Thu, October 28, 2004

This week, I missed Survivor so I could lose an excruciating amount of money at poker (to some very nice guys). I watched it off TiVo on Sunday. (These days, since Arksie and household finally fell in line, I always watch Survivor on TiVo. But I usually watch it around 9:00, 9:30 on Thursday.) Watching it on Sunday just underscores what a chore it's become. Episodes don't have moments the way they used to. Something interesting that sparks conversation. These days, I'd settle for "these Pringles taste like gold" – it's hardly interesting, but at least it's something to talk about.

What we have this week is Royry with his back against a wall. For some reason, Scout and Lea decided last week that they'd play along with Probst and Burnett's twisty little maneuver and divide up the teams that had, thus far, served them perfectly well. If they were smart, they'd have divided the teams up men vs. women again, then each picked their same team. Instead, we've ended up with teams that are "gently" shuffled (though not as gently as splitting up AmbeRob and leaving everything else exactly the same). Two boys on the girls' team, two girls on the boys' team, everything else the same. Which is why Travis and Royry were in a jam, and with Travis gone, Royry's really stuck.

So, taking a page from the Chip and Kim playbook (hey, they have no complaints), he decides that the winning strategy will be... acting! He outlines this elaborate five-stage plan where he plays all these different scenes. First he'll play outraged, then he'll play conciliatory, and on and on. It's certainly a complex and intricately designed strategy, but what happens if they stop listening to him before he gets to act out the last couple of scenes? Acting angry and expecting them to stick around after the intermission for the "coming together" scene is a pretty big risk. He should be focusing on figuring out which of the women the others dislike and then seeding dissent among the group. (They'd still be stupid to vote for one of their own, but at least it's a shot.)

For the reward challenge, teams must tackle ten piglets and carry them into a pen. (Two pigs per team member.) One person on each team is the gatekeeper, responsible only for opening the gate to let people in and out while keeping pigs in. Julie is very smart to volunteer as the gatekeeper, because the only potential flaw in the strategy of avoiding votes by simply being cute is if you screw something up, and it's virtually impossible to screw up the gatekeeper role. The pigs squeal incessantly. It's kind of unnerving, there's so much. It reminds me of The Silence of the Lambs, although the exact opposite. Which I guess would be The Squealing of the Pigs. Appropriately enough. I find myself agreeing with Ami, who at one point can be heard shushing her pig.

Exposing the aforementioned genius of Julie's move is Eliza, who's a little too anxious about getting muddy to actually grab a pig. I can sympathize, because I usually avoid getting dirty, too. Although I've never been up against a million dollars – I expect I'd get plenty filthy then. However, coming back to the pen empty-handed is just a terrible idea. Trying and trying and running out of time is better than coming back with nothing. Later (after Yasur loses), Eliza exhibits her typical ability to toss the blame onto someone else. She thinks Scout is the liability because Scout's game knee made her the shoo-in for the gatekeeper slot, thereby blocking it for Eliza. With a straight face, Eliza makes the argument that, as the second worst player on the team, she's constantly being forced to contribute because Scout is worse than her. The worst slot is rightfully hers and Scout should leave so she can reclaim it. Nice.

Meanwhile, the Royry Theatre Troupe is mounting its production of The Physical Superiority of the Male. It's his assertion that the women must keep him around or their losing streak will continue. First, I don't know that Royry is the strongest physical specimen among the remaining Yasur members, male or not. Second, they've lost two challenges in a row, and he's been with them on both. How exactly is he helping? (Were Twila and Julie really that strong, that he can't make up for their absence?) And finally, this losing streak has all been on really physical challenges. Before that, the challenges weren't that physical, and Yasur generally whomped on the boys' team. It stands to reason that future challenges will be pretty balanced between feats of strength and other games like puzzles, quizzes, and eating gooey island shit. The strategy of "wait for more suitable challenges" is as likely to bear fruit as the strategy of "keep a guy around" and doesn't run the risk of prematurely dividing up your voting bloc.

