The men of Raro are playing defense after the departure of J.P., so there's a lot of hunting and gathering and proving themselves going on. At a reward challenge literally involving weightlifting, Raro manages to beat Aitu and take home the fancy dining package. Back at camp, Cristina is bugging everyone with that bossy disappointed-mom routine that always gets people voted off almost immediately. In an incredibly tense immunity challenge combining puzzle-solving, balance, and some unconventional strategy elements, Aitu wiggles all eight of its members onto a tiny platform and wins immunity. Cristina is all over the chopping block, but when Stephannie makes yet another remark that sounds to Nate like she's feeling half-assed about wanting to be there, he turns it around on her, and she's voted out almost unanimously. It seems like she may have been a victim of things being taken a little more literally than she meant them, but at the same time, after being saved from just this problem in the last episode, you'd think she could have refrained from fantasizing about being voted off for one tribal council.
Previously on I've Got Shoulders Like An Ox, Meaning They're Attached To The Appropriate Head: J.P. considered what a group of four men should do about being outnumbered by five women, and he concluded that What Are You Gonna Do About It? Get Me A Turkey Pot Pie! was the attitude that could not be beat. The women got kind of annoyed, and there started to be a lot of meaningful glaring, but not in the sexy way. Even though Stephannie had trouble making fire and decided to hurl herself onto her sword of self-loathing for the sake of her team, she later removed herself from said sword and said, "Never mind." With that matter settled, the women started thinking that maybe they should get rid of a guy while they had the chance, before the beef inherited the earth. Rallied by an aggressive Jenny and surprisingly supported by Parvati The Crafty Ass-Wiggler, the women managed to pull it together and vote off a very surprised J.P. Not only that, but they brought along the votes of Adam and Brad as well. Nobody likes you, J.P. Now, the tribes are tied at eight apiece. Go away, somebody!
Once again, we have a pre-credits tribal council aftermath sequence, although this isn't even the same night like it was last time; we are at Raro on Day 12. In keeping with the great tradition of front-loading every episode with the most exciting footage you have to offer, the boys are brushing their teeth -- or picking their teeth, or whatever it is you do so you don't have any more fuzz on your molars than necessary. My favorite part is that the audio guys even provide the sound of Adam squeaking a bone or something against his teeth, all part of explaining the sort of idle tension of these giant dudes hanging around having lost their even more giant leader. Nate looks into the shelter, where the women are asleep. "What you ladies sleeping for?" he wonders. And then he adds, "I'm not a hater, but what do they do all day?" Oh, Nate. Don't knock haters. Being a hater is fun! You should read my email. Nate interviews that the game is turning a bit, because they guys have to watch out for the women now. He adds, "These women could try to eat us off." Well, it's a little indelicately said, but after all, we have been getting our way just like that for centuries. Brad says that he's going to go and do some fishing. Nate adds in his interview that the women think they're all awesome now, so he has to remind them that they need the guys around. To do work, I guess. Or maybe just to be churlish and unpleasant.
So, of course, this brings on the Big Burly Men Doing Productive Things sequence, in which the guys try to prove that they're necessary by hunting and gathering. Nate collects firewood! Brad spears a fish! Adam appears to be poking a rock, but is probably doing something somewhat more productive! The music that's playing is the nerdy '80s quasi-calypso electric-bass-and-harmonica business that would have been used in a teen comedy to show the part where the vacation in the Bahamas was interrupted for a little running around from one hotel room to another trying to get a look at someone's diary. It's not quite the old reliable pirate music -- it's a little too punk rock for that. Parvati giggles in an interview that the guys have really pulled it together in light of J.P.'s departure. "Nate did get a massive pile of wood this morning!" she adds. "I've never seen a pile of wood bigger than that!" Oh, how I wish I believed she had done that on purpose. "And Adam went and got, like, five crabs!" Brad went fishing, but that doesn't sound vaguely dirty, so what's the use? Anyway, the boys are all so handy! Parvati says that being on the defensive like this has made the men "more manly." I am so very against the word "manly," as a rule, unless one is Laura Ingalls Wilder. I find that most things referred to as "manly" are manly in the same way wearing full makeup while cleaning the house is "girly" -- meaning: rare, actually. Parvati says that the guys are stuck trying to "prove themselves" after what happened to J.P. I'm not sure Parvati's necessarily right about what's going on, but something certainly is. Because I, too, have never seen a pile of wood bigger than that.
