The Power Of The Idol

Previously on When It Can't Possibly Matter, That's When I'll Make My Move!: The merge brought out Aras's fondness for rice that rightfully should be shared, and was Terry's opportunity to tell the members of Casaya that he might be able to arrange for them to, in return for taking a significant risk of making some jurors hate them, wind up no worse off than they are right now. As tempting as this offer was, nobody took him up on it. After he failed to figure out that his one chance to make a grab at numbers involved not using immunity, Terry stood at tribal council with immunity twice over and watched Nick go home. Also, Shane was making some sort of Dr. Phil reputation for himself as a uniter, not a divider, which upset the balance of the universe to a remarkable degree. Now, there are nine left. Who will be thrown out ? It won't be Shane, will it? No, it won't. I know it won't. I'm just being unreasonably optimistic.

Credits. I think what I have been calling the short version of the credits must now be considered just "the credits."

Beautiful scenery brings us to Day 19 at Gitanos, where Terry and Austin are happy just to be around for another day. The opening issue for this episode is the kerfuffle over Austin's announcement at last night's tribal council that he acted weaker than he actually was in order to perhaps keep the Casayans from choosing to vote him off. Courtney talks about this as if it is a very, very scandalous discovery on par with, say, finding out that your spouse is keeping another family somewhere. "I was like, 'Oh my Gosh, what have we done?'" She says that, now, she wonders whether they did the wrong thing by getting rid of Nick instead of Austin. Austin tells Sally and Aras that, indeed, he was very surprised to see Nick voted off instead of himself. "I'd already given up," he says. In an interview, Austin talks about how he thought that he had a good idea in acting weak, but then when he got the impression he was going, he decided to tell everyone what he did, just so they'd know. He talks about how people now question whether they trust him, which is pretty silly to worry over at this point.

Casaya is out snail-hunting. "These snails are like members of La Mina," Aras says. "Slimy and hard to get out." The fact that he is currently positioned to get rid of all the members of La Mina seems not to give Aras any sort of pause. Nor does it, in fairness, upset the snails. "Austin is a slimeball," Aras announces, as if having a strategy to save your own ass is some kind of moral failing. It's always the ones who are sitting pretty, isn't it? "I can't trust him, that's for sure," Courtney agrees. So I guess the long heart-to-hearts between Courtney and Austin in which she entrusts him with her fate in the game are over, huh? "The one thing we have to make sure," Aras says, "is that we don't reveal anything, period." Shane watches, and as usual, it's hard to tell whether his eyes are focused or whether he's just kind of throwing his head in random directions.

Behold the lizard, how he skitters across dry leaves.

Terry has a chat with Sally, telling her that since Casaya will undoubtedly go after Austin , they should "try to pull one of the girls over." Sally looks dubious. "It's going to be tough to figure out the five and six," Terry says, stating the completely obvious. In an interview, he tells us that he's all over this -- all he has to do is bring over two people and he can turn the tables! Making this week different from last week in...some way that isn't entirely clear. "Things may change," he says to Sally with the kind of seriousness that only a person with no plan whatsoever can muster. "There's always hope," he declares in an interview. It's one of those things that's...you know, technically true.

Treemail arrives, and as Courtney reads it, the team learns that the challenge has something to do with "political battles." Sally interviews that La Mina thinks this might be good for them, because anything political might upset the works at Casaya and provide an opening. It's overly optimistic, but I know what she's driving at. Sally hopes that this challenge will "shake things up a little bit around here." She and I both. Especially if those "things" involve parts of Aras and result in breakage.

Challenge beach. There are three long marked lanes down the beach, leading to boats. In this challenge, there will be three randomly assigned groups of three that will compete for reward against each other. Each team has a boat and a hundred colored coconuts. When Jeff says to go, you carry your coconuts, however many you can at a time, down the beach to the boats, and you dump them in the other team's boats. Obviously, putting a lot of coconuts in the boat will make it heavier and give the other team more to deal with at the end, as you'll see. So while you're dumping coconuts in their boat, they're dumping coconuts in your boat. When all your coconuts are in a boat, you hop into your boat, along with whatever coconuts are in it, and you paddle out. You have to paddle out to a flag, grab the flag, and come back. Then, you have to put all your coconuts into a fishing net and drag them up the beach to the finish line. First tribe to get all their coconuts thrown into a bin will win. And what's the reward? The winning tribe will be picked up and taken to a spot where there will be a bed and some breakfast. Also, the winning team will decide who goes to Exile Island. And also-also, never have I had to type "coconuts" so often in so short a time.

