Salvation And Desertion

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.

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.