In something of a replay of last week, Troyzan and Jay the Model look around at the 6-4 women-men ratio and get very nervous. And basically when Tarzan has to tell you you're fucked and you missed your window about three tribal councils ago, you're in trouble.
The reward challenge is a Probst-less affair that involves throwing those slingshotty things that are basically a rope with two balls on it (oh, grow up) that you see people throw at people's legs in medieval movies. Whatever, so those have to be thrown at a statue. It's all very dynamic. The team of Troyzan, Tarzan, Jay, Alicia and Kat win and get a boozy reward.
Back at camp, Kim and her alliance talk about steps and it's decided that Troy and Jay need to be the to go. This makes Chelsea nervous because she made deals with them and she's is a woman of honor or whatever, and she ends up making the rest of her alliance think she's weak. Meanwhile, Jay wants to get rid of Alicia, because he really does want to make me fall in love with him.
At the immunity challenge, Chelsea outlasts the field in a "hold your arm up lest a bucket of goop tip over onto you" challenge, while the more secure competitors (Kim, Sabrina, Kat) bail in order to get food. (Also, not for nothing, but Jay steps down willingly for chicken and beer.) So if Troy was a little suspicious before, now he's a lot suspicious, and he starts to scramble. Troy wants to play his idol and try to get Kim out, while Jay goes back to Kim and says that with Troy playing his idol, maybe go for the sure thing and eliminate Alicia now and Troy later. Meanwhile, Kim was already looking to split the women's votes in order to guard against a hidden idol anyway because she is ON IT.
Tribal council sees Troy play the idol and four people get votes, but in the end, the women avoid the Troy problem all together and vote for Jay, who takes his headband, tank top and pouting lips out of my life forever.
Previously: Merge. Troy/Jay/Chelsea/Kim/Kat/Sabrina. Jonas. Mike? Mike! Kim/Chelsea/Sabrina/Kat/Alicia/Christina. Sigh, Troy/Jay.
The morning after Mike's ouster, Jay is stoking the fire (YEAH, he is) and captivating the women with talk of the dream he had last night, wherein he was shot. The girls wonder who shot him. "...Mike?" Sabrina asks... hopefully? Jay just kind of laughs, because given the conversation coming up , I'm guessing the finger that pulled the trigger in Jay's dream was slender and French-manicured.
Troy and Tarzan are talking about the dire straits the menfolk find themselves in. Tarzan points out the 6-4 gender split and says, "They beat us at the game. We're gonna lose." Hate it when the crazy assholes are right. Troyzan is still under the Kim-planted impression that Mike was against them, as he tells Tarzan it's not like the men fell apart -- Mike was always voting with the women anyway. I officially have no problem with anyone snowing Tarzan, but ... Troy knows he's full of shit with that statement, right? He's certainly not telling Tarzan that he already has an immunity idol. Still, he interviews about how easily the women could decide to knock him and Jay -- the two most recent immunity-winners -- out of the game. He says if he gets a whiff that Kim and Chelsea are pulling a fast one, he can always use his immunity idol to change things up.
And, look, it's easy to laugh from this vantage point and laugh at Troyzan and Jay for seeing what was coming and still not being able to thwart it, but I'm not so sure it's the dumbest thing I've seen on this show. If we take away the part where Troy was so easily snowed by Kim last week re: Mike (which, granted, looks pretty stupid), their only indication that the women they're aligned with are going to turn on them is that there's a 6-4 gender split. It's just as likely that the women ARE with them and that freaking out about it and changing the plan (aligning with Tarzan and Leif, say) might queer a deal that was pretty advantageous to them. The reality is that Kim, Chelsea, and Sabrina have them totally snookered and they're doing a pretty good job of it. Should Troy and Jay have seen Mike's ouster as the elimination of a strong immunity threat and subsequently drew a line to themselves? Probably. But the women -- Kim especially -- are playing this whole thing rather well.
