Previously on Dick Clark's Ruperts And Practical Jokes: Ryan-O fretted in the aftermath of Andrew's booting. Rupert handled his slingshot admirably and won himself a trip to breakfast, but he handed it over to Burton, because who needs pancakes when you can have the sweet, syrupy goodness of self-righteousness? So Burton and Lill chowed down on the Eggs Benedict of deceit, the baby potatoes of advance planning, and the waffles of poetic justice. They appeared to be plotting an uprising against Rupert's core Triumvirate with the assistance of Idiot Jon and the Morgan women, but when it came time for the immunity challenge, they chose to let Rupert walk off with the Supreme Cutlass, leaving Ryan-O exposed -- and not in the good way. (Incidentally, the "previously"s include a shot of Rupert laughing after the coconut challenge that I'm not sure was part of the original episode, because if it had been, it's hard for me to believe that I wouldn't have noticed that, in it, he looks eerily like Animal the Muppet Drummer.) Ryan-O attempted a few evasive maneuvers, but his star was on the decline, and at tribal council, he walked off with every vote but his own, and the jury began to take shape. In the tradition of this season, it was shaped like pixelized ass.
Credits. I wish Jon had kept wearing his buff on his head as much as he did at the beginning. The less of Jon's hair I experience, the better.
Commercials. No matter what holiday you celebrate, JC Penney is there to debase it with materialism and sparkles.
It is night at Camp Balboa, where the deer and the antelope fear to tread. A snake, however, has no such compunction, and slithers its way over a log. Lightning flashes. Thunder crashes. The snake stalks Christa, but unfortunately elects not to eat her. She's too bony these days, I guess. Outside the shelter, Rupert sits by the fire, tending and poking it absently, just as I suspect he normally does with his beard. He explains to us that night is the only time when his great seafaring adventure runs into stormy weather, to be all White Squall about it. He laments that if he could just stay awake for thirty-nine days, he'd be fine, but I don't know. Considering his apparent mental fragility, sleep deprivation would have been a risky thing to add to the mix.
Rupert strolls along the beach thoughtfully. He stops and sits down on a log, and a crab scuttles by, muttering, "I am not tasty, I am not tasty, not a tender little morsel at all, I'll just be going...." In a night-vision interview, Rupert tells us that when it gets dark, he starts thinking about his family and missing them. By way of illustration, he proceeds to have an out-loud conversation with his absent wife. "I want everyone to see that I'm the best damn survivor that has ever been," he says. Well, he has made it slightly more than halfway through the game, after all, so I guess the evidence for that proposition is indeed overwhelming. "I am it," he says emphatically. In a moment that seems a little too imported from To Gillian, On Her 37th Birthday (yes, I am the only person who saw it, and I am determined to get my money's worth before I die), Rupert goes on to hear, apparently, Laura talking back to him. "I know I shouldn't think that way," he says, waiting for her to respond inside his head. "I know, I know, I hear you." Hmm. A Thing I Have Done: Imagine have a conversation with someone I miss. A Thing I Haven't Done: Say "I hear you" to him out loud. Rupert tells Laura that it's getting down to the only people left that he cares about -- Sandra and Christa. But as much as he cares about them, it's his own importance that's really on his mind, as usual. "I try to guide everything that goes on on my island," Rupert says. "I try to direct everyone's actions while keeping myself grounded and aware of what is going on around me. Not settling, ever, for anything but first, and letting everybody here realize that they are finishing in places of honor. To build them up to be a winner and still lose." And that is some arrogant bullshit, no fooling. Whatever defense can be raised of Rupert's fishing, his personality, his stick-to-itiveness, his perseverance, or his alleged charm, saying that you should get to be first and you are just trying to get everyone else to understand that losing to you is an honor? That's so self-satisfied that I actually groaned aloud when I heard it. There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to beat everybody, but wanting them to become comfortable with it, based on some kind of theory that they are destined to be losers and you are destined to be a winner, is raging asshole behavior. Nasty, that ego of his.
In the morning, Christa and Rupert, still lolling about on their chariots of self-importance, pass some beverage or other back and forth, calling each other "baby" the whole time. Jon, speaking for many of us -- and how scary is that? -- says that Christa and Rupert's smoochie-woochie routine makes him want to throw up his stingray and coconut all over their festival of snuggles. He adds that he thinks that for Rupert, Christa, and Sandra -- as for student body presidents throughout history -- "absolute power corrupts absolutely." I don't think the Triumvirate is any more corrupt than anyone else, actually, I just think they're more blind. And arrogant. And annoying. But then, the phenomenon of Jon's acting as my spokesperson really wasn't likely to last, unless I was prepared to increase the number of my thoughts that included the names of wrestlers and expressions like "oh, yeeee-ah." Burton and Jon head out to "get some water," by which they mean "talk about how to get rid of Rupert, Christa, and Sandra." Jon interviews, somewhat indignantly, that Rupert, Christa, and Sandra are trying to "hand-feed" fourth place to him, and they seem to expect him to be happy with it. This has convinced Jon to look for a chance to switch out of his alliance. So Rupert's efforts to convince his tribemates that they are finishing in places of honor by losing to him are working perfectly, as it turns out, except in reverse. As Burton and Jon collect water, they talk about how they ought to be able to interest Darrah and Tijuana -- who know that, barring a miracle, they might as well pack up their duds and scoot -- in an alliance (along with Lill) to boot the Triumvirate before things go any further down the road to Rupert's self-scheduled coronation. Don't start tuning up yet, Royal Orchestra of Rupertania.
