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.
Anyway, Jeff comments that the women are now in the position of having to "eat each other," meaning that they're all going to get very, very hungry. The first shot across the bow comes in the form of Twila setting fire to Eliza. "Oh, I see how it is," Eliza says with a nervous smile, not sure yet how pissed off to be. "Oh, it's been that way," Sarge puts in encouragingly. Scout hits Leann with her first shot. Now Jeff asks the following question: "True or false: Local sorcerers often participate in Magmae, a soul-cleansing ritual in which a small cup of lava is consumed to exorcise spirits and evil demons." Julie, Eliza, and Leann all deserve to be sent home immediately, because they suspect that's true. That they drink lava. It is, of course, false. "The correct answer is false," Jeff deadpans. "If you drank lava you would die," he adds as Sarge and Chris laugh and shake their heads. "It would burn all of your internal organs," Jeff continues in this vein, as Julie shrugs and looks around sheepishly like, "Isn't it a good thing I'm cute?" Ami, Twila, and Scout got it right. Ami hits Twila. Twila hits Eliza again. Scout turns to Eliza with a snotty little grin and says, "Eliza, in deference to your knowledge," and knocks her out of the game. Not necessary. You can be a granny and still be a bitch. "Shows you just where you are, doesn't it, boys?" Eliza comments as she heads over to sit with the guys. They grin at her as she sits. "She's a smart one," Scout says with a smirk. "And you're really not," Eliza chuckles as she looks up at Chris, like, "Can you believe that?" Because for all of her faults, Eliza gets this moment -- she's sitting there like, "Dude, if you're going to be all flamboyant with how much you can't stand me, I'm going to sit over here with these boys, do you not get it?" Chris laughs with delight at what's occurring.
Now Jeff asks whether it's true or false that Vanuatu has the highest concentration of different languages per capita of any country in the world. This, as it happens, is true: over a hundred different local languages are spoken. And coincidentally, "Jeff" means "virility" in all of them. Julie, Twila, and Scout got it right. Julie hits Scout, and Jeff notices that Eliza is still sitting over on the benches, "simmering." "I am...not going to lie," she angrily bubbles through a tight smile. "Simmer, girl, simmer," encourages Chris, whom I like more and more. Twila finishes off Julie, who sits. Scout hits Ami. In the question, the remaining contenders are asked about a tam-tam, and Leann and Scout are the two to know it's a drum. Leann takes out Scout, which seems to be the first thing in a while to make Eliza happy. Scout uses her departing hit on Ami, so Ami's gone as well. So now, it's just Leann and Twila. Jeff asks about the local currency, the "vatu," and wants to know what the word means. Leann's blind guess is correct, while Twila's blind guess is incorrect, putting Leann in the lead. So now, it's on the line, because if Leann gets the one right, Twila will be done and Leann will win, whether Twila gets it right or not. They both proceed to correctly guess the national dish of Vanuatu (which is not, surprisingly enough, maggot-infested plantains), and Leann jumps up and down over the victory. Obviously, Leann gets to take someone to the picnic with her, and she decides to take Julie, who joins her excitedly. Jumping up and down ensues. Jeff sends Leann and Julie off with their picnic stuff, and he tells everyone else to head back to camp like the hapless losers they really, truly are.
