Previously: Over the side of the boat, mateys! Aye, you'll be walkin' the plank! Except without the plank! Or the walkin'! The Drake and Morgan tribes washed ashore in Panama just long enough for Rupert to abscond with some of Morgan's booty and Morgan to emerge with bupkus in the booty department. (Incidentally, The Booty Department is the name of J.Lo's album, which she is desperately hoping to release before the last four remaining people on earth who don't despise her change their...oh, never mind. Too late.) The teams reached camp and got underway, and Morgan didn't need a wall to fall on them for them to figure out that they were overmatched. Surprisingly, a wall fell on them anyway. The immunity challenge was a rout and Drake rolled away with it, unfazed by mud, sticks, or Morgan's rampant and highly strategic nudity. In the wake of the big loss, Nicole's luck didn't hold up any better than her dress, and she found herself on the crap end of Peachy's snuffer. Snuff! Goodbye, Nicole.
Credits. Arrrrrr! I wonder if this is the first time there's been a gun in the credits. I tell you, we're making history, here, folks. Not just any history, either. Angry, violent history with exploitation of the environment and the crushing of the weak. Hey, now we can be in all the high-school textbooks!
It is Night 3 at Morgan, or so the captions tell us as we stare at the ashy gray sky and the fuzzy full moon. We're in for a long stretch of night-vision camerawork here, because midnight at Morgan is a dark, dark time, both literally and figuratively. Lill stares miserably into the fire, visualizing how much better this would all be if it were more like a Boy Scout Jamboree. I think she's singing camp songs in her head. ("My father is a fireman! Heeeeee...puts ouuuut...fiiiiires!") Maybe she just wants there to be fewer biting insects and more s'mores. Tijuana sits hugging herself and staring into the fire, which she would like you to think is because she is fully occupied thinking deep thoughts about electoral politics or how to genetically-engineer the skinless potato, but which is probably in fact the result of her deep conviction that it's only worth lifting your arms if you're going to wrap them around the most totally awesome person within reach. She voices over that the nights have been "breaking [her] down." Ah, yes, those punishing nights. All two of them. She complains that it's cold outside, and that it's hard to sleep. There is further auto-snuggling.
In a conversation with Tijuana, Osten notes that, among other things, their fire has all the warmth of Bryant Gumbel's birthday party, and he thinks they could shiver a little less if they improved it. He goes on to explain in an interview that he will probably get pneumonia. Unfortunately, Osten has not heard the news that cold weather's causal link to pneumonia is highly questionable. The group settles down to try to go to sleep, but it appears that the floor of their shelter is so badly constructed that it actively repels sleep by thrusting sticks up into their necks. Andrew comments that the group has been suffering from sleep deprivation, having had about an hour or two of sleep total over the three days. He says that if they don't get it solved, people will start hallucinating. He does not add, "Suffering from, for instance, delusions of grandeur and boatloads of denial over the fact that most leaders are eventually devoured by their ungrateful erstwhile toadies."
We now see Ryan S. apparently sitting on a log, slumped forward in a most disheartening attempt to sleep sitting up. Boy, it's a bad shelter that doesn't make a better pillow than your kneecaps. In an interview apparently done the morning, Ryan S. tells us that he doesn't remember sleeping at all. He says that he thinks he'll be all right once he gets some water and food, but in the long run, he needs to find a new sleeping plan. "This isn't working for me," he says, as we return to the night before and see him sitting with a concerned Lill. Osten approaches and sympathetically puts a hand on Ryan's shoulder, before rather less sympathetically voicing over, "Skinny Ryan, his best day, doesn't equate to what I can do on my worst day." Wow, yeah. I hate it when other people don't equate to what I can do. Osten, in case you haven't noticed, desperately needs to stop constructing his sentences with Tinkertoys. Or at least he needs to stop mixing real Tinkertoys with pencils and spools of thread. "That's no knock to him," Osten continues. "He just physically -- he has nothing to offer. He just doesn't have what it takes to get it done." As we all now know, Osten, of course, is the master of having what it takes to get it done, so be sure to file that remark under "True (Totally)" rather than "Ironic (Bitterly)." On Night-Vision Cam, we see Ryan's not-at-all-knocked, nothing-to-offer, not-equating-to-Osten face in extreme and unflattering night-vision close-up.
