Gender Wars...And It's Getting Ugly

Previously on Vanuatu, Islands Of Zzzzzzz...: Rory thought that hanging with the chicks was the worst, man. He couldn't have been happier when the tribes merged, unless he were merging with people he didn't hate. The merged tribe was colored orange, was named Alinta, and was rife with irritants. Rory returned to the men he didn't get along with at Lopevi, who were desperate and thus only too happy to see him back in the fold. Not as securely folded were Twila and Julie, who were theoretically part of Team Sarge, but who also felt the magical pull of Ami, who must be much less annoying in person than she is on television, given that no one has shaved her head in her sleep yet. At the individual immunity challenge, Sarge was the fastest in the water and won himself the coveted ugly necklace. At camp, the castaways ate, drank, and were married, but sat in each other's laps anyway. Rory turned the Lopevi stink-eye on Ami, but she was working to ensure that the second chance he was so excited about was very short-lived. Twila and Julie ultimately voted with Ami to send Rory home, leaving the rest of Team Sarge to stare in open-mouthed horror at the utter destruction of what once was their lovey-dovey tribe. There is no room for love in Survivor anyway. What were they thinking? Nine people left -- who will be voted out tonight? I mean, of the three possibilities?

Credits. You know what makes a great decorating motif? Skulls. And you know, the holidays are coming up, so remember -- a skull looks great with a string of popcorn around it. And a Santa hat. Ho-ho-ho!

The moon. Night-vision shot of people returning to camp. They all sit around together, and Ami announces that she's "real happy to be here right now." Ami and I have diametrically opposed opinions regarding her presence, as we do about most things. Chris announces that he is, too. In an interview, Ami gloats that tribal council was awesome, because she foiled the alliance that was out to send her home. In gloating, she uses the word "shiznit," confirming once and for all that she is highly hateworthy, and is not nearly as cool as she believes herself to be. And also, possibly, that she has been locked in a secret hyperbaric chamber away from changes in the culture for approximately five years, because..."shiznit"? Around the fire, Chris observes that it's men against women after all. He goes on to say that he's not used to people being unreliable, and that this was the first time in the game that anyone who was supposed to be in his alliance flaked on him. Twila looks on. Chris interviews that, in retrospect, he may have had a little more faith in Julie and Twila than he should have. Gosh, you think? He calls the position that he, Chad, and Sarge are in "precarious," because it sounds better than "hanging on by a thread so tenuous you can't see it without a magnifying glass." Night-vision Chris ruefully tells night-vision Sarge that he trusted Julie and Twila. Someone should really write a country song about being betrayed at tribal council. Twila pipes up, giving the guys a hint about what went wrong, that she thought she could trust the guys, too, but ultimately, it didn't seem like she could. She goes on to explain to us that this all goes back to when Julie falsely told Twila that she, too, had been promised a spot in the final four. Twila tells us that all she did to the guys was betray them before they got a chance to betray her, although she does admit to having felt guilty.

The women toddle off to bed, and Chris and Chad have a chat in which Chris makes the entirely correct observation that however Julie and Twila feared they would eventually fare within the Lopevi alliance, they certainly aren't any better off in Ami's, which seems centered on Ami and Scout. "But the beauty of it," Chris says confidently with a smug grin, trying to convince himself, "is that the game's not over." He assures the guys that "anything can happen," and then we see clouds cover the moon, so meteorologically, it seems like he's right. Cloud cover can certainly happen. And if that's the case, then all the old assumptions are pretty much out the window, man.

Morning comes to Vanuatu. Sarge and Chris chat, and as we watch Twila putter around camp doing work and engaging in other socially unpopular activities, Sarge tells Chris that, in fact, he was "hurt" to find that Twila was yanking their chains. Chris says he's just not sure what "reasoning" would have made Julie and Twila turn in that direction. Oh, never look for reasoning, Chris. That is a losing battle. He does speculate that it's "a woman thing," with which Sarge agrees emphatically. Seriously, girls are always talkin' loco.