Tree Mail: the whole tribe treks out together to retrieve the message, which is joined by a chalkboard scoreboard and totem-pole-like apparatus they're supposed to bring back to their camp. They'll be performing the challenge from the comforts of home and without any host, because I guess Jeff Probst had to do a focus group for his new talk show or something. You guys, Jeff Probst is getting a talk show. For everybody who can't get enough of his inquisitive style at Tribal Councils. That's okay, though, because Troyzan takes it upon himself to be the de-facto challenge host while Jeff is away. Seriously though, this kind of read-your-own-instructions, do-the-challenge-in-your-backyard thing is soooo Big Brother. So I did a poor job of describing the challenge apparatus in the recaplet. Let me try to do better: it's kind of a totem pole with rungs? Like one central vertical pole with spindlier poles stuck through it horizontally. Each pole represents a score: 1-5 and the higher the spindle, the higher the score. The teams have to take this rope with balls tied to either end (sorry, it sounds porny but that's just what it is) and throw it at the pole, trying to wrap the balls around the pole and score. LOOK, YOU DESCRIBE IT. Winner gets a boat ride to a barbecue feast.
They draw for teams by pulling red or black rocks out of a bag. Because she's a horrible pile of garbage in human form, Alicia immediately spots the red rock in her own hand and is like, "Okay, I need the reds to come over here." Because she's in charge, you guys, seriously. Ugh, the worst. So the reds are: Alicia (HAD YOU HEARD?), Troyzan, Jay, Tarzan and Kat. The blacks are: Kim, Chelsea, Sabrina, Christina and Leif. Sabrina gets a funny interview about Troyzan's hosting prowess, saying, "I love Troy like cooked food," but it's not like anybody asked him to be a host. Loving someone like cooked food might have to be a thing I start saying.
There really isn't much to say about the challenge itself. People be throwin' balls at poles. Overall, it seems like everybody's trying to finesse things a bit too much and as a result all the throws come up shorter than they'd like. Jay misses. Kim misses. Kat gets a 2-pointer. Leif misses. Troy misses. Chelsea misses. Tarzan steps up and hits a 4-pointer and it just bums me out that nobody will have seen him do it because they were too busy shielding their eyes from his teal briefs. Down six points with two throwers left, Christina doesn't appear to be gunning for the high scores like she has to do. She scores a 1-pointer, which doesn't help. Alicia misses, which leaves it all on Sabrina to have to score a 5-pointer to tie it. Sabrina at least seems to know she has to aim high, but when she also falls short, I begin to wonder if these people just didn't get any practice with how hard you have to throw the ropey-ball thingies. Anyway, the Troy/Jay/Kat/Tarzan/Alicia team wins! Everybody high-fives Tarzan from a safe distance.
The reward is pretty standard, as food rewards go. They get rum and coconut water on the boat ride to the island, and once there, the Island Help fix them up some fish and lobster and other island-y goodness. As for strategy, Jay makes a low-key stab at securing Kat's help in making sure the other girls are onboard with eliminating someone like Alicia this week. He talks a bit about how he was kind of upset to vote out Mike last week (the impression I get is that Kim basically told Jay that the vote was for Mike right before they left for TC if not on the way, thus leaving him no time to back-talk or strategize). Jay's hair is REALLY holding up to the elements out there, I have to say. Not sure how long that chiseled face of his can support a beard (this is a man built for light scruff and no more), but the way things are going for him, we might not ever have to find out. He basically tells Kat they need to send Manono home and she's like, "That's the plan!" But even from Jay's pleading tone, we can tell the dynamics are just not that at all.
After the break, everybody's back at camp and Kim and Chelsea are discussing how the boys must know deep down that they're in trouble. Kim interviews with confidence how her plan is to play the soft-spoken girl who doesn't seem to have much power (and thus doesn't need to be a priority at Tribal), but then in front of the jury and convince them that she was the person making all these moves. It's a tougher prospect than I think she realizes. Meanwhile, Chelsea is expressing some queasiness at having to actively lie to Jay and Troyzan knowing they're the to go. She wants to somehow "not know about it," whatever that means. It's making her look totally wishy-washy and weak. (Also? I don't know if it's because of last week's confrontation with Tarzan the Passive-Aggressive Plastic Surgeon or maybe because of how she's framed, but Chelsea's enhanced boobs are basically ALL I can see when they cut to her.) She interviews that she has looked both Troy and Jay in the eyes and said "You can trust me 100%." And, look, I can sympathize with the difficulty of looking into Jay's eyes and saying anything but the deepest truth in your soul. But considering the whole point of the game is to lie to people and make them trust you and them eliminate them, it's hard for me to sympathize. Particularly since Chelsea isn't even saying they should NOT get rid of Troy or Jay. When Kim points out that either one of them could go on an immunity run clear through to the final, Chelsea doesn't disagree. Alicia, having been forged on a trash barge and animated to life as a scourge upon the people, like a Golem in poorly-fitting swimwear, interviews that Chelsea pissed her off by having feelings. "Nobody told you to mix with the boys anyways. Like, we were fine without them and then you go off and promise them you're going to take them to the top? Puh-leease." Says the golem who made a plan to go to the end with COLTON.