Morning comes. A pirate flute offers its melodious Tootle of Greetings. Rupert and Trish are taking a waterside stroll over at Drake, where it's nothing but sandy beaches, shared skirts, and that warm sense of community that you can only get from sharing each other's intrusive stench to the point where you can't smell yourself. Rupert tells Trish that last night was much better than the night before as far as his "whole state of mind," and he then tells us in an interview that he's "loving life, loving this place, and loving the position [he's] in." Heartily munching on what is apparently his Iron John moment, Rupert jumps up to pull some branches from a tree, and as he bounces on a branch with his skirt happily flapping in the Panamanian winds, we see London. We see France. We may even see parts of Luxembourg and the Netherlands. That right there might be the Equator. Anyway, Rupert talks about how he's in a lovely location with nice people, and that he's surrounded by "beautiful souls." And Shawn. Speaking of whom, I'm afraid I had a very brief encounter with impure thoughts about Shawn's pirate pants along about here. I apologize. In a separate interview, Rupert says that while his tribe isn't "truly lazy," some members are having problems here in paradise. We see Shawn squander a bunch of coconut milk by slopping it down his front, earning himself some ribbing from Best Bud Burton. It would seem sort of excessive to pick on people for being lazy when they're literally not intellectually advanced enough to nourish themselves without a sippy cup, so I sort of see Rupert's point.
And now, it is time for the tender love story of Rupert and the Sea. We see him spear-fishing, and he tells us that he "love[s] being in the middle of a giant fish tank." A yellow fish comes up to the camera and opens its mouth wide. "Woooo!" it says. "Fish rule!" A pincushionfish -- apparently an escapee from a Dr. Seuss book -- swims by. Rupert explains that he loves being able to go out and bring fish back for the team. There is fishing. Later, happy Leon Redbone-esque music plays as Drake sits around a campfire and enjoys what genuinely looks for all the world like a beach party. All they need is a volleyball net, a keg, and the unmistakable wail of police sirens. Rupert delivers a lecture to Burton about the fact that the tip of the spear can get loose at times, so before he fishes and while he's fishing, Burton should make sure that he keeps it tight. In a weird interview in which Rupert just begins to chip away at my abiding love for him, he refers to it as "my spear" and talks about how he'd rather do all the fishing himself than worry about loaning the spear to these boneheads. As much as I'm with him on the bonehead issue, the spear isn't actually his, and that attitude is going to get really old. Rupert insists in a voice-over that he needs to eat meat, so he can't afford to have the spear gone. Unfortunately, he's eventually going to have to accept that he's going to sink or swim with his team, and that nobody's perfect, including himself. Which he doesn't seem to realize right at the moment, unfortunately. Drake members announce that their food is good, and that they're "full." It's safe to say they're probably about as well-off in terms of sustenance and morale as we've ever seen a team at this point.
Meanwhile, at the Camp of the Damned, Ryan S. hits the Correspondence Canoe and brings back the entirely non-arboreal "treemail" for the day. He voices over that this challenge is a "super big one" for him personally, because he's managed to earn an early reputation for slacking off in challenges, so he needs to hit this one hard. The treemail indicates that it's a reward challenge, so of course the members of Morgan high-five each other, dreaming of the finer things, like Ho-Hos, clean undies, and feather pillows. And, of course, some emergency substitute team members who suck less than the ones they have now. Ryan S. interviews that he has to come up with something extra for the challenge, or he'll be screwed. He protests that he may not even have the necessary strength "harnessed away in this poor little body." Well, he's at least got self-awareness going for him, I suppose.
Swashbuckling music plays as the teams converge on Snapping Duck Bay, where all the really mercurial ducks hang out. Drake gets to see for the first time that Morgan has done away with Nicole. Interestingly but unsurprisingly, the members of Drake stand on their mat with everyone's arms around each other, the picture of unity and love, while the members of Morgan stand on their mat looking miserable and depressed, already thinking about who they'll eat first. Peachy explains the reward challenge, which goes something like this: There's a sort of playing field out in the water, marked off by buoys. Within that area, sitting on the ocean floor, each team has five items waiting to be grabbed. Predictably, it's costume-party-type pirate booty, like pearls, a Silverette® goblet, and so forth. Not that I'm complaining. It would be worse if they used the natural surroundings. I don't really want to watch them retrieve a tire, a piece of medical waste, a mafia figure, a fishing lure, and one of those yellow rubber duckies that fell off that cargo ship in the North Pacific. Anyway, one at a time, the team members will swim out, dive, and retrieve an object off the bottom. There's also a treasure chest assigned to each team under the water. All the items eventually have to be deposited in the chest. When a team has put all of its items in the chest, they'll swim out together, get the treasure chest, and haul it back to shore. The first team to have its treasure chest back to the flag with all the booty in it will win the reward. And what is the reward? Well, it turns out that each team's island has a treasure chest with great stuff in it buried somewhere. Peachy hands each team a shovel and a key to the chest for when they eventually find it. The winner of the reward challenge will get part of a map to find the chest. Also, whoever wins the challenge will get to "loot" an item from the other team's camp -- a practice that will be followed for all the rest of the team reward challenges. Andrew shakes his head miserably, thinking that there's nothing of value to take from his camp except for, of course, him. "Perhaps I will be stolen!" he thinks to himself. He thinks about ways to secure himself to the shelter using lengths of chain, and then he remembers that they don't have any lengths of chain. He wonders whether he can build a moat around himself.
