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The editors have a great time with Douche this week, as he tells ridiculous campfire stories about the time when he went kayaking in the Amazon, only to be captured by an indigenous tribe that beat him with sticks and were about to kill him and eat his asshole (his words, not mine. Or, I'd wager, any indigenous tribe's) before he managed to escape. The rest of Forza reacts to this story with suppressed laughter and eye-rolls, and it's enough for J.T. and Stephen to consider aligning with Brendan and Sierra to vote Douche out instead after Brendan and J.T. bond during a reward white-water rafting trip and picnic. Meanwhile, Stephen is sent to Exile by himself, where he manages to start a fire and is adorably proud of his accomplishment. Tyson wins the immunity challenge again, so it's down to Brendan, Douche, or Sierra going home depending on who the old Jalapeño tribe decides to vote with and if Brendan plays his idol. Taj, Stephen, and J.T. enjoy going from sitting ducks to the top of the heap, but I don't care because they end up choosing to get rid of Brendan and not Douche, so they suck. Brendan freely admits to possessing the hidden idol at Tribal Council but doesn't bother to play it, so Douche and his stupid stories and constant dragon slayer self-proclamations stay in the game while Brendan The Good But Lazy goes home. And if I wasn't so angry at him for siding with Douche, I'd marvel at J.T.'s ability to be so well-liked that people are willing sacrifice their own chances at winning to give it to him.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open on a close-up of the moon. I know the crew is thrilled to bits at the new HDTV capabilities, but this is, like, the eighteenth moon close-up we've had this season. Maybe we could back away from the moon for a few episodes? Everyone at Forza is gathered around the campfire, but no one has much to say. Douche explains that everyone was in a funk after Joe left the game, which is stupid since Joe leaving the game = improved chance to win. Most likely, they were in a funk because they were in close proximity to Douche. Douche decides to tell the group a story to liven things up. While most campfire stories are about someone else, Douche's is, of course, about himself. He interviews that this was purely out of benevolence, as he wanted to "share a piece of [his] life" with his tribemates in order to teach them that no matter how bad things may seem, he's been through much worse because he's better than everyone else.
And so begins the Douche story. Douche opens by saying that only three people in the world know this story, although that's probably because there are only three people in the world who don't run away from Douche when he's talking to them. And that's only because they're probably coma patients. Anyway, Douche was air-lifted into the Amazon by a military helicopter even though all he was doing was kayaking and nothing remotely military because for all the crap Douche spews about being a warrior, he's not actually in the military. He's a soccer coach. Sort of. One morning, he was paddling along when he had the feeling he was being watched. Sure enough, he spotted some "indigenous people" on the side of the river. They were "four, four and a half feet tall" and armed with bows and arrows. They grabbed him out of the kayak, tied him up, and dragged him into a hut where they tied him to a stake and took turns beating him with a club. Apparently, they only had the one club. Douche doesn't know how long it lasted because "sometimes I blacked out. Sometimes I just went to a faraway place." When Douche realized that they were going to kill him, he managed to tear through the rope by sheer force of will and escape. He got his kayak into the water and paddled so hard that his hands bled.
And now for the reaction of the rest of the tribe. Debbie interviews that Douche is obviously full of it, but she didn't think it was appropriate to call him out in the middle of his story. The rest of the tribe just sits there silently and looks at each other, like "do you believe this? Okay, no, I don't either." Brendan, bless his heart, can't keep his disbelief inside any longer and questions Douche's ability to get a military helicopter to drop him off in the Amazon for free. "I pulled some strings," Douche explains. Except that he's a garage symphony conductor and a soccer coach, so what strings could he possibly have to pull? Brendan interviews that Douche is either "the second coming of Jacques Costeau" (pretty sure you mean someone else with the initials J.C. there, Brendan) or "the biggest fraud that is in this game." And that game is the game of life. But there is a third way. Douche is the biggest fraud in the game, but he honestly and truly thinks that everything he says is true. Alternately, he's doing it for the airtime. But I don't think he's that smart. Douche continues that National Geographic somehow found out about his kayaking trip and asked to come with him as if they don't know how to plan their own trips, but he turned them down saying this trip was about him, because in Douche's world, everything is about Douche. I'll bet he regretted not having NatGeo backup when he got captured, though. Or not, since that never actually happened. Brendan interviews that he's now realizing that Douche is full of it, and might not be the most trustworthy alliancemate.