As Leann and Julie haul their picnic box to the chopper, Julie thanks Leann for bringing her. As Leann and Julie climb into the helicopter and don their little headsets, Leann explains to us that she brought Julie because Julie was the one person she wasn't feeling sure about, strategy-wise. And nothing encourages bonding like getting drunk and covered in barbecue sauce. They take off. Julie interviews that it was very exciting, and that neither of them had ever done anything of the kind. I can't help looking at the caption under Julie's name that says, "Youth Mentor." Again, I have to wonder...is that a job? I never cease to be amazed what people will list instead of "model/bartender." And on the helicopter, the ladies are holding hands. This is certainly the most Sapphic season of Survivor ever. We see beautiful, sweeping shots of Vanuatu. Indeed, it is all very beautiful. They arrive at the volcano to heavy "waaaa-ahhh" moaning on the soundtrack. That's the Vanuatu Gay Tribesmen's Chorus, I do believe. At the edge of the volcano, the ladies unpack their picnic and start sucking on the chicken wings. Julie says that she and Leann have always gotten along, but have never talked strategy. And talk they do, as Leann says that Eliza's reaction to being hammered at the reward challenge concerned her. "And the guys were so feeding her fire, too," Julie adds. "And she's very gullible to that [sic]," Leann says, really regretful about the way not everyone is as smart as she is. She's not gullible to anything. Julie says that maybe Eliza should go instead of Chris. Or, she says semi-casually, Scout could go. Julie asks Leann whether Scout was in Leann's final four. Leann says, "Originally." And then she pauses and says, "In my head." Mm-hmm. Only in her head! There was no plan! No plan! Especially one that didn't include Julie! Leann says that she's starting to think more in terms of who she would want to see in the final four. They agree they wouldn't want to be with Eliza and Scout, ewww. Julie envisions a final four in which "everyone would be deserving." Oh, barf. "Deserving." Julie says she'd be faithful to Leann, and Leann says she never promised anything to Scout, so it's fine with her if Scout finishes fifth. So we're assuming the two of them are now envisioning a final four with themselves and...Ami and Twila? That is a seriously terrifying final four prospect. And very plausible. They toast with their little glasses of champagne, as I feel the last few remnants of caring slip down the drain.
Back at camp, it is Day 22, and the rest of the tribe is returning. "Little one, look at you!" Scout says to Eliza in a patronizing tone. Scout says to the others with amusement, "She got pissed off!" Well, this will surely help. Eliza interviews that she thinks Scout and Twila were both after her, which is interesting, because Scout didn't show any particular determination to take Eliza out -- Scout got into this mess more by not being able to shut up about it. She comes over and insists to Eliza that it was all about taking out "the smartest people." Eliza, reading this for the crap it is because she is not (quite) literally dumber than a box of hair, comments on just how "condescending" that kind of crap from Scout is, and I completely agree. Sarge looks on and smiles, because...score! Eliza interviews that Scout is right that it's just a game, and that she also looks forward to the day Scout will no longer be in it. And I really can't blame her. Scout continues to insist to Eliza that she is literally convinced of Eliza's "brilliance," and it is really time for her to shut up, because no one thinks she's serious, so everyone knows she's just openly mocking Eliza at this point, and there comes an age where you should have gotten over the need to act like this, and that age is fourteen, so I'm thinking Scout is a little past it. Scout tells us in an interview that she's "totally over" Eliza, and has been fed up with her since Day 2. Like most people, Scout doesn't see the role that her own obnoxious attitude plays in the relationship she has with Eliza, of course. It's all just the other person. That person is so at fault! Sigh.
Chris interviews that the challenge brought out some "vulnerability in the women's alliance." Among other things, Eliza became aware of where she stood, and "she didn't like it." The guys paddle out together, and as they float around on the water, Chris comments that Eliza is in doubt with regard to her position. He also has noticed that Scout doesn't like Eliza, and might be willing to go along with voting her off. "There is no place for Eliza in their final plan," Sarge says, accidentally hitting the nail on the head. And then the guys completely lose the thread of what they should be doing, saying that this gives them an opportunity to "sabotage Eliza's game and send her home." NO! Idiots. You don't sabotage Eliza, you go get her over to your side. Because...I mean, get Eliza sent home, what options do you have after that? None. You've got to get Eliza and somebody else, so that you can have some strength, because getting the women to vote out Eliza isn't any better than when the women got rid of Lisa -- Rory was still . I think it's safe to assume that Eliza could potentially be talked into voting against the women's "alliance" that she is apparently not part of. After that, the guys are going to have to turn somebody from the other five women -- Ami, Scout, Twila, Julie, and Leann -- or else they have no hope. If they boot off Eliza, then they're going to be down 5-3 and they'll have to turn two of those five to avoid a tie. Getting the other women to vote off Eliza is exactly the wrong move, because if you're going to have to take a shot at getting one of those five, this is the time to do it.
