Previously on Survivor: The rending of garments. The gnashing of teeth. Aspirin. Tequila. Despair. Jenna.
Shots of the local architecture get a little help from an on-screen caption in establishing that we are in Panama City, Panama. Oh, Weathered Treasure Map Font, how I've missed you since last we were together. Suddenly, we bolt over the skyline and out to sea, and we alight upon a picturesque ship that looks to have been just recently released from its bottle. And on the boat? Why, it's Jeff "Bore-gia Peach" Probst, who tells us that we are sailing along the coast of Panama. You know, just in case Weathered Treasure Map Font doesn't render properly on your TV. As we get our first glimpse of the castaways, Peachy exposits that, below deck, they are waiting around in the belief that they're a few days away from the beginning of the game, and that today is just a jaunt for publicity photos. Peachy claims that they're actually wearing the same clothes they were wearing on the plane to Panama City. You know, if Nicole wore that particular strapless hooter-hoisting dress on a plane, she really needs to rethink her travel wardrobe, because that is a really good way to lose your snack peanuts and never find them again. Peachy explains that, unbeknownst to them, the castaways will not get to take any of their stuff with them to camp, and will arrive with only the clothes they're wearing now.
Now it's time for the introduction of this season's location. We are heading for the Pearl Islands, which we are told have "a bloody history" involving pirates. Many pirate-related images follow, including a cannon, a skull and crossbones, and some gold coins. No bleeding, oddly. This is probably as good a place as any to warn you that this pirate motif is evidently going to extend through the season, so if you aren't up for the deluge of puns about plank-walking, parrot-wearing, and people named "[Blank]beard," you should scamper off now and enjoy a refreshing book. But probably not Treasure Island. At any rate, Peachy tells us that the island's jungles where the pirates used to hide are "rugged," and that the weather is "temperamental." You should listen to him, because if the environment were swanky and the climate refreshingly temperate? Peachy would surely tell you. "Frankly, this game really isn't going to be very hard," he would say with a rueful shake of his tousled head. As if the mercurial weather weren't enough, he also mentions that the ocean is filled with very deadly fishy things. One eel, in fact, looks right at the camera and opens its very menacing mouth like, "Do my gums look inflamed to you?" Oh, and because the pirate theme might leave some stone unturned as far as pure unadulterated cheese, there are also whales flailing about. As I'm sure you know, of all marine life, whales are the most fraught with meaning.
After a quick recapping of the whole thing about how people will be voted off one at a time until somebody wins a million dollars, tense and thumping music carries us through Peachy's final "one survivor" speech, and then we hit credits. If you like pirate Halloween costumes and related paraphernalia, you're going to love the credits. We will try, however, not to make pirate jokes in the recap, if you haven't already abandoned ship. Oh, wait -- sorry. No, wait, wait, come back!
Back on the ship, Gilligan and the Skipper are spinning the steering wheel thoughtfully. Big-shouldered men in smart white uniforms pull on thick ropes, while whales thump their tails in appreciation. (Actually, I think their tails are thumping out "C-A-L-L G-R-E-E-N-P-E-A-C-E" in Morse code.) The anchor is dropped, and we see it bullet through the water to the bottom. Peachy gathers the castaways out on deck. "Welcome, guys," he tells them. And then he drops the bomb. "The game is on. We're starting right now." Darrah's gigantic, freakishly white teeth are amazed. Peachy reminds this gobsmacked motley crew that past survivors have been able to take their essential items from their suitcases when they head for camp. In this case, however, that won't be happening. They will be taking nothing except what they're wearing. "Just like if you really were shipwrecked!" he adds. Well...if you were shipwrecked in a play, maybe. Or at camp. "I was like, 'Oh, shit,'" Sandra interviews, managing to sum it up quite succinctly. Peachy has a good tee-hee at Shawn and Andrew for the fact that they're wearing suits, and at Nicole for her dress with the peanut-swallowing top, and he smarmily oozes that he's "hoping [she's] wearing something under that." Shawn tells us in an interview that because he was wearing an Armani suit, he wasn't sure how he would "get by," as if a less expensive suit would have been more functional. After all, suits from JC Penney have those built-in tool kits behind the lapels. Nicole says she was just hoping her dress would stay up without benefit of a bra. Man. That's a curvy girl to be stuck out on an island with no support. Ouch. Double-ouch, really. ["Nah, boobs that big and fake have support built in -- flying buttresses and whatnot." -- Wing Chun] Back on the boat, Peachy also points out Lillian and her Boy Scout leader uniform, which makes her by far the luckiest person on the boat, clothing-wise. ["Also, the weirdest." -- Wing Chun] Peachy does tell the castaways that they can have their sneakers, which he has tied into jaunty bundles. You know, just as the pirates did with their sneakers in olden times. Arrrr! He then says he's confiscating all the personal items they have with them -- watches, wallets, passports, and so forth. He's got a little mesh bag for each person to store stuff in. The highlight is when Osten produces a giant bottle of Canadian Club and what looks like a giant bottle of vodka, and turns them over to Peachy. You know, I have to say that if I could only take two bottles of booze to an island, you'd better believe neither of them would be Canadian Club.
