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Previously on Pick A Little, Talk A Little: Judd and Bobby Jon trash-talked Margaret for speaking while they were trying to play with their erector sets, and yes, all meanings are fully intended. Yaxha lost the reward challenge, and then it lost the immunity challenge after Brianna decided that in the team's production of Hoop Dreams, she would play the hoop and let the rest of the suckers provide the dreams. Besides, she didn't know what a pick was! Who doesn't know what a pick is? Who doesn't watch basketball? Who doesn't watch sports on television? Who knits? Who reads? While Lydia's anemic challenge showings weren't winning any prizes either literally or figuratively, Brianna and her braids had enough enemies that she found herself on what we might call the boot end of the boot. Farewell, my wisp. I'm hesitant to give advice, and no one strategy works for everyone, but I am willing to wander out on my limb and put forth the following: perhaps if you had...you know, moved.
Credits. I like how there's a snake right after they show Gary. And what is the snake saying? The snake is saying, "Snake? I'm not a snake. I'm a lizard. No, no, I used to have feet. I...I sold them. WHAT?"
The opening of Survivor has fallen into a blender with the opening of The Lion King again this week, as a large orange sun looms on the horizon and we all prepare for the inevitable appearance of computer-generated animals. CBS runs a Ghost Whisperer bug across the bottom of the screen, as if to say, "This may not be the most artistic show you've ever seen, but it could be worse, if you get our amply endowed drift." Drums. More sun. Hot. Hot, hot, hot. Scorching hot. Oven-roasted hot. Africa hot. (Well, for Guatemala.) In fact, one might even say it's too darn hot, if one were fond of exotic rhythms and switching back and forth between major and minor keys. A couple of monkeys lie limply over tree branches, their limbs dangling lifelessly in an apparent salute to Brianna. But I kid people who have already lost. Sun, again. Never has so much been done by so few in post-production to demonstrate that so many stupid people are so bothered by such heat exhaustion. SUUUUUN!
And now, Nakum, asleep on Day 9. Danni's rib cage poking up into the air like a sand dune. Cindy offers a voice-over in which she explains that these are the hottest conditions she's ever experienced. Which means, I suppose, that things are even more dramatic here than they are at the zoo. I do hear that the zoo is a place where there is a lot of excitement. Zoo emergencies are among the top causes of FBI intervention in civic affairs, they say. "Triple digits, every day," Cindy laments. The entire city of Phoenix, Arizona makes a yanking motion with one hand. We see Farmer Beavis, not much happier himself, covering his face in his hands in hot despair. (Not hot in the "hott" sense, although I'm sure he thinks so.) His long-sleeved coral work shirt (?) is beginning to show serious signs of grunge. Margaret comments to him that with the temperature being what it is, getting anywhere near the fire is a complete nightmare. Looking greasy and bitten and thoroughly knocked off the cocky block he was riding just a few days ago, Farmer Beavis agrees. I love it when a guy on this show is revealed to have spent years working an incredibly calculated scraggly look. Because as soon as he gets away from all his products, he stops looking like he stepped out of Details and starts looking like he stepped out of The Monthly Digest Of Guys Who Live In The Alley Behind The 7-Eleven. Margaret interviews that the team is worn out. As Bobby Jon pounds some corn, she explains that yesterday's basketball challenge pretty much finished them off entirely. The team, along with the monkeys with whom it lives, is "sapped of energy."
“ 'They were literally -- if I didn't have my sweatshirt on, forget about it.' Yes, if he hadn't had his sweatshirt on, you would literally have to forget about it. And if it were no shirt at all, I believe I would give it my best effort. ”
Somebody finds a shot of Danni, sapped of energy indeed, finding the strength to swat a bug on her arm. And that is the killer transition to the Bug Sequence. Nice edit. We watch as Judd, in a sweatshirt and long pants that I'm sure feel like a refreshing mist when the temperature is over 100 degrees, returns to the tribe from a wood-gathering expedition. With his hood on, Judd has a kind of Unabomber/Eminem thing going on -- until you see who he is, of course. He announces that it's a good thing he was covered up, because otherwise, the mosquitoes would have devoured him. "They were literally -- if I didn't have my sweatshirt on, forget about it." Yes, if he hadn't had his sweatshirt on, you would literally have to forget about it. And if it were no shirt at all, I believe I would give it my best effort. He compares the mosquitoes to "killer bees" from a movie. Except that they're not bees, I guess. And it's not a movie, and they don't kill you. But other than that, same thing. It would be nice if he took a sunnier approach, but there are only so many times you can point out that what's happening to you is a lot like A Bug's Life. In an interview, Judd explains that he and the tribe have been boxing against the mosquitoes. You think I'm kidding, I'm sure, but there is sparring. I'm not surprised that Judd is the kind of guy who might welcome an unfair fight, but it's hard to land a punch on an insect, I've found. He tells us that swatting only works for "a millimeter of a second." That's some of that quantum physics I've heard about, I think.
We get a few ugly shots of various people covered with bites, and you can tell that the horrible trade-off here is that the only relief from the bugs is to cover up, but that the only relief from the heat is to strip down to as little clothing as possible. And they can't go in the water, because of the crocodiles. That's a pretty good triple-sided nightmare they've come up with for these people, and depending on how the food holds out, it might be in the running for one of the toughest seasons they've done on this show, after a few seasons of tropical-island stuff that pretty obviously didn't compare to conditions like Africa or the Outback. "This places changes you," says Farmer Beavis, sounding very much like a person who's been in a war zone for a year rather than camping on TV for a week and a half. He says that it's easier to do nothing. ("Did Farmer Beavis lay around and do nothing?" "Suppoooosably.") He's happy that his tribe is at least still ahead of Yaxha; Farmer Beavis can't imagine how things are over there.
Speaking of over there, we cut over to Yaxha, where Rafe, Gary, and Jamie are working on (or Rafe and Gary are working on, and Jamie is "supervising") a method of minnow-catching that involves luring minnows into a submerged pot with corn (who even knew minnows liked corn?) and then pulling the pot out as quickly as possible with minnows inside. Steph is observing as well, and wonders how many they have. "Four, so far," Rafe says. Not a lot. In an interview, a half-embarrassed Rafe -- who's kind of cute, really -- says, "Basically, we're a finely tuned fishing machine." He adds that "these minnows are in trouble." The Guatemalan minnow population declines to tremble. That's an ugly pair of tablecloth-based shorts Gary is sporting, by the way. Not that he'd admit it.