Anyway, Chris interviews that they came up with this non-brilliant idea to try to make the women think Eliza is disgruntled and perhaps about to flip sides. But as the guys continue floating in the boat, the helicopter comes back, bringing Julie and Leann from their volcano picnic. As they approach, Julie flips on the speaker and says to Leann over the headsets, "I do love these people." "Me, too," Leann says. "Maybe I'm just drunk," Leann adds. "Me, too," Leann agrees. If I liked either of them, that might seem funny, but I don't. So there you go. We watch as Julie and Leann run back to camp asking where the guys are. Eliza assures them the guys aren't around. It turns out that Leann and Julie have brought back two chicken wings each for the four other women, and none for the guys. Because they're huge goddamn bitches. That is so unnecessary, for fuck's sake. Everyone is hungry, everyone has been out here for 22 days -- share the fucking chicken wings, you jackasses. I absolutely hated this, and found it one of the most spiteful, petty, small, just plain mean things anybody's ever done on this show. It just is not necessary to lash out at people through food in a situation where everybody's in the same not-very-good boat. That's just a dick move, even for a girl. Anyway, the women all run off to eat their chicken wings surreptitiously.
And when the guys return, the chicken bones are produced for everyone else to suck on, and the women all think it's deeply hilarious to pretend they're all excited about sucking on the bones when they just got to eat two chicken wings each. Sarge interviews that normally, being given other people's gnawed chicken wings would be really insulting, but these are not normal circumstances. See? Isn't that hilarious? The guys are so hungry and deprived that they're willing to suck on bones from which other people have already chewed all the good meat, and yet it's really funny to hog all the wings for yourself -- two to a customer -- rather than share. Hilarious! "The guys, when they came back, were really excited about getting the bones," Eliza interviews with a giggly energy, "and we had to pretend to be excited about the bones too, because they didn't know that we had just had chicken wings!" (Couch Baron, with perfect comic timing: "Thanks for bringing us up to speed, bitch.")
The day, Eliza goes to retrieve the treemail, and finds that there is a pig tied up with the treemail. She tells us she's never dealt with animals very much, and you can kind of tell from the way she drags the screaming pig. She hollers for Chris to come and help her, and he picks up the pig as wacky ragtime pig-carrying music plays. The pig squeals nonstop until Chris puts it down, and then as Eliza takes in the fact that a couple of people with machetes are eyeing the pig, she tells them not to eat him, because she needs to read the treemail. As it happens, the treemail indeed tells them in elaborate rhyme not to eat the pig, but to feed him and clean him and keep him as a pet, basically. Sarge and Twila are both like, "Yeah...I still want to eat him." Which I thought was pretty funny. Sarge interviews that not being allowed to kill and eat the pig was a disappointment similar to when he found out that "Estrogen City was moving into Lopevi." Estrogen City? Oh, whatever. Shut up, old man. He doesn't, though -- he actually tells us some more how, if he can't relate to "Estrogen City," he'll relate to the pig. Not really something you want to brag about, dude.
And now, it is time to head out to the immunity challenge. When they've all lined up, Jeff says that Sarge, just generally, looks "angry." "Just thinkin'," Sarge says. I think it's safe to say that's unlikely. Jeff explains that the challenge is a puzzle that has to be assembled from a bunch of pieces with different-colored sides so that it perfectly matches a picture the players will be shown. The puzzle is a sort of a star, with a lot of different points and corners and things. The picture will change every round, and you're only in the game as long as you keep getting the puzzle right. It's single-elimination, so if you screw up, you sit down. The players sit behind the puzzles, and Jeff shows them the first picture. They study it. They assemble their puzzles. Jeff checks their work, and who's out in the first round? Chad. Chris. Sarge. Yes, that's right. The three guys who most needed immunity managed to be the three people who didn't manage to get through a single round. It really is pretty hard to believe. Or it would be, if you didn't know what buffoons these people are.