"Once again," Jon says, "Johnny Fairplay finds himself in a great position." He continues by explaining that he can either go with the original plan and stick with the ex-Drakes, or he can flip and reconstitute his alliance with Darrah and Tijuana instead of Christa, Rupert, and Burton. Two reasons to flip, obviously: first of all, the new alliance would have five, rather than six, people in it. When you can set yourself up in an alliance that excludes three people instead of two and you think that alliance might hold, you're one step farther in the game. Second, the sub-alliances in the new alliance favor Jon much more than the sub-alliances in the old alliance. (Say it three times fast -- go!) This is why the Triumvirate's strategy was lacking: tipping your hand to that degree as to your sub-alliance within your larger alliance is very, very stupid, because your sub-alliance still constitutes a minority of the larger group, and if the rest of your larger alliance knows you'll later function as a bloc vote, they're going to boot you. It makes you too big a target -- like one person with three votes. If you knew, post-merge, that there was one person with three votes, who would have three votes all the way through to the end, you'd get rid of that person. You'd have to. You could sidle up to them for a while, but really, you'd have no chance against them as time progressed, so you'd have to get rid of them while you still had a chance.
Oh, anyway. So there's this show on. Jon talks about how great his position is. He says he's going with the new alliance, basically because the Triumvirate is telling him that fourth place is the best he can do. He actually makes -- God help me -- a fairly good baseball analogy about being asked to bunt in a clutch situation and thinking that's for sissies. It's the same thing Rupert did with Lill, in that he tries to get people just to roll over and assent to their own destruction, and it's ridiculous. When you want something from people -- which you still do, as long as you need them not to vote for you -- you can't make it clear to them that if they do what you're asking them to do, they can't win. That just makes no rational sense. At any rate, Jon and Burton talk about how very mad Rupert is going to be. Burton interviews that the boot-Rupert strategy is high-risk, but high-yield -- he has a much better chance with the new alliance, and booting Rupert would be quite an accomplishment, but if he gets found out, it's going to be ugly. In other words, if he gets found out, he will likely be , instead of at least outlasting Tijuana and Darrah, as he will if he sticks with the ex-Drakes. Probably correct.
Burton further explains that, by this point, he had hatched his evil plans with Jon and Lill, but he hadn't yet had a chance to talk to Tijuana and Darrah -- which, incidentally, firms up last week's theory that they hadn't all had these conversations as of last week's immunity challenge, so it's not that people lost their nerve at the IC or were afraid to get Rupert out, it's just that they had decided to get rid of Ryan-O first. At camp, Rupert empties a canteen and hands it to Lill to dispose of, and then he takes off to go fishing. He gives a little lecture about how he'd really rather be the kind of rotten guy who would just get fish for himself, but he's just too wonderful for that, and he can't help himself. It's not easy being the world's most magnanimous pirate, you know. Meanwhile, Christa and Sandra wander off to do something or other, apparently completely oblivious to the hazards of leaving the remaining folks alone at camp. I'm not sure you can really use physical presence to keep an alliance from forming against you if it's destined to happen, but you'd think that if they were at all clued into the dynamics, they might not leave behind precisely the set of people they could easily predict might decide to gang up on them. It's like when Mrs. Hannigan would go off and leave all the orphans alone, which always made Annie rally them in some kind of plan to escape or put pepper in her shoes or something. Fuckin' moppets. Jon explains that he and Burton predictably seized this opportunity to talk to the Morganite women.
Meanwhile, in a subplot that you will be surprised to hear is only the second most blatant metaphor of the week, Rupert is fishing for sharks. "The only way I'm taking that shot is if I can get directly over him, pin him straight down in the head, and hold that spear into him. Because if not, he's going to be gone, with my spear." See, unless you can get the direct hit at the big shark, he'll just wriggle from your grasp and you'll never get another shot at him. If you don't get it yet, I could provide you with a charcoal illustration where the shark's head is decorated with long hair and a shaggy beard. And is wearing a skirt.
