At Zhan Hu, Todd's brilliant plan to give the strongest person in the game access to two immunity idols "pays off" when James finds the second one. But he has to pull down two plaques to find it, one of which is basically the same as the idol, only without the printed words on the back identifying it as such. Because he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, James leaves the extra plaque lying in the middle of camp, where Jaime and Erik find it after Jaime notices that the plaques have been removed from the archway. They deduce that the plaques were related to the hidden immunity idols, and they further deduce (correctly) that James removed them while idol-hunting. While James is gone, Jaime looks in his bag and finds that he's got two of the plaques in there, wrapped up in his clothes. Most likely because the rules don't allow you to steal hidden idols -- a fact that the show chooses to leave out, because it doesn't fit the "blonde girls sure are dumb!" script they're pitching this week -- Jaime returns James's idols to his stuff, either without finishing unwrapping them fully (since she could feel what they were) or without seeing in the dark that they have writing on the back identifying them as idols. While she knows it's a longshot and might well not be the idol, Jaime decides to keep the discarded plaque anyway. James sort of figures out what happened, and instead of laughing at himself for being so dumb that he left the blank idol out, thus completely blowing his own cover and revealing to the rest of Zhan Hu that he had both idols, he laughs hysterically at Jaime -- to everyone who will listen, all episode long -- for thinking that something that's identical to the idol but for writing she doesn't know is supposed to be there might be the idol. Considering that she put the entire thing together on her own, and he had it literally handed to him by someone else, you'd think maybe he'd be less smug, but...no. When the tribes merge, everything Peih-Gee and Jaime figured would happen immediately happens when James goes back to his Fei Long family (as Aaron would have). Frosti wins individual immunity, and Fei Long targets Jaime. She tries to use her maybe-idol to bluff and get the attention off herself, but nothing doing. At tribal council, Jeff Probst's girl-hating dreams come true when Jaime presents the plaque, saying she found it lying around and thought it might be immunity. When he mockingly hurls it into the fire, it's clear that he's never had more fun in his life. Jaime is sent home, and somehow, I don't doubt that Jeff Probst believes that this is the result of throwing the challenge, even though it's not. Despite the fact that Jaime is clearly, obviously not at all stupid -- right down to the challenge throw, a strategy utterly validated by everything that happened in this episode -- the show is determined, because she is young and blonde and pretty and made the mistake of saying in an interview that she's not dumb, to proclaim her stupid. So they do, pretty much, which is depressing and lame, and while the show is getting more interesting, this episode was kind of uncomfortable, really. (Which you will read more about in the full recap in a few days, because Survivor is returning to full recaps, rather than weecaps, effective this week.)
Previously on My First Weapon Is Fear! Fear And Throwing The Idol At You: James had big trouble at little Zhan Hu, which seemed set on losing another immunity challenge and tossing him, just as they had with Aaron. But he got a reprieve when Sherea and Frosti were overly frosty to their former tribe during the reward challenge, leading Jaime, Erik, and Peih-Gee to conclude that they'd be better off trying to recruit the grouchy and possibly unaffiliated gravedigger than booting him and hoping to get back with Sherea and Frosti. When Fei Long won the reward, they kidnapped James and took him back to their camp, where Todd unleashed his "plan," which he based on the interesting "theory" that the best thing to do with a big, strong guy who keeps winning all the challenges is to "give" him two "immunity" "idols." There certainly seemed to be Phoebe Buffay levels of "oh, don't worry -- he's going somewhere with this" required to digest this plan without laughing, but Todd was certainly quite confident. Showing his clearest signs yet of non-genius, Todd impatiently removed the immunity idol from its hiding place with a bunch of people watching, then handed it to James with instructions to throw the immunity challenge, wait for Zhan Hu to try to boot him, and to put the rebound vote on Jaime. On top of that, for no apparent reason, Todd instructed James about where to find the matching idol at Zhan Hu's camp. But when Denise couldn't down the famous Chicken Fetus Served With Embryonic Slime And Attached Feathers (a food I'm still not sure they didn't make up while stoned and listening to Pink Floyd) and several others failed to pull their gobbling weight, Fei Long couldn't even win the challenge when James was trying to throw it, so it was Fei Long headed to tribal council. To no one's surprise, and with only Courtney's squeaky hatred of Jean-Robert providing any resistance whatsoever, Fei Long ousted Sherea. And James now had the immunity idol -- and potentially another immunity idol -- for nothing. Slow clap, there, Friendly Skies. Way to give away the only barf bag right before the big turbulence, if you get my meaning.