A smidge later, Kat updates Sabrina on Chelsea's waffling. Sabrina doesn't think much of it either, but her words have a bit more weight behind them as they're not loaded down with hypocrisy or evil. "[The women] want to go to the end. Going to the end requires some big-girl decisions. You gotta put on your big-girl panties and make a big-girl decision. You knew it was going to have to come to this." Hi, I'm immature and can never hear the phrase "big-girl panties" without imagining just a giant pair of bloomers with, like, three girls all trying to fit inside. Sorry.
A lonely hermit crab crawling on an indifferent beach is the perfect transition to Jay and Troy talking strategy. Troy seems to be wearing some kind of island shin-guards, perhaps made of buffs? Anyway, Jay kind of softly gives Troy shit for supporting Mike's ouster and Troy's like, "You're right; the girls probably need to agree to get rid of Alicia or Christina pretty soon." No pressure though, ladies! Jay's like, "No, Alicia needs to go ." He interviews that Alicia's more dangerous strategically (...plus she smells like sulfur and the Garden of Eden). Troy then enthuses about how, should their alliance stick together, he and Jay could win immunities all the way until the end, never once seeing how those two things might be at odds. Jay, meanwhile, interviews that while Troy is good to align with for now, he has no plans to take him to the very end. His alliance is with Kim and Chelsea and that's how it'll stay. My official stance is that I don't blame Jay for sticking with the alliance he'd made, but if those two were his prime allies -- Kim who sprung the Mike vote on him and Chelsea who made that marble-mouthed assertion about how it was "not necessarily" true that Jay would get picked off soon -- I'm starting to think he should have seen SOMETHING coming.
Jay communicates the "vote Alicia" plan to Kat, who is clearly unenthusiastic about it. Finally, Jay has to make the "Hey, Troy and I sacrificed Mike for y'all, so..." argument, which just sounds sadder and sadder when you realize how very much the women plan to not honor it. He asks if Kat's down with Alicia. Kat: "What am I gonna say, no?" RED FLAG, HANDSOME! Kat calls the other women over and Jay again asks for confirmation on Alicia. Kim is the ONLY one who immediately is like, "Yes." Sabrina doesn't say anything and Chelsea doesn't look at him. Your dupes need reassurances, ladies! Chelsea interviews that Jay is one of those people whom it's hard to look in their face and lie. You know what? Forget what I said earlier -- I think looking Jay right in his face and lying to him could be kind of... hot? Just straight-up lie to his face, all sexy-like. ...Sorry, what? My mind wandered. Chelsea once again interviews that she doesn't know if she can "do this." Ahhh... nonspecific, ominous sound-bites. An editor's best friend.
After the break, we get yet another conversation about how the men are going home . This time it's Kim reassuring Alicia that, despite what they told Jay, she's definitely not going. You know how to tell if an episode is going to end up super predictably? When you get the same conversation repeated about twelve times. However, Troy spots this conversation happening -- under the weak guise of washing out coconut bowls -- and wonders what's going on. This sets off Troy on one of his periodic "What if the women are planning an alliance?" tangents that never seem to stick. Later, as Troy and Jay return with tree mail, they discuss the possibility of a challenge where they might be tempted with food rewards. Troy says he definitely wouldn't bail. Troy also frets about a women's alliance, but Jay -- having been given his, ahem, reassurance -- thinks they're solid. Again, paranoia and panic are so often detrimental to one's chances in this game that I don't entirely blame Jay for trying to calm Troy. But it's tough to argue that in the face of what's to come. Meanwhile, Jay reads the clue and flashes a toothy smile that more than anything confirms that the pout is the look he should stick with. Meanwhile, Tarzan has taken to wearing what appears to be Monica's one-shoulder wrap top. Naturally.
