The Young and the Untrusted

Last week on Survivor, Lindsey did an unflattering dance which is intended to indicate the rift between Playskool and Oldskool (and the TM has come forth and identified herself -- thank you, Highwaygirl). La la la music played at Boran, and they all got happy. Samburu lost the immunity challenge and attended its first Tribal Council, wherein Carl failed a quiz and flunked out of Samburu. Lindsey got some votes, too.

We're now at Samburu on Night 9. As the tribe walks back from Tribal Council, Playskool gloats over its victory. Lindsey tells the tribe, "I'm still here, and I am smiling big." Silas says in a confessional that the final Tribal Council was "literally a crapshoot." As opposed to being figuratively a crapshoot? I don't literally know what a crapshoot is, but I'd be interested to see Samburu engaged in one. Silas explains that whichever side didn't lose a member in that night's vote became the majority faction of the tribe. I feel like he's rubbing it in...to me. I don't even particularly like any members of Oldskool, I just particularly dislike Lindsey. Back at camp, Playskool lays down the law. Silas wants to tell them what "the deal" is, and he insists that Oldskool inform them before going off to get water. Lindsey adds that the people who get up early need to have some patience for "those that need a little extra sleep that may have stayed up a little bit later." I swear, sometimes I can't tell whether I'm watching Survivor or Bug Juice. (I'd love, by the way, to recap Bug Juice.) In a confessional Lindsey tells us she's angry that Oldskool singled her out, and that she wants to "lash out" by calling them "bastards." Back at camp, Lindsey tells the others she's "seriously pumped" to win the "award." She continues, "And trust me, when I'm pumped, you don't wanna fuck with me." She advises them not to underestimate her. Lindsey is brushing her teeth with some kind of little stick during this diatribe. Oldskool looks upset by her ranting. Silas says of Lindsey and the situation, "Of course she handled it the wrong way." He thinks Playskool needed to be kind in order to earn the support of Oldskool, and Lindsey "flew off the deep end." That's one hell of a mixed metaphor. Linda tells us that Lindsey's comments were difficult to hear -- she felt excluded when the four Playskoolers referred to themselves as "a team" and celebrated their personal victory. We see a shot of Playskool huddling as Brandon laments that this is their last time together; tomorrow they incorporate into the larger group. Brandon then tries to reach out as he says to Oldskool, "Tomorrow is a new day," and Frank says, "It can be." Brandon insists, "It's gotta be," but Frank won't be bullied and responds, "It don't gotta be, I mean, it can be." In a confessional Frank tells us that Playskool now runs the show at Samburu, and the few days will be miserable. He says, "Damn you, Carl, for leaving me with a bunch of misfits to go camping with."

We're now at Boran. Thank God...or Mother Africa. It's Day 10, and Lex and Tom consult a calendar they've drawn on a tree. Lex says, "Day 10," and Tom replies, "Day 10. Let's win." He looks pleased with himself because he's rhymed "10" with "win" and thinks it's the equivalent of having penned Paradise Lost. We see shots of the Boran members rationing out their cornmeal, which looks more appealing than the bad rice they made in Pulau Tiga and the Outback. It looks like cream of wheat or, better yet, mashed potatoes -- my favorite! I might even go on Survivor if they gave us mashed potatoes. I'd bring along I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray as my luxury item. But maybe now you know too much about me. Anyway, Boran is rationing out their cornmeal, and Kimj says it's "the breakfast of champions." For once, they can actually call themselves champions. Clarence tells us Hamburglar-style that he's worried about Tom, because Tom "just doesn't like the way [the cornmeal] goes down." We see a shot of Tom choking down a lump of cornmeal as Clarence explains, "All it is really is just grits, um, like you would serve it with breakfast." Tom tells us that comparing cornmeal to grits is good in theory, but "goin' down the hatch, it reminds you more of something rhymes [sic] with grits."