Fei Long, Night 18. In night vision, the members of the tribe are attempting to sleep, but Jean-Robert is taking the opportunity to complain about the "tension" directed at him during tribal council, claiming that he didn't know a thing about it. He is innocent! He raises you ten dollars! Amanda tells J-R that what's going on with him is his problem to solve with Courtney. This is kind of rotten of Amanda, really, considering that Amanda has complained just as Courtney has about J-R being creepy, and if she's decided not to pursue it, that's fine, but acting like they just have a disagreement when she knows that Courtney actually feels uncomfortable with him (as I seem to recall Amanda did herself) is pretty...unfortunate. Todd, his head covered in a kerchief, announces that he likes the person Jean-Robert has showed that he "can be." In other words: "I dislike you, but occasionally, I have had a flicker of disliking you somewhat less." Is that supposed to be diplomacy? Because it sure smells like bullshit. Todd refers to the Courtney/J-R business as "a tiff," and says that it's up to them to resolve it or not. Of course, you'd think that since it has the potential to interfere with Todd's plan, he'd take more of an interest, but he doesn't, because...he's not a big thinker, so much as he is a very, very big talker. Courtney interviews that J-R treats her like shit, and that even the people who are trying to pretend to be her friends still "suck up to" him, so she knows they don't actually give a damn about her. She finger-quotes not only "friends" here, but also "Todd and Amanda," like, "IF THOSE ARE YOUR REAL NAMES." She says those two are just the ones she dislikes the least, and that they seem to mistake that for friendship. Heh. She pauses, taking a full beat or two before breaking out into a kind of creepy grin. I don't like her at all, really, but I don't really blame her for not being all that impressed by the entirely transparent efforts by Todd and Amanda to "befriend" her for the sole purpose of telling her what to do. The thing that's kind of sad about that, of course, is that Todd was right there when J-R was being all vile about Courtney being kept around to be fucked, basically, and Todd saw her cringe and vow not to sleep near J.R. again, and he looked right into the camera and vowed to get rid of those guys, saying he would "take out the trash." Remember? I think that's part of why this is happening: if Todd was saying that to us, he was undoubtedly saying it to her, and I think Courtney believed him that he was going to take up for her because of the personal shit being directed at her, and Todd totally flaked on that, and I think it hurt her feelings. I mean, she should have been more realistic, but she didn't make this up, this idea that there was originally a sense that they were her friends and that they were going to back her up.
Credits. Wait, what country is this again? Don't tell me. I'll get it.
Zhan Hu, Day 19. James takes a slug from a canteen while Peih-Gee sits in the shelter behind him. Peih-Gee tells James that she hopes he trusts them now, and reminds him that they told him they'd stick with him. Which I'm sure they did, particularly once they figured out that getting the old band back together to sing a few bars of "Zhan Hu Forever" was not happening. James seems skeptical, and when Peih-Gee claims that she and Erik and Jaime are "loyal," he says he thinks they're "loyal to each other." Peih-Gee urges him not to "let [her] down," which he finds fairly humorous, and she says that they all need to stick together. What I think is so weird about these discussions is that there's so much abstract talk of "loyalty" without any discussion of what that means. Like, what is Peih-Gee trying to tell James here? As we've discussed in this space before, game trust doesn't require anyone to think you feel any personal loyalty toward him. He only has to believe that you have a plan to go forward in a way that will benefit both him and you, and that that's the plan you're going to follow. I don't understand what Peih-Gee's saying the plan is in the event of a merge. If Sherea's gone, which Peih-Gee has to know is likely, what's the plan? Peih-Gee, Erik, Jaime, James, and Frosti? Because that's a tie, and nobody's signing up for a tie instead of being part of a 6-4 majority. If Peih-Gee wants this to work, she needs to be presenting a plan, not just "we're sticking with you." But she tells James that, in the event of a merge, she'd be willing to sacrifice an old Zhan Hu member for him, but that's even dumber, because in what scenario would that be helpful? Peih-Gee tells James that she likes him, and...again, don't tell him you like him. Tell him what the plan is. As James eyeballs the archway with the idol plates over it, Peih-Gee voices over that her gut is telling her to trust James at this point. Peih-Gee goes to sit with Jaime and Erik, and of course, James is eager to go after the idol.
And go after the idol he does. Jaime, Erik, and Peih-Gee chat by the water as James oh-so-casually reaches up and pulls down one of the two plaques from the arch. It's kind of an advantage here to be enormously tall. When the plaque doesn't have anything written on the back (as the other one Todd gave him did), James throws it on the ground and goes after the second one, which has the right message ("Congratulations," etc.) on the back. Rather stupidly, however, James leaves the other one -- the blank plaque he pulled down -- lying on the ground in plain sight, sort of drawing attention to what he did. He claimed that he wouldn't be impatient, but I have to think he could have gotten enough time to allow him to put the dummy one back up, which might have opened up a claim that the other one just fell off, thus not calling quite so much attention to what he'd grabbed.
