Anger, Threats, Tears...And Coffee

Previously on Miss Alli Takes The Week Off And Attends Her Reunion, Which Reminds Her That High School Was Kind Of Like Survivor , Only With Fewer Rats And More Cheerleading: Rory was peevish over the women's admission that he was targeted for definite banishment, and he laid on a guilt trip as thick as the dearly departed Bubba's head. Julie and Twila forged an unlikely, Butt-and-Jeff friendship over their endangered chick status at Lopevi, while Rory continued to make clear that he was no one's working stiff. Lopevi used its animal-wrangling skills to land a steak-and-eggs meal after it turned out that Eliza is only a pig magnet when she hangs around in bars. Julie tried to ingratiate herself into Lopevi using her naked ass, while Twila did the same using her fully clothed air of simple, salt-of-the-earth, highway-working, good old American gullibility. The immunity challenge -- apparently modeled after some sort of underwater version of Mousetrap -- demonstrated that new blood is needed in the Department of Challenge Planning, and also that Leann is one of the only people you will ever see who could drown in a demitasse cup. Lopevi delivered another sound thrashing to the Girls-N-Rory squad. Back at camp, an offhand comment from Lisa that made the mistake of recognizing that no one's continuing presence can be guaranteed was construed by the preening Ami as a sign of obvious disloyalty, and all of a sudden, the women turned on one of their own. Adios, Lisa. This season would not have been the same without your charms. And when I say "charms," I mean...well, you know what I mean. We all know what I mean.

Credits. That one shot looks eerily like power lines. Maybe it secretly is, and electromagnetic fields make you stupid. Imagine if we discovered that the idiocy of Survivor contestants had an organic cause. You could remove the source, and after 39 days of unoccupied time, they would invent a car that ran on Saltines or something. Nothing would amuse me more than being able to cite the efficiency of my car in "miles per cracker." Which I would pronounce "pa-cracka."

Uh-oh, roiling clouds! That can only mean another day of manufactured drama. As awkward conversations throughout history have shown, there's nothing that says "human interest" like talking about the weather. We return to Lopevi on Day 16, where apparently, the entire sequence has been put together to encourage the development of a new breed of dirty euphemisms. For instance, Chris is hacking the bamboo. See? You could totally use that. That would liven up your party. Or, you know, confession. In other news, Sarge is carrying wood in his sack. There's another one! KA-POW! They're everywhere, people. I'm not so crazy about what "Twila and Julie are hauling a log" would be taken to mean, but they are, as is Chad.

Speaking of Chad, he gives us the update on the always-fascinating matter of division of labor, which is the freshest topic for a Survivor interview since You Never Really Know Who You Can Trust. Chad, perched in a tree with the WonderFoot 3000 pointing directly at the camera so that you can admire how shiny it is, interviews that camp is now running like a well-oiled and yet still somehow creaky machine, and everyone has certain jobs to do. Some get water, some do dishes...and then there's John, whose job it is to occupy space so that the camp doesn't fold in on itself, turn into a black hole, suck in the entire CBS lineup, and lead to the advent of a twenty-four-hour boogie-boarding channel. We watch the pretty boy lie asleep by the fire as Sarge casts a disapproving eye from under his Tilley hat. For those of you with degrees in ancient (and I do mean ancient) history, I do believe that is, if not the actual Hater, a very close relative of the Hater. There's an absolutely awesome shot of Julie and Twila sitting there like, "Hum dee dum," and then John sort of sits up into the frame, totally oblivious to all the people who were just sitting there staring at his motionless self.

