Steph continues destroying what's left of the public goodwill she once enjoyed as her team loses the reward challenge and she manages to be the one person incapable of showing grace toward Jamie, who clearly feels bad enough as it is. At the immunity challenge, though, the new Nakum (Steph's team) bests the new Yaxha (Bobby Jon's team), and the stars align for the four former Nakum to hang together and boot, most likely, Brian. Everything points to a foregone conclusion as we cruise into tribal council, but surprisingly, Blake has managed to act like such an irritating jackass with the stories heavily involving the word "dude" that both Danni and Bobby Jon ultimately vote with Brian, Gary, and Amy to get rid of him. It's not often the boot is genuinely a surprise, but this one sort of is. But really, the news is Steph, and how sad the sucking is.
Previously on Crocodile, Tears: The tribes were scrambled, and Brian, Amy, and Gary got the shortest end of the stick, winding up outnumbered by the former Nakum athletic mafia of Bobby Jon, Blake, Brandon, and Danni. On the other side of things, Judd, Margaret, Cindy, and Brooke wound up on a tribe with Steph, Jamie, Lydia, and Rafe, and that evenly split tribe wound up at tribal council. Judd decided to make the flip and team up with Jamie and Steph to boot Brooke. He also believed himself to be King Kong. Fourteen people left, which seems like...really a lot. It's still so painfully early.
Credits. Margaret must be just so pleased that her iconic shot shows her coated in mud. A mask, Margaret. Think of it as a cleansing mask.
It is night at the Maya ruins. We are at Nakum on Night 11, where they are presumably coming home from tribal council. Just so you can keep up, Yaxha is now 4-3 in favor of former Nakum, and Nakum is now 4-3 in favor of former Yaxha. So it's good to know this worked out in the way most likely to make me flap my lips with my finger like Daffy Duck. Unsurprisingly, Steph is griping to Judd on night-vision about how much she hates tribal council. I'm sure I'd be sick of it if I were Steph, too. Somebody should tell her they don't make you go if you win. Cindy blows on the fire. Margaret looks unhappy. Judd voices over that he's "feeling good" about his decision to boot Brooke. Margaret is not looking so happy.
As the group sits around the fire, Judd is executing the classic Defensive Maneuver ("Hey, I Have Nothing To Be Defensive About" variation). He insists that "it is a cutthroat game." Margaret concedes, as she sort of has to, that he's "absolutely right." He continues making the "we're all here to play" argument, and she continues not liking it, because he screwed her. I mean, they're both right. He's playing the game, but he screwed her. She goes on to argue in an interview that she's "sad" about Judd voting with Steph and company, which is sort of BS, because she's not sad -- she's frustrated, because she's hosed. Indignation is not a form of grief, really. She calls Judd "a traitor," which is (1) sort of true; (2) kind of meaningless; and (3) almost entirely irrelevant. Judd yells to Margaret that he doesn't "give a rat's ass" what anyone thinks of him after the game, and she does chose to take exception to that. I think it would have been smarter for him to argue there's no reason for them to be angry at him outside the game than to argue he doesn't care. He blusters about how as long as his family loves him, that's all that matters, and...why go that route? Why not just say there's no reason for anybody else to take it personally? I'm not sure "fuck you" is the smartest or the most logical response here, not that it wouldn't be really tempting. Judd interviews that he "can't wait till [Margaret] goes, too."
Infra-red snake.
The morning, Day 12, we are at Yaxha. A crocodile makes its way, open-mouthed, toward the underwater camera, and then closes its mouth at the last minute. "I will eat your camera! EAT IT, I SAY! But not right now!" Blake is looking out at the water, and then he interviews that he's sitting here thinking about his chances in the game, and that they look pretty good to him. Which they would, because he's up 4-3, and he should be in no danger of getting voted off until at least the merge, at which point individual immunity will start to be available in addition to the fact that depending on how many people are there at the merge, he may be able to ride his current alliance all the way until very close to the end. It does make a certain amount of sense. "I don't think it could have worked out better," he comments. Wait, what is that bat-like creature flapping its wings and buzzing Blake's head? It looks very much like Foreshadowing.
