Miss Alli
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Previously on Like A Loss To A Flame: Steph and Bobby Jon were a desperate little Ulong tribe of two. When they were out-eaten at a duckling-off, they lost out on a cleanliness reward that Koror took home. Tom pressed for water conservation, much to the annoyance of Anonymous Jen, who wanted a shower, the better to canoodle with Studly Gregg, the Non-Romantic Yutz Who Is Getting Action Anyway. Yet another puzzle challenge left Steph and Bobby Jon baffled, and Koror took the immunity monkey again. Doomed to a deadlocked vote, Steph and Bobby Jon played a fire-building challenge for survival, and when Steph came up with the incredibly tricky strategy of blowing on the fire, she took home the victory and Bobby Jon was rather heartbreakingly sent home. Stephenie headed back to camp and wondered exactly what it would be like to be on her own at the Camp of Great Suffering. Nine people are left. What in the hell can happen to Stephenie now?
Moon. Ulong, Night 21. A lone crab wanders out of frame at the request of the producers, who want as much of a sense of isolation as possible to greet Steph upon her return. And here she comes, with her paddle and her stuff. She tells us that being the last surviving member of her tribe is "exciting," but also "scary." She is alone, and her first thought is to check on the fire she and Bobby Jon left behind. She finds that it is still glowing, so she goes in search of the palm branches she knows are lying around. She trips in the dark. A rat munches on something nearby. Let's see, if that's pestilence, and the end of Bobby Jon was death, and the whole theme has been the military, and she's already done famine...she's completed the circuit! Hooray! Steph gathers up some fronds and starts to tear them up as she voices over that everything she knows about starting and tending fires, she learned from Bobby Jon. Which makes her victory over him a little ironic, and she doesn't even successfully identify it as such, meaning that once again, the word "irony" has suffered a blow, percentage-wise. Steph further explains that she's not sure it's a good idea for her to even fall asleep, because she's afraid of losing the fire, which scares her. She settles in under what looks like some kind of a thin blanket as she reiterates that it's scary being on her own in camp. "I'll never give up," she says as she stares from her makeshift bed up at the sky.
Morning comes to Ulong, and it is now Day 22, and Steph is on her own. She walks over to the tree where Ulong has been making hash marks to count off the days, and she notes that she's up to 22. "Twenty-two down, seventeen to go," she says." Sigh. We watch as she hacks a coconut with the machete. She calls being on the island alone "a huge shock," and she forces the coconut open. As she munches on it, she explains to us that she's been driven to wonder whether she can take care of herself in camp without anybody else there, what with the food and water and fire she has to think about. "I feel like I'm going to, like, starve to death," she comments. She stares out at the water and briefly sees a vision of a surfing pizza. Sadly, it is just a mirage.
“ We watch Janu, lying in the hammock (known as 'the ass') as usual and taking a sniff of a lily or something. How romantic. Dreaming of her beloved, I assume. Or of a ham sandwich. ”
And now, it's time to visit Camp Koror on Day 22, and a shot of Coby brushing his teeth with Colgate Total With Ennui, the better to emphasize the difference in conditions. And, I guess, the better to display Coby's mouth to what I'm sure are his six to eight loyal fans. Ian, meanwhile, counts off some little...fruits or something, and he distributes them in cups to the members of the tribe. Koror appears to be suffering, indeed -- in this case, from a lack of flatware. Brutal, these conditions! Ian interviews that the team is "getting skinnier," not that it shows all that much. He then comments that he thinks members of the team get "lethargic" because they're kind of being "drug down by each other." Heh. He goes on to show what are basically his first negative feelings toward anyone in the entire thing: "Coby and Janu have been pains in the asses for the past three or four days. Janu does nothing. She lays in the hammock all day. She's like the dysfunctional aunt who lives in the attic. [Hee.] Coby got, kind of, this attitude to him, and really has become the pouter of the tribe, and it's really getting annoying."