Credits. Billy's love was real, but he was not.
Aitu, Day 12. Cao Boi and JessiFlicka are working on spearfishing. Meanwhile, Sundra, Candice, and Becky are comparing their unshaven armpits, which are rapidly deteriorating into grossness, if by "gross" you mean "tinged with hair where hair grows naturally." My favorite part is where Sundra unhappily says, "I think my right one is worse." And then she shows it to them, like, "LOOK! LOOK! LOOK AT MY RIGHT ARMPIT!" Hee. Cao Boi tells the camera that these three women "annoy" him, because "they don't even try." Of course, we have just seen about thirty seconds of footage of them comparing armpits, so it's awfully difficult to draw any major conclusions from that. There are likely to be thirty seconds or so of down time in a typical day on the island. Cao Boi says in a different interview that if the three women "don't correct themselves, they will be eliminated." I wonder where he's getting that information. Maybe he's going to vote them off by himself using magic. Furthermore, what the hell does he have to complain about? He makes people sit around and listen to him yap; spending your down time listening to somebody's stories isn't necessarily more productive than spending it grooming or talking about whatever the hell you want, including armpits. Hell, I could analyze every grooming issue known to man before he could tell you what he had for breakfast. Shut up, Cao Boi.
Aitu gets some treemail, which Ozzy -- who seems to be on Perma-Pout at this point -- reads aloud. It indicates that they will compete in pairs, undergo strain, and compete for food. Pretty thorough, for crap-ass Survivor poetry, which usually says something like, "Something will happen/ What will it be?/ You will soon find out/ If you don't get stuck in a tree."
Challenge beach. Well, "clearing." Well, "area." Jeff brings in the tribes. There is some happiness on Aitu about J.P. being gone. Yeah, the pure muscle challenges might be about to get a little easier. That's sure to help, right? Jeff explains that, in this challenge, each tribe will pick three pairs who will play together. Each pair will stand on a platform with each person hanging onto a handle with one hand. The handles go to pulleys, and then down to hooks. So it's a weight-hanging challenge, the twist being that you work in a pair, and you each hold up weight with one hand. The leftover two people on each tribe are the ones who hang weights on the other team's pairs. Now, Jeff doesn't quite say this, but he implies and it certainly appears that each time you add weight, you have to add the two bags you get to each of the two people in a single pair. And each bag is five pounds. The last pair standing wins reward for the tribe. And what's the reward? Extra fishing stuff, spices, and wine, along with the opportunity to send somebody from the other team to Exile Island. Jeff sends them off to decide what pairs they want to use. Aitu picks Jonathan/Yul, Candice/Sundra, and JessiFlicka/Ozzy. Raro picks Nate/Adam, Rebecca/Stephannie, and Cristina/Brad. They have at least all noticed the part where a pair is only as strong as its weakest member, since they're not sharing the weight, so you put your two strongest on the same pair and pin your hopes on them, basically. So this means that the ones put in charge of loading up weight on the opposition are Cao Boi and Becky for Aitu, and Parvati and Jenny for Raro.
First to get weights are Adam/Nate and Candice/Sundra. So Aitu is going after the big dogs, while Raro is trying to knock someone off quickly. Honestly, I think either of those strategies is probably all right. I've never been convinced that it matters that much what you do here, though it feels like it should. If you go after big dogs early, then you leave the weaker people standing around doing nothing and you don't get on the road to wearing them out. If you don't, then you just make the big dogs wait around and let them save themselves. I think I would take the approach of going after the big guys, though, because my hope would be that they're the ones you'll have to break down over time, while the weaker people will snap right away when you put maybe fifteen pounds in their hands. Adam mutters to Nate that he hopes the other team will just pile it on so that they can "hold it for as long as [they] possibly can." He learned that kind of sharp, critical, super-logical thinking from The Grind.
