Raro is hilariously indignant about Jonathan flipping on them before they got a chance to use him for their own purposes and then vote him off. At the typical auction, Jonathan walks away with most of the food because he's smart enough to bid on it, but he gloats and belches because he's too dumb to know that this will always make people hate you. The Aitu four start to not particularly like Jonathan's behavior either, but they're not ready to do anything about it, even after the immunity challenge goes to Adam and Jonathan could be disposed of quickly. When she returns from yet another trip to Exile Island, Candice decides to go on a hilarious rampage of self-righteousness, and she and her Raro pals start threatening Yul that if Aitu doesn't get rid of Jonathan before he gets rid of them, they'll hold Yul responsible in a final vote. Yul responds by explaining about game trust and predictability, trying to get them to understand why even if he's not your friend, Jonathan is a good ally. Candice's tiny brain reads this as "Yul also hates him!" and she relishes, like any good eight-year-old, getting up in Jonathan's face and being all, "Your friends don't like you." When Jonathan catches a bunch of fish, he and the Aitu four decide to eat the fish without going and fetching Adam, Candice, and Parvati from the tent where they are lounging around like the lazy-asses they've been for the last thirty days. Candice freaks out at the unfairness of it all, because she is seriously a ridiculous person. Fortunately, she gets voted out, and Raro emerges at tribal council -- including Nate -- as the most obnoxious, self-righteous jerkweeds in several seasons. They are horrible, and they are setting up to be a moralizing jury that's going to be the mother of all moralizing juries, despite the fact that they are the most obviously undeserving chumps you can imagine. Bleh.
Previously on See, I Was Hyp-mo-tized By The Compass: The merge put the four-person Aitu alliance at risk, but Jonathan was getting pretty antsy, feeling like the rest of Raro was Miss Hannigan and he was the entire pack of floor-scrubbing orphans. Candice and Adam saw the merge as an opportunity to ignore more people while making out in an unappealingly awkward fashion. Yul figured that maybe this was the part where he made use of that immunity idol thingy he dug up that one time, so he pretty much waved it at Jonathan and said something along the lines of "You can either join up with me, or go home, and I really hope you choose the more productive of those options so that we can partner together and utilize synergy." Jonathan already kind of hated Raro anyway, and when he tried to hint to them that maybe Yul had the idol, they listened to him with all the rationality, common sense, and patience of your average online discussion of Coldplay or breastfeeding. So Jonathan decided that they could sit on it, Potsie-style, and he and Aitu voted off Nate. Jonathan was not unaware that, either way, this would make him a "complete bastard" in the eyes of someone, so he figured he'd rather it be the complete bastards. Raro, which had been so recently sitting pretty, suddenly found itself roasting slowly over an open flame, and oh, it was good. Well, unless you're Adam, Candice, and Parvati, in which case it was the worst thing that has happened to you since your tan line. Oh, and Ozzy's performance at the immunity challenge was the kind that makes you think other people would be smart not to get their hopes up about winning immunity in anything that involves endurance, balance, or staying in the same position for long periods of time, not that anyone has any reason to think any challenges like that might come along ever.
It is Night 27 at Aitutonga, and the tribe is returning to camp. Jonathan has taken Candice aside to tell her, "If it wasn't me tonight, it was going to be you." Now, don't forget -- Jonathan reallydidinsist that Nate be eliminated instead of Adam or Candice before he would go along with the Aitu plan. While it might not seem to be worth much, it gave both Adam and Candice the opportunity to grab for immunity and maybe last a bit longer. He did try, apparently sincerely, to give something to the two people he felt most closely aligned with, including Candice. And he's absolutely right that she was the only other choice, and that had he not flipped, one of the two of them would have gone home because of the idol, as he explains to her. He asks her if she understands, and she says, "I can, yeah, definitely." Keep that in mind. Jonathan goes on to say that if Candice had been voted off, then the time, the four Aitu would have gone after Jonathan, and it would have been a tiebreaker. In other words, Jonathan is explaining to Candice very rationally and clearly that if he hadn't flipped, she'd have gone tonight, and he'd be at least tied week. And I think he's entirely right on both counts. He says in an interview that he was in the position to change the course of the game and, just as many of us speculated, he says that he switched it partly because he just prefers to play with Aitu, and would rather one of them win if it isn't going to be him: "I believe I made the right choice." I do too, Jonathan. Don't doubt yourself!
The Aitu four stand around, still in night vision, sort of shocked that they actually got that plan to work. Sundra clearly enjoyed the shock on the faces of Adam, Parvati, and Candice. And presumably Nate, too, as he took the long walk. "Congrats, we worked for it," says Yul to the group, and he's right. They killed themselves in challenges to stay around this long, and...look what happened! Yul interviews that he wasn't sure what Jonathan was going to do until he actually did it, so it was a huge relief. He also adds that this was what he wanted to do with the idol from the time he found it: he wanted to find a time to use it where it would really make a difference. (Unlike, say, Terry last season, who admittedly didn't need it because he kept winning immunity, but still.) And I would argue that Yul did accomplish what he set out to in that regard. "And it worked," he adds with some disbelief.
Now, around the fire, the dejected Raro-ites are taking the usual approach of recasting their disappointment and frustration as moral outrage. "You've pissed everyone in this game off," Parvati lectures Jonathan, with this affected calm that's intended to convey that she's now going to tell him how it's going to be for him. "So I hope you're happy with second place," she adds, apparently on the theory that if he had stayed with Raro, they were not at all going to vote him off in fifth place. Not at all! Also, she is implying here, I guess, that he has lost votes he would have received from jurors -- presumably Nate, herself, Adam, and Candice, all of whom are, you will recall, famous for balling up their fists in interviews and barely containing their excitement at having the opportunity to vote for Jonathan. Until now. "I just think that you played yourself out tonight," says Parvati with this bizarre and patronizing sadness. "And I'm so disappointed." Wait, aren't there prerequisites for disappointment anymore? Like...expectations? Or...the right to have expectations? Is she implying that she's been composing letters of recommendation for Jonathan in her head, and now she will never get to write them? "It's vile to me," says Parvati. "It makes me-- I feel sick to my stomach." I think that's actually from watching Adam and Candice snuggle, and she doesn't realize it. In her night-vision interview, Parvati says that she felt "nausea" at tribal council: "All I wanted to do was take Jonathan's face and just throw up all over it."
