Previously on Occupational Spaz-zards: Poker player, flight attendant, gravedigger, radio host...a whole collection of unusual occupations were spotlighted, with no particular standouts as far as usefulness, particularly since the poker player had the worst poker face since Don Knotts. Leslie's conscience didn't allow her to sit through a welcome ceremony conducted by Buddhist monks, while Ashley's stomach didn't allow her to retain anything. Chicken (the chicken farmer of chicken-raising fame) thought his tribe was a bunch of mothercluckers, so he chose pouting as his strategy. Todd decided he would be the I Am Smart™ operator of the season, because he remembers how well that strategy worked for Nobody Z. Zilchston III. Zhan Hu lost the challenge and went to tribal council, where Dave and Peih-Gee decided to volunteer as leaders, and then, instead of Ashley, the tribe sent home Chicken, who was all, "DAYUM!" and earned himself many appearances on various pop-culture clip shows all week as a result.
Zhan Hu, Day 4. The day after the first tribal council. It's been raining like crazy, and this sad little tribe is standing around in puddles getting drizzled on and trying to figure out how to make a fire with the flint they were allowed to bring home. Dave lectures and wheedles and wheedles and lectures, telling them that they have to make the fire pit right the first time. He's the Boy-Scoutiest bartender/ex-model I've ever seen, that's for sure. Dave tells us that he didn't want to be a leader, but he just couldn't help but "embrace it." He is lying, of course; he wants nothing more than to be in charge, because knowing it all is his personality, and that's what he'd be better off "embracing," if we're going to go that way. Some members of the tribe differ from Dave about where to build the fire pit, but Dave comes over with the gently steepled hands, telling them how they're just delaying and obstructing by having opinions of their own. Don't they understand? Help him help you, other people on the tribe!
In further news of questionable dynamics, it seems that Peih-Gee's plans of co-leadership are falling by the wayside, because Dave has decided that his "embrace" of leadership will include throwing elbows at anyone who wants to share power. Erik the Cute Musician (whose name I repeatedly misspelled late in last week's recap after getting it right at the beginning) looks at Dave like he's got a few guitar strings he wouldn't mind wrapping around Dave's neck. (Or drum heads, or a big electric keyboard, or a spiked melodica or fancy banjo or particularly heavy kazoo...whatever.) Erik says that Peih-Gee is just below Dave in terms of responsibility, referring to her as "the balance of power," and I don't actually know what that means. He goes on to explain that Dave pretty much ignores everyone else's opinion, and I do know what that means, even before we see it demonstrated when Jaime expresses interest in perhaps eating before the challenge they're anticipating this afternoon. Dave barely avoids literally patting her on the head, but he's close. Erik says that people are beginning to be a lot less sure about Dave's leadership, which is accurate in the sense that I think that now, rather than thinking he'd make a good leader, they're thinking he'd make a good drowning victim.
Credits. James's chest should be the whole credit sequence, is what I think.
We return to find Fei Long, the tribe of non-suck, on Day 4. James pushes a tree down. If I may Chicken for a moment: DAYUM! Various folks work around camp, and then we visit Jean-Robert, who is snoozing in the shelter. This is your lazybones moment, and I'll repeat, as I often do, that I don't like it when they're judgmental about sleeping, because the guy is asleep, and if you don't want him to be asleep, go wake him up. He's not being a dick by not being awake yet, and some people do naturally sleep longer than others and can't help it. However, it quickly develops that the real problem is that as soon as he gets out of bed, he goes right back, even while everyone else keeps working. That one's a problem. At the same time, I'm mostly mesmerized by watching James break tree trunks with his bare hands, about which I am actually not lying. I'm saying: tree trunks. Snoring like a vacuum cleaner isn't helping J-R's cause, either, by the way. There's nothing like working your ass off while literally listening to someone else snoring.
