A yodel takes us to Peachy's voice-over, inviting us to join him for a "special episode" of Survivor: The Amazon. Peachy promises a look back at the past twenty-seven days of "highlights and never-before-seen-footage," but those of us who have seen one of these clips shows before know what Peachy's promises are worth: false expectations leading to unbearable disappointment. Or something like that. Because there's a reason this stuff's never been seen before. A quick shot of the burlap sack monkey-faced immunity idol brings us to a brief preview of the aforementioned never-before-seen footage. (And shouldn't the plural of "footage" be "feetage"?) In any case, Rob shows Deena a calendar while HeiDDi explains that it's a "great calendar, you know, for both tribes." Rob voice-overs that he's been painting the calendar with HeiDDi, "the hottest girl he's ever talked to." He adds, "She has both natural and manmade beauty qualities." Well, that's one way of putting it. "Botched boob job" is another.
In another of these pre-clips-show clips, Butch boasts that he made Christy feel good about herself, followed by a shot of Christy teaching Davey Rockett sign language. Christy enthuses that it was great that the others really wanted to learn.
In the final pre-clips-show clip, a snake uncoils and snaps at the camera in night-vision, followed by Jeanne talking about jungle noises. HeiDDi hears an animal close to camp, and two eyes glow like cartoon characters in a dark room. Proving that we are not watching a cartoon, other sets of glowing eyes don't pop up one by one, and there's no convenient pull-chain light fixture right above their heads.
The pre-clips-show clips wrap up, and we see shots of the river. Drumbeats accompany a boating local and a shot of the fishing boat that brought the S16 to the Amazon. Damned fishing boat. They never sink when you want them too. Peachy voice-overs that twenty-seven days ago, sixteen Americans, including a fresh-faced Rob, were stranded in the Amazonian rainforest. Peachy tells us what we already know: they were immediately separated by sex into two tribes: Jaburu and Tambaqui, and Deena was overjoyed by the "all-chick thing." Not to mention the chance to pee in front of the other women. Meanwhile, a "pumped up" Daniel bragged that the female tribe could never beat the men at anything, either physical or mental. He concluded, "We're never gonna go to Tribal Council." Technically, Daniel hardly ever does go to Tribal Council over the course of the series, but not for the reasons he thinks here. Jenna thought the men were cocky, and she wanted to beat them with her really skinny little arms.
Peachy's voice-over adds that the female Jaburu tribe stumbled from the beginning, as we see a clip of Shawna unable to untie the tribe's boat. Meanwhile the men "brimmed with confidence," leading Davey Rockett to proclaim them "friggin' men of pride, men of honor, whatnot." Also, Rob missed his calling as a lumberjack.
Amazon Redux
At Jaburu, Christy "revealed her secret": despite her deafness, she's more normal, well-adjusted, and functional than anyone else in the Amazon. HeiDDi and Jenna looked smirky, because...well, Christy's deaf! The women put on a comedy show with their machetes and fire-building skills. Not that you could really call them "skills." Christy felt like an outsider because she couldn't read lips in the dark, but now that she's seen the episode, I'm sure she's glad she wasn't forced to endure the conversation in which Jenna and HeiDDi discussed the male tribe's reactions to their own cuteness. Christy could never be like them! 'Cause she's not! Always totally different! Always has been! I'm not entirely sure why that's a bad thing, but she cried and pulled her hair nevertheless.
By Day 2, Roger was annoying his Tambaqui tribemates. Not to mention the entire viewing audience. Rob did what he said, while Ryan and Daniel failed to impress by not willingly assuming the role of Roger's bitches. Roger called them "kids," and proclaimed them "useless," but as Peachy tells us, the tribe members still have it together, despite their differences. And despite living by the motto intended for seventh-graders on their prominently displayed banner.
Meanwhile at Jaburu, the women were busy boiling their underwear. Deena vocalized their difficulties with prioritizing, completing, and moving on from tasks, and then made a nasty face at someone's back. This was Deena before she went full-on psycho egomaniac and was only partly-on psycho egomaniac. She told us she didn't abide by the "I'm kinda feeling like I need to wash my buff now" thing, and was more interested in building a shelter. From which to rule the world, no doubt.
On Day 3, Janet hit "rock bottom." She didn't have far to fall. She told us she'd never before been so physically exhausted, and was having trouble even walking.
