Previously on You Can't Spell "Crazy-Ass, Self-Obsessed, Obnoxious, Delusional Pirate" Without "Irate": Jon and Burton, fed up to their Brillo-padded noggins with Rupert's Triumvirate of Arrogant Snots, solidified an alliance with Lill and rounded up a rather stunned Tijuana and Darrah in a plot to oust Rupert. Burton and Lill won an afternoon of beer and pizza and the carefree slaughtering of fish, but Burton gave his half of the reward to Jon, not needing any more open-mouth kisses, thank you very much. And in the end, the fish turned out not to have anything to worry about, really. Sandra tattled to Rupert that she overheard Burton and Jon plotting something, but Rupert was sure that Lill would spill when he barked the order. Peppered with Rupert's questions, though, Lill showed her immense theatrical range by acting clueless (she is the sly one), and she thus kept the Bearded Bore in the dark about his impending misfortune. Burton then triumphed at the dartboard immunity challenge, thanks to Rupert's obliging decision to have absolutely no grasp of strategy. Rupert tapdanced a bit to ensure his own continued safety, but at tribal council, he nevertheless got the big snuff. Snuff! So in the end, blustery, big-headed, self-crowned King Rupert of the Pearl Islands lasted exactly one tribal council longer than Sir Ryan-O the Pretty And...Well, Just Pretty. Some things are just so delicious that you have to roll them around on your tongue for quite some time before you feel you've gotten the full benefit. And it doesn't only apply to dark chocolate, either.
Credits. You don't really notice how rough these people look until you see them in the credits and see what they normally look like. Poor, poor dirty people. They're starting to look like the cast of a Carnivàle spinoff set in Bermuda.
Commercials. Get yourself a 10x optical zoom lens, yours free with the only consumer-grade digital camera that will one day have its own subdivision in the anti-stalking statutes.
It is Night 27 at Balboa, and the weather is vaguely menacing. There seem to be a lot of storms this season; I don't know if we've ever had quite this much lightning. Or maybe it's all the same shot and I've now seen the same lightning strike a hundred times or so. That would explain my constant feeling of déjà-vu, which I had attributed until now to the fact that Jon's hair makes me think of Betty White. The castaways are returning from the Rupert-booting tribal council, down one bushy beard and one raging ego. And, presumably, bits and pieces of the breaking hearts of megalomaniac-likers everywhere. Sandra stomps back to camp a little bit ahead of the group, undoubtedly dismayed that things are not going exactly the way she perhaps planned them. Creepy night-vision Christa stares blankly at a spot on the ground about six feet in front of her as she interviews that she was "shocked" at the booting of Rupert. "Maybe I've been too cocky all along, thinking I know what's going on," she intones in her trademark nasal voice. Stand aside while I fire up the "Gee, ya THINK?"-inator and blast yet another round into the sky.
Once everyone returns to camp, Sandra starts in on one of her usual Bullying Lectures to the Annoyed and Ultimately Indifferent about how nobody can trust Jon, "that bitch." "He will backstab you in a fucking heartbeat just like he did everybody here," Sandra says angrily, forgetting that, of the people there, Jon really only backstabbed herself and Christa. While her worldview would indeed tend to suggest that that's "everybody here," it's actually not. Jon, in return, calls Sandra out for having done nothing but ride Rupert's coattails, and says, "Guess what? That coat just left." It takes me a moment to grieve for the fact that "that coat just left" is the best he could do with the "coattail" setup. Then again, his showing any trace of genuine wit at this point would have come as such a shock that I would have never had the hiccups again. "Every time a plan went down, you put it together," Sandra volleys back. Now, wait, just who is that supposed to piss off? Again, the only people who are unhappy about what just happened are Sandra and Christa. Everyone else was in on it, so what's the point of declaring him the mastermind? Isn't she essentially telling the rest of the players that Jon is responsible for getting them to where they are now? Aren't they likely to...you know, thank him? Sandra is very passionate and plain-spoken, both of which are qualities I appreciate, but her percentage in terms of sense-making is not so high.
Jon, looking even creepier and scragglier than usual under the punishing gaze of night vision, interviews that tribal council that night was "one of his proudest moments in this game." He says, in a way he thinks is magnificently perceptive, that "the one factor you can always count on is greed," and he goes on to cite Tijuana's and Darrah's "greed" for their decision to come aboard the new alliance with him and Burton. It's not greed, in fact, because greed has to do with wanting more than you need, not looking out for yourself when other people are legitimately out to get you. I mean, what would have been the non-greedy thing to do? Intentionally let yourself lose the game? ["That would have been the noble thing to do, I believe." -- Rupert] It's just another installment of Jon's usual self-aggrandizing yammerfest, and his efforts to cast the game in epic terms as if he's secretly taking advantage of other people's dark sides like some kind of cynical, Darth-Vader-ish savant are about as credible as everything else he has said and will say in this episode. Convincing people they can do better in an alliance with you isn't really leveraging any quality of theirs, after all, except the fact that everyone wants to win. I'm not even going to waste the breath involved in telling Jon to shut up, because his existence squanders enough of the earth's oxygen as it is.
Back in Sandra's rant, she yells at Jon that she hopes Tijuana, Darrah, and Lill will "turn on [his] ass." Well, I guess she told him! Seriously, what kind of a declaration of war is that? "I hope your alliance that will otherwise oust me doesn't hold together, and that I am somehow saved at the last minute!" Oooooh, you go, girl!
