The Alliance of Suck at Casaya is on the rocks this week as Shane just wants everyone to promise that his son won't be struck down if he votes them out. Because they despise Shane anyway, the other members let him out, which gives hope to Cirie. Then, in the only challenge of the week, La Mina jumps out to an early lead, but Dan and Sally blow the puzzle at the end, and Casaya wins another one. The choice by Casaya to send Sally to Exile Island is much more significant than usual, because it takes her out of tribal council, so she can't be voted off and she can't vote. This leaves the four men of La Mina to vote off one of their own, and it's fairly clear fairly quickly that Very Pale Dan is going to be the unlucky winner. When Terry breaks it to Very Pale Dan that he's going along with Nick and Austin, things are sealed. At tribal council, there are no hard feelings, and all the men have all this respect for each other, and it's officially a nice way for them to behave, but it's somehow very self-congratulatory at the same time. Very Pale Dan is gone in any event, and we've got three weeks before a real new episode (week: clip show!), so until then, sit back and enjoy some basketball.
Previously on Survivors Digest: President Beefcake shut himself in the outhouse with Bruce, where they drank and bonded and talked about how stupid everyone else on their team turned out to be. Always nice when you can do your shit-talking in its natural habitat. Austin and Nick enjoyed some beans for a very short time, and then failed to enjoy those same beans for a very long time. When La Mina finally won immunity, Shane wanted to get rid of President Beefcake, but Aras pushed to get rid of Bruce. Aras won temporarily, but Chiclets then went on the offensive and convinced the team to vote out Beefcake, mostly because he was a pooping non-gentleman who sopped up the wine with his great big liver. It also appeared as though Casaya had built its camp on a flood plain, judging from the frequency with which they found themselves shin-deep in water. (God: "Jeff did kind of steal that '39 Days, 39 Nights, One Survivor' thing from me, if you think about it.") La Mina is still on the ropes, and it appears that they aren't eating. Casaya, on the other hand, is lousy with morons, and its most appealing player is afraid of leaves. Who will be voted off tonight?
Credits. Remember how there used to be more women?
We get a couple of random shots of a night sky superimposed with a skull motif, as if the editing staff is afraid that we have lost track of the "skull" theme. I assure you that I certainly haven't. I am, however, trying to forget that there is a new show called The New Adventures Of Old Christine, currently being pimped in the lower-left corner. Can I just say that the cast of Seinfeld long ago stopped being my personal best pals, and that I no longer feel invested in the years-long battle to find them something to do? I mean, it's okay to admit that you have been a TV star for the last time and go find something else creative to do. Linwood Boomer did it. (Giving me, incidentally, one of my best moments ever, which was when I found myself looking at a set of Night Court credits and thinking, "I wonder if that's the same Linwood Boomer.")
We are at Casaya, and it is Night 14. The flag continues flying, which I think means it's time for somebody to write an anthem. All the members of the tribe are asleep in the shelter, where Shane is staring daggers into the back of Chiclets's neck. Shane complains, as darkly as a pretend bad-ass can, "We made the wrong decision tonight." Now -- you'll remember that he was the one who immediately came back to camp declaring that Beefcake should be eliminated. In fact, he said he didn't want to hear any discussion. He was the one who passive-aggressively agreed to Aras's plan to boot Bruce only after making it clear that he thought it was the wrong call. But now, Shane is furious. "And we made that decision because of your personal feelings, period," he tells Chiclets. "And it's a bad, bad, bad thing. Bruce is falling apart. It's not his fault, but he's fifty-eight and nervous." Chiclets reaches the end of her patience for the moment. "Shane," she says. "Shut up." I would knight her just for that, really. Shane immediately declares that he knows Bruce is hearing it all, and that he doesn't care. Just keeping it real! "What do I got to worry about anybody, homey?" Shane asks. Did Shane just call Chiclets "homey"? Does he realize the, like, six levels of absurdity that are at work there? Chiclets tells him that she doesn't know why he's angry to begin with, but that she's had enough of having it directed at her. She says that they can talk about it tomorrow, and that he can yell at her then. I think she knows that Shane's head can only cause a thought to adhere to its slippery insides for about thirty seconds at a time, so if Chiclets can just delay him for a while, he won't remember any of this.