Clarence and Tom head off together as Tom says, "We got to find a little something we can munch on!" They spot a tree with doum palms, which are a bit like small coconuts. Clarence tells us in a confessional that "the big country bear saw the palm trees" and "was silly enough to think he was gonna climb it." Clarence tells us the trees are fifty feet high, as we watch Tom attempt to shimmy up the tree while Clarence is yelling things like, "Hell, no!" and telling him to think about the fact that his "country ass is climbin' a tree in the middle of Africa." Clarence sounds genuinely concerned -- through his laughter -- about Tom, and implores him to come back down before he subjects Clarence to further butt crackage. Actually, this moment is surprisingly butt-crack-free. Clarence also yells something about not having "safety harnesses." This kind of footage is rare, and fun to watch on reality shows: the honest, everyday interactions between people, as opposed to the overdone, camera-time-grubbing antics we're more frequently shown. I think I like Clarence and Tom. Even more interestingly, I think they kind of like each other. But I do feel a good bit like I'm watching a cartoon. After Tom slides back down to the ground, he and Clarence attempt to knock the doum palms out of the trees by throwing stones. They throw and throw and throw, but only manage to knock down two fruits. Tom tells us, "And then after 'at we hammered ourselves to death tryin' to get the daggon' thing open." We see them hacking at the palms with a machete; then Clarence pries at one with his teeth, which seems like a bad move a day after the dentist has shipped out. Not that Clarence would know that yet. Finally, they crack the nearly fruit-free shells. Clarence feeds some of the fruit to Kelly, which seems generous since he and Tom worked so hard and didn't get much return -- only a "thumb-sized" edible portion according to Tom. Kelly complains that it's not as good as coconut, and that it has a "bad aftertaste."

Back at Samburu, Playskool is sleeping. Frank tells us he's taking it "out of fifth gear" as far as feeling accountable and responsible for the well-being of the entire tribe. He says, "Let's see how they run a household." We then see Frank and Linda getting the mail; she tells us, "I was loving it," and adds, "If anything, that'll draw in that you can't just sleep late. Our water is low, and now we don't have time to get to the water hole." Linda talks nonsense to begin with, and then this is poorly edited. We have no idea why she's "loving" getting the mail, until we see her approach Playskool during naptime and take great pleasure in waking their lazy asses up. Her cheeriness annoys me, and I'm wide awake. Linda enjoys telling the Playskoolers that they only have thirty minutes until the challenge. She doesn't appear to care that their lack of preparation will affect her, too. She singsongs that they need to wake up, and Kimp tells us in a confessional that the forthcoming challenge was "huge and shocking." How shocking could it be? They have one practically every day. Linda continues to patronize as she insists that one of the sleepy Playskoolers read the clue. Linda is the most annoying of the forty-eight contestants we've seen so far -- even more annoying than first-season Just Peachy. Lindsey groggily reads the clue, and Linda encourages her with statements like, "You got it!" when she pronounces a word correctly. The clue, written circularly on a faux spider web, talks about climbing and being "quick like a spider." "Quick" is not the word that comes to mind when I think about spiders, but it rhymes with the "as your bellies get wider" part. What's with the rhyming, anyway? Are we still back in fourth grade -- before we learned that rhyme is not tantamount to poetry? Lindsey tells us that Playskool is struggling to get their bearings because they were awakened. And why all this sleepy talk? I'm tired -- will you give me a one in sixteen chance of winning $1 million for being so?

Silas summons the entire tribe, gets down on his knee, and says, "Doggonit." What's with the "dog" this and "dog" that in this season of Survivor, anyway? And what's with all these questions? I must be channeling Jerry Seinfeld today. Silas tells Samburu that they need to "come together as a team"; he's upset that they're disorganized. Linda tells us, "Silas with the knee. I've seen him on the knee twice." She understands that "it's like a football thing where the coach gets down and just whatever," and she thinks it might even be genuine, but she also thinks it's "so cheesy." ["Well, if anyone knows from 'cheesy,' it's Linda." -- Wing Chun] Linda then tells the group that the things Playskool said and did after returning from the prior night's Tribal Council were divisive. Silas cuts her off and says, "You have to understand this though, too, Linda. What if it was you on the cutting board?" I hate it when people tell me I have to understand something. I understand what I want to understand, and I don't have to understand anything. That's up there on my pet-peeve list with addressing an individual as "you people." Secondly, it was Linda on the cutting board, and will be soon enough, so I'm not sure what Silas means. Linda goes on to say that the Playskoolers were all about "revenge, revenge," and that it was disrespectful. For once, she means disrespectful of her and of the other members of Oldskool, as opposed to of the Doum Palm God and the Goddess of Elephant Dung. Kimp agrees with Linda that the division between the tribes needs to end. It looks like, out of all of Samburu, Kimp has best managed to remain neutral. That doesn't mean I like her, but it does mean she's at least attempting to play the game according to some understandable rationale. Linda then assumes the Warrior I posture as a sort of "in your face" gesture which is not conducive to the philosophy of yoga, as she yells, "Thank you!" She then freaks out and starts jumping around yelling for the others to "let [her] on the team!" Both Playskool and Oldskool look on with disgusted faces.

