Previously: Dave and Sherea were at each other's throats, but his know-it-all-ness trumped her do-none-of-it-ness, and he was the one sent home. In other news, Todd was accumulating immunity idol clues like friendship bracelets, despite the fact that handing over a clue to him seemed to be sort of a curse. Big-N-Meaty Jean-Robert, meanwhile, continued his war with Pale-N-Pointy Courtney, and they were both sure that the person to be sent home in the event of a Fei Long defeat would be the other. And all week, we have been promised a twist. What! Will! Happen?
Appropriately, we open with a panda snoozing. Even the pandas don't believe the promos anymore.
Zhan Hu, Day 13. People are beginning to wake up from their deep and Dave-less sleep, and Sherea says she had the best sleep she's had yet. She interviews that having Dave gone made everyone feel extremely relaxed. On the other hand, a less happy Frosti is telling Peih-Gee that he's tired of losing, and he feels like that's all they ever do. He interviews that while Zhan Hu should have a good team now, Fei Long is also really good. He thinks Aaron is a good leader, and then there's James, who...well. Is James. "They're a hard team to beat," says Frosti. Peih-Gee says she thinks the whole team needs to work together and work equally, so that they can be strong in camp and at challenges. I believe this is directed at Sherea, no? Sherea interviews that she feels a little left out at Zhan Hu, and she's looking to "spice things up" and wants "drama." Oh, honey. You will get plenty of that without even looking, believe me.
Credits. Is anyone hungry? I'm having a craving for Chinese, and I can't figure out why.
We return to Zhan Hu on Day 13, and Jaime and Erik are bathing/floating/swimming and quizzing each other on their middle names, which is how you fall in love in reality television, as you know. In an interview, Erik compares his situation with Jaime to being in the Garden of Eden. What with the...man? And the woman? And...being in China? I don't know what he's talking about. Jaime interviews that she's been unable to find anything wrong with Erik so far, and then we go back to their water chat, where he tells her that he just kind of wants to make it clear that he's a virgin.
I have absolutely no idea why he decided to announce that, and it almost surely wasn't as utterly out of context as this made it seem, but...dude, unless you're planning to have sex with her fairly imminently, she doesn't have any need for this information. Jaime makes a hilarious little "yikes" face, even though she tries really hard not to. It's kind of a theme of this episode that Jaime has an absolutely atrocious poker face. At any rate, Erik explains to her that he decided a while back not to do it, presumably with some specific person, and he thought at the time it was because he was too young, but now he realizes he wants it to be with the right person. She interviews that it's great that Erik's a virgin, because it makes him "even more trustworthy." That is incredibly stupid. People don't remain virgins because they're more virtuous than people who don't. I know many people who regret their early sexual experiences, but I can't think of any who consider them ethical lapses. I tend to fall into the Baby Houseman view where ideally, if you're lucky, "it should be someone that you sort of love," with the "sort of" being absolutely critical, but even if it's not? I can't see that making you less trustworthy. Shut up, Jaime. And honestly, shut up, Erik, for discussing your virginity on television for no reason. Good luck answering the question "So, have you done it yet?" to curious strangers for the five years.
As they continue to float/swim, Jaime decides to tell Erik all about the immunity idol (since they're wildly oversharing anyway), and about how you get clues when the other tribe gives them to you. Erik talks in an interview about how this can only help him, and he doesn't know what will happen in their relationship, but he likes being aligned with her. Chicka-...limp.
Fei Long, Day 13. As James and Denise work on the morning chores, he tells us that he's doing most of the work for the tribe right now. Well, except for Denise, who also really pulls her weight and works hard. He says he really digs Denise, because she can "compliment you and work with you." She's just his type of woman. And you keep thinking that he's saying something he doesn't mean to say, but then he adds that if she were ten years younger or he were ten years older, she'd "be in trouble." That's...weird? And...maybe sweet? But...mostly presumptuous? In...possibly more ways than one? She agrees in an interview, though, that they get along great, and that they've sort of clicked based on their shared work ethic. She thinks she can trust him and stick with him. She does not, however, suggest that she'd do him if it were more age-appropriate. You must admit that an epic romance between lunch lady and gravedigger would have made for quite a scandalous season. James cooks breakfast as J-R pitches in by instructing him to keep cooking.
