Mon, November 6, 2006

It's such a dilemma. On the one hand, Ozzy must stay in the game to satisfy my pre-season prediction of an Ozzy/Jon final two. On the other, I can't stand Ozzy or the oft-repeated Jonny Dipshit method of narrowly escaping multiple well deserved Tribal Council votes until it's too late to get rid of him. They really gave me hope this season: everyone in the dominant Aitu alliance regards Ozzy as an obvious threat and has reached the obvious conclusion that, yes, all his fishing is very nice, but we can fish and we can survive with less food. (And, let's not forget, we're entering the part of Survivor where soon every reward challenge will incorporate a progressively larger feast.) Surely if they've figured this out, they won't allow themselves to be talked into keeping him around just because he behaves increasingly as though he was raised in a jungle?

We all know how that kind of wishful thinking on my part usually plays out.

It begins with Jessica chattering non-stop upon the return from the previous Tribal Council – putting everyone on edge, including the visiting Nate, with her constant prattling about how she'd like to be in the loop so she can know what's coming next. Does anyone remember in the very early weeks, when Jonathan was trying to convince her of the importance of strategy? Her reply: "I'm not interested in thinking ahead." Well, this is where that gets you. Sorry, kid.

It's proof that, from the very start of the hour, Burnett's editors are fucking with me. They love it, of course. Their devotion to misleading us about each episode's end is inexplicable – are they worried about people tuning out, midway through the episode? Isn't CSI among the highest rated non-awful-bitchy-surgeons-with-terrible-life-skills shows? Maybe they can afford to be a little less obsessive about its TribCon lead-in. They've got us tuned in; they should assume we'll stick around for the reality, not the surprise ending. No other reality shows feel this compulsion to trick their audience. Does the Real World try to confuse us about which two drunk hotties are about to fuck? Does Wife Swap pretend that either family is going to look back on the experience fondly? Nevertheless, Survivor is hooked on the "shotgun defense": attaching motive to any number of potential TribCon scenarios just to keep us guessing right up until Coach Probst glances woefully upon the parchment and offers that pregnant pause. The pause that says, "Whoever has the most votes up to now, just pick up your torch and head over. As soon as I finish counting ordinal numbers in my head, I'll announce your eviction."

Because here they are, right out of the box, holding up reasons why it might be Jessica (her incessant whining) or it might be Ozzy (he's next on the list). Candice, Becky, and Yul are chatting about the state of their alliance, and they plan to vote off Ozzy next, then Jessica, and then Jon, should it come to that. (Sub-alliance! Yow!) Ordinarily, I don't like alliances having an "order" for the people they plan to eliminate, because I think it makes them behave differently during the interim – especially in a case like this where three more pre-merge votes are unlikely. But I like that the C/B/Y alliance is adapting as the game progresses. That's rare, and nice to see.

Next up, a reward challenge for (Hey! What do you know?) food. It's another 17-step haul that includes swimming, climbing, smashing, diving, and puzzle-solving. Three members of each team will take turns swimming out to a platform, then jumping off and smashing open a plaster box which will release a key into the water below. They'll dive for the key, then bring it back ashore, and repeat this six times. Then the other two members will use the keys to unlock puzzle pieces from boxes on land and assemble the puzzles. Whew! One of these times, I expect Probst to conclude with, "...and, if you've listened to all these instructions, you can put your head down and skip all the other stuff."

Ozzy's off to a commanding lead, due to his ability to do things nobody else thinks of, like throwing his box-smashing club into the water ahead of himself so he doesn't have to hold it while he swims. (Also contributing: Rebecca's exhausted inability to swim whatsoever.) Aitu's early lead is nearly swallowed up by a fiercely competitive Raro, but they still win first and send an unrewarded Nate back home with his losing team. Jess, ever unable to keep quiet, hollers after him, "Bye, Nate! Good times!"

Back at camp, Candice is clearly fatigued and high on peanut butter; she declares she's "in love with everybody I can see right now." An absent Billy misinterprets this as a marriage proposal. At Raro, Nate is tearing into Brad for not volunteering to swim at the challenge. Brad produces a Myers-Briggs personality test, showing he's "creative spatial" and should stick to puzzle-solving, not box-smashing. Rebecca shivers and passes out from exhaustion, while everyone else bitches about Brad behind his back for dodging the swimming draft. I agree it's odd, but you don't always know the puzzles are going to be super easy like this one was. If people were really so convinced that his swimming strength would be a factor, they should've forced him to choose that task. There was no disagreement at the challenge; they just divided and started the race.

Adam's spending the night on Exile Island, because all of Aitu (save Candice) told him to. With rain approaching, he builds a makeshift lean-to and describes his frustration with the Raro team. Invoking John Ashcroft and Tony Robbins simultaneously, he grumbles that "it's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys." Aw. Hang in there, baby. You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.