There really isn't a hell of a lot to say about this challenge, as is the case most weeks. The second round knocks out Scout and Twila. round knocks out Eliza. round knocks out Julie and Leann, leaving immunity for Ami. Oh, ew. Everyone looks around unhappily -- except for Ami, who's gloating -- and heads back to camp.
When they've returned, Sarge is talking about how angry he is at himself for not anticipating that there would be so many different parts of the puzzle to memorize. Ami interviews that she's not sure it was a good idea to win the challenge, because she's already viewed as a threat. And I agree. But she goes on to say that she just can't force herself to "play bad." Of course, if her theory is correct, what it really means is that she can't get herself to "play good," assuming that she's competing for a million dollars and not puzzle bragging rights, but hey, these are fine lines. After we see a little canoodling between her and Leann, Ami tells us that she will be voting for Sarge, because he's a "physical threat." Sarge's big I Am A Physical Threat shot is a little bit interfered with by the fact that the angle emphasizes his potbelly a little bit, but whatever, he did win that water challenge. Indeed, Sarge tells us that he does sense that he's on the block (such a threat, you know), but he also thinks it's possible that things could change and Eliza could go instead as a result of how much Scout can't stand her.
Speaking of Scout, she, Chad, and Chris go for a little walk, leaving behind a nervous Eliza who definitely wishes she knew what they're up to. Scout tells the guys that as to Eliza, Scout "hate[s] hanging out with that energy," like, groovy, man. Because they are total idiots, Chad and Chris keep going down this road, trying to talk Scout into eliminating Eliza, which has no possible advantage to Scout at all. What they should be doing is talking to people who will see something in it for themselves to vote the way Chad and Chris want them to. Why is this complicated? Anyway, Chad says that the guys figured Eliza might be a good candidate for booting. Scout -- who just used the piece of quasi-hippie bullshit gibberish "I hate hanging out with that energy" -- bitches about the fact that Eliza uses the word "like." Gosh, Language Goddess, tell me more.
Back at camp, Eliza is trying the probably futile approach of telling Ami that Scout is off with Chad and Chris, and trying to convince Ami that in addition to trash-talking Eliza, Scout is also heavily into trash-talking Ami herself. Ami's not really listening, and although I despise her, I can't really blame her. Eliza -- with her eyebrows looking much too groomed for this point in the game -- tells us that she's paranoid, and that she's been paranoid all along. "You have to be paranoid," she says pleasantly and blankly. But then, equally blankly and less pleasantly, she tells Ami that Scout is the one person in the group she actively dislikes. She explains to us that Scout has gone after Eliza once or twice already, and would undoubtedly vote for her if asked. Scout confirms in an interview that she can't stand Eliza, which she describes as the fact that the two of them have "tension." My goodness, Scout's skin is in bad shape. I feel the need to make her into a wallet. As we watch Leann and Julie tango across camp (no, really), Scout explains that the two of them have become very close, and Scout is concerned that Julie might be taking her place "in the hierarchy." Scout says that there could always be changes, and that she could always go home herself.
The pig yawns. I feel you, bacon.
Sarge and Twila have it out elsewhere, and after he tells her how pissed off he was that she gave him her word and broke it, she busts out the fact that Julie told her that the two of them had both been promised final four, which Sarge assures her is not true. Twila interviews that she believes Sarge that the guys were intending to take her to the final four the whole time. So, oops. Sarge tells Twila that it was really dumb for her to switch back to the women, because with the guys, she was going to the final four, and with the women, she very well might not. Sarge doesn't understand why Twila didn't come back and talk to him after she heard from Julie. She admits that she should have, and then she tells us in an interview that she feels bad about going with the women, because frankly, the guys she's now in the process of screwing were nicer to her than the women ever were. "I do feel like I let them down," she says.