As for my take on this story, here goes: at first, I was like "that never happened, Douche is full of shit, I hate him even more than usual." Also, I was insulted for indigenous people everywhere that Douche would assume we'd all believe they were tiny savage people, which they aren't. They've been in contact with the outside world and anthropologists stay with them all the time and never get killed at all. But then I thought about it and realized that if I was in an Amazon Indian tribe and Douche came kayaking down my river, I'd totally want to kill him. I'd want to beat him with clubs and everything! So perhaps Douche's story is true after all. In which case, those Amazon Indians have earned my scorn for not following through and thus being indirectly responsible for Douche being on my TV screen every week. It is also possible that Douche saw that episode of South Park where Jennifer Aniston got the boys lost in the rainforest and they were almost killed by tiny little indigenous people. I saw that episode, as well as one a few weeks back where we realize that Cartman really does believe the things he says, and also that he saved Jimmy from a dragon while everyone congratulated him on not being fat. Perhaps Douche has the same problem as Cartman.
Please note that the opening credits contain shots of indigenous people. And yet, somehow the camera crew managed to finish the shoot without being killed. What's up with that?
And just in case you didn't get enough of Douche before the credits, now we have him doing his stupid morning warrior pose ritual. The editors are enjoying the hell out of themselves, interspersing shots of Douche with clouds and birds and Asian-y music. But I don't like it, because I know that at home right now, Douche does not realize they're making fun of him and thinks this is awesome although he could have cut the segment better. The rest of the tribe watches from the campfire and Brendan makes fun of him. J.T. interviews that Brendan wants to get rid of him at the Tribal Council, but he's not worried about that since he's in a "power alliance" with Douche and Tyson and Debbie. Because nothing says "power" like the most self-deluded man in the world, a sociopathic and possibly sexually confused professional bicycle rider, and the school principal.
Douche walks up to the tribe and ascertains that everyone was watching him do his stupid poses. Brendan can't help but ask where Douche learned his moves, as if he really thinks Douche will actually admit that he got them from his own head. No, Douche claims it's some ancient Tibetan thing called Chong Ran, which I think he just pulled from the title of his favorite Cheech and Chong movie. He says it isn't in any books or even on the internets and has been passed down through oral history. He learned it from a monastery. Brendan: "wow." Sierra: "you looked hilarious." Douche claims he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, only to run right to an interview and say he's so upset by what Sierra said that he now thinks of her as the shit of the dragon whose head he will be cutting off at the Tribal Council. Incidentally, there was an episode of South Park where they found out that people shit after they die, so if Brendan is the dragon and he dies at Tribal, let's hope that Sierra emerges with a vengeance. Douche says that he's in total control of this game and he's a dragon slayer, blah blah we heard it all last week. He also claims that he was "born" to do this, and if that's true then why isn't he a real army general instead of a former part-time soccer coach?
J.T. and Erinn go fishing. Erinn mentions Joe, but everyone has forgotten who he is including so the subject quickly changes to the shit's creek that Erinn is currently up. She says she likes the Jalapeño tribe better than her own and wonders how this is possible. Erinn: Tempura has Tyson and Douche on it, and although the rest of them seem not as horrible, they all hate you. Meanwhile, Jalapeño has J.T., Stephen, and Taj on it, and they are awesome. It's pretty simple math there. J.T. quickly asks Erinn if she has any alliances on Tempura, and she says no, claiming she wanted to stay neutral. Because everyone hated her. That's pretty much how things work for Switzerland, too, I suspect. Erinn interviews that the Jalapeño people need a fourth vote, so she thinks she finally has options in this game. Meanwhile, J.T. interviews that he's happy to have Erinn around if he needs her.
Reward challenge! Today the tribe will be divided into three teams of three. Each team has a bunch of ceramic tiles, and each team member will take turns throwing metal balls at the other teams' tiles to try to break them. Once your tiles are all broken, your team is out. Last team left standing wins a white-water rafting trip and a picnic of sandwiches, chicken wings, and brownies. For some reason, it's the brownies that everyone gets all excited about. The winning team will also choose one person from the losers to go to Exile.