weight goes to Jonathan/Yul and, again, Nate/Adam. "And we wait a little more," Jeff says. "Weight a little more," Jonathan says contemptuously. "That's, like, a bad pun, Jeff." Jeff's all, "Oh," because he had no idea he even did that, because all of a sudden, he's too good for puns. Somebody needs to tell Jeff that there's very little he's going to convince anyone he's too good for, considering the hats he wears. Puns everywhere are thinking, "I wouldn't be seen in that hat, smart guy." Aitu goes after Nate and Adam again, and Raro continues spreading it around, so now they all have five pounds on the Aitu side. Adam and Nate look uncomfortable, but Nate just keeps talking about how they feel like "wine tonight." "Whine-in'," JessiFlicka teases. JessiFlicka winks and makes kissy faces. I do not like kissy faces.
More weights are added, but we go into time-lapse, so you can't really tell what strategy was used. By the time we surface and Jeff gives us and update, Adam and Nate have thirty pounds each, as do Jonathan and Yul. Brad and Cristina and Candice and Sundra have fifteen pounds each. With ten each are Rebecca and Stephannie and Ozzy and Flicka. And then, surprisingly, the first drop of the entire competition comes from Yul. He and Jonathan are standing with their arms around each other's waists for support, and Jonathan suddenly leans over away from Yul, pulling Yul with him. Yul's grip is tenuous enough, and his balance is poor enough at the moment, that he's just kind of yanked away from the handle he's grabbing, and his hand slips off. He looks very surprised to see that this just happened. It certainly looks immediately like that will just about do it for this challenge, though we'll have to wait for it to play out. Rebecca/Stephannie and Ozzy/Flicka take the bags, so that now everyone has fifteen pounds except for Nate and Adam, who have thirty. And, not for nothing, Nate and Adam are now grabbing each other in a rather spectacular embrace with one arm while holding the weights with the other. If you're into this kind of thing, this is exactly the kind of thing you'll be into, if you see my point. "Handsome boys, make quite a pair," Cao Boi notes. I think he's actually trying to freak them out and make them leap away from each other in some kind of boys-touching-each-other panic, which does not look like it's going to work. Nate goes the other direction entirely and sings, "Ebony, ivory..." Aw, there's some of that racial harmony and understanding that we all knew would come from this season.
Rebecca drops her hook at fifteen pounds. Sundra is suffering. She doesn't last long, and she's out, too. She looks like she has big arms, too, so I find that a little surprising and weird. So now, it's just Ozzy and JessiFlicka on Aitu, versus Adam/Nate and Cristina/Brad. Cristina struggles for a minute, and Flicka starts to tease that Cristina is sure to drop it. Cristina and Brad both calmly explain that Cristina isn't going to drop anything, and indeed, Cristina gathers herself. The weight gets added to Cristina and Brad and -- obviously -- JessiFlicka and Ozzy. Nate does not look good, and Adam briefly doesn't either. I definitely would have given that last bit of weight to them, because they are right on the edge. And then, with two pairs still up for Raro, JessiFlicka taunts herself into an early exit by dropping her own weight, so the reward challenge goes to Raro in a fairly easy victory. Once again, in a pure brawn challenge, they are going to have the advantage, even without J.P. I think we already knew that.
So now, it's time to send someone to Exile Island. For reasons that aren't particularly clear to me personally, Raro decides to send Jonathan, again. Adam advocates sending someone who's already been, I suppose to limit the number of different people who might get the idol. I guess that makes some sense, though...eh. I'm not sure anymore that it matters much at all whom you send to Exile Island in a case like this. Jonathan certainly doesn't look very happy about going back, but I doubt it affects the tribe or the game very much. My sense is that the Exile Island thing is falling a bit flat as a gimmick, and that it needs some punching-up or something. The opportunity to get food, something. When Jonathan is gone, Jeff sends Raro home with their reward. Nothing for you, Aitu.