John tells us in an interview that he's "tired and bored," and adds that because there's not much to do, folks on this team just kind of "kick back." Of course, this is a reasonable impression for him to hold, since he apparently is unconscious during the parts of the day with working in them, and he only rouses himself for the back-kicking. Every day as he wakes up at noon, he undoubtedly says to himself, "The pot-cleaning fairies came again! That is amazing! And the birds who bring us water have once again blessed us by carrying buckets in their beaks! Thank God, or the need to provide a subsistence lifestyle for myself would cut into my kicking-back time." Trying to make the point, Chad walks up and drops a bunch of wood right behind John's head, but John just turns around, looks, and doesn't react. Sarge sets his lips in a pout, stares at John, and gives a tiny nod that either means, "Yeah, sucker, you're going home," or "Chad, you distract him, and I'll stab him with the immunity stick, because who doesn't love irony?" Chad now interviews that "John is an enigma," but he doesn't seem to mean "an enigma" so much as "a useless tool," because he goes on to say that the big enigmatic mystery of which he speaks is how John can sit around on his ass while everyone else is working. Which isn't really mysterious, as much as it's just irritating. It occurs to me that we'd all be better off if fewer people confused the problem of pedestrian uselessness with the higher purpose of being lost in thought, so...don't encourage the world's inert philosophers, Chad. Pretty soon, we'll all be tying their shoes for them because they're going, "Get me, I'm a conundrum. No time for laces!" Anyway, Chad says that, up until now, there hasn't been that much talk about John's situation, but people are starting to notice and make remarks.

To wit, Chad and Chris now trash-talk John, marveling to each other that what John lacks in willingness to do work, he makes up for in voracious eating. Chris adds that John is "the kind of person that coasts through the game," and then vows that John won't coast on their watch. "No way," Chad agrees. I'm not sure Chris can really back that up, is the thing. Chris is the guy in every monster movie who's like, "Ain't no way some giant flyin' worm is gonna scare me offa my own property," and then he goes outside, and the thing you see is the monster POV shot of him spending his last moments of life screaming like a girl. But for now, back at camp, being schemed against without his knowledge makes John so tired and woozy that he needs to lie down. Fortunately, he spends most of his time about 86% horizontal, so from there, it's really just a matter of dropping his head.

Over at Yasur, Rory prays. As he explains in an interview, he always prays first thing in the morning, but today, he's praying especially thankfully, because he "cracked these ladies" and survived tribal council the night. I'm not sure he really cracked them so much as he benefited from Lisa's flapping yap and Ami's need to throw the weight of her chest around, but there's no need to begrudge him his moment. Rory explains that his new plan is to try to start something with Leann and Ami, with whom we see him taking a walk in the jungle, because he's thinking that even though they got rid of Lisa, four is still a bigger number than one, so he might not quite be safe yet. As Ami sucks thoughtfully on sugar cane (auditioning for her centerfold layout, no doubt), Rory asks her what the situation is as far as their alliance, because he really doesn't want to go before Eliza. Ami returns to Our Alliances, Ourselves mode as she explains that the women have been inspired by the fact that "no woman's alliance has stayed together through this game, ever." Ugh. Nothing makes me hate the sisterhood like reality television. I mean, men's alliances haven't stayed together, either, because it's really not a group activity. If anything, I would be more depressed if women players failed to protect and advance themselves out of some imagined obligation to be "nice" or "loyal" in a game that requires the opposite, you know? But at any rate, it seems like Ami sees this as a situation where the women have something to prove. About the unifying power of eggs or whatever.

Rory continues to argue that Eliza has nothing to offer the team and he does, but Leann just tells him that the women's alliance is what it is, and that it's too damn bad for him, basically. Ami brings up the issue of what would happen when the merge (which she calls the "merger," which sounds just as stupid as it always does) comes, and she snottily asks about "the guys back home." Rory says, "What do you fucking mean?", which causes Ami to coolly lecture him, "Don't cuss at me." Ami apparently is not aware that that isn't really cussing at you; "Fuck off" is cussing at you. He's just cussing in a conversation with you. Not that I don't appreciate the lessons in etiquette from the precious little pro-hair-braiding side of things. Girls are so delicate, you know. Rory tells Ami that he's sick of her expecting him to do all the work around camp in anticipation of being thrown out anyway, and Ami tells him that, in that case, he shouldn't do any work -- he should feel free to sit around on his ass and await his booting. Rory tries to tell her she's being ridiculous, because he doesn't give a rip about Sarge and Chad and those guys. And if Ami were as smart as she thinks she is, she'd probably have checked this out when Rory and Bubba first got to the team, rather than assuming that the most reliable alliance would be one based on boys versus girls. But that wouldn't have gotten her any I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore points with whatever group of weird, incense-burning goofballs she probably hangs around with back home. Rory tries to remind Ami that he's been working the whole time for the tribe, unlike Eliza, but she can't hear him over the din of her self-congratulatory smirk, which is so obnoxious that it gives off a deafening, though subliminal, cry of "nanny nanny boo boo."