Previously on If At First You Don't Succeed, Way To Go: After each tribe got to steal two members from the other, Peih-Gee and Jaime figured out that this gave them the best opportunity they were ever going to have to get rid of dominant powerhouses Aaron and James. Jeff Probst almost broke a tooth clenching his jaw in disgust and trying to shame Peih-Gee and Jaime for using strategy against manly men who deserve to be dominant, because Jeff Probst hates nothing so much as girls who play smarter, not harder. The women's plan worked perfectly, as Aaron -- a huge, looming threat and a leader of an increasingly dominant faction that would never include Peih-Gee or Jaime -- was booted after a thrown challenge. Jeff ominously warned that changes in the game would most likely make the strategy a foolish one, and he clearly was preparing marshmallows for roasting over the fire that would one day burn Peih-Gee and Jaime for failing to respect the Code Of The Guy.
Note: I missed watching (or recording) about the first 90 seconds of this episode as a result of being utterly distracted by online Scrabble ("Nowt"? Bite me!), and if you've ever tried to use CBS.com's player to view episodes online, you know that it is literally worthless, to the point where they really might as well take it down entirely. My secret suspicion, and I am entirely serious, is that CBS knows you have to "offer" episodes online these days to be competitive, but they've decided to make their free player so bad and so dysfunctional that you're forced into paying for episodes from iTunes or Amazon, but I assure you that in my case, all that does is assure that I will never pay for a CBS show on iTunes or Amazon. But anyhow, the bottom line is that you'll have to tolerate a slightly late start, for which I apologize.
We are over at Zhan Hu, after the booting of Aaron, where Peih-Gee reviews the way the plan is going to work from here on: they booted Aaron, and now they're going to throw another challenge and boot James. They hope there's a merge at ten, "best-case scenario," and that should leave them in a better position than if they'd won the challenge and set up Frosti or Sherea to be booted. For his part, James says he knows he's at the mercy of the rest of Zhan Hu right now, so he's feeling precarious. As he fetches water, he tells us that his best way to go is to keep everyone rested and hydrated so that they have no excuse for losing. That makes no sense. I'm not sure James understands what throwing a challenge means.
Credits. Oh, Aaron. How muddy you were.
When we return from commercials, Fei Long (plus James) is pulling up to the tea house on their boat. As they walk toward it, J-R interviews that they were mighty excited about this reward, including the snack and the showers. He calls the place "a sweet spot in the middle of nowhere," and he also praises the view. They finally arrive at the actual tea house, where they encounter toothbrushes and two carefully displayed tubes of product-placed toothpaste. And don't forget the tower of Charmin! Seriously, there's about one roll per person here, so...I don't know how much these people are presumed to need to go, but unless they're planning a bridal-shower game where you make your own wedding dress, I think they're covered. The snack is delivered, and it turns out to include fruit, as well as something that kind of looks like granola bars. They drink tea, and Todd joyfully interviews that it was a great time for all of them.
Fei Long members lower themselves into individual outdoor bathtubs for a soak. (Well, except for Courtney and Amanda, who decide to share.) I wish they'd taken showers first, which it looks like at least some of them didn't, because...this way, when you start off this dirty, you really are kind of poaching in your own filth. Not to take away from the therapeutic nature of a soaking tub, but generally, my feeling is that if you actually start off dirty, you should shower first, or else…ick. Anyway, it doesn't seem to bother them, and they frolic about with the soap and shampoo. Eventually, food and tea are delivered while they're in the tub -- a pretty nice perk -- and it's almost more than they can bear.
Naturally, J-R makes a remark about looking at Courtney and Amanda in the tub, and Courtney interviews that she pretty much set herself up as far from J-R as possible. Courtney really does look terrifyingly skinny at this point, which is neither here nor there, but she's lucky nobody has tried to use her to hold up the tribe flag. "He's a horrible person," she says of J-R. It does look like there's at least a shower available, because Amanda and Courtney are watching appreciatively as James faces his bare ass to them while using a nearby outdoor shower. (As was pointed out to me, yes, there's something to the idea that they're ogling just we heard Courtney express dislike for being ogled, but I don't think the ogling from J-R would be as problematic if he hadn't been inappropriately touchy earlier in the season. There are okay ways and less-okay ways to openly appreciate people's attractiveness, it seems to me. Nevertheless: point taken.) Amanda giggles that watching James's magnificent bod as he lathered up in the shower was not exactly the toughest assignment she's ever pulled. I'm sure that's true.