Before we get too far into this, can I just...what? Seriously, what? Because...what is the difference between what Jonathan just did to them, which they find a moral outrage, and what Jonathan did to Aitu about ten minutes ago when he mutinied, which they think was fine? Furthermore, how is it different from what Candice did when she told Yul and company over at Aitu that she was going to the end with them, while acknowledging that she was just waiting to flip when they merged and get back with Adam and Parvati? How is this different from either of those things? How can Jonathan be a rat and Candice not be a lady rat? It doesn't make a lick of sense to me. When he was a rat for them, and he was going to vote with them against Yul -- his former ally -- that was fine. But being a rat for the other team...do you see what I'm saying? It's...I don't understand why Jonathan didn't just say this to them immediately, you know?
The remaining members of Raro, oblivious to the way this is playing out, begin to lecture Jonathan about how foolish he was to do what he did. "You weren't going home tonight," Parvati says with exasperation. Jonathan counters that he most certainly could have gone home. "No, you couldn't have," Parvati says dismissively. Jonathan remains calm and tries to explain it to her: "If I didn't throw in with them, they all would have voted for me, you all would have voted for Yul, and it would have bounced off Yul and hit me." Candice mutters, "Not if you told us," which is interesting, because she's kind of got the best argument right there -- that Jonathan should have come clean and told them, rather than hinted, about the idol. But that falls by the wayside as Parvati says, in this dismissive, frustrated-cheerleader-captain voice, "Yul...doesn't have the idol." Pronounce that last part not as "thee idol," as most people would, but "thuh idol," like a dopey brat, and it will help you get the feel of it. In a magnificent moment that equals any I've ever seen on this show for sheer smiting of dumb-asses, Jonathan sharply says, "Yul does have the idol. He showed me the idol. I don't know what you think you're talking about." What's genius here is that Adam has been sitting with his knees pulled up, leaning his forehead down on his knees, and as soon as Jonathan says this, Adam does a slow, mouth-breathing turn and stares at Jonathan. If you look in Adam's open mouth, you can see the hamster running on the wheel in his brain. Parvati just kind of freezes, because...what's she going to do?
I think this is where Raro gets a lot more pissed off and vindictive. Up until now, they were thinking it was a situation where they could be like, "Jonathan is so foolish; we never counted on how dumb he was going to be," and they could go out on that note. But he's basically just proved that not only did he successfully flip on them, but he wisely flipped on them, so there's really nothing for them to make fun of or to complain about. It was perfectly fair, and it was perfectly smart. In fact, it was basically his only choice, and they have nothing. Which means, of course, that it's time for the irrational vitriol.
So anyway, Jonathan says he knows the ex-Raros don't even believe him that Yul has the idol, and Parvati snots that he's right -- she doesn't believe it. Good for you, girl. You just keep on believing that Jonathan is making up the fact that Yul has the idol, and keep trying to vote him out. "Guess there's nothing to say tonight," Jonathan finally says. "We can talk tomorrow if you want." What I dig about Jonathan here is that he's not at all afraid to talk about what he did. He's not defensive, he's not denying it -- he's just telling them why what he did was rational and sensible, and he understands that they don't like it. Parvati says in her interview that she "called [Jonathan] out," which is idiotspeak for "pointlessly complained," and told him he's "a filthy, miserable rat." And then she smiles a little smile, because she has nothing to fear but the fact that she's going to lose, and she's going to lose ugly.
Credits. Billy, you're really too good for Candice, is the thing. You know how metal is your culture? Hers is bitch.
We come back to Aitutonga on Day 28, and Sundra is showing Parvati how to gut a fish. Yes, with all the fish that Parvati has eaten, she apparently doesn't know how to gut one. Not only that, but she's all giggly and "ew" as Sundra does it, like she can't believe fish (the meat) comes from fish (the animal). Jonathan interviews that Parvati's total lack of familiarity with how fish are prepared to go from water to mouth was sort of appalling: "She's a lazy, selfish girl, and a million dollars to her would not help her in her life. It would screw her life up." I have to say, I loved that line, and I think it's completely true and completely deserved. I really do believe that Jonathan knows that, at this point, he ain't winning the money. At best, he's playing for the second-place money, so he's thinking seriously...if one of these people is going to win a million bucks, who would he like it to be? I think he has concluded that handing a million dollars to Parvati or Adam would turn his stomach, while the Aitu people are generally agreeable and cool. In fact, he mentions to Aitu how shocking he thought it was that Parvati couldn't gut the fish. They all seem to be in agreement.
Back around the fire, Adam stankily gnaws on something while telling Parvati that "this game isn't as much fun in this position." Ha! Yeah. Not so awesome when you're not winning, is it? Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. I haven't seen anything that sexy since my garbage disposal backed up. Adam adds, "Jonathan sucks at life." Let's see...Jonathan has an Academy Award nomination, has been married for fifteen years to the same person, has two kids, and has been on Arrested Development. Adam has been on The Grind, lists his favorite actress as Dakota Fanning, and sells copiers. Let me put on my thinking cap and see if I can find a flaw in his theory. "It makes me want to throw up," Parvati agrees.
Elsewhere, Jonathan is still talking to Aitu about how clueless the Rarovians are: "It's a social game. I love playing with you guys. I love hanging out with you, we all work well together, you know what I mean? We had it down. I come over here, and I see that I'm in the clown house." Ha! What's more, the editors show a few pictures of the Rarovians that are pretty clearly intended to illustrate "clown house" with a fair amount of sympathetic emphasis.