The immunity challenge is the one where you have to stand on a perch and hold your arm up in the air and it's cuffed to a giant bucket over your head, so if your arm goes down the bucket dumps colored water on you. They've done this one at least once before, definitely in the Africa season when Teresa won (and also All-Stars, Fans vs. Favorites and Heroes vs. Villains, so they kind of do this one a lot... and thanks for the help on that goes to my research assistant Brian Corridan, who will always be platinum in my book). Complicating the process, they will be tempted to voluntarily give up for food rewards, which usually gives Jeff a chance to get haughty about who's feeling too secure in the game and God knows we need to give Jeff more chances to get haughty.
Again, not a ton to say about a competition where people are holding their arms up in the air. Tarzan is out in less than one second, which: might as well. He could've at least tried to stick it out for food, I suppose. Christina loses balance just as Jeff is bringing out the first covered item, which, of course, by the bylaws that exist in Jeff's head means she doesn't get it. Sabrina gleefully takes the item (milk and cookies) and Kim and Kat leap off for the one (cupcakes). Couple things there: 1) even if you are secure enough to take the food, it's never a good idea to be so enthused about it; the girls have Jay and Troy pretty well beat, but hidden idols and just the general number of wild cards left (Tarzan, Leif, maybe Christina) means you should really keep them feeling secure for a while longer; 2) I've never been on an island starving for this long obviously, but I can't imagine sweet rewards would tempt me as much as actual food. Alicia starts enthusing about the various foodstuffs and Jay's like, "If you jump off, I'll vote your ass out!" Which I think is him trying to lay groundwork for a "reason" to vote Alicia.
With the field cut down by half, Alicia tries to start making deals. She offers to Chelsea that she will jump off at the food item and then she says "Jay will come off," which either means she thinks Jay isn't long for the competition or that her bucket-dumping will somehow jostle Jay off? It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not the only thing that doesn't make a ton of sense: it seems like Alicia is offering to jump off for Chelsea's benefit, to curry favor with Chelsea. But all that will do is make Jay and Troy worry that Alicia and Chelsea have a deal. The strategic move for Alicia is to stick out the challenge as long as possible, so the boys think she thinks she has to win. I think Alicia just wants food and is looking for a way to cover her ass about it by trying to make it look "strategic." It's not. And Chelsea is kind of annoyed that Alicia is offering to "give her" the challenge. Because Chelsea is looking pretty comfortable, all things considered. Whatever, after that bit of unconvincing theater, Alicia hops off for the item sight-unseen. Unfortunately, it's not a plate of bugs, but rather a bowl of candy bars. Which, again: hold out for the cheeseburgers!
Troyzan and Chelsea each have moments where they lose balance but recover. Troy does so again and can't get back on track, so he's out and foodless. The item is chicken and beer, which gets Jay to leap off immediately. This I can at least see being tempted by (the chicken, at least) but in retrospect this is a dumb move. I guess he just felt like he needed to outlast Alicia, but did he notice how easily she gave up? Sigh. It's kind of Jay in a nutshell. Strategic... to a point. I'm not sure it mattered anyway, because Chelsea has not budged in this game. She promises Leif that stepping down would make him safe this week (he's less of a threat). Jeff tries to amp up the play by play with very insincere "who do you trust?" commentary. The food item is burgers, which gets Leif in the frame of mind to believe Chelsea. It's a good move. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. So Chelsea wins and her friends even give her bites of their food. Not a bad deal.
After the break, Kim interviews that she was happy to let Chelsea have the win and get some of the "threat" spotlight off of her. Meanwhile, Chelsea has begun to warm up to the idea of voting out the boys, much as she still likes them. "I LOVE money, though," she says, summing it up. Assessing the situation, Chelsea says Jay gave up for food (thinking he's safe) while Troy stuck it out, which means Troy is the one to pick off. She then chats with Kim, who wants to do a split vote -- 4 for Troy, 3 for Jay -- to ensure against a hidden idol. She acknowledges it's risky, what with wild cards like Leif and Tarzan, but she wants to make sure Troy can't pull a fast one. So she instructs Alicia to vote for Jay, as will Tarzan and Christina.