This is where Shane lays out his current position as he sees it, which is that he wants to get out of his alliance with Courtney, Aras, and Chiclets, but that he can't, because he swore on his son: "I can't do that unless you guys allow me to take my son's name back." So...let me get this straight. Shane works in a system where you can swear on your kid's life, and if you break your promise, he dies (or whatever), but you can ask for a sort of voluntary release of his name, and it can be granted, and then he won't die. It's one of those things like insurance coverage or curling or purgatory, where you can always get out of trouble, but you have to know how the system works. Anyway, Chiclets is focused for the moment on why Shane wants out of the alliance, and Shane says that he doesn't think the rest of them will make the right choices. He'd rather proceed as a "lone wolf" than deal with Chiclets and Courtney. "Lone wolf"! God, I knew there was a reason Shane made my mind go to the Lenny and Squiggy place. He's kind of a cross between the two, if you think about it. Chiclets tells Shane that she's not up for one of his "manic crazy spasms," and says that she's going to sleep. Again, if Shane still wants to yell in the morning, that's fine. "I know, you're such a victim, [Chiclets]," Shane says sarcastically. "I know. I am," she answers, because she doesn't really have anything else. She pretty much exhausted her vocabulary and sass at "manic crazy spasms," I think. I try not to expect too much.
The morning, we are still at Casaya, so now it is Day 15. As Cirie and Courtney sit by the fire, not exactly together but socializing lightly, Cirie reveals the chat that went on last night, which Courtney apparently missed because she was sleeping on the beach (I'd have sworn I saw her on the other side of Aras from Chiclets, so was that...Cirie? ["Yes." -- Wing Chun] Night vision sure is confusing), and explains that Shane said he wanted out of the alliance if they'd let him un-kill his son. "So he wants you guys to like, release him, basically, from the alliance," Cirie explains. "I'd like to release him from the game," Courtney says simply, in her first good line of the year. She turns and tells Cirie mischievously that it would be very easy to get rid of Shane if they wanted to. She even snaps her fingers for emphasis. Do you get it? It is a snap. Cirie explains in an interview that she was happy to share all of this, since Courtney originally missed it. Cirie can't stop laughing that Shane wants out of the alliance, and how now Courtney wants to get rid of Shane. Cirie is just increasingly amused at how this entire group is completely imploding. Meanwhile, we see Courtney remind us that she actually helped keep Shane from quitting, which she really, really regrets.
Chiclets is now awake, and wonders if Cirie and Courtney have debriefed about Shane; they have, she is assured. Chiclets throws her thumb hard over her shoulder, stage-whispering, "OUT!" They all chuckle. In an interview, Chiclets recalls Shane's "crazy manic psycho fit" and says, "He's ." I'm assuming it's Bruce they think would vote with them, which seems pretty likely, given how Aras and Shane have treated Bruce. Chiclets also talks to Cirie and Courtney about what an "idiot" and a "moron" Shane is, and they revel in how he's going to get it -- Courtney and Chiclets do, that is. Cirie is pretty much staying quiet, which is right, because she doesn't need to say anything. It's amazing how this game would grind to a complete halt if everyone knew when to shut up. It's like life in that way, really. Chiclets further interviews that she couldn't care less if Shane leaves the alliance, because she hates him anyway. This is the worst alliance I have ever seen, I have to say. I mean, last week, their four-person alliance voted for three different people. That's not so much an "alliance" as it is "even more fragmented voting than usual." Courtney tells the other women that the intent to boot Shane should be kept quiet.
Behold those teeny little ants. You will need a magnifying glass.