Fei Long, Day 19. Frosti and Jean-Robert are out catching fish in a net, and the others are sitting around the morning fire. Todd complains about the fact that Courtney came up and was acting like she was unhappy. That darn Courtney, having non-Todd-approved feelings! She tells the team that the reason she's upset is that they had an opportunity to get rid of Jean-Robert, and they didn't take it. Todd tells Courtney that he needs J-R for his game, even if Courtney doesn't. Now, this presumably frees up Courtney to vote for whomever she thinks is best for her game, not the person Todd needs for his game, right? I'd think so. Courtney counters that she told Todd and Amanda that J-R treated her like crap, and that they didn't stick up for her at all. It's interesting -- I think that here, she's upset about the vote, but that she's more upset about the fact that she feels like she told them that Jean-Robert's really nasty to her, and they all steadily remain neutral, despite (as with Amanda) knowing that he's a dick. Obviously, Courtney can't expect people to vote the way she wants them to just because she doesn't like someone, and that they all have to play the game, but I think I get what she's saying, which is that she wishes they'd back her up on the stuff that's bothering her. Todd whines to Courtney that they can't let Jean-Robert know that they don't like him, but he manages to do it in a way that's technically right, but...sort of as unhelpful as possible. In an interview, Todd finally catches his snap and says that it could be a problem if Courtney is determined always to vote against Jean-Robert, if the other tribe comes over and learns that and starts something to get him out. Wait, you mean it would have been smarter to treat Courtney a little less like you could take for granted that she would do whatever you said? Hmm, yes, I think that would have been smarter! Todd, Todd -- don't tell me you're not a genius, because it will break my heart. In an interview in which he clearly expects to come off differently than he does (namely: put-upon instead of mean and assy), Todd imperiously lectures that he needs J-R for his game, so Courtney had better shut up and "deal with it." And then he pauses, looks into the camera, and says -- without a hint of humor, and with all the anger that every fratty asshole has ever put into the word -- "Bitch." That was an interesting and ugly flash right there. There's a sort of fun, non-angry way to say "bitch," and there's a really mean, borderline hateful way to say "bitch," and his was emphatically the second one, which surprised me. It's kind of...uncomfortable. I'd love to see how Todd would behave if he were being treated the way Courtney is being treated. I'd love to see whether he'd calmly accept that nobody would stand up for him, or whether he'd calmly accept someone referring to him with seething anger as "bitch." Furthermore, as already pointed out, he said he was going to take care of this. He told her, undoubtedly, that he was going to get rid of those guys, so I'm not sure why he's rolling his eyes all over the place at the fact that she apparently took him seriously. I don't think he has to do it, but it's not like she came up herself with the idea that he would do something to "take out the trash" (as he put it) for her.
Over at Zhan Hu, James strolls out to the water (perhaps he needs to bury a dead thing every few days, or the voices start again), leaving Jaime and Peih-Gee back at camp, where Jaime -- stupid old Jaime, dumb as a box of hair! -- notices that the plaques have been removed from the archway. Erik wanders over and finds the plaque that James left lying on the ground. In an interview, he holds it up to the camera, kind of, "Erm...soooo...," with the squinty eyes that are quite fetching, pointing out that the thing looks vaguely idol-like, and that it appears that someone removed it. He's not sure whether the remover was James, who would logically know about the hidden idol from being kidnapped. Jaime and Erik decide to take the thing, thinking it might logically be an idol. Jaime -- stupid Jaime, dumb as a bag of hammers! -- points out in an interview that the symbols on the plaque are such that it could easily read "immunity idol" in Chinese, and that it's not like she would be able to read it. It's so sad, because that's exactly the kind of corny thing the show would totally do, too, and then they'd have Jeff Probst do a big reveal where a 114-year-old monk reads it in Chinese, and then hands it to an athlete in traditional dress who runs it across a field to a group of small children who shout aloud in English: "IMMUNI-TY I-DOL!" Don't play; you know it could happen. We'd be lucky if no fortune cookie made an appearance.
That night, Jaime goes through James's bag, hoping to find something. Interestingly, as we've discussed in the past, reactions to going through people's stuff tend to be highly specific to the circumstances and the person; surprisingly, there's not always much huffiness about the sacredness of anyone's belongings unless it's someone you like. The advent of the hidden idols seems to have caused a lot of these folks to see each other's possessions as somewhat less sacrosanct than before. But right or wrong (more of the latter), in the darkness, Jamie goes through the bag enough to ascertain that James has two of the squares like the one she and Erik have, which are wrapped in his clothes. She knows that James was just kidnapped, so she knows he has fairly well-developed information about the hidden idols, so if he has these wrapped up, she's pretty confident that idols are what they are. "He has two of them," she emphasizes to Erik. So she knows that James has taken down three things that she knows are similar, and that he's hidden two of them and left one out. Perplexing.
The day, James looks around camp as he voices over that he had pulled down the first plaque and not bothered to conceal it anywhere, so he was surprised to find that it was no longer where he left it. He puts together that this could mean that someone in camp has it and believes it to be an idol. James stresses in his interview that it would be incredibly stupid -- stupid Jaime, dumb as a festival of paper clips! -- to think that an idol wouldn't say immunity on it. He's right, except in the sense that he may have missed the seasons of the show in which the immunity idol never said "immunity" on it, but instead came with notes or instructions with it -- which, presumably, someone would assume were gone if they believed you found the idol, and which certainly wouldn't be a good reason on its own to reject something that fit all the other clues. The irony of this is that the show constantly does that spooky-threat thing where Jeff cautions people not to assume anything, like it's a constantly evolving Rube Goldberg device with a twist around every corner, when, in fact, you can usually assume lots and lots of things. What's killing Jaime here is that she's not assuming anything. She's not assuming that there couldn't be three idols, she's not assuming that the idol would have to have "idol" printed on it in English, and she's not assuming that the fact that it wasn't concealed means it couldn't possibly be the idol. That last one she kind of has to handle that way, since otherwise, you could hide any idol simply by leaving it out in plain sight, so you can't assume that just because you find it, it can't be an idol.
James -- quite understandably, given the fact that the other members of Zhan Hu were trying at one point to throw challenges to eliminate him -- says it would thrill him to no end if Jaime has a fake one and thinks it's a real one. He giggles at the very thought of her trying unsuccessfully to play it at tribal council. I certainly don't blame him for relishing the thought of her losing out, with the caveat that you always have to beware that you don't put too much of a karmic whammy on yourself while trying to deliver one to someone else. James is the very picture of a very, very happy giant gravedigger.