On the black team, we have Debbie, Brendan, and J.T. The red team is Tyson, Taj, and Douche, and the white team is Stephen, Sierra, and Erinn. Let's face it: the white team doesn't have a chance, mostly because of Stephen. Let's also face it: I love Taj, but with all my heart and soul I do not want her team to win although it would be kind of funny to watch Douche attempt to white-water raft, only to reveal that he has no ability at it whatsoever because he's full of crap. Alternately, if he's not full of crap, it would still be funny to watch him be attacked by a tiny tribe of Indians on the river banks. Douche, Stephen, and Debbie head up to the platform to throw, and J.T. is not pleased to see Stephen is aiming for his team's tiles. The players throw, and amazingly, they all connect. Although I guess it's not that amazing since they're aiming for the closest tiles. Let's see Douche break a tile that isn't practically lying at his feet. Of course, he's gracious in victory, giving Brendan a "come on, let's go" as he descends the platform he was no doubt born to stand atop.
Hey everybody, this reminds me of a story. Only two people in the world know this, but this one time, I was in rehearsals for this play my friends and I were going to perform for the Duke of Athens upon his marriage to the Amazonian queen, when this mischievous fairy named Puck gave me a donkey head. It scared all my friends away, but then the queen of the fairies totally fell in love with me, which was kind of weird but I went with it anyway. But then she got all distracted and gave away her Indian changeling to Oberon, the king of the fairies, which was all good in the end because he then made her fall out of love with me and also transformed my head back to normal. There were also these other four young people of a higher social class who were running around nearby, but I didn't have much to do with them. Anyway, that all really happened.
For the round, Tyson is going after black, and J.T. and Brendan whine that everyone is against them. Brendan says it's not like their team has an advantage, since no one here has any kind of experience with throwing metal balls at ceramic tiles. Cut to Douche standing to Taj. He raises his hand: "I have!" I'm sure the metal ball ceramic tile station was his second stop on that kayaking trip. With that, the contestants throw. Sierra breaks a red tile, Brendan breaks a white tile, and Tyson breaks nothing. Ha ha ha. After a brief tile-busting montage in which we see Sierra have quite a bit of luck and Taj cheering after breaking her first tile, we have white and black with two tiles left and red with just one. Debbie is up for black, and she's aiming for white. Stephen and Douche are both aiming for black. Thanks to Douche's vast experience of throwing metal balls underhand, he is the only one who breaks a tile. Up are Erinn, J.T., and Taj, and J.T. promises Erinn that if she knocks red out, he'll intentionally miss her team's tile. Unfortunately for J.T., he chose to say this right in front of Taj, who goes running over to aim for the black team instead of white. J.T. then switches his throw to red. But then they go back to their original positions, so I have no idea what that was about, but it's absolutely wonderful to see when J.T. and Taj both miss and Erinn takes the red team out for good, much to Douche's vocal displeasure. Brendan smiles.
Sierra and Brendan are up , and Sierra misses black's last tile while Brendan breaks one of white's. Erinn and J.T. throw , and both miss. So now it's up to Debbie and Stephen. Or not, since they both miss, too. So it's up to Sierra and Brendan again. Sierra misses, and Brendan connects, but only takes out a corner of the tile. It doesn't shatter completely, so white is still in the game despite Brendan's premature victory dance. J.T. and Erinn are back up, and J.T. misses. Erinn pulls a Brendan and takes out half of the black tile but it still somehow manages to stay up. Stephen and Debbie are up , but both fail at being team heroes and miss. Sierra and Brendan are up, and Sierra is so close, but no cigar. Brendan, on the other hand, connects with the rest of the white tile and wins it for his team.
While Douche shakes his head, Probst congratulates the black team on their win and asks who they want to send to Exile. They go for Stephen, and Douche can't help but say: "be the wizard, Stephen. Be the wizard." If someone told me to be the wizard, I'd punch him in the face on principle. But perhaps Douche is mixing up fact and fiction again and thinks Stephen is Harry Potter. While everyone else makes "huh?" faces, Stephen laughs, thinking that Douche is joking. But he isn't. Stephen leaves, and Probst sends everyone back to camp, telling the black team they'll enjoy their reward tomorrow. While everyone else leaves their team red, black, or white bandanas behind, Douche is loving his red bandana so much that he's tied it around his arm, not unlike a Nazi armband, and has to be told to take it off by Probst. Douche takes this as an opportunity to talk, saying he's pissed off at missing his chance to kayak. Because everyone else doesn't mind missing out on fun and food at all. Just Douche. Tyson interviews that he's sure Brendan will try to scheme when he's alone on the reward with Debbie and J.T., but he's confident enough that his alliance will remain loyal to assholes. His only worry is that the extra food will help Brendan win the immunity challenge.