"Who threw the fish out?" Burton asks, opening a new chapter in tonight's ongoing Festival of Highly Questionable Behavior. "Sandra, did you throw the fish out?" he asks calmly. She hollers back in his face: "No, I'm hungry, what the fuck am I gonna do with throwing fish out?" As it turns out, Rupert had fished in the afternoon and left the fish in a bucket, and now they're gone. Burton seems to suspect Sandra more than Christa initially, probably because Sandra does seem to be the loopier of the two. In the end, though, he concludes that Christa is responsible, because Sandra credibly points out that she was flapping her yap the entire time, and it seems logical that it would have been one of the two of them who wouldn't want the tribe to have Rupert's fish. Christa denies involvement, and Sandra continues to deny involvement as well. Jon insists that he thinks he even saw Christa skulking around in the area where the fish were, so suspicion begins to center on her. In an interview, Jon -- without a hint of irony -- says, "That was the most idiotic, childish thing I've seen since this game has begun, and Christa will be penalized." The idea of his talking down other people's behavior as "childish" is really so ironic that he's lucky that oft-repeated bolt of lightning didn't come dashing over and take his head clean off at that moment. Moreover, if he would really change who he votes against as a result of that incident, he's not as good a player as he thinks -- but I suppose we've pretty well established that already. ["Finally, he didn't 'see' jack, so shut up, Jon." -- Wing Chun] Christa interviews that everyone apparently now believes she tossed the fish, so she fully expects to be voted off .
We then actually see the abandoned fish lying out in the jungle with little crabs crawling all over them. Oh, the humanity! Or...you know, the fishiness. There's a really horrible "the fish have crabs" joke in here somewhere, but I'm not looking for it. You could, but what would your grandmother think? More on that later.
The morning, Burton, Jon, and Lill agree that they can smell the fish and could smell them all night, so they can't be far. Jon, by the way, has returned to his kerchief-on-the-head look, and appears to be the second coming of the ugliest housewife stumbled across in 1948 by a now-traumatized former door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman. Burton says that he and Lill can go get water, and Jon can look around and try to trace the smell, presumably because he's the least likely to be distracted by the stench of himself. When Burton and Lill take off water-hunting, though, they abruptly run across the fish, strewn all over the ground just behind the camp. As they recover the fish, Lill interviews that Christa swears she's innocent, but Lill thinks she did it, essentially out of anger that Rupert was booted. Around the morning fire, Christa continues to insist that she had nothing to do with it, and Burton tells her that she is the only person who could have done it, so she must be fibbing. "You're lying. And you have a reason to lie," he says loudly. In an interview, Christa snorfles that she left the group for a minute to put her canteen down, and that they've all concluded that she threw out the fish during that time. She struggles with the frustration of having no way to prove that she didn't do it. I feel for Christa in one sense, but I also don't think she's a very nice person, and she has sometimes taken great pleasure in lording it over other people on the tribe that she has power over them -- remember, she gave Darrah and Tijuana a snotty dressing-down at tribal council in a way that was pretty gratuitous. To some degree, she's reaping what she's sown here. No one believes her because she hasn't shown any interest in, or developed any kind of friendly relationship with, anyone other than Sandra and Rupert. She spent several weeks convinced that those were the only allies she needed to get through the game, and this is what can happen when you become so fixated on your compatriots that you foment resentful feelings against you on the part of everyone else. Rule #1 Of Survivor: No Fomenting.
Back at camp, Burton lectures Christa that if they're all going to live together, they can't have people sabotaging the tribe. As this yelling goes on, Sandra gives a guilty smile into the camera and then ducks out of sight. In an interview, she explains: when they came back to camp from tribal council, she was determined not to let the rest of the tribe eat the fish that Rupert caught, so she started to take it out of camp -- to hide it, I guess, like any good twelve-year-old character named "Ferret" or "Loogey" in a Disney summer camp farce -- and as she was carrying it, she tripped and dropped the fish all over the ground. I have no idea whether she's telling the truth about tripping on the vine or not -- facially, it doesn't sound very credible, but I don't know why she'd lie in the interview. Either way, she was endeavoring to deny the fish to the tribe in retaliation for their voting out Rupert, and it doesn't really matter much to me how the fish landed on the ground. I see intentional food-wasting in the same light no matter why you do it, so to me, it's pretty much the same as if Ryan-O had dumped the fish because he was angry at the Triumvirate for voting out Andrew. When you deprive hungry people of food out of pure spite, you're an ass. Game or no game, that's an ass move. But let's not dwell on it -- believe me, we'll have plenty of opportunities to discuss these matters as the episode progresses. You're going to be getting all your ethics credits in this one recap -- it's like the best continuing ed seminar ever. And I am the boring putz with the PowerPoint presentation. You can pick up your handouts at the back of the room.
Back at camp, Tijuana seems to be having a chat with Christa, telling her that she saw her behind Jon during the Sandra-Jon smackdown, "in the shadows," so Tijuana thinks Christa is guilty, too. Of course, because of the way she's treated Tijuana so shabbily in the past, Christa has no goodwill to draw upon now. Sandra explains in her interview that she's "in a bind," because if she 'fesses up that she's the guilty party, everyone will hate her -- Christa for holding out, and everyone else for dumping the fish in the first place -- and she's sure to go . Christa, meanwhile, is tearfully explaining to Tijuana that she knows she looks guilty, but that she's innocent. She weeps in her interview that she feels "alone" and "just want[s] to go home." Blah blah blah. "It sucks being here right now," Christa says miserably. Again, I'd feel a lot more sorry for her if she hadn't been such a sour snot to all these people for the first four weeks. Anyway, she just wants to "get back to real life." And, presumably, touch up her roots.
