Would You Be My Brutus Today?

This recap is brought to you by Jessica Alba, Jim Mullen, and enough caffeine to reanimate a corpse. You've been warned.

Previously on One Face, Two-Faced, Dead Face, Blue Face (Canadian title: She Died, Dude): Sandra filched the fish, but she let the rest of the revelers think Christa was the guilty party. At the reward challenge, everyone turned into marshmallows at the mere sight of their peeps, but they let Jonny "Karma Schmarma" Fairplay take the prize after he found out from Big Dumb Dan that his Granny was kaput. Later, Jon and BDD chortled over this whopper while a suspicious Sandra fumed. She may or may not have been "ass out." Tijuana saw her lifeline growing shorter and moved to stop the bleeding, plotting with Sandra and Christa to turn with Darrah against Burton. Probst botched the immunity challenge, but when the dust settled, it was Darrah wearing the Supreme Cutlass. After the challenge, Tijuana foolishly brought Jon into the circle of Burton-booting, and he smelled trouble. The wonder weenie managed to bring Christa and Sandra into an alliance to boot Tijuana herself, an effort that was eventually successful. Thus did Tijuana become the most recent victim of that most debilitating of Survivor illnesses: Failure To Count To A Simple Majority. Sigh.

Credits. Those pirate guys Morgan and Drake look kinda old. They should have some more contemporary pictures taken. Maybe something in front of a gazebo where they're holding roses. Oh, no, I'm thinking of my graduation pictures.

Commercials. Yo, Pringles, how you gonna play me like that?

It is Day 31 at Balboa, where several birds are standing around socializing, all, "Do you think Gwyneth Paltrow really got married?" "No way, she's totally going back to Ben after he loses all of J.Lo's money playing poker." A lizard looks plaintively into the camera, thinking about simpler times. Lill gazes miserably out of the shelter, probably trying to reach Dead Old Granny Fairplay on the other side to tell her how proud she should be of her boy. Elsewhere, Burton and his ultra-sheer boxers -- which I am certainly not examining with Super-Secret X-Ray Specs purchased from the back of a comic book, no matter what you may have heard -- go wading into the water on another meal-fetching mission. Christa and Sandra are hunting for snails or spare change or something of that nature back on shore. "Do you think Jon was lying?" Christa asks idly. Sandra -- who I have just noticed is still wearing dangle earrings, for God's sake -- says that she's starting to think so. She's thinking that attention to what she calls "the bigger bigger picture" would reveal a scam. You know, you call it "the bigger bigger picture" in case anyone confuses it with "the big picture" or "the bigger picture." Clarity is everything, after all.

Christa interviews that the tribal council ended with a last-minute decision to boot Tijuana after Jon agreed to take Christa and Sandra to the final four with him and Burton. "I don't know whether to believe him," she says, "because I can't believe him ever." Good grief. Please be upstanding for the Mayor of Simpleton, kids. Meanwhile, Jon interviews that Christa made him swear on Dead Granny Fairplay's grave that he wasn't lying. He hauls out an old (and, more to the point, unfunny) fat joke that he uses to demonstrate what little good promises are in Survivor, apparently not having heard that when you have nothing to do on an island except sit around balanced on your tailbone, you could at least try not to recycle last week's jokes. Especially when they're not funny enough to make it into Jay Leno's monologue alongside the yuks about how rad Arnold Schwarzenegger is. Jon laughs at his own hilarity nevertheless, because someone told him he was funny in 1993, and he has never forgotten it.

Jon reassures Christa that he intends to take her and Sandra to the final four. Christa says in an interview that she's probably being lied to, and that there's not an especially compelling explanation of why she's cooperating with him anyway, but I guess that's the price you pay for squeezing such a fascinating tale into such a limited amount of screen time and reserving ten minutes for bird gossip and lizards. Christa goes on to say that she thinks she and Sandra would stand a better chance aligning with Lill and Darrah against Burton and Jon than the other way around. For some reason, she seems to feel that there will be some greater security in an all-girl alliance, despite the fact that she's already alienated Darrah with the tribal-council laziness lecture, and the fact that Lill is about as logical as the college football bowl selection process at this point.

Sandra, meanwhile, is starting to work on Darrah, explaining essentially that because she and Christa are evenly matched against Burton and Jon, she needs Darrah's vote in order to do much of anything. Given that Darrah was willing to vote for Burton last night, Sandra reasons that Darrah should be equally willing to do the same thing now. It's bad reasoning, because Darrah's vote for Burton last time was done as part of an arrangement with a different group of people, and that doesn't necessarily mean she'd make the same decision in a different circumstance. In the woods, Sandra spills the ubiquitous beans to Darrah that the deal struck yesterday to boot Tijuana was that Darrah and Lill would go out first, and Christa and Sandra would go to the end with Burton and Jon. Sandra, however, echoes Christa's earlier thoughts by saying that she actually would rather boot the guys first and have the final four be the women. Estrogen forever! Darrah interviews that she anticipates having her vote heavily lobbied over the day or two, so she's playing it by ear (or by pigtail or whatever) until she can figure out the right move. Back at the stealth powwow, Sandra tells Darrah that they need to take Burton out as soon as they get the chance -- preferably in this round, if he doesn't win immunity. Then, they can easily take care of Jon. I think Sandra is referring to Jon's immunity non-threat status, and not his propensity for babushkas when she comments, "Jon is just...like...a girl." I have to say, that came out really stylistically funny, despite being substantively annoying. In fact, the passive-aggressively sarcastic music guy adds a little bongo thump at the end of this comment just in case you missed how funny it was. Which I certainly hope you did not.

