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 Céline 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.
Osten now commences perhaps his worst sequence ever, which obviously is saying quite a lot. He takes a long stick and starts poking at Pete. Tijuana tells him he's being silly and to stop it, but he complains, "Why would you want this thing in [the shelter]?" He goes on: "I'm serious. I will take the machete and chop this thing's head right the fuck off. I'm not playing around." Yes, that's right. Osten is threatening the terrifically menacing Pelican Pete. As Andrew teases Osten that the pelican wants to sit on his lap, Osten gets up and actually goes for the machete. Just as he leaves, Pete hops up and gets on the shelter platform, to the delight and giggling of Tijuana and Andrew. Darrah, in her best interview ever, says, "Ah think it's hilaaarious that Osten's scared of every li'l thing." Hee. "He's scared of every li'l buuuug," she elaborates. Double hee. Back on the beach, things are not so funny as Osten is clearly serious about killing the pelican. At least according to the suddenly scary music, he's serious. He is, in fact, sharpening the machete over and over as Ryan-O tries to shoo Pete away. "I don't like animals," Osten says in an interview. "I've been bit by a couple animals, and the animal that bites me will die." Yeah, well, I've been bit by a couple of nitwit reality-show contestants, and the one that bites me is getting a knee in the gut. As Ryan-O continues shooing, Osten tells him again that he intends to chop Pete's head off with the machete. Ryan-O: "Just go sit down and stop fucking with your blade...you don't need to do that. You're not chopping anything's fucking head off unless we're gonna eat it, and we're not eating this one." Ryan-O says this in an enormously steady, simple, straightforward tone. Liking him so much.
Andrew interviews that Osten was "being an ass." He goes on: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. In fact, I was embarrassed by that." For a variety of reasons, I never expected to hear myself saying, "Word, Andrew," but there it is. Back at the pelican confrontation, Ryan-O tells Osten to go sit down, because Ryan-O doesn't need him to act like a prick right this minute. Osten grins, not getting that nobody finds him amusing in the slightest. "I believe Osten was afraid of it," Ryan-O interviews. "He was pissing me off. I mean, if you're afraid of the jungle and you're afraid of the sea and you're afraid of birds...you know what? Don't even come out here." Wow, can I get an amen? Because that could really use one. Ryan-O bids Pete farewell, having gotten him away from Osten's threatening machete.
Over at Drake, Rupert informs his team that they're going to spend the day getting the shelter up off the ground to stop the bugs from biting at night. Incidentally, you'll recall that Morgan figured this out on the first night, so this is at least one area where perhaps Rupert picked up something from them during his visit. Trish interviews that most of them didn't think it was going to help, but that they were willing to try anything to stop it. Note that Rupert does not present this as an idea to the tribe -- he literally tells them that this is what they're going to do. Not just what he's going to do, but what they're all going to work on. And I think that's where he just begins to get into trouble with some of the tribe members. Shawn argues that if it's only going to be an inch or two up off the ground, it's going to be a waste of effort. Now, certainly, it should be the case that the guy has a right to express an opposing view rather than just sitting there and saying, "Yes, Rupert, aye aye, Rupert, you're the boss, Rupert." The problem, however, is that even after it's clear that he's being outvoted by Rupert's tribe of sheep, Shawn continues to resist. It's rude, because when you're in a group, sometimes you have to suck it up and help even when you think the group is wrong. It's also strategically foolish, because it's going to piss everybody off. Sandra interviews that Shawn was looking for reasons not to help, and that Jon had "had it up to here" with Shawn, so the guys started yelling at each other.
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."