Drake has to choose a member to sit out, and chooses Sandra. The first two people to swim out against each other, it appears, are going to be Ryan S. and Burton. Oh...dear. Well, might as well just go ahead and call the case of Lamb v. Slaughter, your honor. On Peachy's signal, Burton and Ryan S. both run out into the water. Ryan S. gets off to a bad start by kind of dog-paddling with his head up out of the water, which slows him down as compared to the actually swimming Burton. Out at the buoys, Burton dives down to the bottom and snags the silver goblet. Ryan S. bobs at the top of the water. Uh oh. He has abandoned his face mask, for one thing, and can't seem to decide whether he wants to wear it or not. Burton, on the other hand, dives down to the bottom at the chest fully masked, opens it up, and drops the goblet in. Drake cheers for Burton as he swims back toward the rest of his tribe.
The trials of Ryan S. continue as he puts the mask back on, dives under the water, and immediately tears the mask back off and resurfaces. It looked from the cascade of bubbles coming from his face like he never got the mask on right, so it filled up with water when he dove. Basically, the kid has mishandled the mask rather badly, and his indecision over it seems to be his biggest problem right now. His team looks on miserably. Burton runs up the beach and hands off to Shawn, who runs into the water. Ryan S. -- having ditched his mask again and trailing it in one hand -- dives below again, and this time, he finally comes up with the goblet. Andrew looks on disapprovingly. "He has displeased me," Andrew ominously grumbles inside his head. Shawn adjusts his mask and dives for the pearls, snagging them without too much difficulty. He resurfaces just as Ryan S. makes the dive for the treasure chest. Unfortunately, the chest is far enough away that he doesn't make it, and he bobs to the surface. Humiliating him now and for all time to the point where people will insult him from open car windows, Peachy yells out that Ryan S. can bring the goblet back if he wants and hand it off to the person, who will presumably try to drop it in the chest. I guess the deal is that each person can only grab one item, but other than that, you can do it however you want.
As Shawn deposits Drake's second item in the chest, a despairing Ryan S. swims for shore. When he arrives, he hands off the goblet to Ryan-O, who takes the goblet but tosses aside the mask entirely. And there's really no nice way to say this, but somebody apparently missed Ryan-O's wonderfulness completely flying out of the front of his shorts as he runs into the water. (In my defense, I would not have noticed this, of course. It was pointed out by the Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters. It's not like I sit on the pause button looking for this sort of thing. But once you see it? There it is.) Rupert takes the handoff from Shawn and heads out. Wearing, you'll note, the mask. A despondent Ryan S. -- knowing that he's most likely sealed his fate -- sits behind his team on the sand with a long string of snot dropping from the end of his nose. He's wet, too, but water's not that...um, stretchy. (Ch-ching! I just scored the Recapper Bodily Fluid Identification Bonus! It's about time somebody got it besides Aaron.) Ryan-O and Rupert get back out to the buoys at about the same time. Ryan-O goes for the chest to drop off the goblet, but he has some trouble opening it, along with some trouble with his shorts, which drop down to his knees, providing another opportunity for the visual dance party that is the pixelizing of a bare ass. He can't get the chest open, so he goes back up to the top, and then we see Rupert grab the candelabra off the bottom. It appears that Shawn left the chest open, because Rupert is able just to drop the candelabra in. Finally, the still-pixelized Ryan-O gets the chest open and deposits the goblet that Ryan S. procured. Rupert returns to shore and tags Christa.
