Wed, March 8, 2006

How could I forget? In last week's poll, I selected a few of the metaphorical animals we should look forward to seeing as the rest of Survivor: Exile Island plays itself out, but I completely overlooked the Tarantula of Bitching About Inequitable Reward Sharing and the Cockatoo of Petty Bickering. Well, they'll get their share of screen time this week.

As the sun rises on day twelve at La Mina beach, Sally is delighted to still be around and Dan is looking concerned. Perhaps the reason he was so happy to have Ruth-Marie around is that she was slightly frailer than he is, and now he's starting to look like a convenient target. A quick shot of the Capuchin of Insincere Retroactive Fondness (Behold!), and then Nick and Sally stroll along the shore, engaging in a Ruth-Marie miss-off. Sally's not sure how they'll get by without her; Nick was interrupted mere nanoseconds before expressing the same regret. Sure. Right.

The Sand Crabs of Unparalleled Assholery lead us to – where else but Casaya beach? Aras is busy dictating the morning's game plan: he'd like the team to build a fire and boil water so they can hydrate. A few yards away, and likely out of earshot, is Bruce, who is designing a zen rock garden. He hopes it will offset some of the friction in the team dynamic, but even if he just hopes it'll be pretty, he's certainly within his rights to build it. Besides, just because not everyone's working at the same time doesn't mean anybody is working more or less than anyone else overall.

Nevertheless, Aras decides to passive-aggressively question Bruce's decision to build a garden instead of a fire. Bruce! The guy who rescued this team from the brink of extinction with his generosity and survival skills mere days ago. As soon as Bruce nears the fire pit, Aras whines to him that the fire is refusing to build itself. Bruce suggests better firewood, since most everything is damp. Aras retorts that he's already collected firewood. "You gotta understand," he adds, "this is a really tough fire right now." How does this prevent him from gathering more firewood? Does Aras have to be around to supervise the failing fire? Because he's doing a great job so far. Then he shoots at Bruce: "When you built your rock garden, no one complained." (Of course, Aras did, and now he's re-complaining directly to Bruce at his earliest opportunity.) It's clear that Aras just wants to pick on Bruce about this, and he's seizing any sloppy segue into the argument. "I'm working on this; I'm working as a team," he says. Clearly he missed the poster, because "I" is one of those things that I'm pretty sure is not in "team." But Bruce is hanging in there, baby. He keeps the pressure on Aras, accusing him of making character attacks.

Aras interviews that it's a matter of the fire being more important than the rock garden, but it isn't a matter of that. No one would deny that the fire is more important; but Bruce can build a rock garden without interfering with the fire. And if Bruce is really the only person who can build a fire – and how fucked is Casaya if that's the case? – then Aras can pretty much sit around and wait until Bruce is ready to build it. If he's entirely dependent on Bruce's skills, then things are going to get done on Bruce's schedule.

Instead, Aras is focusing on semantic technicalities. He wants specifics about how he attacked Bruce's character and then sarcastically implies that Bruce is the character assassin, since he called Aras "childish." What a prick. You can do two things in a discussion like this: try to work things out and actually resolve the issue, or try to score petty debate points. Aras is all about the petty debate points. Aras asks Bruce to go and collect some of the good firewood, as if Bruce is the only one who knows where it is – and how fucked is Casaya if that's the case? Why does Bruce have to be the errand boy, here? Aras can collect some firewood – or maybe he's tied up with more important duties, like policing the beach to prevent the outbreak of any more rock gardens.

Aras feels like the oldest person on Casaya – apparently in reference to senility and incontinence, because he clearly doesn't mean that in terms of wisdom. He thinks some time on Exile Island would be a welcome break. Not as welcome as a good old fashioned Tribal Council eviction, as far as I'm concerned.

At the reward challenge, Coach Probst graciously allows Casaya its "first look" at the new La Mina team, sans Ruth-Marie. Wouldn't it be funny if they had peeked earlier, on the way over? Sorry, Probst! There goes your big moment!