Let's check in on Stephen at Exile. There's no change in the idol, so he has nothing to keep him occupied except actual survival. He says he's very worried about his chances out there alone, since he hasn't yet been able to make fire. He tried a few times at camp, but failed and was too embarrassed to try again. The fact that Syndey stepped up and made a fire immediately after his failure probably didn't help matters. Stephen says that by "forcing" himself to come to Exile, he figures he'll either make fire or die. Except that he didn't force himself at all. He was selected. And I'm pretty sure the Survivor medic team would airlift him out before he died. And that he can't die after just two days without food or fire anyway. Please drop out of the Douche School of Exaggerating, Stephen. After about an hour, Stephen finally gets a flame! He's pretty jazzed about it and compares it to giving birth to his first child. Not giving birth to the second child, as by then it's totally played out. In a chopped-to-bits sound byte, he says it was okay that he missed out on the reward since making his own fire at Exile was a reward in and of itself.
The day, the black team goes white water rafting. It looks like a lot of fun, especially since no one manages to piss off any indigenous people and get beaten with a club. J.T. says he felt "just like a little kid." When doesn't he? Brendan, on the other hand, has fallen in love with J.T. and interviews that watching him enjoying himself on the challenge was the best part. He calls J.T. a "great soul" and says he's really sincere, and this is kind of how people describe people they think are simple. I wonder how much of this love for J.T. comes the fact that his Southern drawl makes people think he's stupid and friendly. Then there's the picnic, and sure enough, there are brownies. Huge brownies with big white chunks in them that I hope are nuts. J.T. interviews that he thought Brendan wouldn't be much fun to go on a trip with, but he was wrong and had a great time.
Debbie stupidly goes off for a swim, leaving J.T. alone with Brendan. Brendan asks J.T. if anyone from Tempura has approached him for an alliance, and J.T., the kind gentle soul with an honest, open face and fun-loving, pure nature, totally lies his ass off and says no without hesitation. Brendan says he wants to keep J.T. in the game, then interviews that he really does, in fact, want to keep J.T. in the game, to the point that if J.T. won, Brendan would consider it a win for him as well. Either Brendan is a moron, or J.T. is capable of Jedi mind tricks.
It's Day 24 at Forza, which means that Stephen has been at Exile for quite some time. Brendan is tired after having spent the entire night awake trying to figure out a way to keep J.T. in the game. Seriously? It took Douche and Tyson all of three seconds to figure it out for themselves, and they're dumb. Brendan must be super-dumb. And yet, he's a millionaire entrepreneur. This gives me hope. He goes to Sierra to tell her about his plan, beginning by saying he wants to keep J.T. in the game. "Oh, now you're making friends with him," Sierra says. Heh. Brendan says J.T. is "such a good dude" and they had an awesome time on the reward challenge Sierra didn't get to go on. Sierra goes with it, saying that she also loves J.T. even though three seconds ago she was all about getting rid of him. Brendan's plan is to activate the Exile alliance and have J.T. join them to vote out everyone else, including Erinn, which is just plain stupid. Align with Erinn, dumbasses. You should have aligned with her a long time ago, really. Sierra interviews that she "respects" J.T., then tells Brendan that "it would absolutely break my heart to send J.T. home." What? Seriously, she began this scene by saying that J.T. was being voted out and having no problem with that at all. Now she loves him too? How is J.T. able to do this without even being present???
FINALLY, Brendan goes for a walk with Taj and asks if she's "ready to change the game." It never occurs to him that she's already gotten an offer like this from someone else. He tells her of his plan to get rid of Douche and Tyson, then acknowledges that this is the first time he's actually spoken to her since the merge. "I know, we haven't had a chance to," Taj says, forgetting to add; "because you've been so busy being a moron." Brendan says he's sure she's feeling "uncomfortable" about his loyalty because of that, but still wants her to trust him. Taj interviews that since half of Tempura is trying to get rid of the other half, the old Jalapeño members appear to be sitting pretty for now, which is not what any of them expected to happen, I'm sure. Once again, Brendan talks about what a "good dude" J.T. is, and Taj agrees that she loves J.T. "to death." If he ever gets voted out, look for a mass suicide from these people.
