EPISODE FOUR:Nooo – just as I was happily committed to someone after deciding on who my fave Ranian was she goes and gets herself voted off. I’m very iffy about Ncumisa getting the snuff ‘cos even though she didn’t seem to do anything much except go for walks on the beach I’ve really grooved on the way she’s spoken to us more and more.
It’s like there was no hidden anything with her - no layers of secrets and lies you needed to wade through to get to know what she was meaning exactly and her chatting to us has felt like getting an uncensored inside view of everything around her.
Last week I actually thought that her saying she was on the chopping block was her bigging things up for us - I couldn't imagine why she'd be left out but quite obviously she knew from then already that Rana's buddy-buddy clique-fest was very real and that she didn’t stand a chance.
On one hand I thought she should have pushed more and used the Good Doctor’s encroaching coma to get him on her side more but on another I also like the fact that she didn’t turn into a suck-up, slippery weasel the way Nico has. Hehe – his trying so hard to save himself after his outburst was super cringeworthy (when he put the Immunity feathers up to his tatoo!) and hysterical, as was everyone just totally refusing to talk to him about why they’d voted for him.
There’s no ways I could ever cope with that. Knowing that all the loathing was under the surface and that everyone was thinking stuff they refused to say. It did the Survivor trick big time though and after that depressing rain he was like a changed species of himself, using up way more energy than anyone by volunteering to do the most work and generally going mad trying to get everyone to like him.
This is how Day 8 began, with Aguila returning from Tribal Council, Nico raving at them for voting for him and Mzi playing a most masterful stroke by putting Nico in his place immediately, which he maintained throughout the episode.
The best was when they returned with their mystery reward in that ridiculous non-existent Reward Challenge and Nico tried to reach out to take Mzi’s hand in victory across the box and Mzi ignored it completely. Verry eeuw. As were all the awkward, moody moments of Aguila sitting around in those raincoats that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. What is up with them? They’ve got so much stuff it’s looking like they’re on a retreat. Did you notice the bottle of Cerebos salt next to Lezel when Rana were eating?
Despite the raincoats it still looked sucky I suppose, but still, it’s confusing when it comes to knowing exactly what their situation because one moment they’re Survivors and the next they’re either stirring things with a pair of scissors or they’re let off the hook by being given luxury fire when they’re too useless to win it.
While Aguila gloomed around in the rain Rana spent two days catching some impressive looking fish which they ate raw before shell mail arrived with their joke of a “challenge”.
It was
so obviously trying to trick us into thinking there was tension to it when all it was was an excuse to give Rana a flint without walking up to them and sympathetically handing it over. Aguila sent Nico and Mzi to decipher the poetic clues they got, Rana sent Lezel and Gareth and from the moment they started running across the beach for no reason the whole thing fell flat.
For starters there was no ways the tide was going to rise too quickly for them to finish it, secondly I didn’t have a clue what Aguila won and thirdly Rana have got so much fruit and sushi that all of them - except for Archers Aqua - look fine.
Also, how infuriating is their constant talking about going home and their seeming willingness for it to happen? Gareth was going on about this in Rana and over at Aguila so was Sanele because of his shoulder. He didn’t say it in so many words but the impression he gave was that he’s ready to give up on thoughts that he could stay without considering alternatives as to how to convince everyone he’s still of value.
The only possible juicy effect his giving up could have is that it would force Mzi and Nico into the unlikely alliance they’ve already started suspiciously discussing with each other. We know Mzi thinks Nico's a snake in the grass and that Nico has no clue why Mzi voted for him and is fuming. An alliance between the two of them could be fascinating, espesh if they kept it together until they’re fighting solo at the end and then direct all their pent-up loathing into challenges against each other.
As for Bridget - the only thing I remember her doing is sitting looking down at her toes in the sand. After Rana got to eat cooked fish with their new flint everyone was called for the Immunity Challenge and from what I can remember Bridget seemed to do quite okay in it, managing to work out the impossible. I didn’t know what they were supposed to do with those beams but it looked very complicated for a schmodel to work out and Aguila won so she must have done something.
I must say when it happened I was pleased that they won - it’s much better that they continue their general Nico loathing for another week and we hadn’t really seen what the dynamics are at Rama as yet. The fact that it turns out that they’ve got themselves a dictator in Jacinda is bizarre and scary and I would have lurved Zayn, Lezel and Ncumisa to have talked Gareth into a coup – slapping Danielle out of the game first.
She’s managed to wangle her ridiculous Pigtails into an annoyingly good position which clearly comes from knowing how to push her way into a threesome clique. We know she had a similar set-up going on with Sam and Brgitte right at the beginning and now she’s recreated it between Gareth and Jacinda’s sheets.
The amount of power they’ve all so willingly handed over to Jacinda is too ridiculous and insane and unless they do something about it now it’s guaranteed to be to her mega advantage from now until the end. The superior way she had her head titled and the expression on her mug when Danielle was going on about how difficult the game was oddly creepy I thought.
You can’t blame her for playing her status while pretending she’s not though - she stepped up to the task when no-one else did and they’re all so willing to give their power away she’d be crazy too if she didn’t take it and use it. As Lezel mentioned, this is clearly the problem with too much diplomacy, everyone thinks they’re being democratic and then end up trapped by a tyrant after not standing up for bold decisions of their own.
Of course with Lezel changing her vote it means Zayn’s on their assassination list for daring to be anti-clique by being disloyal to the good of the team - as if keeping Danielle is. You know - this the thing I just don’t get with cliques – the idea that it doesn’t matter how annoying someone in them is, just so long as they’ve managed to be buddy-buddy with leader during the right moments they’re fine.
I can imagine it must have been frustrating for Ncumisa knowing there was no ways she was going to manage to be part of it no matter what she did but unfortunately that's way of such things always.
PS: What’s up with Zayn not losing any weight at all?