At the Camp Meeting of Intrigue, Burton is explaining to Tijuana and Darrah that the Triumvirate alliance is too solid for him or Jon or Lill to break through. Therefore, if you are a Morganite woman, this is your lucky day. Jon lays out the plan, which is that they'll take Rupert out first. If Rupert wins immunity, they'll take Christa out first. Lill brings up the fact that there's going to be a lot of talk from the Triumvirate about Darrah going . She says she'll just play it off the way that gracious bootees have done -- disappointed but resigned. Hee. Burton stresses that the five of them absolutely have to remain united, and Jon adds the (I admit) wise suggestion that there should be no more talking about it, at all, because getting busted is pretty much the only thing that can go wrong now. A revived Tijuana does a little arm-pumping happy dance. She also gives Jon a big hug, which probably she should have skipped for strategic as well as hygienic reasons, since you never know who could walk up at any time. Burton talks with some amusement about just how thrilled Tijuana and Darrah were about getting another shot at staying around. Darrah, to this effect, interviews that she'd been "down in the dumps" about being , and now, for obvious reasons, she's feeling better. It's amazing what being brought back from the figuratively dead will do for a down-on-her-luck mortician.
Rupert didn't get the shark. Hmm, didn't get it, huh? Imagine. He did not get the victory. He did not overcome adversity. Rupert did not succeed. Rupert came down on the losing side of the epic battle. Take a minute; let it sink in. Anyway, Rupert says that he "loves being the baddest hunter out there," and would have loved to bring the shark back. "I never give up; I never surrender," he says gravely, to the delight of Galaxy Quest-loving forum posters. "I never admit defeat." That's going to be a little tough when you're enjoying your first KFC meal at Loser Lodge, babe.
Commercials. God bless Old Navy and whatever drugs their marketing department takes every year around this time. It wouldn't be the holidays without them.
On Day 26, there is some seamail to interrupt all the intrigue. It suggests an event involving running around on a boat, and Burton interviews that if it's a speed thing, he expects to do well. He says that if he wins, he anticipates that he'd probably give the reward to Rupert, just to keep peace. He even -- rather foolishly -- tells this to Rupert. Rupert solemnly says in an interview that he and Burton have a deal that Burton will give Rupert the reward if he wins, because Rupert gave Burton what he calls "my breakfast...my wonderful breakfast." Of course, when he gave away breakfast, Rupert said it was because Burton gave him immunity the night before, so it would appear that they are already even, but...far be it from Rupert to see it that way. "Burton promised me," Rupert whines in an interview that we will later learn took place after the reward challenge was over. I didn't see a promise myself -- I just saw a statement that that was what Burton planned to do, but whatever. Rupert goes on to say that the idea of this promise was that "it keeps unity between he [sic] and I [sic]; it keeps unity in our group." In other words, "It would operate to manipulate me just as Burton intended."
The group -- the members of which are looking pretty damn thin and scraggly these days -- makes its way up the beach to Jeff, who explains that the reward challenge involves an "obstacle course" on a mocked-up pirate ship. They'll run the course in teams of two; it involves a net climb, a rope swing, a crow's-nest climb followed by some knot-untangling, a slide down a sail, and some ringing of bells along the way. The winning pair will move into the finals, because once again, we're in heats. (No, no, we're in heats, I said.) And what is the reward? Well, the reward is a trip on a deep-sea fishing boat, where the recipient will receive beer and pizza and, of course, some deep-sea fishing. Jeff calls this "an adventure day," because he got the challenge description off the website for a fitness resort and spa, where a catamaran and a catered meal can still spell "adventure." He draws something out of something to determine the teams, and Burton and Lill (together again!) are paired against Christa and Darrah. Christa and Darrah actually pull ahead at the beginning, but then Darrah has a little bit of trouble grabbing the rope swing, and Burton's a little quicker with the knots than Christa is, and Burton and Lill take the first heat. In the heat, Tijuana and Sandra face Rupert and Jon. Tijuana apparently really wants this reward, because she is a monster on the nets, and when Jon forgets to ring his bell and has to go back, the ladies seem to have a shot. In the end, though, Sandra is too slowpokey and Rupert and Jon move on to face Burton and Lill in the final. The final turns out to be a little different, and involves retrieving puzzle pieces and then assembling them. The early highlight is basically that Rupert's skirt gets caught during the climbing, and he full-on flashes the entire world with pretty much everything he has. Rupert and Jon take an early lead, but -- what do you know? -- in a challenge that isn't physical, Rupert basically loses it on the puzzle assembly at the end, and Burton and Lill take it home. My favorite part is where Rupert pounds a puzzle piece with his fist, trying to force it to fit together. WHO GAVE ME THIS PUZZLE PIECE THAT DOESN'T FIT!? Heh. And also the open-mouth kiss Lill semi-accidentally plants on Burton at the end, prompting him to go, "Quit doin' that, Lill!" It's hard to tell how serious he is, but it's kind of funny either way. Because whether your mom means to kiss you on the mouth with her lips askew or whether she does it by accident? Still comedy. Or, you know, Greek tragedy.