The time has come to pick tribes. Peachy tells the assembled swashbucklers that their tribe names are based on the names of famous pirates (ugh) Drake and Morgan. If you're tiring of pirates already, you can also think of the tribes as being named after the heroes of those bodice-ripper novels that constitute the only porn you can buy at Wal-Mart. Anyway, first to be assigned to the Drake tribe is Shawn, identified as being in "Advertising Sales." Shawn is young, buff, and unafraid of the feel of product in his hair. First to be assigned to the Morgan tribe is Darrah. She's a mortician, which will be handy for improving the appearance of her pallid, hungry compatriots somewhere around Day 30. She's stuck in a spaghetti-strap dress with very ugly stripes on it. up for Drake is Christa who, it is safe to say, is no rocket scientist, given that thanks to The Smoking Gun, we know that she isn't even intelligent enough to make her Usenet drug requests from a free and anonymous email account. She's another one who'll be suffering for a while in a pretty summery dress, but at least hers has little cap sleeves. As the Love Theme from Ahoy, There, Matey continues to whistle merrily, Morgan gets Osten, the "equity trade manager," who's in a nice blue shirt and pants, and has thus done reasonably well in the Luck Of The Clothing Draw Sweepstakes. Peachy admires the haul of loot that Osten turns over to him, and of course, he has to call it "pirate-like," because of those bottles of booze. to go to the Drake tribe is Rupert, who has been compared to Hagrid by numerous observers, but whom I think Glark most accurately pegged when he said, "I think Peter Jackson can win Survivor AND an Academy Award this year!" I'm not sure Peter Jackson has a pink-yellow-blue tie-dye tank top, though. ["I am. And I'll bet he wears it when he's using his gigantic, Treebeard-shaped bong." -- Wing Chun] And Rupert most certainly does have such a shirt. He's described as a "troubled teens mentor." In the first interview to reveal Christa's unbelievably annoying voice, she tells us that she immediately figured Rupert was "a big old hippie," but "strong as an ox." So he was two hackneyed clichés, instead of only one, as most reality-show contestants are. to go to Morgan is Lillian the scout leader, who is this season's designated woman over the age of thirty-five who's still in possession of her original breasts, and is thus the obvious first candidate for booting. Drake gets Trish, a "sales executive" in a sweater-skirt combo that's not going to be too comfortable in the sand. to head to Morgan is Ryan S., whose buzz cut and glasses bring to mind every kid you ever knew who liked to play Risk for seventeen hours at a time. Ryan is a produce clerk, so he may not be able to find food for you, but he is boffo when it comes to telling you whether it's ripe.
The member of the Drake tribe is Burton, a studly "marketing executive" who has embraced business casual for this trip, and will be reasonably happy with his choice of khakis and a blue button-down. He will be less happy with his decision to have Jack Scalia's Dallas hair transported here from 1987. Morgan welcomes Tijuana, whom Osten admiringly describes as a "Nubian princess." She's undoubtedly the happiest about getting her tennis shoes, since her heels are about seven inches high. Also, she apparently pronounces her name much as you might pronounce a name spelled "Tawana," so at least you can try to forget what her real name is, and we can probably avoid unnecessary Herb Alpert jokes. to head for Drake is Michelle, who is a student and apparently the designated "bookish girl," because she's wearing glasses with her halter top. Ryan O. is Morgan's member. He's (so very surprisingly) young and beautiful as well. Blond, shaggy-locked Jon goes to Drake , and he offers an interview snippet in which he rather disgustingly says that he calls himself "Johnny Fairplay," because he doesn't play fair. So it's, like, ironic. You know, I have a Twilight Zone-style theory that every time you say something that lame, somewhere in the world, someone genuinely clever dies. ["If you liked Gabe from a couple of seasons ago but wished he was a bigger douchebag, Jon is the Survivor for you." -- Wing Chun] Peachy informs Morgan that they will be "very happy" to see that they are getting the Big Boobs Girl of the season, also known as Nicole. Nicole starts her Survivor experience by (1) neglecting to give her bag of personal items to Peachy; (2) going to the wrong tribe until she is redirected; and (3) neglecting to give her bag of personal items to Peachy one more time before he finally gets her attention and gets it from her. Her tribe looks like they're not sure whether they're really "very happy" about getting this non-brain-surgeon on their squad. The last member of Drake is Sandra, who takes her place without putting up an attention-getting fuss of any kind, so I have no idea how she got through the audition process. This leaves only Andrew, perched on a ledge in his devil-may-care attorney fashion, kicking his legs playfully. He's the last member of Morgan. Just a word of advice for Andrew: it's hard for an attorney to be convincingly whimsical. Believe me. It's the best reason not to wear your gaucho hat to depositions.
Peachy now explains to the castaways that not only will there be no clothes available to them, but they will find nothing when they get to camp. No food, no supplies, no anything. He will be offering them, however, "the opportunity to control [their] own fate." This may sound a little self-helpish to you, like something you'd find on page 356 of Change Your Life The Marilu Henner Way, but what he means is that each team will be given one hundred balboas ("That's Panamanian money," he explains helpfully) with which to shop for supplies in a nearby village. They'll need to reserve enough to hire a boat to camp, but other than that, they can do whatever they want, with the understanding that they have to get the boat soon enough to be at camp by sundown. He reminds them that in addition to spending their money, they can barter with what little they have on them. He tosses them maps to their camps. "This is beyond what I bargained for," Ryan S. voices over, marveling at the challenge as someone must at the beginning of every season. With that, Peachy tosses the bundles of tennis shoes over the side of the boat and tells the castaways they'll have to swim for it. In a sequence that actually turns out to be kind of fun, the castaways jump one by one over the side. Some manage to look relatively dignified, while some manage to look like total dorks. Some of the women, in particular, have obvious concerns about the possibility that their dresses will fly up over their heads during the big leap. And it's true, that is not the way you want to make your television debut -- as Flowery Underpants Girl. That would take a while to wear off, reputation-wise. A rousing adventure theme plays as they jump. And jump. And jump. Once everyone is in the water, the teams swim away from the ship, some on their own and some hanging on to life rings that have been helpfully thrown into the water by Mark Burnett's liability attorneys. Osten complains that he doesn't get in the water unless he has to, so he needed that life ring so as not to drown. Rupert adds that he was surprised how extraordinarily difficult it was to swim with his jeans on, because they got so heavy when they hit the water. "My legs were rubber," he interviews. "I was spent. And it hadn't even started yet!" Hee.
Before you know it, people get to shore and begin to scamper up onto the rocks. Nicole takes this moment to demonstrate that if a dress is wet enough, even a thong can leave a visible panty line. Morgan immediately dissolves, as Nicole, Darrah, and Ryan O. run off toward the village, leaving Tijuana, Morgan, Osten, Lillian, and Ryan S. to gather up the life ring and the shoes. Ryan S. interviews that he was disappointed that instead of gathering to formulate a strategy, the team instantly splintered upon arrival. He particularly noted how Ryan O. went off all alone as if he "wasn't even part of the tribe." As we see, Ryan O. does have a plan, and that plan is to start by finding the boat, probably so that they have an idea of how much time and money they can spare buying supplies. It's not a bad plan, except that when he reaches the boat dock, Ryan O. realizes that he has come to inquire about how long the ride will take and how much it will cost without bringing...his map. Therefore, he is stuck posing the following genius question to the boat pilot: "What's the most to go pretty much anywhere?" Reasonably enough, Boat Guy looks at Ryan O. like he's the biggest moron Boat Guy has ever seen. "Screwed up this one," says a sheepish Ryan O. as he walks away, realizing that he's just set a new standard for first-episode folly of this particular kind.