We zoom in on the reward challenge, which I think is one of the most boring challenges of all time. Basically, each team has a cannon. Each team member takes turns aiming the cannon and firing, and if they hit the target, their team gets a point. Big whoop. Jeff tells them that the reward is a grill and some utensils, along with spices, lobsters, and steak. Ah, yes -- it's the obligatory Atkins Diet challenge. Also, of course, there is the opportunity to loot the booty, and -- if you're Morgan -- a chance at the map to your moldy treasure. Anyway, there's not much to say. Up first are Andrew and Jon. Andrew misses, as does Jon. Ryan-O and Sandra -- they both hit, by about a quarter-inch. Tijuana and Trish --Tijuana misses, Trish hits. Osten and Rupert -- they both hit, although Rupert makes it by about an eighth of an inch. Darrah and Shawn -- she hits, he misses. Christa and Andrew -- he misses, she hits. That does it, and Drake wins the reward. Incidentally, the members of Drake continued to act like arrogant asses in this challenge -- Morgan didn't applaud and hoot whenever Drake missed, but Drake did it to them. The Drakes are pretty much all asses at this point, seriously. And as usual, they have to yell "Drake! Drake! Drake!" at the end. Really kind of hating them.
Anyway, Drake goes home with the food reward. Whatever. It doesn't make them any less obnoxious, even though it may make them slightly less hungry.
Commercials. Wow, it's been a while since I saw Kool-Aid smash through a wall like that. Nifty. Thanks, Target! You really do give me everything.
At Drake, after the reward challenge, the gloaters enjoy their meal. The lobster and steak does look very tasty, especially if you compare it to a bowl of rice and fish that probably has Jon's hair in it. They eat. So...you know, it's eating. Obnoxious people having a happy experience does nothing for me.
The morning, Rupert wakes up Jon -- wait a minute, I thought Jon was the only who ever did any work! How can he be asleep when other people are awake? Hmm, curious! Oh, also, he has his buff wrapped around his head so he looks like a granny on her way to church. That is so sexy, he's going to be herding the girls with a riding crop when he gets home. I'll tell you this -- Jon is going to fit right in at Belly. Anyway, Rupert wakes up Idiot Jon and reminds him that he's the one going over to Morgan to loot. Among Drake's many recent strategic mistakes, you can include the decision to let him go do the looting. He explains in an interview that his strategy is to crush Morgan's morale into the ground. "Their morale is pretty low as a result of losing the reward challenge," he says, "so I plan on taking that morale and [ridiculous stomping up and down] jumping on it just up and down so there's absolutely nothing come immunity time." He smirks. "That's the goal." Well, Jon, my goal is to see you roasted over a slow flame and served with mango chutney. At least the chutney would be good.
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."
Immunity challenge. Snapping Duck Bay, home away from home of rubber duckies everywhere. Jeff brings in the troop, and comments first on Christa's horrid-looking outbreak of bug bites. Ew. She looks like Pippi Longstocking, only itchier. Jeff takes the immunity back from Morgan and explains the challenge. It's basically a combination of strength and strategy. Three members of each team will hold poles across their backs. Each team will have six hundred pounds of weight to distribute among the three members of the opposing team, twenty pounds at a time. So each team basically has three people holding weight and two people directing the placement of weight on the poles of the opposing team. The last team with someone standing wins. So the strategy, of course, is whether you want to load everybody up evenly, or if you want to load up one person with all the weight, or what. And the strength part is, I think, not just brute strength, but figuring out a good position to stand in that makes you as sturdy as possible for as long as possible, and particularly finding a way to arrange the pole so that it doesn't hurt you.
Holding weight for Drake are Shawn, Rupert, and Christa. Holding weight for Morgan are Osten, Andrew, and Ryan-O. Morgan and Drake both start out by loading up each other's biggest guy, so Osten and Rupert take the weight at the beginning. Drake gives Andrew a little, meaning that as Rupert and Osten are showing down, Rupert has forty pounds more on his back than Osten. As things get more intense, Rupert makes the questionable decision to take his hands off the pole and lean over with his hands on his thighs. The other thing you might notice is that Andrew and Osten -- Andrew, especially -- have their feet quite wide apart as they're standing, and Rupert has his feet pretty close together. I would think the feet farther apart would be the way to go in terms of your sturdiness, although it's not an area in which I have any remote degree of expertise, given that I've been known to complain about carrying my own suitcase at the airport. By the way, for those who missed the detail regarding who's got what on their necks, Rupert has a piece of padding across the back of his neck, and Osten has nothing but his buff. Andrew, as he often does, is wearing his suit jacket, so he's got some fabric over his neck and shoulders.