Immunity challenge! Stephen returns from Exile looking very much alive and Tyson and Douche immediately set upon him with welcome back hugs and fist pounds. Take note of this, Brendan. Probst takes back the immunity necklace from Tyson, which really isn't fair since he never got a chance to use it the first time around. Tyson "jokes" that the necklace is "too gaudy for me" and Debbie, of course, busts out laughing. Tyson confidently predicts that he'll wear it again, though. With that obnoxiousness, Probst explains the challenge: each player is attached to a rope with a carabineer. The rope has been wound through a wooden obstacle course, so players must navigate that in order to follow the rope through to the other side. The first three to do that will compete in another wooden obstacle course, although this one adds height to the obstacles. First one to finish gets immunity.
We begin, and it's fun to watch Douche have trouble right from the start. Taj barely makes it past the beginning, as does Stephen. I don't know how you'd have that much trouble with this, since it looks pretty easy to figure out, if not to throw yourself over and through the obstacles. Tyson, J.T., Brendan, and Sierra make it to the middle post and start trying to thread their rope through to move onto the second obstacle. Douche has given up, as while the rough Amazon waters present one with plenty of opportunity to toss metal balls at ceramic tiles, they do not, apparently, also come with obstacle courses and ropes. "Nothin' prepared him for the rope-a-dope!" Probst cries out gleefully. And ha!! Even Erinn makes it further in the course than Douche. If only he was being beaten with a club, he might be able to find a way to "wear through" the rope tying him down and escape. Tyson and J.T. easily finish in the top two spots, with Brendan and Sierra competing for third place. Brendan gets it. I am very much rooting for him even though he's stupid.
The second round begins, and I'm not pleased to see Tyson take an early lead. Also, this looks extremely dangerous if someone were to fall. Douche sits on the bench since he was nowhere near finishing in the top three and orders Tyson around with his eyes. Seeing all this paint on wood reminds me of a story. Only five people in the world know it, but this one time when I was growing up in the antebellum South, my Aunt Polly made me whitewash the fence. I managed to totally get out of it by convincing all my friends that painting a fence was fun and they even gave me stuff for the privilege of doing it! But then I witnessed Injun Joe murder Dr. Robinson and had to testify against him so that Muff Potter wouldn't take the fall for the crime and then Becky and I got lost in a cave that Injun Joe was using as a hideout! He didn't see me, though, and we managed to get out of the cave, which Becky's dad sealed off so no one else could go in there and get lost. I told them that Injun Joe was in there even though he swore to get revenge on me for testifying against him, but by the time they opened the cave up again, it was too late and he was dead. But that ended up being okay because my friend Huck and I knew that he had a hidden treasure of gold coins and went back into the caves to search for it, found it, and got to keep it!
Anyway, Brendan manages to take the lead, only to get stuck at the very end and lose to Tyson. Douche grins and interviews about the plan to vote Brendan out but split the votes in case he plays his idol. And just in case you forgot, Brendan is a dragon and Douche is the dragon slayer. Maybe if he says it a hundred more times, it'll sound clever. Probst puts the necklace back on Tyson, who obnoxiously models it for the semi-adoring crowd. Probst sends them away, and Brendan interviews that since Tyson has immunity, Douche will be going home tonight, which he's pretty happy about. Notice that Brendan does not have to compare Douche to an animal in order to make his point.
Kooky music plays us into Camp Forza, where Stephen eagerly congratulates Tyson on his win and praises his challenge performance. Brendan pays no attention to this, or to the fact that Tyson gives Stephen another hug while Douche fist-pounds J.T. just to be able to touch him. Stephen tells the group about how he managed to start a fire and that it was one of the best moments of his life. He's had too much attention, so Douche steps up and proclaims "the Wizard is coming into The Man of the Mountain." Huh? What does that even mean except something having to do with gay sex? Then, while Brendan, Sierra, Erinn, and Douche are off somewhere, Tyson quickly ascertains that the remaining contestants are voting for either Brendan or Sierra tonight. Tyson interviews that he set up this master plan to split the votes between Brendan and Sierra even though Stephen was the one who thought of it and is looking forward to finally being able to carry it out. Tyson hopes that Brendan does not play his idol so that Sierra will be at camp alone for three days and he can boss her around and tell her to shut up. "It probably won't win me her vote from the jury but it'd probably win me everybody else's vote." Yes, because who isn't entertained by watching a relatively harmless and pleasant enough young lady be kicked when she's down?