The teams are: Terry/Shane/Austin; Cirie/Chiclets/Courtney; and Aras/Sally/Bruce. Those didn't break out very evenly, did they? Ready? Go! The teams start carrying their coconuts down to the boats. After a couple of trips, Aras stops Chiclets -- who's on a different team than he is, you will recall -- and tells her to put her coconuts into the Austin/Shane/Terry boat rather than the Aras/Sally/Bruce boat, on the basis that Aras is not putting them in her boat. So...what is Chiclets to think? That this is for her benefit? Because if all the coconuts go into Terry/Shane/Austin's boat, then it's going to be a contest between Chiclets's team and Aras's team, and he knows he would probably beat her, and so does she, so why in the hell would she listen to Aras? Oh, that's right. Because she's a dipwad. It's so easy to forget the little things. Strategy is complicated! So Chiclets obediently does as Aras tells her to do, loading up the Austin/Shane/Terry boat and giving Aras as much of a free ride as possible. Seriously, if she's going to work for him, she ought to get paid, and then she can just march up and down the beach wearing a sandwich board that says "ARAS IS THE GREATEST."

The bigger problem for the women, in addition to getting bossed around by Aras, is that they're slow anyway, so they're nowhere near getting all their coconuts down the beach and into boats. At roughly the same time, Aras/Sally/Bruce and Austin/Terry/Shane get into their boats and leave. The three women are so far behind that they have to put their coconuts into the only boat left, which is their own. That is very, very depressing. As the teams paddle, Aras/Sally/Bruce pick up a lead, probably in part because they have so many fewer coconuts in their boat. The teams in the lead are still pretty much tied as the unloading begins, and Terry immediately makes everything worse by tossing coconuts haphazardly out of the boat, and then you learn that Terry is not Tom Westman when he makes the decision that seals their fate in the challenge, which is to head up the beach with about half of their coconuts, planning to make a second trip. That will not work, dude. Seriously the wrong call, I think. The net does not look so overwhelmingly full that they were at its limit and had no choice. They just didn't do that wisely. Bruce/Aras/Sally head up the beach with all their coconuts, and although a brief moment of suspense results when Sally has to run back for the tribe flag at the last minute, Aras's plan to win by making Chiclets and her group throw themselves at his feet is successful, and he wins the reward.

The news comes to Bruce, Aras, and Sally that they have to send not one person but two people to Exile Island -- one from each of the other two groups. Without any apparent consultation with anyone else, Aras announces that they will be sending Chiclets and Austin. Because Aras, while he can occasionally get an idiot like Chiclets to do his bidding, is not a rocket scientist, or he would have figured out that he has to send one member of Casaya, since the women's team is all-Casayan, so his best move would be to send another member of Casaya as well -- meaning that you send Shane, not Austin. Why send two people off when one of them is only moderately loyal to you and the other one is going to work on her the whole time? Send Shane off with Cirie or something; that causes far fewer potential problems. Yeah, Shane could get pissed off, but he really has very few options at this point, since he's not going to flip on you for that, I don't think. Of course, there would also have been the option of...you know, consulting the other people who were supposed to be deciding. Anyway. Chiclets and Austin it is. They head out on their boat, and the rest of the group heads back to camp.

thing you know, it is a very rainy Day 20 at Gitanos. Sally and Aras are talking about the "mind over matter" of preparing to enjoy the reward in spite of the rain. She talks about how great it's going to be to have breakfast in bed with Bruce and Aras, although part of it is ironic. Aras interviews that he woke up early, and that they had to sit there and wait for the boat. He also explains that, as soon as he won, he realized that he had "exposed a little bit of [his] athleticism," and that he had exposed "a lot of [his] wit." I think that was pretty much all of his wit, actually, not that there's all that much wit in the way he chose people to be banished. Telling a girl who's barely smart enough to tie her shoes that she should do what you say doesn't constitute wit in my book.

