Last week on Survivor: Gervase revealed that he runs as well as he swims. Richard got sneaky at Tagi, Sue jumped on board his alliance and Kelly came sniveling after. Ramoaner quit her moaning. For good.
At Pagong Day Thirteen, Colleen tells us that the tribe slept late for the first time, and that "everybody's a little bit on edge; everybody's a little vulnerable today." Not as vulnerable as Ramoaner was last night, but whatever. Joel tells us that they're feeling down because they lost another person: "The group's getting a little bit smaller, even if it's only two people smaller, it's still getting a little bit smaller." So, let me get this straight: If you subtract one person, the group gets smaller? I think I get it now. We see various shots of dejected-looking Pagongs. Jenna sprawls across a rock for her confessional. It doesn't look like a comfortable position, or one from which I'd choose to address the world, but if you want to win that Playboy centerfold, you gotta do what you gotta do. She thinks the team is down because Greg, a "male leader," has been sick. We then see Greg feeling bad for himself and looking peculiarly ruddy. The Blair Rat has made another appearance at Pagong, and has strewn the team's clothing across the treetops and around the camp. Oh wait, they just haven't been cleaning up after themselves. The state of their morale is signified by their team flag, which lies trampled, shredded, smoldering, and shat upon in the sand. According to Gretchen, the place looks "trashy." She should see Jenna's confessional.
At Tagi, the flag flies high, as does the team. Sue, Kelly, Richard and Rudy make a tent out of the parachute from last week's Target challenge. Rudy says "goodies," which makes me giggle. While the others toil, we see shots of Sean and Dirk just sitting around; they look like they're picking food out of their teeth with their tongues. There really should be unlimited floss here. I took one of those surveys a while back that calculates your real age by accounting for such factors as where you live, whether you smoke, your family's health history, etc. You add and subtract points for each good or bad thing. And daily flossing added like seven years to your life. So start flossing. Kelly says, "Me personally, I was a little irritated with, uh, Dirk and Sean's effort around camp. I mean, they try to go out fishing while they know they're not gonna catch anything, and I think personally it's just so they can say, 'Hey, well, we did something.'" Meanwhile, she serves her team well by doing needlepoint. Sean tells us in a confessional that Kelly equates "failure to catch fish with a failure to try," but that such is not the case.
On the raft, Dirk says to Sean, "Right now, we could be working, driving through rush-hour traffic, fighting bills, trying to get dates. Instead we're just chilling on the South China Sea." I wonder how much "rush-hour traffic" Dirk sees on his way to and from the dairy farm. Sue is irritated and drawls that Sean and Dirk should be out looking for "ta-pee-yó-ka" and nuts during the day, and fishing at night. She tells them that fishing during the day is a waste of time, and Dirk says that he doesn't think it's a waste at all. Sue says, "Whoa, well, did you catch anything?" and Dirk responds, "No, ma'am." Sue decrees, "Okay...it was a waste of time then," which is a fairly logical statement. Sean tells us in a confessional, "It's expected to get on each other's nerves. Maybe everyone's on my nerves, but I don't really act on it. I just wanna be happy, have a nice time here, that's it." Sean may be a moron, but he's a good-natured one. Dirk appears to have been out herding sheep with a crook in-hand, and says, "The second I stop having fun, I'll vote myself off the island. I came here to have a great time, to grow in my faith with the Lord. And that's the most important thing to me." Rudy chimes in with, "It's funny, to me, that a guy would read the Bible out here. The only reason I'd bring a Bible is if -- I mean, I'm religious too -- if I need toilet paper." Now Rudy's got the religious right AND the gay and lesbian community in his back pocket. There's no stoppin' him. We finally see that Kelly is stitching "Rudy" into a piece of burlap; maybe she thinks that if she uses it to vote at the Tribal Council, she'll make a stronger impression and score points for creativity.
Just Peachy shows up at Tagi and they all cringe and go, "How'd he find our camp?" Well, that's what they're thinking. Peachy says, "I brought news of tomorrow's challenge." Using some kind of gun as a pointer, he adds, "Right here. The First Annual Weapons Target Shooting Classic; the Battle in Borneo." Peachy insists on reading this aloud and enunciating, like he thinks he's Ramoaner or something. Rudy sneers at a cameraman. Just Peachy tells Tagi that they are competing for food in a Reward Challenge, which consists of a blowgun round with five darts, a "mighty slingshot" round, and a spear-tossing event. He then explains that the teams will pick only one person to compete in each event. Peachy leaves and Rudy aims the blowgun at the back of his head.
“ That Dick is just full of surprises! ”
The team sets up wooden-basket-like cages that look kind of like bongo drums, and place coconuts on top for target practice. Sean tells us, "It turns out that I'm pretty good with the blowgun, and I never really shot a blowgun before in my life!" We see various shots of darts hitting the coconuts, and we're led to believe they're all Sean's, but we have no way of being sure of that, due to the "creative editing" on this show. Sean then tells us, "It turns out Rich is an expert marksman, something we didn't know about him until today." That Dick is just full of surprises! We see shots of Richard shooting at the coconuts; he says, "No worries," and Sue adds, "Yea. I think he's Slingshot Boy." Sean then tells us that Sue is a "wild-woman with the spear," but we all know that Sue doesn't need a spear to be a wild-woman. Sue says she always wanted to kill a pig with a javelin or a spear, forcing me to wonder how she passed the extensive psychological testing all the contestants had to go through. Or maybe comments like that helped her earn a place on the show. Sue tells us that she hopes that the other team picks a guy because "there's a good chance that [I] can dog some guy on national T.V.," and she goes on to add, "Even if we lost, and [I] at least dogged a guy in the spear-throwing, they'd be happy." I become even more fascinated by Susan's husband. She throws the spear with her opposite arm extended in front of her for balance; she looks like a cave-woman might have in a two-piece Speedo.