At the first immunity challenge, the burlap sack monkey-faced idol made its first appearance, and the obstacle course/race began. The men were off to an early start, but Ryan and Daniel "couldn't handle the balance beam." Or the game of Survivor, for that matter, as we find out shortly. So the women took over the lead and "HeiDDi led Jaburu to victory." As I recall, she just managed to cling to a zipline successfully, but as we learned in last week's episode, Peachy's not inclined to pass compliments her way, so maybe there was more to it than we saw. Shawna flopped across the finish line, and the members of Jaburu started shrieking and jumping around like a bunch of girls.
Back at Tambaqui, Rob and his droopy, distracting manboobs had already begun to play both sides of the fence. Ryan and Roger both asked him to help them get rid of the other, and he agreed to their faces. To their backs, he agreed with Roger, so in a 4-3 Tribal Council vote, Ryan became the first member of the tribe voted out. In a post-boot interview, Ryan tells us that it was "upsetting" to be the first one, and that it's going to suck because "the boys back home are gonna give you a lot of crap." It's the whole "losing to a bunch of girls" line again. All these people need is a couple decks of cards, a jangly charm bracelet, and a dog named Tiger before they can decide to stop arguing over whether to get the rowboat or the sewing machine, and just agree to get a color television set instead. Ryan laments that the tie-breaking vote belonged to someone with whom he was aligned. He says it was all "hard to swallow," and get past his really, really white teeth.
Amazon Redux
Racing clouds find us at Jaburu on Day 4 with a new clip. While Jeanne and Joanna hunt for food, Jeanne shouts in her New England accent, and looks like a white-trash Diane Lane. Not that I'm entirely convinced a white-trash Diane Lane isn't the same as just plain old Diane Lane. Jeanne voice-overs that their natural resources are fish, plants, nuts, and fruits, complaining that the tribe hasn't spent sufficient time exploring the area, so she's forced to spend her available time hunting. We see her spot something in the brush, before shrieking in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, "It's a pineapple!" Joanna joins her and they squeal and jump and shout and hallelujah together before Joanna tells Jeanne to "look at this!" which is strange since Jeanne's the one who found it. A blank-faced tapir stares at the women and at the pineapple, which was so thrown there by Mark Burnett. In an interview, Joanna tells us that she returned to camp with the fruit "concealed" inside her coat. We see Joanna slicing up the pineapple before performing a booty dance about its sweetness. The other members of the tribe gobble it up, before Jenna tells us she doesn't know if it tasted good because they were starving or delirious. In a really strange voice, Deena says she wants ten more pineapples.
On Day 6, Jaburu's good spirits broke down when controversy -- and a granola bar -- arose in the camp. They peeked into their supply crate, and someone needed to confess: who brought in the candy bar? Joanna said Jeanne said she saw it in Janet's backpack, and with that inarguable firsthand account, the tribe agreed that Janet was the culprit. Janet maintained her innocence, insisting that the others could vote her out for any reason but for being an accused granola smuggler. Well then how about the whining and the weakness and the noncontributing for starters?
The immunity challenge, according to Peachy's voice-over, was the first "mental" competition. We see a quick shot of a ladder resting against a hut, as Peachy asks, "How many rungs are on the outside ladder?" Hee. If you already know that it was a memory test from seeing the episode when it aired, it would appear that Peachy's definition of "mental" includes the ability to count to six, which Rob did successfully while Deena did not. So the men did some shrieking and jumping around of their own.
The women headed off to their first Tribal Council, where Janet looked like Susan Sarandon before becoming the second person voted out of the Amazon. In a post-boot interview, in which Janet looks like Rue McClanahan, she explains that they'd gone six hard days without drinking because they had trouble boiling the water. They had trouble boiling water? Imagine if they had to boil an egg! Janet claims that the younger members of the tribe were "droppin' like flies," which caused her to question how much more she could take. Who, besides Shawna, was "droppin' like flies," anyway? In closing, Janet insists that her Survivor experience was "a mid-life crisis gone extremely wrong," and then cracks herself up over it.
Amazon Redux
That night, we learn that the women couldn't sleep "as the Amazon came alive." In new footage, Jeanne complains about the increased noises near their food. A bleary-eyed HeiDDi wakes needing to pee, and she's creeped out by the sounds. Jeanne suggests that the animals are just getting used to them. I think the animals would interpret "getting used to them" as "getting used to the idea of becoming better acquainted in a digestive sort of way." A machete-wielding Jeanne offers to accompany HeiDDi, and I'm surprised Deena didn't tag along too, as excited as she is by the communal peeing. As they walk away from camp, we see a quick shot of a fox-like animal scurrying up a tree branch, followed by an alligator thrashing in the water. HeiDDi suddenly jumps out at something, and I'm not sure if she's kidding or if she's really trying to scare away an animal with her gigantic bosoms. Jeanne points out a "raven over thah [sic]!" before HeiDDi tells us in an interview that bats started dive-bombing them. They ran away in an effort to escape the bat attack, but ended up with "these set[s] of glowing eyes just staring at us." Jeanne questions whether HeiDDi really wants to go down or if she can just "hold it." Jeanne urges, "Come down here and I'll dig a hole." In other words, this entire segment has been about HeiDDi needing to take a shit.