We head over to a little clearing, where Jeff Probst is waiting to announce that it's time for the annual Survivor auction. Jeff reveals fairly typical rules -- everyone gets $500. You can only bid in increments of $20. You can "borrow" (meaning take) money, but you can't share food, unlike in past seasons, so whatever you give up, you're giving up. And the auction, of course, "will end without warning."
The first item is under a cover. "Twenty dollars," Jonathan bids. "Oh! We don't know what it is!" Parvati says, just now figuring it out. Jeff agrees that they don't. It's like she needs everything written down, because unless she can read it while moving her lips, nothing penetrates. There's some more bidding. Ultimately, Jonathan takes the mystery item for $100. It turns out to be a hot dog and fries, and Jonathan gets a beer with it. As Jonathan sits down, he spills the beer -- hee -- but fortunately not much of it, so it's not too tragic.
The item comes in a big crate on the ground, and it turns out to be a bathtub containing an entire hot bubble bath. The winner will take the bath right now and eat a big piece of chocolate cake. Parvati makes no secret of how much she wants it, and the bidding starts to go up. Jonathan nonchalantly jumps into the bidding at $300, and Jeff makes a comment about how Jonathan is "the guy nobody wants to see take a bath." Really? Speak for yourself, Jeff. I'm not saying he's got the body of Yul, but there's certainly nothing offensive about the dude. Jeff appears to have quite the stick up his ass about Jonathan, and it's beginning to make one of them look bad, and it's not the one with the piercing blue eyes, if you get my meaning. Jeff also openly speculates that Jonathan is just driving up the bidding, which he didn't when Adam and (I think) Ozzy also jumped the bidding up. Jonathan lets Parvati have it for $360, and she takes her piece of cake and peels off her clothes to lower herself into the bath. She starts to rub herself with the scrub brush, and while I'm not a connoisseur of sexy when it comes to women, it kind of looks cartoon-y to me. Like...she's trying to act like it's porn, but it just looks like an episode of Saved By The Bell. ["I also have to say that if it were me, I would have gone to town, dunking my head and actually washing, not that pantomime of cleaning Parvati went through. Why spend that much money if you're not actually trying to be clean when you get out? Oh, and I also think Adam was only bidding on the bath because he thought if it were cleaner, his junk would get more attention from Candice, if you know what I am saying." -- Wing Chun]
The item Jeff presents, he tells them, "will give [the winner] power in this game." Jonathan rapidly jumps the bidding up to $400. I really think once he got something to eat, he was mostly screwing around, to be honest. Candice bids her full amount of $500. Yul mutters to Becky that he'll give her some of his money. So with that, Becky bids $600. "Why do you need that, Becky?" Parvati asks petulantly. "You all have the numbers." Of course, if Candice needs it, then Becky needs it, because power is a zero-sum game here, dear, so if Candice wants it, Becky doesn't want her to have it. Get it, genius? Candice turns to Adam, who nods a little, and she bids $620. Becky looks over at Yul again, gets the nod, and goes to $640. Candice turns around to Adam, and he shakes his head. So stupid. You always go for the power move, especially when you're in trouble. Remember when Danni won the advantage in the immunity challenge? It was crazy -- crazy -- for them to let her get that, and it made an enormous difference. Becky is not Steph. Becky gets money from Yul, and then goes and turns it all in to Jeff. Jeff gives her the little note, which she opens. It says that she is to immediately send someone to Exile Island and take all his or her money. Yul gestures between Adam and Candice, pointing out that they both have $500. "Candice," says Becky. Even Yul makes a little "yikes" face. I think he thought maybe Adam would be the logical choice, since Candice keeps getting sent there. But they're both assholes, so it doesn't bother me. So off Candice is going, for the fourth time, to Exile Island. The other thing that's interesting is that you can see behind Candice's head that Becky is handing money to Yul. So I think that when Becky got all of Candice's money, she gave some to Yul to partially pay him back for the loan, which is really kind of cool. She didn't have to do that, of course -- she's the one who risked all her money to get the note, and Yul only risked part of his, so she'd have been justified in keeping it all, but they seem to work hard to do things as fairly as they can, and I liked that little detail. Anyway, Candice says she's not concerned about going -- it's "just some food." At least, she hopes it is.
In talking about the upcoming trip to Exile Island, Jeff brings up the fact that "there's still the idea of the hidden immunity idol." Candice, however, is having none of it: "I think I know where it is." Yul clearly thinks this is stupid, since everyone now knows that he has it; the only people he didn't tell are the ones he probably knows have already found out from Jonathan, and he doesn't care anymore if they know he has it anyway. So Yul says, "I can end the suspense." There is a dramatic pause, as if we don't already know he has it, and he says, "I have it." Jeff asks Yul if he has the idol with him. Yul says he does. Jeff asks him if he wants to show it to everyone. Yul says that's fine. He produces the compass-idol from his bag and holds it up. He takes it over to the tub to let Parvati hold it, and she comments, "Looks authentic." I'm certainly glad it received Parvati's seal of approval. Jeff asks Yul why he wanted to show people something "so valuable" rather than, presumably, keeping it to himself. Yul goes through his explanation of the fact that he just wanted to reveal it at a point where it would make a difference, which he was able to do. So now, Jeff sends Candice on her way. Parvati makes a face and goes back to scrubbing her back halfheartedly. She doesn't even look like she's enjoying that bath all that much. ["I'm saying!" -- Wing Chun] All alone in her porny bath, and no one to share it with.
Jeff reveals an ice-cream machine that you can (theoretically) use to dispense soft-serve for the remainder of the auction. Jonathan hops in at $400. Ozzy goes to $420, and that's it. "Sold to Dolphin Boy," says Jeff. Heh. When Ozzy goes to pull the lever and fill up a cone, however, he sprays himself directly in the crotch. Nice. Because it's not working, really, Ozzy has to put his mouth over the nozzles, and I really don't think he's getting ice cream so much as whatever you freeze to make ice cream, like...kind of just the melted stuff. That's very disappointing, and I'm surprised he didn't want his money back.