Back from commercials, a bird helpfully bobs its neck in time with some tropics-friendly music. Even the birds are dancing. Won't you dance along? It is Day 13 at Raro, and it certainly appears as though the wine is gone. I mean, I see two empty bottles, and there are eight people, so it's not like they all got hammered, but still. Brad and Nate wake up and discuss the fact that the wine put Nate right to sleep. Man, wine does that to me, too. Well, red wine does. White wine, on the other hand, has played a role in several of the stupidest evenings of my life. White wine is devil juice. Anyway, just then, Adam returns to camp, and he has a small problem in the form of an octopus stuck to his leg. With some help from Nate, he manages to pry it loose from his muscle-y form. "That's, like, lunch and dinner," Brad remarks, presumably referring to the octopus. Cristina immediately starts telling everyone that they need some coconut juice and coconut pieces and salt water, and Jenny bitches in an interview that Cristina thinks she's doing something for the tribe by making up coconut and octopus recipes. Jenny also says that Cristina tends to be kind of bossy, pointing at people to do different things. I have some mixed feelings about that, because it's not like eight people don't sometimes need somebody to provide some direction if they actually want to do anything. Otherwise, it's like ordering pizza by feminist process, which -- as I have explained before -- I have actually done, and it takes a long time. (Lorenzo's. Oberlin, Ohio. About 1992. The rest of the party is probably still there, discussing breadsticks. Tell them I said hello.) But apparently, Cristina isn't great at making it not annoying when she does it.
We watch as Cristina and Jenny kneel by the water, Jenny washing the knives and the cutting board and Cristina, I think, rinsing the octopus. Unfortunately, she's surprised by a wave, and she floods the pot, and a few pieces escape. It really doesn't look like it's a huge amount that gets out, but she has trouble getting it back. I have to wonder whether anybody would even have known that any was gone if she hadn't made such a big deal about it. As Adam and Brad go down to see what's going on, Cristina mutters to Brad that she thought Jenny was right by her -- apparently saying she thought Jenny would be there to help her grab up the pieces. Up by the fire, Rebecca mutters to Jenny that she'd kind of like Cristina to go , and Jenny chuckles. When Adam learns that some of the octopus got away, he complains in an interview that he "worked hard" to get the octopus (by stepping on it, apparently), and was upset that Cristina lost it. Of course, she didn't lose most of it. In fact, when Adam comes back to Jenny and Rebecca, he says that they seem to think they have most of the octopus back. He also reports that Cristina said she thought Jenny was right there. Jenny gets very huffy about how Cristina saw her leave, and this, I think, is blown completely out of proportion. I read Cristina to be saying that she wasn't able to get it all, and that she'd thought Jenny was there, but she wasn't, so Cristina couldn't get it all back after it spilled out. Adam also doesn't actually understand what happened, since he says in his interview that Cristina "dropped the bucket," which didn't happen at all. Some just floated out because the water came up. Unfortunate. Jenny makes a big old deal out of this blaming business in an interview of her own, so now we have Cristina saying something that is getting to Jenny second-hand, and what sounded like sheepishness and perhaps a little embarrassment when Cristina said it is being made into a claim that Cristina somehow angrily indicted Jenny for not being there, which just didn't happen. Jenny dramatically declares Cristina the "new J.P.," adding, "So she better watch herself."
A crab crawls, and then it is Day 13 at Aitu. JessiFlicka is talking about fishing, and Yul tells her that he's going to work on catching a chicken. I think "I'm going to catch a chicken" is the "I'm washing my hair" of the Cook Islands. Sorry, JessiFlicka, but Yul is just not that into you. JessiFlicka says that she also wants to take a trip to what she calls "that other island." Ozzy tells us that some of the members of Aitu are indeed thinking of "an expedition" to the other island, because the one they're on is "starting to run out of resources." Exhausted it already, have you? Ozzy and Flicka ask Candice if she wants to go, and she doesn't. Cao Boi, on the other hand, is all in, as Candice explains to us. She says that the reason she didn't want to go was the energy it would take to do all the paddling. She also says she thinks those three are trying to get a fourth and think about an alliance. Indeed, they ask Sundra, too, if she wants to go with them. She does not. For her part, she tells us that she didn't go because she didn't feel like being prodded for hours by people it doesn't appear she likes very much. The expedition sets out carrying Ozzy, Flicka, and Cao Boi. The boat you can handily be glad you are not on, is what this is.
