We’re pleased to report that the two-week SPEIOCHC is over. The opening credits have been returned unharmed, although slightly altered from the experience (poor La Mina has 7-9 disadvantage in numbers). We’re not sure what was taken out of the show to make room for the credits, although early intel suggests it’s the characters of Bob Dawg Mason and Ruth Marie Wesson, er, Milliman. To tell the truth, we’ve never actually been huge fans of the opening credits, but we’re still okay with the exchange. As long as no arms were secretly funneled to Iran, of course. Checking… nope, Dan’s arm is still there in the credits. So everything appears to be on the level.

The show started, and several new plot developments erupted in enthusiastic freshness. In one remarkable turn of events, it turns out that the people who haven’t eaten for eight days are a bit hungry. Also, someone who voted with the previous episode’s bootee feels a tad uncomfortable around the tribemates who deceived her. It’s sparkling new story innovations like these that keep Survivor fans coming back season after season. Yes, indeed. And with these innovations out of the way, it was then time for some sort of challenge.

one survivor aras tree
Welcome back, you “One Survivor” Viveros tree, you. Feel free to substitute Guided By Voices’ “I Am A Tree” for the grating theme song while you’re standing there in that pose, okay?

It was a reward challenge, which was, as should have been obvious to any viewer deeply attuned to the show’s voodoo/mysticism theme, a water-based puzzle. That’s because puzzles are at the core of the voodoo worship rituals, which is why, as everyone knows, 90% of the Nobel laureates in Chemistry, Medicine, and Physics have also been high-level voodoo practitioners. And just as naturally, the winner of this challenge received… a toilet. That’s because, well, weekly sponsor Charmin was totally set to give them live chickens for a sacrifice, but after watching one too many TV news reports on AVIAN FLU!!!!, the medical staff vetoed it. So Charmin ended up just tossing in a few rolls of toilet paper, instead.

As you might imagine, one of the tribes won. We can’t exactly remember which, because the challenge, which involved putting pie-shaped wedges into a container - sort of like Trivial Pursuit, except dumbed down enough so that nobody is required to answer any actual questions - sort of put us to sleep. But since the outhouse later turned up in Casaya camp, we’ll say the purple tribe won. Plus that Terry/Tom guy got sent to Exile Island, and we think he’s on the other tribe. Nonetheless, we’re sure the victory was quite dramatic.

Now normally, any group of starving people would be overjoyed to have a bonafide, non-flushable toilet in their camp, right? Well, not so those ingrates on Casaya. Instead of launching into a giddy, flower-filled, all-dancing, all-singing jubilee at their newfound sanitation, from the moment Casaya got back to camp, things went straight into the shitter.

Or at least Bobby did, ruining a perfectly good, family-oriented product placement like toilet paper, by giving a partially off-camera demonstration of what it’s supposed to be used for. You may remember Bobby, or you probably won’t, for his previous roles as “that guy sleeping over there” and “that one guy who the challenge people liked.” Well, anyway, as we mentioned, he apparently neglected to notice that the outhouse’s name was “Casa de Charmin” and not “Casa de Febreze: Noticeables” In his defense, he may have been confused, because Cirie had already eaten the second “C” off of the sign, hoping it was a croissant. But on the plus side, Casaya later re-christened themselves (after Bobby christened the facilities) as “Team Harmin” (which narrowly beat out “Team #2″), and Bobby wasn’t seen for the rest of the show, so it all worked out for the best.

Actually, the real reason for the hubbub over Bobby’s deposit was edited out. It appeared briefly on the CBS site, but was for some reason taken down. Here’s what we remember about it: Courtney, as usual, was pissed off and/or weeping when the satisfied, lighter Bobby returned. “I hope you didn’t use any of the toilet paper,” she screeched. Bobby was a bit confused. “Um… why?” Rolling her eyes, Courtney seethed, “Don’t pretend you don’t know! Danielle had dibs on like two rolls, because she didn’t think her bikini top was tight enough. I need like, at least two rolls for my rhythmic gymnastics show. Bruce had reserved several rolls for his Zen paper arrangement sculpture. And surely you haven’t forgotten that Shane’s thinking rock proposed to him two days ago, and that we need the rest to make veils and gowns for everyone at Shane’s bridal shower tomorrow night?” Bobby thought about it for a while, then finally growled in response, “Don’t call me Shirley.”

