Too Little Too Late?

Last week on Survivor: Susan snitted and Rudy pranced. We learned that Dirk doesn't want to play; he just wants to bang on his Bible all day. The Pagong tribe got down and dirty while a personal flotation device did little to prevent Gervase from almost drowning. Stayfree snarked herself right off the island, leading an exodus of other rats and assorted nasty creatures.

The night vision shots, usually reserved for rodents, show Ramoaner fussing in the tent with wide-open glowing rat-eyes. Apparently, Pagong did not have an easy night in the storm, and Gervase tells us that "everybody was just wet." Which does happen when it rains. Ramoaner, queen of all who enunciate says, "It was. The worst. Night. I've ever. Slept." Gretchen tells us she spent six years in the Air Force Survivor School, and I'm really hoping she doesn't mean six years straight, where she learned to make fires and build shelters. I know B.B. was a buster, but if Gretchen was so well-informed and was truly convinced that building their tent on the beach was a mistake, I don't know why she didn't stand her ground. It's not like any members of the tribe were dying to accommodate B.B. Of course the directors, editors, camera crew, hair and makeup stylists, and caterers all know why she didn't, but they don't choose to share that information with us -- which is exactly what's wrong with shows like this: We can watch fifteen jiggle shots of Richard running down the beach, but we can't get a little clarity. Would that be too much to ask? Gretchen calmly berates Joel for leaving his shovel where it was when he finished digging, and he futilely tries to argue. Just put your damn toys away, Joel, when Mom tells you to. And don't play ball in the house! Gretchen tells the tribe, "You wanna blow me off? Fine. But we gotta organize this. I don't wanna sleep in that tent any more, okay? You can sleep on the beach if you want to. I don't wanna sleep on the beach any more. I don't want to be anti-social but I'm going into the woods." Either Gretchen's really flustered or she's been taking public speaking lessons from Sean. Colleen suggests that they all go together and Jenna, who can make fun out of an enema, announces that it's "so exciting when you get to move to a new place!"

While the team is moving logs around, Gretchen tells us: "If this were, right now, each man for himself, Greg would be the victor. He's relaxed. He's not fighting this. It's not, like, a battle for him." It's a battle for me to have to watch his clown antics, but I guess no one gives a rat's tasty little leg about that, huh? We are then treated to our first shot of Greg, who is barking orders into a phone fashioned from a coconut. He's actually conversing with a pretend-person on the other end of the cocophone. One of the two-year-olds where I volunteer does exactly the same thing with a banana. Greg tells us in a confessional, "The nature phone is really a way that I kinda keep in touch with the greater spirit out here." He then makes matters worse by adding, "You get reception everywhere. You're always in communicado with everything, with everyone. And, uh, you know it's light, it's quick, it's easy and it's relatively inexpensive." ["My money is definitely on Greg in the Who Will Go Crazy and Injure Themselves or Others Pool." -- Toenail] It's also useless and ludicrous and painfully unfunny, but I guess they edited out the part where he said that. And I wish he'd learn the meaning of the phrase and in communicado himself right off the island. The editing in this episode is particularly irritating, because it seems to me that they've just picked members of the tribe staring off into the distance and made it look as if they're responding to Greg's behavior. Gretchen tells us that Greg manipulates the group without them realizing it, and "in his own way he's the leader." God (or Dirk) help them all.

At Tagi, Sean says that Susan is driving everyone crazy with her work ethic. He should have spent some time with B.B.! Sean also says that he's talked to "the guys" about it and that they all agree. Sean is the male Stacey; he thinks talking shit about other people will actually make them shit, when it only serves to draws attention to his own shittiness. Susan tells us she's looking for nuts and tapioca. We then switch over to a shot of Sean lolling on his shovel saying, "I had this vision and, uh, I thought I'd build myself a bowling alley right about here. That's what I'm doing here slaving away." We then see Susan and Kelly rooting about in the mud, and what the editors are doing here is setting up a little comparison. Tricky, those editors. Sean continues to ramble on about "little shelves" for the "extra balls to hang out in," and Susan drawls, "Sean's telling me looking for nuts is a waste of time. But at least you know you can find a nut." I have no idea what that means, but I got the general point. She adds, "Sean sits there and fer [sic] five hours and builds a bowling alley. He could be out gettin' nuts or looking for tapioca during the day." In other words, he could be doing exactly what Sue does. Sean tells us, "My parents would be so proud." Because I'm so sure building a bowling alley on a desert island and trying to pass it off as useful beats receiving a medical degree.

We see the treemail segment. Again. Just Peachy tells us that the name of the challenge is "Distress Signal," just as I'm about to send up one of my very own. He explains that each team will build an S.O.S., and the winner will be determined by a plane flying overhead, which will drop in a crate of supplies to the victors. Each team sends a member to check out the booty; Target can urge us to bounce and gets together all it wants, but this is not making me happy, and it's certainly not making me smile. The crate is full of towels, hammocks, and toilet paper. Dirk stand with his fingers tucked into his armpits like Mary Katherine Gallagher. Jenna requests a spice rack to be added to the prize and Dirk wants a filet knife to take care of Richard once and for all.

Back at Pagong, we learn that the clue has come in the form of another terrible poem. One line reads, "toilet paper to wipe your bum," and right about now you should be on your knees thanking me for sparing you the rest. Gretchen wants to light a quick bonfire and Colleen starts spazzing out because this is her gig, it's "like, advertising." The team argues over what sells and Greg's answer is, "Sex, naked people," which is funny, because I thought cocophones were the wave of the future. Colleen adds, "We're trapped on a desert island, you know, we're horny." And I'm so happy right now for B.B. that he is spared thirty-six days or so of this mind-numbing conversation.