Christa dives to the bottom and emerges with a silver plate. She comes to the top, bobs, and dives down to the bottom again to dump it in the chest, dangling the mask in her hand. So it is, I guess, possible to do it without the mask on. She comes back to shore, and Ryan-O goes to the bottom to get the pearls. Back on shore, Christa hands off to Burton, who apparently is allowed to go again. He runs out to get the last item. Ryan-O returns to shore and passes off the pearls to Lill. She swims out in her Boy Scout shirt and her white undies. Back at home, her troop gets a group rate for therapy. Meanwhile, Burton grabs the gold bowl off the bottom. He dumps it in the chest and closes it. He returns to shore, so his teammates can now all turn and swim out to retrieve the chest. Lill has grabbed the candelabra for the badly trailing Morgan. Drake, however, has converged on its treasure chest, preparing to drag it to shore. Lill has apparently gotten the candelabra into the chest, and she returns and tags Andrew. Drake continues dragging the chest. Andrew grabs the plate. Drake drags their chest up onto the shore. Andrew, not having even bothered to put the plate in the chest, brings it up on shore in no hurry whatsoever. You know, we've seen enough teams blow these challenges in various ways (getting the wrong thing, etc.) that it seems to me that you never stop trying like that, just in case. But Andrew is all about the opposite of leadership and giving about 60%, I suppose. Anyway, in this instance, Peachy confirms that Drake has correctly completed the challenge. They all hug and congratulate themselves in that way they're developing that could potentially come back to haunt them if Morgan ever actually won any challenges. Of course, this doesn't currently appear to be anything Drake needs to worry about. Peachy hands over the first buried-treasure clue to Drake. He also reminds them that they'll be sending an ambassador over to Morgan later to steal something. Morgan sits miserably on the beach, undoubtedly blaming Ryan S. for all of their misery, not that most of the rest of them didn't do almost as badly.
Commercials. It's so good to see Cindy Crawford working again.
Fanfare for the Common Survivor -- which does not at all infringe on any copyright owned by the estate of Aaron Copland -- welcomes us back to the Pearl Islands, and specifically to the camp of the victorious Drake tribe. They open their treasure clue, which has some typically low-rent poetic instructions that rhyme and make no sense. Burton explains that their "hands are tied, because it's high tide." Yeah, that and the fact that they don't have enough information to find the chest anyway. Drake then enters into a discussion (including the annoying expression "in agreeance," which seems to be stalking me) about what Morgan might have that could be worth taking. Shawn suggests that one thing that would be really useful would be a water jug (they have one already, but they want another). Jon counters that he'd rather use the opportunity to hurt Morgan, and he believes that it's possible that they have more than one water jug, so taking one wouldn't hurt them. What might hurt them, he suggests, is taking their tarp, if they have one. Rupert insists that it isn't necessary to hurt Morgan, implying but not saying that you don't need to go out and hurt a team that appears not to be able to spit without hitting itself in the face. He's right, but Jon is also right in the limited sense that if you take something the other team really wants, then if they get the opportunity to raid your camp, they're likely just to take it back, rather than take something of yours that you really like. Like, I don't know, the spear. The team elects Sandra to go on the raid, and Michelle quite correctly interviews that she was happy not to have to go, because it's essentially impossible to do that without putting a big target on your back. Rupert gives Sandra a big hug and sends her on her way to Morgan.
Speaking of Morgan, things are sad over at the Camp of the Damned. Andrew interviews that it was no fun for the members of Morgan to get their butts kicked, nor to know that "[they] did so miserably." And when Andrew says "we," he means "people in the tribe, not including me." "We are at a subsistence level right now," Andrew says. He's very concerned about what will happen when "some little punk" from Drake comes to take something. "It's huge," he says. He talks to Osten and expresses his concern that Drake might take the tarp, probably because it's essentially the only thing they have in their camp unless Drake wants to walk off with a big burlap bag of suck. Osten first says, "Hell no!," as if he would never let that happen. Hilariously, he then realizes slowly that indeed, that's the item most likely to be taken, and having something taken from you that you would not have voluntarily surrendered is kind of what "looting" means. His face falls. Andrew nods gravely at him. Osten announces that if Drake takes the tarp, he's going home. Thinking Osten's kidding, Andrew laughs. Oh, Andrew, how you do underestimate what a big weenie Osten is going to turn out to be. Andrew and Osten are getting to be the most unlikable duo since Jun and Alison.
