Me And My Snake

Previously on I Only Have Eyes For Hubris: Rupert had a passionate affair with Morgan while Drake was away on business, but he was thinking about Drake the whole time. Morgan -- fresh off its immunity-challenge victory and treated to some of Rupert's liberally administered expertise -- began to thrive unexpectedly. They bagged the reward challenge, thanks to the poor performance of Drake's steering committee, and they wound up with a shower and the personal hygiene products to go with it. Hey, anything that diminishes the stink. At the immunity challenge, Darrah bested Sandra at a liquefied-fish suckdown, and Drake sent a basically harmless Michelle home to seek revenge on buff jerks everywhere. At tribal council, Jeff tried to goad Drake into owning up to the stupidity of the decision to throw the checkerboard immunity challenge, but Drake remained convinced that it was all good. Well, except for Rupert, who of course remained convinced that as in all other cases, they should have listened to him more.

Credits. You know, even seeing Jon in the credits is enough to make me want to hit someone. Preferably him, but honestly, if you were here, I would take you instead. You look a little squirrelly yourself.

Commercials. When you and your significant other are making up from arguments via text messaging because you're too busy to talk on the phone, I think you have bigger problems than your wireless plan. Just saying.

Drake, night fifteen, after tribal council. A snake slithers across the sand, generously acting as the episode's officially-sanctioned mascot. Because it's about snakes, got me? Snakes! "I thought Michelle left with a lot of class," Trish says as Drake collectively tends the fire. "She did; she's a very good girl," Rupert says. Wow, "a good girl"? Thanks, Daddy! Can I pick the fish bits out of your beard now? Baby's hungry! "And it's too bad she's not on our tribe anymore," he adds, even though he voted for her instead of, say, Shawn. In an interview, Rupert says, "My first tribal council sucked." He goes on to whine about how pissed off and tired he was, and how he didn't want to be there. Unlike everyone else, who is always happy to go to tribal council and ties little silver jingle bells to their feet just to celebrate. Around the Drake fire, Trish makes note of Jeff's directness with regard to the questions he was asking them. She doesn't, however, turn to Jon and say, "Dude, Jeff hates your gangly ass," and I really wish she had. Now Rupert -- having talked about the rest of the tribe like they're so dumb that they can't be trusted to wipe their own noses (which, in the case of throwing the challenge, is true) -- engages in a little ass-covering by apologizing to anyone who was offended. He meant "dumb-ass idiot losers" in the nicest way. It's awesome how you can totally see through Rupert's skirt as he stands in front of the fire. It's like a little Cline Dion video, right here in the middle of the Pearl Islands.

In an interview, Rupert says that his tribe still doesn't understand that it gave Morgan momentum by throwing that first immunity challenge. Of course, unless Drake is planning on throwing another challenge, I'm not sure what the importance is of getting them to agree on this point, but...that's Rupert for you. Agree with him about everything or be cast into the sea to die and rot with the rest of the traitors.

Later, Rupert has a deep conversation with the little snake that he adopted last week and named Balboa, in which he complains that instead of writing Michelle's name, he wished he'd written Shawn's. The snake has nothing to add. It's just kind of wheezing and writing its will. Or so I imagine.

"For a while," Rupert muses in an interview, "everybody knew that a Drake was going to win this." Apparently misreading situations is not something that is exclusive to non-Rupert members of Drake. "Now," he says with truly hilarious gravity, "there is question." It's awesome how he fancies himself such a strategist when he's so ignorant of the basic tenets of Survivor that he clearly has no clue that which tribe is stronger in the first three or four weeks is not at all predictive of which tribe the eventual winner will come from. He's now twice made this claim that after the first nine days, it was obvious that a member of Drake was going to win, and it's just a dumb-ass comment, game-wise. Plus, he's starting to talk a little too much like a Magic 8-Ball. Rupert, will a Drake member win? "NOW THERE IS QUESTION."