And then...radio-controlled bug. Which, in this case, scares the crap out of Amy. I'm not sure you'd last long in this game if you were that scared of bugs, I'll tell you that right now. You're lucky if a bug like that isn't emerging from your hair. The beetle flies around in pursuit of Amy, and she says in some disbelief, "I didn't know beetles could fly." "They're magical beetles here," Brian comments. Hee. Brandon talks in an interview about how he's not used to people like Amy who are from the city. He's used to "more farming type of people." Amy goes on to question Brandon and Bobby Jon about farming stuff, like how you go about making your living growing wheat. It seems silly on the one hand, but what should she do? Act like she doesn't care because it's unfamiliar? The show sets her up to look kind of silly, but this is what you do with people who do things you don't know anything about. You admit you don't know, and you have them explain it. I doubt Brandon or Bobby Jon would be mocked for asking her what police work is like.
Brian gives an interview in which he says that these aren't the kinds of people he usually becomes friends with, either, because he's "very New England" and "very blue-state." So these people are "not [his] style." We watch as Bobby Jon tells the tribe that when he gets home, he wants "a new pair of cowboy boots," because his current ones are held together with duct tape. Classy! Brian interviews that these people are "good people," and that he doesn't at all dislike them; they're just different from his usual crowd. Of course, he manages to pronounce the names of places like "Tulsa" with an emphasis that makes it sound like he doesn't like them a little bit. Sometimes Brian is very, very twenty-two, which is sort of okay, because that is inherently something one outgrows. In other news, it's amazing how I feel like "red state" and "blue state" are already getting old, and it's only been a year on that, really.
And then we watch as Danni, I believe, gives an out-loud prayer before the tribe eats. Brian bows his head compliantly. He interviews that the tribe is "very religious," always praying before meals and whatnot: "We say grace before every meal, we pray before every challenge, we thank Jesus for everything." He explains that while he's not religious himself, objecting would be rather foolish, since all it would do is put people off. On the record, my personal view about this is that it's exceedingly rude to suggest group prayers to groups of people including ones whose religious beliefs you don't have specific reason to believe are the same as yours, unless you are in your own home and they are visiting you. I think it's rude to place strangers in the position of discussing their religious beliefs in a setting in which they are essentially asked to take a position -- (1) Participate; (2) Don't. It's just rude. If you want to thank Jesus, why can't you thank Jesus yourself? Why does everyone else have to bow their heads for your prayer to work? You want to pray before a challenge, you have plenty of time. Go. Pray. If you learn through normal conversation that other people are of the same religious persuasion you are, then you can pray along with those people, but the notion of just acting on the assumption that unless they actively object, everyone probably wants to ask Jesus for help with every challenge? That's just mind-bendingly presumptuous. And no, "Say, is it okay if we all pray before the challenge?" is not all right. Prayer is opt-in, not opt-out. Opt-out puts people in precisely the position Brian is in, where they're going to go along whether they mean it or not, and doesn't it kind of dilute your prayer to have people in it who are only going through the motions? Just remember: according to some sources, God kind of wants you to pray in private anyway.
Anyway, all the praying had better be done, because it's time for a challenge. Probst brings in the group. Yaxha gets to see that Nakum voted off Brooke. The only thing that seems to be going on among the former-Nakum boys (Blake et al) is a lot of nodding, so apparently, they don't plan on missing Brooke. You'd think they might at least be interested for strategic purposes, since it suggests what went on, Judd-wise. Jeff asks Stephenie about the water at Nakum, and she says that, of course, they can't go in the water. Blake, for his team, agrees with how miserable it is not to be able to dive in. He says that they do wade out waist-deep, which gets Amy going about how there was a crocodile within a few feet of their dock, so she tends to nag the group to come back in when they get out too far. Jeff asks if this means they've really seen crocs, and Blake describes the one he saw swimming by this morning, close to the beach.