A speedboat carries Sandra through the water on her way to Morgan. She looks out over the water, enjoying the ride and fantasizing about thievery. Just like me, every time I got to the Mall of America. (Just kidding, mall security! Don't detain me!) The members of Morgan spot the boat coming in the distance, and they watch miserably as it approaches. Sandra comes up the beach and is greeted by Ryan S. "Are you the ambassador of the Morgan tribe?" she says. "I'm the goober of the Morgan tribe," he says miserably. Heh. They shake hands. "You guys doin' okay?" she asks. Before Ryan S. can answer, he and Sandra encounter Tijuana and the rest of Morgan. There are introductions all around. "This is nice," Sandra says, trying for diplomacy. "How's it compare to your camp?" someone (I think Ryan S.) asks. "Ours is nice, too," she says. She interviews that when she arrived at Morgan, she was shocked to see that they basically had absolutely nothing in the entire camp. "I don't know how they're getting through," she says. Sandra explains to Morgan -- in what sounds like it's part of a discussion about camp furnishings rather than just an out-and-out nose-rubbing -- that Drake was able to buy a lot of stuff in the village before its members left. She wanders around the camp, and explains to us that she's looking for the water jug. Of course, Morgan doesn't have one. When Sandra ascertains that there's no water jug, she drops the hammer and tells them that she's taking the tarp that is serving as the roof of the Morgan shelter. Ryan-O petulantly (and rather stupidly) tells her that she'll have to take it down herself. "Yep," Tijuana chirps snottily. I understand that they're scraping for a smidgeon of pride here, but if they were smart, they would have sucked it up and realized that she was taking the tarp either way, and if they helped her, they might be able to minimize the damage to what there is of the roof and walls.
Her hand thus forced, Sandra sets about disassembling the shelter in order to uncover the fastenings for the tarp. She peels away all the palm fronds from the roof and the walls. "She's gonna ruin it," Ryan-O says unhappily. Can you really "ruin" a shelter so inhospitable that you can't even sleep in it? Apparently, Ryan-O missed the part of wilderness camp where they explained that your shelter is supposed to be better than sleeping hanging upside-down from a tree fully exposed to the elements, not worse. Sandra tells the assembled Morgan tribe members that she's trying to lay the fronds down as carefully as she can so that they can put it back together as easily as possible, which looks to be pretty much true. "I'll be done in a minute; I'll be out of you guys's [sic] hair," she says. Sandra interviews that she felt kind of bad about destroying the shelter until the Morgan members "started running their mouths." Apparently, Sandra went for a knife to cut through the ropes tying the tarp to the poles, and Tijuana announced that she couldn't use the knife and couldn't cut the ropes. They look to be little ropes that have been used just as ties, so it's not clear to me that there's much point in stopping her from cutting through them, but Sandra, without complaint, just takes to untying them instead. "Don't wreck the shelter," one of them admonishes her. Please. "I gotta do what I gotta do," Sandra says flatly. "No, not necessarily," Andrew says. What is he, bargaining with her now? Yeah, she so needs him. Darrah interviews that she thought Sandra was jerky about coming over and taking the tarp. In fact, she thinks the entire Drake tribe is a bunch of "[expletive]s." Pricks? It's hard to say. She doesn't lip-read easy, but it might have been "pricks." She insists that Sandra was "a little bit too snatchy" and tore the shelter down "on purpose." Dude. If you want to control how the tarp is taken, go help. It's not that complicated an equation. "No hard feelings," Sandra says as she walks off with the tarp, leaving behind her many, many hard feelings. See, this is one of those situations where I think she was right and they were jerks, but I still think she should have or could have been more prudent about the way she did that. For good or for ill, those people are going to hold that against her, and if she ever does need any of their help, it's not going to be forthcoming. "She is such a bitch," says (I think) Darrah. Totally. Self-sufficiency is ooky. It is way better to let the boys run everything and tell you what to do.
On to the subplot. As the various members of Morgan set about rebuilding the shelter, Osten announces to Andrew and Ryan-O that when they shelter is rebuilt, he might just decide to quit. He claims to be "spent." Andrew lectures in an interview that they need people in the tribe who are "digging this game." Wow, thanks for visiting from the set of The Joker's Wild. He says that quitters are bad for morale (duh). Tijuana pulls Osten aside to try again to keep him on the island. She tells him that the game is mental, but he once again insists that the cold and rain will give him pneumonia. Sigh. Tijuana asks him to stay, not just for the tribe, but for her personally. "We're here in this together," she says meaningfully. "[Chicka-bamp]?" asks a quiet voice inside Osten's head, feeling an odd stirring in its hips. Tijuana interviews that she thinks she said all she could, and that now, whether he quits is up to Osten. Osten walks on the beach at sunset, posing for a greeting card called "Sometimes Life's Difficulties Are Hard For Us To Understand."