Meanwhile, the poor Terry/Tom-less souls on La Mina, not having received any toilet paper, nor signs bearing the letter “C”, were hungry. But help was on its way. Austin, seeing as how well the appellation had worked for the acting careers of Ethan and Bobby Jon, decided to christen himself “Jesus of Nazareth,” and set about turning loaves to fishes. Unfortunately, (1) they didn’t have any loaves, and (2) thanks to Sally, they couldn’t have caught the fishes anyway, if they did have loaves. He thought it might work with leaves, seeing as how they’re only one letter off, but all he got out was toilet paper. Crap! Then he tried it with a few rocks, which did in fact produce a small number of snails. And it was good. While the snails were not particularly tasty, they at least didn’t try to escape very quickly. So La Mina was still, for the most part, pretty damned hungry. Sadly for the tribe, Austin forgot to try the whole water-into-wine thing, because Lord knows, if you’re drunk enough, you forget you’re hungry. But then again, maybe Austin had merely become the revisionist, ultra-conservative Jesus of Nazareth, who turned water into whine, instead. So they were also pretty thirsty, thanks to the newfound lack of water.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Terry/Tom managed to miss all of these festivities, having been sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to Exile Island. Whereas hapless Bruce had received vague clues like “Day 4: It’s somewhere on the island” and “Day 7: It’s not in the ocean”, the producers gave Terry slightly more helpful “hints” to the location of the hidden immunity idol, as in, “It’s under this tree, right here. Under that rock right there. Make sure you bring your machete and/or the secret Exile Island backhoe, because it’s in a box about a foot down.” They had to re-film the “discovery” sequence a few times, because Terry kept ignoring the cameraman’s subtle suggestions, such as “No! Not that rock, you idiot! Try the one with the big red X painted on it!” But in the end, Terry emerged with what appeared to be a string attached to the shrunken head of former contestant Johnny Fairplay, whom Probst had “taken care of” after the past season’s finale party. Despite all appearances, this is allegedly a good thing to have.

Next, there was some sort of immunity challenge, which CBS (while showing the reward challenge) hyped as “the closest challenge ever in Survivor history.” Personally, we think the original marketing pitch, “a bunch of people carrying water in little buckets” might have drawn in a few more viewers, since it sounds like one of those strange Winter Olympic events you didn’t know existed, like “biathlon,” but CBS didn’t ask our opinion. Once again, one of the tribes won, and since we seemed to see a lot of the La Mina people for the rest of the show, we’ll guess it was the purple one again. Again, we’re sure this was very dramatic.

Naturally, since La Mina contained three men, two women, and (according to the CBS web site) someone named Nick who we’re not actually sure is on the show, the only decision possible was which of the two women to boot. Sally, having seen that Misty’s use of the “feminine wiles” tactic hadn’t seemed to work too well on Nick and Austin, opted to go for the “work hard and do well in challenges” strategy, which had previously failed for Tina. Luckily, Sally hadn’t seen that. Ruth Marie, meanwhile, rested comfortably in the assurance that, since she had successfully carried out her IC duty of sitting on a swing for hours, until at last it was time to pull out the pin and raise La Mina’s flag, they weren’t going to tribal council that night.

As it turns out, Ruth Marie was wrong. Or at least as “wrong” as you can be without ever actually speaking on the show (we have used a complex system of facial expression recognition software, neural network simulators, and just plain guessing to discern what Ruth Marie has been “saying”). But they did in fact go to tribal council. Ruth Marie was then voted out, which surprised some viewers, who thought this alleged “Ruth Marie” person might have just been extra footage of Tina Wesson spliced in from Survivor: All Stars. Sadly, we may never know the truth.

And thus endeth another Crappy recap. Should you prefer recaps from people who actually watched the show, or at least can recount it in a fashion that resembles what actually aired, you may want to check out:
- “Recaps by AMAI” at Survivor Sucks (by Sucks poster AllMenAreIslands)
- “Honest Achmed’s Survivor Recaps” at HonestAchmed.com
- or “n00b summaries” by Sucks poster KororShark9.

Or if all else fails, you can read the reactions of a selection of former Survivors at the CBS site’s blog. But you’ll have to find that on your own, because CBS has still failed to hire us to write for that. Come on CBS, just because we were never on the show, don’t really watch it all that carefully, and fail to adequately praise it at almost every opportunity, is that really reason(s) enough to shut us out?