We now visit La Mina on Day 15, where Dan is staring peacefully out at the water. He tells us what a nice day it is, and how he's taking a photogenic moment to enjoy it. He says, "I've been within two hundred miles of this spot, many times." And then we cut to him as he grins and says, "Vertically," while pointing at the sky. He has done that line, or lines like that, a lot, you can tell. It's not like I don't understand how magical space travel is, and it's not like I don't get that Dan's trying to say something cute, but...I mean, if you're two hundred miles away from Earth, you're probably not flying with much precision over this particular location in Panama. I just get the feeling that you can be in a lot of places in the world with Very Pale Dan, and he will tell you that he's been within two hundred miles of the place...vertically. With that smile. It's his best line ever.
The rest of the tribe is waking up in the shelter, where Nick is telling Sally that he still feels punk from the rotten night of intestinal issues he and Austin had. Terry tells him that they'll warm up the beans. I'm sure that thrills Nick to no...end. You know. We then see some eating of beans going on, and Austin offers that they taste better today. Sally, in an interview, returns to the theme that the guys are all sort of boys'-club about everything, which she thinks is short-sighted, because she doesn't think this group will go, in one group, as far as they're thinking. She and Terry catch some minnows for food. Terry and Austin each slide a couple of minnows into their throats. "Boy, did he taste awful," Austin comments. I never call my food "he."
Nick and VPD are out on the raft when Dan says that he wants to tell Nick a secret. Nick gives him the go-ahead. "Well," Dan says, "it turns out I did a little more than just work on space shuttles." "What are you saying?" Nick asks. "Well, I had an opportunity to be aboard a few of them." "As in?" Nick clarifies. "While they were flying," Dan tells him. Nick stops paddling as he listens to Dan explain that he was on three space-shuttle flights. "Dan, that's unbelievable," Nick says, duly impressed. He interviews that he never expected to meet, let alone live with, an astronaut. Nick praises Dan in an interview for "how humble he is" about the astronaut thing. And...you know, I like Dan, and he seems like a good guy, but I don't think humility has anything to do with how he carries the fact that he was an astronaut. I think it's sort of the opposite of that, to tell you the truth. I think Dan doesn't tell, because he likes the drama of telling. I think that telling people he is an astronaut is the best thing that ever happens in Dan's whole life, and the more he holds back, the more fun it is to tell. I fully and completely believe that's why he didn't tell in this situation. He told Terry first, because he knew that Terry would be so impressed that he couldn't wait. And now he's telling...pretty much everybody on his team. People who really don't want to tell don't spontaneously start announcing it (see: Hogeboom, Gary, who may have been clumsy, but was sincere in trying to keep his secret).
Back in the shelter, now that it's an open topic, Dan is talking and talking about how people told him he could never be an astronaut, blah blah blah. He rattles off how many times he's been in orbit, how many space walks he's done...again, it all impresses me, too ["me? Eh" -- Wing Chun], but the thing that impresses me the least is Dan's faux humility, which I think is very, very much faux. Nick and Austin agree that they need to do something good so that they'll have a better line for these situations, the better to match up with "Did I ever tell you about zero gravity blah blah blah." Austin interviews that Dan "actually has dined with Neil Armstrong," meaning that VPD has managed to fit that piece of marginally relevant information into the conversation, too. Austin goes on to say, "Dan Fuego is a stud. I told you from the git-go, he's a pimp." Heh. He reminds me very slightly of a very lovely Tennesseean/Texan I once knew, who would have said that in precisely the same way, so I find it charming. As Dan holds court in the shelter, he says that he didn't tell everyone, because he didn't want to be "the astronaut guy." Again: not true, I don't think, but I don't really blame him, either. I'm not sure Dan has gotten a lot of attention over his lifetime for a whole lot of things, and I don't begrudge him his love for his Ultimate Cool Job at all. ["Ehhhhh. It's not like he can sneak you into the movies for free. Now that is a cool job." -- Wing Chun] I just don't think Dan really tries very hard to keep it on the down-low, if you see what I mean. Dan claims in an interview that telling his tribemates was all about the fact that they're all "really good friends" now, and that he doesn't want secrets. Phooey. "It's just another way for us to bond," he says. HA! Bullshit. Dan's a nice guy, but what a load of crap: "My explaining how I am awesome brings us all closer together!" Anyway, Austin closes this segment by confessing that he's secretly John Grisham. In that case, write a new good book, John, because I used to like you.
