Wipe Out!

Previously on The Foolish Man Built His House Upon The Sand: Rupert thought that a big hole would make a boffo shelter during the notorious Panamanian rainy season, and he didn't want to hear Jerri being all nattering-nabob-of-negativity about it. Ethan, caught between the rock of Jerri and the hard place of Rupert's giant ego, decided to err on the side of stupidity, given its traditional position of dominance. After building a checkerboard, a swing, and a frame that actually didn't look like you could knock it over by blowing on it with a fireplace bellows, Chapera took the prize in the Home Depot Challenge, which also gave Amber an opportunity to eyeball Boston Rob's strange brand of "don't talk, sweetie, just pound nails" sex appeal with growing interest. Amazon Rob, on the other hand, started earning himself a most unfortunate slacker reputation that brought him within inches of the long-awaited first flat-out facial finger-wave of the season. Jenna M. grew thin (well, thinner) and bug-bitten and bummed about her position in the game. She wondered how Mom was doing. She wondered whether she should go home. She wondered whether mosquito netting is made of mosquitoes. Finally, she tearfully made a dramatic (one might even say melodramatic) voluntary exit to go home to Mama Morasca. Incidentally, she then went out and gave an interview in which she actually managed to brag that her voluntary exit protected her record of never having her torch snuffed, so if you gave her the benefit of the doubt about going home to Mom, she'd just like you to have this bouquet of stinkweed, because she really, really appreciates it.

Credits. I love that there's a map that says "Fallen Tree." Apparently, there's only one, and it stays where it is. It may be the jungle, but that doesn't mean there's no sense of order.

Commercials. Good advice, people -- don't take your herd of ostriches to New York City without bringing your walkie-talkie with you.

It's night as thunder and lightning return us to Chapera, where a drenching storm is underway. There's quite a lot of water accumulating here on Night 9, and it's a good thing Boston Rob and Big Tom built the shelter up off the ground, because things would be a little less Robinson Crusoe and a little more The Hunt For Red October if they hadn't. "We need a boat," Big Tom says, as he surveys the situation. Alicia interviews that she knew it was rainy season when they came down here, but she didn't know that "rainy season" meant "abrupt flooding of the take-care-to- avoid-drowning variety." Amber elaborates that they used all of the booty from the shelter reward to reinforce the place, using the parachute as a wall on one side and stretching the tarp over the top to keep the rain out. Boston Rob takes it from there, explaining that although they did have a little water come up through the floor, the shelter held up well and he was able to sleep pretty peacefully all night. We see him and Amber snoozing to each other in a series of snuggly poses. "You're so warm," Amber breathes. Eeeeeverybody...1...2...3...eye-roll! Did you feel that? I think that affected the tides. There is more canoodling, and Big Tom explains that the two crazy kids were using the opportunity to get a little "romantic mood" going. Eh, I guess. If your vision of "romantic mood" doesn't require music. Or wine. Or food. Or toothpaste. Twanging "bow-now-waaah" music plays as we see Rob fingering the back of Amber's neck. "Boston Rob and Amber are gonna do it," A-Rob interviews with his characteristic subtlety. "I don't know when, but they're gonna do it. They've got the mat, the pillows, everything is in place...and I really wish those two the best of luck." Hee. It was crass and bitter, and then it got funny right at the end. Like all the best things in life. Oh, and one piece of advice for Amber: sweetheart, make him take the Red Sox cap off. If you don't set some ground rules now, he's not going to learn them later.