Commercials. I wouldn't go see a movie with The Rock in it if my eyeballs were frozen and I lived in Antarctica and the power was out forever and the theater was the secret location of the only existing battery-powered eyeball-warmer. ["Snob!" -- Wing Chun]
Back at Drake, fish are plentiful. Shawn is taking a turn with the spear. When he comes up on shore, he delivers bad news to the tribe. Basically, as he was fishing, he managed to lose the tip of the spear, and it's now either somewhere under a rock or it's swirling around in the tide. Having spent quite a bit of time looking for it, he's now given up. "My spear is dead," Rupert spits, once again chipping a little piece off of how much I like him. He berates Shawn for not having brought back the tip with him, and Shawn says that he looked quite a bit and wasn't able to come up with it. In an interview, Rupert ridicules Shawn, saying that it's impossible to have legitimate problems with current in their inlet, which is "a bathtub." Moreover, anyplace that has high and low tides has movement of the water, so Rupert is full of it, as I'm beginning to think he not infrequently is. Back on the beach, Rupert tells Shawn that this is why he wanted to be the only person who used the spear: "You lost my bag and you killed my spear." Yeah. You know, I hate to say it, but I can begin to see how, if Rupert isn't careful, he is going to bug the living crap out of me in about a week and a half. Shawn sucks it up and tells Rupert that he didn't do it on purpose, but that he understands that Rupert is mad. He suggests that they continue looking for it rather than standing around talking about it. Rupert returns to abusing Shawn about having lost the tip.
Around the fire, Rupert keeps it up, complaining that Shawn lost their best meat source. Christa suggests that they can just make a pact that Shawn can't spearfish anymore. Shawn says that all he was doing was trying to help by fishing, which I think is very true. Rupert continues to whang away on how important the spear head is. Dude. We got it. Seriously. The best part of this scene is actually Christa, declaring Shawn in an interview to be "the biggest puss [she] has ever met." Heh. Presumably, there's something more to that than the spear-losing, but I'm all for random insults inserted at unexpected moments. Finally getting on the "act, don't talk" train, Rupert goes out in the water and starts searching for the spear head. Just as, I'd point out, Shawn agreed to do himself. The mournful music on the soundtrack as Rupert explains the painful loss he has suffered, by the way, is more than a little much. Unsurprisingly, Rupert finds the spear head. He emerges with it. He yells. He screams. He hollers at the top of his lungs in self-love. Unfortunately, it's right about here that I decide...Rupert amuses me, but he also irritates me. He hooks back up with Shawn, crows for a while about having found the spear, and then finally, blessedly, lets it drop already. Rupert insists that if they hadn't found the spear, Shawn would have been out of the game, no question. Okay, first of all? I don't think so. I doubt they would have booted that big, strong guy who clearly has friends in the tribe just for a situation that wasn't even necessarily his fault. Second of all, if Rupert's finding the spear head would have affected Drake's booting decisions, then they're idiots, because there's no conceivable connection between that and any basis on which you might wisely vote. I think it's basically an issue of Rupert self-aggrandizing and making everything about himself, insisting that the goddamn spear thing is as much of a deal-breaker for everyone else as it is for him. Which it's not. If you ask me, Rupert is warming up to totally overplay his hand.
With no preliminaries such as treemail or travel time, Peachy welcomes the teams to a beach for what is presumably the immunity challenge. He asks Sandra how it felt to "be a pirate," looting Morgan's tarp, and she unwisely sing-songs that it felt good. Oy, Sandra, the merge, the merge! Peachy goes on to explain the challenge, which could informally be called The Hardest Challenge Ever To Describe Concisely. Basically, you tie up three people from your tribe on a raft. That raft is tied to a pulley that the other team gets to pull on, meaning that the harder they pull, the farther out to sea your team winds up. One of your team members is charged with untying himself, then untying the two others. At that point, those three swim back from the raft, bringing with them the ropes they were tied with, as well as a little tube from the raft that has two pairs of compass points written on the inside. When you get the tube open, you take the pairs of compass points over to a circle in the sand that's marked with compass points as well. You run a rope between each pair of compass points written on your clue-tube. The ropes will intersect at a point, and your team digs in the sand right at that point, and unearths a team flag. You raise the team flag on a pole, and you're done. So basically, it's (1) people untie themselves while other people try to pull them out to sea; (2) people open the clue tube and cross the ropes; (3) people dig up a flag. It sounds unbelievably stupid, but it was reasonably suspenseful, really.
