Thu, March 11, 2004

Oh my, oh my. Welcome back, friends, to another episode of Fake Disclaimer Theater. You know, back before All-Stars began, I half-heartedly compared Survivor to the Democratic primary (i.e., in the end, you're not really rooting for anyone, so much as you're rooting against someone else). Turns out, they're similar in another way I hadn't predicted – lots of people dropping out early. I'm curious if this is more than just coincidence. Could it be that, having endured the agony of Survivor once already, these people are just giving up early in order to avoid a little future misery? You'll notice that everybody who's gone home early had made it as far as the final four the last time around, so maybe it's just a matter of evaluating the landscape of the game so far and weighing one's chances for success against the pain of struggling to the end. Or is it simply that the money is better for the runners-up this time? I would be pretty surprised if Sue and Jenna bailed early just because they expect that Outcast thing to crop up again.

Do I think Sue Hawk had a chance to begin with? No. Not at all. Because, to the extent that Survivor contestants emerge from the game with a one-dimensional persona attached to them inexorably, Sue is "Ms. Abrasive." She doesn't get along well with anyone (in Borneo or All-Stars), and she contributes very little to a team. The only reason she stayed in the previous game as long as she did was that she was Hatch's puppet, a point made abundantly clear by her hilariously impassioned Rat/Snake tirade at the end of that season. If she'd quietly voted for Hatch at the end of the show, it might have been easier to forget, but all of her hollering just highlighted Hatch's decision making. Her value to him was founded in her mood swings, her hostility, and her dumb unblinking loyalty, and he had no use for her as a teammate because she just wasn't reliable in that role. So, good thing she's gone. What a hag.

However, since the entire first half of this week is spent on it, let's address the issue of Sue's grievance. I don't align with those who assert that her emotions are manufactured for personal reasons. Rob (or maybe Rupert) accuses her of using her airtime and her departure to set the stage for future legal action against Hatch, implying that she wasn't really that upset by what happened. I don't buy it for a few reasons. One, I'm betting that among all the indemnification waivers and legal forms that the Survivor contestants sign, there's the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" clause. They definitely sign forms that will prevent them from suing CBS, Burnett, and Survivor. My guess is that Hatch is probably protected (in some way) under that. Plus, why leave? Even if you pretend to be angry in front of the cameras so you can make your case more sympathetic, you gain relatively little by forfeiting a chance at the million dollars. And, whatever Johnny Fairplay-type sympathy you get from your teammates won't do you any good if you bolt. No, I don't think she pretends to be mad; I think she genuinely is. Yes, she "pulls a Ghandia" – exhibiting nearly zero reaction for the first 18 hours or so, then suddenly getting furious – but I think she manages to whip herself into a frenzy by going over and over her feelings in her head; I don't think she is suddenly faking that rage. Invoking her husband is an odd choice, though. I can't imagine Mr. Hawk holding Sue accountable for something that was obviously perpetrated upon her by Hatch, unless he's just looking for an excuse to shun her. (Oh... now it makes sense.) She makes it sound like he's going to reject her, the way a mother gorilla does if she sees her baby touching humans. Maybe her husband will be frustrated that Hatch made her feel violated, but it's really nothing to be jealous over. I seriously doubt she'll step out of the CBS limo to find her belongings piled in the front yard and her husband crouching behind a hedgerow and flinging feces at her. ("Unclean! Unclean! Be gone!")

As to whether she has a right to be angry, though, I tend to lean towards "no." It's not that Hatch's behavior is in any way forgivable. It's just that she was in a position to avoid it altogether, and she opted not to. I'm not saying "the rape victim was asking for it," I'm just saying that he's prancing around with his penis out – regrettably, but Probst isn't stopping him – and Sue is aware of that. Her team asks her to move and she plants herself on the platform he's coming for, saying "I want this one." She challenges him for the spot, because she's still stewing over Pulau Tiga, and so – predictably – he approaches her. Whether he throws his hands up in order to press his nakedness against her, or whether he's just trying to balance on a tiny platform with two other people, is debatable. He certainly doesn't grab her and thrust into her. He's a sleaze for trying to use his nudity to unnerve the other competitors, which is childish. (Doesn't he know? Nudity should always be used for good, not evil!) But, Sue knew he was nude and she knew he was coming her way, and she was encouraged by her own team to move, and she didn't want to. So, she can't be too surprised or angry, and she can't hold it against Probst. (She can blame him for not establishing a minimum dress code for challenges, but by now that ship has sailed. If you're on board with Hatch Survivoring au naturel, then you have to expect situations in which he'll be nude near others.) I had thought that Probst gave Hatch a little lecture when it happened, but perhaps his "C'mon guys! Nobody cares about that stuff!" was directed more towards the groans of Chapera than Hatch's behavior. Overall, I think people have been surprisingly successful at maintaining an "Ignore it, maybe it'll go away" stance toward Hatch's little sizzler – nobody has really blinked at it except for this one incident, which proves how generally stupid the strategy is on Hatch's part.