At Tagi, Dirk announces that a "phat, filthy stainless-steel filet knife" has been added to the booty. He thinks he's rollin' with the homies when really he's just pushing a tractor with the farm boys. Richard tells us that Sue made fun of Dirk's swagger, and then we are able to see it for ourselves (because they can't just show us; Richard must translate it, continuing his trial-run to host the season). Dirk says, "Thank you, Susan," and Dirk actually does have balls, even though he chooses not to use them. This must be the week that the editors learned how to express irony by showing contradicting scenarios. Dirk says in a confessional, "The ideas I didn't like were just maybe some of the things that were maybe a little bit tasteless and didn't have much class. I believe that class kind of shows itself and things like" "Condoms!" Kelly shouts out to the group and explains, "If we had enough condoms and they were different colors that would be so funny." Maybe if you were in seventh grade, and just finished writing your best friend a note on lined paper, which you then folded into a tidy little square and passed on to your neighbor to pass on to your friend. She then adds, "You guys should put little orange thingies on your weenies." Does she think she's Lindsey from The Real World Seattle? And should Rudy really be subjected to such blush-worthy subject matter? I hope he sues for sexual harassment. In his confessional, Dirk says, "That's not very creative; that's just looking on a bathroom-stall wall." The way he said this cracked me up; he sounds so disappointed. Richard suggests they make an arrow in the water from Styrofoam buoys, which seems like a pretty good idea to me, but Sean shoots him down saying, "time, get a fish!" Oh wait, that was last week. Now he says, "They'll float all discombobulated," and that he prefers "something simple but extravagant, like the Rose Bowl." I think he means the parade and not the game. In a confessional Sean says, "I just wish people would, you know, see things my way in terms that I think that what they want is something really spectacular and I think that we could work through the night and build something really spectacular that would ensure us getting the goods." I'm glad Sean speaks in such specifics. Richard cackles, rubs his palms together, and twirls his handlebar mustache when he tells us, "What's happening in my head is: Here's conflict. Here comes the dynamics that suck. Here comes the people that just shout and don't listen. Here comes the negativity and here comes the crap." And here comes the big fat gay man with a spear, so run away all you little fishies everywhere. Richard then tells us that he's "planning something sneaky" and that he knows what the resolution to the conflict would be at home (dragging Sean by his ear up a hill at 4 AM), but that he's planning something different. He says he's trying to ensure that he makes it into the round. As his voice-over says this, we get shots of snickering Sue, giggling Kelly, and sniggling Richard. Do you think these three are planning something? Because I didn't get that at all.

At Pagong, Ramoaner heaves her muscles into rolling some twine. Jenna tells us that Ramoaner isn't pulling her weight, and Greg cryptically says, "The only thing Ramoaner can be is herself." Ramoaner brags to the group about being a "mama's girl," as if that's an excuse not to work. Greg continues: "She has great gifts to be offered; maybe she will, maybe she won't." Hey Greg, Confucius is on the coconut phone; he says, "Stop talking like fortune cookie." Ramoaner lamely says, "I can't do any more than I can do. I'm not gonna, like, try and bust my ass to prove something." Because the show's not about that at all. Gervase is doing his confessional while floating out in an inner tube with a sunhat on. He says, "Every chance she got she was just making it worse," and I wonder when this was filmed, since he's talking about her in the past tense. He then says he tried to pull Ramoaner aside to correct the situation. We zoom in on their conversation and learn that the cliques are bothering her. Ramoaner looks pretty buff against a sunset; I bet her team members were psyched when they first saw her. Now the're just psyched out.

At Tagi Day Eleven, Richard's out in the ocean fixing up the Styrofoam. I'll give him this: He works hard. Or else he's just a camera hog. Over at Pagong, they're dragging brush. Pagong drags a lot of brush. Today Ramoaner feels more like part of the group, and she doesn't know why. Gervase says he wants to win because of "pillows. [He likes] the pillows." Ramoaner carries a log behind her back with one hand while Gretchen struggles to bear the entire weight of the log, plus the weight of Ramoaner's arm, as she holds up the other end. Reminds me of when I pretend to carry stuff with my boyfriend when we move, but really just let him do all the work.

Just Peachy is now hanging out of the side of a little plane with a shit-eating grin on his face. When Peachy comes on-screen, my dogs leave the room. Well, the smart dog leaves the room; the other one walks in two circles, then sits down, then gets up, then walks in two circles, then sits down again. This time Peachy says that the tribe whose distress signal is "most clearly visual" will win the challenge. Earlier, he said the "more creative" signal would get the booty. In my notes I have written, "Stupid asshole." I can't think of a better way to say it now. Kelly yells out, "Da plane! Da plane," when it circles over Tagi Beach, where they've written, "Tagi is Groggy" in the sand. They redeem themselves by donning yellow rain slickers and forming a circle on the beach that looks kind of like a flower. They then count time and raise their arms and legs, and it appears that they're synchronized swimming on dry land, another activity which I'm sure Rudy enjoyed. Actually, I thought this idea was relatively clever, and of course the editing job gives us no idea who to credit. Peachy reads Tagi's message aloud for Dirk and Susan's kin, watching on the farm and in the trailer park.