't know yet, in case I really regret it later, but I agree with Alexis there.