Casaya, Day 15. I do believe the snails are being cooked alive. Do you hear them screaming, Cirie? Courtney brings wood to the fire, and Shane sits with his hand in his hair, despairing. Just kind of at random. Chiclets joins the group, and the tension builds, as the soundtrack is only too happy to tell you. Finally, Shane gets up and comes over to the women. He tells them that, in a normal alliance, you could just ask out of it, but here, he has to make the special request for the return of his son's name. Good GRIEF, this is stupendously dumb. Do they have to say magic words? Is there a ceremony? Will we need to dance in circles around a fire? Do we need a great big horn, like the one they blew when the Bradys were in Hawaii at the luau? The other thing I love is that Shane's saying, "I want to ask you guys if I can take my son's name--" and at the exact moment that he says the word "name," Chiclets says, "Done." I think he expected a different response, honestly, because I don't think he was thinking the rest of his alliance would be like, "Okay, bye! Don't let the door hit your son's soul where the good Lord split your son's soul!"
Courtney -- either stupidly or craftily, depending -- complains that Shane is making a mistake by leaving the group. He tells her that it's no mistake -- he wants no part of people "making decisions based on personal feelings." Why is nobody mentioning that Shane was the one who wanted to vote off President Beefcake in the first place? Seriously. ["I was screaming that at my TV, for whatever it's worth." -- Wing Chun] Why is that not up for debate? I am so confused. People who leave perfectly good arguments on the shelf like that baffle me. Chiclets comes closest to pointing this out, telling Shane that she never went over to any other plan in the first place, and Shane emphasizes that really, the bug is up his butt about Courtney. Courtney, who (1) wasn't the one who suggested voting out Bobby the first time (that was Shane); (2) wasn't the one who suggested switching to Bruce (that was Aras); and (3) wasn't the one who ultimately pushed going back to Bobby (that was Chiclets). So whoever is at fault for all this, it seems like it can't be Courtney, but I suppose rationality is a lot to expect from Shane. No reason one proposition should follow logically from the last. Cirie watches, amused. Chiclets calls Shane out for having "outbreaks" at people, and cautions him not to come after her like that again. Bruce moves rocks in his Zen garden. He is essentially not in this episode. He's just that Zen. Courtney agrees with Chiclets about what an aggressive dick Shane is, and Shane defends himself by saying that he hasn't attacked her in days. She points out that "days" is "yesterday." She and Chiclets tell Shane that he's just generally assy to people. "It's funny how you two are the only two that have a problem with it," he comes back. For his part, Aras interviews that he doesn't want to be in the alliance anymore either. Why? Because of Shane. He thinks Shane is a nutbar as well, which makes it just about unanimous. Keeping her trap shut is Cirie.
Aras does offer Shane a little quiet counseling later, saying that getting out of the alliance was fine, but that he sort of did it in a way that's going to make everyone hate him. I'm sure Shane doesn't care. "I don't like her," Shane says of Chiclets. "She's a meatball! I don't like Courtney either." I'm sure both women are bitterly disappointed. And: "meatball"? "I feel like Shane just wrote his walking papers," Aras says in an interview, just holding himself back from spitting out an angry, "NAWANDA!" Aras thinks that, short of an apology to the women, there's going to be no going back for Shane after that.
Following a set of commercials, we return to La Mina, still on Day 15, where both lizards and bees are thriving, it would seem. Sally and Nick fetch some treemail that features a cutout of a skull. Have you noticed there's something about skulls going on? The clue for the challenge talks about "strength and smarts," and it clearly suggests that both immunity and reward will be at stake in this particular game. And the reward seems to involve leaving their regular island, which they seem to know usually involves eating. And these people really, really are not eating. In fact, neither tribe is really eating, and I think it's been quite a while since we've seen this much starvation going on. They vow, unsurprisingly, to win. "We need to win this; we need to get the numbers even," Austin says, and he's right. They knock fists and so forth. Terry points out that if they win, they'll go into the merge 5-5, but if they lose, Sally will go. "This is Game 7 of the World Series," he says.