So now, Jeff asks if Burton and Lill will be keeping the reward or giving it away. Lill answers immediately that she wants to keep it. Well, of course she does. It's a boat! It's pizza and beer! Who wouldn't keep that? Burton, on the other hand, thinks for a minute and then gives his reward to Jon. Ooooh, is Rupert gonna be mad! Of course, if you see it from Burton's point of view, there is absolutely no freakin' way he can let Lill go off on a boat with Rupert for hours. No way. So as nice as it would have been strategically for Burton to continue to promote the image of his friendship with Rupert, there was nothing else he could do here. This is why telling Rupert he intended to give him the reward if he won it was a bad move earlier. Granted, Burton couldn't have known Lill would be the co-winner and so forth, but it was an unnecessary risk. Rupert, of course, seethes. I suspect he is seething even in his baby pictures. Even in x-rays. Even in dental x-rays. Jon and Lill are going out on the boat together. Interesting.
Commercials. X2 on DVD. Mmm, Hugh Jackman. If you didn't see the Saturday night Great Performances in which he performed in Oklahoma!, you just don't know how scorching hot an Australian singing "People Will Say We're In Love" can really be.
"Well, that reward challenge was not as much fun as I had hoped," Rupert complains as the tribe walks along the beach toward camp post-challenge. Hmm, it must have been the losing. The total, deserved, self-inflicted losing. "Painful, painful, painful," he bitches. He should talk -- he isn't even the one who was forced to see his own nether regions. Burton says in an interview that he didn't give the reward to Rupert because he didn't want Rupert to get a lot of food going into the immunity challenge. So maybe my reason wasn't his reason. But my reason is better, so I'm sticking with it. Anyway, Burton says that he wants Rupert "tired, weak, injured, and hobbling around" at the IC. I don't think he literally means "injured"; I think he's just saying he wants Rupert as weak as possible at the IC, because he's been winning them quite a bit. Although if you see a guy running at Rupert with a baton and whapping him in the knee, and then you see Rupert writhing on the ground, crying, "Why? Why? Why" as his white lace skating dress becomes soaked with tears, you will know that Burton was more serious than I thought.
Over at Rupert's Gradual Descent Into Madness, he is chopping away at the outside of a coconut or something. "This is the outside," he snarls to an observing Christa. Or, quite possibly, to some invisible people who you and I and Christa cannot actually see. "This stinks of ROT and DEATH." And he says it with total, absolute grim seriousness, which is...really almost too much to believe. "There's just so much ROT and DEATH here," he continues, as Christa just looks on, probably dumbfounded by this psychotic display. Rupert goes on to interview that he knew he wasn't that secure when Burton didn't give him the reward -- and when Lill didn't give it to him. Oh, please. In what definition of reality would Lill, even if she were still in Rupert's alliance, be expected to give him her reward, which she won fair and square? "Scum," mutters Fucking Crazy Rupert as he picks at the coconut. "The bastard's gonna get [something something] to play with the whales." Yeah. Because he won. And you didn't. Because you were slower with the puzzle than he was. You know, when somebody says he's going to give you a great gesture of generosity to which you are not entitled, and then he changes his mind, you can think it's kind of impolite of him, but it doesn't make him "scum." Or a "bastard." Whatever. "Last goddamn thing I give to Burton," he mutters, "except a vote." So despite the fact that Rupert said he was giving Burton the breakfast because Burton gave him immunity, Rupert was apparently only giving Burton the breakfast to make Burton indebted to him. Yeah, too bad that didn't work too well. I think it just makes Rupert livid when he isn't able to manipulate people the way he wants to. "Rot...and death," he mutters. He really does have a screw loose, no kidding. It's sad, and kind of not that funny.
Okay, it's sad and funny.
Back at camp, Tijuana mutters -- against Jon's instructions earlier -- that "Rupert deserves to go." She seems to have some doubts, though, talking about the fact that they're all living because of Rupert. I'm sure that's true. If he hadn't been cast, they all would have died. Seriously. It would have been the first Survivor ever to feature weekly funerals.