The camera guys swoop hungrily over the island landscape, and the tribe members gradually make their way out of the jungle and onto the beach for the reward challenge. Jeff sits them down on a set of mini-bleachers, as he so often does. Don't you wish there were cheerleaders at a moment like this? Anyway, Jeff explains that the reward challenge will be the inevitable walk-the-plank rip-off that you have known was coming since the first "arrrr" escaped your lips during the first episode. Asked who he'd like to see walk the plank, Jon eagerly names Sandra and Christa. Jeff -- taking one more opportunity to crush Jon like a bug -- explains that this will not happen, because the challenge will be much more intense than sending each other to walk the plank. This is the "loved ones" challenge, and you're actually going to be sending each other's nearest and dearest to walk the plank. There are a series of wooden diving boards, basically, suspended over the water, and serving up other people's beloveds to the sharks is the order of the day.
The first to appear is Sandra's husband Marcus, a pleasant-looking fellow who runs over and gives her a big hug. Just seeing them hug makes Lill burst into tears, because she is as nutty as a fruitcake, as they say. Tijuana is greeted , by her "high-school sweetheart and still great friend" Billy. Hmm, I wonder what that relationship description means, exactly. It sounds from the description like it could be the "loves her dearly; discovered he's gay" friendship, but that's not quite the vibe I get from them. Might be a fortieth-birthday marriage pact thing, I suppose. Anyway, Billy's very cute, and Tijuana's very cute clapping excitedly about seeing him. I definitely have the most actual affection for her out of all the people who are left. up is Burton's mom, Didi, who didn't quite dress for the Pearl Islands, in that she's in a fairly fancy black pantsuit. Man, that getup will take a while to recover from a trip into the drink. Mother and son share a nice hug. Lill's husband Lonnie shows up , and she predictably cries all over herself embracing him. There is Titanic-esque tin whistling. Lonnie doesn't even get the open-mouth kisses, though. Scandale! Darrah's boyfriend Bradley comes around the corner, looking for all the world like the president of the Young Republicans of Tupelo, and they hug, too. At first, Darrah looks a little numb about seeing him, but before long, she's all weepy, too. Christa's fiancé is , and she's crying, crying, crying as he comes over and hugs her. See? A real boyfriend loves you even when your roots are showing. "Hey, I'm about to cry," Jeff observes with what passes for warmth.
"Jon," Jeff says , "here's your buddy Dan." Around the corner, making Fairplay Fingers all the way, comes Jon's bud, who looks very much like the beer-swilling idiot friend you'd expect a pipsqueak like Jon to have. They hug, and then Jon says softly to Dan, "How's Grandma?" There is a pause, and then Dan says, "She died, dude." You know, there are a number of moments that are burned in reality-television history on the basis of sheer idiocy, and "she died, dude" is definitely one of them. The fact that it doesn't seem to arouse more suspicion in more of these people is how you can tell they're not that bright. ["I'd also say that the rest of the contestants didn't react to this announcement with more suspicion may have been because being all alone in an intense situation can create a kind of mass hysteria, like when you go to camp and sit in a Spirit Circle and a counselor reads a sappy poem you're all supposed to think is meaningful, or some such fruitiness, and then one girl gets a little emotional about it and then before you know it everyone is totally bawling and you don't really know why except you just get carried along in the moment." -- Wing Chun] Would Big Dumb Dan have been making with the Fairplay Fingers if he had been about to tell the guy that his grandmother died? Would Jon, had he really been expecting either Big Dumb Dan or Old Granny Fairplay, have started by gloating to Big Dumb Dan about being in the final seven? It's just patently absurd. It's not worthy of Eddie Haskell, let alone Richard Hatch.
Anyway, Jon acts all broken up at "she died, dude." Overhearing this, the other castaways begin to react. Lill, of course, is all sad, because she missed the scout badge in intellectual curiosity, and she takes things about as literally as a four-year-old. Jon and Dan hug again. When Jon sits back down, Jeff asks him about what just happened, and Jon says that it was either supposed to be Dan or Old Granny Fairplay showing up, and the reason it's Dan is that Dead Old Granny Fairplay is no longer with us, having gone to the Dead Granny Resort in the sky, where she is playing Dead Granny Canasta with all the other Dead Grannies. ["Watching this a second time, I did notice that Jon was careful to be vague about the details of exactly where Granny Fairplay was now -- in a metaphysical sense -- and just said something along the lines of 'She's not around' instead of 'She passed away' or even 'Jeff: she died, dude.'" -- Wing Chun] Burton pats him on the shoulder. "I can hope to win this and get some more information," Jon blubbers. Darrah looks teary. Lill clutches Jon's hand. Sandra looks at him, thinking precisely the following: "Like hell your grandmother died, you creepy little lowlife toad."
Commercials. Electric razors make you sexy. Everyone at Norelco swears that they're totally not lying about this.
When we return, Jeff explains the details of the plank-walking challenge. He'll ask a question about the castaways, and they'll answer for themselves, and their loved ones will answer for them. Whenever the answers match, you get to send somebody else's loved one another step down the plank toward the end. So it's like The Newlywed Game, only with more clichéd pirate trappings and less of Bob Eubanks pumping you for information about the weirdest place you ever did it. The fourth hit to anyone's loved one will send that person off the plank and out of the game. Last one standing wins reward, which is the right to go back and spend twenty-four hours at camp with your beloved castaway. Or, in the case of Big Dumb Dan and Idiot Jon, the castaway who got you your five minutes of fame.
