Thu, October 21, 2004

It never ceases to amaze me how poorly the contestants on Survivor manage to spell each other's names. Particularly, I guess, because there was never a single typo for Osten. I suppose it shouldn't shock me so: these people aren't exactly selected for their nuanced intelligence. What point would there be in that? If anything, that would hurt Burnett. But, as we look at the votes from last week, we see two for Rory that are grossly misspelled. Rory should be pretty easy to spell; if you're stumped, sound it out. The worst you could do is "Rorie." But these goons can't manage that. We get a "Roary" and a "Royry." First of all, this is immediately hilarious to me because Roary was the name of the stuffed animal lion owned by the title character in Gerbert, a kids' show about a relentlessly hideous moon-faced puppet (Gerbert) and his interactions with the world. In one episode, quoted endlessly by my sister and me, he visits the doctor, who allows him to listen to his heart with the stethoscope. ("I– I can hear it! It's going BA-boom! BA-boom! BA-boom!") Anyway, his lion was Roary. Maybe that's who Brady meant to vote for. Still, my favorite is Royry, because – at least in my view – it seems like you really have to go out of your way to misspell it that way. I remember one Survivor where someone wrote all of his/her votes with the non-dominant hand, so the penmanship wouldn't become recognizable to the other competitors over successive TribCons. (Probably Johnny Dumbshit, but I don't have the energy to look it up.) Maybe blatant misspellings like "Royry" are part of a similar strategy. ("He knows I know how to spell 'Rory'; this way, he'll think someone else voted for him!")

In honor of this (probably inadvertent) stroke of genius, I'm dubbing Rory "Royry" from here on out. I'm writing this paragraph so when you see it you'll know it's not a typo. It may seem like a lot of words now, but amortized across future uses, it'll amount to a net savings over writing this every single time I refer to him: "Royry. [sic] (wink) Ha!"

As completely insignificant as it is, I feel I can no longer remain silent on this fight over sleeping positions at Lopevi. Apparently, the boys are peeved that Travis keeps sleeping on the side of the fire that features the luxury of not having smoke blown in your face all night long, and they want to rotate positions so that everyone gets his fair share of smoke. For some reason, Travis (I reject the universal nickname "Bubba" – unless perhaps it's "BoBa" for his Bob Barker shirt; that would be cool) obstinately refuses to yield that space and the other guys don't know how to deal with it. To me, the solution is simple: just go to bed before Travis! He can't sit in that spot all day, for Jeebus' sake.

Such petty matters soon seem trivial, as a pair of native Vanuatians (Vanuatae?) show up and start talking and gesturing at the teams. At first, I figure these guys aren't part of the show – they've just wandered up to hassle the tourists. But the cameramen don't shoo them away, so it must be legit. They keep speaking Vanuatu at the teams, despite the obvious language barrier. (I never understand this. The Japanese couple on Lost do the same thing – you know they can't understand you, why do you just talk normally as though nothing's the matter? Couldn't they at least throw in a token "Choo choo!"?) The ladies of Yasur believe he's asking for the chief, expecting one of them to step forward as a leader. I think he could just as easily be asking one of them to step forward as a sacrifice to throw in the volcano. But they're trusting: Scout and Lea step up.

Leann interviews that the girls were really befuddled by the scene, and curious what it would all mean at the next challenge. Then she starts making a funny face like she thinks the kid next to her on the bus to summer camp is pinching her ass. Then the camera starts shaking and she starts running. Eruption! Island mayhem! The molten bowels of the volcano are registering their distemper! It's actually pretty quick and uninteresting. Someone says "look at my hand!" presumably because she's quaking with alarm, and it reminds me of being at The Loop for lunch the day Jerry Garcia died and someone was telling one of the hostesses right as I picked up my order and I could hear her telling her friend, "Look at my arm! I just got goosebumps!" The camera guy drops his camera, which briefly reminds me of what it was like to watch The Rundown, but that's it. The best part is when Probst asks, fully rhetorically, at the reward challenge: "Did you feel the earthquake?" and Eliza immediately chirps, "Yes!" as though she's going to get extra credit. Of course, before he'll let them compete for reward, Probst gets Lea and Scout to divide the rest of the competitors into two teams, then pick which team they'll each join. If this is anything like All-Stars, this switchup means the merge will be coming next week, squandering the entire point of shaking up the teams except for one measly elimination. (Of course, if this is like All-Stars, Twila will marry John K and Scout will lose the game but be awarded a supplemental million. Let's keep our fingers crossed.) While I acknowledge the necessity of this perfunctory mashup to untrack the single-minded voting strategies on each team, it's still heavy-handed manipulation by Burnett, which will always stick in my craw.