Elsewhere in the village, some of the boys of the Drake tribe are bringing their life ring up a hill with their meager collection of possessions in it. Burton and Shawn leave an exhausted and jeans-bemoaning Rupert to sit with the stuff and wait while they (presumably) go off in search of the rest of the tribe and the necessary supplies. While Rupert is sitting with the life ring, most of Morgan brings its life ring up and plunks it down to Rupert. Then, they all leave. "This is definitely a pirate adventure," Rupert growls in an interview, adding, "Pirates pillage. Pirates steal." Back in the village, he steps over to the Morgan life ring and retrieves all of Morgan's equally meager collection of possessions -- looks like it's mostly the shoes that the members of Morgan were wearing when they jumped, as well as some miscellany like insoles. Happy with the take, he walks off, dragging the ring behind him. Rupert now makes his way to a couple of little market stands, where he trades one of the pairs of shoes for a knife and another for a pineapple. (I kind of think he got taken on that last transaction, but...whatever.) "Yeah, it's a harrrrd life livin' the pirate's life," Rupert says, just barely holding back the "arrrrrr" he clearly wants to add at the end. I will allow the pirate accent once. Once. That's pretty much my Pirate Accent Yearly Allowance, right there, so let's not make it a habit, Rupert.
Commercials. I can't figure out whether "x = (George Clooney) + (Coen Brothers) - (Catherine Zeta-Jones)" yields a negative or positive value for x. I know the absolute value is very small.
Back in Bargaintown, Tijuana and Osten are comparing notes. They've got water and knives; she suggests that flint and steel might be the target. (I guess matches are too obvious.) Osten wants fishing stuff. He interviews that their approach to supplies at the village was "chaotic," which is becoming pretty clear. Osten barters some of his stuff -- namely his belt and his shoes -- to get more supplies. , going for that Gallant Gentleman of the Year award, he gathers Darrah, Nicole, and Lillian together in a huddle and tells them that when dealing with the horny old men, they'll want to flash their breasts around as much as possible in order to get better deals. I understand about using your wiles and stuff, but as a guy, you just don't give that command. Particularly, you don't give it to women you don't know. Nicole feels similarly, saying that it squicked her out that Osten did this without even knowing their names yet. "I was just like, 'This guy's a jerk,'" she says.
Elsewhere, cockfighting! Golly.
Still elsewhere, the Drake tribe is on a rampage through town, being led by the Spanish-fluent Sandra, who is pretty obviously affording them an enormous advantage, both because she speaks the language and because she generally kicks huge amounts of ass. She goes by one guy who tries to rip her off on the rice, and she basically tells him to go get bent, because she got a better offer back down the road. When the guy won't budge, she gathers her team and scoots. Jon interviews admiringly that Sandra was "amazing" with the locals. Sandra herself interviews that it sure was lucky that she spoke Spanish, because she was able to cut some deals. As she tries to negotiate for a lantern and some kerosene, the lady doing the selling tells Sandra that she can have both items if he lady can keep...Trish's eyes. Hmm. Sandra repeats this to Trish, who thinks it's a terribly nice compliment and gives the lady all kinds of "ohhh, thank you"s. Sandra explains in an interview that Trish thought the lady was kidding, but Sandra did not think the lady was entirely kidding: "The lady actually, I think, liked her." Sandra pauses. "In a sexual way." Heh. I love her already. She goes on to explain that she had to sort of drag a completely oblivious Trish out of the store. "There's Trish huggin' the lady, and laughin' and gigglin' like it's all good, and I'm like, 'Yo, we need to go.'" Incidentally, I personally think Sandra would have said exactly the same thing if it had been a guy running the store. I can easily imagine the scenario playing out identically. I think if anything, it was Trish who just wasn't as prepared to be wary of a woman coming on to her as she would have been if it had been a man.
"I feel that the village people really respected Sandra," Christa chimes in. Hee, "village people." I still hate her.
Christa's compliments of Sandra's behavior are set against her complaint that some members of the other tribe were not being so nice and respectful. Apparently, while Drake is still in the store, Morgan shows up, and somehow, a confrontation erupts between Trish's girlfriend and Tijuana, whom we see complaining in an almost comically nasal high voice that she wants her money back. She has one of those chirpy baby-girl voices that makes Dr. Drew suspicious of your parents when you call Loveline. There is quite a bit of ugly arguing back and forth between the team and the shopkeeper, and it leads Nicole to conclude in an interview that she doesn't get along with Tijuana and doesn't like the way she behaves. Apparently, the fight turns out all right and they get their ceramic pot or whatever, although we're not given nearly enough information to understand what happens. Maybe the shopkeeper got five intimate minutes with Tijuana.
We cut to a festive backyard party somewhere in town. The Drakes come upon this party, and Sandra sizes it up as an impressive barbecue. She comes up with an inventive plan, and walks up and offers the lady throwing the party her gold chain for everything at the barbecue. The lady agrees, and when she asks Sandra what she wants, Sandra repeats that she means she wants everything. She recalls in an interview what she told the lady: "'I want all your chicken. I want your aluminum foil, I want your ketchup, your hot sauce, your barbecue sauce'...she had a cutting board, a knife...everything. The only thing we didn't take was the grill." That was a nice move, because although you probably wouldn't spend precious money on hot sauce, it's going to be damn nice to have something to taste besides plain, unadorned fish. I was also immediately impressed with Sandra's adaptability and creativity: it's not everyone who would be audacious enough to walk up and just offer to buy out a family barbecue. Oh, and "I want all your chicken" would make a great beginning for a robbery. When they return to a waiting Rupert (who's standing guard over their booty, aye), he's impressed with the take, and particularly happy to see the freshly-cooked chicken in the aluminum bowl.
Tijuana, meanwhile, is dismayed to look over and see the haul that Drake has brought down while she was arguing with Trish's girlfriend. To her credit, she says, "They were taking the time, and we weren't." Her tribe, meanwhile, under the non-brilliant leadership of Osten, has decided that it's time to cut bait on the shopping and head for the boat, even though they haven't even spent the money they think they can afford to spend. Ryan S. complains in an interview that they didn't do a good job getting supplies at all, because they didn't act carefully and because they were overanxious to get to the boat and get on the way to camp. They board their boat, as we see our first shot of Osten's shorts falling down and his ass being pixelized. It's going to be a theme, so be prepared. Morgan's boat takes off for their island.
