Previously on Rudy Tootie Gets the Bootie: Water was as precious and rare as ego was cheap and abundant. Lockboxes full of rice were distributed, but they were secured with three padlocks, and unless you intended to hire a demolitions expert, it was sure to take some serious challenge butt-kicking to win the keys and get the boxes open. Ethan helped Saboga to knock out a reward challenge that brought water and fire to all the tribes, while Rudy began to show signs that at seventy-five, he might have some of the physical limitations you would expect from a fifty-year-old, especially when he went toe-to-toe with a bum foot that wouldn't...um, heal. In one of the most entertaining challenges ever, Saboga bungled a boat flip that Chapera executed perfectly, while Mogo Mogo proved that sucking the bag at a challenge isn't that big a deal if somebody else is sucking an even bigger bag. Chapera and Mogo Mogo went home happy, while a totally inept Saboga headed for tribal council again. Ethan, fearing for his figurative life, scrambled unsuccessfully to compete with Rupert for the title of Fish Guy and All-Around Big Daddy, only to find that poking a fish with a stick isn't as easy as it sounds. Despite Ethan's uselessness and grating sense of entitlement, when it came time for the long and unpleasant walk to tribal council, Saboga chose to try to stem its unending tide of challenge losses by hanging on to Strong But Irritating And Dumb Guy and getting rid of Determined And Entertaining But Unfortunately Old and Slow Guy. Goodbye, Rudy. I hope you didn't get any of those brain parasites.
Credits. I like how they have a shot of fire successfully being started by friction, when no one ever accomplished any such thing. "Look, look! This could have happened, if we had screened for basic survival competencies instead of good-looking chests!"
Commercials. You know, if you want to create tension as to whether Jude will get home to Nicole successfully, you shouldn't really show her mid-orgasm in the commercial. I'm just saying.
We fly over a low mess of trees and land at Mogo Mogo. And why are we here? We are here to look at bugs. Bugs on the animals, bugs on the trees, bugs everywhere. There's a great shot where the sloth is like, "Okay, I am a sloth, and even I have better things to do than sit here pickin' flies out of my fur all day, so if you're going to keep giving these people rice and keys and maps and assy clue poetry, can we please get a can of Raid?" And now, it's time to visit the castaways, also thoroughly bugged. Lex scratches his tattooed leg. Ooh, bitten right on the...well, I can't tell what that is. Dragon? He explains in an interview that he made the mistake of scratching his copious bites, and now they look and feel worse than ever. Indeed, it appears as though everyone now has that distinctive coating of bumps so heavy that it looks more like a spreading rash. We see Hatch scratching, Colby scratching, Jenna scratching. Lex adds that if you scratch the bites until they're open and then you get the saltwater in them...well, I can't really bear to think about it, because I don't even like burning my tongue on pizza. Damn, these people's legs do look gross. They're like a scene from some film for high-school students about why you shouldn't have premarital sex because you might knock over a hive of bees. , we see Jenna trying hard to get some relief without scratching, which she's doing by rubbing her arms against the insides of her knees, trying to pick up a little friction from the long pants she has on. Kathy cautions her that she'll get scars (and be far less marketable, nudity-wise), but Jenna insists that she's not scratching. I do think you can use Jenna's rub-not-scratch approach to a limited degree, but I'm afraid they're a bit past that. In an interview, Jenna points to her arm and says: "Look at this! Bug bites on top of bug bites on top of -- we look like freaks! Bigger freaks than we already are!" Back at camp, Lex tells Jenna to stop scratching -- well, he actually tells her to stop "itching," but I'm willing to borrow him a little slack, because you can't always stumble across the right verb at the right time. He promises Jenna that all she has to put up with is about a half-hour of intense misery, and then after that, it eases up a little and isn't so itchy. Jenna laments that she "hate[s] everything right now," adding, "Not you guys, but...I want to go home." She looks around miserably.
And now, more about Sad, Sad Jenna, Queen Of The Lost Island Of Boo-Hoo-Hoo-a-Hooey. A long camera shot shows her strolling on the beach alone, which is the international symbol for melancholy, as you know. Kathy voices over that Jenna is "hurting" and "wants to go home," as Kathy and Richard watch all the highly symbolic strolling with concern -- or so the editing would have you believe. Kathy gives the quick and dirty -- literally -- rundown on Jenna's physical condition. She's not eating for whatever reason; she was wiped out by the first few days without food and water and can't seem to recover; and she doesn't even seem motivated to drink enough water without Kathy's prodding her to keep it up. "She's just not taking direction," Kathy says, which is a supremely odd choice of words for the situation, as if Kathy has placed Jenna in receivership. Kathy calls her a "wandering zombie," which shouldn't be funny, but kind of is, if you believe as I do that Jenna could sort of leave that impression even under the best of circumstances. Lex and Shii Ann talk about how the experience seems to be taking a much bigger toll on Jenna this time than it did during Amazon. I think you can almost tell that from the fact that she's being so much less bitchy; she just doesn't seem to have that old self-obsessed Jenna charm. "I don't think she's happy," Lex says softly. "She's really not," Shii Ann replies. Jenna, all sad and sitting on a big rock, takes us out of the segment. I'm surprised they didn't show her thoughtfully sketching with a pencil, because that's really all that sequence needed, was sketching.
