Replies

Well, Survivor: Thailand is heating up at last. I think Helen captured it best, when she said up until now, they were simply trying to survive, but now they're starting to play Survivor. Sides are being drawn in both the happy-go-lucky, but starting to win, Chewing Gum, and in the back-biting oddworld of Sucky Tribe. Here's my take on the evening's episode.

Morale is dropping over in Chewing Gum, after three straight losses, and this time there are no anniversaries or birthdays to celebrate to bring up everyone's spirits. Ghandia decides to take action, by confronting Ted about his nighttime behavior - if only there was a convenient lawyer on the island, she could really lift everyone's spirits. Ted gives his excuse that he was only half-awake, and assumed Ghandia was his wife, and stopped taking action when he realized his mistake. (Let's assume his wife is forgiving enough to overlook being compared to Ghandia.) Anyway, our lawyer-in-training accepts this excuse, and prepares to move on.

And move on they do, to the reward challenge. This time, featuring the much-hyped fighting scenes we've all been looking forward to. Jeff Probst plays his part as Pirate King, and makes a valiant attempt to explain this challenge as somehow piratical. Each tribe must run across some bamboo shoots, take an item from the other tribe's boat, and return it to their own. But there's a catch. There's a small, 2-3 foot section of bamboo in the center covered with black cloth. In that section only, full contact is allowed.

The tribes start, and Sucky Tribe builds up an early, and apparently commanding, lead. But have no fear - Robb is in that tribe, and is fully capable of blowing even the best of leads. Ted, over in Chewing Gum, displays his balletic grace early, by falling off the bamboo after only 2 steps. But his next time across, he makes it all the way to the black section, where he kneels down in wait, and starts knocking off Sucky Tribe members. Robb decides this is a great idea, and decides to copy it after Ted has been knocked off. Only problem is that Robb's numerous piercings reflect the light into his eyes, and he can't tell where the black cloth starts and ends. He is quickly eliminated from the game, and one of Sucky's prizes goes to Chewing Gum. Now, at this point, Sucky still leads something like 8-4, and the game is only to 10. So what happens, you ask? The other bucks at Sucky decide to copy Robb's brilliant moves to the letter, and quickly get disqualified, as one after another of their prizes is given to Chewing Gum. If only Ghandia was on their tribe, I'm sure they'd be filing discrimination suits, claiming that they're all color blind. Sadly, they lack her legal expertise, and lose their first challenge.

But don't fear for the Suckys, things can get much worse for them. Back at camp, it turns out they're starving. That's right, they won that large fishing net, and are right by the ocean, but they don't know how to use it to actually, say, catch fish. They spend their time dragging the net right by shore, and are puzzled by the fact that the fish are failing to jump into the net. They then spend their time untangling the net, never quite realizing that a bundled up net just might be a part of the problem. Jed sleeps through this, apparently not realizing there's a problem.

This contrasts nicely to Chewing Gum, who has a pair of red berets helping them out. These guys are true worker bees, making stews from leaves and roots, to the great delight of the tribe members. The tribe spends some time learning what is edible, but then goes into non-interactive mode, while they let the red berets do their stuff. They have much more important things to do, after all, then merely learn how to survive. You see, the huge morale boost of winning a contest has put lawyer-lady into overdrive. They suddenly have breathing room, so she decides to start telling all the ladies about her problems with Ted. In her own words, she tells them the whole story, only leaving out the most trivial part - Ted's apology. This eventually leaks from the ladies, and porn-star Brian hears about it. He talks to Ted, who says it was nothing. This, in turn, gets back to Ghandia. Yes, folks, we have left the set of Survivor, and re-entered high school - maybe even high school drama classes. "Helen told me that Brian told her that Ted said..." But lawyer lady can handle this, of course. She does what anyone else would do - goes to the beach and yells real loudly, then starts throwing rocks. (By anyone else, I meant of course, anyone else with the maturity of an average 3 year old, a fact that Jake points out with a markedly understated sense of humor.)

So, while the Red Berets are busy building a toilet, irrigation system, and heck, maybe even a small portable power generating system out of bamboo, the tribe members get together to talk about the Ted and Ghandia crisis. Ted tells his version of the story, and Ghandia pouts. But everyone thinks that settles it, and they can start anew. For reasons that are unclear to everyone, even Ted seems to think this settles the issue.