Accordion-ish Music of Success and Plenty accompanies Drake, just now concluding a very successful shopping day in which they have managed to get some colorful toothbrushes, among other things. Sandra emphasizes that she thinks they did very well with shopping, and got just the things they wanted. They do indeed seem to be hauling quite a lot to the boat, including fishing stuff, wine, a big tarp, machetes...they do indeed have the makings of a nice camp. With all the booze and camping gear, it could be a rich suburban kid's graduation party...well, except for the live chickens. Shawn says that he had pocketed forty balboas, figuring that would be enough for the boat. Indeed, it is, so the team is off on its adventure. Once Jon has wrangled the live chicken back into the fold, that is. They climb aboard the boat and take off. On their boat ride, they're able to enjoy the fruit and chicken and stuff that they brought along. "We're definitely ready to go all-out for the forty days," Christa says. Well, if Christa thinks they're good, I'm sure they are. Unless she's been on Usenet recently, if you know what I mean. And I'm certain that you do.
Commercials. Okay, the flower stampede is cool.
On the Morgan boat (also known as the Ship of Fools), the team is approaching its island and flag. Ryan S. explains that when he saw the flag, he got happy and excited, and figured everyone else would do the same. They didn't. He despairs about his tribemates' failure to "woooo." The Morgan tribe swims to shore, where they start to talk shelter and Osten fails to hike up his shorts, which are showing the unmistakable swath of blurred-out ass-crack that he will be displaying for most of the rest of the episode. There are moments when I do not envy people who produce a show like this, and imagining the poor dear whose job it was to go through this episode and blur Osten's butt fifty or sixty separate times is one of them. Ryan S. continues to complain that people were talking about camp when he got to shore, rather than high-fiving and enjoying the moment or whatever it is he thinks they should have been doing. "Let's jump up and down, let's give some hugs, let's do somethin'," Ryan S. complains in an interview. You know, when I was in college, there was a freshman orientation seminar where they would tell you that you should feel comfortable just standing up in the dining hall and yelling, "I want a standing ovation!" and if you do, everyone should give you one. Every year, somebody did it within the first week or so of school. Ryan S. is not the kind of kid who would actually do this, but he is the kind who would always clap and secretly think it was cool if somebody else did it. As the ever-pushier Osten directs everyone in looking for a shelter location, he interviews that he was "in game mode," and wanted to get done because "the sunrise was going down quickly." Ah, yes. Sunrisedown. It's the most beautiful time of day, really. He continues down the path of authoritarianism by imposing some kind of forced march on his teammates, running up and down the beach in search of a place to call home. Ryan S. interviews that Osten is "a big dude" who certainly wants to make sure no one misses the fact that he's got "muscles out to yay." And that's just sad, because having muscles out to yay is a beautiful thing, and Osten is going to ruin it for everyone.
Osten finally settles and gets Lillian work on digging a big sand hole, which is apparently the first step in shelter-building. It's the fire pit, I guess. And nothing will do wonders for your image like opening with, "Dig the fire pit, old lady!" He tells us that he was completely confused by Lillian's scout uniform, wondering if it was "a joke." Hey, it's not as much of a joke as your droopy shorts, there, Mr. Pixel. Lillian, meanwhile, complains that her troop would "kick [her] butt" if they saw that she was lighting a campfire with a candle. Heh. We switch to her interview, in which she explains that it's a challenge to de-scout and not push everybody around: "It's real hard not to be the scoutmaster here." For some reason -- which isn't but certainly could have been the amusement of me personally -- somebody inserts a little cymbal crash at the moment Lill pulls the scout hat off to demonstrate her point. Just one of those little touches. She and Nicole work on building the fire.
Elsewhere, Andrew and Ryan O. have a plan, and that plan is to build the shelter as a lean-to against a shale wall. This won't require as much building, they figure, and it takes advantage of their surroundings a little better than just plunking the shelter down in the sand. They find some bamboo posts and start setting them against the wall. As they build, Osten manages to pull a big piece of the wall down by just poking it with a stick, and while you and I might file that under "bad omen," Morgan decides not to worry about it. After all, who cares about the wall? What's the worst thing that can happen, death by crushing? Structurally unsound, schmucturally unsound.
The Pirate Map shifts us over from the island marked "Morgan" to the island marked "Drake." Ryan S. should be very jealous, because Drake's arrival at their island is marked by hooting and happiness. They hop off the boat and scurry up the shore. In fact, they even huddle with their hands together and give a football-style cheer. As the shelter-building begins, it becomes clear that Shawn and Burton -- their naked chests blazing and their buffs tied moron-style around their heads -- have decided that they're going to run the place. Shawn tells us that this happened because he and Burton have "a little more strong personalities" and are "a little more physical, you know...uh, mentally, as well." Putting aside the importance of being comprehensible if you're going to bother praising your own intellect, I have to wonder...is Shawn saying he and Burton have stronger personalities than, say, Rupert? Yeah. Okay, there, beefcake. Christa and Rupert start fetching bamboo for the shelter as well as other wood for the fire. Trish thinks it all went swimmingly, and she was surprised at how well everyone worked together. The Drake shelter takes shape fairly quickly, and is built in the increasingly popular style of a bamboo platform lifted up off the ground and covered by a canopy. Burton instructs Christa to go off and fetch "bigger firewood." She interviews that she was extremely tired. "I just wanted to breathe for a second," she complains in her horrifying nasal voice.
In one of those moments that seems small, but is probably going to seriously haunt the people involved, Burton cracks open a coconut, and shares the coconut milk with Shawn and Michelle. As Sandra explains, he shared nothing with anyone else. Now, a coconut doesn't necessarily have enough juice in it to feed eight people, so it's not like he could have shared with everyone. The point, I think, is that if you're not going to have enough for everyone, you have to acknowledge that that's what you're doing, and come up with something moderately diplomatic to say. You can't just share with your buff friend and the girl you've decided you want to sleep with and expect that no one will notice. Because Sandra? Notices everything. Even worse, Shawn makes a great show of going, "Ahhh, refreshing!" when he finishes it. Wow, very bad form. A montage of Shawn and Burton's bossiness follows, and Trish cautions in an interview that the boys have already alienated half the tribe, so they might not want to push their luck. Shawn continues to display his rather weak people skills, too, as we watch him talk to the heavily-bearded Rupert about how funny it is to watch people with beards eat, because of how the beard catches everything. It's the kind of thing you can say to people who like you, but you can't say to people who hate you, because it will make them hate you more. Burton points and laughs. Yeah, they'll be paying for that. Rupert interviews that the boys are a pain in the ass, and that they're just "going to make everybody hate them." I'm well on my way already.