Probst calls the teams in to the challenge course. He points out to La Mina that Casaya got rid of President Beefcake in the last challenge. Very Pale Dan is Very Palely Surprised by that development. Jeff takes back the idol and says that immunity is "back up for grabs," and that today's challenge is for both immunity and reward. Each team will have three members run out one at a time to retrieve puzzle pieces that are tied up with knots at the opposite end of a reasonably long running course. The pieces are big and heavy, and bringing them back is not cake. When they have four pieces, two other tribe members will start assembling them. First to finish wins. The puzzle is hard to explain, but it's not easy -- the pieces are four skulls, all different shapes, and they fit between nine other purple pieces arranged in a grid pattern, all of which rotate. So you have to both figure out how the purple pieces need to be turned in order for the pieces to fit, and you have to figure out how to fit the pieces. For a puzzle on this show, it looks...kind of hard, actually. The reward is a trip to a local village, to which they'll bring toys for the kids. They'll have a barbecue, beer, drinks, and so forth. And, if we're all lucky, a visit from the police. Also, tribal council will be tonight. Special bonus: the person you send to Exile Island will therefore not participate in tribal council, meaning that he or she cannot be voted off. So rather than screwing the person you send to Exile Island, you save that person.
Casaya is sitting out Courtney, because this is not a yoga challenge. Ready? Go! Shane and Terry almost knock each other over running through the course. Terry gets back and sends Austin out again, and then Shane finishes and sends Aras out to get a piece. Casaya is now somewhat behind. Nick goes once Austin is done; Chiclets goes out once Aras is back. Terry fetches La Mina's last piece; Shane goes to get Casaya's last, so La Mina gets a head-start on solving the puzzle. And...puzzle-solving is very hard to analyze, in terms of what's done wrong. Dan and Sally look like their method is pretty methodical, really, and Bruce and Cirie seem to kind of happen on something that works, and that gets them going toward getting it done. Once you get one piece, you are a good bit of the way there. Then, Dan and Sally get completely sidetracked watching Casaya, which will never get you anywhere. Before you know it, Casaya is all done and wins immunity, and La Mina gets nothing. They didn't even get one piece in. Jeff gives Casaya the immunity idol, and he asks them whom they'll be sending to Exile Island. They are smart enough to come up with Sally, probably sussing out the situation very accurately, as far as who's in with whom. A dejected La Mina is sent home.
It's time for Casaya to take off, so they head out to their boat with the toys they'll be taking as gifts. Apparently, hula hoops are the shit in the Panamanian youth market. Either that, or they stand or "toys" in the generic TV visual the same way celery out of a bag stands for "groceries," as I think Fametracker has noted at some time I cannot recall. ["Ha! It wasn't us, but that's very true." -- Wing Chun]
So now, Sally is out on Exile Island, all alone. She tells us that it's her "saving grace," because obviously, she was going, and now she's not. She does get a clue to the idol, but obviously, she's not going to find it. She's very happy anyway, though, because she has "girl time." Oh, girl time. Loofahs, bathtubs, exfoliating scrubs...she will come back with such smooth knees and elbows! Oh, and she's also happy because she's not getting sent home. She tells us that she finds the issue of the idol theoretically buried out here to be very frustrating. If she only knew. Actually, if she's smart, she probably knows that Terry, having been given two chances, probably found it. That's what would make looking for it really suck, I think -- the likelihood that it's not there.