The item is another mystery piece that Jonathan takes for $240. It turns out to be a giant pepperoni pizza. He hoots more than he should, though certainly it's understandable, and it's not like you have the option of sharing, so he probably thinks there's no reason for anyone else to be upset, since they...you know, could have bid. He double-checks that he can't share, and then he goes back to eating. Everyone else suffers as Jonathan keeps chowing down.
The item is also covered, and Sundra gets it. This turns out to be the Zonk prize: a sea cucumber. Aw. Poor lady. She's a nice lady, too!
Then Jonathan is the only one to bid $100 on a toothbrush and some stuff for cleaning up. "Do you have a hundred dollars?" Jeff snots at Jonathan. "I just bid it," Jonathan replies, somewhat sarcastically. I have to say, I like the fact that Jonathan is not remotely impressed by Jeff Probst, nor is he intimidated when Jeff tries to make little remarks at him. Most contestants recognize Probst as an authority figure of sorts, and Jonathan just...doesn't. He just sees him as a dancing monkey whom you can dance with right back if you want, or whom you can mostly ignore. Jonathan seems to have noticed that you don't actually get in trouble for making Jeff not like you, you know? Having spent $440 of his money and not thinking he's getting anything for $60, Jonathan decides to throw down $20 as a tip for Jeff. Ha! Jeff has no choice but to take it. Yul mutters that if this is it for the auction, he's "going to jump off a bridge." And...that's it. Too bad, Yul. No bridges around, fortunately. Jonathan, who just got some mouthwash, gargles.
After a set of commercials, everybody is sitting around after the auction talking, and Parvati says that Jonathan "cleaned up." He agrees that he got a hot dog, French fries, and a pizza. Yul says that he did find it very difficult to watch other people eat. He calls it "surprisingly painful," saying that he didn't expect to be bothered by it. Jonathan comments -- I think in a misguided attempt to be sort of analytical about his good fortune -- that he's really thirsty as a result of what he ate. He says that, in his regular life, he would not eat that much. I think both those comments are very understandable, and are both things he should have kept to himself. He gives a mighty belch, and Becky comments that she can smell the pepperoni. Oh, yuck. I never understand why people who get food never understand that the worst thing to do is talk about food you got to eat that other people didn't get to eat. When has that not been a terrible idea? It's basically the purest road to resentment, you know? Don't do it!
When Jonathan has gone, Yul, Becky, and Sundra start talking about how much they are not enjoying him right now. "He is an obnoxious force," says Sundra, "and he just came here and gave this really obnoxious burp." "I was getting really annoyed at him," Yul agrees. Sundra also says with some frustration that she feels like Jonathan's a pain in the ass whenever they're involved in a challenge. "He was obnoxious today," Yul agrees in a carefully limited way. Sundra says that she wouldn't want to see Jonathan in the final four. Yul takes this in, and asks Sundra and Becky whether it makes them want to change anything about the plan. I don't think he's advocating that; I think he's trying to figure out just how serious they are about it and whether he has a problem. They don't answer. So what we've heard at this point is (1) Sundra really doesn't like Jonathan in general, at least in the context of challenges; and (2) Yul thinks Jonathan was acting obnoxious today, about this particular thing.
Parvati and Adam are walking in the woods, and Parvati self-satisfiedly comments, "So, exposed." Adam has no idea what she's talking about. "A little crack, perhaps," she continues, and God bless the EEFPs who noted that it was like she was writing treemail. Ha! Or maybe haiku, or fortune cookies, or she was commenting on Nate's ass. The EEFPs had a good week. Parvati says that "everyone's pissed off about Jonathan's display today. At the challenge, how, like, cocky and arrogant he was." Parvati interviews that she saw "resentment" and "hostility brewing." I think she underestimates the degree to which there is also hostility and resentment toward her, making it kind of a...wash.
Becky and Sundra chat with Parvati about how unenjoyable Jonathan's behavior was. Becky agrees that they were all sort of surprised about it, and that it was what everybody was thinking about when they got back from the challenge. "I think his true personality is finally coming out," Becky says with a not entirely unkind smile. Parvati grins and says that if Jonathan is in the final four, she will shoot herself. Nobody really picks up on this, but she happily interviews that the game could "get flipped on top of its head" if Aitu turns on Jonathan. At which point they would be up only 4-3, instead of 5-3. And they'd still have the idol. I'm not sure how that becomes "flipped on top of its head," so much as "delaying the inevitable for three days," but...keep hope alive, there. Adam announces to the assembled women that he's going out to get an octopus. When Adam and Parvati are gone, Becky says, "Wow, they really dislike [Jonathan] a lot." Sundra continues to be the only one from Aitu who really shows much personal animosity, because she's kind of joining the Raro chorus, saying that this is a problem Parvati and Adam see with "seeing the wrong person get ahead." She is...not reacting in a way I like right now at all. She goes on in an interview to talk about Jonathan's "true character" and how he was cocky and arrogant and so forth. He was uncouth at the auction, basically, and afterward. You change your plans for that, because he's "the wrong person" to keep playing? Yeesh. Adam is not exactly Gallant to Jonathan's Goofus on an overall basis, you know?
Yul comes to talk to Becky and Sundra, chatting that he thinks elements of Jonathan's "true personality" are sort of showing up, and that he doesn't find the idea of spending the last days on the island with him "particularly pleasant." Just then, Jonathan returns, and they all stop talking. As Jonathan says in an interview, he was quite aware right away that there was a chill in the air. He thinks Adam and Parvati have "gotten in the girls' ear [sic]," and he's not sure how much of an issue it is: "Clearly, the energy has shifted."
And now, we visit Candice on Exile Island on Day 29. She's still crying, this time about being away from Adam and not being able to get a hug. She wants a hug! Is that so wrong? She makes herself a fire, and she tells us that she's probably on the block, so she needs immunity. Over shots that really, really make her roots look bad (hint: I'm all about the silly color jobs, but before you go on this show, dye your hair to a color more closely approximating your natural shade), Candice says she wishes she felt better. She's on the edge!