Brandon tells us in a confessional, "Linda this morning really came unglued." I don't think there was much holding her together in the first place. He tells us that she has two sides, "like this sweet little New England mom and then there's this -- I don't know -- crazy woman side too!" Meanwhile Linda is still spazzing and jumping around insisting she's "ready to be on the team!" She then demands a hug from Lindsey, who stiff-arms her in response. Linda gets offended and persists, "Why can't you hug me?" Lindsey mumbles a bit, and then Linda goes over to Kimp and enlists her help in "demonstrat[ing] a hug." She then says to Lindsey, "Did your momma never hug you?" which seems like a nasty thing to say, and I thought they'd go somewhere with this, like Lindsey was abused, or Lindsey's mother died when she was six months old, or at the least that that sort of comment is offensive to Lindsey and to whatever-degree-of-hugginess culture she was raised in, but the topic just drops. I'm glad it did. In a confessional, Linda tells us that Lindsey's unwillingness to hug her was "awfully strange." She says Lindsey "got that look in her eyes" like one of them had a knife. Linda continues her pathetic routine of begging hugs off people she doesn't even like and who clearly are not interested in hugging her. Linda asks, "Why don't you give me a real hug?" and Lindsey just mumbles that it's "hard." She doesn't say, "I don't have to hug you, you crazy, Mother Africa-loving freakshow." Lindsey tells Linda she is seeing a side of her she's "really nervous about." The psychotic side, perhaps? Finally, Linda says she respects Lindsey's inability to hug her. She then Deepak Chopras that "anger is a cover-up for sadness." Lindsey tells Linda she's "good at it," and I think she means covering up her sadness with anger, but maybe she means just being angry. I don't know. This has been one of the most irritating Survivor sequences I've ever sat through. Watching one stranger beg another stranger for a hug (and not in the context of a drunken bar conversation) is not television-worthy. Not even reality television-worthy. Linda then attempts to comfort Lindsey by patting her on the back and Lindsey snarks, "Don't tell me it's all right!" Linda backs away and repeats that she respects Lindsey's space, but it's so clear she does not. Meanwhile, Silas babbles in the background that the tables have been turned. In a confessional, a crying Lindsey tells us she felts "sectioned out of [her] own little group even thought they're totally supportive of [her]" and that she thinks Oldskool hates her because they singled her out. Well, boo to the hoo to the I don't care.

At the scene of the challenge, Peachy asks how the cornmeal tastes. When the tribes answer that it sucks, he responds, "It was bland to begin with," which seems awfully defensive to me. Like he thinks the tribes are accusing him of making the cornmeal taste bad, when they have only Mark Burnett, and his likely tendency to urinate on other people's food, to blame. Peachy points out a vertical rope web which has twelve items suspended in it. He says these are things that will "dramatically improve" their meals -- things like olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes. Is this Dean & Deluca, or Survivor? Peachy explains the rules: one person at a time, the tribes will run up a ramp, traverse a horizontal net, and climb the rope web to retrieve a prize, which they will then bring back to their team. The baskets are at different heights -- some appear to be within standing distance of the netting, while others will entail climbing. The winning team gets to keep the loot. Tom and Brandon go first. Tom runs as fast as Brandon, which is pretty sad...for Tom. They both grab baskets at the low end of the rope. Clarence and Silas are , and they grab low baskets, too. I realize that it's psychologically good to feel like your team is ahead, but why would they leave the hardest climbs for people like Kimj and Brandon, or even for themselves on a second round attempt when they're tired? Just about everyone bites it transitioning between the ramp and the netting. Ethan doesn't, for once, which is kind of funny. Probably his innate enormous clumsiness is counteracted by the inherent clumsiness of the challenge. We don't watch everyone have a turn, but we're shown in an onscreen caption that it's "neck and neck." Someone yells, "Climb like you never climbed before," which is cringe-worthy and sounds like something Silas would say. It comes down to the battle of the Kims. Kimj falls on the netting and never quite recovers. It looks like she's lost her confidence as she slowly eases herself along the netting while clutching the rope railing. Kimp and her six-pack have no such problems; she hands off to Lindsey, who finishes before Kimj as well. In the end, it comes down to Frank and Lex. The editors try to make this look suspenseful, but it's hard to believe that Frank will flail so badly as to be passed by two members of the Boran tribe. So Samburu wins, and Peachy hands them their booty and wishes them a good meal. Kimj is pissed off at herself for messing up. You'd think she'd be used to that by now. Damned thong.