The loved ones take to their planks. During the questioning, we learn several things. Sandra's nickname is "Changa." Darrah's boyfriend thinks her nickname is "DJ," but she thinks it's "Nub Nut." I'm not sure whether I want to believe that Darrah has a boyfriend who calls her "nub nut," or whether I want to believe that Darrah can't spell "numbnuts." They're both really, really sad possibilities to consider. Burton and his mom both write down that his nickname is "Burton," which is much funnier than it should be. When we get to the plank-walking itself, Sandra points fiercely and dramatically and takes her first shot at "Fairplay's buddy." She ain't fooled, people. That's no accident -- she thinks Dead Old Granny Fairplay is a pile of horseshit. I might not be so sure if she hadn't done it so eagerly right at the beginning, complete with pointing, but she did. And I am. Lill indignantly retaliates on Jon's behalf by sending Sandra's husband down the plank. Jon just cannot believe Sandra's insensitivity and says, "I have about a million questions I'd like to know about my grandmother, but obviously some people don't give a shit." Lill nods enthusiastically with Jon's anger, because when you're tending the garden of your own doofusness, you have to water it as often as you can. "It's not all about you all the time," Sandra snaps back to Jon. Lill lectures with patient exasperation, "His grandmother just died." See, as far as I'm concerned, Sandra should have just gone for broke. If she didn't believe him and she was going to take a whack at his buddy first, she should've just said, "You know what, Jon? I think you're lying." That wouldn't have made her look any worse than what she just did, which was to suggest that she maybe did believe Dead Old Granny Fairplay was really most sincerely dead, and just didn't think it was important. So rather than the "it's not all about you," which struck me as an unfortunate and weaselly hedge, I wish Sandra had just said, "Considering what I've seen from Jon so far, I don't believe anything he says, and I'm sorry if his grandmother just died, but he's made it impossible for anyone to assume she did just because he says she did." That, I would have respected. ["The Sandra we know couldn't have been that articulate, I don't think, and would have said something like Jon's lying about his grandmother's death left him 'ass out' or something." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Jon sends Sandra's husband down the plank. Burton sends Billy walking. Christa, with a shrug, picks Burton's mom. Poor Didi. I hope she won't lose one of those earrings in a mess of seaweed.
The game goes on from there. Highlights: Tijuana answers that her favorite meal is chicken, but she admits that Billy's answer is actually the right one -- she forgot about mac and cheese. It's very cute the way Tijuana keeps apparently deciding that Billy's answers are better than the ones she came up with. Sandra loses her nerve and stops going after Big Dumb Dan, now picking on Lill's husband because Lill picked on hers. Lill goes after Sandra's husband yet again. Jon sends poor Marcus on the final ride into the water. Marcus jumps off obligingly. Splash! , there's a question about fantasy professions, and Darrah answers, "Modeling," while her boyfriend answers for her, "Nursing." Darrah: "We're gonna have to talk when we get home." Snerk. Christa's fiancé is to end up in the water. Burton thinks the personality trait that could make him lose the game is "Funny." Gosh, I can think of three things that are wrong with that answer without even breaking a sweat. Darrah's boyfriend goes in the water. Burton's mom goes in the water, to the dismay of everyone -- it's not easy to see anybody's mom walk the plank. Burton (just call him by his nickname, "Burton") gives a very effectively comic cringe as she makes a splash. Jon sends Billy into the water, and Billy even throws Jon a "my condolences, man" as he goes in. That Billy is a nice guy. Cute, too. If Tijuana has decided they should just be friends, he can call me anytime. As if that's not enough, Billy cannonballs into the water. Aw, love him. Tijuana giggles and applauds. If she isn't in love with that guy, she sure acts like she is.
It comes down, in the end, to Lill's husband and Big Dumb Dan. Burton, predictably, sends Lill's hubby into the water so that Jon can get all the scoopage about Dead Old Granny Fairplay. Lill says that she totally understands this, and her soon-to-be-soaked husband will, too. They're going to let Jon have some time alone with his tragedy. I would point out that based on where Big Dumb Dan is standing right now, somebody else threw him a vote besides that first one from Sandra, and it's interesting that they didn't show us who it was. Anyway, Lonnie goes into the ocean, and Lill leans over and gives Jon a big kiss on the cheek, as she is wont to do. Jon goes around and hugs everybody, telling them how grateful he is for everything. Jon bounds over to give a huge embrace to Big Dumb Dan. Burton remarks to BDD that Jon has lost about thirty pounds, and BDD says he thought Jon gained ten. Is that wit? Because Jon is scrawny? Oh, BDD, you witty, witty thing.
Jeff announces that the result of the reward challenge events is that Idiot Jon and BDD will have the camp to themselves for twenty-four hours -- the rest of the castaways are being banished to a separate beach with a machete and some matches. This may sound kind of bad, but of course, not having to spend your evening with Idiot Jon and BDD is its own reward, giving the reminiscences about fictional sexual conquests that seem sure to follow. Everyone hugs, and Jon explains that BDD is known to him as "Thunder-D." Good gracious, what a fuckwit he is, seriously.
The rest of the castaways, the time we see them, are de-boating at Isla Hermita, which is apparently Spanish for "Barren-Ass Beach Not Quite Chosen For A Madonna Song." "Home, sweet home," Sandra says unhappily, stewing (I suspect) over the fact that she still thinks they got taken by Jon back there at the reward challenge. Tijuana explains that it's a struggle to get settled in at a new place, as Burton opens a coconut and finds it to be rotten. Do you get it? It stands for moral decay, y'all. ["But does it STINK of ROT and DEATH?!" -- Wing Chun] Burton interviews, as we already knew, that they all let Jon take the reward challenge because of Dead Old Granny Fairplay, and that their loved ones will all be there when it's all over, after all. Dead Old Granny Fairplay, on the other hand, is worm food. Worm food, I tell you! Lill interviews similarly and gravely that she just had to suck it up, because Jon's news about his grandmother was more important than her hanging out with her husband. Oh, Lill.