After the commercials, it's Day 30 at Aitutonga. Jonathan is reading some treemail clearly indicating that the challenge will be the one where you try to recall trivia from earlier in the game. Never one of my favorites in any season, but...okay. Adam tells us that the challenge is important to him, and that he doesn't "like what Jonathan stands for." I'm not sure what that is, but okay, big guy. "He's just a dirty, dirty...rat," Adam says, not too creatively. I think he may only know that one mean word.
Challenge course. The tribe gathers, and Jeff brings Candice back from exile. He takes the immunity necklace back from Ozzy. Immunity is back up for grabs! In today's challenge, you'll get questions about the events of the last thirty days. It will start with four questions, and you'll get a series of four numbers, and you'll add, subtract, multiply and divide them as you're told to do, and you'll untie the rope on a little compartment corresponding to your answer. You'll take out a little wrapped-up cloth, and when you unwind it, if there's a key in it, then you're right. You use the key to open a lock and raise a flag. First three to get their flags up will move to the final round. Winner of that round wins immunity.
Ready? Go! This is not a very exciting challenge to recap. The questions include the number of pieces used in a couple of challenges, the number of days since the mutiny, and the number of people on the jury. Jonathan is the first to start untying, then Ozzy and Yul, then Parvati...basically, everybody starts unwinding, but there's a lot of guessing going on, and the first person to get a key is Parvati, which is how you know it wasn't very hard. She moves on to the round. Adam has a key . Then Jonathan. So it's Parvati, Adam, and Jonathan in the round.
The round works a lot like the last one, only when you get your key, you use it to open up a tunnel you crawl through; then you scamper over some pontoons, and only then can you raise your flag. The questions include the number of immunity challenges so far, the number of people at the lamb shank feast, and the number of flags in the barrel-rolling. Easier than the first one, I think. Adam is the first to start untying, and he completes the whole deal, and it's not ever close, although Parvati eventually gets the right answer, and Adam wins immunity. Jeff reminds them that they have to send someone home, and sends them back to camp.
Back from commercials, we are at camp. Candice tells us that with Adam having immunity, she's probably going home, and she finds it "upsetting" that Jonathan will go farther in the game than she will. She claims that "everyone feels" that "Jonathan is a snake," and therefore, it's terrible that he's lasting in the game. Now...what, exactly, is the meaning of "snake" in this context such that it has anything to do with whether you should go forward in the game? Does "snake" just mean, literally, "good player"? Does it mean "someone who said he would do one thing and did another"? Because...as mentioned above, that's exactly what Candice did when she (1) sat at Aitu pretending to be aligned with Yul and friends when she wasn't; and (2) went with the mutiny. I didn't begrudge her either of those things, though they were foolish play, and I can't imagine what Jonathan has done that would support moral outrage. At all. These are the situations where I wish there were a more adversarial figure who could halt an interview like this and be like, "What are you talking about, crazypants?"
Around the fire, everyone but Jonathan and maybe Ozzy is having a talk in which Adam is insisting that, as a "slimeball," Jonathan has to be voted off. Yul says he understands why Adam doesn't like Jonathan. He adds, however, "But...how does this help you?" Ha! It's kind of becoming hilarious, because Yul is so rational and emotionally sane that he has yet to figure out that spite is the single greatest motivator of people who know they're not going to win. Adam goes on to say he doesn't even care that it doesn't help him. He'll "be at peace" if Jonathan goes home. "Honestly," Parvati adds, "I will feel like I have won if he is voted out before I am." Yul looks around in disbelief, like, "Um, you know that's not winning, right?"
Jonathan walks by with all the fish he's just brought back. He comments that if they get a fire going, they can cook some fish. Adam, Parvati, and Candice don't speak to him. Yul -- giving Adam, Candice, and Parvati a lot more credit than they deserve -- explains that they tried to appeal to Yul's "sense of justice and integrity" and asked to have Jonathan booted. Jonathan having moved off, Yul explains to the unhappy Rarovians what his position is: "Jonathan is not my first choice to kind of welcome him back. He's, you know, he is what he is." Parvati tries to cut Yul off, he asks to finish what he's saying, and she rolls her eyes at him. "I understand how he thinks," Yul says. "The guy is selfish and he's rational, so I can predict, basically, what he's going to go for. I can predict, like, what makes sense to him." Wow. Yul just explained game trust, basically with perfect precision, didn't he? Amazing. Seriously, he and I are of one mind. I wonder if he'd like to marry a Quaker who's renounced 25% of her law career. Anyway, because Yul is making far too much sense, Adam cuts him off and says that they all have votes on the jury, and that if Yul doesn't vote off Jonathan right now, they won't vote for him. They'll blame him, because he's "the ringleader." Do they see how tiny this makes them look? That their sole reason for voting is going to be that Jonathan did or didn't vote someone off that they don't like before he got rid of them, even though they're arguing that the exact reason to do it is that it doesn't matter? You'd really, truly waste your vote on that kind of pettiness? That is...depressing. What do you even gain from this? Oh, right. You get revenge on the person who showed you up as a bunch of strategically limited, narcissistic, overconfident assholes, because you get your last digs in by bossing him around. I am so silly not to have remembered this.
Anyway, as this discussion goes on, Jonathan comes up behind Yul and hears some of it, so Yul basically tells him what's up: "They're doing, obviously, what they should be doing." Jonathan understands. Yul tells the Rarovians that he's just being honest. Just then, Jonathan -- who has just hauled in fish for the umpteenth consecutive day so that these wretches can eat -- picks up a few pieces of coconut from a pile on the ground, and Parvati snots that Adam was eating them. Jonathan immediately returns the coconut, saying he didn't realize it belonged to anyone. Of course, as soon as Jonathan returns it, Adam is all, "No, I don't want it. You eat it." More passive-aggressive bullshit follows, culminating in Adam's "It's not that complicated," like he just cannot understand why Jonathan is making a big deal out of this. Seeing as how there has been no progress toward getting a fire going, Jonathan says he'll go get firewood so they can eat the fish. Nobody lifts a finger to help.