Zhan Hu. Day 17. Misery. It turns out that all of a sudden, these people can't stand the feeling of constantly losing, even though...they lost voluntarily, like, literally yesterday. Peih-Gee announces that she feels gross and discouraged for the first time since she's been in the game. Jaime, for her part, says she's "sick of this place." Peih-Gee and Jaime reveal some of the cause for their bummed-ness when they bring up the fact that Frosti wouldn't look them in the eye at the immunity challenge, and Peih-Gee adds that Sherea didn't give her much of a reaction when she mentioned keeping up their old Zhan Hu alliance. Jaime interviews that she and Peih-Gee (and sort of Erik, though...he didn't know about it) are so eager to keep Frosti and Sherea around that they threw a challenge for them. Of course, they ultimately threw it for themselves, so the idea that they did anything for Frosti and Sherea is kind of bullshit. But in any event, there's no guarantee that they're going to be able to reconnect with their old tribal alliance. Of course, as one of the EEFPs pointed out this week, that only affects the advisability of their strategic challenge-throw if they're worse off because of it, which they're not. I don't believe Aaron was ever going to do anything except wait for a merge and go right back to his old bonds, and I don't think James will align with anyone except maybe Denise. That means that once this tribal split happened, if Sherea and Frosti were going to go over to become Fei Long partisans, the Erik/Peih-Gee/Jaime pod was fucked anyway. Winning that challenge and securing the ouster of (probably) Sherea wouldn't have helped them either. "We have to win immunity," Jaime eventually says to Erik and Peih-Gee, apparently giving up on last week's strategy after being stiff-armed by Frosti and Sherea at the challenge.
Tea house. In robes, folks are showering and brushing teeth. Todd explains to us that he sometimes feels like he's the only guy with any strategy. Well, yes. He would. He's certainly the only guy who likes to talk this much about how brilliant his strategy is. Todd approaches James and stage-whispers that they'll talk about the sealed clue tomorrow. James doesn't get this at all, but Todd promises that there's a plan, and it's going to save James, and he'll tell James about it later. (Kinda like...Nixon, really.) James goes off and opens the sealed tube, learning that it contains a clue to the hidden immunity idol, but also that he has to give the sealed clue to someone on the opposing -- well, "opposing" -- tribe. James tells us that he's rolling the dice with Todd, hoping for the best, and he figures he's kind of screwed anyway, so there's no reason not to.
Fei Long, Day 18. Todd and James take a walk. James hands over the clue, and Todd promises that he'll share with James everything that's in the clue, and together, they'll find the idol. When Todd reads it, it only underlines again that the immunity idol is the plaque over the arch that's at camp. Todd tells us with a chuckle that he knows just what he's looking for -- it's the plaque of the bats flying. Back at camp with the group, Todd "casually" stares at the arch, which has a kind of hut structure over it, but that structure is falling apart, so Amanda is "casually" picking the shingles off in an effort to distract everyone so that Todd can grab the idol. Frosti unexpectedly comes over, in an apparently genuine attempt to be helpful, and he shimmies to the top of the arch and starts prying the shingles off. Todd interviews with wide eyes that he freaked out, sure that Frosti was somehow going to wind up either seeing or grabbing the idol. And then Todd "casually" reaches up and, in front of everyone, pries the square plaque right off the arch. Amanda tries "casually" standing on it to delay the inevitable, but Frosti is very curious, and keeps wanting to see what they pulled down. "All I could think was 'Frosti, Frosti, no!'" says Todd. I know people who have similar conversations with their cats.
Post-commercials, we're back at Fei Long, where Todd and Amanda have managed to drag Frosti away from everyone, along with the square plaque. Down by the water, Todd says to Frosti, "If I can't trust you right now, I will kill you." Wow, intense. Somehow, I think your first murder should be committed with fewer cameras around. He goes on to show Frosti the plaque, the back of which reads, "Congratulations. You've found the hidden immunity idol." Frosti freaks out and immediately swears that he had no idea that was what they were doing up there. Todd looks to Amanda and tells her that they have no choice at this point but to trust Frosti. Frosti interviews that this "cements [his] place in their little group," and...I have no idea why he would think that. Why wouldn't it just mean they'd boot him even sooner before he had a chance to spill the beans? They're not giving him the idol. The fact that he knows they have it doesn't really do anything to protect him, does it?