And it's over to Saboga, and over to some happier music. Jerri is hard at work chopping some wood into usable logs. She explains her plan to build a table by driving two pairs of logs into the sand in "X" arrangements, and then laying something on top of them. It's sawhorse construction, basically. Rupert condescendingly chuckles at her, because he knows how to do everything, and no one else knows how to do anything. And with that condescending laugh and all the ones to follow, he is managing to squander quite a bit of the goodwill he built up with me over the last two episodes when it actually appeared that he might have learned something from the last time he did this. But I guess not, because instead of admitting that someone else might have a good idea or might just want a damn table, Rupert interviews with great amusement that something has "gotten into the tribe" and there's all this "nervous energy," which he attributes in part to guilt about Rudy. Yeah, thanks, big guy, we'll just file that under "Projecting" in the Great File Cabinet Of Castaway Dysfunction. Jerri and Jenna carefully place the tabletop, and guess what? It works. Rupert looks on with that same smirky "oh, they're so cute" smile. Girls...trying to do stuff...that is so adorable. Jerri interviews that without being overconfident, she feels very good about how the tribe is doing right now. She says that the four who are left are "family" and "work really well together." Rupert brings home the world's smallest fish, and they all coo accordingly. Oh, except Ethan, who is unmistakably irked. Watching Rupert and Ethan knock heads might be the best entertainment I've had in several years. It's like watching the Yankees play the Braves -- I'm supremely depressed that someone has to win, but enormously comforted that someone has to lose. Ethan asks Rupert where he found the fish, and Rupert just gestures out to the water, saying, "Right there." Ethan takes the spear and says he's going out into the water. It's very hard to explain the funny music they use here to punctuate Ethan's futile efforts at fishing, unless you've ever heard Spike Jones, in which case I would say it's essentially sparse music littered with the occasional Spike-Jones-like sound effect. So it's like, "Bump. Ba-bump-bump-bump. [Zoing-a-zoing!] Bump. Ba-bum. [Splat!]." It's funny. Somebody is having a good time at Ethan's expense. You know -- somebody besides me.
Anyway, Ethan is out in the water trying to fish. Rupert, from shore, laughs -- you guessed it -- condescendingly. "I tried to tell him it's not a competition," Rupert says with all kinds of warm and generous understanding. You know, it's really funny -- when Ryan-O sucked at fishing, Rupert still gave him all kinds of credit for trying, because Ryan-O was willing to act like Rupert was his daddy and had to tell him how to do things. Although Rupert is showing his insecurities differently this time, they remain entirely transparent, in that Ethan is a much bigger threat to Rupert's ego than Ryan-O was, so Rupert has a much greater need to treat Ethan like a joke than he did when it was Ryan-O. "Not a competition," indeed. Obviously, letting Rupert be the only one who fishes would be great for him, but it would be foolish for the rest of them not to learn how to take care of themselves. It's textbook Rupert -- supremacy over fishing is something that Rupert wants for perfectly legitimate selfish reasons, not magnanimous ones, and it bugs the crap out of me that he won't just cop to it. I don't care for Ethan, as you know, but I would love to see him catch a fish at some point, just because it would irritate Rupert. Jerri chuckles to Rupert that she hopes Ethan catches something, because it would be good for his ego. Ethan returns to shore and tells Rupert the story of trying to catch one particular fish and losing it when it swam into a little "nook." Ethan talks about how hard it is. Rupert yaps some more about how it can't be a competition, and I might point out that in the same breath, he says, "I like being the fisherman." And he also says it "can't be a competition between he [sic] and I [sic]." And then -- you won't believe it -- Rupert says, "It will just hurt his emotions." No, he really says that. Really. I swear. I looked at it twice. "It will just hurt his emotions." In other words, "I am so compassionate that I don't want him to try to compete with me, because competing with me will only depress him." I am so glad that Ethan and Rupert are on the same tribe. That was a brilliant decision. They're both so used-up and past their expiration dates and resentful of each other's successes...it's kind of like The Turning Point, if it had been about men instead of women, and fishing instead of ballet. Anyway, Rupert thinks this failure to "work as a team" is what beat them at the challenge yesterday. He's happy that they now have "harmony." Meaning "peace under my dominion." And he thinks they'll do fine: "Even though we're little, we're gonna be mighty."
Birds fly. Fish swim. Hatch is out at low tide, looking for food. He explains that it was early morning, and that he went to track down breakfast -- possibly one of the "enormous stingrays" now wiggling its way across the ocean floor. He says that he saw some of the rays, but that he wasn't able to get to them quickly. No fins, you know. Also, his spear is blunt. [Cough.] He comments that he was determined to bring back something: "You bring in a fish, you get some smiles." He dives down again (how did they have all this water camera stuff set up, is what I want to know) and finds a shark underneath a rock ledge. He says he wanted the shark, but decided just to watch the situation and see how it developed. He even drops the spear. He explains that his thoughts then finally turned down the path of "screw it." He goes down under the water and grabs the shark with his hand. Yeah, the shark. So the shark is pretty strong, but it's really pretty little (I mean, it's fish-sized, as opposed to being some huge sharky thing), and for a while, they are at an impasse. Hatch is pulling and the shark is pulling and the shark has itself wedged against the ledge. So Hatch eventually decides to go after it with the spear, so he retrieves the spear and gives a stab. Once he's poked it, he tries to pull it out from under the rock, and it is apparently at this point that he lets go of the head, and the shark wheels around and bites him on the arm, and clamps down but good. Rather inexplicably, Hatch claims that he then spent half an hour floating around with the shark attached to his arm (as the Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters pointed out, all he needed to do was get it out of the water, and it would presumably die ["Thank you!" -- Wing Chun]), at which point he brought it over to a rock and bashed it on the rock. So he pretty much caught the shark by provoking it to bite him. Aside from the fact that it involves a naked guy swimming around with a sharp-toothed shark a foot and a half from his testicles, I didn't find this sequence quite as riveting as other people did. And I didn't find it nearly as exciting as Hatch did. Because...I mean, you know the expression, "You wouldn't know [blank] if it walked up and bit you"? Well, that shark walked up and bit him. I mean, he yanked on it, it bit him, he clubbed it. You'll notice that in telling the story to the camera, Hatch makes no mention of biting the shark.