Jeff puts up with Blake for as long as possible, which isn't that long, and then he's like, "Yeah, whatever. Challenge!" He explains that it's a reward challenge. In the first step, one tribe member will cut through a rope with a sharp stone. (Incidentally, the setup footage shows the mystery hands sawing the rope, not chopping at it.) This rope will release two "handles," which are wooden pieces you take with you to the station. There, someone else has to chop a log, and when that log is chopped, two more handles will drop. Then you take your four handles and run up to the top of a ramp, where four other people (besides the two you've already used) will put the handles into a big crank, and they'll turn it to drag a cart on a rope up the ramp toward where the team is situated at the top. Once you drag the cart to the top, the six people who've already been used will hop in the cart, and the last one will chop the rope holding the cart. The cart will roll down a track, coaster-style, to the bottom, with the four tribe members inside. It's kind of like Magic Mountain, only instead of magic, there's hard labor.
And now, the reward. Jeff first unveils a pitcher of margaritas, so that's plenty enough reward for some of us. Also, he refers to "chip and dip," which seems to refer to chips and guacamole. I'm not sure if he thinks it's hot (or hott, or whatever) to refer to a single chip, as if it is the concept of chipness that is being offered, but it's very irritating. At any rate, on top of the food and beverages, the team will get a really good reward, which is a swimming pool setup that floats on the water and lets them swim in an enclosed, crocodile-proof space, but is also surrounded by a deck that will have lounge chairs and whatnot. Many rewards are stupid, but this one is not. With the need for entertainment and the need to be clean and the need to cool off, this is probably close to the most valuable single thing you could give them.
Ready...go! The rope-cutters are Jamie and Brandon. Brandon chops the rope like an axe, hack-hack-hack. Jamie takes more of a sawing approach. Brandon's works quickly; Jamie's doesn't. In fairness, once Yaxha is already gone, Jamie does take some hacks at the rope, and they don't seem to advance him very much. At the second station for Yaxha, Bobby Jon chops the log. Jamie is, in fact, still working on the first of the two ropes he has to cut when Bobby Jon finishes chopping the log and Yaxha heads for the cart. And then, finally, Jamie gets through the first rope. Blake, Amy, Gary, and Brian put the handles in the crank and start pulling it up the ramp. I really do feel for Jamie as Jeff starts saying things like, "One of the biggest blowouts thus far in Survivor Guatemala." You just know Jamie is doing his best, because he's fucking dying out there, and it did make me wonder...I mean, ropes and rocks aren't the most scientifically perfect cutting mechanisms ever, and it did make me wonder if Jamie's rocks might not have been slightly inferior to Brandon's. ["You know I'm always looking out for shit they could rig without being obvious about it, and the relative dullness of Jamie's rock certainly qualifies." -- Wing Chun] At any rate, Yaxha gets the cart to the top, six of them climb in, and Danni hacks the rope. The cart rolls down the hill. As they roll, Bobby Jon decides to not only "Wooo!," but kick his legs in the air at the other tribe, which does come off as perhaps unnecessarily "fuck you" for a team that's blowing out the other team. Flashing your crotch and shrieking isn't the most gracious way to win that I've ever seen. Anyway, Yaxha rolls into a pile of dirt that's used to stop them, and that's the reward for them. Jamie seems to want to finish the course, because he finally does get through the second rope, but the team puts the kibosh on it. Judd gives Jamie a hug and kisses him on the head, even though you know he kind of wants to kill him. I think that Judd is, oddly, the person most likely to sympathize, because he's totally been that guy who wants to look awesome but then looks like the goat. You just know he has. It's totally the only reason Judd would smooch a dude's head on television: shared humiliation.
Jeff sends Yaxha home to enjoy their reward. Jeff's comment -- "An absolute blowout...Jamie, it falls on you" -- comes off as a little gratuitous, because...I think everybody gets it, you know? He's the only person who did anything. Inspector Clouseau is not being brought in to seek a solution to the mystery of who screwed up. Yaxha celebrates.
