Episode
10
Perjury? Not on this reporter's beat.
Days 28-30: December
9-11, 2001
Aired: May 2, 2002
Final scores
for the week
Great White Huntress:
0
Sharks: 50
Accurate narrative:
1
Pointless misleading subplots: 99
Oh my hecks: 6.02
x 10e23
Other annoying catchphrases: No room!
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Survivor likes to think of itself as a cerebral show. If
he hadn't already done this in every edition of the Eco-Challenge,
Mark Burnett would most likely be popping on-screen every two minutes
to remind us all, ad nauseum, about the mental factors required for successful
game-winning strategy. And nowhere was this alleged intellectual
battle more evident than in this week's episode, mainly because Burnett
spent almost the entire episode encouraging us to imagine stuff that really
wasn't there.
Luckily, this was conveniently foreshadowed by Sean's
opening monologue, in which he disputed the whole Love Tribe vibe.
He didn't disavow it enough to avoid locking lips with Pappy again, of
course, but that's all in a manly, Love Tribe day's work. And speaking
of the Love Tribe, we quickly jump to Robert, still hacking away at a
log with a machete. He's been at it since the last episode, and
keeps popping up out of nowhere to do it again throughout this one.
Kind of a Greek chorus kind of thing. Hack! Hack! Hack!
(No, we weren't thinking of anyone in particular's directing talents when
we wrote that. No, indeed).
Apart from blatantly lying to the viewer to disguise
the grim prospect of a boot so utterly predictable that even Jeff Varner
saw it coming, another theme of this episode was distracting the viewer
with unnecessarily discomforting visual images. From Tammy's pit
hair to Pappy's swim trunks, there was enough wincing going on to almost
make you want to keep your eyes shut for the entire episode. Not
that there's anything wrong with that.
Case in point: having been there for three weeks, it's
time for the ritual grousing from the contestants about how starving they
are. Now, keep in mind that two of the loudest in the hunger pangs
chorus, Sean and Paschal, ate enough food at their feast just two days
prior to feed several island nations for a month. But still, there's
good ol' Pappy, apparently unclear on the concept of this "fisting" stuff
he's heard so much about on the net, seeing how far under his ribcage
he can shove his clenched hand.
Then there's the requisite moaning about dirt and insects.
Shockingly, these can be found in abundance in the great outdoors, and
may even come into contact with your skin after 21 days of exposure.
Perhaps they should make this more explicit in the contracts these people
sign. Then again, deviating from the script during professionals
is probably already covered, so never mind.
Continuing in the "let's play Fear Factor with the
audience" vein, Sean is singing again. And it's Vee's birthday.
As if it wasn't bad enough that she has to spend it away from her fiance,
there's Sean laying on the Luther Vandross impersonation as thickly as
possible. As Sean ensnares her in a bear hug, to prevent her from
escaping, Vee breaks down in tears, then desperately pleads for divine
intervention to just make it stop! A lightning bolt crackles down,
rendering Sean musically mute. Praise be!
Anyway, perhaps Vee was really crying about the reward
challenge, because she knew Sean had absolutely no chance of winning,
and her only way to escape the Fourth Tenor's incessant serenades would
be to win it herself. Unfortunately, Vee puts in very little effort
herself, perhaps sure that the winner will bring her along, since it's
her birthday and all. The challenge itself is relatively complicated
- an elimination round, in which contestants must dive for shells to continue
(or in Vee, Sean and Neleh's cases, half-assedly float around on top of
the water until they're eliminated). In the subsequent round, which
is shockingly grueling, considering the near-kindergarten difficulty level
of recent challenges (such as everyone leaping off their stilts so Tammy
could win immunity), they have to dive for 20-lb rocks, then run with
them underwater up to the beach, and heave them at a teleporting Jeff
Probst.
More surprisingly, aging, scrawny Paschal runs away
with this one (at least in the underwater part - he looks near death as
he imperceptibly moves the five feet between the shore and Probst's feet).
And this is not without gratuitous shots of Pappy's loose-fitting, bright
yellow swim trunks flapping around in the tide, thankfully still covering
most of his nether regions. But not so much that we don't wish we
had been blinking then. Anyway, Pappy is sufficiently debiliated
by the effort that he's sadly unable to crush Probst's skull with the
rock, but he's declared the winner, anyway, because by this time everyone
else has given up and is playing an impromptu round of Marco Polo.