Over in another conversation entirely, Lill apologizes to Rupert for not sending him on the reward boat trip. "You won, you should go," Rupert says, knowing this passive-aggressive shit will make her feel worse than if he actually told her what he thinks and let her apologize to him. "What's done is done," Sandra spits at Lill, as if it's any of her goddamn business at all. I'll tell you, Sandra is turning into a real bitch in a real big hurry. Lill won the damn thing. She never promised to give it away, and she was under no obligation to give it away. Shut up, Sandra. In an interview, Lill agonizes some more about how she should have given it to Rupert and she didn't, and now she feels bad, blah blah blah. We see her wander off with Jon, to whom she mutters, "I am such a bitch." Jon pauses. "Well -- thank God," he says. Not to laugh at Jon, but...heh. Lill puts on her Beaker frown and whimpers, "Don't say that about God." No, she really does. And this makes Jon laugh while he's trying to put his hand on her shoulder and comfort her. I still hate him, but I did feel for him at that moment. Back in the interview, Lill frets that Rupert should go, because he would catch fish, and she won't catch any fish. Boo hoo. Whimper whimper. When Lill expresses this to Jon, he assures her that they'll catch some fish, baby, no sweat. She tells him that Sandra is giving her dirty looks -- on the playground, presumably, at recess -- and Jon gives her another hug. I'm telling you, I still hate him, but this is the point in this game where, as people start to fall apart and take everything personally and freak out, you start to appreciate people who are still just. Playing. A. Game. For. God's. Sake. And that's where Jon is only 99.5% vile at the moment, instead of 100% vile, like he usually is. ["I have to say, he's a better person than I, because if I were the person to whom Lill was confiding as she bawled about keeping the reward she had won fairly instead of giving it to Rupert for no good reason, I would have given her the eye-rolling of a lifetime, called her a simp, and left her to cry all by her own stupid simpy self." -- Wing Chun] Back in her interview, Lill mentions that she doesn't get to take crazy vacations all the time in her normal life, and that when she got the shot at the beautiful ride on the boat, what she thought about was the chance to take it. Interestingly, with all his talk about having such a great adventure, Rupert should have been the first person to understand this, and he would have, if he were capable of genuinely thinking about anyone other than himself. Which he's not.
Jon and Burton take a stroll on the beach, and Burton tells Jon that everything that's going to happen from this point out depends on their relationship. He knows it's a game and that there's backstabbing, but -- Jon cuts him off. "Dude, there's no way either one of us can beat anyone else." And there you have it -- an actual piece of intelligible strategy. That's why these guys are smart to be allies, even though they basically hate each other. What they don't know, however, while they have this conversation, is that Sandra is hiding in the bushes. It does appear that most of what she's hearing is about them allying with each other down the line, and not necessarily that they're flipping on the ex-Drakes now, so it's not clear just how blown the plan really is. She immediately runs to Rupert -- slow to feel the power shifting -- and tells him that Jon is going to be working on Lill on the boat ride. See, I think Sandra may just believe that Jon and Burton are setting up Lill to be against the Triumvirate after they get rid of Tijuana and Darrah. In fact, Rupert starts to say, "If they turn," and Sandra says, "It's not turning; it's just that they want her in the palm of their hand." Oh, it's turning, sweetheart, believe me. Sandra worries over what Jon will say to manipulate Lill on the boat, and Rupert says, "It doesn't matter. The boat will come back, and I will talk to Lill -- I talk to Lill every morning. I'm going to ask her exactly what he talked about, and she will tell me." Rupert is the mayor of Rupertville, in the province of Rupertelle, in the Commonwealth of Rupertania. You'll need some special stamps in your passport if you expect to occupy the same universe he does.
Jon and Lill take off for their fishing trip. As Rupert watches them leave, he voices over that he needs to find out what's going on, and that he just hopes that when Lill comes back, she'll tell him what went on. As Lill and Jon board the catamaran, they're struck by how pretty it is. And it really is, too. "To the final three," Lill says, and she and Jon toast. They meet the captain, and they get settled, and Jon says, "You're glad you didn't give this bad boy up now, aren't you?" "I don't know," Lill says with doubt. "The ramifications...." "There are no ramifications," Jon says reassuringly. "I have everything worked out and we have all day to discuss it, so you will have no more questions, and there will be no more talk at camp between anybody." He promises her that he's going to tell her exactly how everything's going to work from this point out.
Jon explains that, first, they're going to boot Rupert. If he wins immunity, they're going to boot Christa. Lill cuts him off, half-smiling, saying that she has "a lot of guilt." He tells her she needs to "check that guilt at the door, or else quit this game right now." Damn. It's very disorienting, agreeing with Jon about anything, let alone practically everything. It's like finding yourself rooting for the same person Paula Abdul is raving about.
Whales frolic as the boat speeds through the water. It comes time for dinner, and the promised beers appear from the cabin. Jon and Lill are then presented with some extremely thick-crusted pizza. "Simple things make me very excited," Lill says. "I need to date women like you," Jon replies. ARE THEY FLIRTING? God, I just felt my stomach turn inside out and my eyeballs start shedding their outer layers. Jon says that the meal of beer and pizza is actually the best part of the game so far. Lill rests her head on Jon's shoulder. Ew. Lill, his shoulder! Think of where it's been! Other wrestler wannabes have undoubtedly sat down hard on that shoulder!
Later, Jon peers into one of the boat windows. "You know how much I like myself?" he says. "Seeing how good I look right now is a great thing." Apparently, the boat window works like a funhouse mirror of some sort. Lill, meanwhile, walks around the boat, inspecting the various knots. "Square knot," she proclaims at one point. "I am the Scoutmaster!" Hee. Jon tells her she's drunk; she insists she's only had three-quarters of a beer. Yep, she's drunk. The final indicator would be if she agreed with Jon about how good he looks, of course.