Drake follows its map to the water well, led (surprisingly enough) by Idiot Jon. He explains to us that while the walk to the water well isn't too bad, the place is insane with mosquitoes. Indeed, a sequence follows in which the tribe is shown to be utterly festooned with bites. If you remember the no-nos of the Marquesas and how disgusting it was to look at all those little bumps all the time, the mosquitoes of the Pearl Islands are approximately as aggressive, it appears. Jon comes close to getting off a good line about how Shawn "looks like the moon," but then has to ruin it by unnecessarily adding "except in reverse." As if we didn't understand the crater thing without help. Way to torpedo your own joke, nitwit.
We return to Morgan, over that increasingly irritating soundrack tootling. The crisis of the moment there is water as well, because they've run out of the bottled water on which they apparently spent some of their money. Realizing that, in the wise words of Osten, "water's going to be real important," they set off in a little pack to look for water. The first thing they come across is a little pond of brown water that Lillian explains was "not the kind of water you'd want to drink, even if you boiled it for forty-two hours." In order to avoid disease, they elect against drinking the pond. Wow, good choice. That lesson is up there with Rotting Animals Make Bad Canapés. Osten interviews that they consumed a lot of time "meander[ing] through this beach trying to guesstimate" where they might find water. "Meander"? "Guesstimate"? Dude, never throw your poetry class in the conversational blender with your retirement-planning seminar. He follows with a lecture about the body's tendency to sweat and need rehydration, so I think his repertoire also includes ab-machine infomercials.
Night comes to the Pearl Islands. In the Morgan Shelter of Multiple Building Code Violations, Nicole asks what noise she's hearing, and Ryan O. not-so-reassuringly tells her that it's rocks from the wall falling down. She's disbelieving at first, but it quickly becomes pretty clear that he's right. She interviews that they saw this as a bad development, thinking that if the wall is falling on them now, it's likely only to get worse once it starts to rain. Meanwhile, the night-vision camera also shows us some friendly little crabs that are running around on the sand, undoubtedly not delighted to find interlopers on their usually pleasant beach. Nicole jumps at the biting of her ass, bringing great laughter from her tribemates. It turns out that the place is lousy with crabs, and this is the point at which the tribe realizes that perhaps it would have been a better idea to get the shelter up off the ground. As if there isn't enough hysteria already, Osten announces that there's a snake in the shelter, which gets everyone up and out of bed in a hurry. It turns out, in fact, that what is menacing the tribe is a palm frond. Heh. I sincerely hope that he spends whatever time he has left on the island having people run up and brush his legs with palm fronds, going, "Snake! Snake!" In an interview, Osten proves how well suited he is for this game by telling us that the minute he sees or feels anything unusual, he goes into "freak-out mode." Well, that'll be helpful. Andrew interviews that they're calling Osten "Scary Mary." I guess that's the best Morgan can do, in terms of the witty insults. The wall literally continues falling on Morgan, which I think you will agree is promising, in terms of symbolism.
Over at Drake, rather than being menaced by crabs, the tribe has decided to get boozed up and party. No, really. They snagged some beverages that are in big unlabeled glass jugs, so you know it's probably high-quality stuff. "I don't know if it's moonshine, wine, or just grain alcohol," says Burton in his irritating I-am-handsome voice. I'm thinking if he doesn't know the difference between wine and grain alcohol, he's not going to be serving me drinks anytime soon. He does allow that, no matter what it was, it tasted pretty good at the end of shelter-building day.
The drinking party at Drake offers our first glimpse of what a twit Idiot Jon is really going to turn out to be. As he starts to drink, he gradually unleashes his inner high-school freshman, leading Rupert to observe appropriately that Idiot Jon reminds him of the "troubled teens" with whom he works, who will just "pop off stoooopid stuff, y'know, talk about gettin' some 'honey,' or, smokin' somethin', drinkin' somethin'..." Proving that self-knowledge is not his forte, Idiot Jon interviews that his tremendous sense of humor and how much everyone loves him is a great advantage for him, because he's not strong or especially capable, but he's so funny that no one will be able to resist him. He doesn't seem to understand that he's basically a lot like Amazon Rob, only without that weirdly endearing quality that Amazon Rob had that made it very difficult to entirely dislike him. ["I would also add, to Amazon Rob's credit, that he seemed to have some sense of when he was losing his audience, whereupon he would shut up. Idiot Jon lacks this sense, apparently." -- Wing Chun] Christa does praise Idiot Jon's ability to lighten the mood, but even she admits that he's "a little obnoxious." It's a bad sign for Jon, because if he can't get the barely-coherent Christa rolling, he's not going to have much luck with the members of the team who are fully conscious. He's also one of those guys with absolutely no ability to tell when women are humoring him, which is one of the saddest things ever. As he progresses around the campfire from casual goofing to that weird level of indiscriminate swearing that some people find amusing when they're drunk and no one finds amusing when they're sober, some of the other tribe members look more and more obviously disgusted. Sandra interviews that she can't stand Jon: "He thinks it's cute, but it isn't." Well said. Jon takes a big swig off the bottle as we fade out.
Commercials. If your tastebuds are getting their thrills from Tropical Punch Rolaids, it's time to investigate Thai food.
Morning and a pelican come to the beach. At Drake, it's a very wet, rainy morning as Michelle despairs that some of her stuff will never dry out. She explains in an interview that they chose not to buy clothes in the village, thinking it wouldn't be necessary. Sandra adds that this was indeed a rather unexpected complication, being stuck without clothes. Rupert complains to some of his tribemates that the constantly soaked jeans are just not going to cut it as islandwear. He tells us that having wet denim rub his crotch for a day and a half was not making him happy. Frankly, just hearing about it isn't doing wonders for me, either. Sandra works on making herself some palm-frond slippers, it appears, and Christa interviews that they eventually realized that they could improvise with their clothes a little better than they had done thus far. Trish and Michelle both cut off their skirts, with Michelle planning to make a top from the cut-off part, while Sandra keeps working on her slippers and Shawn cuts off the suit pants into very unattractive shorts. He, of course, manages to mention his Armani suit again, like, WE GET IT, Fashion Plate. He explains that he intends to make "convertible pants" out of the suit for night wearing. Interesting plan, that. All he'll need to do, I guess, is dip into the tribe's supply of zippers, snaps, and buckles. ["Um, everyone knows that a basket of notions is indispensible camping gear." -- Wing Chun] Elsewhere, Christa and Rupert make a deal that she can cut off the bottom of her dress, and he can tie it around his waist and wear it as a skirt. Jon explains this in an interview, referring to Rupert as "Blackbeard," which he apparently thinks is extremely funny. He's wrong. Rupert, on the other hand, is funny as he explains in his interview that he went all along with the silly teasing and laughing and girly stuff, but was actually very happy to get rid of the damn jeans and get into something appropriate for the weather and activities.