Later, Yaxha returns to camp to find the swim cage all set up. It looks like a very small back yard swimming pool with a fancy deck, pretty much. "The reward was spectaculah," Amy says happily. They all enjoy their margaritas and their chip(s) and dip. They also all praise Brandon for his awesome rope-cutting. In an interview, Brandon says, "You could say that I won it for Yaxha. I mean, I'm not trying to take all the credit or anything, but you gotta go out there and give 110%, ya know?" He tries to come off dopey, but he's totally strutting. (Not without some justification, of course.) Gary asks the team why they suppose nobody told Jamie to chop, and of course they did, but he has no way of knowing that, because you can't really hear what people are saying when they're busy eating your dust. Gary interviews that Yaxha has "a new superhero" in Brandon, for...the rope-cutting, I suppose.
Brian tells us that it's "cloud nine" for his tribe, because the reward is all so nice. They jump, one by one, into the water, and you can tell it is indeed a huge relief. Brian tells us that he's "a fish" at home and loves being in the water, so this is great for him. He's not literally a fish at home, though, which is why I'm surprised he didn't say he is literally a fish at home. They share a team cheer.
There is no cheer over at Nakum, however. Jamie tries to explain that he did everything he could and banged on the rope and just couldn't get it. Judd tells him not to worry about it. Margaret agrees that doing the best he could is all the tribe would ask Jamie for. Judd interviews that although Jamie apologized to the group, he could tell that the tribe was thinking that it was hard to understand how they got smoked quite so thoroughly. Steph is kind of standing on the dock, acting all I-am-in-shock, and she says, "I'll be up. I need to, like, chill out." You know, you really don't. You need to take the loss, which clearly isn't about you or anything you did, and you need to realize that you and everybody else are in the same boat today, actually. It's really this that I hate about Steph's attitude -- her conviction that she's suffering more than everyone else, when in fact, she felt quite a lot like this when her tribe was losing consistently the first time around, too. And, unlike her, Steph's tribemates haven't already experienced fame and adulation, you know? Judd interviews that "you can't blame anybody" when things don't work out. Jamie and Lydia, who seem like they may have an interesting and unexpected friendship, take a walk toward camp as Rafe and Judd tell the rest of the team they don't think any of the rest of them could have done anything more than Jamie did.
Cindy, meanwhile, tells everybody jawing at the dock that she's seen Brandon's rope-cutting technique at camp, and she understands it and knew what he was doing. Judd cuts in to tell her that if she knew the technique, she should have jumped in. I don't think Cindy meant it that way at all. I think she meant that while she understands how Brandon does it, she couldn't have emulated it, and I don't think she's claiming she could have done better than Jamie. I think she's just saying she knows Brandon has a method and, in fact, explaining why she was frustrated knowing she couldn't have done any better. She goes on to say basically this -- that she doesn't have the shoulder or the strength that Judd or Jamie has, so she indeed couldn't have done it. Judd, however, refuses to quit bullying her, which is really unbecoming, and takes the opportunity to take a shot at Cindy by saying that if she -- or Margaret, which: irrelevant -- ever want to do anything, they should feel free. Cindy doesn't even get mad, which appears to be a calculation made on the basis of obvious futility. She just agrees that she understands the "if you think you can do better, then do it" argument. Judd keeps hitting, though, all about "get us out of the spotlight" and "shine like the star that you think you are." Dude, that's not at all what Cindy said. Judd's just responding to something that didn't happen. Cindy interviews that it irritated her to have Judd "mouthing off" like that, and that she's not sure it's a smart idea to be going out of your way to piss people off at this point. Normally, this would be the part where I'd point out that an utter lack of social skills is usually not punished on this show the way I'd like, but I think I...won't.
Steph grouses on the way back, walking with Judd and Cindy, about how Bobby Jon was kicking his legs up in the cart, "cheering like a frickin' girl." She gives an interview in which she first says she's happy for Bobby Jon that he's winning challenges, and then she complains about how annoying it is when he cheers like a girl, and then she admits she's just jealous. Which is a little bit endearing, that at least she recognizes it. And then, on the walk back, she says, "He's so gay, he gets so gay," and...it's so funny, because I'm not always as disturbed by that as some people are, but I really didn't care for the way Steph in particular did it. She seems to spit it out with a certain pointed meanness that isn't always present when people use it to mean something very much like "twee." It's also very unwise to do that in the presence of people you don't know all that well, because opinions are so thoroughly mixed about whether that's inherently offensive or not. I know both gay people and straight people who are bothered by it, and I know both gay people and straight people who aren't. So...on TV? Probably not. Anyway, Steph prattles on about how much Bobby Jon's celebratory behavior annoys her, and Judd and Cindy nod sympathetically, because I have a feeling they've pretty much learned to tune it out at this point.