Hatch returns to camp and shows the rest of the kids his bite mark, which looks red and nasty, but which I really don't think was a particularly severe injury, considering that it doesn't seem to be bleeding and doesn't even seem to require a Band-Aid. And the shark's teeth, when Hatch displays them, look very teeny, like the cutting teeth on a Saran Wrap package, which means I totally believe that having that thing bite you would hurt like a son of a bitch, but it's not going to actually damage you. He recounts the story to the tribe, and all of a sudden, it has a part in it where he bites the shark back. He claims to be showing them bite marks, but I have no idea when those occurred, and he certainly didn't indicate when he told the story to the camera that he bit the shark. Colby, hearing the story, says, "Is it possible to call a gay man a stud?" Oh, Colby, enough, seriously. The tribe gives Hatch the big "you're a provider" stuff that he badly wants, so everybody walks away from the story happy. In an interview, Shii Ann calls Hatch a "fishing god," and goes on to talk about how amazing and "Hemingwayesque" she found his encounter with the shark. What I can't believe is how credulous Shii Ann is, considering what a known bullshit artist Hatch is and how transparently obsessed he is with his own mythology. Did it ever occur to Shii Ann to question any of the details of the story? Because...you know, it should have. As Jenna and Shii Ann watch Hatch later, they say to each other that he is "impressive." "I mean, he may not be impressive downstairs," Shii Ann says over another shot of him and the Blur of Mercy, "but he's very impressive in other ways." I think between this and the Dalton Ross revelations, the littleness of the Hatchling is turning into its own plot point. Delightful.
Kathy takes the now-dead SpongeBite SharkyPants out and lays him on a rock, where she tries desperately to hack him up with a machete that appears to be about as sharp as a plastic picnic knife. It takes her so long to make any progress that Hatch has plenty of time to yammer to the camera about how great it is to catch fish, because these people haven't had food, and now they love him. Yeah, I'm sure that they're not onto this routine at all. I swear, that is the dullest machete of all time. Kathy looks like the lady in the "Does A Dull Blade Make Your Life Miserable?" video at the beginning of a late-night infomercial for a good machete. I do enjoy Hatch, however, eventually eating his dinner and saying, "He bit me. I eat him." That is kind of bad-ass, and it would be more so if he hadn't acted up about it so much before this. Everyone chows down, and in an interview, Hatch talks about how they all thanked him, and how he just wanted to wave lovingly at their cute little selves because they'll all be gone soon. I find this new interview demeanor of his, I have to say, intensely obnoxious and unappealing, and not funny in the least. I did used to have a certain measure of respect for the guy, but at this point, he's just coming off like a big blowhard as far as I'm concerned. It's never good to become a caricature of yourself. Just ask Bob Dylan.
Commercials. I don't care what Tylenol says. Properly ripe strawberries do not go "boing."
A pelican standing in for the more metaphorically appropriate vulture flies about as we return to Saboga, Day 7. The tribe has apparently received word of another box to go fetch, so they take off into the woods to look. We now see the box, a large trunk with a Home Depot logo on it. Saboga opens it and finds, unsurprisingly, a large selection of tools. They're all very excited, because now they can...I don't know, shovel things. Other than what they're usually shoveling, if you see my point. The clue that comes with the box tells them that they're to rebuild their shelter over the day, and that whichever tribe builds the best one will win a reward. Plus, they'll win another clue to the rice box. The second-place winner will win only the clue. Only four tribemates on each team can participate, to give Saboga a fair chance, in theory. Assuming they can have a chance if they're given fair numbers, because they're not just naturally freakin' stupider than everybody else. Not to give anything away, but that's not a particularly sound assumption. At any rate, a professional will be around the day to judge all their new shelters. Oh, and I love how the poem clue required someone to come up with something to rhyme with the Home Depot slogan, "You can do it, we can help," and they decided that in building your shelter, you might use...kelp. Yeah. Seems likely. Those seaweed curtains are all the rage.
As soon as they open the box at Chapera, Sue promises Big Tom that the Chapera shelter will be "a disaster." What's up her fanny today? I mean, that seems kind of unfair, given their string of successes. She also immediately starts insisting that they remove a big tree that I guess is on her nerves, and Big Tom interviews that Sue's "a hag from hell." He goes on, over footage of them carrying the trunk: "How I made it to forty-eight without Sue Hawk leadin' me by the hand...is a myst'ry." I laughed out loud at that the first time I heard it, and again when I heard it just now. He calls Sue "the bossiest woman [he's] ever been around." And that I believe. I think she would be the bossiest woman I've ever been around, and remember, I've been around myself. He also thinks "her elevator don't go to the top floor." I'm not even sure her elevator is running, at this point.
Back at camp, Chapera discusses the project, and Boston Rob points out that he's a construction guy by trade, leading them all to agree in principle that he should take the lead on the project. Sue sits out, along with Amber. In fact, Sue explains that she rather enjoys sitting out, because everyone in her tribe is "stupid." She says she even hopes they don't win, which seems a little odd, since she would benefit from the reward along with the rest. Sue is definitely the sour apple in Chapera's Barrel Full of Love. Boston Rob says that he's just going to do up a plan, and Alicia -- to her credit -- says that she's happy to have him take it over, and that they'll all do what he suggests. Unfortunately, in the Boston Rob interview in which he explains how jazzed he was for this challenge, you can see it -- the Sleazestache that's growing right above his upper lip. I knew my affection for him couldn't last. It will not survive the Sleazestache. It's kind of porny, and not in the good way, unfortunately.
Boston Rob and Big Tom get right down to business, sawing wood and framing up the floor. Tom happily interviews that the project "clicked" once he and Rob got going, and it certainly appears that if you ever want your house remodeled by reality-show contestants, Boston Rob and Big Tom might be your best choice. Do not hire any of the Bachelors -- they'll just keep walking up to you saying, "Will you accept this screw?" and giggling. Boston Rob now tells Amazon Rob and Alicia that with the structure pretty well in hand, it would be great if they could work on the "creative" part -- a deck or a garden or something. Amazon Rob, however, complains in an interview about the assignment, saying that he wanted to work on the shelter with the guys, not be sent off to help Alicia. Darn stupid girls, always wanting to, like, hang up curtains and spend all the green stamps on a sewing machine. As A-Rob walks with Alicia, he tells her that it's "the story of [his] Survivor life" that "the big boys don't let [him] play." Huh. I usually like him, but I'm starting to remember that he can also be real, real whiny, and almost as obsessed as Rupert is with old memories of peeking out through the slats of a gym locker, desperately gasping for air.