Jeff can't get enough of the love talk, so he asks Alicia for "the straight scoop." "Okay, these two are...you can't even get between 'em," Alicia says. And that's the point -- they've already (stupidly) given it away to the tribe, so why be so cagey? Like they're fooling someone? "Seriously, they're very close," Alicia says. Jeff now gets to the key question by asking B-Rob whether he's concerned about the fact that people obviously read him as having an impenetrable (hee hee) alliance with Amber. B-Rob says nah, he's not worried about it, because "it's obvious" that they've been flirting since the beginning. But, he tries to insist, his "commitment to the game is first and foremost." It seems to me that B-Rob answered the wrong question there, because he pretty much answered the question of whether he's so hitched to Amber that he would protect Amber's interests at the expense of his own. I think the issue is more whether he and Amber are so tightly allied that they would use their alliance to benefit both of them against the rest of the team. So I don't see how B-Rob's affirming his commitment to the game would make any of the rest of the tribe feel better.

Now, Jeff finally leaves the nookie talk and discusses how the voting will actually be done. Big Tom says that his thought at this point is how to make the tribe stronger. "So you're basing your vote on who the tribe can afford to lose?" Jeff asks. Big Tom nods. Jeff asks B-Rob what could cause him to be voted off. B-Rob more than obviously has absolutely no concern about being voted off, but he obligingly cites his "mouth" and "attitude." And then he says, "What else, Amber?" Jeff points out how couple-ish it is for B-Rob to consult Amber, and Jeff? I am serious when I say, I GET IT. And...wait, Jeff called Amber B-Rob's "wife"? Did I dream that? Wow, it's like common-law marriage with more night-vision cameras. Jeff asks Amber what else she does think could get B-Rob voted off, and she cites his need to keep his mouth shut.

Jeff asks Sue if she's worried it might be her. "Oh, yah," she says. "I just can be a bitch to be around sometimes." Big Tom, just behind her, makes a really funny face, so she turns around like, "You want to say something?" He doesn't. Heh. Like so many reality-show contestants, Sue cites as a weakness her genuineness and refusal to be anything she's not...yaaaawn.

Now it's voting time. A-Rob votes for Alicia. "I'm a little uneasy about this vote tonight," he says, "but if everything goes through with it, I have a feeling the time I see you, there's going to be a big finger wagging in my face." He gives a devilish grin to the camera and folds his vote. Sue votes. Big Tom votes. Alicia votes for A-Rob. She says that the team needs more "seriousness" going forward. She is no fun. B-Rob votes. Amber votes. Jeff brings the urn to the team, and prepares to read the votes. When the first vote goes to A-Rob, he tries to stay cool. When the second vote goes to Alicia but he recognizes it as his own, A-Rob grows a little more tense. When the second vote goes A-Rob, he barely restrains himself from saying "Fuck," because that was not supposed to happen, and he knows immediately that something is amiss. When he gets a third vote, he does say "Fuck." And with the vote, A-Rob is history, and he is obviously quite miserable about it. Frustrated, he takes his torch for the snuffing. When he's gone, Jeff sends the rest of the team back to camp with their torches.

It's interesting. As many of you know, I expected A-Rob to do a lot better than he did. He seemed off his game this entire round, almost as if, denied the opportunity to play the big-dumb-kid routine that he worked in the Amazon, he wasn't quite sure what to do. Moreover, he fell in with a tribe of people who don't really cotton to laziness, unlike last time, when he was able to settle in with people who were just as into lying around as he was. He failed to adjust to the dynamic, and that surprised me. He just didn't seem to play as well this time, and he never found a way to convince B-Rob that an alliance with A-Rob was a good idea. But of course, he was also working with the disadvantage that everybody knows now how slippery he is. The person a guy like B-Rob is going to want to get rid of first is the person he can't predict, and he knows he can't predict A-Rob's behavior, so I'm not surprised that was the boot.

In his exit interview, A-Rob says he never really got to get into the game, and he feels that he was "targeted unfairly." Which...you know, there's no such thing as that, but whatever. As people often do, he says he's going to take his ouster as a sign of respect. Which it probably sort of is, but still. Adios, A-Rob. Sometimes, a good reputation is a curse.

week: The Rupert Show focuses on raft-building. Big Tom does a little drinking. There is a twist. In other words? Second verse, same as the first. A little bit hungrier and a little bit worse.