Teams will be racing to transport rice, beans, and fish from a boat to the shore. Ah, yes. We did this one in school: the fox can't be left alone with the chicken and the chicken can't be left alone with the grain. In this case, though, there's more than one farmer, so it's not so challenging. They just have to "bucket brigade" their groceries up the beach, and the first team to get everything into its proper bin (including cutting off the fish heads and tails) wins all the food they've collected.

It appears to be La Mina's challenge to lose, right up until they lose it. Bruce struggles mightily with the fish-beheading on Casaya's side, but then he and Bobby trade places and Bobby starts lopping off the fish heads with a single swing. Meanwhile, Sally and Dan struggle with the fish catch, because Dan throws the fish too high, meaning they reach Sally's arms in an entirely downward trajectory and – due to their sliminess – slip right through. Once he figures out how to throw a low, soft toss, everything picks right back up, but Bobby's already done with all his beheading and so the reward goes to Casaya. Never one to deprive the contestants of food, Probst allows La Mina to choose its rice or its beans to take back to camp, but not before sending Terry back to Exile Island.

Casaya says they're sending Terry to E.I. "out of respect," since he's clearly such a strong player, but Miss Alli has it right – this is just absurdly moronic strategy. You've identified your greatest threat on the other team, and you're giving him more opportunities to find the mini idol? If they watched last season, Casaya knows that the mini idol will be found. The clues will just keep getting easier and easier – which Bruce could tell them, based on what he's read – so they're just shooting themselves in the collective foot by repeatedly sending La Mina's strongest player out to find it.

Casaya returns to find their camp entirely waterlogged by a heavy rainstorm that was not present at the reward challenge. They can't build a fire because all of their firewood is soaked through. (The Survivor cameramen – missing no opportunity to get cheeky – collect many shots of the dripping wet firewood, not sitting inside the outhouse.) So, they have to eat their fish raw before it spoils, and Courtney is "shocked and awed" that Cirie has never had sushi. She's said that before, in the first or second episode. So that's, like, an expression for her? How very, very sad.

The Eagles of Excessive Gastrointestinal Description circle high above La Mina, which is perfectly dry. These camps are in separate weather systems – they must be pretty far apart! What a chore that challenge commute must be. Nick and Austin encounter a little shock from eating beans after starving for so many days, so there's an entertaining overnight montage of them returning from multiple vomiting and/or diarrhea excursions and making the typical chucklefuck comments about how things went, even though they're well aware that such details are completely unnecessary.

At Casaya, it continues to rain and now there's thunder, too. Menacing music is playing, like something out of a serial killer movie, and it brings us to the outhouse, where Bruce and Bobby are hanging out, trying to stay dry. They're sharing a bottle of wine from the reward, and they're reveling in their animosity towards the other kids. They swear against voting for one another.

In the morning, the Hermit Crab of One Single Bottle of Wine Causing Someone to Go Absolutely Apeshit wanders ironically near a cork on Casaya's beach. Courtney sighs that the camp is in such disarray, she doesn't know where to begin. Somewhere among the flotsam, she's lost track of Bruce, Bobby, and the last bottle of wine, and she's not OK with Bruce and Bobby drinking the wine, if that's what happened.

Cirie checks out the outhouse, and finds Bruce napping with an empty wine bottle. She declares, "I would have to be dead, and someone would have to pour it down my throat, for me to drink the last bottle of wine that [Casaya] won." I'm in! Sounds like a fine plan to me. It's funny, Bruce and Bobby would probably make the same overblown declaration in relation to kicking someone out of the team's shelter in the pouring rain. It's odd how the lines of morality end up being drawn in Survivor. It generally tends to split along the lines of what you personally have done or not done, or what your friends have done.

Bobby instantly owns up to drinking the wine. He's all, "Yeah, I drank the wine. You want to make something of it, you skinny little punk?" And Courtney's all, "Uh... can I blame it on anyone who can't kick my ass?" and Bobby is all, "Well, yeah, Bruce had some, too." Courtney asks Bobby, "How do you feel about it?" and Bobby says, flatly, "I feel swell about it." Me too, oddly. Which is strange, because it's true that Bobby did something disrespectful and inappropriate. I guess my reaction, like his, is influenced by what a sanctimonious little fucktart she's being about the whole thing. "How do you feel about it?"?! Come on!