Back at Camp Balboa, Jon and BDD are walking up the beach toward camp. "That was a brilliant performance, sir," Jon says, which is completely ridiculous, considering that BDD's contribution was "She died, dude," and he didn't even say that very convincingly. Nevertheless, Jon goes on to voice over that, indeed, Not Dead Old Granny Fairplay is perfectly fine, undoubtedly at home watching Jerry Springer. (Oh, she would.) Jon explains in an interview that he has only one chance to win a million dollars, and so he thinks there's no reason not to take "every single advantage possible." He tells BDD confidently that he's in the final two for sure, by the way. He grins that he hasn't come anywhere near getting voted off yet. BDD interviews that before he left to come on the show, Jon hatched this brilliant scheme and asked for his help. ["By the way, a poster on the Fametracker boards by the handle of Matthew IV has said that he is the friend of a friend of Jon's, and suggested the grandma ploy as a joke, never imagining that Idiot Jon would be idiotic enough to go through with it." -- Wing Chun] Jon happily interviews that the non-death of Not Dead Old Granny Fairplay could wind up being "the dirtiest thing ever to be done in this game."
So. The debate all week has been whether Jon's maneuver here was (1) low; (2) brilliant; (3) potentially effective; or (4) good television. My answers would be (1) yes; (2) no; (3) slightly; and (4) yes. Allow me to explain. I generally hate moralizing about Survivor. I hate people who preen about playing with integrity, I hate people like Rupert who find moral outrage in being voted out when being voted out is the heart of the game, and I hate people who think that they "deserve" to stay around just because they do the most work around the camp. Therefore, the fact that Jon was going for an advantage does not, in and of itself, bother me, nor does the fact that he lied. Nevertheless, even within those boundaries, there are still lots of choices about how you're going to act. You still have the option of acting like a gratuitous asshole or not acting like one, and there's no proof over time that acting like a gratuitous asshole is an inherently good strategy. More to the point, I don't even think Jon's main reasons for doing this were strategic. There's a clip of him on CBS.com explaining that he wants to go down in history as the dirtiest player ever, and we've already been given the full benefit of his intense interest in professional wrestling. It doesn't have a lot to do with winning the game; it's just an attention-getting stunt. It certainly isn't "brilliant," as second-graders throughout history have often tried the same thing. Unlike some strategic moves that require a careful and intelligent read of the other people in the game and how exactly to take advantage of them, this is a very crude approach -- as BDD said, it was formulated before Jon had any idea what would be going on in the game at this point or who the people would be. It's a blunt force tactic that, while he got away with it, didn't have any particular elegance, strategically.
Furthermore, it's still asshole behavior, even if it was strategic. Everybody else misses the people they love as well, and lying your way into being the only person who gets to see his friend by taking advantage of other people's decency is just shitty, whether you do it inside or outside of a game. It's not cheating, and it's not screwing with the integrity of the game or anything like that -- but Jon's still a dick. I agree with those who have observed that there's such a thing as using a jackass strategy, which for the most part involves making it to the merge and then convincing people that they should take you to the finals, because you're such a huge prick that they can easily beat you in a jury vote. However, that's only one of several possible ways to play, and my sense about people in a game like this is that they don't choose strategies at random. To the degree that they bother to choose strategies at all, they choose strategies that suit them. Most people who choose the jackass strategy do it because they're jackasses, and they know they're jackasses, and they know that no one will like them anyway, so they might as well use it to their advantage. Even if it's a strategic maneuver, that doesn't mean he's not an jackass. Just as I'm quite confident that Evil Doctor Will really is an egotistical shit in real life despite the fact that acting like an egotistical shit was also his strategy, I'm quite confident that Jon is a grating, obnoxious, eleven-year-old in real life, even if acting like one is also his strategy. Therefore, when I see him act like a grating, obnoxious, eleven-year-old, I still think he sucks for doing it, even if his reasons for doing it are strategic, and even if it works.
In the end, there's nothing especially interesting to me about this particular lie, and nothing especially smart about it. It's true that people in this game -- like people in most games -- tend to leave an inch of space to allow them to accommodate the fact that the game is not the only thing in life, and I think that if asked, they'd readily admit that they do. It's true that that inch of space can be exploited, and it's true that nobody ever promised not to exploit it, and that's why it's not cheating or even, really, a genuine betrayal on any personal level. And if you want to be the guy who exploits that space, then it's further true that the other people only have themselves to blame for leaving it there. But when you make that choice, you've made it, and you're going to be rung up for it, and nobody is under any obligation to read high intelligence into what's actually just you doing what comes naturally -- being a selfish jackass. Jon may have gotten himself on television, but he's pretty pedestrian when you come right down to it. There's a Jon in every college dorm in America -- cheating on tests, conning people into giving him money, bragging to his friends about how much he can drink, and otherwise sucking up the last moments of his youth before his devilish persona finishes morphing into pathos. In a couple of years, when he's desperately making the Fairplay Fingers at some oblivious girl five stools down from him at Belly, Jon's going to figure it out: A reality show, with incredibly rare exceptions, does not give you a long career in television. It gives you a very short career in television, followed by a very long career as someone who used to be on television. The long career is the one you don't want to fuck up.