Now, we are in a clearing with two mats, where Jeff Probst brings in the members of both tribes. Jeff tries to say something serious about The Art Of War, because he thinks that this kind of talk will conceal the fact that he shops online and not at a wilderness store guarded by tigers that he personally stabs with small blades so he can retrieve the perfect cargo pants. But the reference to war (not to mention art) makes no sense, because this is nothing more or less than the blandest of Survivor merge sequences, in which Jeff's like, "Um, so, you're merged! Put your buffs down!" Somehow, I think Jeff doesn't bring me flowers anymore, metaphorically speaking.
Incidentally, let's review Jeff's words of ominous portent when Jaime and Peih-Gee decided to throw the challenge. He told them that it was very dangerous to assume anything, and he clearly implied that they were fools to think they knew how the game was going to progress. Of course, they didn't assume so much as they gambled, but they did gamble. And what did they gamble on? They gambled that there would likely be a merge with ten people left: true. They gambled that there would be two challenges in which people could be booted before that merge occurred: true. They gambled that the challenges would proceed normally, with one person being voted off by the losing tribe: true. They gambled that James would return to Fei Long as soon as the merge occurred: true [spoiler!]. They gambled that Aaron would also have returned to Fei Long as soon as the merge occurred: impossible to prove absolutely, but I'm going to say almost definitely true. They gambled that Fei Long's first boot in the event they lost would be Sherea or Frosti: true. They gambled that if Fei Long had been required to boot two people, the second would have been whichever of Sherea and Frosti wasn't the first boot: based on this episode and the comments made therein, true. In short, Jaime and Peih-Gee gambled that if they were to win the two challenges, there would be three former Zhan Hu against five former Fei Long after a merge, but that if they were to lose the two challenges, it would be five former Fei Long against five former Zhan Hu at the merge, giving them a better chance of success. This was...fundamentally true. They gambled that they were more likely -- not guaranteed, just more likely -- to get traction with Frosti and Sherea than with James and Aaron, which I also think is true. So what the hell was Jeff Probst talking about? It appears now that his efforts to scoff, which he pretended were based on something he knew that we didn't, apparently were just bitter bacon over his love of James and Aaron, typical of his freaky devotion to big "manly" men, and his pissy indignation that they were outmaneuvered by a couple of small women who don't win challenges. Boo-hoo, Jeff. Ozzy can't win every challenge every week, and Colby Donaldson doesn't even remember your number anymore. Might start making friends with some dudes your own age. I've heard there are some very active bowling leagues for seniors. And Sudoku wards off becoming addlepated. Just so you know.
Aaaanyway: merge! And immediately post-merge, Jaime gives an interview in which she says, among other things, that she's glad to have the hidden idol. Of course, if you read her post-boot interview, you know that they did this interview at the time of the merge (which seems clear anyway), when she did believe she had it, but that she later got hold of James's two idols between then and tribal council, saw the writing on them, and realized that she didn't have a real idol. But the show is riding pretty hard on the "pretty girls are stuuuupid; let's laugh at them extra-hard" train, so if that happened, they're certainly not going to show it. Jeff hands out the black buffs. Jeff somehow once again tries to call upon The Art Of War as the reason they're going to Fei Long's camp. I haven't read that book, but I never realized that it had this much to do with reality television.
Jeff sends the group off with a promise that, to celebrate the merge, they will first be attending a feast. And, he adds With Importance, they should remember while at the feast and the accompanying "cultural performances" that the game never stops. I wonder if Jeff knows that all performances are cultural. Apparently, for Jeff Probst, culture is divided into cultural culture and regular culture, depending on whether it takes place in a country other than Los Angeles. Jean-Robert assures us (after the fact, in a voice-over) that he was trying hard to figure out what that could possibly mean. Because, you see, Jean-Robert is a professional poker player, so when Jeff Probst glowers at him and starts talking like everything coming out of his mouth is being uttered from Eva Perón's balcony, Jean-Robert realizes that something is going on, because he knows people.
So the group gathers at some sort of...Pavilion of Production or something, where there are fireworks to kick off the celebration. Courtney interviews that she was super-excited about this, because (with appropriate thumb indicators) "Boo challenges, yay feast." Heh. Aside from the fact that she looks like her last feast was probably at her own sweet sixteen party and since then it's just been lettuce, it's a pretty good presentation of a hungry girl declaring that she's pro-food. The food is presented a little at a time (a combination of meat and vegetarian, just like college!), and everyone looks mighty hungry. (Insert your own "over there, they just call it 'food'" joke.) Courtney also tells us that they enjoyed their alcoholic beverages, but for some reason, during this part of the interview, her voice rises to a squeak that only dogs can hear. And not any dogs, either. Only small dogs. Seriously, I don't even know how she would do that to her voice on purpose, let alone apparently inadvertently. Yikes. Various women around the table do little Chinese shots, which gets them lots of encouragement from the men, who apparently think seeing girls drinking is endearing. Oh, sure. They feel that way now. Because they haven't met the right girls.