Now, James comes to talk to Todd. Todd gives him the idol and a set of instructions. What James is supposed to do is take the idol, go back and lose the challenge on purpose, and then use his one vote to evict Jaime, since when he turns up with the idol, the presumed Fei Long votes against him will be nullified. James says that the losing part should be easy, since Zhan Hu is throwing everything anyway. Heh. You know, as mastermind-y as Todd clearly thinks this is, I really…don't get it. I don't see how saving James is this important to Todd's game. Like, so important that it's better than keeping the idol for himself. I mean, James is great in challenges, but I don't for a minute think, with this many people left and James so unpredictable, that keeping him in the game is so important to Todd's survival that this is a better move for Todd than just keeping the idol.
Furthermore, it doesn't seem to occur to Todd that once James has the idol in hand, he's not going to have much of an incentive to follow the plan and throw the challenge. Why wouldn't he just try to win the challenge, meaning that Fei Long can vote off Sherea -- who's not on James's side anyway -- and James can keep the idol for another round? Todd's insistence that it will be a coup to oust Jaime, who isn't tricky enough to throw a challenge without giggling, or that it's critical to break up her bond with Erik, which so far has been a bond forged in the fires of relentlessly losing, just doesn't make any sense to me. And if what Erik wants to do is get rid of an old Zhan Hu, what exactly is the purpose of doing it this way, rather than…throwing the challenge? Isn't the entire point of what Todd is doing simply to aim at the other "team" in the grander sense? Isn't it an overly complicated version of what Jaime and Peih-Gee did last week: manufacturing a loss when you can control the outcome, in order to oust a particular person? Why isn't the easier way to do that simply to have Fei Long lose and oust Sherea or Frosti? I mean, sure, this way, Todd doesn't have to go to tribal council and take even the tiniest risk of being voted off, but you know what else would protect him from being voted off? Keeping the idol. I just think this move is more...it's more flashy than it's actually smart.
To sum up: I guess my question is, how is Todd better off with (1) his idol gone and (2) Jaime evicted this week and (3) super-strong James buoyed by an individual immunity idol than he would be with (1) his idol in his pocket and (2) Sherea evicted this week and (3) James eligible to be freely bounced at the right moment before he starts crashing through individual immunities?
But the plan sure makes sense to Todd, who is so convinced he's a genius that he easily convinces James to go along. Todd also tells James to grab the second idol from the equivalent spot at Zhan Hu if it turns out to be there. Because...what you really want is for the strongest physical player in the game to have custody of two immunity idols. Is he high? When exactly does Todd see James being eliminated from the game? James tells us, quite logically, that this is going to work out pretty great for him, honestly. Indeed. Both idols? Good times!
And now, because Todd has a pathological need to dictate his tell-all book as he goes, he takes Denise aside and tells her about the plan for James to throw the challenge and get rid of Jaime using the idol. "James knows to throw the challenge," Todd tells her. Denise tells us that this works fine for her, because she never gives less than "110 percent" in a challenge anyway. Todd takes Courtney aside and tells her what's going on, interviewing that the purpose of these conversations was to explain how important it was to try really hard for immunity. Todd also says that Courtney and Denise have to try extra-hard to win, especially if Zhan Hu is trying to lose...and that's the opposite of true, of course, which is how you can tell he's a bit lost in his overstrategizing. It's less important, not more important, for Courtney and Denise to try hard if Zhan Hu is trying to lose.
Immunity challenge. James is sent back to Zhan Hu for the challenge, and Jeff takes back immunity from Todd. You wanted it, you waited for it, and now it's here: gross food. Or, as Jeff says it, "traditional Chinese dishes." You'll recall that Courtney, Amanda, and Denise all sat out last time, so they can't sit out this time. I hope the toilet paper was enjoyable, because that's where they put the challenge muscle this week. So those three women all have to play, which means only one other person gets to play, and that person is Frosti, who I will say...has a hell of a tongue.
Frosti and Peih-Gee versus chicken hearts. Ten each. It's quite close, but Frosti edges her out, and Fei Long is up one to nothing. Jaime and Courtney versus eel. For a girl who seriously looks like she's going to throw up the entire time, Courtney puts up a good fight. Jaime also looks like she might throw up, which Denise loudly encourages (using her lunch-lady skills, undoubtedly, to induce vomiting), but Jaime pulls through, so now it's tied. And Courtney opens her mouth wide and expels a giant wad of chewed-up eel, and that is a truly gross display. , Erik and Amanda versus some shell-on baby turtles. As others have noted, though, the baby turtles aren't nearly as big in reality as they look when they're on the plate. They're sort of small canapés. This one is also close, but it's ultimately Erik who takes it, putting Zhan Hu up by a score of 2-1.