As Jonathan walks with firewood through the rain, he voices over that things basically boiled over back at camp, and that he's a little sick of the behavior he's being subjected to. We go back to camp, where Adam, Candice, and Parvati have taken shelter in the...uh, shelter, and they're waiting to eat. They're discussing cuddling, and there's kissing, and then Candice has to kiss Parvati, and...ick.
The former members of Aitu, meanwhile, are sitting around the fire with Jonathan, who says, out of pure exasperation, "Do we have to feed them this fish? Let's talk about the ethical..." "I say no," Ozzy immediately offers. "I don't think that there's really an ethical question, because there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, as they say." So without going to drag the Rarovians out of bed, they all eat. They all thank Jonathan profusely for the fish, and he makes a point of being all, "You're so welcome," and I'm pretty sure Adam, Parvati, and Candice do not make a point of being grateful that they're being fed. As these five are eating, Adam, Parvati, and Candice finally look up from their positions in the shelter and notice that eating is going on. Candice decides that she's going to do something about this, and she strolls off, determined to make an utter idiot out of herself. I'm assuming, you know, based on the result.
Accompanied by snare drums of confrontation, Candice marches down the beach. She arrives at the group eating fish. "Since when do you guys not share food?" she whines. "That's just so arrogant and so rude. I can't believe this." Everyone keeps eating. Nobody is the least bit impressed. Jonathan looks up at her and says, "Didn't you call me a..." but his voice trails off. "Well, doesn't matter," he says. "Didn't I call you a what?" she says. "I was told I was a disgusting rat and I should be voted against for whatever reason," Jonathan says, since Candice wants to know. Unwisely, Candice decides to try to explain to him why he's a rat: "Jonathan, you're a rat because you've betrayed everybody in this game." Whereas, of course, she's just betrayed...all of these particular people who are sitting here right now. She goes on: "And everybody knows that you only care about yourself. Yul said it this afternoon, that he can predict your behavior because you're selfish, and..." What I love here is that Jonathan looks over at Yul, who nods affirmation and says, "Self-interested," not because he's denying saying "selfish," I don't think, but just because he's clarifying for Jonathan, between the two of them, with that mutual respect despite grave doubts that they both have, what he meant by "selfish." I'm fairly sure Jonathan understands, because he is not a moron. Candice keeps this up -- saying that Yul knows that Jonathan will make "the selfish decision" -- and Yul, at this point, asks her not to speak for him. Clarifying what he said, Yul says, "I said he's a self-interested, rational player." Of course, he did say "selfish," but I think he's realized that "selfish" wasn't taken by Candice the way he meant it, so he's using the synonym that's more precise. Candice forces the issue, saying, "And you don't like Jonathan, and you said that, too." Of course, from what we saw, Yul never, ever said that he doesn't like Jonathan. That was, to our knowledge, not part of the conversation. Sundra has said she doesn't like him, pretty much. Nobody else on Aitu has said that. They've said they think he was obnoxious at the challenge, and they wonder if more of his personality is being revealed as the game goes on, which strikes me as kind of...not as emotional as Candice is making it.
Furthermore, if we are going to discuss character, there really isn't anything lower than playing the "nobody likes you" card. It literally has no purpose -- none -- but to try to hurt someone else's feelings, and to damage relationships you aren't even part of, which is one of the ways you can tell something is really fucked up. Candice is literally just trying to hurt Jonathan because she's angry at him because he beat her. There's nothing more to it than that. She and Raro just plain screwed up the game. They lost a challenge and had to vote out two people, meaning they only had a five-four advantage at the merge. Their mistake was that because they are small and petty, they couldn't help engaging in one of the standard small and petty social games, which is the choosing of a pariah, and they couldn't refrain from doing it long enough. Jonathan perfectly well got the idea that he wasn't part of the group -- the "family," as Nate put it -- and that's just bad strategy on their part. You cannot create a pariah you can't afford to have flip on you, because that's what pariahs do -- they flip. Raro created the weapon that shot them in the collective foot. They made Jonathan feel like he was just going to toil away and then get voted off, and they did it so obviously that he couldn't miss it. So when he got a better offer, he took it, particularly because it was supported by the idol that they refused to admit Yul had. They just screwed up, which isn't a sin, but it would be better for Candice to admit that, rather than returning to "nobody likes you."
Candice goes on to insist that everyone sitting there has said they don't like Jonathan, which: absolute bullshit, to our knowledge. Jonathan, totally unfazed, says, "Let's talk about this meal. We all came home from that --" Candice cuts him off, insisting that everybody in the tribe lies down sometimes. Especially, it would seem, her. And Parvati. And Adam. Jonathan looks right up at her and says, "You know what? That's bollocks, and you know it. The rest of us do not choose our days to go lay down in the tent. I work my ass off every single day." "Yeah," she says, "'cause you're trying to...weasel your way in...somehow." The great thing is that even as she's saying that, Candice is realizing she's full of it, and she's kind of trailing off in the middle. Jonathan sarcastically says, "Luckily, you're not name-calling, I appreciate that." Candice, prouder than she's been at any other moment in her life, announces that she is using weasel as a verb. Apparently, knowing the parts of speech is about as far as she got in school, because she sure as hell didn't get to sharing. It's a distinction without a difference, obviously -- if somebody accuses you of "weaseling" your way in, they're effectively calling you a weasel; to suggest otherwise is absurd. "How dare you?" Jonathan asks. "How dare you imply that I'm behaving differently today than I have for the last thirty days?" You know, "how dare you" is a tough thing to pull off, but sometimes, it's really called for, and this was definitely one of those times. "You cannot say that that's true; it's not true," says Jonathan. He basically tells Candice that the conversation is over, and she's dismissed. And he never lost his temper, and he never started personally insulting her; all he did was defend himself and tell her she could take her self-righteousness and cram it sideways, which she deserved. The best smackdowns are the ones where you clearly aren't even ruffled, which he wasn't.