A boat arrives at Fei Long and the fisherman who's aboard drops off a message. When the team opens the message, it contains a list of Zhan Hu members and instructs Fei Long to choose and mark the two they want to bring over to their tribe, and the fisherman will go get them and bring them back. Fei Long immediately identifies the "catch" here, which barely even qualifies as a "catch," which is that undoubtedly, Zhan Hu is currently choosing members of their tribe to obtain as well, and they're pretty sure Aaron and James will be taken. Fei Long considers whether they need some kind of big voting system to decide whom to take, but it turns out that Frosti and Sherea are the two everybody wants. They mark those names on the sheet, as Todd interviews that this shift will require everyone to rethink the strategy of the game. J-R cautions James that he's sure to be taken by Zhan Hu if they're over there getting the same note right now.
And hey, they are! The difference is that, because they're the smaller tribe, Zhan Hu seems to think this is some kind of tribe-evening-up mechanism, so it seriously never occurs to anyone (it appears) that Fei Long is getting a similar message and will be taking Zhan Hu members. They just think they're being given the opportunity to bring over the strongest Fei Long members to their tribe, giving them the same numbers advantage that Fei Long now enjoys, at no cost to them. That's extremely goofy. Maybe if they were taking one, which would even up the tribes at six each, but why in the hell would the game just hand one tribe that much of an advantage over the other? As you can imagine, they're feeling pretty smug about how great this is going to be, since they've utterly missed the point. Peih-Gee confidently interviews that this will "cripple the other tribe," and that having seven members to the other tribe's five will shift all the power to her tribe. Oh, Peih-Gee. The tribe quickly settles on James as the first kidnappee. They also discuss taking Aaron, with Erik bringing up the idea of taking Aaron just so they can boot him off soon. So they're taking Aaron and James. Frosti interviews that they have a big advantage now. They're totally going to win now! This is great!
But when the boat arrives at Zhan Hu, there are no waving members of Fei Long. There is only a fisherman who presents them with the sheet Fei Long filled out, demanding that they surrender Frosti and Sherea. Sherea claps her hand over her mouth and screams, which...is kind of something she does. Frosti explains this in an interview, and Sherea says this absolutely never occurred to them. The group has a fond farewell, and Sherea and Frosti get in their boat to leave.
Over at Fei Long, they know what the approaching boat is up to as soon as they see it...you know, approach. The paper tells them that Zhan Hu wants James and Aaron, and nobody is in the least surprised. Aaron interviews that things have been great for them up to this point, and they had all the momentum, and this pretty much throws all his big plans in the trash. J-R sweats the departure of the guys, and everyone hugs each other goodbye. James, for his part, interviews that he has no ties at Zhan Hu and will have to start from scratch making connections with people. J-R interviews that this all sucks for his team, because the people who are leaving are both strong guys, and for him specifically, because he and James are tight allies. Denise tells us that this didn't faze her much -- change is a thing that happens. Just a little something she learned watching mold grow on chicken nuggets. But she also makes it clear that she'd really rather this hadn't gone quite this way. When James and Aaron are gone, J-R manages to shove through an "agreement" (to which some seem to be "agreeing" just so he'll be quiet) that the group will vote out Sherea and then Frosti if it should happen to lose immunity. J-R passive-aggressively pouts that he himself would be the obvious choice, but they all tell him to chill out and stop bothering them. J-R tells us that it was "a god-awful day for Jean-Robert." Oh, every day is a god-awful day with Jean-Robert. Oh...for Jean-Robert. That, too.
After commercials, we watch as the boats carrying the tribe-switching pairs cross paths, and the transferees wave at each other a little. On the way over, James and Aaron try to convince themselves that they're cool and it's all under control. But Aaron interviews that this is causing him "apprehension." When they arrive at the Zhan Hu beach, the little trio of Erik, Jaime, and Peih-Gee welcome the new tribe members. Peih-Gee mentions that they showed up hauling a goodie basket of fruits and nuts. Hey, it always softens the blow of your unwelcome arrival if you bring food. James complains that people at Zhan Hu are mostly pretty happy, and he's used to the unhappy peeps over at Fei Long. "I like misery," he says. GRAAAVEDIGGER!
James tries to pry into Zhan Hu's business for a little information about what the internal dynamics are, but they're not budging much. Jaime does mention that she and Peih-Gee are big puzzle-solvers back at home. (I would laugh, but I recently completed a crossword puzzle so annoyingly difficult -- Greek letters in some of the boxes! -- that I actually had to show it to Sars after it was done. I am ashamed.) So their puzzle-solvingness...that might come up later! James announces that he's going to do all the work around camp, and the rest of them should just prepare themselves to fight -- fight hard, team! -- for victory in tomorrow's immunity challenge. Surely, it will be an epic battle!