Aaaaanyway. Commercials. It's good to see Valerie Bertinelli back in the TV-movie business. It's been so long since she had to confront her personal demons or face the loss of the things she holds most dear.
On the morning of Day 29, the rest of the castaways return by boat as BDD prepares to leave. BDD meets up with the returning castaways, and they all give him warm greetings. He asks them whether they were all right where they were, and they all say no. I could have done with a little more coverage of their difficult night, because we saw almost nothing, and it looks like it was pretty bad. If anyone was bitten by an animal, I'd like to think they would have told me. Especially if there was painful swelling. BDD leaves, as Jon pumps his fist happily.
There is still an impending immunity challenge and booting, in case you forgot. Sandra voices over, as she and Tijuana wander into the jungle together, that she and Christa have been looking for a way to turn Tijuana and Darrah away from the obvious emerging plan to oust the remains of King Rupert's Triumvirate over the two votes. Sandra thinks that Tijuana has the power to make a move, but she's hoping that the move will be in favor of Sandra and not against her. We see Sandra feeding Tijuana some kind of hoo-hah about how Jon's reason for targeting Christa has something to do with Christa being the strongest woman -- like, right, I'm sure it has nothing to do with Christa being part of the Triumvirate at all. Oy. Sandra then switches gears to the far less ridiculous argument that Burton will probably be a big threat in later immunities, so Tijuana should think about ousting him now rather than later. She then gets to the meat of her argument, which is essentially the same logic that the boys themselves used last week in abandoning the Triumvirate: she tells Darrah and Tijuana that they may be okay in the primary alliance, but that they'll be hosed once it comes down to the sub-alliance, because when five remain, Burton and Jon are going to keep Lill, not Tijuana and Darrah. True, that. It's interesting to me that Burton -- who seems to have had a pretty decent strategic head over the last couple of episodes -- seemed not to see this coming nearly powerfully enough. He should have been aware of this threat from the moment he put the five together and ousted Rupert, because the reasons for Tijuana and Darrah to switch to an alliance with Christa and Sandra are identical to the reasons Burton and Jon flipped last week, rather than sticking with the Drakes -- it's a smaller alliance in which they aren't outnumbered by a preexisting sub-alliance that's destined to crush them. Furthermore, if Jon were as brilliant as he thinks he is, he'd have seen it coming, too, and Tijuana and Sandra and Darrah wouldn't have all this free time together. Sandra interviews that Tijuana listened quietly to this plea, but didn't say much.
Night comes to Camp Balboa. Burton, and Jon, unable to leave well enough alone and apparently too cocky coming off of the Rupert ouster to see the dangers lurking all around them, wander off on a walk and can't resist blabbing about strategy while lingering in the best possible spot for scheming -- in the dark, near plenty of cover so that they can't see whether anyone is around. Smart one, guys. After all, it's not like you regularly get the opportunity to have these conversations on a completely isolated stretch of beach where there is no one around for miles and you can't possibly be overheard.
Shuffling around in the dark, Sandra rather hilariously voices over that she frequently listens in on conversations, which is how she "always [has] a working knowledge of what's going on." I guess that would be aside from the fact that last week, she missed the approaching power shift completely. (I realize there is a theory that Sandra is controlling the entire game and wanted the vote last week to go as it did; I do not subscribe to this theory.) This time, however, Sandra makes a very wise choice by bringing Tijuana with her to listen in on Burton and Jon's strategizing. Tijuana repeats this in an unnecessary pile-onterview. Sandra and Tijuana follow Burton and Jon on their walk, and sure enough, Burton and Jon obligingly have a conversation in which they confirm that they intend to take Lill with them to the final three. Burton comes right out and says to Jon that as long as they can deliver final five to Darrah and Tijuana, and as long as Jon strings Tijuana along about taking her to the final two, they ought to be able to keep the girls in check. I have one piece of advice for you if you ever go on Survivor: no matter how addicted you get to the fun of plotting, shut the hell up about your strategy, Boris and Natasha, and only discuss your plans when you absolutely, positively have to. Jon and Burton will never rid world of Moose and Squirrel if they keep this silliness up. All they needed to do at this point was boot Christa or Sandra, and the threat of what's happening right now -- a threat they should see blinking like a neon sign -- would have passed. Sigh. Idiots.
Anyway, in an interview, Sandra explains that it worked out great for her, because she got to have Tijuana hear for herself that she had no chance within the alliance of five that was created last week. Tijuana, meanwhile, explains in an interview that this gave her a bit of a "heads-up" and reminded her that she needs to focus on the game a little more clearly than she's been doing. Back at camp, still in night-vision, she explains to Darrah what she heard, and that she now knows they're hosed if they stick with Burton, Jon, and Lill. "The boys are taking Lill, not us," she says plainly. Tijuana whispers to Darrah that she had thought Jon might be thinking of taking her and Darrah to the final three -- not a bad thought, really, because Jon could easily have concluded that he stands as good of a chance against the Morgan girls -- often reviled as useless and lazy -- as he does against Burton. Tijuana realizes now, though, that he's going with the Burton/Lill plan instead. Darrah tells Tijuana, "If Burton doesn't win [immunity] tomorrow, his butt's gone." That's the ticket, you wacky mortician. And thank you for that sentence, as it is one of about five we have heard from you since play began a month ago. I was beginning to think Darrah was a mime. Wouldn't a mime mortician be a hoot? I'd love to see the great routine, Embalming In An Invisible Glass Box. Tijuana and Darrah agree that they hope Burton doesn't win immunity and is available for booting.