And now, for the lurve section of our pre-Valentine's Day show. Amber interviews that, at first, all the flirting with Boston Rob was strategy for both of them. There is an implied "But now..." that is mercifully not entirely played out. Because if she had said, "But now, it feels like much, much more," I would have thrown up, passed out, and never recovered. I do agree with her comment that he looks pretty toasty building the shelter and getting all sweaty. My friend FlyBoy once told me never to apologize for being secretly attracted on occasion to guys who "fight and fix stuff," so my guess is that that's what FlyBoy would tell Amber about this.
Serene music plays as Alicia begins the construction of a rock garden. She is arranging smallish white rocks inside a log frame. "Alicia thinks she's this architect for some Zen company or somethin'," Boston Rob says with puzzlement. "Her vision is about as deep as...." He pauses. "Yeah, that's about how deep it is." I wanted to find that funny and cute, but the mustache is creating interference. As he and Big Tom work on the shelter, Boston Rob asks where Amazon Rob has wandered off to. Alicia says she isn't sure. In an interview, Boston Rob offers his opinion that Amazon Rob is "useless all around," and "on a neverending coffee break." Hey, I know that guy -- he works at my bank. When A-Rob does finally get back, Alicia asks him where he was, and he says, "I went to go grab something, but...it was too heavy to get it all the way back." Hmm. Not so good, as excuses go. Kind of reminds me of John Cusack at the beginning of The Sure Thing, when he runs into class late and says to the teacher, "Sorry I'm late, but...there was this big problem, and...I'm late because of it." A-Rob also says that he "got lost in the jungle" and "didn't mean to disappear like that." Sigh. He goes to all the trouble of working out so that he'll be stronger for this go-round, and then he gets lazy? I am disappointed in A-Rob, I must say. Anyway, Alicia interviews that A-Rob "does the minimal [sic] to get by." And it's funny, because that may have been okay with the people he hung around with in the Amazon, but it's clearly not going to fly with these people, and it's too bad that he can't read that. Worse yet, Alicia says that "everybody noticed it" during the shelter challenge. Ooh, it's never good to allow the other people on your tribe to bond over how much you suck, because nothing brings people together like shared loathing. As he and Alicia discuss the rock garden, A-Rob says, "I don't know if you want to get more rocks, or...," and she cuts him off: "You want to get more rocks." His eyes widen in surprise at the attitude, and she goes on to blah-blah about how it's really hot, and she brought a lot of rocks already, and he'd better get on the stick and take over. Or something. A-Rob goes off to get more rocks. She didn't wave her finger in his face, but you know she wanted to. She was about four seconds away from a good head-waggle, too.
Saboga. Rupert and Ethan are working away at Rupert's Big Idea. Rupert proudly interviews that he's "a rehabber by trade," and that he's been rehabbing houses for years, so he knows exactly how to do this challenge. He says that he therefore just announced to the tribe, "We're building a log cabin." Ah...pushy, uncompromising, self-important...now, this is the Rupert I know. He explains that they're going to build down into the sand to add to the height -- in other words, if you build a structure half as tall as a person, but you build it over a hole that's also half as tall as a person, then a person standing in the bottom will be able to stand up in it. Basically, what he wants is a "log cabin" in the traditional sense, and there's not nearly the time or resources to do that, so he's thinking he can make half a log cabin and get the same effect. In a team meeting, Jerri says that she doesn't think it's a great idea to build down into the sand. He says, "So you want to build the thing all out of the ground?" Jerri listens to him and says, "Yeah." He then gives his little head-shaking smile, all "oh, silly girl." She explains that if it's wet and they're underground, it's going to be a complete mess. Rupert insists that, his way, they'll have an "eye-catcher" and won't "be like everybody else." Jerri says that what she's looking for, though, isn't just the win, but a good shelter where you can actually sleep. He blinks and looks at her indulgently like she is the stupidest person who has ever been born and he is doing all he can to be patient and, quite frankly, it is straining his resources. Jerri says that she understands about wanting to stand out. But. Rupert cuts her off, saying that nobody else will do anything this creative -- everybody else will have huts, and they'll have a log cabin. Yes, a log cabin! They will be like Abraham Lincoln! Rupert will make stovepipe hats out of tree trunks! Jerri is very dubious. He continues to look at her with this disbelieving expression, as if he cannot comprehend why she is being so dense.
Jerri interviews, entirely correctly, that Rupert is a "complete control freak." She points out that he wants everything his way, and thinks he's the only one who can do anything the way it should be done. She says that all it's going to take is a nice helping of rain coming down the side of the hill, and a hole in the sand is going to fill up with water. Back at the camp discussion, Jerri takes a different tack, arguing that in addition to the basic stupidity of trying to live in a hole on the beach, it's going to take a hell of a long time to dig a hole of the type Rupert's describing. "How do you have any idea?" Rupert asks with disgust. "I know what I can do. I'm forty years old. I've done my shit for years. I've built houses for twenty years," he says, kicking dirt as if he really resents the fact that Jerri won't just do what he says already. Jerri calls for a vote; she gets nowhere, because Jenna and Ethan are wisely staying out of it. Without any support, Jerri relents. In an interview, Ethan says, "Jerri and Rupert got in a fight." He allows a moment for the Asshole Pause. "Perfect. It's just what I wanted." You know the Asshole Pause, right? Oh, there is nothing worse. It's that two-second gap when you're surprised that you have time to wonder what a guy would look like stuck headfirst into a pile of old tires. Ethan goes on to say, quite correctly, that Jerri had the better part of the argument, but that he wasn't about to jump in on her side, because it makes no sense for him to get into it rather than let them get on each other's nerves and potentially target each other instead of him. It's that ability to be right and still be a complete dick about it that marks a truly unpleasant guy, you know.