My favorite part here is that a monkey lies down in a tree, and they actually start putting up the captioning before they cut over to the discussion between Amanda and Todd, meaning that for a minute, it appears that they are implying that the monkey is saying, "We should have the strongest players..." But it's just Amanda, who's working on forming an alliance with Todd that looks kind of like neither of them cares about it; they just feel like they're supposed to form an alliance with someone, so that's what they're doing. It's the way I imagine Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens started dating, if you assume that they are, in fact, dating. Amanda says that Todd is devious, but she formed an alliance with him anyway. She then whispers and giggles with Todd about how they're playing similarly, doing lots of work because Generic Aaron the Putative Leader has decided he likes hard workers. Todd and Amanda then agree that they should bring Aaron into their alliance so that they can set him up to take the blame for anything they do that other people don't like. They have a talk with Aaron about this, and after looking around to see if anyone else is there, it looks like he agrees to this alliance. I am calling it the Blue Shorts Alliance for the moment, since Todd and Aaron are wearing the same snug blue shorts, which, as the EEFPs pointed out, appear to have been given to some of the guys who perhaps didn't turn out to have any underwear without Daffy Duck on it or whatever. Todd interviews that the game belongs to him and Amanda, especially now that they're with Aaron. Yep. You're on a team of eight -- three people in your alliance ought to do it!
Aaron now holds a team meeting in which the group tries to find a diplomatic way of speaking to J-R about his crap work ethic, but J-R derails their good intentions when his response to the idea that they need to make a plan for camp is to suggest, "Why don't we all just...rest." It's kind of unintentionally really funny, the way Leslie puts her head down, like, "Way to not get it, meat." Aaron, for once, actually says what he thinks about someone needing to help out more at camp, which is shocking and never happens, since usually, people would rather sit around feeling resentful and retain it as something they can complain about than actually solve the problem. Aaron is a freak! He calmly informs J-R that J-R is not doing his share of the work and needs to do more. J-R weakly replies that he's just not getting enough sleep, and once they have food and water, he'll be a better contributor. This, of course, is unwise under my oft-stated rule that it's a bad idea to whine about how bad your situation is when you're speaking solely to people who are in exactly the same position. Leslie interviews that J-R isn't succeeding in directing attention away from his suckage; they're not fooled at all. The highlight of the meeting is that while J-R is talking, James clearly catches someone's eye and gives a kind of "the hell?" shrug, like, "I've buried guys while they were still making more sense than this." In an interview, J-R essentially says that he's a "bad boy" in poker, and he's trying to do the same in Survivor. Aside from the fact that poker and Survivor are not the same thing, a bad boy in Survivor is someone more like...well, Mariano, honestly. Lying around on your ass isn't being a bad boy; this is being a punk-ass, which is not the same thing. J-R's argument is that he's going to start out being horrible, so that it will look more dramatic when he starts pitching in later. In other words, "My plan is to appear worthless, because later, it will really make for a nice contrast."
Panda. "Yes, by all means, feel free to take endless footage of me. I'm iconic, I know."
Zhan Hu. They're dragging bricks for the fire pit that Dave has planned. Dave prattles in an interview about setting "achievable goals," which makes me want to drown myself in the fountain outside a management consulting conference. His tribe moves bricks, but Jaime in particular is very much irked that Dave isn't letting the group start with a small fire so they can make enough rice to eat now. She's sure that the team would be more productive if they weren't all so hungry. When she raises this notion, however, Dave shoots her down, telling her in no uncertain terms that they're starting with the fire pit. I think Dave has missed the fact that it's hard to be much of a natural leader when people instinctively resent and resist you. Seriously, you don't rule early on in Survivor with power; you rule with authority. In other words, not the actual imposition of consequences, but the agreement that you will serve as an authority figure, and you don't achieve authority by being the guy who raised his hand when Jeff asked for leaders. Anyway, Jaime interviews that all she wanted was a little rice, and Dave was all hung up on his "elaborate barbecue pit." On top of this, Dave manages to drop a huge stone in such a way that it splatters mud all over Jaime. Insult to injury, you might say. As she washes herself off a little, Jaime talks to Sherea about how it sure would have been nice to eat today, and Sherea agrees that she's pretty much useless until she gets some food in her system. Ashley comes up and joins this discussion, and Jaime reveals that she thinks maybe Dave splashed her on purpose. In an interview, Ashley, who was already primed to hate Dave before any of this came up, expresses her disgust that they got flint last night at tribal council, and they still haven't even tried to make a fire, despite the fact that everyone is incredibly hungry. I'm fascinated by the fact that Dave doesn't know that giving people food is the best way to get them on your side. Even fourth-graders running for class president know that.