Day 30 comes to the castaways. Jeff brings them into the challenge area, which this week involves each of them standing at little chalkboards with what are basically magnet letters like you'd arrange and rearrange on your refrigerator. (True story: One of Miss Alli's Dad's early retirement projects this summer was making the set of letters on the fridge into comprehensible, substantive English words, using all the letters with none left over. He's been working for forty-five years, people.) The castaways each have a full set of the letters S-U-R-V-I-V-O-R P-E-A-R-L I-S-L-A-N-D-S. They have to use letters from that group to make twenty words broken down into varying lengths -- three three-letter words, four four-letter words, and so forth. When you have all your words, Jeff will come over and check your board, and if you've got all the words you need and you've spelled them all right, you win. If you're wrong, you're out.
Jeff says "Go!" and they all start writing. The first person to claim to be finished is Christa. Jeff comes over to check it out, though, and one of her words is misspelled -- she appears to have written "lavendar." Therefore, she's bounced. And she is banned from shopping at Crabtree and Evelyn. A happy Tijuana is almost finished, and she gets right back to her board when Christa is dumped. She claims to be done , but when Jeff comes over to check, she's screwed up as well: she broke the rule that says you can't use plurals. Play resumes yet again. to claim immunity is Jon. Jon, however, has written "sandle" on his board, so he's out as well. (He has also written, rather frighteningly, "virile." Ew.) This leaves Burton, Lill, Darrah, and Sandra. Before long, though, Burton gives the up-arm and Jeff goes to check his board. He reports that it looks good, and he hands over the Supreme Cutlass to Burton, yet again, solemnly intoning that, yet again, Burton will be immune from the boot. Everybody else will be "very vulnerable." Rub it in, why don't you, Jeff?
Then, just as the music swells and the folks run off, Jeff gives out a hearty "Yo!" and calls them back. (Not "Yo-ho-ho"? Way to lose your theme, Jeff.) It seems that Burton's board says "liason." Not a word. Sadly, there were enough spare "I"s to spell it right (liaison, for those of you keeping score at home), but Burton didn't. Anyway, Jeff must pull immunity back from Burton. Oooh, painful. Jeff thinks, however, that after he called the game, the castaways probably started talking about words and saw each other's boards and so forth, so he doesn't think they can just pick up and get going again. Instead, he proposes to start over with those who remain -- he's going to give them a new set of letters, and they'll have one minute to come up with as many words as they can of at least four letters. The mind...um, Boggles. They all agree that it's a fair rundown, and they're off. The ladies all squint and write and squint and write and write and squint and stuff. Jeff calls time, and they stop with the writing, although some squinting persists. Lill came up with ten words, Darrah with fourteen, and Sandra with twelve. So surprisingly enough, it's Darrah with the drawl for it all, taking home the Supreme Cutlass. There's a sight you weren't planning on seeing anytime soon, I'll bet. Burton looks most dismayed, because I think he would have much rather had that one for himself, and had he spelled "liaison" right, he probably would have. Immunity newly redistributed, now it's time to head back to camp.
Commercials. You can actually live on Robitussin and sawdust. Just a little-known fact that may or may not be true.
It is Day 30 at Balboa, and as Tijuana and Darrah stroll on the beach, Tijuana interviews that the two of them are the swing votes, and that they're now in the position of deciding whether to support the ouster of Burton or the ouster of Christa and Sandra. Darrah and Tijuana stop in the jungle to talk (as you do), and Tijuana opines that it's a perfect opportunity to get rid of the strongest guy in the game. They move right along to whom they'd get rid of after that, and Tijuana goes with Christa. I'm not sure how she thinks that's going to work, but I think she's far enough ahead of herself at this point that that's the least of her problems. Tijuana also tells Darrah that she thinks that Jon will vote with them. WHAT? Wait a minute, why bring him into it? Four is already more than three, Tijuana! You don't need five! All you need is a simple majority! There's no rule about a quorum! Tijuana! Come back here! Sigh.
Yes, for whatever highly regrettable reason, Tijuana has apparently lost her ever-lovin' mind and decided that the thing to do is to go along with Christa and Sandra, but to tell Jon what's going on as well. Christa and Sandra, meanwhile, are discussing the fact that they're just trying to get Burton out, and after that, they can go to what Sandra calls "plan number two." Whatever. There are only going to be six people left after this booting; there's a certain amount of flying by the seat of your pants that you're going to have to do at that point, no matter how tricky you think you are. Sandra also makes a highly dramatic appeal that they can crush Burton just as Rupert was crushed. Oh, remember when Rupert was crushed? Ah, good times. Not that I would gloat in Rupert's face.
So now here are Tijuana and Darrah, indeed having a chat with Jon and filling him in on their decision to vote with the women to boot Burton. He claims regretfully to accept their choice, even though he disagrees with it. Tijuana then tells Jon, totally gratuitously, that she already has the majority with her, so if he doesn't go with the Burton boot, he'll be in trouble. She doesn't seem to get that there's no need for this. If she had just...oh, never mind. Jon interviews that he's very unhappy with the possibility of Burton's leaving, because it's part of his plan for Burton to be around for a while longer. He, therefore, goes for a walk with the only people who can save Burton -- Sandra and Christa. He tells them flat out that he knows what they're up to, and that he thinks that Burton "deserves" to stay, and that Jon would rather keep Burton around so that they can eat. Now obviously, Sandra and Christa would be utter morons to believe this story, because Jon voted to oust Rupert the King of All Fishermen just last week. So they should obviously know immediately that Jon and Burton are close allies, which is Jon's only reason for coming to Christa and Sandra. Not that they probably didn't already know this, in which case I don't know why Jon bothered with the fish line, but whatever. Jon tells Christa and Sandra that Tijuana promised him that if he voted with her, she'd boot Christa after Jon. Basically, Jon is effectively convincing the girls that Tijuana and Darrah plan, after the Burton boot, to keep Lill and Jon rather than staying with Christa and Sandra. Sandra asks who Jon would suggest booting instead of Burton, and Jon throws Tijuana herself on the fire. Sandra tells him that she's afraid to make a move with him, because she fears she can't trust him. Gee, I wonder why. Christa asks if Jon would promise that he'd dump Lill before them as well, and he says he surely would. Sandra interviews all about what just happened, with Jon asking them to help him pull Burton's fanny out of the fire. Jon suggests that the three of them take themselves to the final four -- with Burton, I guess -- and Sandra hesitates again, citing her distrust of Jon. He swears on Dead Old Granny Fairplay that he's telling the truth, and I still say Sandra doesn't believe him, so I don't think he's getting very far with her that way, despite the fact that he's obviously very proud of this move.