Anyway, Bobby deadpans, "I feel bad that I drank their wine, but I have no hard feelings whatsoever that you've been deprived of wine." Courtney just can't formulate a response to that. Could anyone? At this point, Courtney, Aras, Shane, and Cirie are annoying me enough to just stop caring about Casaya altogether. I do like Danielle – and wouldn't that make a nice name for a baby girl? – but even she and the twins can't counteract the onslaught of antipathy that the rest of Casaya elicits.

Over at E.I., removed from all this bullshit about who drank whose what, Terry is just hanging out, sipping from his canteen, and worrying about La Mina. He's afraid they're not keeping themselves adequately hydrated. Wow, that's specific – next he'll be worrying whether Sally is blinking often enough.

The immunity challenge consists of rowing glass bottomed boats out to four submerged coffins, then diving to untie some ropes and open the coffins. Teams must collect four puzzle pieces from the coffins, and then the two non-paddling teammates will construct a skull pyramid out of the pieces. Bruce and Cirie sit this one out because, y'know, swimming.

La Mina surges ahead, as Terry makes quick work of coffin one, then Dan prepares to do some serious NASA-level breath-holding on the dive to coffin two. (His dive is great, but he resurfaces halfway under the boat and conks his head against the hull.) Danielle retrieves the second puzzle piece, while a cameraman swims devilishly between her legs. Then, Dan brings up another puzzle piece, and you can believe he rises hands-first. Terry, strategic dynamo that he is, swims part of the way back to shore behind La Mina's boat. He knows he can rest as soon as they hit shore, so he's making it easier for the rest of his team to paddle. After far too much suspense, La Mina does indeed pull their puzzle together. Casaya will be heading to TribCon, and probably none too regretful about it.

A dazzling overhead shot of the Manta Rays of Changing Your Mind About the Alliance Vote. Gosh, there are a lot of those Manta Rays frolicking in the ocean down there. A lot! That wouldn't portend anything, would it?

Once Casaya returns to camp, the dysfunctional alliance kids huddle up for a strategy session. Shane blurts out that he wants Bobby to go, and would prefer to discuss it no further. Aras recalls Bobby's strong performances in the last few challenges. (He was one-chopping those fish heads, for crying out loud!) Aras voices his own concerns about Bruce. He's too hard to control and he doesn't offer anything. (Except for all the things he offers, like survival skills and such. What Aras means is, Bruce doesn't offer blind obedience.) Shane agrees to vote for Bruce, but makes sure everyone knows it's against his wishes, and therefore a very stupid idea. "I'll tell you – it's gonna end up costing me," he says. And I'm sure that's the worst thing any of these people can fathom: things not going according to plan for Shane. Courtney wants to confirm: Shane's incoherent ranting sounded like maybe he wasn't behind this Bruce vote – does that mean he's out of the alliance? Shane bites her head off, as though she's asked the most preposterous question ever. I'm no fan of Courtney, but it was kind of hard to divine exactly where Shane had landed.

Shane is convinced that if they keep Bobby around, he's going to switch allegiances as soon as the merge happens and vote with Austin and Nick. (Perceptive – since Bobby and Bruce vowed to do exactly that during their late-night toilet party.) So, he goes straight to Bobby as soon as the vote is decided, and asks whether Bobby is planning to vote with La Mina. Bobby astutely detects that it's a good time to lie, and promises he won't switch sides after the merge. Shane asks him to swear on his kid. (Shane's kid.) How can that make any sense? Bobby, like the rest of us, isn't even certain Shane's kid exists. He may as well swear on Twila's kid. But Shane won't quit pressing the issue, so Bobby finally shakes and says, "Yeah, on your kid. On Boston." This has to be facetious, right? He's from LA – what does he care about Boston? Or does he think that's the name of Shane's kid? I always thought it was Winston.

