Survivor: Panama - Exile Island returned to the air after a three-week benching this week. Or, perhaps more accurately, last week. This was, of course, news to the people who run the show’s official CBS site, who seemed convinced, up until the day of the show, that the next episode would be a special recap/clip show, scheduled to air two weeks in the past.

Long calendrical gaps with no new content are common with scripted shows like Lost (although not with scripted shows that are intelligently scheduled, such as 24). But for some reason, this is uncommon for reality shows. One reason, in Lost’s case, is that the show is sufficiently well-written (most of the time), that the wait actually builds suspense for a new hour-long episode, which when aired, toys with your now-entrenched preconceptions of the narrative’s direction (not so much in Season 2 of Lost, but hey, it happens occasionally). With a reality show, a nearly month-long break generally means one season has ended and another, almost identical to the last, with only the castmembers altered, is starting up. Or in Survivor’s case, you may just wish that.

So anyway, Survivor did come back, and if you were re-evaluating your commitment to seeing the Panama - Exile Island season all the way through, well… let’s just say this particular episode should have nudged you in one direction or the other. When last seen, the show was promising Helicopters! Boats! Life-and-death removal of contestants on stretchers! What it delivered was… a bunch of people sitting around, united-yet-divided, and occasionally arguing with each other. Although there was some variety, as they also ate, slept, and decided to (very briefly, for the most part) hang from a bar. Try scripting that, J.J. Abrams!

Apart from that, the main event seemed to be naming the new tribe. Terry, demonstrating the gift for thoughtful, democratic leadership he’s displayed thus far, ignored everyone’s suggestions, and named the new tribe La Masaya, which combined the two former tribe names, La Mina and Casaya. It was also, he claimed, Spanish for “the Messiah,” because he felt the tribe needed to be named after himself, and he thought “The Terry-tory” might be seen as a bit too punny. He then ordered Silent Bruce to get to work painting his portrait for the multiple flags they would hang around camp, celebrating the many hours of the Great Terry’s benevolent reign.

Shortly thereafter, the former Casaya members got together and counted on Shane’s fingers, to prove to themselves that they actually outnumbered Terry. A bloody revolt followed, in which Silent Bruce was brutally attacked with a machete by hostile La Mina security forces. But the heroic Casaya revolutionaries eventually seized prevailed, and in short order re-christened the tribe “Chaboga Mogo.” From atop his Thinking Rock perch, Shane announced the new political order to thunderous applause, promising to bring order, prosperity, and much-needed rains to feed the tribe’s parched coca crops in time for the fall harvest. He also pledged to rid the tribe of all the “fat chicks” from the former La Mina Ruling Party.

Camp life was thrown for a loop, however, when a blue-ribbon census commission revealed there were, in fact, no portly La Mina women to remove. Also, the producers objected to the name “Chaboga Mogo,” saying it was both “the stupidest name we’ve ever heard of,” and “bad karma, man.” Which was somewhat surprising, as the producers had not objected to the Great Terry’s proclamation that the women of the tribe, particularly Sally, Courtney and Danielle, were to be seen, and not heard.

Eventually, the tribe decided the only sane thing to do was to name themselves after a moderately popular brand of ’80s designer jeans. The CBS legal team was immediately brought in, over concerns about potential copyright infringement for buff sales at the CBS store, but eventually an opinion was issued, concluding forthwith that: I. Nobody remembered the name; II. Nobody was likely to buy any buffs if they looked like a crappier version of the last merged buff from a regular series filmed in the Pearl Islands; III. Obsolete companies never sue over that sort of thing; and IV. Demand for buffs could further be diminished by inserting a three-week gap into the airing of this series, and editing this and all future episodes into boring snoozefests. Or by putting an ’s’ at the end of the tribe name. One of the two.

Satisfied with this opinion, the producers gave the contestants the green light to go ahead and get back to whatever it was they were doing, which turned out to be sitting around. Terry passed the time by cleverly trying to trick the Casayas into making him their Lord and Master again, with masterful entreaties such as, “Come on, I’ll let you polish my throne,” and “I promise not to execute you immediately after assuming power.” But sadly, the Casayas were deaf to Terry’s pleas, sated as they were with their dreams of middling ’80s designer jean success.

And so they proceeded to hand an immunity victory to Terry, then wander off to vote out some previously unseen guy named Nick, who was apparently planted by CBS at some point during the episode, enabling such welcome, unseen developments such as the saving of Sally, and enabling Terry to keep his secret Exile Island immunity idol stashed away for yet another week. In short, if you loved the results of this week’s episode, you’re sure to enjoy next week’s, as well. Possibly with fewer slo-mo replays of unseen, off-camera machete injuries.