up are Denise and James, who both want the same thing -- for Denise to take this round. Zhan Hu is ahead, and that's not the way this is supposed to go. But this time around, they are facing...balut! Our old friend the chicken fetus. With feathers. When the start bell goes, Denise really, really tries. And James really, really tries to fake trying. But she…can't…eat…the…chicken…fetuses. She can't choke down the feathers. The minutes stretch out, and James's teammates, confused, encourage him to do something -- take tiny bites or something, because she clearly cannot do it. Ultimately, when Jeff starts to ask if Denise is going to just give up, she looks at James -- her one friend, whose one friend she is -- somewhat pleadingly. He finally "gives up" on giving up and eats his balut. So now, Zhan Hu is up 3-1. It's interesting to ponder what motivated James there. Friendship toward Denise and a desire not to force her into folding? A realization that it really didn't make any sense for him to throw the challenge instead of just keeping the idol? A double-cross of Todd? Not sure.
In the final battle, Erik goes up against Frosti to eat a thousand-year-old egg -- a battle you'd think Frosti might win, based on past performances. But it doesn't happen. Instead, Erik aces him out by about half a second, and Zhan Hu wins immunity. So...that's not what was planned at all. Todd looks miserable. His plan! His wonderful, beautiful plan!
Fei Long, still Day 18. They return to camp, with Todd in the front of the line, and they look miserable. J-R tries to reassure Denise, telling her that her challenge food was definitely the worst. Since he didn't have to do anything, I'm not sure he knows what was the worst. Denise is feeling low, and she tells everyone how sorry she is. In an interview that she conducts under the gaze of a fairly creepy statue, Denise says with good humor that James was certainly trying like hell to go as slowly as he could so that she could take the round, but she just couldn't swallow the balut. Unsurprisingly, Todd spends his interview contemplating his "perfect plan" and "genius idea," and how it was utterly destroyed. He says, however, that they're trying to be upbeat and keep in mind that they can bounce "one of the old Zhan Hu" and "still have [their] numbers." Causing me to wonder again: if that's true, why did he give up something as valuable as the idol? Just to get rid of Jaime instead of Sherea? I just don't get it. The fact that he came up with a plan to create an outcome that was otherwise unlikely doesn't necessarily make that plan smart. In other words, manipulating the outcome doesn't necessarily mean you've manipulated it to your own benefit.
Todd, Amanda, and Denise have a little chat by the water well, in which they reassure themselves that when you add Courtney and James, they have a group of five, and Todd thinks Frosti will stay with them, so that's six. "We need him to trust us," Todd says. (Why? Because he knows about the idol? Which you don't have anymore?) Courtney wanders up to the discussion (saying she's also "coming to get water," complete with finger quotes, heh), and the four of them agree to boot Sherea, with Amanda using as supporting evidence the fact that Sherea has no friends. This would strike me as a reason to boot someone other than Sherea, not a reason to boot Sherea, but the little group seems settled on it.
But of course, as she thinks about it, Courtney starts to have doubts about voting off Sherea instead of, oh, say, just as a for-instance...her archenemy Jean-Robert. She goes to Sherea and reveals to her that Todd and Amanda are pushing to vote for Sherea, but Courtney, personally, is voting J-R. Courtney tells Sherea that she wouldn't boot anybody from the game who prefers her to J-R. Sherea interviews that she's clearly in trouble, but she thinks the people in Fei Long would be well served to look to each other as threats, and not just to her.
Todd, Amanda, and Frosti are splashing around in shallow water, with Courtney up on shore nearby. As they all reassure themselves that voting out Sherea is the thing to do, Courtney throws in, "Unless we vote for Jean-Robert." And what's her reasoning? "He hates me." That is not the best argument I've ever heard. Amanda says that it's better to stick with the original Fei Long, although she doesn't really say why. She also says that "it has to be Frosti or Sherea" right in front of Frosti, which I would think isn't necessarily wise. Why would she imply in front of him that she still sees the original tribes as the basic structure of the natural alliances? Courtney continues with the "he hates me" line of argument, saying that Jean-Robert would vote her out more quickly than Sherea would. Again, Courtney, you have to tell them why what you want them to do is better for them, not why it's better for you. Amanda tells her that eventually, it'll be "down to our people," but for the moment, it's "bigger picture." This is, like, a clash of two people whose strategy talk doesn't make any sense. Courtney somewhat bitchily points out that all the plotting and scheming and "big picture" talk is a little hollow, since Todd's genius plan for today didn't go so well. As she puts it -- and she's right -- "Now James has the immunity thing for no reason." Todd assures her he's "a little upset about that." Courtney tells Todd that "there's only so much planning you can do," which I think is a great point, if perhaps not the way she means it.