And guess what? Yul is back at camp with Candice, Becky, and Sundra. And what does he start right out to explain? Well, there's this alliance involving him, Jonathan, Becky, and Candice. So they are looking for a fifth. And who would seem to be handy? Sundra! He tells us that Cao Boi and Flicka voted with this alliance the last time, but that those two are just about impossible to predict. Remember what I said about game trust being all about predictability? Thank you, Yul, for making me sound like I know things. Sundra sits around with this alliance, and Yul makes her the offer to join an alliance with them. Interestingly, Sundra asks whether they've approached Ozzy at all, which I think may be because she doesn't know that the absent Jonathan is part of this and thinks they need another person. Anyway, Yul tells Sundra that while Ozzy seems okay, Yul doesn't so much trust him. She says it in something of a roundabout way, but Sundra gives the okay to joining the alliance. I think she would have been better off showing a little more enthusiasm, but whatever. Later, she Sundra us that her position is a little strange -- she's in this alliance now, but of course...things can change. That they can, lady.
And now...the expedition. Paddling, paddling. The hot sun. The waves. The birds circling. JessiFlicka, Ozzy, and Cao Boi pull their boat up on the beach. Ozzy quickly finds a fruit and picks it happily, saying that it's good for cuts. And as he holds up his finger to show off a cut, he totally flips off the cameraman. I have to think that was intentional, but it looks kind of weak, and besides, what did your camera guy do to you? He adds that they'll grab some coconuts: "Who knows what else we'll find out here?" They wander through the woods, and then we are suddenly around a campfire at Raro, where people are mightily surprised to see these three come out of the bushes. "How're you doing?" Cao Boi asks with a grin, raising his arms. You know how it feels when you're sitting at lunch at work with someone you like, and the one guy comes out of his office who eats the smelly sandwiches, and he's all, "Hey, gang!," and there's just nothing you can do? That's how Raro feels when they see Cao Boi.
Back from commercials, Raro is muttering about what the hell the other tribe is doing here. "It's the three that we can't stand," Rebecca says unhappily as she takes another bite of food. Heh. Me too, pretty much. Cao Boi is all over-the-top happy and so forth, because he just likes to bond with people and cure their illnesses. I wonder if he knows any tricks for annoyance. He hugs Nate. Adam interviews that he was very shocked to see these people show up. Dude, dude! Parvati explains how to pronounce her name, and just as people have been pronouncing it, it's "PAR-va-tee." Not "POV-er-tee," and not "par-VAT-ee." This takes Cao Boi a minute, but he gets it...kind of. Adam says that he didn't like it at all that these people showed up: "I don't think they should be on our island." He says that it's their turf and their territory. "They've got their own island," he says. Cao Boi's efforts to make conversation go nowhere, and Parvati interviews that "it was like awkward silence, crickets chirping..." Then, as she puts it, Cao Boi gave a speech about "Chinese symbology." I'll be damned that symbology turns out to be a word, which I believe Parvati totally did not know and was strictly lucky about, but I am still blowing the whistle on "Chinese."
So now, Cao Boi Tells A Story. He starts off talking about how his culture reveres horses and dogs and some other things. Not boobies, though. And he explains how in your life, you see that it's full of monkeys and rats. (God, seriously.) But then he kind of keeps talking, and we fade to the sun, and we fade back, and he's...still talking. Jenny yawns. Clouds roll by. The editors get silly, because they had to watch all the raw footage of this, and they do not appreciate it. Cao Boi is still talking. Stephannie says that, after some time passed, "it was a little bit much." Yeah. That much, we got.
Cao Boi talks about how they're going to take some of the healing fruits (noni, apparently), and then he wants to know if they want to work together to get some coconuts and split them. Adam says not on his island. They can go to the other island and do it. Because this is war! And then Cao Boi decides to beg for part of their reward in the form of spices, but they basically all look at him like he's nuts. There have been times when people have shared rewards, I know, but this is not going to be one of those times. I think you have to at least not be actively annoying. To his credit, Cao Boi does only ask the one time, and then he quits. Adam says that he doesn't like being invaded when everything is so "primal." I don't think Adam is exactly an expert on what is "primal," to be perfectly honest. Not to keep bringing up The Grind, but...come on.