So Pappy gets food and a hot shower on a luxurious
ocean liner! And of course, he brings Neleh with him, because of
the outstanding effort she made in the elimination round of holding on
to the buoy. Apparently, Neleh was unaware Pappy's second choice
for a luxury item was his dog-eared copy of Nabokov's Lolita.
Ah well, they'll just be sharing a private cabin with one shower.
What's the worst that could happen?
But first, it's time for yet another gratuitous flashing
of Jeff Probst's Visa (TM) card. That's right, when you're checking
into a room that you're not sleeping in, on an ocean liner that's been
rented exclusively by Mark Burnett for the past month to house his production
crew, you'd better bring your Visa (TM) card. Because even though
there are no bills here, we're going to go all out pretending there are
on TV.
Pappy and Neleh get a nice, hot shower and fresh clothes.
Sadly, Neleh did not get the opportunity to resume her non-show job of
hawking Clinique products, perhaps because they neglected to pony up the
product placement dough the way Visa did. And as Neleh steps into
the shower, we get visuals lifted directly from Psycho - the showerhead,
the screeching soundtrack, Pappy approaching, clad in a wig, knife in
hand, and... well, apparently the rest of the scene was cut out when Pappy
stopped by the production facility below deck, later in the evening.
Later, the dynamic duo gets to have a private catered
meal on board the deck of the ship. Normally, if you're on a passenger
cruise vessel, you might wonder where all the other passengers have been
all this time. Shouldn't Isaac be making drinks out on the Lido
Deck? But alas, not our Pappy and Neleh. They're distracted,
because for one sweet night, they're trading in their three-week-long
diet of slimy aquatic crustaceans for a delectable meal of slimy terrestrial
crustaceans. Bon appetit! Later, we're led to question their
deductive capacity further, when they think they're pulling quite a hilarious
prank by tipping the waiter $200, courtesy of the magical Probst Visa
(TM), despite the fact that everyone they've seen since stepping on board
is an SEG employee. This does nothing, however, to stem the ceaseless
flow of "oh my heck" from Neleh's lips.
For some reason, despite the elaborate show of their
side-by-side beds in the cabin, they are then whisked back to the island
as night falls. Just in time for Neleh to threaten to replace her
steady stream of "oh my heck" with some rich, buttery, French-influenced
puke. And, as is intended with such luxurious rewards, the non-winners
are regaled with tales of the ship's splendor. This is edited to
make us think everyone is extremely jealous, and now hates Neleh.
Which of course they don't, but we need something to distract us for the
next half hour as we inch towards Tammy's inevitable ouster.
Not that the misdirection is entirely without entertainment
value. Sean does get to do an extended comedy routine, in which
he complains that others (okay, Neleh) are selfish and lazy, for lazing
about the camp when there are chores to be done. We suspect this
was actually a Patricia diatribe from way back in episode 2, and Sean
was just lip-synching, but it was still pretty funny. Also, we get
to see digital editing at its best, in which Robert is inserted into old
footage of John setting his pig snares. Surely it will work this
time. Surely.
Eventually the immunity challenge rolls around, and
since Robert is shown fretting about being booted beforehand, he must
win it. Which he does. Essentially the same fire-starting
challenge they've used every season of Survivor, although with
a few new twists. First, we're shown why this batch was given idiot-proof
magnifying glasses to start fires, rather than flint-and-steel.
For about ten minutes. Also, there's popcorn! So much for
them not being given food this time around, eh? So, since Tammy
doesn't win, she's almost certainly out. Unless you believe Robert's
voiceover claiming "you're not going anywhere."
Apparently, however, he was merely misquoting Sonic
Youth's "Tunic." Because, no matter how much Burnett wants us to
believe Tammy and Robert have some big plan to save their respective skins,
they don't seem to be sharing this scheme with any of the other potential
voters. It's unclear how they expect to defeat a 5-2 majority on
their own, but we're expected to dispel basic mathematical principles
to believe it's so.
Soon, Burnett has exhausted the available scenes of
people saying nasty things about Neleh, so everyone has to trudge off
to the boat that drives them to tribal council. There, Probst asks
a series of questions about how much everyone hates Neleh, and how good
they'll feel when they vote her out. The votes are cast, and we
hear Tammy's vote going against someone who doesn't pull their weight
around camp. Especially gullible viewers think this is Neleh.
Seasoned cynics guess it's Sean. And as Probst reads the votes,
it turns out their brilliant scheme was to give two votes to... Vecepia
(or, if you're Tammy, someone named Vesepia). Happy birthday, Vee!