The reward challenge is deceptively simple. Each team member dives down, attempts to untie a marker from a long rope that's fastening a buoy to the ocean floor, and hangs it on a hook. But apparently you can give up, which leads Arksie to wonder why teams don't do like Chapera did in the infamous penis-waggling challenge, start skipping members to get to their strongest swimmers? Good point, Arksie. I'm more stumped by the fact that Chad doesn't remove his prosthetic leg and pop on a flipper in Captain Hook fashion. Anyway, it's moot because Lopevi wins, which now includes: Chad, Chris, John, Julie, Twila, and Lea. The reward is all the beer you can drink and all the Pringles you can eat. I do some quick math in my head and determine that, for me, that all adds up to: one Pringle. Fortunately, Lopevi fares better: Lea gushes that the Pringles "taste like gold." Really? Because if so, you should probably call the Pringles people and tell them they're doing it wrong. What's the beer taste like, a roll of quarters? Yes, whenever I spend a few days camping on a remote beach, I always look forward to my first precious mouthful of gold when I get back. I understand what he's trying to say: that in their current state of hunger, the Pringles and beer are valuable because they're hard to come by. But he's picked entirely the wrong metaphor. ("These Pringles taste like a funny Eddie Murphy movie! And the beer tastes like my father's approval!") I think what he means to say is that the Pringles taste like prime rib, or ice cream, or – actually – snack chips. Any of which might be just the thing to satisfy your craving after an extended period of involuntary fasting.

Then it's back to the beach, where Travis and Royry feel the sting of being in a minority among the primarily female Yasur. Lisa (Silicon Skeletor) thinks it'd be "cool" to tell the guys all about what Dah taught them, but Ami isn't convinced. I'm not sure why the ladies need that advantage. The reason the guys won't vote for you is not because you provide coconut milk; it's because they're grossly outnumbered. As proved by Tribal Council. The teams compete in an interminable immunity challenge that involves relay racing, untying, outrigger construction, and "some of the worst paddling [Probst has] ever seen." I find this hard to believe. From the look of Probst, he was a frat boy, and went through that Hell Week initiation. That's some brutal paddling. I want to see Probst's VHS vault of "terrible paddling" tapes that he watches to stay sharp on new lows in paddling technology just so Yasur's performance can have something against which to be measured. No, what I really want to see is Jasper hosting this show. "Worst paddling I've ever seen? That's a paddlin'."

In the ensuing vote-shuffle at Yasur, Travis uses the old line about "You'll tell me if I'm getting voted out, right? I don't want to be blindsided." Whatever, dude. There's nothing you can do with that knowledge. And what's so bad about being blindsided? You're going home either way. And he is. Although, if it's any consolation, every one of the girls draws a big frowny face next to his name on her ballot. ("I lost a chance at a million dollars? Fuck! Oh, they put frowny faces? Aww, that's okay then.") If they're so sad about voting for him, why not vote for Skeletor? She betrayed Eliza, let we forget. Or Royry. What's he good for?

Apparently, based on next week's scenes, he's good for playing the "slave" card. About time! Even more about time: Julie playing the naked breasts card in her new home at Lopevi. Yeah, no way she'll be voted out anytime soon. Transparent vote-pandering it may be for her to sunbathe topless on the beach in front of her all-male tribe. But nothing. Transparent vote-pandering it may be; what of it? (I should say almost all-male. There's Twila, though she's almost all-male herself.) Slave card, tit card, and a merge! Promises to be a helluva new episode!

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