On the morning of day sixteen, Rupert goes to check on Balboa, whom he's been keeping in a little cloth bag. This sounded like questionable medical care to me, but our resident snake expert on the forums assures us all that it meets the standard of care. Apparently, burlap bags are the hospital beds of the snake kingdom, except without the crank and the TV attached to the ceiling. Who knew? I always learn something with this show, and occasionally, it doesn't even involve how much I hate myself. At any rate, Balboa was apparently beyond saving when Rupert found him, because he has shuffled off this mortal coil (heh, Rare Non-Dirty Snake Pun Alert!) overnight. "This morning, I went and checked on Balboa," Rupert interviews sadly. "He was dead." Now when I saw this, it did kind of seem weird to me, because...well, I adore my pets as much as anyone, but he did only meet the snake yesterday, after all. And I'll admit that I am probably prejudiced against snakes as opposed to, say, dogs, because snakes don't do tricks. (Oh, don't email me. Your snake cannot either read out loud.) But I have known some people in my life who are extremely quick to attach to all manner of stray animals, so I suppose Rupert is probably just one of those people. It's generally an endearing quality. "I'm so sorry, buddy," he says to Balboa's withered body. "It's a hard world." Okay, that was a little bit funny, even though I feel bad for him. Even if I feel compassion for snakes, I would never think to give them advice about the ways of the world when they were alive, let alone after they were dead.

Shawn walks up to Rupert and says in a way that sounds pretty sincere, "How's Balboa doing?" "He's dead," Rupert reports flatly. Rupert then says something about using Balboa for bait, and goes off to bury him. Goes off to bury the snake, I'm saying. "He died last night?" Shawn says. "Yeah, he's gone," Rupert answers. "That's so sad," Shawn comes back. In an interview, Shawn talks about how much this clearly upset Rupert, who tends to get really attached to little things. Shawn's not sure why it matters quite that much to Rupert, but he understands that it did. I actually thought that although Shawn handles many situations with all the grace of your average elephant ballerina, he fielded this rather odd situation reasonably well. He was nice to Rupert, and he tried to be understanding even though Rupert's level of emotionalism over the snake didn't entirely make sense to him. I don't really understand being devastated over a snake you plucked out of the water the day before either but, like Shawn, I would have tried to say the right thing. Rupert wasn't there for the interview, so I don't really care that he told the interviewer he didn't get it. If he had told Rupert he didn't get it while Rupert was keening over the body, that would be an asshole move, but telling the interviewer in a way that seemed affectionate? Eh.

We swoop on over to Morgan, Camp of the Ex-Damned, where Osten is sitting on the beach whittling away at something with his machete. His pride, presumably. A pelican comes up and waddle-flaps its way toward Osten like it's checking him out. He eyes it with discomfort, the way he eyes everything that could kill him, like water and air and rice. Then the pelican sort of...quacks at Osten, although I don't know that it's technically called quacking when it's a pelican. Maybe it's puacking. This very comically gifted pelican then goes over and considers taking a bite out of the tribe's dangling flag. This catches the attention of Ryan-O, who wanders over and starts trying to dissuade the bird from its flag-eating. "You don't need to be doing that," he says to it, and then it turns around and faces him. "Oh, you want to challenge me?" Ryan-O says. He and the pelican stand there and look at each other for a minute. Ryan-O laughs, and then, to cement his place in my heart forever, he puts up his dukes. Oh, just kill me, why don't you. Go ahead. Show him cuddling a puppy. I wasn't using my heart anyway. Ryan-O even does a little boxer dance step. "Puack puack, you are adorable!" the pelican says, agreeing with me. Ryan-O laughs, and Tijuana watches from the shelter with a smile. "It's trying to get our flag," Ryan-O continues to chuckle as he tries to shoo the pelican away from the flag with a palm frond. "Move it," he says. "Hey, buddy, you're out of here." In an interview, Andrew explains that Ryan-O is kind of an animal lover, so he wound up sort of befriending this random pelican. Back on the beach, Ryan-O tells Andrew that the random pelican, no longer random, is named Pelican Pete. Hey, he used to play the drums for Pirate Pete and the Peg-Leg Parrots! Anyway, Pete and Ryan-O wander the beach a little bit. Ryan-O lies down in the shelter, and Pete follows him, watched closely by a wary Osten.