Finally, the boat arrives to take the group to breakfast, and they all head out, bidding farewell to the miserable ones left behind. The boat heads out into the water, and now it seems to be pouring rain again, and they're getting sopping wet. The boat arrives at a sandbar where there is a beautiful canopy bed, just sort of out on the beach in the rain, and this is their reward. HA HA HA! Awesome. It's like a rain delay at a Mariah Carey video. They walk to the bed and find that it's soaked through, and that the sheets are sopping wet. They are apparently made to get into the soaking bed anyway, because this is Burnett's playground and you will have fun, so they "snuggle" into the wet sheets and are finally served breakfast. As Sally explains it, as soon as they got the food, all was forgiven. They get coffee and juice and food and so forth, and Bruce says it was "fit for a king." Aside from the bacon, though, I'm not sure how much of it qualifies as the kind of food you'd actually need at this point. It's not like your body is dying to be nourished by a Danish. There's some fruit, and that's good, but it is not a protein-rich meal. They also drink mimosas, which would make me so sick in this situation, I cannot tell you. I'm always shocked that people can drink alcohol like they do when they're this starving for food.

Back at Gitanos, Terry and Shane are talking, and Terry is trying hard for a casual vibe while chattering on about why Aras picked Danielle. Terry tells us that he was trying to "coax out" what the structure of the alliance was, so that he could pluck off the people on the bottom. And you know, I'm thinking that Shane is unlikely to think that Terry is just talking to him about the workings of his alliance for absolutely no reason. I'm thinking Shane is going to catch on to this. And he's...Shane, you know? Of course, what's great is that Terry wouldn't actually need to know who's on the bottom. All he would need to do is convincingly claim he knows who's on the bottom. But that would mean lying, so I guess that's out. Anyway, Terry pokes Crazy Shane for a while, and Crazy Shane (looking especially crazy and disconnected from reality at the moment) makes remarks about how Terry might have the idol. Terry counters that the idol would only go so far, after all. As for the final four, Shane says, "I think it'll be me, Aras, Cirie, and Courtney." "I think we should put twenty dollars on it, Shane," Terry comments with what he thinks is an effortless grin. He then crows in an interview that he got this precious information out of Shane, that Bruce and Chiclets are at the bottom of that alliance. I'm not sure why he necessarily thinks that this information is all that valuable, given that Chiclets and Bruce aren't necessarily even going to believe it.

The breakfast group returns, and they talk and talk and talk about their wonderful breakfast. Do people learn nothing? I mean, nothing? Who doesn't know that you don't come back to a bunch of people who are both starving and petty and crow about all that you've had to eat? Cirie talks, just as someone does every season at about this time, about how obnoxious it was hearing all about the food over and over. Sally informs everyone that she ate fifteen strips of bacon. "I just couldn't eat any more bacon!" she says. "Those are quality problems," Shane grumps. Ha! I kind of feel him, which is the only time you will hear me say that, certainly. "'I couldn't finish my bacon, because there was too much,'" he mocks with dry hate, and for a moment, all is forgiven between me and Shane. Not only that, but Sally shows off the bulge in her belly while lying to Courtney, who is downright emaciated. That is just...not that nice, really. "I didn't care how big your stomach was!" Cirie interviews. "That kind of pissed me off. We're starving, eating beans, and you're going, 'Look, hey, I'm so fuuuuull!'" Sally continues showing off the belly. Not smart, Sally. "I have to win something or I will die in Panama," Cirie remarks. Heh. I'd like to see her win something, but she doesn't seem to be a threat right now, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, at Exile Island that night, things are not happy. Austin and Chiclets are apparently being made to spend two nights there, and they are shivering and miserable. "This sucks so bad," Austin says. He and Chiclets agree that this is for the birds, this out-all-night thing.

The morning, we return to them, and they are still huddled under a blanket, and it is still pouring rain. "Exile is just miserable," Austin says. "This is the most miserable I've ever been in my life," he adds, explaining that it is both soaking wet and "cold as hell" on the island right now. We now see Austin and Chiclets huddled under a tree in their ongoing attempt to stay out of the worst of the rain. "This is putting up a strong fight to be the worst day here," he says. She concurs, but only because they haven't seen the previews for week in which Shane appears to be flashing his naked junk at the tribe. Chiclets tells us that because everything is so wet, it's not like they can even build a fire, so they're really just hiding under a tree. On the up side, Austin explains that the torrential rains created the "quickest bonding experience" he's ever had. "Luckily, [Chiclets] and I got along great," he says. She concurs in her interview, saying that she was glad that it was Austin she got stuck with, because she got along well with him and established some trust with him. She adds that if something were to change with her alliance, it's good to know she has one other person available that she can go to. Thus proving my point that sending them off together was not a strategic masterstroke on the part of Aras.