We watch a show by some Chinese acrobats bouncing one girl on a narrow pole, and...that looks hard. It looks...really hard. Jaime tells us that it was a lot of fun to have drinks and watch this really cool show. Plate-spinners! Contortionists! ("I could do that," James deadpans.) More fireworks! Dancers! Of course, Jean-Robert has to make smarmy remarks about the cultural dancers. He is representing us all! Amanda, meanwhile, makes clear in an interview that as far as she was concerned, the merge did nothing to change the fact that it was still all about original Zhan Hu versus original Fei Long. Funny how that fact that Jaime and Peih-Gee were counting on -- stupid Jaime, dumb as a mashed potato! -- hasn't changed.
Later, the merged tribe returns to camp, still on Day 20. Zhan Hu inspects the Fei Long shelter as J-R stretches out all over it, sure to stress that he can still lie around wherever he wants, likely with his grody paws all over his new tribemates, as well. Welcome, Jaime! J-R also voices over that for him as well, it's just old Zhan Hu versus old Fei Long, so the members of Zhan Hu are going either way. He also says that he doesn't anticipate any more votes against him at tribal council for a while.
The tribe brainstorms names, and after rejecting "Angry Monkey" (no kidding), they start talking about something having to do with the black buffs, and J-R hilariously notes that if they do anything with "black" in it, James will make them change the name. Hilarious! Frosti laughs and notes that he and Peih-Gee were on the yellow team. This discussion is so uncomfortable and fraught with peril, despite the fact that they're all laughing, that I was very eager for it to be over before anybody managed to put a big old foot in a mouth. Ultimately, they settle on, if you can believe it, Black Fighting Wind (in Chinese). Yes, that's right -- Black Fighting Wind. Sounds like karate and farting, and don't say you weren't thinking it, because I know you were. Peih-Gee notes here that there are six original Fei Long to four original Zhan Hu, and that's kind of the way she apparently sees the natural alliances as well. She adds that if she can get James and Frosti to go with her on the first couple of votes, she'll be in a good position, and if she can't, then...not so much.
In one of my favorite scenes of the episode, Jeff Probst pulls up in a boat, and as he disembarks, the contestants are all sort of looking over, not sure who it is, and don't really recognize him, because he's so...nondescript. Really, if he weren't Jeff Probst of Survivor, he'd be in the JC Penney circular. Surprise Dad This Father's Day! So Jeff, dissatisfied, actually starts demanding that they pay more attention to him, which is so...pathetic, really, and the contestants don't really do it anyway. There's a smattering of extremely weak applause, sort of, but everybody's just mostly like, "Oh, Jeff. He is a person I recognize and neither like nor dislike." He announces that he's brought something for them, and Denise awesomely asks, "Is it cookies?" Hee. Jeff assures her that it's not. What he has brought is the individual immunity necklace, because it's time for the challenge. As you probably guessed, the challenge is a memory test where they're going to be asked about details of the ceremony that they watched earlier. See, because the game never stops, you dig? You'll never get anywhere in this game if you don't listen to Jeff!
The contestants are all seated in a clearing. Jeff reminds them of his wise words from earlier, and then he explains the challenge. Frosti immediately declares that he's totally screwed, because he has a terrible memory. Jeff says that this is single-elimination, so for any wrong answer, you're bounced. Jeff asks whether anyone paid attention to details at the feast, and nobody did. That's kind of disappointing. It wasn't that hard, actually, to figure out what the deal was, so you'd think maybe at least one person would have caught on. (Not Jaime, dumb as a clothespin!) But...no.
The short version of this challenge is that it comes down to Jaime and Bad Memory Frosti. Wait, Jaime is one of the last two? But she's dumber than a jar of ski wax! Frosti takes the victory and the first individual immunity, in recognition of which he treats us to a little Frosti booty dance. I am always in favor of a booty dance. Frosti is intriguingly attractive, in an only partially obvious way. I think I would even overlook the fact that his name is Frosti.
So later, we are at Hae Da Fung (that's how the show is spelling it; whether that's the way it should be spelled is under discussion over in the forums if you want to poke that particular hornet's nest with the broomstick of your knowledge of Chinese), where Peih-Gee and James are sitting by the fire. She voices over that she knows that it's probably going to be her, Jaime, or Erik, since Frosti has immunity. She wants to know whether they have James's vote, and she's just not sure, even though he answers yes when she asks if they're "still cool." She says that, after this vote, it will be clear where everyone's loyalties are. I'd say that were true, if I didn't already think I knew where everyone's loyalties are.
James is not on Zhan Hu's side, judging by the discussion in which he joyfully tells Todd about the false idol he thinks somebody on the other side has. James also runs to Amanda with the story. Amanda interviews that the reason for targeting Jaime is that they believe her to be a "silent leader" of the other tribe. She thinks Peih-Gee is "devious," but not as threatening, because she's more obvious. Or something. Amanda does tell James, though, that she's concerned about what Courtney is going to do, because -- horrors! -- she has "a mind of her own." I hate it when people have those. I find it much more difficult to boss them around. Wait...you don't think that's what she means, do you?