Back at camp, Jamie is still suffering loudly over his inability to get the rope done. "Can't do it all, kid," Judd says. Steph, on the other hand, gives an interview in which she says that Jamie is cocky, which we know, and that he went off about how he could cut right through the rope, and then he goes and gets whipped by "a twenty-two-year-old farm boy." Actually, a twenty-two-year-old farm boy is probably the target demographic for fast rope-cutting, so that's not exactly her best argument, not that Steph would win a challenge in finding her best argument these days. She goes into another round of how she can't stand to be the big loser again, yada blah zippety, and she insists she's "never going to cry in front of any of them." On the other hand, she says, "Deep down, my heart is breaking." Oh, this is not your heart breaking, dear. This is losing at a game show. Big difference. It's not that I doubt it's extremely frustrating, but this "I'm in a bad dream" number she's pulling here is just too much. There's no such thing as a Very Special Episode of Survivor, and if there were, one would think it wouldn't revolve around the wrenching tragedy of something that's inherently a part of the game. Like LOSING. The rain pours down on Nakum, and Steph voices over that can't stand to relive her Palau experience -- can we please get a hook here? -- and complains that her tribe is always "the less able group." Or, as she then says, "the group that basically...sucks." Which is fine, and I sympathize with her in the limited sense that, at the switch, she did kind of get kicked over to a winning tribe, only to be stuck with the half of that tribe that didn't seem to be responsible for very much of the winning. It's true that to have Bobby Jon, Blake, Danni, and Brandon all shipped off would feel like you got screwed. But...this is not going to help Steph's situation.
Later on Night 13 at Yaxha, we are in the middle of quite the driving rainstorm. Most of the tribe is out under the umbrella, but Brian and Blake are still sleeping in the shelter. Nobody seems to know whether this is because they've found the only dry places or whether it's because they're sleeping through, but Amy takes the opportunity to introduce "Golden Boy," her nickname for Blake. She explains to us that Blake always "comes up smelling like roses" -- hence the name. Inventive? No. But Amy carries it off with a majestic gesture and the sound of a choir singing, which helps any unoriginal line. Try it with your knock-knock joke. Amy says that Blake does always have "the greatest stories." We cut to a montage of Blake telling stories at unspecified moments, in which he regales Gary with all his skydiving experience, brags about his experience with older women, and so forth. Brandon interviews that, indeed, it appears as though Blake's favorite topic is Blake. In fact, so great is Blake's obvious interest in things involving...Blake, that he is later seen telling the tribe about his girlfriend's big boobs, because he is that sure they all totally care. He explains how she was a DD, but then she got pills to make them even bigger. Looks of hate are either given or edited in. Both would be very understandable. He also graces us with the information that he and Bobby Jon talked about not being boob guys, but "legs and ass kinda guys." Either Actual Bobby Jon or Apocryphal Bobby Jon looks like he wants to die. Blake turns to Brandon for an opinion, and Brandon does express some skepticism about what he refers to as "novelty-size boobs." And I will award the point for that one, because that's...not a bad line. I find myself very conflicted about old Farmer Beavis. I am not, however, conflicted about Novelty Boobs Girl, who probably is feeling just a little uncomfortable at this stage of the broadcast, especially if she's still with Blake. ("You bragged? About my BOOBS?" "No, no, honey, I wasn't bragging. I was more complaining about your boobs, that they got too big.") ["Also, DD is hardly novelty-size if they sell bras to corral them at THE GAP, for God's sake." -- Wing Chun] Brian interviews that Blake is making himself look like a complete moron, and that his own favorite pastime is now to get Blake going, because he never fails to irritate the shit out of people. Or, as Brian calls it, "Bait Blake." And how do you play Bait Blake? Well, we now hear Brian -- who hates Blake's drunk stories -- say, "Blake, what is your absolute best drunk story?" Hee. Hey, Brian is outnumbered and on the ropes. What's he going to do? Predictably, Blake launches into a frat-boy idiot story that makes him look like a moron, which Brian interviews is his intent exactly. "So what you're saying, Blake, is that I wouldn't want one of my three daughters to date you," Gary offers. Blake agrees, probably not. I'm not sure Blake realizes that, lots of times, dads don't mean that as a compliment. Brian repeats that he's doing all he can to help Blake bury himself.