Drake sits out Christa as its extra member. I think that's the wrong call, incidentally, because she has very obviously worked her ass off on the challenges on both occasions. But anyway. The main untying-guys on the rafts for their respective teams are Rupert and Andrew. Rupert will have to untie Trish and Michelle; Andrew will have to untie Ryan-O and Darrah. Peachy gives the go. Morgan -- particularly the part of Morgan that includes Osten and Tijuana -- immediately falls on its ass as it yanks the rope to pull Drake out to sea. The pulling actually seems kind of minor, and primarily, it's an untying race between Andrew and Rupert. Andrew wins, and turns to start untying his teammates. Andrew gets the Morgan folk untied fairly quickly, and he grabs the clue tube and goes. They're substantially ahead of Drake as they swim for shore. God, are they actually going to win a challenge? Fate chortles in its ennui and continues clipping its fingernails. Ryan-O takes the clue tube and starts picking at the strings that tie it. Too many hands are on that string immediately. Two people picking at a knot is a very, very bad idea. Finally, Drake comes ashore, and Burton manages to get their clue tube open with little trouble by allowing the string to unwind itself rather than picking at it with lots of hands at the same time. As quickly as it earned the lead, Morgan has lost it. Drake lines up the ropes between the coordinates and finds the intersection point. They start digging. Finally, Morgan gets the clue open. Soon, both teams are digging in the sand. Incidentally, over at Morgan, digging his ass off like he's dying of thirst and there's Gatorade down there? Ryan S. Barely exerting any energy at all, but just kind of pawing at the sand like a petulant twelve-year-old? Osten. Unsurprisingly, Drake comes up with the flag first. They raise their flag, and it's all over. Drake wins immunity. Tijuana curses to herself, Ryan-O beats the sand with his fist, and Osten just kind of stands there. It's not like he was trying, so it's not his failure to own, I guess. Drake savors the victory, cheering and clutching the immunity idol. Peachy tells the demoralized Morgan tribe that they need to get back to camp and prepare for tribal council. Again. Burton and Rupert embrace. And then they make out. Okay, not actually.
Commercials. Oh, Cuba Gooding Jr.! May this movie be better than Snow Dogs.
It's a rainy afternoon when Morgan returns from the immunity challenge. Andrew interviews that the tribe is "devastated." Rain plunks on the ocean waters as the tribe suffers over the devastating decision regarding who should go. Yes, even the rain seems to know that this is the Camp of the Damned. Osten has a proposition for Ryan S. Namely, Osten wants to quit, and asks Ryan to vote him out. Ryan interviews that, at first, he found this shocking, but then he realized that it made a certain amount of sense, because Osten just didn't have the heart to stay around.
Osten and Andrew take a stroll on the beach, and Osten says that it's going to be either Ryan S. or him leaving that night. Andrew tells Osten that they have absolutely no chance if Osten's gone. Andrew interviews to the same effect, saying that there's no way Morgan can compete with Rupert and the Boys of Buff over at Drake if they don't have Osten. Of course, they competed with Drake in the raft challenge, in which Osten played a very minor role. And he wasn't much help in the diving challenge, since he can't swim. I'm not sure the whole "Osten = victory" equation is shaping up for me. But then, far be it from Andrew to apply logic. Osten again interviews about his fears of pneumonia. Which he still apparently thinks you get from being cold. This time, he specifies that he doesn't want blood in his lungs. "If your body wants to make you stop, you're stopping," he says. The fact that this big, muscular dude is threatening to keel over from bleeding lungs after six days makes me just...astonished. I guess he's bummed that he wasn't cast in Survivor Mazatlan.
Lill and Ryan S. have a chat in which she points out that Osten's real beef is that he isn't winning, so he wants to quit. I suspect that she's exactly right, actually, and that he also wants a lot of attention and stroking about how great he is and how much the team needs him. Lill calls out Osten's "my body cannot take it" routine as obvious crap, considering that he's been spotted playing coconut football with Andrew on the beach and looks perfectly hearty. "Piss-poor attitude, isn't it?" Lill says to Ryan. (The troop at home: "Oooooooh.") Ryan S. agrees. He later tells Tijuana about his conversation with Osten, and she's again depressed to hear that her sweet baboo is threatening to quit. She interviews that she was upset and disappointed in him for quitting, but not so much so that she doesn't try to keep him around, apparently. She goes to him and talks to him about it, and he tells her that he's not sure yet what he wants. "He has what it takes, in my opinion," she says. "That's what pisses me off."
Morgan makes its way to tribal council. When they're all seated around the fire, Peachy gives them his biggest asshole grin. Occasionally, I really love that about him. "Here we go again," he says. He asks them what the camp issues are. Andrew says that it's still all about sleep. The floor is uncomfortable, so everyone is hardly sleeping at all. Andrew blames this in part on having to rebuild the shelter after Sandra took the tarp. "Sandra took the tarp yesterday," Peachy points out. "So what did you do for the first five days?" Heh. I love it when you can insert, "ya maroon" at the end of all of Peachy's questions. Ryan S. answers that he thinks the reason they haven't resolved the situation yet is a simple lack of focus. He says he thinks they need a plan. He thinks they need "more teamwork and more unification." Everyone nods gravely at Ryan's plea for intra-tribe love, trying to remember how to spell his name.