You will be not at all shocked to hear that Osten drops the pole first. After one more set of weight is added, Rupert follows, so that strategy worked for both teams. They're pretty much equal now, except that Andrew's got eighty pounds on his back already and neither of the other Drake members has anything.
Morgan turns its attention to Shawn, while Drake continues to load up Andrew but also starts, finally, to load up Ryan-O after probably waiting too long. The time we get a clear update, Andrew has 160 pounds, Shawn has 120, and Ryan-O has...some. When Shawn is at 140 and Andrew is still at 160, Shawn starts to tremble. (For those who looked for "cheating," by the way, it certainly sounds like Sandra is giving instructions to Jon and Trish, too, about whom to give weight to, so neither team is strictly following the "only two members decide who gets weights.") Before long, however -- despite Jon's confident remark that Andrew is "done" -- it's Shawn who drops out, leaving Andrew and Ryan-O to face Christa. What follows is a truly tremendous showing by Christa, as far as I'm concerned, mostly because she seems to leave her body temporarily. For most of the time, it doesn't even look like it bothers her. She reaches 160 pounds, the same weight Andrew's been holding at for quite some time. As they add what will turn out to be the last bit of weight, there is a voice that tells Darrah and Tijuana to wait on loading up Andrew because Christa's going down. But it doesn't sound to me like it's Andrew, as was initially reported on the forums. It actually sounds like Osten. It's true that Jeff should've probably made Tijuana and Darrah go ahead and load up Andrew's pole, but it wouldn't have mattered, because Christa is in the process of going down the entire time. She never gets stable with the final weight of 180. She does indeed finally give in and drop the pole, and although it's true that she didn't have to hold that weight for a tremendously long time given the early concentration on Rupert and then Shawn, she still kicked a whole lot of ass. Plus, she kind of made Osten look ridiculous, which I appreciated. Ryan-O and Andrew now drop their poles in relief, and Andrew collapses onto the ground. In a moment I really liked, Tijuana gets down on the ground, puts her hands around Andrew's head, and kisses his forehead. I just thought that was very sweet. There's something about that gesture that just looked really genuine. In, you know, the completely relative sense in which the word "genuine" is used on a show like this where half the breasts and one-fourth of the chins are fake. I think I like Tijuana, and I think I'm sad that she appears to be a nice enough person that she isn't on very much. Andrew takes the immunity idol and gives it a kiss. I would be very happy, by the way, with a no-kissing-the-idol rule. ["I would just like to add, for the conspiracy-minded (like me), that would be a very easy challenge for the producers to fix, by making the Morgan weights lighter than the Drake ones, since they're just bags of sand (or whatever) and not actual weights, and it's not like either team feels the other's weights and could compare whether a Morgan weight felt lighter than a Drake. Not that I'm saying anyone on the Survivor staff would do anything so unethical just to ensure that the teams went into the merge in equal numbers. But if they wanted to, which I'm sure they didn't, they probably could." -- Wing Chun]
By the way, Morgan is not yelling, hooting, or otherwise trying to rub Drake's nose in it, as Drake has done at the conclusion of every challenge it has ever won. Jeff remarks that Andrew has tears in his eyes. It really is interesting to wonder what that's about, aside from what I think was pretty overwhelming pain. Every once in a while, somebody on a show like this appears to have some kind of Life-Changing Experience, and it's often difficult to say why, but...there you go. Maybe Andrew remembered how his grandpa used to make him carry sandbags over his neck or something.
Jeff goes over to Drake. "I know you weren't planning on going to tribal council," he rubs it in on Morgan's behalf, "but you are." Ha. Marry me, Jeff Probst. Let's hate everyone together. You covertly, me overtly...it'll be perfect. Jeff then points out that after tonight, both tribes will have the same number of members left. Well, well, isn't that interesting? The overpowering Drake tribe, with an advantage of...oh, look! Zero members. Overpowering! Ryan-O gives an adorable little fist-pump of joy. Morgan shares a group hug. The immunity idol is still very, very creepy.