And now, Sherea and Frosti are delivered to Fei Long. Todd says that this is "kind of exciting," because it's just more people for him to form great bonds of trust with. It's interesting that his response isn't that this is easily disposable fresh meat that protects him from booting for another couple of weeks, but more..."Hey, maybe they'll like me, too!" These evictees also arrive at their new place with a basket of food, so everyone sits down for a picnic. Sherea says that this feels like a fresh start for her, and she does look really happy. She tells us that she wasn't in a great position at Zhan Hu, but she's hoping she can improve her lot by coming over to Fei Long. Frosti, however, interviews that this all is pretty disorienting and probably unfortunate, and he just wants to find somewhere that he can settle in for a bit.
Fei Long, Day 14. While everyone else is in bed, J-R gets up and makes breakfast. This fools zero of the people on his tribe, especially since he wakes them up to feed them, only to start lecturing them about what they should do in terms of chores. I don't think anyone appointed him to succeed Aaron, and as you'll recall, that's what this team does. It appoints leaders by acclimation. (Unlike Zhan Hu, which has its leaders chosen by Jeff Probst.) Denise, in particular, bristles at being ordered around, probably because she does a ton of work and he does none, and yet he seems to have concluded that the new "leader" is going to be chosen by...height, maybe. J-R also starts telling Sherea not only that she's going to be the cook, but what she should cook first. When J-R is gone, eyes roll on a universal level. Frosti interviews that listening to the extreme unhappiness people were feeling for J-R after he stomped away was very gratifying for him, because it's great to know that there's another potential target. Courtney and Sherea discuss J-R's sexist streak and how much they are not enjoying it. Sherea then interviews that she thinks it's going to present an opportunity, the fact that everyone hates J-R. I think it's undoubtedly true that literally the first thing you want to see when you get to a new tribe in this kind of situation is that it already has a pariah. It's the most beloved J-R will ever be, and it's a pity he can't be told about it.
Over at Zhan Hu, Aaron has a chat with Peih-Gee, Erik, and Jaime in the water, and everyone seems to be getting along great. Aaron interviews that he's feeling comfortable, but he doesn't know how James is doing. Neither does he particularly care, since he's trying to plant the seed with Fei Long that they might need to get rid of James before the merge. Unfortunately, he undoes some of the work he's trying to do in helping himself when he chokes on the part where Jaime wants to know whether he'd boot J-R first at merge time if it came to that. I'm not even sure why he's hesitating, but all it does is make him seem really sketchy. Peih-Gee interviews that Aaron is smart, strong, attractive, and so forth, but she thinks he's "crafty" and "holding a little bit back." She says that she's not sure how long Frosti and Sherea can stay around over at Fei Long, so she needs to have a chat with Jaime.
And what is that chat about? Well, as Peih-Gee and Jaime secret themselves in the bushes, Peih-Gee says that if they win the couple of immunities, there's a good chance that Frosti and Sherea will be booted, at which point a merge will leave Peih-Gee, Jaime, and Erik basically isolated. If, on the other hand, they were to lose the two challenges, they'd be able to get rid of Aaron and James, who will be hard to get rid of once individual immunity becomes available, and they'll merge with five original Fei Long versus five original Zhan Hu. As you know if you've read recaps for a while, I'm almost always against throwing challenges, but the particular weird situation that's been created here does, I admit, mean that it makes a certain amount of sense. Unlike the time Ozzy threw a challenge because he simply thought someone was holding his team back, where the flaw in the theory is that you don't gain anything you couldn't gain by just waiting to see if you win or you lose, this is a situation where there's a limited window of opportunity to get rid of these two guys. Basically, Peih-Gee is treating Aaron and James like temporary tribe members because there's presumably a short time till the merge, and I think that's fair. If you had the other team's two strongest guys temporarily, like with the kidnapping, you'd get rid of one of them, right? Sure you would. Unless you're Lex, in which case you'd be too dumb to get rid of one of them.
At any rate, Jaime sort of resists, but Peih-Gee points out to her that if they do actually merge at ten (which is tradition, sort of, mostly), then this could be the right play.