And as Tammy goes through her post-boot tirade, we realize she's lip-synching
over Hunter's parting shot. Ain't technology great?
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Episode
9
So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish!
Days 25-27: December
6-8, 2001
Aired: April 25, 2002
Mark Burnett achieves
his lifelong goal of filming an interracial, generation-spanning, homoerotic
version of From Here to Eternity. This has Emmy written
all over it.
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This week's Survivor promos touted the previous episode as "the
most unpredictable Survivor ever!" That it was, and judging
from the poor performance of the spoiler boards this week, people were
in the mood for more of the same. What they got instead was standard
Survivor stock-and-trade: name-calling, surf, sand, faux tension,
alliance talk, and, eventually, the obvious bootee being obfuscated then
summarily dispatched. *Yawn*. But at least it's sweeps month,
so lots of people saw it, right Mark?
Yep, Zoe, also known as "The Woman Who Wasn't There"
and "The Fisherman Who Didn't Catch any Fish," somehow came out of hiding
and annoyed enough people to get the boot this week. We didn't hear
much from her in the process, but we're pretty sure that's what happened.
Yeah, yeah, we know it's "shocking" to just start right out with that,
but keep in mind, the commercials for this episode did blare "Zoe's a
bitch" right into your living rooms. It's not our fault if you weren't
listening. Okay, maybe it partially is, because we told you Pappy
was leaving. But that's because we thought Mark "Unpredictable"
Burnett was more devious than this. At least, that's what we were
led to believe on Eco-Challenge:NZ (next year's edition will be
called Five Hours of Mark Burnett Talking About Teamwork).
TV wouldn't lie to us, would it? Would it?
Anyway, we open the episode in a celebratory spirit:
the five people in charge are lounging around the waterfall, exulting
in their offing of evil mastermind John in the previous episode.
Okay, well, Sean is exulting, in his high-pitched, high-volume way.
Pappy is grimacing at the water's edge, scowling that Sean's gospelesque
warbling is starting to sound a little too much like that rock-and-roll
stuff he's heard so much about. "That's the Devil's work," he mutters,
knowingly. Neleh and Vee wander around, and Kathy tries to cleanse
herself of her memories of urine.
After reaching an agreement that Sean not be allowed
to sing again until the next episode, the happy Soliantu power brokers
stumble back to camp, where they kind-heartedly grind their success into
the faces of a dejected-looking Robert and Tammy. Helping the misdirected
narration along, Robert reads the line in the script where he tells Tammy
that he and she are next. Tammy, feigning bitter resignation, rushes
off to repeat this discussion in her confessional, taking several changes
of clothing along, in case the lighting's wrong.
Having seen the script herself, Zoe (and we're not
engaging in hyperbole here when we state that she may be the least-convincing
liar ever to have roamed the face of the Earth) tries to back out of her
alliance with Tammy, claiming she really didn't have one in the first
place. It was all John's fault, or maybe Bill Clinton's fault.
Possibly both. Having now had ten seconds of discussion with Zoe
over the last three weeks, Tammy rapidly comes to the irrefutable conclusion
that Zoe is a bitch. Then they vote her off. Thanks for reading!
See you next week!
Okay, all right.... Yeah, there was more.
For one, we think there may have been a rare sighting of a Zoe confessional,
which immediately raised the question, "Who is this woman, and is she
actually on the show?" After doing a little research at the CBS
web site, we've come to the conclusion that she probably was, but it's
difficult to prove, especially considering their standards of fact-checking
excellence (Johnert?).
So, anyway, rapidly thereafter we're whisked away to
the reward challenge, which is secretly an attempt to rile up the ire
(in a craven attempt at free advertising, courtesy of the ensuing media
circus) of People for the Ethical Treatment of Fruit. That's right,
ten minutes or so of the castaways capturing cruelly ensnared coconuts,
beating the crap out of them with rocks, then draining their precious
fluids. And as scintillating as it may be to watch cylinders being
filled with opaque liquids, eventually it has to come to an end, and luckily,
Sean and Paschal are there to writhe around on the sand together in ecstasy.
Possibly on it, as well, considering the amount of hugging and smooching
going on. So Sean and Pappy get to fly off to an exotic Marquesan
feast.