Ashley and Sherea lie in the shelter near where Dave is still stacking bricks for the mashed-potato Devil's Tower or whatever the hell he's making, and Ashley protests that they really don't need this poorly constructed thing in the first place. Dave snots that this is all going to be great and so useful once it's done. I feel the same way about my first novel -- sure, I'm not making any progress, but someday, when I finish it, it is going to rule, so it's like I'm great already! Ultimately, Dave won't budge, so Ashley passive-aggressives that he's the leader and can do whatever he wants. As I said, I'm not sure anybody but Jeff Probst committed the team to following Dave's leadership, so I'm not sure why Ashley feels obligated to go along. He finishes up with "How many fires have you built, sweetheart?" That's where I would have punched him in the face, because he's specifically been telling everyone not to build any fires, and throwing in that "sweetheart" is nothing but a way of reminding a woman that she's a woman and therefore unsuitable for serious debates. In an interview in which he's bobbing out in the ocean, Dave tells us that the rest of the team is great, and he's perfectly happy to be at war with Ashley. They continue to bicker around camp, which is clearly boring and uncomfortable for everyone else. They could both be stung by bees, and it wouldn't bother me any.
Challenge course. This is a reward challenge in which three members of each team at a time, matched by gender, will face off in a mud pit, trying to push one of two giant balls over a goal line for a point. First tribe to two points wins reward. The reward is fishing gear, which everyone wants, and they'll even get a fishing boat. There's also a "twist," which they'll find out about later. Todd is immediately sent to sit out for Fei Long, because he's tiny. The first round is held under the just-started drenching rain, with Aaron, Amanda, and Denise against Sherea, Erik, and Jaime. The trick, of course, is that you can't put all three people on protecting one ball, or the other team will just freely roll the other ball, so you're constantly deciding which of the balls gets two people and which gets one, partly depending on how the other team is dividing its players. This turns into mudwrestling, basically, and everybody ultimately gets tangled up, allowing Amanda to roll the ball over the line. The unexpected part is that the women learn that pulling someone's top off is a good way to distract/confuse her if she isn't very well dressed for this, and Sherea eventually pulls Amanda's top all the way off, so she's basically flapping in the breeze as she scores the first point for Fei Long. There is a ton of blurring in this challenge. Asses, boobs, cracks, folds, men, women -- it's indiscriminate, pretty much. When she finishes the round and goes to pull her top up, Amanda immediately says, "My mom is going to kill me!" Oh, Amanda. I think your mom will understand if she understands you going on Survivor in the first place.
In the round, J-R, James, and Leslie are up against Frosti, Ashley, and Dave. I'm surprised Dave and Ashley don't just spend the whole time throwing each other into the mud, but they don't. Instead, there is more back and forth and more lost clothing, until finally, James gets the second point for Fei Long and the challenge is over. Frosti put up a good fight, though, I'll say that. He's just about the only one who did, Dave and Ashley.
It turns out that the "twist" to the challenge is that Fei Long, as the winning tribe, gets to kidnap a member of Zhan Hu, who will stay with Fei Long for a bit and then return to Zhan Hu before the immunity challenge. Fei Long immediately chooses Jaime, which isn't an immediately sensible move to me. There's a second twist as well, which is that Jaime gets a sealed tube from Jeff that she's supposed to open privately once she's at the Fei Long camp. ("Dear Jaime, it's awfully lonely out here away from Julie...") Everybody gets sent back to camp.