Nevertheless, justified or no, Sue's torment eats up most of the first half hour. It's regrettable, if for no other reason than the gratuitous shots of Pensive Sue wandering around in her bikini. Chapera does their best to be supportive, bewildered as they are, and for some reason – I guess in an attempt to boost Sue up when she's feeling blue – everyone keeps talking about what an asset she is in challenges. Huh? As far as I've seen, her performance is never significantly Over a Replacement Player (Hee.) and that's the physical challenges. Mentally, she's a liability if anything. So, blah blah, Rob treats Amber to some fatherly advice about the emotions of girls, and blah blah, Rupert dons his Teen Mentor Hat to explain why experiences can result in such trauma. (Rupert's in an odd place this week. He's also the driving force behind a wrongheaded alliance with Rob and Amber, and he can even be heard referring to Hatch's elimination, Sue's departure, and the lost reward challenge as "three strikes" against Chapera. How was Hatch's ouster bad for Chapera? Had Hatch already told Rupert that he was sabotaging Mogo Mogo at every turn?)

All this leads up to the reward challenge, at which point Probst makes the odd decision to ask if anybody has anything they'd like to say about Hatch's behavior at the previous immunity challenge, prompting a heated discussion that is preceded by yet another scintillating disclaimer – these things are starting to cut into our precious island B-roll! And it's proof: That bastard is definitely watching the dailies. What else would compel him to randomly bring it up? Is this an intervention in absentia? Since when has Survivor been about group forums on recent events? It seems really out of place for him to suddenly initiate Probst's Penis Pow-Wow, just at the moment when Sue's fury is coming to a... is, uh, intensifying. (And by the way, where's my PPPW T-shirt?) You have to love the way everyone looks at each other like "Really? No, I don't have anything to say," for a few moments right before Sue snaps and starts gnawing on Probst's face. I think it's fair to say that she takes him by surprise – he goes pale as Sue stalks toward him, frozen with that look of "Why did I let Burnett dare me to bring this up?", and occasionally tries to blurt out something in his defense. She's blaming it all on him because he's the one who happens to be right in front of her, but really it isn't his fault. He rebuked Hatch (or at least the situation) when it happened, but beyond that I don't think he realized that it was a big deal. At the time, remember, nobody – not even Sue – had any real reaction to it. All she would have to do, as my dad trained my sister before junior high, is bring her knee up sharply and be sure to follow through. Before she goes, it's important to note that Mogo Mogo respectfully keeps quiet except for Shii Ann. More on her later. Kathy, however, is not a fan of Sue's outburst, which earns her my respect. (Andy, don't email me!)

And then Sue's gone and Jenna is putting her foot in her mouth by voting that the reward challenge should be scrubbed in favor of a Happy Bipartisan Banquet of Food Sharing. As the sole voice for sharing, and the eventual loser of the challenge for Chapera, Jenna just sets herself up as a weak player, which isn't a good thing in this game. Probst, of course, teases them with some meat ("You wannnnnna know whatcher playin' for?") and we get to see everyone's best impression of the Family Feud audience when they flip down the remaining answers. "Shish Kabobs!" they cry in unison. What are they, the narrator? Probst then proceeds to get down with his Probsty self and do the Probst. It's sweeping the nation! Do the Probst! Mogo Mogo stomps their way to victory and we all get to experience the delirious thrill of watching Shii Ann eat.

Since there's no immunity challenge and no Tribal Council (Haven't you heard? Survivor: All-Stars is the quitting game!), there's a lot of time to devote to other random developments. For example, Jerri takes an opportunity to point out her desperation to Lex and seriously imbalance their relationship in his favor, by expressing her "150 thousand percent" devotion to him. Wow. I mean, I think he stands a reasonable chance to win, too, but that's got to be some sort of record! That's like 110% times 1000! (Times 110%, times 110%, times 110%, times 110%, times 102%!) Jerri, calm down! You're creating a worldwide imbalance in the market for percent futures!