Peachy hits Andrew with the toughest question of all, which goes something like this: The tribe that chose you as its leader is currently sucking so hard that other planets are being pulled from their orbits. What do you intend to do about it, Boss-Man? Andrew says that it's all going to change starting tomorrow. They're going to fix up the shelter and get themselves going again. You know, Andrew is a leader in much the same way that UPN is a network. He just keeps telling you that he is one, and acting as if he is one, just hoping that you won't notice him not doing anything that would call to mind leadership rather than, for instance, freestyle jackassery.
Peachy turns his attention to Lill. As a lifelong scoutmaster, how would she assess the tribe? She smiles warily. She probably doesn't want to tell the truth and say, "They wouldn't survive a weenie roast, unless they were the weenies, which they would be." "I would give them an A-plus for spirit," she says instead. Wow, that was beyond toothless. That was arguably gumless. She claims that in the last two challenges, they were very close to winning. Peachy pretty much laughs in her face, pointing out that they probably still wouldn't be done with the reward challenge, had it gone on. Heh. Peachy perseveres. Morgan's not sleeping. It's lost three challenges. What's going on? Lill just thinks they need to fish more. No, really. That's what she said. More fish! That's the answer! Oh...Lill. "That's all you see?" Peachy says incredulously. Lill looks back at him, determined not to say more. So "more fish" is apparently her entire theory.
Peachy asks whether anybody wants to own up to not doing too well with the conditions. Osten says that he's suffering, and that he would never be in conditions like this unless he had the chance to win money. No more camping for him, ever. I would just like to say for the record that I was tougher than Osten when I was about eight. Because I liked camping.
Peachy moves on to asking the tribe members how they intend to decide whom to vote for. Lill says she's going to vote based on who's contributing to "the troop" (hee, she quickly changes it to "the tribe"), and who's not giving 100%. Andrew says that his vote will be based on ridding the tribe of the weakest link. He wants to get rid of who's not "laying it all on the line." You would think that someone who threatens to quit would make a nice candidate for "not laying it all on the line," wouldn't you? I would. Ryan S. is asked about his vote, and he says straight up that he's voting for somebody who asked for his vote. Peachy wants to know who; Ryan won't spill.
Andrew votes. Lill votes for Osten. "You gave up on us," she says. Tijuana votes. Ryan-O votes for Ryan S. "Ryan," he says with a small smile, "you're a great kid. You've got a bunch of heart. You just don't have the strength for this game. I'll see you when I'm out of here." Thank you, Ryan-O. See, I don't even think a vote for Ryan S. is necessarily an unreasonable vote. I just think Andrew's "he doesn't try" thing is bull. The kid has looked to me like he was trying as hard as he could in all of these situations; he's just kind of inept. And it's true that he's not physically strong, and given how this tribe is being demolished, that's a reasonable thing to consider. Now, was he less strong than, say, Darrah and Tijuana? That's hard to say. But at least I think you could legitimately vote Ryan-O's way on his reasoning. Unlike Andrew's dumb reasoning, which is all about making it look like his votes follow some kind of moral imperative, and there is very little that I hate on voting-elimination reality shows than people who want you to believe that they oust the competition on principle. Because they don't. Especially the ones who tell you that they do.
Osten votes. Darrah votes. Ryan S. votes for Osten, saying that he's only doing it because of Osten's own request.
Peachy goes off to "tally" the seven votes. I bet you can see his lips move when he reads.
One for Osten, one for Ryan. Two for Osten, two for Ryan. Three for Ryan. Four for Ryan, and he's out. Note that three of the four votes shown voted for him as "Skinny Ryan." I understand calling him that -- I did it myself last week. But you really, really don't need to do that to the kid to his face when you're voting him out. It's just rude. Ryan turns over his torch. SNUFF! Off with you! Lill looks on miserably while Ryan wanders off down the path. Peachy has no wise words for Morgan this week, and just tells them to go off to camp. Presumably, "Get your damn act together, you giant losers" is implied.
week: Drake searches for treasure. Lill is still ticked off about Osten the Giant Quitter. Jon and Sandra, unsurprisingly, almost come to blows. We can only hope a few of hers land right on his damn nose.