We return to Zhan Hu, still on Day 4. When the Zhan Hu-ligans get back to camp, they find that the camp is even more flooded than before, the main effect of which is that Dave is very proud of himself, because his fire pit is still there...not that it has a fire in it, meaning that you totally can't tell whether an actual fire would have held up in it. "My empty fire pit remained standing even after it rained!" Well...so would any hole in the ground Dave. It's about whether it would protect the fire. ,p>Fei Long makes its way down to its new fishing boat, which everyone is quite excited about. Aaron explains that the reason they took Jaime with them is that she's got all the love on the Zhan Hu team, and losing her "demoralized" them. Maybe they love her because she lobbied for them to be allowed to eat. Todd cautions the rest of the team to watch over all their important belongings while Jaime is in camp, because The Art Of War mentions stealing from your enemy. Oh, mercy. He is so not the kind of person who needed to be exposed to The Art Of War. I bet he was also this insufferable after he read Bright Lights, Big City. Leslie tells us that, with Todd being so crafty, she wants him on her side.
Off on her own, Jaime opens her tube, which turns out to contain another tube along with a note. Maybe it will just be smaller and smaller tubes until you get to a wee Russian doll. The note says that the second tube, which is sealed, contains a clue to an immunity idol hidden at Fei Long, and Jaime has to give that clue to a member of Fei Long before she goes back to her tribe. So basically, the task is to decide what member of the other team you'd like to have information about the idol. Around the fire, J-R is still telling the group he wants more rest, and Aaron is assuring him that he's rested enough. The two guys go back and forth about their disagreements over sleep and whatever else, as Courtney expresses dismay in an interview that they were giving away the big team secret of who hates each other while there was a "spy" there. She thinks maybe they all could have played nicely together and ignored this "bitchfight" for this brief time. She has a point, although I really don't think that kind of secret does that much good. Jaime tells us that when she returns to Zhan Hu, her report will be that she doesn't see how they're not winning, when the other team is such a bunch of doofuses having bitchfights.
Over at Zhan Hu, I believe Dave is trying to get them to rebuild the shelter out of brick (?), and he and Ashley are still, as Courtney would say, bitchfighting about everything. He's incredibly condescending, she's obnoxious and overdramatic, and everyone else on the team wants to tie both of them up in a burlap sack and throw it on the production truck out of town. Sherea says that Dave does "talk down" to Ashley and boss everybody around, she's noticed. Good eye! Dave: "Bicker." Ashley: "Bicker bicker." Dave: "Bicker bicker SHMICKER bicker bicker BOO!" Et cetera. Ashley is sure that this will backfire on Dave, because he's being really annoying. I wonder if she wishes she'd worn something with a little more coverage/support, because her boobs are so distracting to me, I can't imagine they don't sort of distract her. (Incidentally, if you haven't already, I must insist that you review the exalted President Beefcake's really, truly, spectacularly funny post with which he honored the forums last week, in which he explains, among other things, why you shouldn't wear Mickey Mouse hands on the first day of Survivor. Seriously, do not miss it.)
The sun sets and rises, and now we're at Fei Long on Day 5, where Leslie is wandering down by the water and telling us that she's not feeling well, and she knows it's because she doesn't have her Bible. She's sure that if she had her Bible, she would feel fine. This is one of the hazards of a venerated item, I suppose: leave home without it, and you become more susceptible to illness. She's also sure that God has her on Survivor for a reason. I guess she means a reason other than "she applied," which tends to be my explanation for how she got on the show. But then, my feelings about whether God would intervene in the internal workings of Survivor are well known and do not bear repeating, nor do they bear debate via email, if you get my drift, which I really hope you do. Anyway (stand back while I am struck by lightning!), conveniently for Leslie, Jaime explains that her idea for giving away the idol clue is that she wants to give it to the weakest person. So she takes Leslie for a walk and gives her the clue, which Leslie (of course) interprets as God trying to help her win a million bucks. She is officially the first person to use the words, "The Lord gave me a gift by giving me the clue to the hidden immunity idol." Somehow, I picture God with His head in His hands, all, "Oh, Leslie."