Mogo Mogo. Lex and Colby are working on a treehouse concept, because when you have one day to build a decent shelter, what you want to strive for is maximum complexity. In an interview in which he and Lex are together, Colby insists with gravity that the floor plan is "up here," pointing to his noggin. Heh. They talk about their plan for an elevated floor, a kitchen area, and a "nap area." Wow, the first house I design for myself is definitely going to have an officially-designated nap area. The treehouse is even set to possibly include a "crow's nest." Or, as Colby says, a "love nest." They agree that with Hatch on the team, you get lots of love. "Too much love," Lex says. Has Hatch been sending them flowers or trying to make out with them or something? Because otherwise, Colby and Lex are completely freaking paranoid, and it's starting to be a little off-putting. Shii Ann and Jenna are talking about possible add-ons for the house. "Rock garden," they murmur. "What else is in a regular house?" Shii Ann says. "TV," Jenna offers with a blank smile. There is a pause. "We're not making a TV," Shii Ann says in gentle disbelief. I wish Shii Ann had patted Jenna on the head at this point, because it would have been appropriate. Hatch explains that he and Kathy are sitting out -- and that he was happy to sit out, because it's a lot of work. "We've got Lex and Colby building the shelter, and...Shii Ann and Jenna are...." He makes exaggerated finger-quotes. "Helping!" Now, that had the potential to be funny, had he delivered "helping" with even a little bit of subtlety. The right voice inflection or the right look would have made that wry and cutting. This is just goofy. Hatch has lost his touch, humor-wise, as far as I'm concerned. He's trying much too hard, and it's getting to be like we're all stuck at a party with the "pull my finger" guy.
Back at the project site, Shii Ann offers the list they've built of creative add-ons. It includes a hammock, a rope ladder, a dumbwaiter with a pulley, the aforementioned rock garden, and a coconut phone. ["Oooh, someone watched the 'Das Bus' episode of The Simpsons right before she went to Panama. All that's missing from her list of treehouse requirements are 'delicious wine' and 'monkey butlers.' They'll live like kings! Damn hell ass kings!" -- Wing Chun] The guys don't really listen, going back to their insistence that it's about "the structural stuff." Aside from the coconut phone, I don't think Shii Ann's ideas were all that stupid. They're all things that, if you accomplished them, would indeed have the capacity to set your shelter apart and give it a little pizzazz. Shii Ann expresses frustration in an interview that Colby and Lex ignored her comments like she wasn't even there. Meanwhile, Lex comments that they have to build the shelter strong, because they have to accommodate a "250-pound shark-catching gay fisherman." Again, it would be nice if Colby or Lex could manage to discuss Hatch once without saying "gay." I mean...I get that he says it himself, but still. Not every time, y'all. People will start to wonder what your deal is, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.
Jenna lies down. In an interview, she explains that there's a lot going on with her. Other people have family they can reasonably expect will be there when they get home. Jenna? Not so much. She describes as "a constant issue" her wondering if it was a good idea for her to leave again. As they putter with the shelter, we hear Jenna explain that her mom has had cancer for a long time, and hasn't gotten better, and that Jenna fears that her mom could die while she's gone. Mogo Mogo admires their shelter.
Clouds fly rapidly across the landscape. The moon emerges. Still, Saboga is pounding nails over at the World's Most Awesome Sunken Log Cabin With Built-In Inadvertent Bathtub. Jerri comments that sawing and hammering in the absolute darkness of only the night-vision cam is "getting dangerous." Ethan -- keeping rather busy his own self with all the ongoing construction -- says that Rupert's log cabin idea was "a little ambitious." You heard it here first, folks -- "ambitious" is the new "mind-bendingly dumb." He goes on to explain in what is apparently an interview the day that they spent all night trying to pound nails in the dark. Furthermore, Rupert is still in the middle of digging the huge hole that really tops off the log cabin idea so perfectly. Ethan explains that when Rupert had the hole half-dug, he discovered a huge tree trunk running right across the middle. "My God," Jerri interviews. "I could not believe the stupidity." She goes on to explain how it "infuriates" her that they spent all day building this thing and it turned out so miserably. Rupert's reaction to having fucked up the entire thing -- and been arrogant about it besides -- is, unsurprisingly, to come up with additional self-righteousness even more impressive than the previously existing self-righteousness. "I have a hard time just sitting back and listening to a bunch of people say, 'It's too much work, it can't get done,' everybody's -- they can't do it." Yeah. Welcome to Mosquito Coast 2: Keep Hammering, Dammit!. Back in the heart of darkness, Ethan asks what they're going to do about beds, and Rupert -- continuing to act like Ethan is a totally stupid dickweed for even asking -- insists that of course they'll make beds inside. Of course they will. Jerri interviews that the team has "crumbled," and has taken exactly one day to do so. "This is Rupert gone mad," she says plainly. We fade out on footage of him continuing the obsessive dig.
Commercials. My local news chose to run its extremely warm-hearted Valentine's Day promotion during this commercial break, so I couldn't hear much over the sound of myself throwing up. Oh, and then separately, the late news teaser right before they came back was: "Is your OB/GYN paying for sex on his lunchbreak? Tonight, at 10." So everything's good on that...uh, front.
A boat makes its way toward the various castaway camps. On this boat are Jeff and the fellow whose job it is to judge which of the shelters is the most effective. Or, in Saboga's case, the most likely to cause head injuries and athlete's foot simultaneously. The first visit is to Mogo Mogo. Jeff explains that Raffa is a licensed contractor and a construction expert based locally, and that he will be the one evaluating their work. Mogo Mogo explains where their kitchen area is, and where they have installed a little "balcony," also known as a "ledge." What's awesome about Raffa is that he treats shelters like appearing on reality television treats a contestant's psyche -- he walks up and mercilessly tries to dislodge anything that's not fully tied down. Yanks on the supports, pulls on stuff, pounds with his fist to see how solid it is. Colby expresses some distress about this, pointing out in an interview that Raffa may not realize that, when he's gone, they still have to live there. Their shelter holds up to the pounding pretty well, all things considered. Colby swears quietly and exchanges a laugh with Jeff as Raffa starts to shake the shelter harder and finds an angle at which it will sway pretty fiercely. Colby is happy, though, when Raffa takes his level out and checks and, finding the shelter largely level, gives an apparently approving "hm" noise. Because God forbid your hovel should be all tilty. Raffa takes off, as Mogo Mogo applauds itself.