Yul and Becky now have a very, very weird conversation in which he tells her that he's trying to figure out how to avoid jury problems, and he's talking about the possibility of booting Jonathan, which would still give them 4-3, and would keep the jury from blaming him. The captioner makes Yul's speech look stupid by claiming that he says "I'll have victory votes on the jury," when he actually says, "I'll have their three votes on the jury" (meaning Adam, Candice, and Parvati). It seems like a dumb discussion, though, because it sounds like he's presuming (1) he'll be in the final two; and (2) either it won't be Becky in the final two with him or Becky wants to help him beat her in the jury, you know? I thought for a long time about this, and I think he's just oblivious. He's so used to feeling like a team with Becky that it isn't even occurring to her that he's completely going to the wrong person for advice here. The weird thing is that I'm not sure she even minds. I think they're both weirdly good at pretending they can separate their inherent competitiveness with each other and give each other impartial advice. Like, I almost think she wouldn't mind trying to step outside her own interests and be like, "Okay, if I were your friend, uninvolved in this, what would I tell you to do?" They have a really interesting cooperative dynamic, I think.
Tribal council. Jeff settles everyone in, and then brings in the jury. As Jeff tells everyone that the jury is only there to observe, Nate and Parvati wink at each other. Which I think is just what Jeff just told them not to do. Jeff starts with the auction, asking Becky about sending Candice to Exile Island. Becky calls Candice "the fiercest competitor" and, for that reason, "the obvious choice." Jeff asks Candice about keeping a smile on her face, and she gives a fairly bland speech about loving the game, and highs and lows, and blahs and more blahs.
Ozzy is asked what he did after the challenge, and Ozzy says that he went out looking for firewood and Jonathan went fishing. Oh, and Candice, Adam, and Parvati went into the tent to sit around on their asses and do nothing. And then, of course, there was this "huge ordeal" over the eating business. "Not sharing the fish," Candice corrects him snottily. Parvati explains that the issue was not "inviting us to dinner." Parvati, asked for her side of the story, says that of course, since she, Adam, and Candice know that they're on the outs, they sat around and didn't do any work. This follows logically somehow, I'm sure. She says that, therefore, Jonathan didn't want to share the fish. Adam, of course, says that it was only Jonathan who had a problem. He doesn't know what Ozzy said, of course. Asked whether he and Jonathan aren't speaking, Adam says he doesn't "really care for Jonathan." Over on the jury, Nate makes his first of several idiot maneuvers when he pumps his fists like saying you don't like someone is some kind of...moral victory? Winning one for the team? Whatever.
Parvati says that, as Jonathan becomes more "comfortable," his "true colors" are showing more: "It just shows the level of immaturity. I'm half his age, and I'm twice as mature as he is," she says. HA HA HA HA! Man, that girl is a Borat-like comic genius doing some kind of meta Teri Garr, or else she is among the biggest twits this show has ever seen, which is really saying something. My favorite part is how Nate scrunches up his face and nods really hard over on the jury, like he's passing a broken Christmas ornament. Jonathan really isn't all that upset by this: "I understand that you guys are hurt or disappointed or whatever, but if you have five people working, and you have three people who don't do any work, at what point does [sic] the five people who are working and the three people who are basically waiting for the dinner bell so that they can get fed, you know, when is that not appropriate?" Yep, I think he about covered it. Candice doesn't want to talk about it in those terms, for obvious reasons, so she insists that it's "an arrogance thing," where Aitu and Jonathan know that the Rarovians are at a disadvantage, so they're refusing to feed them because they can. This is a perfect example, of course, of someone who makes a ridiculous accusation about how someone else is behaving in a situation for the simple reason that that's what they would do. It's so often true that the person who's throwing an accusation at you that has nothing to do with your behavior is doing it because if they were in your situation, it's exactly how they would behave. If Candice were up in numbers, she'd be sticking it to the people she didn't like. By which I mean...when Candice was up in numbers, she did enjoy sticking it to the people she didn't like. So she assumes that this is how everyone else acts. It's kind of funny, though a little sad.
Candice also insists again, although it couldn't be more irrelevant, that "all of [the former Aitu members] have said that they don't like Jonathan," which is a lie as far as we know. Nate makes a great display of Muttley-like cackling on the jury again, which is just...do you suppose he understands that he's still on the jury, and Jonathan is still in the game, and nothing Candice says is hurting Jonathan's feelings, particularly? There's a feeling I get that Raro believed right about here that they would be perceived as lovable underdogs done wrong by mean, bad, horrible Jonathan, and Nate somehow thought that, at this point, everyone would be rooting for Candice. I don't think he has any idea, as this is happening, that he and his friends have shown themselves to be idiotic chumps.
Adam tells Jonathan, "Everyone knows how you are, it's not a secret," and Jonathan wants him to put up or shut up for once, and so he says, "What am I?" "You're a rat!" Adam says. "That's a fact, that I'm a rat?" Jonathan asks. "I don't even know what that means." Ozzy is over in his seat giggling and looking highly amused, and frankly, I don't even know if he's on anyone's side as much as he just loves a good dumb fight. He's certainly not on Adam's side, I don't think. Adam tries to talk more, and Jonathan just says, "I'm a 'cancer,' I know. It's enough out of you." And then Adam says, "Is that right?" Good comeback! He follows with, "There's absolutely no reason for you to be around now, though." Jonathan, amazed at Adam's idiocy, says, "Says you, jack!" Hee. I love to see a meathead get called "jack." Jonathan adds, "I've earned my place here today."