Commercials. You know, digital-camera technology would be worthwhile if all it did was give idiots another way to play tricks on each other and leave the rest of us alone.
At Drake, the pre-tribal-council vibe is dark indeed. Rupert sits, posing prettily for the camera with his forehead on a thick tree branch. Poor, sad Rupert. Back at camp, Shawn is apologizing for his sorry showing. "Everybody did as much as they could," Trish says, going for something conciliatory. Rupert, on the other hand, is in the mood to judge, to the surprise of no one. "That was the worst, pitifulest-ass [sic] performance I've ever seen," he says menacingly, and with quite a bit of grammatical flair. "He deserves to go home, if nothing else, for that," Rupert continues. In an interview, he seals his fate with me forever by saying, "I am very irritated with Shawn. I want him off my island and out of my adventure." Rupert? Is a real blowhard. I'm just saying. He may be cuddly, he may be amusing, he may be a good fisherman, and he may be physically overpowering, but he is also an arrogant, self-important blowhard a good lot of the time. Like now. And he and the show clearly think it's endearing, but I don't. Rupert goes off to go fishing. Whatever. Shut up. Memo to the show: I do not want to see any contestant as much as you have shown this guy in the last three weeks. I am, among other things, sick to death of him at this point. I'm all Rupert-ed out, okay? Thanks.
Back at the shelter, we come in on a conversation already in progress, in which Trish is saying to Sandra and Jon that she's concerned about the amount of power Rupert has accumulated in the game. Sandra superfluously interviews (bad editors! Bad, bad editors!) that Trish and Jon are concerned about Rupert's power, because Rupert is in charge, blah blah blah. The conversation continues as Trish says that although she loves Rupert personally, there's something about his accumulating power that sets her on edge. Are you starting to think maybe Trish is concerned about Rupert's power? Yeah, me too. She then interviews that she's also concerned that Rupert will have the choice of jumping to Morgan at the merge, because he knows the members of Morgan, too. And, she probably thinks but does not say, momentum is kinda going Morgan's way right now. "What do you guys think?" Trish says. "Christa won't go for it," Sandra answers. You'll note that wasn't a "no." Jon and Trish explain that they wouldn't tell Christa -- they would line up Shawn -- who will jump at the chance to save his own ass -- and that would be four votes. Trish suggests that they talk through the ramifications of booting Rupert. They discuss the obvious loss of his skills around camp, but Trish points out that for a million dollars, she's willing to go without. "So it's a done deal?" Sandra is the first to say. "I guess so," Jon says. "It's the smartest way we can play this game right now," he adds. ["Much as it pains me to agree with him on anything, I think he is right in this case." -- Wing Chun] Trish interviews that the more they talked about it, the better they all felt about it. It's surprising that she doesn't notice Sandra's non-talkativeness more, but I guess that's easy to say in retrospect. She explains in her interview that they plan to tell Shawn about the plan at the last minute, and inform him that his neck has been spared. Trish talks about what a big surprise it's going to be when Rupert is the one to go. Sigh. How much I would have paid to see that.
Sandra goes into tattle mode almost immediately, telling Christa about the entire conversation. So, incidentally, later when Rupert is condemning people who lie, he can start with his own ally Sandra, without whose lying to the people to whom she herself said, "So it's a done deal," he would not have ever been saved. Oh, but I guess that would be the good kind of betrayal. I'll do my best to keep track. Anyway, Christa insists that the concern that Rupert would hop to an alliance with Morgan is unfounded, and Sandra insists that she'd "like to keep the tribe strong just a little while longer." Because they're doing so well right now, apparently, having lost three immunity challenges in a row, so it's important to keep the tribe composed exactly as it is.