Steph and Lydia retrieve Nakum's treemail. Back at camp, Steph reads the stupid poetry, which tells them very little about the attached black ball on a rope except that it's related to the upcoming immunity challenge. Which we knew, of course. Steph gives yet another interview about her pitiful situation and her additional losses, and oh my God, ENOUGH already. You can't be a victim of your own team when you're ON it. Less talking about not crying! Less crying! More winning! Stop!
Apparently as a result of the downcast feelings at Nakum, Lydia decides that this is the right time to become batshit crazy as a distraction ["a popular reality TV gambit, apparently" -- Wing Chun], so we get to see Lydia's Mighty Mouse impression, her magic act involving magic oranges, and, rather spectacularly, her version of "the pancake." At first, everyone just thinks she's irritating and stupid, but nobody can resist the pancake, especially after Rafe -- who is adorable -- jumps in. Even Judd is laughing. "You look like you're havin' a seizure," Jamie offers. I'm not sure I love the kind of self-consciously wacky routine that Lydia is doing, but it beats endless rounds of boo-hooing and "we suck" and all of that. week's Steph interview, I'm sure, will feature a lengthy complaining period about why she always winds up with the tribe that does the pancake.
Now, it's time for another challenge. And for Jeff still to be wearing that dork hat. He brings in the tribes. He comments that Nakum all looks pissed off, and that they're going to have to work together in this challenge. First, immunity is taken back from Yaxha. Jeff explains that each tribe will make two groups of three, with one person left over. Each group of three will run around with a little catching contraption with three corners. The leftover person will launch balls from a catapult. Any catching team can catch any ball, so you can, indeed, steal from each other. First tribe to catch five will win immunity. Losers go to tribal council. I'm going to warn you right now that this is a great example of a challenge that's practically impossible to recap, since it involves (1) running; and (2) nets. Maybe if I accompanied every line with a gesture and the sound of a choir singing. What do you think?
The launchers are Brian and Lydia. Brian launches first. Bobby Jon, Gary, and Danni catch what he's throwing, so that's one point for Yaxha. Lydia goes . Her ball is not caught. "You guys are going to have to be a little faster," Steph orders Rafe and Judd, who are sharing her net. Judd says something that is, I think, about how he was also trying to block an approaching Yaxha team, and Steph's all, "Yeah, but listen to ME," and it's really disorienting, I have to say, to find yourself in your living room, watching a contestant you once admired and going, "MEEEEH, muh mis-sen moo MEEEE" in a mocking tone after she speaks a line like that. Brian launches again, and Steph and her group catch one. Tied 1-1. Lydia launches, and nobody gets it. Brian launches, and nobody gets it again, following a collision between Steph and Bobby Jon. Lydia launches, and the Steph group catches it again, so Nakum is up 2-1. Brian launches, and Gary and his group get it, so it's 2-2. Lydia is caught by Steph Inc. again. We are at 3-2, Team Steph. Brian goes, and this time, Jamie, Cindy, and Margaret take it. It's 4-2 Nakum. Steph and her group catch it again, so Nakum takes home the win. Interesting side note: the complete irrelevance of the Blake/Brandon/Amy net, which caught not one thing. Booo!
Unfortunately, Jamie is not a gracious winner or an emotional balanced person, so he launches into an ostentatious "Who's smilin' NOOOOW? Who's smilin' NOOOW?" Well...yeah. But you actually only caught one of your team's five, so...maybe not so much with the crowing. Bobby Jon also gives a rather random holler here, and I'm not sure at all what that's about. I think he may have forgotten that losing is bad. Steph might not be so mad about the gloating if she realized he doesn't actually always know whether his team won or lost until somebody tells him later. Jamie goes and gives a huge hug and boost to Lydia, which...like I said, they seem to have some kind of a pal thing going on. Nakum gets immunity, which will maybe quiet Steph down a little bit. Yaxha, on the other hand, will have to go home.