Back from commercials, we are at the immunity challenge. Jeff asks Todd about the new tribe members, and he says that while they lost two strong guys, he thinks the new folks will be an asset. Aaron says that he knows he's on the block potentially, so he knows he needs to work hard to win. Jeff takes back immunity from Amanda. Back up for grabs! Two members of each tribe will swim out to a platform and trade off diving down to pull bamboo poles out of a cage (bear with me) to release these discs that float to the surface. Then when all twelve discs have come up, those two people drop them into a little "boat" (but it's like a mini-boat) and drag it back to shore. Then three people on shore fit the discs into a puzzle. Fei Long sits out Amanda and Courtney.
The swimming/diving is Erik and Aaron versus Frosti and J-R. for the most part, this remains close, although Erik and Aaron give Zhan Hu a small lead coming into the puzzle. J-R doesn't do his team any favors when he almost capsizes the toy boat, but the teams are still, contrary to what Jeff will claim later, fairly close as they approach the puzzle. As soon as the puzzle work begins, it's clear that Jaime and Peih-Gee are indeed throwing the challenge, given that (1) Jaime throws one of the pieces sort of out of the way before they even get started; and (2) she cannot stop smirking the entire time. I do not recommend a career in espionage. As Jaime and Peih-Gee and James fall farther behind, Jeff asks Peih-Gee if she's good at puzzles. "I'm good at Sudoku," she says cheerfully, and a frustrated James tells her to stop talking nonsense and pay attention to her work. He doesn't get it. Unsurprisingly, Fei Long manages the victory against their challenge-throwing opponents. Jeff gives immunity to Fei Long and disgustedly refers to Zhan Hu as offering "the worst performance in a challenge yet," erroneously claiming that they had a "big lead" from Aaron and Erik, when really, they had a small lead from Aaron and Erik. Jeff has already decided that he's going into his pissy, offended, "integrity of the game"-oriented mode, and that is going to be just as big of a goddamn drag as always. Everybody back to camp.
At Zhan Hu after the challenge, the tribe is standing around, and Jaime still can't stop smirking as James laments how badly it went with the puzzle. I seriously cannot remember the last time I saw anyone on this show who was less able to avoid telegraphing her emotions. Her face is her mood ring. James continues to complain about how Jaime and Peih-Gee seemed to crack under the pressure. And now he doesn't understand why they're laughing and smiling. He has not a single clue about what's going on here, honestly. He announces that Erik and Aaron should now decide which of the women to send home, since it's critical for them to maintain "a strong team." He further interviews that he's not getting water for people who don't try hard in challenges, so they "might as well send [him] home...or cut one of them girls." Heh. He started off all indignant, like, "Send me home, then!", but then he realized that...he doesn't actually want to go home. So it comes off, "FUCK YOU!...kind of."
Peih-Gee and Jaime huddle elsewhere and giggle about how clever they are and how they can't stop finding it so incredibly funny how they pulled this off. They're way too impressed with a fairly simplistic maneuver, I'll say that much, and they'd be a lot more impressive if they could figure out how to keep it together. Good grief. Meanwhile, James and Aaron are standing with Erik, and Aaron says, "What's up, dude?" He wants to know what happened in that challenge. Erik weakly says that Peih-Gee is supposed to have this talent with puzzles, and James angrily says she "completely dropped the ball." Oh, James. She hurled the ball. Elsewhere, Peih-Gee tells Jaime that the guys will clearly pressure Erik to get rid of one of them, but Jaime confidently says Erik's not going anywhere, alliance-wise. He's doing it all for the nookie, after all. Aaron sends Erik over to talk to the women, though I'm not sure what he thinks that's going to accomplish.
Erik comes over to ask what exactly they were doing on that challenge. Apparently, they did an even worse job of throwing it subtly than I thought. Here, Peih-Gee and Jaime confess to Erik that they threw the challenge. Erik, clearly unhappy, though it's hard to tell whether he's genuinely that unhappy about the throwing of the challenge or more unhappy that they didn't tell him they were going to throw it, interviews that he feels like he has to stay with the people he's already been with. He and Jaime take another dip together, during which he manages not to cough up any more details about his sexual history, but tells her he trusts her and wants to stick with her. They agree to remain together, even though Erik interviews that he hates intentionally losing. They discuss whether they should start by voting off James or Aaron, and Jaime thinks Aaron, but Erik points out that James is the one who's more riled up over the loss. Jaime interviews that she thinks Aaron has too many strong alliances on the other side, so she'd rather get rid of him.