At just this point, Chad runs up to Sarge and Twila and tells them that it just occurred to him that rather than getting the women to vote off Eliza, they could maybe bring Eliza over with them and Twila and make five. Wow, YOU THINK? They're all like, "Hmm." Twila says in an interview that she's willing to play however she needs to play to get farther. Everyone prepares for tribal council. Chris interviews that on the first night with the merged tribe, he learned that it was important not to mess with the women, to watch what he said, and not to piss them off. He adds that his alliance with Chris and Sarge just doesn't have the numbers to get around the current problem unless something changes and they can connect with Twila and Eliza.
Tribal council. Around the fire, Jeff says he wants to start by talking about yesterday's reward challenge, and about how pissed-off Eliza was. She admits she was angry, but goes for something diplomatic about how she would have been mad to come in second, too: "It's just my nature." Jeff tells her that the reason he's asking is that from the very first tribal council, it doesn't seem like she was doing very well with the women, and he wonders if she still feels like it's all uphill with them. She points out that she's the only one of the women who brought a bag, in part because she doesn't want "Rory Syndrome," where you start to get confident and then lose. Heh. Everyone laughs. Jeff asks Sarge whether he senses division among the women, and Sarge flatly announces that there is definite division among the women. "I see it every day," he says, and he adds that, frankly, some of the women are on the outs of a smaller sub-alliance, and that unless they smarten up, they won't last much longer than...well, he will. Sarge then tells the story about Twila mistakenly believing that she was being yanked around about F4, and he wishes she hadn't "let Julie snake her." Hey, dirty. Twila agrees that she wound up "stuck in the middle." And she says the women know that she likes the guys better on a personal level.
Jeff asks Leann whether there's respect for the fact that Twila made friends on both sides and has told the truth about it. Leann throws in that she does understand and respect that, and what's more, she doesn't understand why Twila has taken a beating for it and Julie has gotten off "scot-free." Julie insists that she didn't, and that the men took her skulls during the reward challenge and are going to vote for her tonight instead of Twila. Jeff asks Chris whether duplicity is part of the game, and I wonder for a moment whether Chris knows what duplicity is, but it appears that he does. He says that Twila and Julie played both sides as is sometimes required. It is my opinion that Chris has noticed that in F2 situations, the thing juries love to harp on the most is hypocrisy (though usually imagined) -- a sort of "You said this, but on the other side, you did that" argument. And I think Chris is determined that he will never crack on anybody at tribal council for playing the game, lest they lash out at him later. I think he has the game pretty well knocked in that limited sense, though his participation in this episode's stupid "vote off Eliza" escapade disqualifies him from consideration as a serious strategic monster.
Jeff points out that tonight's vote is a little different, because everyone from here on out will be on the jury. Now, here's a thought. It's going to wind up as a seven-member jury, and if you assume that this all goes from her as the women plan, you're going to have a jury that includes Chad, Chris, Sarge, and Eliza -- and that's four votes. You'd think that perhaps Ami and Scout and some of these preening bitches would notice that if they were a little bit less nasty, they might be able to snag some jury votes that otherwise are not going to come their way.
At any rate, Ami has immunity, and it's vote time. Eliza votes. Leann votes. Scout votes. Twila votes. Julie votes. Sarge votes. Chad votes. Ami votes. Chris votes for -- Sarge. "I'm gonna burn every one of them," he says as he votes. "Just let them open a door. This is for you, not against you." Interesting.
Jeff reads the votes, which include one for Julie, one for Eliza, and a whole bunch for Sarge. Aw, sorry, big guy. Nothing we can do for you now. I really do not understand how they didn't pull together the thing with Twila and Eliza, both of whom have to know they don't have great prospects far down the line with the women. Because now, Chris, Chad, Eliza, and Twila would need somebody else, or they'll be in a tie. It's just a bad situation.
Sarge takes off, and Jeff reminds everyone that individual immunity can always change the entire picture. And then he sends them home.
In his exit interview, Sarge is like, "I had a great time. You all suck." Basically.
week: rain. Fire problems. And...the possibility of the herd turning on Ami and Leann, which I really, really, really hope is true. Because I cannot stand Ami a lot.