The visit is to Chapera. Boston Rob is lounging on the swing, while other tribe members hang out on nearby benches. As Raffa inspects, it becomes clear that while Mogo Mogo's treehouse was relatively solid, it doesn't compare to this one in terms of the sturdiness of the frame, at least. Furthermore, Boston Rob can explain how he built it, which I think Raffa likes as well. They make Raffa get up on the swing, and that he doesn't like so much. He's like, "Yeah, thanks, no, I'm done with the swing." Heh. We then see how the rocks all turned out, and they actually turned out relatively nicely, all things considered, forming a little border around a small eating area with benches and a table. Pretty nice. Chapera has also made a checkerboard with shells for checkers, which would be better if they'd actually found a way to color in the dark squares instead of just making a grid, but which is still pretty nifty. I'm in favor of recreation, especially the kind where everybody remains dressed, because night-vision hanky-panky always skeeves me out. I don't really like watching people make out knowing I'm sharing the experience with their grandmothers, you know? Anyway, that's it for the visit to Chapera.
Now, it's time to visit Saboga. Heh. Rupert tries to sell Raffa on the "gutter system," which appears to be a reference to some hollowed-out bamboo that he has attached to one corner of the hovel and angled downward on the apparent theory that this will keep water off the shelter. Or something. He takes Raffa down into the shelter and shows him the table, which is nothing but the locked rice crate sitting on the floor. Rupert interviews, with great despondence, that Raffa walked around revealing that everything was totally loose all around the "log cabin." He also acknowledges that he could tell Raffa was very disapproving of the idea of having built the shelter down into the sand. While showing the place off, Rupert does his best to pass off the intruding tree trunk that cuts across the middle of the shelter as a "footrest," explaining that he couldn't move it, so it stayed. Outside the shelter, Raffa notes that the palm fronds of the roof are barely attached at all, let alone securely. Rupert tries desperately to double-talk, but it's far too late for that. As Raffa leaves, Jeff explains that if they get a gift dropped from the sky and a key clue in their treemail, that will mean they won. If get only a key clue, that will mean they came in second. If they hear nothing, then they stayed up all night under the leadership of a damn crazy person for nothing. Call me a pessimist, but I'm going with that last one.
Before Raffa is even away from the Saboga shelter, while he's still just out of earshot but chatting with Jeff on their beach, he talks about how incredibly bad their work is. "No, no, no," he says with an amused head-shake. Inside the shelter, Saboga notices that they can see Raffa shaking his head and not looking really happy. Raffa, meanwhile, tells Jeff that Saboga's situation is actually dangerous, because being underground in the sand makes you extremely vulnerable to having water enter in a variety of ways, which seems...I mean, it seems so obvious that you really do have to wonder what Rupert thought was going to happen to the water that would inevitably get in when it rains, even if you assume it would never come in through the water table or the actual ocean or anything like that.
Out in the boat, Jeff gives the instruction to the airplane via walkie-talkie of where they're supposed to drop the prize, but of course, the team name is oh-so-artfully obscured to keep up the suspense. We see the plane circling, and the teams see it, too. At Saboga, a delusional Rupert says, "Oh, God, drop something." Yeah. That will not happen. Indeed, the plane flies by. "It's all right; tomorrow's what really matters," says Jerri, being much more gracious than Rupert deserves. He gives a little "Sorry guys, totally my fault." It's better than nothing, but it's really not the crap-ass shelter construction that he ought to be apologizing for. It's the way he treated Jerri. Being wrong about the shelter is just being wrong, but being an asshole to anyone who questions you is a different -- and more serious -- problem. So...yeah, Rupert. You're the ass, and that's the hole in the ground. Got it?
At Mogo Mogo, there is much hope and excitement. "Dump it!" Lex shouts happily. You don't hear a lot of happy "dump it"s. Chapera is hopeful as well, shouting and waving their arms in case the pilot...gets them confused with another group of camera-surrounded weasels, I suppose. Big Tom does maybe his weirdest dance yet, which is kind of a cross between a ballet leap and the crane kick from The Karate Kid. Finally, the pilot drops the crate with a parachute attached, and at first, Mogo Mogo thinks it might be coming to them. Chapera, however, is immediately aware that it is, in fact, coming to them. The two beaches are apparently pretty close together. The crate floats down into the water off the Chapera beach. "That's such a bummer," Jenna says over at Mogo Mogo. Lex says that the Chapera shelter had "better be a damn mansion." Chapera dances on the beach in celebration, and then runs out into the water to grab the crate. "We've never been so excited in all our lives," Alicia interviews. "It was just a pinnacle moment for us." The tribe swims out and brings the crate back to shore. Back at home, they crack it open. As expected, it does contain a mattress. There's also a tarp, as well as a lantern, and of course, there is some alcohol, in the form of wine that I suspect is fairly sketchy, but hey -- I'd take it. As Big Tom prepares to open the wine, Boston Rob pauses to congratulate the team on coming in first again.
At Mogo Mogo, Hatch walks toward the treemail box, explaining that he's sure they have the clue in there, because they haven't lost anything yet. And when he says "lost," he is using it not in the conventional sense of "failure to win," but in the less conventional sense of "coming in last." Indeed, when he opens the mailbox, they have the clue. So unsurprisingly, they came in second, and Rupert came in last. The clue to the rice is "so much more important than anything else," Hatch says dismissively. Wow, he didn't think the rice was important at all last week. Is he hungry or something?
Chapera passes the wine bottle. They agree that it was the swing that sealed the competition for them. I kinda think not, but that's just because Raffa looked bored and nauseated when he was up on it. As Boston Rob offers some wine for Sue (despite the fact that she's off being antisocial), she says she doesn't drink at all. "That could be the best thing I've heard from Sue," Tom drawls. Later, Alicia, Rob, and Amber lounge in their shelter on the new bedding, all just a wee bit on the wine-affected side. Among other things, they're barely eating, so it could give you a wallop, even with five people splitting the bottle. Amber, indeed, appears to have been walloped. Boston Rob interviews that, on account of the wine, Amber wanted to "staht kissin'" him. We then hear Amber telling Boston Rob that if he wants to kiss her, he has to do it now, because she won't do it later when his breath gets worse. Heh. He interviews that they've been flirting since the beginning of the game. He hypothesizes that they both think they're playing each other, then: "One thing's for sure, though -- there can only be one winner in this game." I still dig him so far, but...shut up, Sleazestache.