Now, let's pay a short visit to Jonathan on Exile Island. He is reading a clue for the idol, so he clearly has not been filled in on the fact that Yul already has it. He tells us that he's going to look for the idol, so they may regret sending him if the thing hasn't been found already. He digs in the sand. Late that night, still digging in the sand, talking about the "million-dollar sandbox." Jonathan clearly spends quite a lot of time looking, and he winds up digging a great big trench in the beach. Yipes. He sort of looks like a crazy person, but my favorite part is that he says it's big enough to bury Yao Ming. Ha! I love it when actual wit appears in things that are merely said to the camera, because being funny with no one there is quite difficult. Jonathan says that there was no idol to be found, so he kind of assumes that it's already gone. I wonder if he'd be pissed to know that his buddy has it and didn't tell him. This could get interesting, because apparently, Yul hasn't shared with anyone but Becky.
Now, it's immunity-challenge time! Jeff calls everyone in. Jonathan is brought back from Exile Island. Jeff asks Jonathan whether he spent a lot of time looking for the idol. "Lot of time," Jonathan confirms. "Dug a biiiig hole." Jeff: "Are the clues at a point now where you think you know where it should be?" Jonathan says, with a grin, "I think I know where it was. But it ain't there now." I totally missed it on first viewing, but as the EEFPs pointed out, that's actually ambiguous enough that he might fool someone into thinking he had it and was trying to cover. I hope so. That would be clever enough that I'd have to have some respect for it.
All right. Jeff takes immunity back from Aitu. This immunity challenge is kind of a doozy, to say the least. First, your team will put together three "stepping poles," which are basically long, long poles with discs on the ends. You take them out in the water and use them to allow two team members to walk from one platform to another. In other words, the rest of your team has to hold the poles straight and steady in the water with the discs at the top, and two team members walk across them like stepping stones. When that's done, your whole team climbs up and over the second platform and swims to a little tower. Onto that little tower -- the top of which is maybe a couple of feet across, maybe -- you have to squash all eight members of your team, with all sixteen feet and all other parts on or above the level of the tower platform. So you have to figure out how to make eight people fit where two would normally not fit very comfortably.
Ready? Go! Aitu gets its poles assembled first, so it's just a tad ahead of Raro as both teams wade out into the water with the poles. The first walkers are JessiFlicka and Jenny. They go about it differently. Balancing on the poles is very hard, because the discs are very small, and your tribe is holding the pole up, which you would think would be super-secure, but it isn't. Aitu's lead is lost when it has to reassemble a pole, so Jenny gets out a little ahead of Flicka. Jenny does the entire walk hunched over, getting as low as possible. Flicka thinks it will be easier for her just to stay upright, so she walks, balancing like she's on a beam. Another difference is that Raro is using all three poles, while Aitu is using only two. On the one hand, this forces Aitu to switch more often, but it means that Aitu has three people holding each pole instead of two. Eventually, Raro drops the third pole and uses just two. I give both of these women credit -- you can really tell just how much concentration it's taking to stay atop these tiny little platforms. Jenny gets across first, and Raro heads back for Parvati. Flicka finishes up as Parvati has already taken her first step, but then Aitu rushes back to get Becky across. Aitu decides to try to make up some ground by having Becky take bigger steps, meaning that they place the poles farther apart. She responds well and starts to make up ground. Becky is working very much crouched-over here, and she looks really steady.