Casaya is brought to a beach where there are a bunch of kids getting up to no good, as kids do. The kids come out and meet them and welcome them, which is very nice. Obviously, the contestants all found the contact and the friendliness very nourishing, which I do understand. They are led into the village, where a barbecue is underway. There just isn't enough eating in the world for these people, I'm sure. Chiclets talks about all the great food that kept showing up, and we watch as everyone gorges. And drinks, of course. Cirie interviews that it was great to be around people other than the tribe, and to be around kids, who reminded her of the kids in her family. One looked just like her niece. Aw. She tells us that the reward was "much needed." Courtney even tries the hula hoop.
Shane sees a guy smoking a cigarette, and he winds up bumming a cigarette. In an interview, he talks about how he would have given up everything down to his underwear for the cigarette, but it looks to me like the guy just lets him have one. As people do. Shane deeply inhales the cigarette. Not so much with the quitting, then. With the cigarette, Shane looks truly remarkable here -- the combination of food after a lack of food and a sudden intake of a drug to which he is severely addicted affect him just about the way a nightmare would tell you they would. You could take Shane's picture right here, and it would keep a lot of kids away from smoking. And tattoos. And wearing their hair that way. He's almost stunned as much as he is stoned, shaking his head like he's trying to clear water out of his ears. "Shane, I'm not happy about that, buddy," Aras says as he watches. Because Aras is actually stupid enough to look at that display and think that his disapproval can possibly compete with what's going on chemically in Shane's brain at the moment. "This is probably a really bad decision," Shane says as he continues to smoke the cigarette. Interestingly, as the boards noted, Shane was clearly shown drinking orange soda earlier, and now they go to some trouble to show that he's drinking what at least appears to be beer. One of those hand-in-hand guys, perhaps. He interviews that he was "in a stupor," making it sound like a little more fun to watch than it actually is. This poochy-lipped display isn't nearly as much fun as a real stupor would be, particularly if it were caused by, say, being hit with a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. ["My sister and I have this thing where if we see a gross guy, one of us will tell the other, 'That's your boyfriend.' (I realize we didn't invent this.) At this point, I said of Shane, 'That's your boyfriend,' and she said, 'I was going to say he was your boyfriend, but I thought he was too disgusting and I couldn't even joke that he was.' And I said, 'You're right. I take it back.' THAT'S HOW GROSS HE IS." -- Wing Chun] Shane says he couldn't believe how the cigarette affected him, as we watch him looking like he's...well, it might be the cigarette, or he might also be drunk, it seems to me. "It just shows me how devastating nicotine is to the body on every level," Shane says. Now looking quite clearly drunk, Shane gets up and makes a speech that is incoherent even to the people present who do speak English, in which he mostly gestures toward his chest and demonstrates how much love he feels for the Panamanian barbecue. The love is real. It originates in his sternum. Everyone looks to be patiently tolerating him, the way you always tolerate that one guy at he neighborhood pool party who's somebody's boyfriend, but nobody's sure whose ["not my sister's, that is for sure" -- Wing Chun], and he stands up and talks about how much he loves everyone, and then he passes out at a picnic table with his head down.
Cirie, meanwhile, interviews that the bonding and the great time were "a double-edged sword," meaning she is one of a very small number of reality-show contestants capable of correctly using clichés. She says that while it was nice to have such a good time, the barbecue seemed to heal some of the rift between Shane and the Courtney/Chiclets axis. As we watch, Shane puts an arm around Chiclets and tells her he "should have never treated [her] like that." She really doesn't seem to be responding with much warmth, so I'm not sure Cirie has that much to worry about. It's not like Shane notices she's not reciprocating, of course. Shane apologizes, and Chiclets is like, "Yeah, fine," but if she's onto the fact that he has these crazy outbursts, she probably knows the calm is only temporary, and I doubt she's moved. Shane tells Chiclets that he promises to be different, and that he owes no one anything but her. "All right, honey," she says, in exactly the voice you use on your crazy neighbor when he starts telling you that he saw Jesus reflected in the lid of his waffle iron. Cirie worries to the camera that Chiclets and Courtney are "easily persuaded," so she's not sure what might happen with "Shane's nonsense." She says that she wouldn't have been too heartbroken to have lost this challenge, even, given that they could probably have gotten rid of Shane.