Speaking of Sarge and his negative contributions to gender politics, he tells us that many things are running through his head about the women. And the first one is "despisal." Oh, Sarge. Duh. The word you're looking for is despision. In his interview, Sarge goes on to call the women "very conniving," and then he doffs his dweeby little hat in bitter congratulations. Now, in one of my favorite scenes of the week, Scout and Sarge sit around by the fire and she starts...singing. And she is not nearly good enough to be the kind of person who warbles at random at other people who haven't asked for a song. No one really is. But Scout is particularly not all that good. She keeps looking at Sarge with this warm smile, like she expects him to look back at her and grin, and then they'll both know that it's really okay that she's going to vote him off, because he understands how it is, and then they'll put their arms around each other and start swaying, and...it's just stupid. What she gets instead is Sarge staring determinedly at the fire with a look of blinding hate on his face. Seriously. There are little red hate flames shooting out of his eyes, like he's Captain Despisal on an old episode of The Superfriends. He could turn his head, stare hard, and break rocks. Scout sings and sings and brushes her hair and sings and brushes and sings. She clearly believes that everyone likes to hear a little music first thing in the morning. She apparently hasn't seen the way I pound the top of my alarm clock. Sarge stares into the fire, thinking about what he could get from a junk dealer for an old lady's artificial knee. He tells us, going for the understatement, that "it's awkward talking to any of them." Well, yes. Especially when they're incessantly singing. We now watch as Scout -- wearing big dangly earrings, and what's up with that? -- asks Sarge whether he thinks there will be a reward challenge today. He nearly buckles under the strain of answering, but ultimately gathers all his strength, swallows the desire to cram her buff up her nose, and finally chokes out, "Yeah. It might be." My goodness. So, so funny.

We float over a vast expanse of coconut trees, and then we arrive at a challenge beach where each person is represented by a little stand of three skulls on sticks. The players show up and stand in their customary row, and each of them has been allotted a little box with which to give answers like "True" and "False" and "A," so you should be starting to figure out what this is. Indeed, as Jeff explains, this is the challenge where they start to try to stir up some trouble in any remaining happy alliance. What happens is that he'll ask trivia questions about Vanuatu, and anyone who gets a question right gets to go and take a torch to one of the skulls that represents a fellow player. Since each player has three skulls, you're basically subject to three shots before you're out of the game. Traditionally, this is the challenge where cocky people forget that they're not invincible yet and start showing off, expressing their displeasure with the members of their own alliances whom they don't like. Which is unbelievably stupid, but which always seems to happen anyway. Oh, and what are we playing for? Well, there's a helicopter ride to a picnic at the top of a dormant volcano. And what will we eat at the picnic? Chicken wings. Uhhh...chicken wings? Do they know that chicken wings are mostly sauce and gristle? Because they are, and unless you're going to get your nutrition from pepper and ketchup, you're not exactly going to come back with your belly stuffed. But there is the promise of champagne as well, and people on this show are nothing if not notorious boozehounds, so they all pick up their cubes eagerly anyway.

The first question concerns the meaning of "Vanuatu." It does not, surprisingly, mean "land of fire," so take that, CBS marketing monkeys! What it means is "land eternal." Eliza, Sarge, and Scout get it right. Eliza apologizes in advance, and then she takes her first shot at Chad. "Greeeat," he chuckles. Sarge goes right for Scout, undoubtedly thinking, "This one's for the singing." Scout goes right to Sarge and burns him right back. Or, you know, burns his representative skull. , Jeff asks how many islands are in the Vanuatu archipelago. (Vocabulary word!) The correct answer is eighty-three. Everyone gets it right. Eliza burns Chris -- and apologizes. Leann burns Sarge. Chad goes for Julie. Ami takes out Sarge. Chris hits Ami. Julie returns Chad's burn. Twila finishes Chad off. On his way to the bench, Sarge hits Julie with her second blow. "I didn't even hit you!" Julie says playfully. "Uh, it's...beyond that," Sarge says. Julie laughs, but she knows she's in trouble, or she would be if Sarge had any capacity to affect anything that happens. Try not to think about how irrelevant all of this is.

Sarge has a seat on the Bench of Pain to Chad. Scout hits Chris. The question is about the meaning of large curved pig tusks. It turns out that they represent wealth. Eliza gets it right and takes out Chris. So there go the guys, and as Chris sits down, he chuckles, "Oh, it's not a woman-man thing." Smug, smug little Ami and Leann stand around tut-tutting about what Ami calls the "bitterness going on." You know, you can declare your alliances and stick to them if you want to, and you can expect other people to accept it as part of the game, but you really can't expect them to not notice or not say anything as you're doing it, and mocking them as bitter for even noticing what you're doing seems a little unnecessarily bossy. I find Ami so insufferable at this point that it almost makes me care about the season, because I do eagerly await her downfall, which really can't come soon enough for me.