We swing around the boat, all "her name is Rio" and stuff, and then Jon and Lill are trying to catch some fish and make a productive day of it. I'm not sure who wrote all the pirate music they're using this year, but I have to say, they have done an admirable job of finding several different types of pirate music. This is the Adventure Pirate Music, as opposed to the Merry Pirate Music and the Ominous Pirate Music. You can tell this is an adventure rather than merriment, because you hear strings instead of tootling. "What happens if I get [a fish]?" Lill asks. "Uh, reel it in," Jon says. It's nice to see him in a situation where he can be The Smart One. I doubt it happens very often. Jon and Lill discuss the fact that they'd like to be able to take some fish home, but as the picturesque sunset grows around them, no fish-catching is actually seen.
When Jon and Lill return to camp, they explain to their disappointed tribemates that the fishing was unsuccessful. Given that it looked like the hooks were baited and dropped by the boat guys, and that the boat guys were apparently in charge of where to go and where to fish, if Jon and Lill didn't get bites, it would seem to me that Rupert wouldn't have done any better, so Sandra can take off that scrunchyface right now, thank you very much. Spear fishing is one thing, but if you're fishing from a boat with a line and nothing's biting, there's nothing you can do about it if you can't control where you are. The fish aren't going to jump into the boat just because Rupert catches fish for the tribe. In fact, they might hold that against him, don't you think?
Rupert explains that he pulled Lill aside immediately and tried to assure her that if she sticks with him, she can make the final two. Please. He told her just last week that she could do no better than final six, and she knows very well that he won't vote against Christa and Sandra. Too little too late, there, big guy. We see them talking in night-vision, and Rupert voices over that he was trying to figure out whether Jon was trying to suck Lill into a plot. Lill tells him Jon wasn't, and Rupert explains that he therefore now knows that Lill is "wholehearted with [him]." I think Rupert reads other people about as well as I read Sanskrit. "I wanted to hug and kiss her!" he says happily. Wow. Getting played by Lill has to be a low point in anyone's life, strategic-thinking-wise. Rupert gives her hand a smooch, and she looks very miserable. She is suffering. He is being manipulated. Heeee hee.
The day is Day 27, and it finds the tribe catching up with Jeff for yet another challenge. Jeff takes the Supreme Cutlass from Rupert and explains the week's challenge. Basically, this week, we are exploring the wonderful and dangerous world of blowdarts. Each player has been assigned a segment of a big dartboard. The first thing you have to do is hit your own part of the board once, and that makes you what Jeff calls a "killer." Once you do that, you can start hitting other people's parts of the board. Each shot against you takes one, two, or three of your "lives," depending on where it lands. When you lose all three lives, you're done. So, like last week, there's an opportunity to take other people out.
The first shooter is Lill, who misses the target totally. Ditto Tijuana, followed by Darrah. Jon misses as well, and then Rupert (of course) hits himself and becomes a "killer." Burton does the same. Nothing much happens until Jon makes himself a killer, and then Rupert hits Darrah and takes two of her lives. Burton hits Tijuana once. Sandra becomes a killer. Christa, Lill, Tijuana, and Darrah remain completely ineffectual. Jon takes out Christa with one shot, taking all three lives. Heh. "My bad," Jon mutters, because he totally didn't mean to. Rupert hits Darrah again and knocks her out. Now, Rupert was a complete idiot, I would point out, for concentrating on Darrah, who apparently can't even get her darts to the target, let alone accurately hit the side of a freaking barn door. If he's got good aim, he should have been aiming at Burton, because Burton's the only person who can hit the target reliably besides Rupert himself. When you get somebody out of the game, they also stop shooting. Had he hit Burton, there was plenty of time to take out Darrah without having much difficulty with getting hit himself. See what I mean? Rupert is skilled, but very, very strategically weak. He thinks on a very elementary level -- "I want to vote against Darrah; Darrah must not win immunity; I must hit Darrah." To control the outcome, he needed to get Burton early. Didn't do it; has only himself to blame for what happens.
To wit, Burton steps up and hits Rupert with a triple. Now, because Rupert is a killer, he loses killer status and two lives instead of losing all three lives. Sandra now steps up and takes a shot, and she...hits Rupert, taking his last life. Heh. I have no idea if she did that on purpose or not, but I really don't care, because it's hilarious either way. Rupert, of course, seethes. Again. Some more. Jon grins, but passes it off as rueful, which it really, really isn't. Heh. Sandra puts her hands on her head miserably.
Shooting follows, in which everybody else just tries to get near the board as Burton gradually takes them out. He knocks out Sandra. He knocks out Tijuana. He knocks out Jon. He knocks out Lill. See, Rupert? Burton. Aaaanyway, Burton wins immunity again, some more. He gives Lill a hug, and accepts the Supreme Cutlass from Jeff. Looks good on you, cutie-pie. (Yes, I am a bad person. And shallow. And easy to please.) Jeff reminds Burton that he will have the freedom to give immunity away at tribal council if he chooses. Everyone heads back to camp.