Over at Lopevi, Julie is taking advantage of the team's good spirits. Nobody there is thinking much about who to vote off the island, so it's easy to plant the seed of "hot girl" without much concern that people will look closer and realize that she may not otherwise be an asset. She immediately goes for some nude sunbathing, which is one thing on TV but in person I can guarantee that it's a lot more impressive. This is an extraordinarily intelligent move, and it begins to pay dividends immediately among the guys. One of them (Lea, I'm pretty sure) even mentions on camera that he sees the value in keeping her around for a while. Hell, I even like her more than I did last week, and my view of the scene is pixellated!

The immunity challenge involves more physicality. In fact, it involves pretty much all the physicality you can imagine. Swim, climb, dive, run. Contestants must swim a sort of relay race, pushing pieces of a tiki puzzle along a rope that goes underwater, over a climbing wall, and through underwater hitching posts and trusses that must be navigated. Four team members do that, while the other two wait to assemble the puzzle after all the pieces are transported. Here, I applaud Eliza's decision to be a swimmer and not a puzzle solver. She has plenty of room to be co-worst with Scout this time, but she elects to swim, and that shows her willingness to make a contribution. I don't think it's very smart for her to go last, though, because it puts her in a position where she's more likely to take the blame for another loss than get credit for a win. If the team is lagging by her turn and she doesn't win it, she's kind of responsible; if they are winning and she falls behind, she's to blame. But if she'd gone second or even third, she could swim a slow leg and still not take the blame because someone behind her might make up the time.

As it is, this is moot because Leann just freezes at the hitching post, and Eliza's only swimming is making the trip back to shore after Lopevi completes their puzzle while Leann treads water. Ordinarily, this would be another time for me to repeat my strong advice that the puzzlers should be looking at the pieces and constructing the puzzle in their heads while the swimmers are still swimming – in order to get a head start – but the lead is so huge that it really doesn't matter. (By the way, I notice that in the preliminary footage explaining the challenge, when they show the tiki assembly in time-lapse, the tiki itself is time-lapsed but the beach and the clouds behind it are not. This is small, but it's a very nice detail. Well played.)

Back at Yasur, Eliza is comforting Leann, who comforted her after she failed in a similarly miserable fashion at the pig challenge. This tidy little 180 is ironic but it's also strategic, because Eliza is suddenly feeling a lot safer. Leann appreciates the consolation, but realizes that it counts for very little. With yet another loss on their record, the ladies are beginning to believe what they read in the Playbill that Royry's been passing around, and – silly as this is – the way it usually works on Survivor is that if you performed the worst the most recently, you're marked for death. Me, I still think Royry should be the next to go, just to reaffirm their solidarity and show him that they can't be fucked with. Just to be safe, he's taking every possible opportunity to use the word "fissure" (which, I'm just saying, is a synonym for "cleavage").

Fortunately for Leann (whom I'm really starting to like, so good for her), Ami gets into a tiff with Lisa over trustworthiness (yes, trustworthiness; someone tell them it's Survivor) and Ami is not the one you want to go up against. She seems to have Scout's ear, and possibly some of the other girls', although really with these numbers Scout's is all you need. So she manages to get Lisa eliminated, although she draws a flower on the card when she votes for her. If I were Probst, I'd stand up before the assembled team at this point and tell them that an adorned vote stings just as badly as any other, so stop trying to butter up your opponents by including a little sketch with their ouster. These people aren't even going to be on the jury!

Next week, Royry continues to garner raves as he punches up his show, adding the catchphrase: "If I'm voted off this island, Yasur will burn!" Yeah, that's exactly what'll happen. Tool. Of all the people who ever thought they were Richard Hatch, he's easily my third least favorite. And really, Hatch and Shii-Ann were the only other two, so I guess that makes him my favorite. But I still can't stand him. Particularly not with this strategy.

(If I'm wrong, by the way, about the blow of a vote against you being softened by a cute little drawing, I'm happy to admit it. Just let me know soon, so I can draw a little bunny or something for W on Tuesday.)

POLL:

Win, Lose, or Draw?

If you were voted off of Survivor, what little pictogram would you want people to write next to your name?

	Smiley.
	The bat-signal.
	Chemical structure for hemoglobin.
	Rodin's "Thinker."
	Probst, with an axe in his forehead.

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