Gitanos, Day 21. Sally and Terry are getting water as, nearby, a yellow frog looks on curiously. That is an awesome frog, incidentally. All frogs should be required to look just like that, or at least to dress that way for Halloween. Sally asks Terry whether he thinks Austin will hunt for the idol. "I don't know," he says. "Life will suck if they don't have fire," he offers. Sally comments in an interview that they're down to three La Minans, and that they don't have a viable way out that they can see. Sally asks an interesting question as she and Terry walk: "What happens if Austin and [Chiclets] found it? Who gets it?" Terry stops. "I have it," he says. "Are you serious?" she asks. "I am as serious as a heart attack," he replies. "I found it in twenty minutes." "Shut up!" she says happily. "No," he says, trying to be even more dramatic. "I have it. I've always had it." Sally interviews that upon finding out that Terry had the idol, she almost "pooped [her] pants," because she dug holes out there looking for it and he had it the whole time. Of course, she could have...asked him whether he had it, if she wanted to know so bad. She says she's thrilled to know that Terry has the idol. She adds that if Terry wins the immunity challenge, he could give the idol to her or to Austin, and that she's "pumped."

Challenge clearing. Jeff brings in Chiclets and Austin, who do not look good, as Jeff mentions to them. Chiclets talks about how bad the rain and the lack of fire was, and Austin says that they were afraid of hypothermia. But anyway, immunity! Jeff takes the necklace back from Terry. He explains that this is the multi-stage obstacle-course challenge, in which everybody digs under a fence, and the first six move on to a "brainteaser" puzzle, and then up a hill and through a something-or-other climbing course of some sort. The first three to finish that go to that rope bridge they like to do where you lay the planks in front of yourself, and then those three jump down into the water and climb up a bank. First two of those move on, and they go into a round where they climb through a sort of a cage maze (I'm saying "cage maze," so just go with me), and the first to finish wins immunity. So it's an obstacle course with many physical facets, meaning: Terry.

Ready? Go! Aras tries to dig under the fence, but he doesn't dig a big enough hole, so when he tries to slide under, he gets stuck. There is a wonderful shot of Aras trying to dig deeper using his ass in a seesaw motion, and this looks like he's pleasuring himself more emphatically than any shot of any immunity challenge ever has, that's for sure. Sally squeezes through first. Chiclets gets through, but a boob pops out of her bikini in the process, giving the pixel staff something to work on. Courtney is through, and her ass is all blurry. I'm beginning to think that is actually the purpose of all these "squeeze through" challenges -- they tend to separate women from their bikinis. Terry gets through. Aras? Still stuck, despite having been the first one to try to squash himself under the fence. Shane gets through, leaving one spot for the remaining people. Austin beats out Cirie, Bruce, and Aras to take the last spot in the round. Now, the brainteaser. It's one of those logic puzzles like the ones that are on the LSAT about the flower shop where the green flower is to the right of they yellow flower and there are yellow flowers in the window on Tuesday and so forth. It involves arranging rocks in a grid pattern to conform to a list of four rules about what's to what and what's to the left of what, things like that. First to finish is Austin, which surprises me a little. He runs up the hill. Sally follows. Terry follows. Austin, Sally, and Terry give no ground, and the three La Minans are the ones to make it to the round. On the rope bridge, Austin falls behind, so ultimately, it's Terry versus Sally in the final cage match. Terry gets a lead early and only builds on it, so while they both perform well, it is Terry who once again wins immunity, although not by much. Terry and Sally have a little hug. He puts the ostentatious immunity necklace on once again, and Jeff sends them all back to camp. Have I mentioned how boring it is recapping people crawling through mazes? "Terry moves forward with one knee. Now the other knee. Other knee. Other knee."

Gitanos, Day 21. The group is returning down the beach after the immunity challenge. Chiclets is talking about how unhappy she was about being chosen to go to Exile Island, so Aras tries a little damage control by insisting that his reason for sending Chiclets is that she's so tough. Yeah, I'll bet. "I hope you were comfortable with that," he says. Yeah. I'm sure that after she helped you win food just like you told her to do, she was really "comfortable with" you sending her off to spend forty-eight hours in hell. Chiclets confirms, a little cockily, that she and Austin really have "bonded for life." I think she relishes the idea that this might make Aras and Shane squirm a little.