Jean-Robert bathes nearby. He interviews that he prefers to go with his gut instinct, and up until now, he's felt pretty okay about his position. He says that now, however, he's beginning to get a vague, gut feeling that something isn't right. Maybe it's the fact that he's being excluded from all the meetings taking place between losing immunity and going to tribal council. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. J-R says that the plan had been to get rid of Sherea, but he's "uneasy right now."
Todd and Amanda have a little talk in which he tells her that he thinks that maybe they should vote out J-R, since it's "what people want" and he and Amanda don't want to come off like "power players." It's a little late to avoid that, kiddo, now that you came up with this "brilliant" immunity-idol-manipulating plan. He also says that J-R will eventually turn on them, to which Amanda replies that Sherea will turn on them, too. With little discussion of anything other than their respective guts, they determine that they simply disagree: her gut says to oust Sherea; his gut says to oust Jean-Robert. Amanda says that it's a question of whom they can "trust more." Which...why is that what it's about? If indeed they think they have an alliance of six (Denise, Courtney, Frosti, James), then it's not about trusting either Jean-Robert or Sherea. You don't have to be in an alliance with everyone; it's not the high-school yearbook.
Tribal council. Jeff opens by saying it's harder to get along when you lose, which...good one? He asks Sherea how she was feeling after they lost the challenge, and she says it was all "shadiness," with people taking each other off to go talk in little groups. Jeff asks if the game changes over the course of a season, and J-R says that he's "a changed person," because sometimes he gets water or cooks! Isn't that wonderful? Courtney's eyes roll so far back in her head they may tumble into the fire pit. Sherea quite correctly is like, "What? Did anybody ask you about whether you do chores?" Because she's totally right that Jeff asked if the game changed, and J-R mangled the question to make it an opportunity to remind everyone that he's not as irredeemably lazy as he used to be. But unfortunately, she can't keep her powder dry, so she goes on an unfortunate rant about him instead of just making her point, being right, and shutting up. She ends her speech with, "Little do you know, they don't like you." Jeff asks if Jean-Robert would be surprised to find out that his tribemates don't like him. J-R actually says that this is all part of the life of a "bad boy," and he refers to himself as a "bad boy." That is so grotesque. The fact that poker commentators call you that doesn't make it acceptable to call yourself that. It's really just...sad.
Jeff Probst, for the second week in a row, makes a really inappropriate attempt to influence the game and boost certain players over others when he interprets Courtney's amused grin at J-R's "I'm a bad boy speech" by announcing that her look is "very smug." Her look isn't "smug," Jeff; she can't believe a grown man is referring to himself as a "bad boy." Why is he endeavoring so hard this year to make all the women look bad? Is he finally going to crack this season and just start telling them all that they should quit the game and let the money go to a big, deserving man like Jean-Robert? Courtney explains that she's just laughing at the "bad boy" thing, mocking him for thinking he's a "bad boy" because he plays poker, and closing with this gem: "Who do you think you are, Luke Perry?" HA HA! Well played, Courtney. Well played. Courtney tells Jeff that she and J-R don't get along, she's tired of his self-righteous judging of everyone, and he's "a crappy person." These people really could use a seminar in team-building. Courtney also makes a reference to being in a sort of "observer" position, since she sees herself as something of an outsider in the tribe. Todd bristles, and when called upon, he expresses his pain and hurt that Courtney feels like an outsider when he loves her so much. Too much, Todd: dial it way back.
Voting. J-R and Sherea vote for each other. Jeff takes the votes off to read. There are two for Jean-Robert, but there are four for Sherea (or various spellings of her name), so she goes over and is snuffed. That's been coming for a while, frankly. When she's gone, Jeff says absolutely nothing inspirational to the tribe. Apparently, he spent the week on the bruising speech he was going to give Zhan Hu if they had the nerve to boot a big strong guy for the second straight week just by being great big quitters.
In her parting words, Sherea says that she's fine with everything (which: oh, she's so not), but she hopes that the people who screwed her get screwed back. She adds that she knows the reason they got rid of her was that she was such a threat. Oh, Sherea. Way to pack in those clichés on your way out the door.
week: they'd like you to think maybe Erik and Jaime find the idol, but if the idols are really identical, that thing Erik is holding ain't it. The thing James pulls down? That's it. So Todd's "genius" plan is going to result in the obvious immunity monster holding not one but two immunity idols in his hands. Good one, "genius." And Jeff tells everyone to drop their buffs, but there is almost certainly not a merge.