Ant marionettes.
Yaxha, back at camp, is not happy. They're sparing a few minutes to hate on Jamie for crowing about the victory, which he deserves, but Brandon manages to do the one ungracious thing he can do, which is to say, "Jamie, why don't you just shut up and go cut a rope or something." See, Farmer Beavis, you can't bring up your own triumph to rag on someone else for gloating. It's like emptying somebody's trash by the highway to punish him for littering. Gary, quite reasonably, notes that Jamie's frustration about the rope was reflected in that bad in-your-face moment, which is exactly right. Who says football players aren't insightful? Poets trying to get dates, that's who. Bobby Jon tries to make it into some kind of Alabama-Georgia rivalry, but he also manages to make a "there's a right way to win and lose" sort of comment that would tend to counsel against throwing one's legs in the air to display one's crotch while passing the other team as well.
Brian interviews that, given the numbers, he knows that the odds are that it's going to be him, Gary, or Amy. Brian and Gary have a chat in which they agree that perhaps the best chance they have is that Blake is making everyone nuts. Brian asks Gary if he's all right with the idea of voting against Blake. Gary: "[Snort]." Brian thinks that Danni might be willing to vote against Blake, which, as I watched it the first time, struck me as hilariously naïve. I mean, come on. Gary interviews that Blake's tendency to make other people crazy has worked to the benefit of the Yaxha members, because it may provide a single ray of hope in what looked like a pretty dark picture.
Now, Gary works on Bobby Jon in exactly the right way by saying that he really wants to see a hardworking person win. Bobby Jon is one of those guys you want to get thinking that he has to do what you want him to do for the sake of honor, unlike a guy like Blake, whom you want to get thinking that he has to do what you want him to do so that the nerds don't win. Or something. Bobby Jon tells Gary that he intends to vote for Brian, although he sort of agrees with Gary that it would be nice to see Blake voted out. But Bobby Jon has already told Blake he wouldn't vote against him, and Bobby Jon's word is as strong as an oak, in the Jerry Maguire sense. Bobby Jon interviews that, indeed, he gave Blake his word. And then, in a comment most intriguing, Bobby Jon says, "I listen to Gary a lot, because he's smart, and he knows about team unity." Now, doesn't that comment make the most sense if you know Gary is an accomplished athlete? It's interesting to wonder whether (1) Bobby Jon knew or suspected that Gary was lying in his denials; or (2) this interview is out of sequence and Bobby Jon will find out later that Gary is lying. In any event, Bobby Jon tells us that he believes there's a time to start turning on people, but that he doesn't feel like we're there yet.
Elsewhere, still working his angles, Gary has a chat with Danni -- and don't we all kind of wonder what that dynamic is like? -- and he tells her that he can't not vote for Blake, feeling the way he does. It turns out Amy is here, too, as she and Gary try to tell Danni that there's no alliance among the three former Yaxha members. And also, Amy is not secretly Mike Piazza and Brian is not secretly Randy Moss. Anyway, I think the subtext here is that if they'll get rid of Blake this week, Amy and Gary aren't necessarily going to fight for Brian in another week. Gary falls back on the always unappealing "I want good people to go forward" argument, saying that he wants Blake to leave . Danni describes this conversation in an interview, saying that she told Gary she felt the same, but needed to talk to the rest of her crowd. She heads for Farmer Beavis, telling him that she and the Yaxha members sort of think that Blake should go for the sake of "team unity," by which she means, "It will be a lot more fun with fewer stories in which the denouement takes place at a kegger." Farmer Beavis isn't hearing any of it. He's voting for either Amy or Brian.