Brendan then comes up to strategize with J.T., Stephen, and Sierra. He interviews that the Exile alliance "hibernated," by which he means "I totally neglected it because I'm too short-sighted to see that I'm going to really, really need it if the rest of my tribe, which is full of untrustworthy asshole psychopaths, were to turn against me." But now he's convinced it's back and with a new member in J.T. Brendan proposes eliminating Douche tonight, and the look on J.T.'s face as he acts like the thought of someone from Tempura going home tonight instead of Jalapeño never occurred to him is amazing. "That would be awesome, dude!" J.T. says so sincerely. Brendan interviews that he's looking forward to engineering the biggest blindside in the game thus far.
J.T. and Stephen go off to talk. J.T. tells Stephen about how he and Brendan bonded on the rafting trip. "I thought you might!" Stephen says, because he is the only person in this game who's remotely aware of J.T.'s bizarre power over other people. J.T. says that Brendan told him he wants J.T. in the finals. "Why would he want that?" Stephen immediately asks before realizing that if he were talking to a sharper person, he would have just given away the fact that he doesn't want to go to the finals with him. "He likes me a lot," J.T. says. "But that's crazy," Stephen says, again basically saying that someone would have to be crazy to want to go against J.T. in the finals. Not that J.T. has anything to worry about, since he knows he can convince anyone to take him to the finals just by smiling at him. Stephen thinks they should really consider aligning with Brendan against Douche, which I very much agree with! J.T. agrees, too, saying that Douche is crazy. "That story about him being captured on the Amazon? That's just hard to believe," J.T. says in the nicest way possible. He reckons that he would have brought some type of firearm to the Amazon with him and shot all the indigenous people and wonders why Douche didn't do the same. "You know what I mean?" he asks Stephen. Stephen clearly does not. But they agree that they're in control of this game right now despite the fact that one of them is unintelligible sometimes. J.T. interviews that his tribe was down in numbers going into the merge, but they seem to have all the power anyway. It's basically down to them to decide if Brendan goes home or Douche.
Brendan interviews that he's expecting the old Tempura to go after J.T. while his secret alliance takes out Douche. Douche and Brendan are standing around the fire when Brendan suggests that the Tempurans get together to talk. They send up the Asshole Signal and the Tempurans come running. Brendan, Tyson, and Sierra agree to vote J.T. out tonight and everyone is lying right now. Douche then runs off to interview about dragons again, also adding that leaders are born and tonight when Brendan goes home, everyone will know that Douche is the chosen one, which is "very fulfilling." With that, he either anoints himself with his buff or waves off some flies who smelled the shit coming out of his mouth and stopped by for dinner. The only people who chose Douche are the casting people for this show, who are all horrible people with bad taste.
Forza arrives at Tribal Council. Probst's first question is who keeps the tribe laughing, like that's important. She immediately says Tyson for his "off-handed, witty comments." Yes, it was very witty when he made that comment about how women shouldn't boss him around. Too bad Erinn wasn't witty enough to realize that he wasn't joking. Probst then asks J.T. who tells the best campfire stories, because that's what he really wants to talk about and everyone knows it. J.T. immediately says Douche, and Probst asks Taj for details. Of course, she tells him about Douche's Amazon adventure, and Probst raises his eyebrows as if he didn't know all about this already. "This really happened? Or this is a movie version of what you want to have happen?" Probst asks awesomely. Douche says that he actually toned his recounting of factual events down, because the real story was that the tribe was looking at his asshole and talking about eating it. And he knows they were talking about eating it how? Does he know their language? He doesn't even know Portuguese! And let's face it -- even if this tiny Indian tribe were also cannibals, would they really want to eat an asshole of all things? Or maybe that's just the most appetizing part of Douche's body. Meanwhile, everyone else in the tribe attempts to suppress smiles and laughter. Probst asks Douche if it bothers him that some people might not believe him, and Douche says that his life has, indeed, been "fantastic," but he has scars all over his body to prove that what he's saying is true. And he's been in "five, six, seven, or eight life-or-death situations." Sierra can't hold the laughter back any longer. Probst barely can, and questions this.
