EPISODE TENYawn. I was soo bored by the episode that I couldn’t keep my eyes open and ended up snoozing through Tribal Council.
I tried to stay awake until then just in case something hectic happened to change how predictable and samey everything was but unfortunately nothing did. Things turned out exactly the same as last week with not a smidgen of anything kickbutt happening at all.
The most frustrating thing is how blandly every single one of them accepts their circumstances without thinking about how they can spice them up for us. Surely, surely, one of them could just
try to break into a sweat during one of the challenges to at least give us the impression they're desperate to win??
The Reward Challenge was eyestabbing but not as bad as the catching-fish Immunity Challenge where everyone was so unbelievably apathetic about winning that their lack of passion rubbed off on me completely and finished me off. It’s the craziest thing - it was like their lack of determination and fierceness was too draining to cope with.
The doze-fest began from the beginning with epic, romantic footy shots of Mzi arriving to meet Horse on Dead Man’s Island. Naturally she was thrilled to have someone who can actually do something join her and immediately got Mzi to organize her a fire and a fish while badmouthing Rana.
Over at Rana (calling them Burba is ridiculous) Lezel, who’s looking more like the skully props every day, tried to claim she’s being misunderstood and proved that Brigitte’s onto something when she said Lezel’s dense. In a state of what seems to be feverish paranoia Lezel muttered something along the lines of: “If they don’t like me and still give me the million rand, I don’t care.”
Through it she revealed that a) she does care and b) out of those who are left (both in the game and on Dead Man’s Island) there’s not one single person she’d win against in a final two.
In between this Jacinda said she wasn’t there to make friends and was simply playing Survivor and Vanessa said that everyone was being smug and that she wanted to win a challenge, which she did.
While the block building Reward Challenge that followed wasn't exciting and ended in an oddball unfinished way I was pleased when Vanessa won it. At the time I was hoping she’d carry her win through to Immunity and I liked that it gave her the ideal opportunity of trying to work someone onto her side.
The trouble of course is that neither of these two things happened and her choosing to take Gareth on the Reward was such a waste of time she may as well have gone alone.
She had nothing to lose and should have hounded him into changing his mind from the moment they set off right up until they returned. Even if he’d wanted to throttle her she should have pushed and plotted non-stop and driven him over the edge until he buckled under her will to keep his sanity.
But nooo, instead all she did was hint that she’d be on his side if she impossibly happened to stay while sweetly sipping pina colades and that was it.
Plus - what was up with them not sleeping in the same room?!
When I saw each of them going into seperate rooms with their own keys I almost died from disappointment - the bonding they'd have done if they’d had their first comfy sleep on one double bed would have resulted in things being very different from the distance that happened between them.
Also, them getting all that fruit as a reward sucked. It’s only the
only thing they’ve been eating for weeks and it’s their prize? How does this make any sense?
Thank God Gareth’s shaved his beard though - I’d forgotten how much better he looks without it and also how much less Catholic creepy. It’s amazing what no facial hair can do - it literally turned him into the Zoolander version of himself as he sat sipping his breezer, puckering his eyes through his fringe.
While him and Vanessa did nothing, Zayn and Lezel had a showdown in which Zayn tried to get Lezel to argue rationally but she was having none of it. Lezel tried to convince Zayn that she’s not making all the decisions while never once mentioning that she's made it clear that she wants Zayn to be the first in Rana to be whacked.
After their conversation got rained out, Vanessa and Gareth arrived back from what they described as their pimpy, Las Vegas getaway and then it was off to Reward Challenge. Here everyone paid for the fact that only Gareth has bothered trying to fish. I honestly don’t understand why none of the rest of them have tried just for the fun of it.
From what Survivors always say they’ve got hours and hours when they don’t do anything so why they've refused to give it a bash is beyond me. The idea of leaving it all up to one person and giving them so much power is a terrible idea and the challenge proved it without a doubt when Gareth annihilated them.
Both Vanessa and everyone else didn't seem to mind though and looked as if they were on a summer holiday, fishing for the sake of having nothing better to do instead of their lives depending on it.
And so it was everyone trundled back to their camp where Vanessa decided she’d go for a stroll instead of making up stories and lies to try to shift something,
anything.
Gareth and Lezel had a final two discussion in which Gareth said he doesn’t want to vote out Zayn and Jacina said she doesn’t want to vote out Lezel and then they went to Tribal Council where the inevitable Vanessa torching happened.
Seeing the four of them sent into a spin when two return from Dead Man’s Island can't happen quickly enough. I was gonna say that I’m hoping it happens next week so that we don’t have to go through yet another session of nothing with Zayn getting chopped next but if it does Rana still has the numbers so it won't change anything.
All I know is that a serious shake-up of things has to happen sooon.