Parvati decides that it's time for someone to take the intellectual and moral high ground, and who better than she, right? So she adopts her impatient condescending voice and says, "Jonathan, you have. You have outwitted your place to be here today." Talk about "I don't even know what that means." Adam looks over and tells Jonathan, "You're just tired of hearing the truth, man. The truth hurts, doesn't it?" What truth is that, Adam? Is that the incredibly incisive "you're a rat" truth? I think what Adam doesn't understand is that he's swinging and swinging, but he isn't hitting, at least not to make Jonathan feel guilty about anything he did. All it's making Jonathan think is that he's incredibly glad he flipped when he did, and that he can't wait until this entire little group of fuckwits has to shut up and go home. It's like trying to hit a guy in a bar, and you keep swinging and swinging, and you never hit him, but you keep knocking over his drink with your fist. You're being incredibly ineffectual at what you're trying to do, but he's still going to be like, "Quit it." Jonathan responds to Adam's concept of "truth hurts" with "That I'm a rat and a cancer?" Seriously. Yul jumps in here and decides to try to call a halt, but before he can, Adam and Jonathan end it themselves.
Jeff says that, from his perspective, it's not five on three. It's four and three and Jonathan. I have to wonder, why does Jeff feel obligated to say insulting things about Jonathan every five minutes? Is Jeff a little threatened? Because his insistence on doing this is really getting ridiculous. Candice sitting there saying "nobody likes you" isn't exactly ironclad evidence. Yul says, "I would disagree," and even though he posed the question, Jeff ridicules the answer by insisting that Yul is just being "the U.N." Yul makes the point that the things Aitu says to Raro are presented in a way that's intended to go over with Raro. Message? Dear Candice: The fact that people who are planning to vote you out nod along when you bitch about Jonathan doesn't mean they actually hate the guy, all right? "The way they're painting the picture is not accurate," he says. "I'll leave it at that."
Parvati, deprived of the opportunity to spend the evening picking on Jonathan, decides to pick on Yul instead, snotting, "He's the puppetmaster, and we're all puppets in his little play." Finally having reached the end of his extremely long rope, Yul actually snaps at her, "Look, what do you expect me to do? We're all here trying to win. You can't fault me for that." "I do not at all," Parvati says, even though she just did. "I respect completely all four of you." Adam jumps in here being the fucking bully that he is through and through, saying, "I'd have a lot more respect, and so would the people on the jury, if they cut loose of their cancer that they got hooked on." Candice agrees: "Even if all three of us were to go." "Yeah," Adam says, "one, two, three, after that." "Boom boom boom, sittin' ducks!" Parvati says, flashing her teeth at the jury, which is not going to get a chance to vote for her.
Jeff points out to Jonathan that this has basically been one big attack-fest on him. How's he feeling? Jonathan says he's fine, even though "one never wants to hear" things like "cancer" and "rat": "Luckily for me, right now, I'm in a better position than I was when I was with them."
Jeff asks Candice what she's basing her vote on and how Raro can hope to turn this situation around. Candice says that they've already tried everything, and that they can't know whether Aitu will vote with them or not. She adds that "this is a decision that the jury's going to make," and says that things are "ugly." By which she means, "I am about to lose, and that is not pretty." As one of my friends constantly points out, there's a large hole in this theory, which is that the jury is going to have to vote for someone. "The jury will never vote for any of you!" is basically an empty threat. The jury doesn't get to refuse to award the money. They can hate on Yul and Jonathan all they want, but if two people are standing at the end and those two people are Yul and Jonathan, they're going to have to vote for one of them. You can't get back at an entire dominating alliance with your jury vote; it's a dumb idea.
Jeff asks Adam whether he wants to give up the immunity necklace. He does not, of course, like Candice that much. Jeff also reminds us about the hidden idol, which they know Yul found, but of course, anybody could have it if Yul gave it away. Time for voting. Ozzy votes. Sundra votes. Jonathan votes for Candice: "I'm not going to sacrifice myself for you. And tonight you showed me your true colors." Becky votes. Adam votes. Candice votes for Jonathan -- double underlined! -- and, looking into the camera with all her heart and soul, she says, "Wow. Piece of work." BURN! Not. Parvati votes. Yul votes. Jeff goes off to tally.
First vote: Jonathan. Second: Candice. Jonathan. Candice. Jonathan. Candice. Three to three. Candice. And...Candice, so she's done. She gives Parvati a hug. And then she and Adam make out for, like, an hour. Defiantly, like it's West Side Story or something. And I'm sorry to pick on anybody's technique on television, but they're the ones who brought it up, and...that does not look like a good kiss. That is one of those kisses where there's nothing happening, really, like they're just waiting until the timer runs out so they can stop kissing. It doesn't even look like they're particularly into it. The most hilariously awful part is that Nate starts, like, hooting, sort of, over the kiss. Like he's twelve, and he's watching his best bud feel a cheerleader's boob. He's all, "SCORE!," but like he's trying to hold it in. I can't even explain it if you didn't see it. It's that dumb. Everyone else laughs, because it's a spectacle, so you might as well treat it like one. Candice puts in her torch to be snuffed. "Well," says Jeff, "the kiss is nice. Maybe if it were love, he'd have given you the immunity necklace." Snuff! Hee hee. It's not a great line, in the sense that I think everyone knows that ain't love, but good for him. Jeff sends Candice home, and she tries to pull out a graceful exit at the end with "still smiling," and "have fun, love you," but it can't undo the rest of the episode, you know? So Candice is gone, fortunately, and Adam and Parvati are two little ducks, sitting there indeed, waiting to be stepped on. GOOD. Jeff says that the tribal council "speaks for itself," which is awesome, because it means he doesn't try to say anything meaningful about it.
Candice's parting words are her attempt at being gracious, but she fails miserably when she tries to get all "I can look myself in the mirror" about it. She says that the kiss was sincere. Sure it was, Candice. ["Seriously. We already have a Rob and Amber." -- Wing Chun]
week: Parvati learns that she's just not meant for menial labor when she injures her finger. She knew it! Yul isn't very comfortable being the Godfather. Heh.