Bruce does a martial-arts demonstration for the village. Everyone claps obligingly. Cirie says that, now that everyone is happy, she's unsure again of what might happen. There is dancing. There is music. Aras is "so happy right now." Shane interviews, unsurprisingly, that he found the experience wonderful and profound and so forth. Especially profound was the cigarette, I'm thinking. He gives a quasi-inspirational speech about how "this beautiful dawn" came upon him right after it was so dark. Of course, this is not a beautiful dawn. This is a dose of his drug of choice. Let's not romanticize. We watch Shane playing in the "beautiful dawn" with a bunch of children, so the "perhaps Shane can be redeemed!" thing is happening, but I am not buying it, ever, so they can save the swelling music. As it happens, they're going to need it later. He says that everything from the night before was forgotten. Which is easy for him to say, as I sense his long-term memory isn't what it used to be anyway. "It was a really, really great day," he says.
Back from commercials, we find an unhappy La Mina on the afternoon of Day 15, contemplating the evening's tribal council. The four men are on the beach together, and Dan is making the very, very bad move of trying to explain away the puzzle failure as if it belongs to all of them. "You know what the sad part is?" he says. "We knew where the first piece went! We had it figured out, and we knew right where it went, and we went in, and we laid it down there, and it wouldn't fit." So...he's suggesting that the puzzle wasn't built properly and was not solvable? That is very unlikely. In an interview, Terry repeats the comparison he made earlier about how this was "Game 7" for La Mina, and that losing the challenge was very bad. And I agree, because now they are going to be in sad shape going into the merge, at least according to conventional and recent wisdom, under which pre-merge tribes have some tendency to stay together. He says that Sally has immunity, so they have to vote off "one of our guys."
Jeff asks Austin whether booting Dan was clear -- whether Dan "needed to go" or was "holding [them] back." By saying "I would never use those words," Austin accidentally answers "yes." He insists that it's not that; it's just that somebody has to go. (By the way, if you want to say "no," you use the word "no," not the words, "I would never use those words.") Jeff asks Dan what the tribe will lose if he goes home. Dan says that he helps out around camp with the fire and so forth. He calls himself "Dan Fuego," and Austin pats him on the leg like he's a dope. This is getting embarrassing. Dan also insists that usually, he's great at puzzles. Great, I tell you! Try him out on Sudoku! Crostics! Other assorted head-scratchers! Jeff, unimpressed with this entire display, asks Dan if he's just "taking the sword on this one." Dan feels obligated to show some sass, so he tells Jeff he's not, and repeats that he wishes for the 2 v. 2 situation.
Jeff says that the vote seems to be "a foregone conclusion," but that they're voting anyway. Nick votes. Dan votes. Austin votes. Terry votes. The music, rather than the usual suspense music, is like something out of a Lifetime movie about a woman who learns to walk again after a terrible accident. It's swelling, it's leaning, it's pulling on your heartstrings. It is actually very nearly crawling into your lap. Jeff takes the votes off for tallying.
Aaaaand...Dan! Austin! Dan! Dan! Done! Incidentally, the first vote actually says, "Dr. Dan Fuego, PhD, M.D." Which is cute, actually. Anyway, Dan is done, as we knew he would be, and the music grandly announces that the brotherhood of men is something to be admired, and that astronauts are pretty, and this is music that has never been heard on this show before during a snuffing, that's for sure. There is a real effort to make this booting more than it is, because it is not different from, say, the booting of Ethan in All-Stars. You boot a guy because it helps you, period. That's why they're booting Dan -- because it helps them. It's completely self-interested, and the need to put sparkle polish on that fact really baffles me. Jeff sends them back to camp. I need an aspirin.
In his interview, Dan says that he was surprised by Terry's decision, but that he understands, it's all good, he loves his family...enough, really.
week: clip show! On Wednesday! No real new show for three weeks! But then there will be a medical emergency! I hope no one is hurt! Mostly!