Troyzan then approaches Kim looking for assurances. And look: I think Kim is being very convincing here. She doesn't look guilty or conflicted, she laughs along with Troy about his paranoia and she seems fully onboard with the Alicia thing. Yet Troy interviews (and granted, he may not have been referring to that moment) that he got twigged by Kim being a little too agreeable. So I guess good for Troy and his Troyzan intuition. He digs up his immunity idol and puts it in his pocket, just in case, and then tells Jay all about it. Jay, I think, is more weary about the easy Tribal he was promised suddenly getting taken away from him. He tries to assure Troy that the girls are cool with Alicia and that he's got nothing to worry about -- but boy, is Troy unconvinced. So Jay is troubled. He just now found out that Troy has a hidden idol, so this is a lot to process. So while Troy goes about the process of trying to secure votes from Tarzan and Christina (?!), Jay goes and tattles to Kim. Ultimately, this is the move that slits his own throat, but in Jay's mind Kim is his ally before Troy is, so he's working to save Kim. Adorably, he's still clinging to the Alicia vote, saying the safe play is to vote out Alicia and flush out Troy's idol in the process. Meanwhile, Kim now knows she's being targeted (so much for the plan to lay low) and as she says, she doesn't have very much time to get reassurances from everybody. Which I think means that the only votes she can change are in her inner circle (Chelsea, Sabrina, Kat). So if you're looking for an explanation as to why TC goes down like it does, it's that. Poor Jay. Engineering his own elimination.
Tribal. Tarzan -- again wearing Monica's swoopy top -- talks about how the men "lost their will" after the merge (sorry, WHO was it who divorced himself from aligning with Jonas?) and now the women have emerged as the smarter players. Jay expresses his hopes that the new Salani co-ed alliance would stick together are "dwindling." Jeff again, like last week, asks who feels they're vulnerable this time around. Kim, Jay, and Troy raise their hands. They're not wrong. Jeff is still surprised it's not more of them and goes to Kim, who says she was confident up through the immunity challenge, but that a "funky" paranoid vibe at camp has made her worry. Chelsea tells Jeff that at some point, you have to just trust in your alliance and hope they're not lying to you. Which is exactly what Jay is doing now, albeit gingerly. Sometimes it doesn't work out.
Troyzan makes a good point about how you start to read the nonverbal signals from people: such as who abandons immunity for food and who applauds whom at the challenges (everybody seemed pretty happy when he lost, after all). Talk then turns to hidden idols and who might have one. Alicia puts Troy on blast for changing into cargo shorts before TC, the better to conceal an idol. Tarzan sums things up, saying he predicts that "the alliance that I know of" will vote together and be strengthened and dominate. Which, if you look at whom he votes for, makes you wonder where exactly he thinks he fits in. Oh, and in case you were worried that the game is not afoot, it most certainly IS.
Votes! Jay votes for Alicia and is like, "I told you not to step down," so yeah, that comment at the challenge was laying the groundwork for some theatricality here. Troy votes for Kim as the "strongest player." Kat sadly votes for Troy. We don't see the other votes. When the votes come back, Troyzan plays his idol. So the two votes that get cast for Troy don't count. The one for Kim does. And the two for Alicia do. But so do the four votes cast for Jay and he's eliminated. Bye, cheekbones and spaghetti straps and lazy Southern drawl. I will miss you all. (For those curious: Kim, Sabrina, Alicia, Christina, and Tarzan (?!) voted for Jay; Kat and Chelsea voted for Troy; Jay and Leif voted for Alicia; Troyzan voted for Kim.)
week: Troyzan versus the world. The world seems to have the edge. But. You know, I do think the women are poised to finish off the guys and take their alliance Top 6. But I recall another time an all-women alliance decimated the men at this stage of the game, in Vanuatu. And the one guy left standing took the whole thing. There are advantages to being an alliance of one sometimes. I just really hope that one guy this season isn't Tarzan.
Joe R hopes Jay remembers to stop shaving like 2-3 days before the reunion episode. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com, and you can listen to him yammer on to his heart's content on the Extra Hot Great podcast.