We watch as, out in the water, Coby washes Caryn's hair. I guess if I were on a tribe with a hairstylist, I'd let him wash my hair, although I have to think I would also be capable of washing it myself, especially if it were as short as Caryn's. Coby complains to her, monopolizing the conversation as the worst hairdressers do, that he's "sick of the tribe," and that he's sick of the way everyone gets so excited when Ian or Tom brings them food. Yeah, that is a pretty silly thing to be grateful for, I guess. Who needs to eat, after all? I bet Coby doesn't touch the food Ian and Tom bring back, just in order to make this very point. I bet he's on some sort of a point-proving hunger strike. Oh, he also complains about how everyone in the tribe "sat on their ass for 20 days," so apparently there's now just one communal tribal ass upon which the entire group rests in order to avoid work. We watch Janu, lying in the hammock (known as "the ass") as usual and taking a sniff of a lily or something. How romantic. Dreaming of her beloved, I assume. Or of a ham sandwich. Anyway, Coby allows that there are exceptions -- people who have done work, by which he means himself and Caryn, I suppose. And then, rather hilariously, he says that as of Day 22, he's not carrying these people anymore, and they can run out of food and firewood. Yeah, I suspect that's exactly what will happen. Because nobody does any work except for Coby. Please.
Coby offers an interview in which he says that he's "cranky and everybody knows it," so he's trying to "control [his] temper." It's really not his temper, of course. It's his whining that's the issue. He tells us that he's going to sit right out in the water for a while so that he doesn't have to see the guys back at camp who are looking at their fishhooks and thinking about fishing. Because that is sooooo stupid. He bitches about how they're "daydreaming" -- since Tom and Ian never bring in any actual food, as we know. I mean, other than the shark. And the clams. And the snakes. But other than that!
“ 'The lone Ulong Survivor, you're the only one to endure. The phase of your adventure starts with a trip to Koror.' Typical shitty doggerel, and yet she cries off and on through the whole thing. I mean, I always want to cry too, but, like, for someone's English teacher. ”
Over at Ulong, Steph takes out the outrigger and goes underwater, trying to nab herself some food. She doesn't see any fish, though, or any clams, so she's thinking it's back to coconut. , we watch her throwing a coconut up at the top of a palm tree, trying to knock down some of the others that are growing up there. No dice. "I have to get them somehow," she mutters to nobody in particular. I would have liked it if she had invented an invisible tribe member to talk to. Like Harvey. Harvey the giant invisible Ulong member. That would have kept her entertained, at least and he would have been at least as useful as a lot of the other people on her tribe. She then gets herself a big bamboo pole that you can tell is very heavy, and she tries to knock them down, but the pole ultimately tips over, and it doesn't seem like that's going to work, either. So she does the only thing left, which is to climb up the tree. She gets herself up to where the coconuts are, twists one, and throws it down. Back on solid ground, she looks exhausted, but is at least happy she pulled down a big coconut. She voices over about her crappy day -- "Went fishing, no fish. Went clamming, no clams. Tried to do that coconut thing, almost dislocated my shoulder." Heh, I'll bet. She cuts up some coconut and fries it over the fire. Before, it was raw coconut. Now, it's fried coconut. Steph is like the Bubba Gump Coconut Company. "I don't know what else to do," she says. "It's tough." She's in tears as she waits for the food to cook and says, "If I win, it'll be worth it." She twirls her buff. "That'd be awesome." Awww.
Steph later goes to retrieve some treemail. The first thing she sees is a tube that's marked, "Do Not Open: Give To Koror Tribe." She comes across a map. She actually chokes up a little as she reads the treemail that says, "Dirty, hungry, and all alone; this is no way to be. Pack your canoe with all you want -- " And here, she realizes that she's getting out and starts to cry. She's doing this very endearing thing where she's jumping up and down in tiny jumps, she's so excited, but she's also crying from the built-up emotion of being by herself and being the last person on her tribe to be around. And from being hungry and exhausted, I suspect. Anyway, she tries to collect herself and reads, "Pack your canoe with all you want, and paddle out to sea. The lone Ulong Survivor, you're the only one to endure. The phase of your adventure starts with a trip to Koror." Typical shitty doggerel, and yet she cries off and on through the whole thing. I mean, I always want to cry too, but, like, for someone's English teacher. Steph is, you know, moved. Poor kid. And at the end, she sniffs, "That's awesome," in this way that just cemented her in my heart as my favorite woman on this show, ever. It's not like she wasn't already, probably, but she is seriously so cool. And when she opens up the map and sees the route to Koror that she's going to paddle, she gets even happier. "It's a merge," she says to herself. And then she adds, "I'm...gonna have friends!" Aw! And it's not like usual, where everyone sucks and you'd have to find that line ironic! She is actually being delivered into the arms of the least sucky tribe ever, on average! Oh, and after saying she's going to have friends, she adds, "And food!" Hee. Indeed, isolation is painful, but counting your ribs is even worse.