When Leslie opens the clue, it starts with, "What seems to be hidden may sometimes be seen," which is all you should need of that clue to locate the immunity idol, because the rest doesn't say anything of value. This clue obviously means to me that the idol is in plain sight, and as soon as they cut back to Fei Long's camp for a shot of the flag and the archway the team walks under to enter camp, my eye falls on a decorative piece over the arch, and I think, "Oh. Immunity idol, right there." And then after Leslie talks about how she's going to find the darn thing, we get a meaningful push-in from the camera on, and then a cut to a close-up of...the decorative piece over the arch! I love it when I'm right. It happens occasionally.
When we come back, Leslie is pondering what to do with this new information and reaching precisely the wrong conclusion -- she wants to use it to seduce someone "witty" into an alliance with her. Which is stupid. What she needs to do is find the thing and hope to use it to save herself. Instead, she pulls Todd aside and tells him about the clue and what it says. In an interview, Todd's like, "The HELL?" Because...why? Why would you do that? The answer is: you would not, unless you were honestly not thinking. Todd says that with Leslie being sick, his plan is that maybe she'll wind up leaving, and if she does, he'll be the only person who knows about the idol, so that works for him. So he's cheering for her: ILL-NESS! ILL-NESS! ILL-NESS!
Challenge. This challenge requires each tribe to use a battering ram to smash through two walls, then has them feed their grooved battering ram through a puzzle maze (just go with me; this will be short) and hit a gong with it. The highlights are that Fei Long does great smashing the walls and Zhan Hu does horribly, to the point where Dave in particular is so exhausted that he has to be spelled by teeny little Frosti, the mug sensation. Zhan Hu doesn't manage to catch up when they get to the puzzle, so once again, Fei Long has immunity. I think James almost totaled himself barreling into the gong at the end, but that's a different story. I'm just glad a gong was featured, because I was starting to forget what country we were in! Jeff gives the idol to Fei Long and sends them back happy, while Zhan Hu has to come and deal with Jeff at tribal council.
Zhan Hu slogs back to camp on Day 6 after the immunity challenge. Dave interviews that he kind of feels partially sort of somewhat responsible for the fact that they lost, which...to the degree anybody ever should, he should. Not only because he himself sucked the bag with vigor, but because he didn't let anybody eat anything, and you know what's bad for your ability to batter doors down? Weakness due to starvation. Dave gathers the team and apologizes to them for letting the team down, and he thanks Frosti for "stepping up." He tells us that he takes "full responsibility" for the challenge, but of course, he thinks it's not really about the challenge. In other words, "I take responsibility, on the condition that there be no consequences." The best kind of responsibility to take, I think. Dave tells us that he thinks Ashley is going to go home at tribal council. Well, he doesn't say it, but he means that when he says he doesn't think he'll go home. As for Ashley, she says she's not going to confront everyone right now, even though she knows she's on the block. She's waiting to make her pitch at tribal council. Dumb, dumb. Elsewhere, Erik talks to Jaime and Sherea, and they all sort of agree that you have to get rid of either Ashley or Dave, because together, they're simply too irritating to share living space with. Dave is more annoying, they seem to agree, but Dave is also more potentially helpful in challenges. Other than...the one he just lost for them, I guess. Jaime interviews that it's "dead even" as far as what they're going to do. Ashley's her friend, blah blah, she doesn't know what's going to happen yet.
Jeff brings them all in for tribal council. He asks about the "tribe therapy" they did last time, and how they picked Dave and Peih-Gee as leaders. Asked how that's going, Frosti basically says it's not too bad, although Dave may be a little much as a leader. Asked how things are with her, Ashley says she doesn't get along with Dave, but she respects that he's the leader, and so she asks questions, whether he wants her to or not. Dave, of course, acts shocked and insists that people can ask questions whenever they want. Whenever! They want! Obviously! Ashley calmly says that Dave isn't about to admit the way he acts, but he is indeed patronizing and irritating and all those bad things that...I also think Dave is, as it happens. Jeff asks Ashley if it's just her, and she says nobody else likes Dave either. She says Dave has a tendency to talk in circles and want to be a martyr (here, Dave mouths "martyr," because he's that shocked). Ashley concludes by saying that she finds Dave's way of talking to people "intolerable."