Over footage of Ozzy climbing trees, seizing birds, and overfishing local reefs, Yul admires his contribution to the team, but reiterates the importance of getting rid of Ozzy while they still have the numbers to do it. My heart almost bursts with pride. Then, the editors put me through an emotional ringer by showing Ozzy and Jessica approaching Candice and inviting her into their impromptu alliance. It has to be uncomfortable pretending to entertain these invitations instead of just saying, "Nope; I'm in an alliance." I guess it's important to play along so they don't get suspicious and try to wrangle a vote against you, but I wish Candice would just say, "Nope." For one thing, I could relax. Also, Ozzy wouldn't sit there and say things like, "Without me, what would you eat?" – which sounds sensible even though the plan to vote him off is even more sensible.

To put maximum pressure on the strained relationship between Nate and Brad, Burnett's challenge designers have quickly whipped up another swimming/puzzle combo challenge. (Usually we don't see the repeat of a challenge's format until the marathon "flashback challenge," which incorporates elements from all previous challenges as well as some of the more dynamic Errol Flynn screen tests. That's how you know they're doing this to torture the contestants. In the challenge designers' defense, having spent day after sweltering day painting team colors on a few dozen various water platforms, it's the only joy they have left.) Seriously, how awesome would it be if, after shaming Brad into swimming, Raro lost this challenge because of Rebecca's inability to do puzzles under pressure? (Answer: very, very awesome.)

But that is not to be. After multiple entries for the Coach Probst Excited Narration Hall of Fame (On logs: "Logs are heavy!" On Ozzy's zip line technique: "Ozzy, swinging... in a monkey pose!" On Ozzy, again: "Ozzy, swimming like a dolphin!" Someone got his hands on a copy of What Animals Look Like When They Do Things [Cambridge University Press, 1979]!), Raro actually completes its puzzle faster, even with a bunch of non-spatial INFPs and ENTJs at the helm. So Aitu loses, meaning this whole TribCon mystery is just going to keep twisting.

Jon, who sat out the challenge, tries to buck up Aitu's spirits as they return home, noting that "it's not like they handed us our asses." Hooray! That's my absolute favorite way to say that, and I particularly love his awkward inversion. Yay, Jon!

Then, the editors prove that all my paranoid conspiracy theories are true: they are out to get me personally, individually targeting me for Survivor-based misery. What follows – I swear I'm not making this up – is a shot of flies landing on a hermit crab as it devours a crayfish. My Metaphorical Animal Decoder just blew up in my lap, causing several small lacerations and tipping over my Coke. Left to fend for myself, I'm going to guess that the flies are TribCon votes, the hermit crab is Jon, and the crayfish represents excessively intricate strategic forecasting.

Ozzy is chatting up Becky – just like an koala would! (p. 49) – causing her to see some of his logic about Jon's propensity for making everyone suspicious and his own propensity for making everyone breakfast. (Becky! The plan! Stick with the plan!) Even Jon is considering switching the vote, because he figures there may be one or two more votes before the merge. (But... Aitu might win immunity!) He figures they'll vote Jessica, then "take our chances with the individual [immunity challenges]." Bah! When the game's most devoted strategic mind is still playing Survivor like it's a hoping contest, all I can do is throw up my hands.

Jessica keeps buzzing around her teammates like a bunch of flies on a crayfish-eating hermit crab, trying to sign them up for an alliance or plant suspicion of Jon or feel out who they're voting for. For the second time in two TribCon votes, Yul mentions how the inferior strategic arguments of others are "rubbing off" on his own plans. As a contestant with the goal of winning, I'd say you really shouldn't let that happen. The editors make the entire vote seem ridiculously up in the air, but based on the unanimity displayed at Tribal Council, I think it's safe to say this has been pure fabrication. Damn you, Burnett!

Of course, one side effect of that is that they can't show all the pithy little Tribal Council "voting speeches" that people love to deliver right before folding up their votes. Showing too many votes now would reveal the not-so-suspenseful conclusion! Which is a shame, because I was watching HBO's excellent documentary Hacking Democracy this week – you should totally see it, even though now it's too late to apply for an absentee ballot and avoid the electronic-voting sham – and I noticed that this cute little TribCon tradition has seeped into the cultural consciousness so deeply that the practitioners of a Diebold hacking test in Leon County, Florida, found themselves similarly unable to resist narrating their votes as they filled them in. Each one had to offer a little comment for the camera, and then they ran the votes through the machine, and it revealed that the memory card had been hacked. (In a delicious irony, the machines that Diebold insist have been rigorously tested and assured bug-free print out "Memroy Card" every time they mean "Memory Card.") Then one lady cried. God, it was such a fun documentary!

Anyway, no such luck on Survivor. After all Jessica's paranoia, there are no histrionics during the torch-snuffing. Nobody even draws a gun on anyone's parchment. What a let-down. Nice job, editors.

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