Meanwhile, back in Sucky Tribe, we learn that there truly are people with IQs lower than rocks, or even Robb. After failing to catch anything in their net, they decide the problem was that they weren't leaving it out in the ocean long enough. So they decide to let it sit out in the ocean for a while. But they're not too stupid, they know they'll need to watch it, so they assign Jed to the case. Yes, that's right, to watch their most important piece of equipment while it floats in the ocean, they put their resident narcoleptic on the case. Leopards don't change their spots, fish don't breathe air, and Jed doesn't stay awake. Naturally, he blames it on Robb. But they have lost their net. They go out into the ocean to look for it - hey, how big can the ocean be, after all? They don't find it, and come back in, while the camera pans right behind them to show the net floating off to sea.

With the fun and games over, it's time for the fun and games of a new Immunity Challenge. Jeff Probst, Pirate King, now has the players raiding a temple. Two miniature Buddhist Temples have been built from an unspecified material (far too light to be rock, but too heavy for a single person to carry, maybe plaster?) There are six pieces, and it must be reassembled from platform 1 to platform 3. You can only move one piece at a time, and a larger piece may never be put on top of a smaller one. This was a very difficult logic puzzle the first time I encountered it. Of course, that was in 5th grade. But it's more than enough challenge for Robb and the Sucky gang, who manage to get almost a third of the puzzle completed by the time Chewing Gum finishes up. We had a hunch this might happen going in, when Sarah - oops, I mean Erin - said they wanted to lose to start getting rid of the jerks in the tribe.

After the contest is over, the jerks are in trouble. But Shii Ahn decides to enter the jerk competition herself. Your first loss is just the time to start making catty comments about how easy the puzzle was, but you just didn't feel like helping out in order to show up your teammates. OK, she was making the comments to the camera, not to her tribe mates, but attitude carries, honey! But there's no way she can match up to the competition in her tribe for head jerk. She only manages to pull in 3 votes, from Jed, Robb, and Stephanie. Everyone else votes for the jerk who works without a net, and Jed is outta there.

And there was much rejoicing.

Drew Garrett

THE PLAYERS
Brian, Clay, Erin, Ghandia, Helen, Jake, Jan, Ken, Penny, Robb, Shii Ann, Stephanie, Ted

THE LOSERS

~~John~~, ~~Tanya~~, ~~Jed~~

This week, our Survivor: Thailand commentary is brought to you......
By James Barber

Conflict, conflict, conflict. There's no team to root for, there are no sympathetic characters, but we certainly have conflict.

The episode kicks off with a setup of more of Ghandia's classic doubletalk. She sees Ted as her husband, she misses her husband. So, when Ted makes a mistake and grinds into her, she is horrified, because...he's acting like she's his wife! He has a wife and a new baby (as she said about 4 times), and should be ashamed! When you are grinding various body parts against another person all night long, you should expect that they might accidentally mistake you for another person. But no, Ghandia is not satisfied. She lets him think he's off the hook, then trash-talks him behind his back, and later throws a hissy fit that would put Joan Crawford to shame. I don't know disgusted me more, that Ghandia is a past rape victim and still uses this relatively harmless incident to her own advantage (and even admits she left out his apology), or that the women on the tribe immediately believed her and agreed to vote Ted out, without hearing his side. I expected better from Helen. This tribe does a lot of talking about what a family they are, but all they ever do is lie and backstab each other. Maybe they're a bit too much like a family...

Sook-Jai are no better, they are simply more passive (probably because of sleeping more often). They are disorganized and make no attempts to be close, to function as a real tribe. They have gotten this far on blind luck, and that luck finally had to run out.

Enter the WWS Battle Royale, formerly known as the reward challenge. Macho man after macho man on Sook-Jai tries to bully their way through, and are disqualified. Robb, confused by that big word 'rules', decides to choke his way to victory. So he chokes the life out of Clay (which is apparently the only thing that will stop Clay from talking), and is then disqualified. Finally, Chuay Gahn win, not because of any skill of their own, simply because the other team are bigger morons.

Robb's choking of Clay is simply another step down in the civility of the contestants on this show. Last season, I was horrified by Boston Rob's malicious, ugly remarks about Rotu in episode 4. I had hoped that was as bad as it could get. Now we have actual physical altercations, which could have progressed to real bodily harm if Jeff Probst weren't around. What's planned for next season - knife fights? Will Justin from Big Brother 2 be accepted on the show? Where does this end?