Underwater, the non-copyright-infringing non-Jaws music swims with Burton as he stalks a stingray. To the dramatic trumpeting of horns, he successfully spears it, which I don't understand, considering that Rupert and his friends made it very clear that everyone would have starved if not for Rupert, so I don't see how it's possible that Burton could have speared anything for them to eat. I think the stingray must have been inserted with special effects, or possibly it is made of plastic. Back on land, he reveals a bag of several kinds of fish to the women of the tribe, and they all act suitably impressed. Lill actually says, "Oh, big daddy," which is only mildly funny until you notice the look of absolute hate that Darrah shoots her right after she makes this comment, at which point it becomes highly funny. We then get a very interesting shot of what I guess actually is the very cartoonish "face" of the stingray, or at least a very face-like arrangement of gills and air holes. It makes the stingray look like it was part of the stop-action holiday magic of Christmas On The Ocean Floor, starring Freddy the Fisherman and Bippy The Mighty Stingray.

The pending mouth-watering seafood picnic is interrupted by the decidedly non-mouth-watering Idiot Jon, who brings seamail announcing a reward challenge that would seem to promise pampering of some sort. It also vaguely alludes to getting wet. Sandra mentions that she's never happy to hear about swimming or water, because she has no talent for those activities. Which is why she went on Survivor, I guess, because it never requires you to swim and stuff.

We swoop out over yet another complex arrangement of platforms and whatnot floating in the water, and there's Jeff, welcoming the scraggly six who remain to the reward challenge. He congratulates them on lasting as long as they have, as he is wont to do, and then he announces that they will be competing in teams of three chosen at random. The competition is a water obstacle course in which the first person will walk on a floating beam from one platform to another. That person then dives in and unties tow paddles from two separate floating crates, to which they are attached. She'll then climb up onto the platform, where the second person is waiting. The two of them then jump in and dive down to release three underwater floating barrels. Then they'll swim to a third platform, where the third person is waiting, and untie a third paddle that's attached to it. (To the platform, not the person, heh.) Then they'll all swim to shore and retrieve a boat, in which they'll paddle back to the start of the course. So the majority of your winning and losing will come from how adept you are at swimming and fiddling with ropes. It's not the first time this season that it's occurred to me that it would really be to your advantage to have a fetish about being tied up in the bathtub that you had dared on occasion to indulge. Jeff explains that they're playing for an overnight spa getaway. There will be dinner and breakfast, and they'll even get back the swimsuits that they left behind in their luggage on the first day.

Now, it's time to draw teams. This is done by drawing coins from a pouch in a way that will determine not only who's on which team, but what order they will swim in. The first team will be Sandra, Christa, and Burton, in that order. The other team will be Darrah, Lill, and Jon, in that order. Essentially, the first team got the worst possible order for their players and the second got the best possible order, so that pretty well gives away the ending right there, but we can always hope for an unexpected outcome. "Head on out to your spots," Jeff says, calling to mind every Gym teacher who ever tried to teach the finer points of kickball.

They all take their places on their respective platforms. Survivors ready...go! (Thanks, Jeff, you're a peach.) Darrah and Sandra walk out onto their balance beams. Darrah makes it okay, but when Sandra's almost across, she tries to sort of jump for the platform and she falls, looking like she smacks her chin against the platform. They're lucky she didn't knock some teeth out, I'll tell you that right now, because that looked like it hurt. I'm having another of those wonderful reality TV moments where I mutter to myself, "Yeah, that would totally be me. The one racking herself in the first fifteen seconds to the point where she spends the rest of the challenge with little cartoon birds flying around over her head. Yep, me."

Anyway, Sandra indeed seems to be a little stunned as she follows Darrah, who is now a bit ahead of her in swimming to the first crate. Darrah gets one paddle untied. Sandra gets one paddle untied. Darrah gets the second paddle untied. Sandra...doesn't. Lill -- in the Granny Panties of Triumph yet again -- joins Darrah, and they jump into the water to head for the barrels. Sandra continues working on the second paddle. Darrah loses her top as she swims underwater to get the first barrel. Ratings rise in bars across America. Lill, meanwhile, works on the third paddle that's over by the platform where Jon is standing. Sandra gets a little help from Christa with untying the second paddle, while Burton seethes in frustration. Topless Darrah finishes diving for barrels. Burton smacks his head with his hands. Lill unties the third paddle. Lill, Darrah, and Jon dive into the water to head for shore with the paddles. At long last, Sandra unties the second paddle, and she and Christa head for the barrels. Jon, Lill, and Darrah have trouble shoving their boat down the beach as Christa dives for a barrel. A struggling Sandra bobs around in the water as Jon endeavors to push the boat down the sand. Christa has lost her top too, so apparently that barrel-diving is a real strain on the buff tube top. Christa basically drags Sandra to the third platform as Lill, Jon, and Darrah finally get the boat in the water and start paddling. Christa shows up with the third paddle, and Sandra gets dragged up on the platform. Burton, Christa, and Sandra swim for shore -- well, Sandra sort of dog-paddles -- as Lill, Jon, and Darrah head for the finish line. There is to be no magnificent comeback, and we are to be subjected to Jon in a spa setting, because the lead that was taken when Sandra beaned herself eventually holds up through to the end. Incidentally, Darrah never did pull her top up, so it appears that she did that entire thing with her boobs hanging out. Impressive. A frustrated Burton miserably eyeballs Sandra, but then he actually holds out a hand to her as she straggles out of the water. Jeff gives the winners their swimsuits. We are given one last gratuitous shot of dripping wet Burton as we head for the break, although it's combined with Lill wearing the Granny Panties of Triumph. Which I am tired of looking at.