Bruce tends his rock garden, then goes on a short walk, returning to find Courtney practicing yoga in the middle of his garden. He interviews that he's miffed about this, but that's all we get of the huge blow-up that was promised in last week's scenes. Bruce complains that she has an entire beach to occupy and yet she's chosen to do her yoga right in his zen garden, but it's not like she's destroying it, or even standing on any of the rocks. He never specifically asked people not to hang out in the zen garden – and considering the Thinking Seat debacle, he'd probably be wise not to. If I were interested in doing some yoga and someone had just constructed a zen garden nearby, I'd probably consider that a pretty appropriate place to yoga. So, I'm not sure why this bothers Bruce, except that he dislikes Courtney. Which, everybody does, so that's probably a good enough reason.

Danielle and Courtney consider flipping things around and voting for Aras with Cirie. What a fantastic idea! But, somehow they think Shane is the appropriate fourth vote to bring into this. What a terrible idea. a) Vote for Shane! What the fuck? If you're dishonoring the original alliance, why would you vote for anyone else? b) Shane swore on his rich, flavorful kid that he's not breaking that alliance, so he's going to throw a fit if you try to on his watch. c) Bobby or Bruce would be way better to have on your team, way more likely to accept this sort of proposal (to save their hides), and way more generally reliable, psychosis-wise.

It's confusing because at first it sounds like they think Aras will be impossible to beat, but then Bobby's the one they want to eliminate, so I guess he's the greater perceived threat. The funny thing is, Aras and Shane are even more threatening just based on their general attitude and the way they throw their weight around. Bobby's strong, but there's still a little time to deal with strong people. What you don't want is people who are controlling the voting. If you betray Shane/Aras but don't weaken them, they're just going to do something crazy next week.

As predicted, Shane balks. "He swore on my kid. I can't." He yells at Courtney – why didn't this come up earlier before he whipped out his kid and started forcing people to swear on it? Cirie plays into Shane's ego, telling him in soothing tones that his initial instincts to vote against Bobby were right. Shane is weirded out by all the flip-flopping, which is a sort of justified reaction. You can tell this team is in serious trouble.

At TribCon, Shane calls the tribe "dysfunctional functional" – they pull together in challenges, but otherwise they can't operate together. Probst digs into the whole wine debate, which is such a ridiculous non-issue, and Courtney makes a lot of snide smirks while Bruce and Bobby tell their story. It's admittedly flimsy, but fuck her, why does she get to decide? I think their story is purposely flimsy because they just don't care about justifying their actions to someone like her. Bobby's great at calmly saying that he has no regrets but that he is sorry if people feel put out by having their wine drunk in their absence. Aras decides to play Daddy to Bruce and explain why it's important for him to own up to his mistakes and offer an unsolicited apology and explanation whenever anyone else feels slighted by his actions. Probst asks Bruce if he feels disrespected and Bruce explains that Casaya frequently asks for his input and then challenges it. Aras tells him not to look at it as an "ego blow" (certainly he never would!).

Aras and Danielle are definitely playing out their votes before the group. Aras still thinks people are voting for Bruce, so he's making Bruce seem like the bad guy. Dani and her people want Bobby gone, so she's trumpeting Bruce's qualities and defending his honor.

The voting commences, overseen by the Anaconda of Truly Abhorrent Strategy. Shane calls his a "throwaway vote" – he's not specifically trying to vote the person off, he's just restricted from voting against anyone else because of his kid being weighed down by armloads of swears. As it turns out, Shane did keep his promise not to vote for Bobby, but by going off on his own, he created a situation that required fewer votes to achieve a majority, so Bobby lost anyway. It's virtually indistinguishable from voting for Bobby in the first place, but in Shane's multiply-enfeebled mind, that fine line is wide enough to smoke a kid in.

Bobby admits that he could have played the game differently, "but the truth was, I just couldn't stomach a lot of these jokers." It's hard out here for a pimp. But the key to Survivor is choking back the hate, and playing a solid strategic game despite the emotional distractions. Kind of like the Oscar Pool, that way.

Next week: the women of Casaya take another swipe at strategy, and this time it looks like they might actually vote for Shane; a twist means... something, hopefully something twisty; and Probst promises "a Tribal Council like never before." You mean like without the obnoxious Q&A session?

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