Jaunty tootling takes us back over to Morgan, Land of the Lost. They've got one thing on the agenda, and that's finding water, which they haven't done yet. Somewhere along the way here, Tijuana pulls out the map of the camp and notices the big notation on the map for "WATER WELL." Idiots. To their credit, the tribe at least manages to muster some shame about how stupid they are. To the opposite of their credit, it appears that only Ryan S. and Lill go off for water, and it doesn't look like they take any containers besides their cooking pot. Did they not get any containers? Again, idiots. Back at camp, the rest of the tribe gets to work on a proper shelter, meaning one that is up off the ground and is not populated with thriving crustacean colonies or propped up in the shadow of a crumbling pile of rocks and dirt.
On the water walk, Lill complains that, in her troop, they always talk about keeping your uniform nice-looking, so she's a little sad about looking so decrepit in uniform. Hey, she's a pretty lucky lady as far as the clothes she's got with her, so I'd zip it if I were her. She who has foundation garments should be the last to complain. Ryan interviews that he and Lill have sort of become friends, partly because the other girls (Nicole, Tijuana, and Darrah) aren't exactly welcoming to her. The two of them are very happy to come across the well. They collect a small amount of water and leave.
Over at Drake, Michelle is doing a little massage therapy on a guy I'm going to say is Burton, though I could be wrong. Christa is...I don't know, picking nits off Jon's back or something, which will at least make everyone less hungry. Rupert? Well, he's laid out on the platform of the shelter and snoring like a freight train. Excellent. Burton is feeling bored, so he grabs the spear gun and says he's going to go out and grab a fish. He explains that his Best Bud Shawn went with him for the fishing expedition. ["Presumably so that they could hold hands underwater where no one could see." -- Wing Chun] Burton manages to snag a fish with the spear, which makes him feel extremely manly. They triumphantly bring this lone fish back to camp, swaggering like they've just bested a buffalo in a fistfight, and the tribe starts out to cook it over the fire. It occurs to Rupert, however, that this one fish is not exactly going to make eight people feel full. He grabs the spear and heads back out into the water, where he immediately starts pulling in fish as well. He gets one, and then another one, and then another one. He explains that his original plan was to get eight fish -- one per person -- and while he didn't hit that goal, he came pretty close. "I was thrilled," he says. "I had never seen a saltwater catfish! I didn't know they made such a [sic] animal!" As Rupert continues fishing, Burton snots that Rupert's "going to hurt himself," which is easier than admitting that fish are plentiful enough that catching one has turned out to be about as much of an accomplishment around this camp as scratching your ass. Similarly, Shawn explains in his interview that although Rupert did a great job, he was exhausted and "it took him hours to recover from that." I fear that the creaking weight of Shawn's desperate need to disparage Rupert's work is going to give Shawn a slipped disc if he isn't careful. Furthermore, considering that life on Survivor isn't exactly a hubbub of constant activity, I think taking a couple of hours to recover from fetching lunch for your entire tribe really isn't all that bad of a trade-off. The women, meanwhile, are sad to see that Rupert has, among other things, burnt himself to a lobster-like crisp. He explains to us that although he's set a pretty punishing pace for himself, it's been his plan from the beginning to be "the caretaker" and to make people believe that he's indispensable to their survival. He thinks it's working.
Commercials. Oh, Haley Joel Osment, no!
At Morgan, Darrah, Nicole, and Ryan S. stroll along the beach where they just happen to run into a treasure chest set in a half-canoe. What a coincidence! When they open it, they find that it has mail in it. Despite the fact that there is no actual tree involved, they happily return to camp and tell the others that they have treemail. "Boatmail" doesn't sound as good, I suppose. Andrew reads the message out loud, and it is full of the usual treemail idiocy, including the insipid bad rhyming and the semi-nonsensical, ostensibly intriguing details. My favorite line is "Like pirates of old, it's the treasure you thirst." I swear, the more I watch this show, the more I thirst a margarita.
Once he's finished reviewing the clue, Andrew lies down to deliver an inspirational speech about how they just need to focus on the challenge for the relatively short time it will take to get through it. Because they are not exactly medallists from the Academic Decathlon, the rest of the tribe believes that this is a great flash of insight, and it inspires Nicole to suggest that the tribe officially appoint Andrew to be the leader. If he were smarter, Andrew would say, "You know, I'm happy to coordinate planning at the challenge, but I think we all should share leadership back here at camp." But he doesn't. He's all smirky like, "Oh, if you insist." He goes on to tell us in an interview that as they prepare for the challenge, the biggest problem facing the team is Osten's shorts, which do not want to stay up and often offer peeks at what Andrew calls "the crack of his bot-tom," emphasizing the middle "t" in a very prissy fashion. Another Blurred Crack Shot assaults us. Andrew explains that he and Ryan O. have promised Osten that in order to avoid any unnecessary embarrassment, they will drop their shorts as well if he has trouble with his. It seems to me that the sight of the three of them dropping their pants is likely to lead to embarrassment for someone. We just don't know for whom, and with all the blurring, we probably won't find out.
The teams row to Snapping Duck Bay (do ducks snap?), where Peachy is waiting in the jungle to send them on this week's immunity challenge. Of course, it has a purported pirate theme. According to Peachy, one of the things that pirates had to do was transport the booty, so this week's challenge involves hauling and dragging a heavy cannon over an obstacle course, eventually ending with a drag across the beach to the finish line. The course involves two fences through which they'll have to pass the pieces of the cannon, meaning they'll have to disassemble it to get it through. There's also a sort of rock field where they'll have to boot the rocks out of the way to get the cannon through. They also have to have someone carry the tribe flag and one person carry the torch the whole way. I have no idea why that stupid detail was thrown in, except that eight people can't all push a cannon at the same time. It's also time for Peachy to reveal the immunity idol. He pulls back a fringed cloth to reveal an axe with a skull impaled on top of it. Wow, classy. Looks a little like a souvenir from an '80s hair band concert, but...all right. Everyone applauds. After some more random shots of the torch and American Skull Idol, it's time for the race to begin.