But later, in the shelter, Peih-Gee asks James whom he's voting for, but he just wants to talk about the loss. She calmly tells him that if he wants to stay longer than Aaron, she can make that a reality. He tells her Aaron deserves to stay, and she's like, "Ooookay," and she asks him if he wants to go home instead. Purely out of frustration, he says yes. Again, he does not mean this. Peih-Gee interviews that the original plan was Aaron, but now they're not so sure, because they thought maybe they could get some traction with James if they booted Aaron, but he kind of seems to hate them, so...maybe not so much. In a separate chat, Aaron asks who's getting the votes, and Erik tells them that the girls are saying James, and he feels like he has to go along. Aaron explains in an interview that he's going to vote for James, because he thinks that's who's going, and he doesn't want to unnecessarily create friction with the people who are staying behind.
Tribal council. Jeff first asks about the shuffle, wondering "what rationale" they used in choosing the two gigantic, enormous dudes who were winning all the challenges. Start with something easier, Jeff! Predictably, she says it was an effort to take Fei Long's strongest people. Jeff asks Aaron how he reacted, and Aaron says that his tribe was strong, and he knew the loss was really bad for him. Jeff calls Jaime out for smiling during the extremely somber ritual of tribal council. He's like Tyra, always with the extreme anger when people fail to take name-calling from Janice Dickinson adequately seriously. Just another similarity between divas. Jaime hedges, claiming that while she's not happy to be here, she's also not "trying to be all pissed off" over it.
Jeff now decides to insert himself into the game, as he likes to do when it harms someone he dislikes or benefits someone he likes. It is his worst quality as host, particularly when it dovetails with his revoltingly earnest contempt for anyone who doesn't go balls-out with enough integrity for his nothing-at-stake ass. He accuses Jaime of not caring enough about winning the challenge. She says she didn't want to wind up stuck with people who would just flip after the merge, and Jeff tells her that he therefore concludes that she threw the challenge. She admits it. James looks around with this eye-boggling face, because he can't comprehend that as distasteful as this is to him, it makes obvious sense from their perspective. This is the most logical thing for them to do in this really unusual arrangement. The thing that's nutty about this is that they had to make a decision between trying to win, in which case Frosti or Sherea would likely have been thrown overboard (possibility of a J-R booting being, in my opinion, not as high as one might hope), and trying to lose, in which case they could control who went home. They're not throwing it just to get rid of someone they don't like; they're throwing it because winning the challenge is actively bad for them and results in the booting of one of their grand-scheme allies. It's one of those cases I've ranted about before where either thing that you do involves risk; there's no airtight move for you. This is, in a way, Peih-Gee and Jaime being willing to accept risk to save themselves in the long run, kind of like Tom and Ian being willing to draw rocks, which also might seem insane if you look at it in a certain way.
Jeff follows with this: "James, this must drive you nuts. To watch people come into a game that's really about winning, and to see them continually lose, and then today, willingly lose." Peih-Gee, entirely correctly, points out that the game isn't about winning the challenges; it's about winning the entire game as a whole. James still isn't hearing it. He starts again with the whole thing about how he can't work with people like this, blah blah, and Jeff asks if that means it's him going home. James says, "It should be." Jeff asks Aaron if he's inclined to ask to stay, and Aaron says that he wants to stay as long as he can. He also tells Jeff that he thinks it's James tonight, but he brought his stuff anyway. Dun!
Voting. Of note, Aaron votes for James, while James votes for Peih-Gee. We see no other votes. When Jeff returns, he reads the vote for Peih-Gee, then the one for James. Then...one for Aaron. And Aaron, and Aaron, so that's the end of Aaron. He is snuffed, and he walks off. Jeff announces that the three of them who threw the challenge (he doesn't seem to know Erik wasn't in on it) that they're making some assumptions about the game, which may or may not be true. Meaning they're not true, meaning we're not going to get a merge at ten. Jeff is not subtle, particularly. Maybe his girlfriend should be Jaime. They wouldn't have to tell each other anything, because they'd already know. More than words, you dig?
In his farewell, Aaron says that he figured it would be James, and he enjoyed being in "battle" with the big guy. I have the weird sensation of having absolutely no opinion of Aaron whatsoever. Do I like him? I do not. Do I dislike him? I do not. This is what's wrong with this season, for me. I have no opinion of almost anyone, except that Frosti seems cool and J-R is irritating. It's hard for me to care what happens, because I don't feel like I've...met anyone. I don't know if it's a casting problem or a problem with the way they're putting the shows together, but this all feels like one endless first episode.
week: hunting the immunity idol and gross food. This should be right up the lunch lady's alley.