Jeff asks Jaime if maybe Dave is trying a little too hard rather than actually leading, and Jaime says that, considering the piles of wood that randomly start appearing before anyone else is even awake, she'd say yes, he's "over the top" in attempting to prove himself. Asked what it is that the tribe needs to do, Jaime says she thinks everybody gets along except Ashley and Dave, who "clash heads," and she thinks maybe Dave's way of talking to people is kind of intimidating. She's not directly answering what the tribe needs to do, of course, but she's kind of indirectly answering that she agrees with those who say that one of them needs to go, for everyone else's sanity. Dave starts defensively pointing out that he keeps telling them to "check [him]" if he's "out of line," which...that's not how it works, Dave. You don't instruct people to check you as if that's separate from you just growing up and dealing with the fact that they may disagree with you. He doesn't need someone to give him a speech when he's out of line; he needs to talk to people differently. Sherea says that she hasn't enjoyed her time on the tribe at all, strongly implying that the reason she hasn't is that Dave is a jackass. She points out that she only knows about half the people on the tribe, and Dave starts arguing with her (check yourself, Dave!) about how this is only because they've been so busy working. This causes Sherea to say, several times, "Did you not hear what came out of my mouth?" In other words: she gets it, Dave. You're working a lot. You're also ruining camp for others. Dave plasters this condescending "Women are craaaaaazy!" grin on his face, and he's seriously lucky he didn't get smacked at this point. Sherea points out that if he's going to lead, Dave needs to come up with how they're going to pull together and start doing better. She adds that Dave does indeed tend to answer back to every single thing Ashley says.
"Ashley, what's the criteria for your vote tonight?" Jeff asks. "Uh, I'm voting for Dave," Ashley says emphatically. Hee. It's interesting to see someone refuse to play along with Jeff's idea that everyone at tribal council is wildly trying to conceal whom they're voting for. Jeff always wants to ask those "how are you strategizing your way to a decision about how you might possibly decide to vote?" questions, and it's kind of gratifying to see someone say, "By voting for the person I hate, Jeff." Everyone else chuckles nervously. Dave says he expects at least a couple of votes, and Jeff asks him how the tribe will do better if they boot Ashley. Dave says they won't have to walk on eggshells, and insists that he only has conflict with Ashley. Which...is not true, considering that Sherea made her feelings toward him known about thirty seconds ago. Jeff says that this concludes another week of tribe therapy (heh), and he sends people to vote. Ashley and Dave vote for each other, although she first claims she's voting for "Derek Zoolander." Oh, my. Don't insult Derek Zoolander.
When the voting is all done, Jeff retrieves the votes and reads one for Ashley and one for Dave. But after that, it's all Ashley, which doesn't seem to surprise her. For me, honestly, it was really six of one and a half-dozen of the other. They're both jerks, and I hope they're both gone soon, and I'm glad it was one of them so I won't have to spend another whole episode watching them fight. As she leaves, Ashley turns to Dave and says in a way that suggests that wrestling has taught her well when it comes to rehearsing her moments of high drama, "I'll see you...soon." Dave throws her a shrug. Ashley is snuffed. Sherea wipes away a tear. Jeff sends the tribe back, and I hope Dave knows enough not to take that as any sort of endorsement of his behavior, since clearly, nobody is happy with him, either.
In her exit interview, Ashley says she was voted out because of a personal conflict with the leader, and she announces that if she could only use one word to describe Dave, she would choose "tool." I would not disagree.
week: a knee lands on a head. That doesn't look good. Dave decides it will be him against his whole tribe. Courtney overhears that she's in trouble.