The way this fight starts is that Shawn keeps asking questions about the best way to go about lifting the shelter, and Jon just wants to get it over with. Both approaches, incidentally, seem valid to me up to a point. There are people who want to talk about the best way to do something, and there are people who just want to pick a way, even if it's not the best way, and be done. Note also that when Jon starts bitching about the fact that he's the only one doing anything, he repeatedly refers to "everyone" just standing around looking -- he's clearly not only referring to Shawn. Jon starts bitching, and Shawn tells him to relax, and then Jon screams even more. Christa and Trish are both standing right there with Shawn during this exchange, so they're slacking as much as he is. Jon keeps screaming like a nut, and Shawn keeps asking him to stop screaming, and that makes Jon scream even more. That's a lovely routine they've got going. It's vicious, and it's a circle. Shawn gets down to work with Christa, and even as he's working, Jon is still screaming at Shawn that he never does anything. Jon's, like, gone psychotic, because he's doing less than anyone in this scene, and he's still screaming his head off. "I'm glad Jon put him in his place," Sandra interviews. I'm sorry, huh? Maybe she's talking about a different sequence of events, but Jon certainly didn't put Shawn in his place in that conversation. Jon came off like a nut job, and considering that Shawn was already working during most of the most extreme part of Jon's screaming fit...Sandra's theory is just silly. Suffice it to say that Sandra is no longer on the like list, and is now on the "shut up, you self-important twit" list. She cements her place on this new list by snotting in her interview that Shawn basically has to do all the work around camp that they tell him to do, and he has to win all the challenges for them, or they'll send him home. I used to sort of like Sandra, but in that interview, I could not stand her. Some people handle having power over other people gracefully, and others don't. She evidently does not. Playing hard is one thing, but there's no need to be a bitch about it.

Commercials. If you're not watching Joan of Arcadia just because it's on Friday nights, it would be a good time to discover TiVo, your VCR, or something of that sort. Or you can stay home and watch it. Not that I know anyone who does that. Everyone I know is, um, busy on Fridays.

Crabs scramble across the beach at Drake. Out in the water, little fishies and other critters swim around as merry pirate music plays in the background. The music even has merry clapping, as if all the pirates are gathered around to dance with their wenches. Just like at TWoP Towers. We even play jaunty music. I kick ass on the recorder. Anyway, the members of Drake review the "seamail," which suggests something having to do with a cannonball, and seems to involve a food reward. Trish interviews that they want to get their momentum back after losing three straight challenges. She says as much back on the beach to the tribe, including the rather hilarious remark that they're "totally united." Yeah, tell me another one, crazy lady. She certainly does have a crazy-lady hat on. That thing looks like an upside-down version of an unnecessarily large and kind of strangely-shaped vase that was once received at a wedding I attended. It was opened and shown to a polite but puzzled crowd of well-wishers, at which point someone in said crowd was heard to murmur, "And then I won Wimbledon."

Over at Morgan, they note the approach of the S.S. Booty-Looter. Tijuana and Andrew are understandably squicked out when they see that it's Jon they'll be visiting with. I suspect it's been many years since anyone reacted to him differently. As he approaches, they have a little chuckle over how irritating he is, and how they'll just have to grit their teeth and get through it. Andrew interviews that when he arrived, Jon seemed to be trying to be humble and a little more diplomatic than usual. "He wasn't as cocky or as arrogant," he says. Somehow, I think that must be an early assessment. Jon tells them that Drake voted to take Morgan's water pot -- remember, Morgan has two now as a result of the reward challenge they won. Andrew says he thought Drake might want the shower. "Nah," Jon says, although he allows that he'd like to wash his hair. A more skilled diplomat than he originally appeared, Andrew gives some shampoo to Jon and Morgan lets him wash his mop. Thousands of insects thus lose their homes.

As he finishes washing his hair, Jon asks if Morgan has noticed that he's been slightly less of an asshole at recent challenges. Andrew tells him that they don't mind trash-talking, but that they did take it hard because they were losing so many challenges in a row. "It hurts when you've lost six straight challenges," Andrew says. "Well, technically, seven," Jon says. Morgan collectively looks at him. Jon goes on to explain that Drake threw the throw-people- in-the-water challenge. I love how Jon claims that this is therefore a challenge that Morgan also lost. Didn't just not win it fair and square -- lost it. Come on, Idiot Jon. At the very least, we don't know how it would have turned out had Drake not thrown it. Morgan certainly didn't lose it by any logical definition, not that Jon's arrogant ass, propped up as it is by the rest of the arrogant asses in his tribe, would be expected to know this.