Wait, Tom Cruise is a samurai now? Do they allow Scientologists?
When we return, we see the beginning of the funniest and most anvillicious piece of symbolism in the history of Survivor, I would venture to say. Basically, a large lizard is being eaten by a snake that looks far too small to eat it at first. I think that by the time we're watching this, by the way, the lizard is alive, but pretty out of it, having been venomously bitten, so it's not exactly a vision of suffering. Just digestion, a very natural thing in the animal kingdom. Anyway, the snake puts its mouth around this huge lizard and just starts very gradually working the lizard into its mouth. It's very impressive, like watching a guy swallow a pumpkin.
Back on the beach, the tribe is returning from the blowhard immunity challenge -- which, if you think about it, really should have heavily favored Rupert. He voices over that the challenge "pissed the hell out of [him]." He complains that he "was clearly the best dart-blower there," so it just wasn't fair that he didn't win. Of course, he may or may not have been the most accurate (Burton looked to be similarly skilled), but he was certainly not the most strategic, as explained previously. He insists that Sandra obviously didn't do it on purpose, but he suspects that Burton knew what he was doing. Uh, you think? Catch up, Rupert. Take it out of neutral, for God's sake. Elsewhere, Burton and Jon solidify the Rupert-booting plan, reminding each other that neither of them can beat anyone else. In an interview, Jon says that he's happy about sending Rupert home, and that even though he promised not to vote for Rupert again, he considers Survivor promises not to be the real kind. I'm really tired of "Amen, brother"ing Jon during this episode. It's making my head hurt.
Snake continues digesting lizard. Only hind end of lizard now visible out of snake's mouth. Snake begins to slither off with lizard.
On the beach, Rupert and Lill discuss shell collecting. "What needs to be done?" she asks, ready to pitch in -- and, perhaps, trying to get a sense of Rupert's routine in preparation for his absence. "Shell collecting," he tells her, all "don't worry your pretty little head about food or real tasks." Lill interviews that Burton and Jon keep pounding it into her head that it's a game, and that she needs to play it like a game. Lill, however, is sad that she can't play sentimentally, because she lurves Rupert and would rather keep him. Oh, yes. I understand, dear. It's all been grand, dear. But now it's time to get rid of the guy who you know will, after he has dispensed with two more people, get rid of you.
Strolling on the beach, Rupert talks to Jon and Burton about how they need to boot Tijuana and Darrah now, so that they don't win immunity challenges later and interfere. Yeah, that seems likely. Rupert interviews that although Darrah seems resigned to leaving, "that could all be an act." Fortunately, however, Rupert knows that he has at least four, because he knows he has Lill. So, worst-case scenario, if Jon and Burton team up with Tijuana and Darrah, it's a four-four split. Rupert then talks to Christa, Sandra, Burton, and Jon, and gravely insists that they knock fists that they still intend to keep the five of them together. Burton and Jon offer happy fist-knocks, because of course, you can technically still knock fists, even if you're lying. Sandra interviews that she supposes it's possible that Burton and Jon are plotting something to outmaneuver the Triumvirate, "but [she doesn't] see it happening." Her sole reason for this seems to be expressions of loyalty among "the strong five." She is really, really deluded. Methinks she is spending too much time with Rupert.
Snake finishes off lizard. Thus endeth the lesson.
Tribal council time. The tribe descends on the fire pit, prepared to face Jeff. The first thing on the agenda this week is bring in Ryan-O, the first member of the jury. The Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters almost uniformly thought Ryan-O looked kind of rough; I don't know, he looks okay to me. Jeff talks to the tribe about the fact that they've been out there for twenty-seven days. "Is there anyone on this tribe you couldn't survive without?" Sandra points to Rupert, of course, and explains again how they all would have died, and nobody else would have been able to get food, and it's as ridiculous a theory as it's been from the beginning. I'll give Rupert this -- he did convince at least Sandra that he was critical to her survival, which is just absurd. If he weren't there, they would have done something else. They might have had less fish, but they would have done something else. Someone else would have mastered the spear. Someone else would have learned to do better without fish. They would have lived. Sandra also manages, in this talk, to insult Burton for only bringing a stingray instead of regular fish. A stingray that, as I recall, everyone agreed was really tasty, so I don't know what's chewing on her ankles and making her all bitchfaced. "We'd be assed out if it wasn't for Rupert," she says, and I am officially tired as all hell of her. It's a shame, because I loved her at first, but she has gotten arrogant, bitchy, and incredibly judgmental as things have progressed, and now I don't like her one bit.
Jeff asks Lill how important Rupert's fishing is, and Lill -- to her credit -- points out that it's very important, but that they do have another fish-catcher, after all. Jeff asks Burton whether there's a competition between himself and Rupert to be the "alpha male" (ugh) of the tribe. Burton insists that there is no such competition, and says that Rupert has certainly caught more fish than he has. This makes Rupert give the Animal-smile yet again. Burton, however, points out that "if one of us was struck by lightning, the tribe would get by." Thank you. Sheesh.