Mogo Mogo, Night 8. A thunderstorm is battering the castaways in their spiffy new homes. No one looks happy at all. The morning, we see Lex sitting with his arms around Shii Ann and Jenna, who are looking severely cold. He explains in an interview that "the queen of all storms" came by last night, and that it was hard on the new shelter. He also says that most of them have no warm clothes, and that it's pretty cold, and now they're wet. "I've never been so cold in my life," he says. I'll say one thing for Lex: Not. From. Minnesota. Kathy tries to scold Shii Ann and Jenna back into the shelter rather than staying outside in the rain, and Shii Ann goes, but Jenna looks shell-shocked. She finally turns to the rest of the tribe and tells them that she had originally thought she'd be able to get over how much she misses home and family, but with her mom being so unwell, she's feeling like she wants to be home with her mom. Therefore, she's redundantly thinking she's going to "walk at this point in time." Jenna interviews that she's afraid something bad will happen to her mom while she's gone, and she doesn't feel like she would "ever forgive [her]self" if that happened. Kathy now interviews that Jenna's mom is in what Kathy calls a "cancer rehab home." "[Jenna] shouldn't be here, in my opinion," Kathy says. "She should not be here." Lex, meanwhile, chats with Colby, commenting that "life is so short." He goes on in this happy vein: "You blink and you're gone." Colby then interviews that the tribe hasn't yet lost, and that's been because everyone has pulled his or her weight. If one person leaves, the tribe is at a disadvantage. I'm not sure I think Jenna has been pitching in a whole lot, but if Colby thinks they need her, then I guess I can't argue. There is then a scene that's pretty obviously out of sequence (it appears to be sunny and everyone's hair is different) where Kathy tells Jenna that she needs not to let her bad feelings become "a cancer on the tribe." And...you know, ugh. But as I said, it's clear that this scene is out of sequence, and I have no idea when Kathy made that remark, although it surely looks unfortunate in retrospect.
We sweep toward the immunity challenge. It appears to involve a bunch of blocks of different shapes with which the teams will presumably have to do something. All three tribes converge and stand on their mats. Jeff points out to the other two tribes that Saboga has rid itself of Rudy since the last time they were all together, and Hatch gives a dramatic cry of anguish that, although he likes Rudy, is for attention. Jeff retrieves the immunity idols from Chapera and Mogo Mogo. Jeff points out that everybody has a lot of bug bites, and nine days in, people are just starting to drag. He asks Jenna L. how Saboga is doing emotionally, and she says that they're fine. And how is Amber? Well, Amber's doing all right. "What's going on with Mogo Mogo?" Hatch answers that they "have a couple of issues," as he rubs Jenna M.'s shoulder and she gets weepy. And that's, I guess, part of why I believe how upset and scared and generally troubled Jenna is about her mom: She's maintaining until Hatch starts to rub her shoulder, and then she starts to lose it. When I am working really, really hard not to cry and get upset about something, that is exactly what happens to me -- I can keep it together until someone is nice to me, or asks me if I'm all right, or in some other way expresses concern and compassion for the situation, at which point I will fall into a gazillion pieces. And that's why I believe her, for the most part.
Anyway, Jeff asks what's going on, and Jenna says, "Wait." She goes on: "Due to someone who's very ill at home right now that's getting worse, I need to pull myself out of the game and be there." Jeff looks at her. She says she loves the game, but that her priority is her family, and that it "doesn't make any sense" for her to stay. You can see that her hand is shaking when she puts it up to her forehead. Jeff asks if she's talking about her mom, and she says she is. She says again that "things have gotten a little worse, quickly." Jeff says that she's talking as if she's getting information about things, and she insists she isn't, which I suspect is a big fat lie. She insists she just got "a feeling" that something was up. Yeah, right. A feeling of somebody whispering in her ear. I mean, she said it twice, that things were getting worse, and the second time, she said they were getting worse "quickly." And as we're going to see in about five minutes, her mom died eight days after this, after a twelve-year cancer bout. Vibe, schmibe. My money is on a scenario in which somebody -- whether they were supposed to or not -- took pity on her and told her that she might want to take a powder if she wanted to make it home before Mom died. Jenna also says, "I made a bad judgment call. I shouldn't have came [sic, ow]. I thought that I could do it and she would want me to, and I was wrong, I should be there in case something happens."
For whatever reason, Jeff decides to poll the rest of the castaways, including people who aren't even on Jenna's tribe, about what they think of her decision. Alicia takes the opportunity to point out haughtily that she would never have some in the first place. Kathy looks over at Alicia, like, "Step off, Pushyface," and says, "Jenna admits her mistake." ["See, I would totally think that privately -- and do think that, by the way -- but I would never say so to Jenna's face when she was in the process of crying." -- Wing Chun] Amber, all crying and stuff, says she feels really bad for Jenna, and asks to give her a hug. Permission to hug granted. Hugging ensues. Jeff then pushes the issue with Jenna as to whether she's leaving because the conditions are too difficult. She insists that she could handle it, just like she did before, so that's not the issue. And this, too, I'm sort of inclined to believe, because the conditions have gotten much better over the last couple of days. They have better shelter now, they have fire and water -- if she had left back during the really desperate part when everybody was really extra-deprived, I'd be more inclined to think she was just flaking out, but I think now, the conditions aren't much worse than they were in the Amazon. There's also something about the way she says, "I need to be there, sitting by her bed, whether she's awake or not" that makes me think Jenna's given it a fair amount of specific thought, as far as whether, if Mom won't know anyway, she really needs to go. Jeff asks Boston Rob what he thinks. "I don't think it's right to even [sic] question her motives," he says. "We don't know what she's thinking, or how she's feeling. I'm not one to get emotional, and I know inside right now, I feel butterflies. [Butterflies?] So I say we just support her decision and go from here." Jeff asks Rupert for his view. "I feel bad for her," he says. "but, you know, to quit...." He shakes his head. "It's a hard decision." Right. That's definitely what Jenna should be thinking about. Don't go home to Mom, because you'll be a quitter. As if you ever could, or ever should, weigh those two things against each other. Now, time for the bizarre insights of Big Tom: "Before I left, I told my family, I made a commitment. I was comin' here, not stayin' home. If they all got killed in a car wreck, don't call me. I'll be there after it's over. Now, I made that decision for Big Tom, and a lot of people are different than Big Tom." Also, your family already being dead in a car wreck is "different than" somebody having cancer and you having a week left if you want to see them. Tom's responding to a question about a situation in which there is something you can do by talking about a situation in which there is nothing you can do, so the comparison seems totally inapt to me. Still, I appreciated that he allowed for the fact that everybody might make this kind of decision differently.
