After just narrowly avoiding being voted out last week for not pulling her weight around, you’d think Sherea would be hauling ass around camp like a girlier, daintier, boobier version of James. Well, you would think that if you’d never seen a single episode of the show. One of the fundamental rules of Survivor is that nine out of ten times, people never learn from their mistakes.
Instead, Sherea complained about the monotony of camp life and how bored she was. Not to go all crazy Dave on her ass but you’d think a good way of alleviating some of that boredom would be to lift a finger once in a while. Sherea went on to say that she couldn’t wait to see the game being shaken up.
Now you’ve done it, Sherea! With a line like that, you tempted the Gods of Fate and Editing to smack you down with one of their patented gratuitous twists. Let’s hope the producers weren’t smoking heroin before they came up with this one like certain other surprise twists.
Love is in the hair
Before we get to the surprise twist, I feel I must mention Survivor’s couple of the year. No, not the blonde and the virgin. I’m talking about the dynamic duo of Denise and James. Who knew James had a mullet fetish?
Denise gave James wood. She brought it to him when he was building a fire. Besides James, Denise was the only other person busting ass around camp and this had James aflutter. For all of you ladies who might be interested in hooking up with James, he publicly said that he finds strong women who complement and work with him attractive. So brush up on your wood-gathering and shrimp-catching skills. Also, growing out your hair to look like a biker from Brakpan might not hurt.
More conventionally, and boringly, we had sparks flying between Jamie and Erik. They’re this season’s Rob and Amber – like an Osmond version of them at any rate.
While they were floarting (flirting while floating) in the river, Erik revealed that he was still a virgin. Jamie got this look on her face like he’d just showed her his collection of clipped fingernails before perking up as she realised the benefits of said virginity. She said she was glad he’d told her this because this meant he was trustworthy, and by ‘trustworthy’, I’m pretty sure she means ‘easily manipulated’. Or at least that’s what all those teen movies have taught me over the years.
Because he was such an easy mark trustworthy guy, Jamie saw fit to tell him about the hidden immunity idol. Next week she’ll tell him she’s found it…in her pants. Be careful of her, Erik. She may look sweet but there’s devilry behind those eyes of hers.
Swap shop
Before this could turn into a castaway version of Days of Our Lives, a boat arrived at each of the tribes’ camps to deliver a very important message. Each tribe had to choose two members from the other tribe to become permanent members.
Failing groaned and grumped because they were sure the other tribe would steal James. Failing turned out to have a good grasp of the situation. John Woo on the other hand were excited because they thought that somehow they were the only tribe who would get to steal members. Oh Lord, I think we may have discovered one of the reasons John Woo keep losing so badly.
Every single member of John Woo practically danced the funky chicken because they thought they were going to be up two members. Have any of them ever seen the show? Mark Burnett may come up with stupid twists on occasion but he never just blatantly throws out arbitrary advantages and disadvantages like that without some sort of challenge first. Do John Woo think they get an automatic handicap for losing so hard now? The Suck Handicap?
When John Woo learned their mistake, they felt dumb (although not nearly enough) but were more than happy to say goodbye to Frosti and Sherea in exchange for James and Aaron. They were even happier that James and Aaron arrived with booze. “We have alcohol,” Jamie screamed, no doubt imagining the wicked things she could do to a poor defenseless drunken Erik. You go easy on the wine, John Woo! Lord knows you can’t afford to lose any more braincells.
Failing were a lot less pleased. Jean-Robert was forced to say goodbye to his ally James. He said it was a terrible day for Failing and a godawful day for Jean-Robert. What a tragic day indeed. Little Jean-Roberts the world over will be commemorating it for years to come. What colour should we make the plastic bracelet?
At least JR had his poker-inspired strategy to fall back on right? Not really. Five episodes in and it will was still pretty much stuck on the “everyone thinks I’m a lazy do-nothing jackass” part. Hey, JR, hope your eyebrows aren’t singed from how badly that backfired on you.
The next morning he was out to try and show his tribe he’d changed and didn’t deserve to be on the chopping block. He was up early and cooking everyone breakfast. The rest of the tribe, including Sherea and Frosti pretty much laughed at how transparent and desperate he looked. Congratulations, JR! When the new should-be-expendable members of the tribe are more socially integrated than you are, you can consider your strategy a total failure.
To top it all off, he still couldn’t prevent himself from doing that “I’m not the boss. By the way, you should do this now” thing he likes to do. Please keep doing that, JR. That worked out so well for Dave, who actually did do crap around camp.
How not to throw a challenge
JR actually had some competition in the field of inept and entirely transparent strategising. Peigh-Gee and Jamie decided it might be better to throw the Immunity Challenge so that they could vote out either Aaron or James and ensure they wouldn’t be outnumbered by merge time. Assuming, that is, they merged at ten people according to PG’s hunch. This is the same PG who earlier thought the producers had decided to give them two extra members for giggles. I’d trust her hunches like I’d trust a message from the “To know your future, SMS ‘TAROT’ to 51515” hotline.
PG and Jamie proceeded to subtly throw the IC. They subtly encouraged Erik and Aaron to take it slow bringing them puzzle pieces. They subtly threw puzzle pieces into the bushes. They subtly took their time putting together the puzzle. They subtly giggled incessantly like schoolgirls watching a Jonas Brothers video. They subtly turned away from the puzzle to answer Jeff’s questions. Yet despite all of this, everyone totally noticed they had no interest whatsoever in winning. No! Where could their brilliant plan possibly have gone wrong?
Back at camp, James expressed his displeasure at having had competed alongside a couple of lame ducks who thought having meaningful discussions with Jeff about Sudoku was a decent challenge contribution. Jamie and PG could still not stop giggling. Those two would make the worst poker players ever, although considering professional players are the likes of Jean-Robert, they’d probably still stand a decent chance of winning.
James actually said they should vote him out at one point because he was unwilling to deal with this juvenile high school rubbish. Yeah, bitching out the majority alliance is bad gameplay and James is totally on the wrong show if he thinks this game is about actually winning challenges and teamwork and all that crap, but I’m still on his side with this one. What a pair of inept ninnies.
“We looked like complete idiots,” Jamie laughed when she was solo with PG. Ya think, Meryl? Jamie then confided in Erik that she’d thrown the challenge. Way to lose his trust by not telling him what you were doing before the actual challenge.
At TC, Jamie revealed the worst-kept secret on Survivor. No, not that Jeff dyes his hair –that she and PG had thrown the challenge. James gave the camera a “can you believe this ho?” look. PG went on to explain their entire reasoning behind the move. I’m no Jean-Robert but I believe this is called “showing all your cards way too early”. I also don’t have to be a professional poker player to tell you it’s really, really dumb.
Despite James’ calls to be voted off if Jamie and PG were going to lose on purpose and despite Aaron’s confidence that he was safe, it was indeed Aaron that was voted out. Yay, James lives! I don’t know how after that outburst but I’ll take what I can get.
Today’s extract form Sun Tzu:
Some may lose the battle
To try and win the war
Some may lose a little
To gain a whole lot more
But when you’re being sneaky
And stirring up the pot
Don’t call up the enemy
And tell them all you’ve got