Jeff asks Sandra whether there are any free-riders on the tribe, in terms of work. Sandra proceeds to tear into Jon -- in a speech she actually starts with "let it be known," of all things -- complaining that he sleeps in and doesn't do work. I can believe the sleeping in part, but considering the way he acted toward Shawn, and considering the way Sandra talked about it at the time, I think the rest of her argument is basically bull. Jeff asks Jon to respond. "That's fine," he says. "She gives me a headache." Sandra goes into this head-waggling, weird-ass routine as Jon mutters, "It's all about her." She's nodding and trying to act all cool, but she has nothing clever to say. Because in the end, she's not clever, any more than he is.
Jeff turns to Darrah and says that she seems resigned to leaving. If she leaves, is she surprised? "No, not surprised at all," she drawls. She's sad, but not shocked.
Burton decides to keep his immunity, unsurprisingly.
Now it's time to vote. Christa votes. Ryan-O was widely called out for having rolled his eyes when she walked by, incidentally, but I don't see it. He reacts a little, but there's no eye-roll other than watching her go by, as far as I can see. Not that she wouldn't have deserved it. Sandra votes. Rupert votes for Darrah: "A Morgan has to go tonight, and the other two work harder than you." Sophisticated thinking, that. Burton votes. Tijuana votes. Jon votes for Rupert. "To be the man, you gotta beat the man," he says, again with the wrestling, I'm sure. Darrah votes. Lill votes. Jeff heads off to tally.
Darrah gets a vote. Darrah gets another vote. Jon gets a vote. Rupert gets a vote. And Rupert gets another vote. And another vote. Sandra sits with her hand over her mouth. Rupert gets another vote -- that's four. Rupert shakes his head with disappointment. How dare they? HOW DARE THEY? The last vote is read, and -- Rupert.
And there was much rejoicing, at least in my house. ["Mine too. Like, to kind of an unseemly extent. On my part." -- Wing Chun]
Sandra looks shocked -- maybe a little too shocked? -- as Rupert takes his torch to Jeff. Jon grins, the smug bastard. Rupert manages to squeeze in a disappointed "I cannot believe that" just before Jeff's "the tribe has spoken." Rupert takes the long Walk of Booting -- yay! Yay, yay, yay! Sandra looks miserable.
Now, over the credits, Rupert gets to offer his final words. Here's what he has to say: "It is insane how bad I needed this. This would've made my life a lot better. I always get hurt trusting people. I want so badly to be accepted. And I never get the acceptance that I want. I don't fit. So much for my dreams." What a pile of self-indulgent, quasi-shrinky horseshit that is, seriously. Yes, Survivor is exactly the way to test whether you can make friends and find acceptance. Because if they really like and accept you, they'll...well, they'll let you win, I guess, is the theory. You know, when he went off on Jon after the last time he received votes, it seemed possible that Rupert was only offended in a kind of honor-and-dignity way that they would boot him before the merge, and that Rupert would graciously understand that he would be a target later. I just want to note for the record...NOT. Dude seriously thought they owed it to him not to vote for him. Ever. To let him win. To finish in "places of honor" by consent. So in the end, there are two choices. The first is that Rupert is an almost pathologically self-involved guy who honestly thinks that he should be able to have his way in any and all situations, simply by demanding obedience. The second is that twenty-seven days in the Pearl Islands made him, as one of my favorite writers once said, "poo-flinging bugfuck crazy." Take your pick.
Look, the guy got out-and-out beat. Rupert got beat because he made a big show of how much power he had in situations like Andrew and the rice exchange. He got beat because he told Lill she was going to be sent home in sixth place. He got beat because he had no ability to read Burton until much too late. He got beat because he overplayed his sub-alliance with Christa and Sandra. He got beat because he never adjusted to the merge, still insisting on seeing the tribe made up of "Drakes" and "Morgans." He got beat because he badly bungled the strategy of that last immunity challenge, which he very well might have won, had he targeted Burton first. He wasn't too nice, he wasn't too trusting, he wasn't too much of a threat, he wasn't a social misfit, he wasn't unlucky, he wasn't cursed, and he wasn't cheated. He was well-liked, physically powerful, and a good provider, and he still only made it about halfway through the game. Because, in the end, he didn't play very well. It's not a tragedy, it's not a cautionary tale, it's not a teaching moment, and it isn't a sad commentary on our times. It's bad play, leading to a bad result, and the guy needs to get over himself.
week, on a special Wednesday (mark your calendars) episode: Idiot Jon is weepy -- what's up with that? Everyone is his friend -- what's up with THAT? And: is someone sabotaging the food supply? Christa weeps that it's not her. Jon doesn't like Christa and Sandra. Big shocker there.