What's delightfully just, however, is that Morgan doesn't believe him. Because he's Jon, and because they know what a petty little prick he is, they just think he's trying to make them feel bad. Andrew, for one, actually takes great offense that Jon would make up something like that just to try to get smudgy little fingerprints all over the polished mirror of their hard-won victory. Andrew also calls Jon a "little bastard" and a "piss-ant," which means that he is my boyfriend for fifteen seconds or so. "He came here to ruffle some feathers, and he definitely did," Andrew says, with all kinds of unintended irony. Andrew says that he's concerned about the effect this might have on Morgan's morale at the immunity challenge, but also says, "Let's take the gloves off, and let's see what they're made of." Gee, I think Jon's strategy might just be found in the dictionary under "backfire."

, in a crushing show of cooperative brain power, Shawn and Jon take a walk together and Jon tells Shawn that it's Rupert he wants voted out. In an interview, Jon says that nobody wants to be in the final two with Rupert, so they have to do something now. Much posturing follows in which Shawn says portentous things -- like "In this game, you have to do what you gotta do" -- which are intended to be really ironic, because Jon thinks Shawn is talking about booting Rupert, whereas Shawn is really talking about...I'm sorry, I just fell asleep mid-recap. This episode was really boring. There's way too much of this meaningless jaw-flapping where they talk and talk and talk in very general terms about strategy and yet nothing happens. Anyway, Jon makes some yaps into the camera about how this is the way the game is played, and Rupert's a good guy, but Shawn's a better ally for Jon, and blah dee blah. Strategy talk from stupid people leaves me cold.

The sun is setting, and you know what that means -- it's time for tribal council. The team members take their places around the fire to be Probst-ified. Jeff points out that they've always acted very cocky at challenges, and that today's challenge was pure strength, so he's wondering how they feel about being at tribal council unexpectedly. Sandra agrees that they thought there was absolutely no way they'd wind up at tribal council tonight: they'd just had the big protein meal, Morgan was starving, Morgan was demoralized (she may not know how Jon helpfully re-moralized them), and so forth. Jeff asks Christa about her performance in the challenge. He gratuitously points out for the sake of humiliating Osten that Christa outlasted him. Christa says that the challenge was hard for her, and that she did better than she expected to, but that she still hated dropping the pole. Those are some seriously dark roots Christa's working on, incidentally, not that that's, you know, relevant. But I think Christa's first ally when she gets off the island is going to be Miss Clairol, if you see my point.

Jeff now moves on to Rupert, asking why he looks so "incredibly sad." Rupert gives his best "everyone I know has died and is living in my beard" look of gravity and hams it up for a while. He is incredibly wounded to know that there are people on the tribe who want to see him go. How dare they, in a game that's about eliminating the competition and winning money for yourself! He returns to his whole disappointed-daddy thing that's just so pompous that it would be funny if he didn't have so many people sucking down everything he's dishing out right now, which chaps me so much I can't even tell you. Anyway, Rupert lectures everyone about how hard it is for him to "pull everybody together," which of course is his job because he's the big boss, blah dee blah. He also gives a big speech about how his tribe sees him as "unneeded." He explains that as much as he has tried to explain to the rest of the dummies that there may be no merge, they just continue to assume that there will be one. He congratulates himself for all the fish he's caught, and he expresses disbelief that this isn't enough for them to keep him. He only wants them to keep him for their own good, you see. Wow, all this, and me without my hip boots.

Jeff, predictably, moves directly to Trish, asking her for a reaction. She basically expresses surprise that Rupert feels this way. It's probably the best way she has of walking the line between denying that she was in on the ousting and just telling Probst to shut his yap. I think that she genuinely didn't know Rupert felt that way, in the sense that he just gave this weepy speech about how tremendously disappointed he is in everyone. Jeff asks her if it's hard for her to vote somebody out, and she says yes.