Fri, October 10, 2003

Ah, strategery on the islands! When things work out just right, Survivor can be damned amazing. Yes, it unleashed the scourge of reality television on us all, but you still have to respect it sometimes. When the pieces fall into place, it has the potential to be a compelling mind game. Up to now, we haven't had much opportunity to see any of the Drake team engaged in strategy, because all they had to do was win challenges. But now, by a turn of events too juicy to detail in the first paragraph, one of their own will be voted out of the competition. Game on!

First of all, I earn a gold star for predicting that Rupert's mention (previewed last week) of a "traitor," someone whom "if this were really a pirate culture, would be dead," was in reference to Burton (for suggesting Drake should "throw" an immunity challenge) rather than any other team member (for doing something that merits the throwing of a challenge just to vote him off). I may have gotten a C+ in gym, but I got an A in Assuming the Opposite of Whatever the Survivor Previews Imply. I'm damn proud of myself, and even more proud of Rupert. He realizes that this is a game, and that you don't relinquish the advantage willingly because you never know what's around the next corner.

At first, things seem to be absolutely the same as ever. Morgan continues to lament how tired and disillusioned they are. Osten continues to whimper and pout and generally revel in his pussery, and Andrew continues to lead the team like some highly advanced humanoid robot that is exactly like a 40-year-old Chicago attorney in every way except that it has never been programmed to understand the words "lead" or "team." Tijuana, desperate to prove to someone (herself?) that she exists and represents a force to be feared, actually skips ahead of Darrah during the reward challenge, and manages to cost the team the reward since she has no mask with which to search for the underwater puzzle pieces. Then Osten reprises his drowning routine from last week's previews, flailing and calling for help. Clearly, he thinks the show will grind to a halt and the rescue team will be called in. It'll be a nice way to put a pause on the challenge and let his teammates rest while he hitches a ride to shore on a fancy jet ski. Instead, Probst allows the challenge to continue and sends Andrew and Ryan in to escort Osten to shore. (By the way, can we dispense with the "O." in Ryan's name graphic, when he's talking on screen? Now that Ryan S. is gone, just plain Ryan will do. Is it spelled "Ryan O." merely to substantiate Probst's idiot "Rhino" nickname for him?) I'm curious where in the Survivor Employee Handbook Probst gets the authority to decide in an instant whether Osten's predicament warrants a real emergency or not, but I have to say I like it.

Morgan (in accordance with prophecy) loses hard, despite coming back strong from Tijuana's and Osten's diversions. Drake gets a sewing machine and some fabric, so they can do up some nice window treatments ("and that ceiling fan is coming down!"), and they also get the rest of their treasure map, which pretty much instantly nets them the treasure. As I said last week, the treasure is huge for the Drake team. Watching them celebrate when they find it, you can see how the accomplishment energizes them to continue dominating the game. You can also see how once again Survivor returns to the theme of women worshipping chocolate. I really like chocolate – and it's heartening that one of those trite gifts that you can buy for girls actually appears to be something they universally cherish because it takes out some guesswork. But if one more season of this show features orgasmic cooing over chocolate, it's going to start seriously eroding the value of orgasmic cooing over actual orgasms.

However, while all of this is going on, Burton (Who? When this guy sat out of a challenge last week, we had to back up just to figure out who he was.) has been buddying up with Shawn (because they both like taunting Rupert) and Michelle (because... c'mon). He wants to start picking the others off so that when the tribes merge, there won't be enough of them to vote against his little bloc. He figures Trish and Christa are easy targets because everybody knows girls are inherently weak and useless, plus Trish is the oldest Drake. He reveals this idea to Rupert, making the mistake of (a) not realizing that Rupert is close pals with the ladies and (b) not realizing that Rupert is a competitor first and everything else second. Plus, he's probably keen enough to realize that Burton needs him more than he needs Burton. At this point, Burton is one vote short of a 4-4 tie. Rupert (god love him) says, "Oh, of course, yeah," and strings Burton along like you're supposed to do. Later, he reveals that he thinks it's stupid to intentionally lose a challenge and sits out because he refuses to give less than his all in competition. Give this man a Pontiac Aztek!