James says he thinks that Courtney might flip, referring to her as "that little skinny bitch," which just adds to his collection of un-lovely remarks directed at women in this episode. He rather idiotically goes on to say that Courtney should be smarter, because she's from New York. Dude...I think that is the worst argument I've ever heard, and I've argued with reality-show contestants in person before. If people in New York were uniformly as crafty as all that, we'd have figured out how to get rid of unwanted items with a system slightly more sophisticated than "leave on sidewalk; run." James goes on to declare in an interview that Courtney "falls in love with any swinging Dick [dick?] or Harry that floats along and smiles at her." I don't really know what that comment is supposed to mean, but I'd strongly caution James about referring to women he barely knows "falling in love with any swinging dick" that comes by, because somebody's boyfriend is going to knock out a couple of his teeth, and rightly so. No matter how big you are, you're vulnerable to a cockpunch, because...that's kind of gross, in the sense of being vulgar, and I really wish we could get through just one conversation with this guy in which he expresses frustration with a woman without the sexist bullshit. There are several reasons to dislike Courtney, but the only person this discussion reflects upon poorly is James.
Off in the woods, J-R assures Todd that everything is going to be great, but adds that he'd like to see them get rid of Peih-Gee instead of Jaime, because Jaime's shady nature is well known, and J-R claims that he doesn't want to feel tempted to like Peih-Gee. Okay, now that's the weakest argument I've ever heard. I admit that's a very hard record to hold onto for very long. J-R also openly threatens Todd, saying that if anything goes wrong, J-R will blame Todd and will keep him from getting any votes. By using...all the influence J-R has over potential jury members? I don't think so, big guy. Maybe he's going to lie on top of them until they surrender. Todd interviews that he went along with this, including with J-R's insistence that the F3 is J-R, Todd, and Amanda -- which is contrary to his deal with James, which was that the F3 was Todd, Amanda, James, Denise, and Courtney -- because if he hadn't, J-R would have turned on him. Multiple sub-alliances can be a very powerful tool (see: Rob Mariano), but that they can also bite your nose in the butt...or something. You have to be careful, is my point. Of your nose. And your butt.
James throws some still-alive crabs into the wok to fry (I am currently racked with guilt over the mice I've been catching in my apartment, which is probably why I feel so bad for the crabs), as Jaime and Peih-Gee talk elsewhere about whether James will vote with them. Again, there's clearly more to this than meets the eye, because they wouldn't be talking like this unless, at some point, they'd made overtures to James that were accepted. But again, "Jaime Is Stupid" is the theme, and basically everything that makes anything she does make any sense has been judiciously snipped from the episode. Peih-Gee tells Jaime that she thinks Jaime or Erik might be the target, since they appear to be operating as a couple. They agree that they're going to vote for Jean-Robert. They know that Courtney and Sherea both voted for J-R at the last tribal council, so they're hopeful that maybe there's some hostility accumulated towards him. Peih-Gee also notes that she thinks there's some flirting between Frosti and Courtney, and that worries her also, presumably because it might make Frosti stick with Fei Long -- not that he's not going to anyway. I think Frosti is taking the free cuddling that comes with being on Courtney's side, not paying for the cuddling with allegiance, if you get my meaning.
In some discussion with Frosti taking place at a different time than this -- note that Jaime looks just like she did in the immediately post-merge interview in which she thought she had the idol, and how her hair keeps changing -- Jaime tells Frosti that she and Erik found a hidden immunity idol, which they figure James dropped when he was "spooked" by their return. Which, if you think about it, is kind of what happened, although he stupidly dropped the fake one (thus ultimately giving away the idols he had) rather than a real one. Frosti interviews that he's seen the real idol, and that it sounds to him like she might have one, but that she might not. He describes "the worst that would happen" being that J-R would be booted instead of Jaime, so that's sort of that, with regard to what side Frosti's on. Foolishly, Frosti goes on to say that he's a "swing vote" between the two alliances, both of which think he's with them, so he figures that's great for him. Yeah...people always do. And they're always wrong. It's actually a really bad position to be in, and frankly, I can't think of a "swing vote" of this kind who has ever, ever won, or even really come close. You tend to be picked off well before the end, since you're usually perceived as the least integral and predictable of whatever group you wind up with, and if you do get to the end, then everybody feels like you betrayed them.
Jaime takes Todd aside -- her hair is different now, so I think this is the later segment where I think she no longer actually believes that she has the idol, or at least she has grave doubts. Jaime asks Todd what he knows about the idols, and he says he doesn't know much. She offers to tell him tomorrow where the idols are, if he keeps her around. You can sort of tell she knows there are only two idols, because she tells him that she knows who has the Fei Long idol, and she knows who has the Zhan Hu idol. She definitely makes it sound like she believes there are two; we know she knows that James has two, so it does seem like she figured out between merge and tribal council that her idol didn't match the ones James had, so it probably wasn't genuine, which is also consistent with her behavior at tribal council. You will also notice that while she may have hoped Todd would conclude that she had an idol, she never said that she did. She said she'd tell him where the two idols -- the Fei Long and the Zhan Hu -- were. Why do you suppose she didn't say she had one? I personally think it's because she knew she didn't by then. The information she's peddling is the information she has: James has both idols, and by not saying she has an idol, she doesn't set up trouble later where she appears to have lied, but she might make them hesitate. Maybe this will keep her around another day. Nothing else is going to; you have to try, right? Todd -- the first person in the history of this game stupid enough to hand not one but two idols away to another person -- gleefully interviews about how unbelievably stupid Jaime is for ever thinking that something that matches all the clues she's seen for the immunity idol might actually be the immunity idol. It's weird how smug he is about how brilliantly I guess he thinks he's playing, since...Todd hasn't figured out dick for himself. Todd only knows anything about the idols because other people handed clues to him. He's crap at challenges, he's crap at strategy (having already -- did we mention? -- given away two idols), and he's sitting here talking like he's some kind of enormous mastermind. It just seems like it's a little early for this. If it turns out that giving James two idols put him in a much better position than keeping at least one of those idols for himself would have been, then...maybe he'll have earned it, but right now, what has he done to back it up? Doesn't he think that if Jaime had been in the same position he was, getting all the clues -- which position he wound up in largely because his tribe kept winning challenges on the backs of people who weren't him -- then Jaime would have figured out where the idols were, too? Doesn't the fact that she's caught on to as much of this as she has suggest that that's the case? Not to defend the intelligence of Jaime -- dumber than a rag doll stuffed with nail clippings! -- but wouldn't an actual stupid person never have put together the missing plaques with the immunity idol in the first place?