Drake is immediately off to a running start, with Morgan following in a sort of dragging start. "Morgan Trailing," says the caption. The cannons are dragged across the dirt. Drake is first to reach the fence, so they get to the business of taking apart their cannon. Both teams wind up stalled at the fence together, and Drake's lead in arriving as well as an apparently superior performance at cannon breakdown and reassembly stake them to a good lead heading out of the fence obstacle. As Drake runs off with their cannon, you can see Jon and Christa (who's carrying the flag) arranging logs in the path to slow Morgan down. Ooh, sneaky. Morgan finally gets its act together and gets on its way. Drake reaches the part of the course with all the rocks and logs that have to be moved, and while they seem daunted at first, they fairly quickly get down to business.
Along about here, Osten complains to Ryan O. that his shorts are coming down, and Ryan realizes that it's time to employ the shorts-taking-off strategy discussed earlier. "What are you guys doin'?" Peachy asks with some confusion as he sees Osten and Ryan getting naked. He points out that Osten -- who doesn't have a shirt on either -- is a Survivor first in completing a nude challenge. As Andrew joins the boys in going pants-free, Peachy comments that the ones who are naked are "not the ones anybody wants to see." Excuse me? Speak for yourself, there, you selfish little stone fruit. "They better hope they don't lose their weenies out here," Sandra says plainly. I'm starting to really value her ability to cut right to the chase. I would add that Tijuana's ass is also blurred here, so I think she's got her skirt hiked up so high that her coverage is suffering, too. Finally, the tribes get the rocks moved and get going again. "Drake Leading," says the caption. Then we cut back to a shot of Morgan, featuring enormous blurred naked asses right in the middle of the screen. The caption -- which last time said, "Morgan Trailing" -- now says "Morgan Behind." HA! Aaaand the post-production guys get their first fruit basket of the new season. Drake remains ahead, Morgan remains behind (hee), and we approach the obstacle, which is just kind of a bunch of wooden poles and stuff that you have to get through. Burton starts crushing through the wood, picturing all the sex he's going to get after the show for this. Rupert starts to offer genuine, caveman-like grunts as he shoves the cannon forward through the muddy course. "MMMWWWAAAAH!" he offers.
We move to the beach. "Drake Leading," says the caption. At this point, Drake has a lead of several cannon-lengths and looks safely headed for the flag. Peachy admonishes that the cannons are heavy, and will require strong dragging to make it across the sand and to the finish line. Not only this, but it's clear that if you hit the wrong patch of sand and it's too wet or too unstable, you can abruptly find yourself stuck, which happens to Drake about halfway to the finish. They pull and tug in earnest while Morgan comes up beside them and actually manages to pass. I'm sort of appalled at the amount of standing around that Drake seems to be doing while they're being passed by Morgan. Once Drake gets itself freed up, it is, as Peachy says, a surprisingly tense "sprint to the finish." I'd point out that for all his failings, Ryan S. is dragging his ass off during this segment, clearly straining for all he's worth to get to the finish line. As they head for the finish line, Morgan now manages to get itself stuck. They tug and tug and tug, but Drake comes up on them and passes again. Drake drags across the finish line and Peachy declares them victorious. A lot of very, very tired people collapse on the beach, utterly worn out. "We didn't even have to get naked!" yells Shawn, like the huge gloating asshole that he is. Peachy hands over the immunity idol, and while Drake celebrates loudly and rather ungraciously, Peachy reminds Morgan that the time he sees them, they'll be there to vote somebody off. Rupert cuddles the immunity skull as we head out.
Commercials. Derek Jeter needs credit to go out? I don't think I get it.
Back at Drake, the mood is merry. Some of the tribemates are having a swim, and Rupert is explaining that when Morgan passed them on the course, he "was ready to puke and cry." Hee. That reminds me of a line from a true story once told in the St. Paul paper in its Bulletin Board column, in which a kid who was heartbroken at having accidentally hurt his friend with a hockey stick earnestly told the friend by manner of apology, "I coulda barfed my heart out." Anyway, Shawn, scratching his leg in an interview, brags that they beat Morgan not on strength, but on "will power." Eh. "Dude, there was [sic] too many naked men behind us," Burton says, managing to discuss gang nudity without having a single witty or interesting thing to say about it, which is quite an accomplishment, really. Michelle explains in an interview that when she saw guys with their "junk hanging out like nobody's business," she shielded her delicate eyes so she wouldn't see it. "Their asses were in my face!" she complains during the Swim-N-Gloat. "I wasn't impressed...I wish their dingalings got stuck on a vine," Sandra interviews with a smirk and her usual directness. You know, if Sandra wrote recaps, they would be two pages long. Rupert interviews that when he saw "them idiots bouncing around naked in the mud, in the muck, in the stickers and the thorns...it was hilarious." The gloaters agree as they bathe that what's really cool is the fact that they don't have to send anybody home.
Obviously, things at Morgan are more subdued. Andrew is giving the post-challenge breakdown. "That sucked any way you look at it," he says. "We lost by about a foot, we learned from it, we move on, and we kick their butt time, and we remember how cocky they were when they won." The team nods agreeably. Later, Tijuana, Nicole, and Darrah stroll on the beach, where they run into Ryan O. and Andrew. Andrew says, "You ladies saw what we saw." "What did you see?" Tijuana asks. "We saw our friend Ryan [S.], who's back at the camp, just quit about a third of the way in." Andrew goes on to complain that Ryan S. was slacking the entire time. Tijuana puts in a word for possibly booting Lill. Andrew answers that he thinks all the rest of the challenges will be equally strenuous, so the question is whether they want to keep Lill and hope she's up for it, or keep "the limp noodle," Ryan S. Wow. "Limp noodle" isn't a very nice thing to say. Just as they're having this conversation, Lillian is complaining to Ryan S. that she doesn't fit in with the girls or the guys, and feels pretty much isolated. "Hang in there. This game changes every day," Ryan says, quite correctly. In a quick standup interview, Lill explains that she took the challenge loss hard, because she thinks she's an obvious candidate for the boot. Ryan tells her not to give up until her torch is out. He's kind of annoying, but he's right in this case.