Rupert comes up the beach, and Christa spills that Trish and Jon are planning to oust him tonight. In an interview, Rupert says with that pompous parental disappointment of his that he can't believe they're trying to get him out before the merge. He blathers on for a while about how there might not even be a merge, and apparently his team can't eat without him or something. This is where his earlier remarks become so amusing -- apparently, they're supposed to keep him to keep the tribe strong, but it was okay for him to plot the exit of Burton and to wish he had voted for Shawn, when getting rid of those two guys instead of, say, Jon, was a huge step toward weakening the tribe. See, I don't mind the guy not liking people voting for him. Nobody has to like it. It's Rupert's insistence on pretending that he is looking at his own position in the tribe objectively that grates. He wants you to think that he only thinks he should be kept for the good of the tribe, and that it's not self-interest at all. And that's absolutely freaking ridiculous, as it would be coming from anyone. Anyway, Rupert goes and finds Shawn and tells him what's up and asks him to cooperate to boot Trish instead of him. Shawn agrees, for obvious reasons, including not wanting to be sent home pretty much immediately. Shawn recaps this scene right after it happens. Again.
, 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.
Jeff moves on to Sandra. He asks her how sure she is that she's not going home, and she tells him she knows it's certainly not her: "The person that's going home today is the one that least expects it." She also goes on to complain about that person giving "different stories" -- unlike when she agreed to vote for Rupert and then tattled, because that's not giving different stories at all. Ah, reality-show moralizing. My least favorite thing of all. Giving different stories to different people in your tribe is not wrong. It's just playing. When will they get it? Oh, right. Never.
Time for voting. Christa votes for Trish, claiming that she "stabbed us all in the back." She then gives a wink and a "tsk" that literally saps every bit of affection I've ever accumulated for Christa. She can go back to her Usenet friends at this point, for all I care. Never wink and "tsk." It's a snotty-ass, Jon-like maneuver.
Speaking of people who make me want to step on a bug, Jon votes . He votes for Rupert. He offers another professional-wrestling-inspired poem. Well, at least he's going to get screwed. I have that to look forward to. Sandra votes out Trish, calling her a "snake." Nice. I officially like no one on this entire tribe at all, even a little bit. They can all go get bent, as far as I'm concerned. Bunch of self-satisfied fuckwits. Trish votes for Rupert, saying simply that she thinks he has too much power and that he needs to go.
Rupert votes. I can't really bear to repeat his grave, self-righteous speech in which he claims -- quite incorrectly, as I pointed out above -- that Trish lied when she was asked about his remarks at tribal council, and in which he claims that he's only upset because she's voting for him now instead of later. I have to wonder when they changed the rules and made this a game in which you tell everyone the truth? No one tells everyone the truth. It's not a game about telling the truth. It's a game about trying to position yourself. Sars has been known to make the point that The Amazing Race is not The Amazing Montessori School, and it's equally true that Survivor is not Getting Yourself Beatified. This whole "how dare you turn on me" thing is like playing football and bitching when someone tackles you. Just shut up.
Shawn votes, babbling something about "it's my game now." Yeah, right. I'd say he's got a free path right to the finals.
Jeff goes off to "tally" the six votes. Four to two, Trish is booted. The best part of this, of course, is not really the look on Trish's face, but the look on Jon's face. Seeing him realize that he's screwed is quite something to behold. His eyes actually drop shut as he realizes how screwed he is. Then Trish is snuffed. Snuff!
Not that it matters all that much, but Trish's exit speech over the credits is notably classy, non-bitter, and straightforward. She took her shot, she lost, they beat her, and she wishes everybody luck. It might be the best exit speech I've ever seen. A slow episode, though. Pretty accurately described as "Crab, crab, Osten sucks, pelican, pelican, Trish booted."
week: Rupert screams at Jon for voting for him, creating a controversy in which neither person is remotely worth rooting for. Andrew thinks Osten has thrown in the figurative towel, undoubtedly hitting a pelican with it. And there's this big, big twist, and if you want to read all about it, just go to the spoiler thread, because God knows, we've known about it pretty much all along.