Anyway, the show -- trying with all its Burnettian might to convince you that a Jaime is a big dummy, on account of the fact that none of this really plays as well if she isn't -- plays the blinkety-bloo music over this conversation, like Todd is talking to a drunk or a football player who's had a few too many concussions. Jaime interviews that her best strategy seems to be playing stupid, so that's her plan for now. "I'm not as dumb as I look," she says, sealing her fate. Because even though that comment is, if you think about it, self-deprecating, the fact that she's going to take a flyer and lose means that she has to be drawn a certain way, to make the attempt a tragic fuck-up rather than a respectable effort, because nobody buzzes for a week over a respectable effort.
James and J-R talk, and J-R insists that Peih-Gee has to go before Jaime. James tries to tell J-R that this isn't the time to start getting cute and stupid, but J-R insists that no matter what anybody else does, he's voting for Peih-Gee. In an interview, James insists that Fei Long has been determined to vote off Jaime for "a month," which is interesting, since that's half again as long as they've even been here. It's too bad Jaime didn't come up with that, or something like it, because they would have thrown a graphic in the corner that said "Day 20," and they'd have played some "wonk-wonk!" sound, and we'd all have had a good laugh at her expense, because apparently, James does not count days so well. James goes on to say that it will be a problem if J-R doesn't vote against Jaime, and then Courtney's "dumb ass" decides to vote against J-R just to be "hateful." Wait, she has a mind of her own and she's hateful? Does she need a job? Because we might have one for her.
Tribal council. Jeff opens by asking Amanda how the merge has affected things, game-wise. Amanda says that it's "nice" to be with the other tribe, which is empty, as this sort of thing usually is. Jeff asks Peih-Gee how she feels about that, and Peih-Gee is like, "Hey, dumb-ass, obviously it's easy for her to say it's fun when her team has more people." Jeff proclaims J-R "a student of people," which: wow, apparently, Jeff Probst has really low standards for scholarship. A poker player is not automatically a "student of people," based on poker players I've known. A student of cigarettes, usually, and in many cases, a student of probability. Sometimes a student of people, and sometimes just good at cards. It's weird to me that Jeff finds J-R's ass so endlessly kissable, because I so do not. J-R chooses this moment to announce that, of all things, Courtney is a huge threat, because no one will perceive her as a threat, so she'll hang around until F3. Courtney calls him on this immediately, pointing out that it's rather absurdly transparent for J-R -- who received votes at the last tribal council and is on the record as hating Courtney -- to try to deflect votes from himself by suggesting that Courtney -- who can barely stand up -- is a big threat. He denies that this is what he was doing, saying that he was saying she's not a threat and therefore might win, which...is utterly idiotic, since a goldfish in a bowl wearing a blindfold and listening to an iPod would be able to tell that Courtney is right about what he's doing. James follows this up with a long speech about how he wishes J-R would just shut up occasionally instead of talking all the time. Oh, fantasies.
Jeff asks Peih-Gee whether she tried to find "cracks" in the Fei Long group, and she says that she obviously knew about some already (read, I suspect, "Courtney versus Jean-Robert"). Asked the same thing -- how to break in when there's a group bigger than yours -- Jaime says all you can do is try to find out whether there's someone people dislike enough to vote the person off.
Voting. Everybody votes, and Jeff comes back with the votes. Before he can read them, Jaime, with obvious sheepishness, says she has a question. "I found this at camp, lying on the floor," she says, "so I thought it might be...immunity?" She kind of makes a face, and you can tell she knows by now that it probably isn't, by the weak way she says it. Todd and James smirk. Jeff recites the rules of the immunity idol, and how it nullifies votes against you. And Jeff smirks, too, as he throws the plaque into the fire, treating Jaime with approximately as much contempt as he used on Osten when he quit the game. Jean-Robert, of course, finds this hysterically funny, as does James. And of course, Jaime is soundly voted out, which is exactly what would have happened to her had she not tried to play it, so it certainly didn't harm her, except that it put her in the middle of a storyline that only works if they try to make her look stupid. Jeff announces to the tribe when Jaime is gone that she was the first member of the jury, so good luck to those of them who chose to be loud and snorty. Good thing she's the stupid one, or it might look like the stupid ones were...some of you! But not! She's so stupid, what are the odds she even heard you?