Raro still has a small lead when Parvati lands on the platform before Becky, so they're the first team to scramble up and over the wall. They jump down and run through the water toward the little tower, just as Becky finishes with the poles and Aitu goes up to the platform and over. Raro is now working on getting up the tower and getting everyone on top. The tribes don't come up with a particularly inventive way to get people up -- there's no one on anyone's shoulders, which surprised me, and there's nothing all that surprising -- both sides approach it by trying to form a mass of people that will balance even without almost anyone individually being balanced at all. Cao Boi falls off for Aitu and climbs back up. But then all of Raro falls off except for Rebecca, and Aitu is close to the victory. Jonathan is kind of anchoring them from the middle, with a lot of people hanging onto him, and I think that's working for them. It's very close and very hold-your-breath, right down to the wire, but Aitu is very slow and methodical, lifting one foot at a time, and finally, they all get up there. The way they do it at the end is glorious -- Cao Boi and Yul, on opposite sides of the tangle of legs and arms, lift their second feet up at the same moment, and it actually does appear that the coordination helps the entire tangle stay in balance. You can't tell if it's a "1...2...3!" situation, but it seems like it could be.
You can't quite see everybody, but you can sort of see how they did it as an engineering feat. They have Jonathan, Yul, and Ozzy in a sort of a ring, with Becky, Sundra, and Flicka squashed in between them. So that's four. Candice, who's light, is hanging on the back of Yul. Cao Boi, who pretty clearly has balance like a mofo, is almost dangling in the air, but he's hanging off the outside as well. Part of Raro's problem was that they tried to dangle Rebecca off the side, and she's a little too heavy to hang like Candice and not quite graceful enough to hang like Cao Boi, and their inability to place her was one of the things that made them fall. When they got back up, they didn't have anybody in the middle; they just tried to make a circle, and that was not going to work. It's really true that without necessarily having a brilliant idea, Aitu was not just lucky -- they did actually do that better. I think their structure was much more sound, and it was going to take Raro a long time to get themselves situated. Of course, with Adam and Nate, they also had a honkload of bulk to accommodate, which also made it harder, I'm sure. I really think Cao Boi and Ozzy, who both are sort of tree-climbing, nimble, wiry dudes who probably climbed on everything as kids, were a huge part of that victory. Which, incidentally, was shockingly exciting. Oh, and you know what? Flicka had her foot woven through the bodies and coming out the other side, which is fucking awesome. Probably just to get it the hell out of the way, but all hail her ass, because standing on one foot in that mess to balance? Not easy. Aitu is very, very pumped about this win, and they deserve it. That challenge was fucking hard, dude. And weirdly, I must admit to a small but growing soft spot for Flicka. I do know one real live roller girl, who is awesome, so it might just be that. (If you've never seen a web page of roller-girl injuries, you are not living right.)
Back from commercials, it's Raro, Day 14. As soon as everyone is settled, Cristina immediately wanders off by herself. No! Never do that! Immediately, the talk is of getting rid of Cristina. There seems to be very speedy agreement about this point. Jenny tells us that it was pretty much "a unanimous agreement." She goes on to say that they're all "annoyed by Cristina," because she sits around and talks a lot but doesn't do anything. Meanwhile, Nate takes a walk with Stephannie, and they talk about Cristina leaving. Stephannie basically tells him that she knows it would be either Cristina or her. And then she smiles and says she can, however, see herself going home for some real food. Specifically, "mashed potatoes and gravy."
Thus does Mashed Potato-Gate begin. Nate completely flips out at this, concluding that, once again, Stephannie's head is not in the game. And...okay, look, I'll admit that maybe she needed to be extra-careful about this shit after last week's episode, but he is wildly overreacting to this. She was just joking, it seemed obvious to me, about the upside of possibly getting booted. Who wouldn't? Wouldn't you be doing that? Wouldn't you be like, "Well, if I can't save myself, at least I'll get a shower"? Nate interviews that this was Stephannie's "hint," like "I'm kind of done with the game." He's nuts. Nate goes off and reports this to Adam and Brad, totally overstating the seriousness with which Stephannie made the comment, implying that she was intentionally trying to send him some kind of a message. Which she was not. The guys discuss the fact that Stephannie's "already mentally checked out." By the time Brad explains this to Parvati, he says that Stephannie told Nate that part of her just wanted to leave and have mashed potatoes, which did not occur. She was looking on the bright side of something she might not be able to avoid, not saying she partly wanted it to happen. Boo! This is a lot of whisper-down-the-lane, and it's very unfortunate. Brad uses the "mentally checked out" line on Parvati, as well. Parvati says that she's just going to have to think about what she wants to do. Uh-oh. Hide the dry grass and oily rags! Parvati is thinking!