The actual Beret arrival, which was supposed to be such a big reward, was overshadowed almost completely by the finger-pointing and backbiting at Chuay Gahn. That is basically the theme of this season so far - dumb, unhappy people griping and doing stupid things. The immunity also seemed to be about who was less incompetent. I was actually relieved when Shii said that several members deliberately lost that challenge. I just wish I had been rooting for a team I wanted to win. Instead, I was rooting for the team I wanted to lose the most (this week, Chuay Gahn). They are so dysfunctional and self-destructive the editors aren't even bothering to make them look sympathetic. They are the underdogs with rabies. Truthfully, I have no problem seeing this team torn to pieces, because they made the big blunder of voting out John instead of Ghandia. Now they are paying the price.

I was slightly surprised to see Jed go instead of Robb, if only because Robb proved himself to be a menace. They are probably keeping him around until the merge; I hope they don't regret it.

What we have right now is two teams who have no bond, who have no use for each other, and a few tentative alliances within those teams. One team pretends they are best friends (Chuay Gahn), and the other team, refreshingly, makes no such pretense (Sook Jai). Apparently the next 3 weeks will be misery and bitching from both sides, until the merge, when the final 10 get together and bitch about how much they hate each other. I know that many don't watch this show because of who they want to win, they watch because of strategy, but I want to root for someone, and it's becoming difficult for me to care about any of these contestants. At this point, Shii is the only one left that I want to see go far.

My favorite part of this episode was the breathtaking scenery, never utilized so fully before. From the majesty and power of the ocean to the blood-red sky, Thailand came alive. I felt like I was really there, not the picture postcard mindset of some of the other seasons.

Thoughts to the players:

Ted: When you lie down with dogs...you know the rest. You seem to be a nice person, but bumping uglies with Ghandia was just plain asinine. Even if you outlast her, this will mark you potentially for the rest of the game.

Jan: Editors got your tongue? I have my doubts as to your loyalty to Ghandia. You will probably be the fourth vote against her next week.

Penny: Not much to say, but wow, you're gorgeous in the Tribal Council firelight.

Erin: Actual dialogue this week, and you realize how many toadstools your tribe has. Way to go!

Jake: You are crafty, getting rid of a potential threat while keeping an obvious loose cannon (Robb), and keeping a sick boot as well (Stephanie). I hope this doesn't backfire on you, as this was still early in the game to boot a strong member. Your alliance with Shii and probably Ken might just take you to late in the game.

Shii: I was really worried for a second there, and admit it, you were too. Fortunately, you had enough votes on your side, and don't irritate enough people. You are funny, incisive, and great to watch. You alone remind me of the great Survivor characters of the past.

Helen: What happened? Don't tell me you actually believe Ghandia's accusations? Do you think the men are out to get you, are you looking for an easy alliance, or are you trying to pit people against each other to take the heat off of you? If you continue to stay with Ghandia and thereby kill your own chances in the game, I will be very disappointed.

Brian: Speedo Man! You are, while somewhat obviously smarmy and phony, doing a decent job of being under-the-radar at this time. You are at the center of most camp events, while not having any real role in them. You are making strong allies that will be loyal to you. I think we'll see you and the questionable shorts for quite a long time.

Clay: Yap yap yap yap yap...well, it's nice that you believe your tribe is family. The three year-old you beat wasn't named Robb by any chance, was it? That would explain a lot.

Ken: Not much to say, other than congratulating you for staying far away from Robb.

Robb: Holy Toledo did you luck out! Abusive, insensitive, a sore loser, lazy - none of these suggest a strong team player. You'd better pray to Tommy Hawk that your team doesn't lose 2 more immunity challenges.

Stephanie: Share Robb's prayer beads.

Ghandia: Our very own Al Sharpton. It's always someone else's fault. You are always the victim. You are never wrong. I have seen this type of tacky mudslinging and poor-me melodramatics on Big Brother, but, until now, never on Survivor. You have done nothing but cause pain and suffering for your team, strife which escalates with each episode. I think next week is your week, and no has ever deserved expulsion as much as you do. Please, get some therapy.

Jed: I was rooting for you. You apparently were not rooting for yourself. Teammwork, bonding, who cares, right? Did you expect to win every immunity for the entire game? Or were you trying to build a lazy alliance, a la the Samburu brats? You failed at both. Many of us expected a lot more than such a lackluster performance and lifeless final words. Why did you ever sign up for the show in the first place? Let this be a warning to all future dentists and dental students who are cast on Survivor - beware of episode 3.

Next week: Please let it be Ghandia, please. Pleaaaaase.