And then there is one more shot of Blake telling a long, boring story in which he is awesome. Danni interviews that she likes Blake, but that the group is fed up, indeed. She calls his routine "typical frat-boy stuff." Insulting to frat boys! (Sound of choir singing.) We cut back to Blake being all yuk-yuk about the girl he "almost" lost his virginity to, which...all righty. I'd be tempted to be like, "Oh...failed attempt? Lost the...will, at the last minute? Thought you'd lost your virginity and only later found out...not so much?" Danni allows that Blake is great in challenges, and that she has the problem of Farmer Beavis and Bobby Jon both having refused to vote for Blake, so she's the one in the position to decide whether to swing or not. She calls it "part of the game [she] just [doesn't] like." The...the voting part? The strategizing part? Is it the not-eating-or-drinking part that you enjoy more? The smelling-like-weeks- of-Guatemalan-dirt part? What a weird comment. Anyway, Danni goes on about hurting people's feelings and so forth, and...ugh.
Tribal council. They all come in and are seated, and if you don't know enough to know Brian is going to be voted out, then you know nothing about how they edit this show. They've done these fake-outs a zillion times, where they try to make you think that the inevitable isn't, and at this point, it's boring, because it's always inevitable. Anyway. Jeff starts off by asking about last night's storm. Gary says it was "character-building." He makes a comment about the two guys who slept through it. Brian comments that at least he woke up eventually to take a "late shift." Watching the fire, maybe? Could the fire have still been going? Or just a late shift under the umbrella? Anyway, Gary claps him on the shoulder and says, "Yeah," so that it will appear as though Brian isn't in trouble. Blake, on the other hand, is reduced to basically saying he didn't really realize what was going on. Man, that boy's teeth are really, really white. Who needs a reading lamp? Amy sings, "Gol-den Booooy!" Jeff asks about this, and Amy repeats her "comes up roses" explanation. She also mentions "a spahkle in his tooth," which is spot-on. Jeff asks Blake about the fact that he was literally gasping just a few weeks ago, and now he's Golden Boy. Blake says that he crashed, but now he's well.
Jeff asks Farmer Beavis about the social aspect. Does he see that changing? Farmer Beavis says yes, and that he's gotten to know and like some people better than others. Blake fails to grasp the irony. Jeff asks Gary about the way the tribes came together, and Gary says that it was scary at first with the numbers against him. Asked whether it's like two groups or one tribe, Amy says that, to her, it's one group and one tribe, and this is her loyalty. But she acknowledges the disadvantage she's at. Blake, on the other hand, admits that he still feels his old tribe bonds. Jeff asks Brian what he thinks is needed to keep old lines from dictating the vote, and Brian basically says that he hopes they don't operate that way because you should get to know people and so forth. Which is kind of silly, because that's not a good argument at all. In any event, he says that if he's voted off, he'll be "a victim of a minority." But he doesn't mean it that way.
Bobby Jon goes on about how they've all worked hard to get here, voting somebody off is always difficult, and on and on. He wishes he could keep everyone's dream alive. Barf. Bobby Jon votes. Brian votes, rather revoltingly intoning, "You may be the Golden Boy, but I'm platinum." Yuck. Okay, now he's eighteen. Brandon votes for Brian. Amy votes. Gary votes for Blake. Blake votes for Brian, just saying he's the weakest of the Yaxha members. I kind of wanted him to say, "You may be platinum, but I'm gold. Or...silver. Wait, how much does titanium cost?" Danni hesitates, and then votes. "B..."
Jeff brings back the votes. One for Blake. One for Brian. Another for Brian. Another for Blake. And...another for Blake. To my complete and utter shock, Jeff's words are, "Fifth person voted..." Because it's Blake. It's BLAKE. Are you kidding me? And does that mean that Danni and somebody else flipped? Meaning Bobby Jon, since we saw Farmer Beavis vote? That never actually happens! It's always a fake-out! Ooooh, Burnett, you are a slippery one. Blake gets up and leaves, and Brian tries to keep himself from breaking into a grin, not that he doesn't completely deserve one, considering how down and out he looked to be. Jeff calls it a "big shift," and he sends them home. I have to agree with Wing Chun that Jeff really needs to stop trying to be pithy. He doesn't have it in him.
Over the credits, we learn that indeed, Bobby Jon and Danni both voted for Blake. And that Blake is completely shocked to be eliminated. Makes no sense! How could they? Would you like to hear about his girlfriend's boobs?