In other news, Shii Ann is a raging bitch. She's learned nothing. Her approach of pseudo-strategizing and haughtily attempting to defy expectations (because she thinks it proves that she's smarter than everyone) is exactly what has always screwed her up. You'll notice that in both of her Survivor appearances, one of the earliest things she says is that she "isn't fitting in well" with the rest of her team. This is because she immediately acts like she thinks she's better than everyone, and everything she says to anybody sounds like a transparent attempt at manipulation – which is exactly what it is. Her day-one attempt to unify the women of Mogo Mogo? Obvious strategic move. And the others read it immediately, because she can't sound sincere when she's acting like Bossy McSmartypants. I think it's glorious that Colby takes an opportunity to call her on it. He makes some excellent points about her horrible strategy, especially pointing out that she doesn't really do anything except attempt to run a PR campaign about how valuable she is, intellectually. You can tell it gets to her by the sarcastic, eye-rolling interview segment right after. Anyone who's that anxious to tell you why she didn't retort a sternly worded dressing-down is simply covering up for the fact that she has absolutely no counterargument to make. She thinks she sounds smart, summing things up in snippy little interviews, but she looks a lot less smart because of how often she's wrong. She's always seeing strategy where none is present, and frequently overlooks strategic jockeying that's happening right in front of her. (Interestingly, this exact problem got her idol, Hatch, voted off the island.) And she certainly isn't going to succeed in laying low if she keeps incessantly talking about it. She loves Hatch, and thinks she can win by adopting his smug insincerity, but it's a big gamble, casting yourself as the villain – it requires some careful handling and expert skill to win in that scenario. It isn't easy to defeat a group of people who hate you, and of whom you regularly and publicly take advantage. Hatch managed it on Pulau Tiga, but proved last week that the element of surprise is key. Shii Ann has never mastered anything but the eye-rolling and the sighing, so she just comes across as spiteful and insincere, and people hate her. On top of that, her sycophantic Hatchmania comes across so clearly that anyone would have to be crazy to trust her. Of course she's the one who steps forward to apologize to Sue, which not only feels completely disingenuous, but also presumptuous – everyone else on Mogo Mogo realizes that they're in no position to speak to Sue's discomfort or on Hatch's behalf. What a dumb bitch. I can't wait until we have immunity challenges again, so she can leave.

Finally, Chapera. A week or so ago, Alicia made the point that Chapera was riding high and couldn't be stopped. As someone who's followed Survivor and even played the game, she should know by now that an early lead is no guarantee of success, and more often leads to infighting and crumbling. (She should also know that the last thing you want to do is mention it aloud!) A couple of interesting things are happening at Chapera. One is that Rob continues to hoard power, which shocks me. These are supposed to be all-stars! He's not even doing anything useful like catching fish – shouldn't they realize that he's prime elimination fodder? Instead, Rupert and Jenna (apparently unironically) join forces with Rob and Amber. This is a terrible idea, and it points to a key blind spot that recurs on this show a lot. Alliances built of smaller sub-alliances are doomed to failure. If Rupert or Jenna knows this now, they're hiding it well. The smart thing would be to ally with Rob and Amber and immediately take Amber aside and say, "you're a pawn to Rob, but without you he's nothing; let's gang up and get rid of him." Rupert isn't thinking this, but maybe Jenna is. She's been reluctant to think about anything but the game since she started. The other thing is that Chapera seems united and reinvigorated by their recent setbacks. (Being behind in the count, or having struck out, depending on whether you follow Rupert's math.) Interestingly, the men of the team immediately sour this renewed teamwork by making fun of the newly absent Sue. You can see on the faces of the women that they have clearly taken the smart political move and publicly brushed off Sue's pain in order to minimize their apparent vulnerability, but when it's thrust in their faces (sorry), they get introspective and feel a little sisterhood with Sue. My hope is that this will be the weak point that Jenna can use to leverage Amber away from Rob. Rupert's a big softy and intensely loyal to whomever he first pals up with, so if Jenna gets Amber and Alicia on her side, she can surely bring Rupert along. Rob and Tom are utterly dispensable, so this would be a smart move for the women as well as a benefit to Chapera in general.

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