As is always the case with these "shocking," unlikely-honeymoon
dates (those overfilled, pre-drilled coconuts sitting next to Sean and
Pappy's tube barely overcame Pappy's stumbling antics), this is a situation
ripe for comedy. And by that, we mean more 40's era racially blaxploitation
comedy, in which Sean's eyes almost pop out of his head at the concept
of riding a horse, he teaches the Marquesans to act "street," and he converts
Pappy to a life of crime. Perhaps in a subtle nod to Emmy voters,
Sean suggests that this show may even be better than the revered Gilligan's
Island. Not so fast, Sean - Gilligan at least had the good sense
not to embarass real Pacific islanders, just white guys in grass skirts.
And do you have a coconut phone? We think not.
Soon they bring out the feast itself, a massive pile
of slow-cooked pork, and as Sean and Pappy slide the greasy flesh down
their throats, they hatch a brilliant plan: They will "secretly"
conceal food in their clothing, in full view of the cameras. Since
it's unclear who exactly this well-executed sleight of hand is intended
to deceive, we suspect they're really just auditioning for future parts
on America's Dumbest Criminals. Pappy then chuckles, comparing
their bounty to the "crap we've been eating." Watch yo' mouth, Pappy!
Kathy worked very hard finding, cleaning, and peeing on that crap!
Eventually, after about twenty minutes of Sean interrupting
the Marquesans' traditional festivities with misplaced whoops and shout-outs,
it's time for the good times to end. But not before Sean and Pappy
have a good cry. Possibly because they've already puked up most
of their dinner. Or, more likely, because the Marquesan women Sean
has spent the evening chatting up apparently noticed all the hand-holding
he was doing with Pappy, and have left the two lovebirds for some quiet
time together. Sean sobs. Pappy concurs with tears of his own.
They embrace.
Later, as they arrive back at camp, and distribute
their smuggled wares to the non-winning tribesmates, Neleh encourages
Pappy to continue his newfound contraband-trafficking career. "Think
about it," she says. "The DEA will never suspect an old white judge,
even if his pockets are bulging out and he commits the crime in full view
of security cameras!" Pappy nods sagely, mentally calculating the
size of stash he can score with his Survivor payout. Let
this be a lesson to you people thinking of trying out for the show: Once
you start playing the game, and breaking your word, it's one short, slippery
slope to full-scale larceny. Maybe you should eat a Snickers bar
(TM) or drink some Sierra Mist (TM) instead. Or (gasp) read a book,
or something.
Anyway, the end of the show is drawing near, so it's
time to start trying to deceive you on who the bootee is going to be.
That means several scenes of Robert's aborted attempt to curry Neleh and
Paschal's favor, coupled with subsequent disparaging remarks from Neleh
as he pouts around the camp, hacking tree branches menacingly. Meanwhile,
Zoe "craftily" (oh, those CBS punsters) fashions some homemade bracelets
and necklaces, featuring the pungent exoskeletons of dead sealife, as
well as catchy phrases such as "Made by Zoe, who was never allied with
John," and "Please be my friend - Zoe." Upon receiving said items,
everyone looks at each other quizzically, asking "Who is this Zoe person?"
This brings us to an all-important piece of advice
for future contestants: For God's sake, don't waste your valuable time
making arts-and-crafts products for people in your tribe, because no good
came come of it. Look at poor Lindsey, reduced to a blubbering mass
of bruises after throwing together some simple necklaces. And no
matter what your intentions, the guys on the tribe are just not going
to be all that thrilled by homemade chokers. There, someone had
to say it.
But first we need to get through the formality of the
immunity challenge that Tammy has to win, Which she does, through
her remarkable ability to stand on stilts for more than a second at a
time. Shocking! Then it's off to Tribal Council, where we're
reminded that it's completely unpredictable, because Robert is asked to
give a twenty-minute speech on "Why are they booting you tonight?"
Sean gets to cry some more (racking up Surviwhore points), and we are
conveniently not shown everyone voting for Zoe. Except for Tammy,
who gives a succinct "I'm not really sure who you are, but I'm positive
I don't like you." Pappy, perhaps confused by the poorly-designed ballot,
casts a vote for ZZ Top. "Rock and Roll has got to go!" he says.
"I told you, it's the Devil's music."
Still, vote for Zoe they do, and Zoe, after being
MIA for the first five episodes, briefly appears, then gets to go into
hiding again on the jury. She leaves, apparently mystified that
anyone knew she was there, then slaps her head, suddenly remembering those
damn bracelets. "Dammit! I knew I should have put 'WWJD?'
on them instead!"
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