Nicole comes to visit with Lillian at some later time, and presents a new theory. She'd like to boot Tijuana. No sooner has she spoken these words, however, than we see Lillian carry this news directly to Andrew and Ryan O. She tells them about Nicole's offer to boot Tijuana. According to Lillian, she didn't see much justification for Nicole's argument, given the Nicole's reasoning for booting Tijuana was apparently the old "she's bugging me" argument, which one can't expect anyone else to find compelling. Andrew interviews that he doesn't think Lillian is even capable of lying, so he's quite sure that the story about Nicole is true. He carries the story to Tijuana herself, who is appalled to hear that she was targeted by anyone. Tijuana, in turn, tells Andrew that Nicole's story was that Lillian was the one who suggested her ouster. So either Nicole is lying, or Lillian is, and neither Andrew nor Tijuana seems to find it very challenging to guess at which it is. "Lill is not conniving," Andrew says to Tijuana.
Trying to get to the bottom of things, Tijuana goes to talk to Nicole directly, with Darrah standing by. In what's just about her first comment of the entire show, Darrah comments that she originally liked Nicole, but now she's not sure if Nicole can be trusted. Nicole tries a psychobabblicious technique of asserting herself by saying, "You're making me very uncomfortable in the situation." As much as I don't care for Tijuana, she's got a point when she says that all she's doing is asking about something that got back to her. She didn't create the uncomfortable situation. "If you don't trust me..." Nicole starts to protest. "I want to trust you," Tijuana answers, "and that's why I'm asking you." In an interview, however, Tijuana reveals that things have deteriorated further, because she confirms that she and Nicole are at "enemy status."
As Morgan prepares dinner, Andrew interviews that he thinks the people at risk of being voted off are Ryan for slacking, Nicole for being a bitch, and Lill for...well, for being over female and fully dressed, I guess.
thing you know, it's time to row to tribal council. Ryan took some heat from the Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters for allegedly rowing the wrong direction here, but I think he's actually just out of rhythm at first. They're all putting their oars in the water ahead of them, so I think he was just off-rhythm, not actually rowing against the team. At Tribal Council Island, the tribe members climb a long set of stairs and makes their way to the usual firepit-centered tribal council set. Andrew is looking particularly dapper in his suit jacket and boxer shorts, I would point out. Looks like a nice outfit for a particularly rushed walk of shame, if you ask me. Peachy tells them all that they can grab a torch and light it. Blah blah blah, fire represents life, blah blah blah. They sit.
First, Peachy wants to ask about the nakedness. He seems to find it particularly bad because they lost, which I kind of don't understand. Win, lose...you're still naked. Peachy asks them if they have regrets, and Osten quickly says that there are no regrets. It's time to move on. With clothes on, one hopes. Peachy asks Ryan O. how things have been for him. He says that everybody's been great, and while he can handle the lack of food, he's struggling with the lack of water. Andrew, on the other hand, says that water hasn't been a problem for him -- sleep has been a problem. He claims not to have gotten more than forty-five minutes of sleep the entire time, and when Peachy asks him why that is, he explains that when they rebuilt the shelter, they built themselves a very uncomfortable platform to sleep on. Peachy turns to Lill and gives her a chance to give her troop back home a shout-out. He asks her whether her scout training has been helpful, and she says that it has. Not only has her substantive training been good, but she's also patient, because of her experience working with "children." "I'm patient," she says gamely, hoping that this will not be her Survivor epitaph.
Peachy now moves the conversation to the topic of "friendships." He turns to Nicole, because he's petty that way, which is one of his first good qualities. Nicole speaks cryptically about people having more than one side to their personalities, and we get a shot of Osten barely holding back from giving her a huge raspberry right in the face. Peachy asks if there are any leaders, and Lill pins the target to Andrew. She says that Andrew's ability to listen to the entire team is his best quality as a leader -- something she learned in Scouts, no doubt. Peachy now turns to the newly-appointed bigwig himself and asks Andrew whether anyone isn't pulling his weight. Andrew, without flinching, names Ryan S., accusing him of lagging during the challenge. "He didn't wake up and show me the passion that we needed," Andrew says, slipping seamlessly from the leadership role the team asked for -- which was basically coordinating efforts so they don't fight -- to the one most likely to cause people to hate him, which is acting as the judge of people's value. Peachy asks Skinny Ryan whether he's been pulling his weight. Ryan says he thinks he has, and that he thinks reports of his slacking during the challenge are greatly exaggerated. I have to say, I do, too. I think he suffered during the challenge from that phenomenon where there are so many people on top of a task that you don't really know what to do without getting in everybody's way and it winds up looking like you're not doing anything, but at the end, he was obviously going all-out trying to drag the cannon in the sand, so I think Andrew is basically full of crap here. Ryan acknowledges that there's not a whole lot he can do about it if other people choose to think of him as a slacker.
Time to begin the voting. Peachy sends Nicole to vote first. She votes for Ryan S. "Ryan S.," she says earnestly into the camera, "I'm voting for you because you're the only person I know other people are planning to vote for." to vote is Darrah, and then Andrew, and then Tijuana, who votes for Nicole. Her camera-talk calls out Nicole's efforts to boot her, and says that she fortunately found out in time and put a stop to it. Ryan O. votes. Osten votes. Ryan S. votes. Lill votes. Peachy says that he'll go off and "tally" the eight votes. Oh, how I love that. I wonder if he can do it without taking his shoes and socks off. A very worried-looking Ryan S. awaits the results.
Peachy returns. First vote goes to Nicole. Second vote goes to Ryan. Third, fourth, and fifth go to Nicole, so she gets the dubious honor of being the first bootee. She takes her torch over to Peachy, who executes her in the smarmy and ridiculous manner to which we have all become so very accustomed. Nicole tank-walks, Jen Lindley-style, down the walkway away from tribal council. Peachy delivers a stern lecture to the rest of the group about the fact that, clearly, some of them thought their numbers might be up. Never give up, he Gippers: "You are not out of this game until your torch is snuffed."
Arrrrrr!
week: Shawn ticks off Rupert. Rupert yells. Someone at Morgan wants to go home. Andrew flexes. Undoubtedly, there are pirate references. Don't miss a minute of the treasure chest of goodness and misery.