As usual, the sun sets in all its time-lapse glory as we prepare for tribal council. The tribe shuffles in and sits down, and Jeff prepares for the grilling. But first, the jury! Ryan-O and Rupert come in and sit down, and Rupert has topped off his scraggly mane with sunglasses on the top of his head -- one of my favorite looks, as many of you know. Jeff says that it's been thirty days now, and he asks Tijuana what's going on with the tribe. She just says that there's "chaos." Thanks for the insight. He then asks Sandra what's going on with the tribe, and she launches into the fish-dumping story, going on and on about how horrible it was and how everyone blamed Christa. Nice of her to bring that up some more and rub it in some more. I love how she says, "There was so much shouting, fighting, cursing" when that applies to, mostly, her. Upon hearing that the fish were dumped, Rupert of course makes a horrified face. Because he's still the boss of you, of course, and he still will make sure you know if he's displeased. His opinion still totally matters. A lot! Jeff gives Christa another chance to plead her case, and she insists again that she's innocent. Innocent! "I can't prove anything," she shrugs helplessly. Should've been nicer; somebody might believe you.
Now, Jeff would like to discuss the reward challenge. He says that it must have brightened things for the gloomy Christa, and she allows that indeed, it did. Jeff: "Then Jon shares some information with us, that, lo and behold, his grandmother's passed away!" Now, there has been a lot of discussion this week about how Jeff has said he limits the amount of tape he watches, and how he was shocked to find out about Jon's lie, and this has led to widespread speculation that he didn't know that Jon was lying at tribal council. I don't believe it for one minute. If he didn't know, he was certainly skeptical. This particular perky delivery of "lo and behold, his grandmother's passed away!" is just not what you'd unload on somebody who you were convinced had just lost a relative. I will never believe he didn't at least have grave (no pun intended) doubts, but he can't just out Jon, because Jon considers this a strategy move, and Jeff probably shouldn't intervene too powerfully. ["Furthermore, the producers must have known this story about Dead Granny Fairplay was coming and that it was horseshit, or else they wouldn't have added that twist to the reward that all the other contestants weren't going to be around when Big Dumb Dan and Idiot Jon got their alone time, because otherwise they wouldn't have been able to film the reveal that Granny is alive, thus making for the great television." -- Wing Chun]
Anyway, Jon looks scared as all hell that he's about to get busted, but Jeff just asks Jon whether he got the information he wanted from BDD about Dead Old Granny Fairplay. Jon goes on about how sad it was and so forth. He talks about how much it meant to him to get the support of the rest of the folks, and Christa's looking at him like she frankly doesn't believe him either. Jeff asks Tijuana whether this whole thing has brought the tribe closer, and she says that, at least for her, she just put the game aside for a minute to help Jon out. Jeff then asks Burton whom he trusts in the game. "I'd like to think I could trust a lot of people. But you don't have to trust someone to have an alliance with them. You just have to have the same interests." Glory, hallelujah, if that isn't the smartest thing I've heard all week. Jeff returns to Jon to ask about the formation of relationships, and whether Jon would be willing to betray anyone in the game to get his way. Jon says that he no longer is willing to do that -- he's all about the changing priorities, now that Dead Old Granny Fairplay is moldering in the grave and everything. And if they believed Jon before, they certainly shouldn't believe him now, because no nitwit of this magnitude has ever become nice as a result of a death in the family. Don't believe everything you see at the end of Reality Bites. In fact, anyone who believed that speech is not to be forgiven, ever, for the attendant idiocy -- including members of the jury. Of course, looking at the members of the jury who are observing at this point, I'm not real hopeful that they're going to pick up on it. Jeff asks Darrah if she wants to give up her immunity, but she declines.
Now is the time on Survivor when we vote! Sandra votes. Darrah votes -- for Burton, calling him the "biggest threat." Christa votes. Burton votes for Tijuana, acknowledging that tomorrow is her birthday. Lill votes. Tijuana votes for Burton, citing the conversation she overheard between him and Jon. Jon votes -- thankfully, no wrestling references this week that we actually have to watch. Jeff goes off to tally.
Burton pulls Tijuana's and Darrah's votes, but the rest of the votes go to Tijuana. She takes it gracefully, and steps up to be snuffed. Snuff! I'm kind of sad about that, because she was pretty much the last person left whom I thought I might actually like if I ever met her. Sigh. Jeff gives props to Burton's brilliant "it's not about trust" speech, and we are out.
week: some folks get to go on a trip. Some folks get to plot against other folks. Burton starts to put cracks in his alliance with Lill. Jon continues to suck. (That last one is just a guess, but it's one I'm comfortable with.)