By this point, the other Drake alliance also wants to throw the immunity challenge in order to get rid of Burton. It's unclear whether they're aware that his half of the team wants to throw it, too; they don't seem hip to that, and if they were it seems like they'd change their tune to avoid being vulnerable. But at least their target is a smart one. Burton is an actual threat, while Christa really doesn't represent a problem for anybody. All of this adds a supreme level of intrigue to the immunity challenge, because there are actually three teams competing. Both Drake teams are using the same means to pursue different ends, neither one aware of how their secret purposes may be compromised by the intentions of the other. High drama indeed, even if they are really terrible at appearing to be disappointed while obviously losing on purpose. (Hey, Jon. Nice wink.) All of this is turned up to 11 when the challenge ends and Probst reveals that the victory also includes the right to acquire one member from the other tribe for a period which lasts through the next reward challenge.

See, here's the thing. We have seen it every single season. The producers of Survivor have an enormous number of variables at their disposal, and they need the show to go a certain way. They don't care who wins or loses on a given day, or who votes for whom, but general trends have to follow a certain arc. The tribes should merge roughly equal in numbers. (As it is, teams are competing five-on-five when they could be competing six-to-seven at this point in the game. If something doesn't change, you start to have more people sitting out than competing.) The players should never have the upper hand over the game itself. So these little twists are always thrown in for the purpose of re-establishing equilibrium. How the players are oblivious to this is beyond me. Rupert may be oblivious too, but at least his strategy gels with it – he believes in keeping your guard up at all times because the game, like the jungle, is unpredictable. Just when you get complacent about the status quo, one of these twists will descend upon you.

When Probst unwinds that little sheet of paper that (probably) has the kidnapping twist printed on it, all I can do is scream at the TV set, "Here. Is. Why. You. Never. Throw. A. Challenge!" Rupert is kidnapped, because of his strength but I think also because of name recognition. After a short ten days on the island, Rupert is literally famous. This hands Burton quite an advantage, because now he only needs to recruit one deciding vote, rather than one to tie and two to win. Suddenly, things have gotten a lot more interesting at the Drake camp. We don't actually return to the Morgan camp, but I'm interested to see how Rupert plays it. Does he reveal that Drake threw the challenge? Was Morgan able to figure that out on their own? It was pretty obvious, but then again this is a group who still rows their boat to challenges with all members facing forward. (No wonder they're always so tired!)

Here's what worries me. Jon looks like a dopey punk-ass when he's talking about how he's such a grand puppet master, subjecting all the others to his whim. He's giddy with power because he's the swing vote and he's keeping both sects in the dark as far as what he might do. All of this is easy to dismiss, because he seems pretty well contained by the sheer size of the team. However, at the end we see that Shawn also voted for Burton. Meaning that "one-on-one alliance" that Jon mentioned between Shawn and himself is not only real, but strong enough that, even using only his arms, Jon can convince Shawn to betray the larger alliance with Michelle and Burton. If they play it smart (since Jon's vote wasn't revealed at Tribal Council), these two may be able to continue manipulating members of both Drake sub-alliances. This would be truly dangerous because at this point, my final four (in order of whom I most want to win) would be: Rupert, Michelle, Sandra, Trish. Although if Michelle is dumb enough to continue trusting Shawn or Jon, I might just have to stop being in love with her. (Oh, who are we kidding? She's so adorable, I'd have loved her forever even if she weren't named Michelle.) It will be interesting to see how Jon plays it from here. The previews indicate that he immediately blurts out who Shawn voted for, which seemingly would serve only to alienate Michelle and sour his own relationship with Shawn. As puppet masters go, this guy doesn't exactly seem to be the Great Ventriloquidini.

I've got to hand it to Jon on one thing: Sea mail. I absolutely hate this "it rhymes so it's cute" thing (see, "gaydar"), but I was getting so sick of "tree mail" that at this point, anything is an improvement. "Tree mail" was established in Season One, when the little scroll was actually hanging from a tree and, even then, someone on the Survivor staff probably named it. This year, the message is once again not in a tree. It's actually in a boat. So, as irritating as his quippy I'll-get-some-free-screen-time sound bites are (ha ha, "wet dreams" – ha ha, "Ken doll painted green"), he deserves credit for at least attempting to quash "tree mail."

Also, watching Rupert sew his new skirt got me thinking: Bearded Seamstress would make a great name for a band.

POLL:

Shopping Spree

If Drake continues to win reward challenges, what item should they take from Morgan's camp next?

	the protective sand wall
	their camera crew
	Andrew's scalp
	Darrah's accent
	their island

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