On Day 7, Roger asked Daniel to fetch some water; Daniel refused, so Roger did it himself. It made him "hot," and he wanted to "slap the kid around." Daniel complained that Roger was "unfriendly" while "barking" his orders, and that they're not speaking right now. Humph!
The members of Jaburu apparently didn't mind being barked at, though, and so Jeanne "initiate[d] Deena" as leader of the tribe. So she, like, made her drive her drunk ass around Buffalo and paint bricks and soak tampons in tuna juice and throw them at the other tribe? In any case, Deena complained that being the tribe's appointed leader put a "big target on [her] body" (oooh -- the legendary circling of the fat1), but that she accepted the responsibilities nevertheless.
Peachy voice-overs that Deena's leadership "sparked new life in the women's camp and they began to work in harmony." We then see new clips of the Jaburu women breaking sticks, chopping, working on the fire, pouring water, dragging branches, sharpening knives, and high-fiving each other while breaky, choppy, working-on-the-fire, branch-draggy, knife-sharpening, high-fivey music rhythmically accompanies them in time in the background. Shawna, meanwhile, is mixed into this montage every few seconds, haphazardly chopping a piece of wood to see how far and in which direction she can send it. Deena tells us that the "net effect" of their efforts is that the camp looks organized -- like someone lives there and cares about it and will take care of it. Of course, it just looks that way. She claims that a nicely turned out camp is the key to being "on par" with Tambaqui.
Amazon Redux
On Day 9, the competitors were locked in cages. Too bad they weren't left there. And I know I used that one in a past season, but it's worth saying again. The women claimed their fourth victory in five challenges, and the requisite shrieking ensued.
So Tambaqui headed back to Tribal Council and Daniel became the third person voted out. In his post-boot interview, where he -- based on what we've seen so far and what's still to come -- remarkably is not wearing two pounds of makeup, claims to be a "city slicker" who had never before been on a camping trip and would never voluntarily go on one. In other words, he was, like, drafted onto Survivor? So somewhere in Canada, there are legions of people burning the Jacke flag and gearing up to march on Mark Burnett's house? Daniel continues that he did Survivor only because he wanted to be the first Asian to win, but that was a goal he obviously didn't accomplish. As we see a clip of his exit, he quotes Bruce Lee with: "Low aim, not failure, is the crime," and then paraphrases it for us: "Sometimes even glory is to fail." Glory. Heh.
On Day 10, the younger women at Jaburu "sought to solidify" their closeness. And, ooh ooh ooh -- a slick, frolicky otter! Sorry, distraction. Shawna called herself "meek or prissy" before suggesting that Deena join their alliance. Deena thought it was a good idea, since she always desperately wanted to hang out with the cool crowd.
At Tambaqui, new footage shows Matthew catching a small but edible fish, while Rob worries over his position in the game. He acknowledges that Matt is the hardest worker, and whines that although Rob tries to contribute, there's only so much he can do for the tribe. Rob flails while attempting to carry a pot before telling us that he's tried not to be lazy and to be well-liked in the tribe while also "schem[ing] and plot[ting] his fanny off." And again with the geezer-speak. "Fanny"? In a wide camera shot (predecessor to the forthcoming fisheye) interview, he worries that Davey Rockett, Alex, Butch, and Roger are contemplating voting him out because their togetherness combined with Matt's usefulness around camp might lead them to the conclusion that "the guy that does the wisecracks isn't as useful as the guy that catches the fish." Particularly if said wisecracks are primarily of the "you've got treemail" variety.
As we go to the fire-making challenge, Peachy ambushes his own bad pun by telling us that "the men were fired up," instead of the better " the men were on fire," seeing as how they literally were. Matt pretended like he wasn't enjoying it. They toasted their victory with Coke, while Jaburu returned to camp empty-handed, and Coke deprivation led to Shawna's breakdown. She didn't see herself lasting much longer without Coke, and that she would be "very tempted" to get out to get some Coke. Deena, meanwhile, didn't think she'd be able to further enable Shawna's Coke habit by sending her home.