Back at Boran camp, it's still Day 10 and Ethan tells us, "Unfortunately, it came down to Kim [going] really slow." He says he feels badly for her, and he wouldn't want to be in her situation. Kimj apologizes to Boran for messing up in the challenge, and says not only does it suck that she messed up and lost the challenge for them, but in general, she doesn't like to be that godawful at something. We see various attempts by the team to console her. Lex says that they all fell over and they all took their time. Clarence tells us in a confessional that she did her very best, but when she said to them, "I sucked," their answer was, "Yes, you sucked." Clarence appears to be the spokesperson for Boran. We've heard more from him than we have from all the other members of Boran put together. What does Kelly's voice even sound like? Clarence continues that sometimes it's not about doing your best, it's about winning. Boran stands around and looks awkward; Tom thinks they should all drink some water. The team discusses their concerns over possibly losing the Immunity Challenge, and Lex tells us in a confessional that the hardest part of the reward challenge was having to face the fact that Kimj isn't up to the physical challenges. Kelly tells us that if her team turns out to be a bunch of losers, it will be awful. It doesn't seem like Kelly groups herself in this "bunch of losers."

Samburu, meanwhile, is in high spirits, and they cheer on their way back to camp. Silas tells us that the morning was awful, but they pulled together as a team, and "all in all it was an unbelievable victory." He tells us that winning the challenge boosted morale and about sixteen other things that are synonyms for "morale." The tribe goes through their booty and discovers they scored something called "Golden Chicken Blend." They're very excited about the olive oil. We then see that they got jelly, too, and Silas expositions that it's "to put on stuff." Right now, it's just to put on their own fingers. They all stand around, jamming their dirty digits in the jelly and licking it off. These goods have been placed in rustic-looking containers to camouflage the fact that they have absolutely nothing at all to do with surviving in the wilds of Africa. Various members of Samburu express their excitement; Lindsey does so by placing a bag of cornmeal on her head. In a confessional, Kimp tell us that it's a great prize, but that she would give it all up for water.

We then see the team working together to determine how they'll get water. Kimp tells us that Frank and Carl "were kind of the water people." She says "water" about four times in one sentence. She goes on to say that it was fine with Playskool when Oldskool was doing all the work, explaining that Playskool was more concerned with "the split in the tribe, and manipulating people, and doing that." She says that they weren't worried at all about the actual survival stuff. How did they pick these people? Silas orders everyone around as the tribe goes together to get water, and Frank mumbles, "Just goin' with the flow." Brandon tells us that they were in a "water crunch." He suspects that Oldskool let the water supply run down to prove a point. If so, at least there was a point to it, as opposed to it just being nasty. Everyone calls Teresa "T." We learn that the tribe's water supply is not only challenged, but so are their pots, which are all blackened and cracked. We're told that one is unusable, and the other is crumbling. Maybe that's because they're putting the damn things directly into the fire. Into the fire. Frank says that the tribe's situation has been deteriorating, and his plan of attack was to "let the comfort level completely lower and it would, I know, break down." We see a shot of a particularly charred, forlorn, and sad-looking pot. That pot is all, "I didn't ask to be on this show. I don't have a chance of winning a million dollars. Why am I being subjected to the lunacy of these people?" Silas tells us that they're "in a heap of trouble," and I'm surprised he didn't say they're "in a heap of a needle in a haystack." Kimp tells us that now all of their pots are shattered, and admits that it's "a horrible situation [they] got [them]selves into." It's good to see one of the Playskoolers being remotely accountable for his actions...or lack thereof. Kimp says she asks herself, "What is wrong with us?" She is worried that they won't get it together because all they do is crack pots, whine, and complain.