Austin interviews that he knew going into the challenge today that he needed immunity, and now, he knows that it's very likely that he's going to be booted. For his part, Terry interviews that winning immunity makes him safe, and he also says that it allows him to try to use the immunity idol as "bait," since he won't need it to get out of tribal council. He has a chat with Austin in which he asks whether Austin and Chiclets have any kind of friendship from their experience together. Interestingly, Austin is quite guarded in saying that he does, but in also not saying much about thinking he's going to change her mind. Terry asks Austin whether Chiclets wants to make it to F5...with the idol. "Do you have it?" Austin asks. "Yeah, I have it," Terry tells him. Terry goes on to say that he wants to use the idol to bribe someone to join them so that they can go further. He reveals in an interview that his offer to Chiclets will be that if she comes with them, he will give her the immunity idol. But first, he needs to know that, if Chiclets comes along, Bruce will come along as well. "Have I ever told you how big of a stud you are?" Austin asks Terry. Of course, Terry already knows this about himself. Or at least he acts like he does. In an interview, Austin says that the idol gives them something to bargain with, and that, at least, is true. It astonishes me that they would think of using the idol this way, but that they apparently didn't think of intentionally getting Casaya to vote for Terry as a way of taking out Aras. I just continue to believe that that was the best move they had, and that they never even apparently considered it.

Terry goes to speak to Bruce, telling him about the discussion with Shane in which it was revealed that Bruce and Chiclets were not in the inner circle. Austin is in on this discussion too, as it turns out, and he tells Bruce that he's clearly not part of the plan. Terry says that if Bruce comes with them, the vote will go against Aras tonight. Bruce interviews that if it's true that he's at the bottom of the alliance, and that he likes Terry, and that if he's at the bottom of the order, his tribe sucks. I sort of like that argument. If your tribe doesn't like you, well, you don't like them either!

Elsewhere, Casaya has a meeting in which the only person thinking strategically, as it turns out, is Aras. Aras wants to vote against Sally, not Austin, because he thinks Terry may give the immunity idol -- if he has it -- to the most obvious target, which is Austin, and that if they vote against Austin and Austin has the idol, then the most votes will go, and that will be...Aras! In other words, the thing Terry should do that he apparently hasn't thought of, Aras has thought of. Courtney sees this clearly as an effort to protect Aras individually and not the team collectively. Aras handles it really badly by making it into a thing where he accuses her of failing to protect him and Shane, rather than by just telling her that it doesn't matter which of them would get the votes -- the idea is avoiding voting for someone Terry will give the idol to, not protecting Aras. "You guys are nuts not getting rid of Austin right now," Courtney insists. She also insists that Terry would never given the idol to anyone the way Aras is thinking of -- which is going to turn out to be true. Cirie explains all of this in an interview, wrapping it up and explaining why, if they hit on the wrong vote and smack somebody who's going to produce the immunity idol, Aras could go home. "I'm not going along with your stupid idea," Courtney announces. Aras tells her that she should treat him with more respect, not that he's terrifically respectful himself when he's constantly going around lecturing the women on what to do and what not to do. Cirie defuses the situation by sending Aras off to go sit with Shane by the fire and not bicker with Courtney. Courtney interviews that this was the first time Aras "freaked [her] out," by which I think she means he treated her like crap. Courtney tells Chiclets and Cirie that she thinks the desire to get rid of Sally is about limiting the number of women so that they don't get together. Which, if you think about it, doesn't make a lot of sense, since the men are up on the women 5-4 right now. She also adds that the hidden idol has made things much more complicated -- and with that, I do agree, and it's nothing but good news, that. She says that, quite frankly, if Terry has the idol and Aras goes, it's not exactly going to break her heart. "Aras needs to be voted off at some point," she says. Oh, if only she had stuck with that simple, elegant sentiment.

Back at the fire, Aras gives Courtney a dirty look. He tells us that Courtney "has not displayed one bit of intelligence since she's been out here." He says that the men of Casaya "are not being protected by the tribe." He attributes this to either short-sightedness or lack of loyalty, in that maybe they don't even care if he gets voted off. I know I don't care if he gets voted off, that's for sure.