At Pagong, Gervase does some WWF-style announcement as Joel prepares to throw the spear, which sails right over the top of the coconut cage. Joel appears to be the only one trying at the spear-throw, and not, apparently, very hard. We see lots of shots of Joel missing the target. I think we're being set up here to believe that Tagi will win. Do you think Tagi will win?
Product-placed feet walk to the challenge area, and we see random shots of a watermelon, a pineapple, and some other fruit I can't identify, all placed on stumps. Other small fruits are stuck on a screen, with a background like that carnival game where balloons with different prizes are displayed and you throw a dart and get the prize inside the balloon you hit. The cameramen appear to really enjoy the fruit shots. Peachy welcomes the tribes and everyone claps, but Rudy refuses to do so until the director yells, "Cut!" and makes him. Rudy joins in, but it's obvious he hates every minute of it, and you can be sure that no one ever made him clap in the Navy. He also looks really short standing between Dirk and Peachy.
The blowgun competition is first. Each competitor gets ten shots; every fruit they hit goes into a basket, which carries over to the round. We see lots of darts hitting fruit, but there's really no way to tell which team is doing better, and at the end of the event it looks like all the fruit is going into one basket anyway. comes the slingshot competition, the results of which are equally irritating. Gretchen and Richard get two minutes to knock fruit off, break a vase on which the fruit is placed, or embed a rock in the fruit. Again, it's impossible to tell who is hitting what, nor does it appear to matter.
In Round Three, Peachy announces, "This is where it gets very interesting," but he really means this is where it all gets pointless. The final round determines who gets ALL the fruit and a "very special food source, a mystery food source," which is hidden in a crate. On his second try, Joel scores a bulls-eye. Pagong celebrates and Jenna yells, "We want fruit!" Maybe for the Playboy spread they'll do a cheerleader theme, because this island thing has clearly been done. Sue wiggles her ass as she sets up to throw her last shot, which is a good effort, but fails to beat Joel's bulls-eye. Pagong collects all the fruit and "the very special mystery food prize," while shouting out things like "It's apples!" and "It's Snickers bars!" but it's really three live chickens. As they walk back to camp, Gretchen carries one chicken and Jenna cuddles and snuggles with another, but we know how loyal she is after Ramoaner's exile. Gervase asks if they're going to name the chickens, and Jenna says, "Yes: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner."
At Pagong, Jenna is back in Playboy repose. She says returning with three live chickens was "absolutely wonderful." But a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken would have been a much better prize. Gretchen says they're waiting for the chickens to lay eggs, but "they have a very short time to produce before they're slaughtered." Jenna says they're gonna make "chicken fried rice," and Colleen says, "That's gross," even though she just suggested making a "big omelet." Pagong parties with the big basket of obviously vodka-soaked fruit; they're all spitting seeds at each other and laughing their heads off about it. Joel puts the flag up, and I wonder which cameraman suggested that. Meanwhile, the chickens are begging to be put out of the misery that is Camp Pagong, where everyone is nice to their faces and dreaming about frying them up behind their backs.
At Tagi, Sue said tells us she's irritated: "Here's a dream come true. I can stomp a guy on national television and I missed by two inches." She then adds that she laughed when they pulled out the chickens, and goes on, "Cutting off a chicken's head. No, it's not what I would want to do." So Susan doesn't want to kill a chicken, but she's always fantasized about spearing a pig? And her life's dream consists of "stomp[ing]" men? I'm glad I'm a woman and writing the recap; otherwise she might track me down and "dog" me. Richard gleefully sneers, "So, that was all right. The other team won some live chickens! With some eggs! So, we came back here and I went spear-fishin' and got us a nice eel. That was the first eel. And if I had seen others I'd have gotten others," which I thought was a very random comment. Richard emerges from the water with an eel that looks like a snake, and that is, according to him, "all beautiful meat. The whole thing." Kelly says, "Wooooowwwww." Rudy just looks perplexed. Rich says, "Isn't that pretty?" and Kelly agrees, which is what she does best. She then says, "It beats the hell out of chicken," through a big ole mouthful of sour grapes. In a confessional she tells us, "I'd rather eat eel than chicken. I mean, at least we eat stuff that we go out and catch and look for ourselves, and we don't have it handed to us." I must have missed the part last week where Tagi turned down the Target prize so they could hunt their own towels, toilet paper, and spice rack. A gong clangs, and we see that the eel is being cooked, while flies buzz around and various members of the tribe look horrified. Richard advises, "It's cartilaginous. So chew on it." The eel appears to taste worse than the Butok, but it looks kind of like ribs. Sean says in a confessional, "Dinner was pretty horrible. Uh, it wasn't any good. Whatsoever." Kelly tells us, "We thought it was gonna be, you know, big fat steaks of meat. But it really wasn't," which might explain why people eat steak and not eel. Rudy maintains his usual positive attitude, "I wouldn't go after eel again if I had a choice. I woulda rather had chicken, without a doubt."