Douche recounts his life-or-death situations: he was in a hurricane once. Cool. So was I. More than once, actually. Of course, I lived in Connecticut and the worst thing that happened was it blew our shed down, but I guess that still counts. He was attacked by a shark, but so was Richard Hatch back on Season 8, and he was totally fine. He had a "run-in with a crocodile," but who living in Florida hasn't and it was probably a baby crocodile anyway, and last, but certainly not least, is the asshole-eating Indian tribe. By the way, that's only four times. And Debbie's lips have disappeared in her effort not to start laughing. Douche finishes that he is honest and full of integrity, both in this game and in life. This gives Probst a chance to ask Douche if his old tribe is sticking together in the vote tonight so that Douche may use all of his honesty and integrity to totally lie out loud that they are.
Probst asks Stephen what, if anything, he can do to try to keep from being voted out. Stephen says he's obviously not the biggest threat so he probably won't be voted out tonight and hopefully he'll have enough time to get to know his new tribemates. Probst asks Taj if physical ability is the determining factor in who to vote out. She acknowledges that J.T. is both strong and the greatest person to have ever lived, so he's very dangerous. Probst turns to Douche and asks him the same thing, if the biggest physical threats should go first. This gives Douche a chance to talk about Vikings and their seven layers of Heaven and whatever and he wants to surround himself with warriors. "So Bren -- " Probst begins, only to be interrupted (!!!) by Douche while Taj and Sierra laugh at him. He says if going up against warriors means losing this game himself, it'll be worth it because that's the honorable way. Can't wait to quote that when he's in the final three with Debbie and Erinn. Probst asks Brendan about physical threats, and since Douche does not interrupt him again, Brendan gets a chance to non-answer that it's natural to want to go after physical threats and strength doesn't necessarily get you far in this game.
Probst asks Tyson about the hidden idol. Tyson says that until he knows better, he's going to assume that anyone who's been to Exile has it. With that, Probst asks everyone who's been to Exile if he or she has the idol. They all say no except Brendan, who freely raises his hand and admits to having it. He'd better freaking use it tonight, then, if he's going to admit to having it. Erinn's eyebrows raise at the stupidity of Brendan and it's time to vote.
Douche votes for Brendan and talks about dragon slaying AGAIN. Was he afraid that if he only said it once it could be edited out and so said it multiple times to make sure his clever sayings that he probably got from the back of a kung-fu movie box would be seen by all, or does he really think that the people at home won't be so annoyed to hear this over and over again, or is he just insane and keeps forgetting that he already said the dragon thing and says it over and over again, each time believing it's the first time? Brendan votes for Douche. We don't see who Stephen votes for, but he says "this is my wizard lightning shooting you back home. Ka-pow!" and I am sooooo happy because there's no way he isn't voting for Douche right now. It wasn't until a few sad minutes later that I realized that the fact that it was so obvious it was Douche meant that it wasn't.
Probst brings in the urn and asks if anyone would like to play his idol. Brendan reaches down ... and drinks some water from his canteen. Whatever. Douche is going home tonight, so while this wasn't very smart of Brendan, it won't cost him the game tonight. Douche winks at Tyson, it never having occurred to him that Brendan would have tried the exact same thing against him that he tried to do against Brendan. In this way, they are both stupid and short-sighted. First vote: Douche. Second vote: Douche. My heart sings! Then Brendan gets a vote, but it's from Douche, so that's okay. Brendan gets a second vote, but that's still okay. Then he gets a third vote and looks very worried, but I think that's still okay because Tyson, Douche, Debbie, and Erinn are all voting for Brendan or Sierra, right? Sierra gets a vote, and again, that's okay. Time for Douche to get all the rest of the votes and leave my screen forever and ever. When the reunion happens, I'll just wait for him to sit down and stick a piece of black tape over it and I won't even have to see him then.
But fuck me, Sierra gets a second vote. Then a third. And she and Brendan are finally realizing that they played this all wrong, although they still probably don't know how. The last vote is for Brendan, so he's out of the game and on the jury. Douche lives to see another week, and I am sad and angry. I hate J.T., Stephen, and Taj for this. I know they probably made the smartest decision and Brendan screwed himself over by waiting way too long to talk to Taj, giving Douche and Tyson a chance to get to Jalapeño first. They're smug in victory, while Sierra looks ready to cry. Probst extinguishes Brendan's torch and he quickly turns around, I was hoping to tell Douche off. But instead he wishes everyone luck and leaves. Probst congratulates the entire tribe except Sierra on their gigantic blindside, which, again -- if only two people are surprised, can it really be called a blindside? And do I really have to watch this show week? I don't love to hate Douche. I just hate him.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.
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