Jeff tries to wrap it up by saying that he doesn't think anybody's judging Jenna, they're just saying "here's what I would have done." Actually, not a damn one of them answered what they would have done in this situation. All of the tongue-clickers either said nothing about what they would have done (Rupert) or said what they would have done either at a different stage (Alicia) or on a different set of facts (Tom). Jeff explains that Chapera and Saboga get off easy, because they avoid tribal council, while Mogo Mogo will be down a person. Jeff then suggests that they should still have some kind of a symbolic tribal council to get rid of Jenna, and he asks her if she'll hang around that long, which I think is a really ass question. I mean, if you believe she's flaking out because it's too hard, why is she going to hang around so that Jeff can guilt her some more? And if you believe she's genuinely leaving because of Mom, she's certainly not going to sit around so they can get a shot of her torch being snuffed or whatever. It's just dumb, and I was glad she said no. "Fair enough," Jeff says somewhat disapprovingly. "Let's bring in a boat!"
The music swells, and the overproduction begins in earnest. Sighing vocals punctuate the drama of Jenna hugging everyone goodbye. Hug. Hug. Hug. Hug. As she leaves, Jeff says, "Jenna, we're thinkin' about you." She gets on the boat. More sighing vocals. More swelling music. We see the boat whizzing across the water, carrying Jenna as well as some other random people. As the shot of the boat's wake fades out, a caption appears: "Jenna rushed to her mother's bedside. Eight days later, her mother lost her long battle with cancer."
So obviously, Jenna's exit was the source of a huge amount of discussion and analysis this week, much of which was pretty intense as far as the taking of sides. The thing, to me, is that there are really several different debates going on, and they're easy to conflate into one, but really they're not the same at all. The first one is a pure question of fact. Was Jenna's mother not, in fact, the reason Jenna left? Was this an excuse to leave because the game was kicking her ass? I mean, you either believe that or you don't believe it, and it's really not provable one way or the other. It's not a moral question, and disagreeing with other people on this point has nothing to do with how much priority you place on family, or about how sensitive you are. You either believe her or you don't believe her. This happens to be the basis of my disagreement with Wing on this issue, as she is about to tell you in brackets, if she hasn't already. ["Heh." -- Wing Chun] She believes Jenna was full of shit and used her mother to shield herself from responsibility for quitting, whereas I mostly think she left because of her mom, although I do think the worsening conditions made it substantially easier to feel like, "What the hell am I doing?" In a sense, this is where I'm a little peeved at the show, because if they did allow Jenna the information that her mom was going downhill -- which, to me, seems enormously likely -- then they did her a disservice by not revealing that, because it does make it look more like she was full of crap, whereas if you knew that they had, the day before she quit, told her that the doctors now thought Mom could go anytime, then her actions might be looked on a little more kindly. ["I would agree with that." -- Wing Chun]
The second debate is the debate over whether she should have come in the first place, and my problem with that one is that I have no idea what Jenna's mom wanted her to do or said she wanted her to do, or what condition she was in when Jenna made the decision to go, or what condition she was in when Jenna left. I totally believe that some parents do not -- and I'm not saying they pretend they do not, I'm saying they actually do not -- want their children to sit by their bedsides all the time when they're sick, and maybe don't even particularly want them there to watch them die. Perhaps that's odd, and perhaps it's even selfish, but Jenna is twenty-two, and if she took her mother's word, for instance, that Mom wanted her to go, I don't necessarily think that makes her a bad daughter. Jenna has said that her mom wanted her to go, and I can absolutely imagine that being true, and I don't know anything to suggest otherwise. Suppose her mom talked about how much she was looking forward to seeing Jenna on All-Stars and how much fun she thought it was going to be. Can Jenna say, "Well, Mom, I've decided not to go, because I think you might die in the time that I'm gone, and frankly, even if you don't, you're not going to live long enough to see it anyway?" To what point do you sort of have to, for the benefit of a sick person, live your life as you would if you had utter confidence that they were going to live, even if you don't? I don't know.
The third debate is over whether, given that she was there, she should have left if she honestly felt that her mother might be about to die. I have seen little disagreement on this point, except from Rupert, who apparently thinks that avoidance of "quitting" is something you should place above your mother on your list of priorities. But in most cases, everyone agrees on this one. In other words, this is the issue that the entire argument seems to be about, but almost entirely isn't.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't like Jenna at all. Not at all. I don't think she's very bright, I don't think she's very nice, I think she's spoiled, I think she's nasty, I think she's lazy, I think she's spiteful, I think she's conceited, and I think she would be almost intolerable to me on a personal level for more than thirty seconds. But I basically believe that she loves her mother, and without more to go on, I don't fault her decision to come on the show, and I certainly don't fault her decision to leave.
Anyway. week: The nookie begins in earnest between Amber and Boston Rob. There is another storm. Colby gets hit in the head with something heavy -- Santa, I'm glad you got my letter, but I said Ethan!