What Parvati does is go and have an actual conversation with Stephannie in which she asks about the whole mashed-potatoes thing. Stephannie laughs, but she kind of can't believe that a little comment like that has become a big deal. Parvati warns Stephannie that people will "extort" [sic] things like that if Stephannie says them. You know, when I give advice, I try really hard to know all the words in it. In an interview, Stephannie sort of laughs that she apparently needs to not say anything at all, since everything she says seems to become this big deal. She adds, though, that she's not going to beg to stay, so if they don't want her, they can send her home. That's never a good idea. It's not begging to go to them and be like, "Nate freaked out and didn't understand what I said," which is what she should have done. Parvati tells a couple of her tribemates, Adam and Rebecca, that it kind of seems like Stephannie wants to stay. But Adam thinks she's "dead weight" in challenges. Rebecca protests that she can't stand Cristina, and Adam agrees, but he's going with Stephannie over the whole "mashed potatoes" thing. Parvati says that she doesn't think what Nate reported is even what Stephannie said, and Rebecca agrees that Stephannie doesn't want to go. "I'm voting my conscience," Parvati says firmly. There's no voting your conscience in Survivor, dude.
Millipede in a skull.
Tribal council. Jeff asks Adam about the tribe not doing that well in challenges. Adam protests that they're improving, and that they communicate better than they used to. This from a tribe about to vote someone off for using the words "mashed potatoes and gravy." Good one, meathead. Adam adds that they only lost the challenge at the end. Which is...I mean, who cares? You suck at the beginning, you suck at the end, what difference does it make? Asked who he gets along with the best, Brad says that he gets along well with everyone. He insists that there really isn't anybody he can say he doesn't like. You can tell it's an unusual season of Survivor when it actually seems at least moderately plausible that that's the truth as Brad currently sees it. Jeff asks Stephannie how she thinks she fits into the tribe. Stephannie says that she hasn't really formed close bonds with anyone yet. I wonder if that's her problem -- no advocates. It's awfully hard to tell from the way this was put together how everyone reached the decision to vote her off, but it probably would have helped avoid the unanimous boot she's about to receive (spoiler by about ten lines!) if Stephannie had at least one person who would have put the brakes on and said that she undoubtedly did not mean to quit just because she craved food.
Now, Jeff asks Nate whether the tribe has a lot more harmony without J.P., considering that they booted him partly on the theory that he was bossy and caused discord. Jeff also asks whether somebody else has stepped up to be a leader. Or, I guess, a "leader." Nate can smell what Jeff is cooking, and he says that there are times when Cristina tries to take over and can be a little bit much. "A little overbearing," he calls her. Jeff asks Cristina about this, and she says that she didn't really realize she was like that. There is eye-rolling all around, especially from Jenny, who simply doesn't believe that bossy people don't know they're bossy. Cristina says that she usually hangs around with police officers, and with more of that same sheepishness that appears genuine, she says that she's glad the tribe told her she was coming across that way, because she doesn't mean to. I kind of admire that, especially if she thinks they're all full-of-shit lazy-asses, because she went belly-up there in a way that many people cannot bring themselves to do. Asked rather randomly whether the tribe has been honest, Adam says he figured that Cristina knew she was "that way." He doesn't really answer the question. Rebecca also non-answers, saying she thinks the tribe may or may not need to be more candid -- she'll know after the vote. No idea what that means, seriously.
Okay, it's time for the voting. Brad votes. Cristina votes for Stephannie. Adam votes. Jenny votes. Stephannie votes for Cristina. Nate, Rebecca, Parvati. Jeff goes off to tally. First: Cristina. Stephannie. Stephannie. Stephannie. Stephannie. Stephannie. So...Stephannie, then? She gives hugs, and she is snuffed. Farewell, Stephannie. The world was unprepared for your extra "N."
week: double tribal councils. Well, it is just about time to thin the herd, after all.