I can't really explain why, to even my own satisfaction, but this whole thing really bugged me. Maybe the post that Scout was so kind to leave at the former contestants' blog can help me crystallize why it irked me. (Please note that Scout has already revealed herself to be actually dumb, as well as inarticulate and often outright racist, in her posts. I realize that this may come as a surprise if you watched her season and think of her as an old hippie, but...trust me.) She had, in part, this to say this week: "THE BLUNDERING, BUBBLE HEAD, BLONDE IS BANISHED.Our man, James, gets the last laugh on Jaime McGiggles. HA! HA! HA! Our gullible, giggling McValley Girl ain't laughin' now. Please, Oh Please, play that part again about Jaime tryin' to play the mock Immunity Idol! Bring out all the blonde jokes and slap them on Jaime. She truly deserves them. It just goes to show you that a person on The Dean's List may not have a lick of practical sense. Now, what was that she said? 'I'm very good at playing stupid!' HELLO! Oh, yeah! There was also that part about, 'I'm not as dumb as I look.' Duh! It’s all about the numbers, Baby, and Jaime didn't stand a chance."
"Bring out all the blonde jokes," indeed. Okay, so, the Los Angeles Times interviewed me about Survivor recently, and one of the things I said that they didn't use was that to me, the satisfaction of this show comes from the vanquishing of bullies. When guys like Rocky or Alex get bounced after spending the entire series preening and bullying, that's very satisfying to me, because I hate people like that, and we all hate people like that. And I felt like this episode was premised on the idea that I'm supposed to hate girls who are young and pretty, who were cast by the show for being young and pretty, and I'm supposed to hate them just for being young and pretty. Like I'm supposed to be sitting in my living room hating the shit out of pretty girls and resenting them madly, so obviously, I would -- like Scout -- get great satisfaction out of seeing them get screwed. I just don't understand what it is about Jaime that's supposed to generate this much glee at something bad happening to her, other than that she's young and pretty. I mean...is it that she threw the challenge? Because I think it's been pretty well demonstrated that that was her best option at the time, especially having seen this play out, since what she and Peih-Gee predicted was going to happen is exactly what happened, so...why am I supposed to be mad at her again? I haven't seen her do anything nasty to anyone, I haven't seen her be princessy about anything, and I haven't seen her be full of herself. What, because she laughed after they threw the challenge? When James was berating her and Peih-Gee for being hopelessly terrible at puzzles and haughtily ordering Erik to decide which of the women would go home, when Jaime knew that she and Peih-Gee in fact threw the challenge and that James was therefore making a total asshole out of himself by trying to dictate what was going to happen and rake them over the coals over how dumb they were? Absolutely; no argument. She has a terrible poker face. So does every person who smirked and giggled at the thing getting thrown into the fire at this tribal council. I don't see the connection between that and intelligence.
This whole thing just seems so phony-baloney and so obviously cooked up out of some weird sense of what Jeff Probst thinks is "compelling" or something. Did you see where Probst recently said (in that same Times piece) that he thought that Fiji kind of sucked, because there weren't compelling people left at the end? That being...the season with Earl and Yau-Man? I mean...Earl and Yau-Man weren't the compelling people Jeff wished had been left at the end? Who was supposed to be there at the end? The jerks whose asses Jeff kissed all season, like Alex and Rocky? Rocky, who Jeff was so preposterously convinced was only trying to "help" Anthony by coming within a breath of hurling real live homophobic slurs at him?
See, this is why I don't really believe it when contestants bitch that they were misrepresented by editing. I feel like if you actually watch the show, you can always see it as plain as day when they're pushing something that simply doesn't hold up as a story, and this is like that for me. They're trying to make it into "comeuppance," because Jaime is the one that the fake idol business happened to happen to, so they sort of have to hit her with this. It's only funny if she sucks, so they're making it like she sucks. But except for Scout, who apparently hates Jaime's guts for being blonde and having dared to make a move against Wonderful James The Gentle, Big-Hearted, Soft-Spoken Giant (a purely fictional character I am not buying at all, given the proliferation of "swinging dick" and "skinny bitch" references), I don't see what Jaime's comeuppance is for.
In the end, I guess it makes me wonder why they thought I would find it satisfying comeuppance. I mean...I would hope it goes without saying that I don't hate pretty young women for being young and pretty. Women who are pretty and young aren't the moral equivalent of men who are bullies just because they share the characteristic of having been the people who always seemed to be in charge in people's nightmarish memories of high school. This feels...petty to me, and more than the show being petty, it feels like the show thinks I'm petty, like they think it's automatically fun to put the screws to a pretty girl, just like it's fun to put the screws to a guy who's an asshole. But I don't see how she was a "bubblehead." At worst, I saw her take her shot. It was a long shot, and I think she knew in her heart that it was once she gave it some thought, even if she tried to be hopeful. I'm not sure what about throwing a Hail Mary pass makes you stupid, if it's the only move you have left. Overly optimistic, maybe a little. "Bubblehead"? Somehow, I think that characterization has a hell of a lot more to do with her age and appearance than it has to do with anything she did. I don't really think Jaime has anything to be embarrassed about, but I kind of think Scout does.