Episode
9
"Desperate Measures"
Days 25-27: July
4-6, 2002
Aired: November 14, 2002
Water, west. Water, west. Wait, what's that water stuff, again?
I feel pretty, oh so pretty....
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Shield's
Down
It's always dangerous to go out on a limb and bestow
upon the current week's episode of Survivor the coveted title
of "Worst. Episode. Ever." Because invariably, the very next
week the show's producers will find a way to use their latest offering
to prove you wrong. Had it not been for Helen's impression of Penny,
and Clay's cutting audio commentary track as Jake droned on and on about
his outdoorsman prowess, this episode could easily have eclipsed the
blister-laden mark of futility set by last week's hour-long Thai water
torture. Now we see what the crew meant when they complained "all
the interesting players got booted early." Even Magilla was yawning.
This cast started out comatose, except in confessionals,
and rigor mortis started to set in (at least for those still in the
game) as the cameras lingered on the comatose Sook-Jai tribe. Remarkably,
even with all the adverse weather conditions, a stray bolt of lightning
still hasn't managed to strike one of these barely moving corpses, causing
it to become reanimated. If this were a Faulkner novel, it would be
As I lay dying: multiple narrators, some bordering on insanity,
almost all with heavy drawls, hamfistedly presiding over the interment
of the Survivor franchise. True, it seems kind of cold to kick
a dead show while it's down (Survivor: Thailand rates as "Expired"
in the new issue of Wired), but someone has to do it. We were
here while it could still kick back, dammit, so it might as well be
us.
Perhaps the only pleasant surprise in this
episode occurs in the first five minutes, as the bored Chuay-Gahn members
take turns ridiculing their absent Sook-Jai tribemates, currently occupied
with the offing of Erin at Tribal Council. Helen does a bang-up job
capturing the sighing, backstabbing, crocodile-tearing essence of cheerleader
Penny. We hereby nominate Helen to take over the role of Penny for the
rest of the season, since the real one seems to be too busy hiding from
the cameras.
Brian tries his best to immerse himself in
the role of Ken, but apparently hasn't been paying particularly close
attention to the source material, since his version of Ken drawls like
one of the show's ubiquitous Southerners, apart from saying "yo"
and "bitches" a lot. Then again, this performance may explain
why Brian's previous screen experience has been limited to soft porn.
Still, the Chuay-Gahn versions of Sook-Jai
are ten times more interesting than what we've seen recently of the
real versions. We begin to picture how wonderful the series might be
if massive storms somehow prevent the production boat from returning
Ken, Jake and Penny back from tribal council for the next 15 days. It's
not like the real Sook-Jais really need to be there to be picked off
one by one.
Sadly, they soon return from Tribal Council,
shattering this reverie. There is the requisite group hug, tears, and
compelling statements from Jake and Penny that it's oh-so-hard to vote
people off, and they'll have to work extra hard to avoid doing that
again in the future. Yeah, good luck with that. Or at least stop talking
about it every damn week. Fittingly, as the Sook-Jais wander through
the campsite, Helen leaps to her feet, fanning her arms wildly, in a
futile attempt to rid the area of the stench of death.
Next, perhaps in response to complaints from
the film crew, we get a lengthy expose of what can charitably be called
"the inhumane working conditions for Survivor camera operators."
Last week, we were treated to Penny's nonstop brown-nosing and Helen's
ceaseless recitation of recipes. This week it's Jake's never-ending
adventure yarns. Or, as Clay puts it, "Roy Rogers tales."
Which is odd, because Jake seems to mention neither horseback riding
nor lame, sub-McDonalds "American food" restaurants. Jake
says this is a strategic move, hoping to win over Jan's heart with his
cheery tales of slaughtering small animals. Ken, Robb and Jed all claimed
to like these stories, but judging from the amount of eye rolling going
on, perhaps the novelty has started to wear thin by day 25. Or perhaps
it's just that Jake's stories are indistinguishable from Abe Simpson
talking about the time he went to Shelbyville, because he needed a new
heel for his shoe, so he tied an onion to his belt, which was the style
at the time...
And just when you thought it might be safe to
switch back over from Friends, Helen starts singing again, this
time an almost full-length rendition of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
Yes, it's Survivor: The Musical! Complete with orchestral accompaniment!
Which turns out to be a poor post-production decision, since somewhere
mid-song, Helen's singing goes painfully flat. Much like this series
in general. Clay stares up at the moon, desperately searching the sky
for anything - aliens, giant eagles, perhaps even a massive U.S. airstrike
on Thai Muslim extremists - anything that might help him escape this
misery.
But no, the only escape is through another veil
of tears. Apparently, when Mark Burnett promised "all new challenges"
for this season, he neglected to mention that they would be for all
the same rewards: chickens, feasts, videos from home, a trip for local
sightseeing, an SUV, and a visit from home. This week, the rolodex of
original, unscripted reality TV stopped at the traditional "videos
from home" card. Ostensibly, this is a strategic move to reveal
deep, dark secrets about the Survivors to their fellow contestants,
thereby throwing some anarchy into the proceedings.
As with past seasons, this doesn't work. We
learn yet again that people who have been starving and sleeping in the
dirt halfway around the world for the previous twenty six days tend
to miss their friends and family. And that they'll cry if you show them
videos of said friends and family. Especially if you tease them with
brief snippets, and only the reward challenge winner gets the full tape.
Thankfully, apart from Clay's continued weeping, the tears are relatively
brief, and we move on to the challenge itself. But not before merging
first. A shiny new yellow buff (creatively described as "gold"
in the CBS store) for everyone, which elicits a few muffled "hurrah"s
from the underwhelmed contestants. Ken wonders privately if this means
they can now move away from the urine-soaked cave. Um, no. At least
not until tomorrow, when you get booted, Ken.
At the RC, the first of two highly complicated,
baroque challenges, involving multiple parts and elaborate staging,
the first leg is an obstacle course, in which randomly-selected pairs
compete. It's not clear why pairs need to compete at this, since none
of the parts are particularly taxing - climb a ladder, chop through
a rope, feed a little rattan ball (leftover from previous challenges)
through a tube, then cross an obstacle course - but this is Survivor,
so that's the way it's done. Apparently the reason the previous few
weeks' worth of challenges have either been nonexistent or painfully
simple (competitive breathing through a snorkel) is because the production
staff has spent all their time putting this week's RC and IC together.
Naturally, the teams with the two guys
in best shape (Brian and Ken) win handily, then Brian and Helen pull
off a playoff victory. Brian and Helen are apparently particularly adept
at manipulating balls. Then there is the final showdown, Brian versus
Helen, in a completely different challenge: this time putting together
a pyramid using a small set of rattan balls that have been glued together
in various multi-ball shapes. Since this is a mental challenge, there
is a model there to remind the contestants what a pyramid looks like,
along with a box that gives the dimensions of the base of the pyramid.
And as you can imagine, the white-knuckle excitement
fairly pulls you into the TV set, as we observe, once again, competitive
puzzle assembly. Whee! Scenes of Brian and Helen placing and re-placing
all five or so puzzle pieces are interspersed with shots of the eliminated
contestants grimacing and shifting their weight in what the producers
must have concluded was rapt attention. Hours pass, Brian and Helen
keep checking the pyramid model to determine which end should be pointing
up. Somehow, Brian eventually manages to slap the pieces together in
a pyramidal shape, and is declared the winner. In the meantime, Magilla
and his monkey friends, playing off to the side with the balls left
over from the first half of the challenge, has constructed a 1/10-scale
model of the Empire State Building, complete with circling airplanes
and a miniature King Kong swatting at them. But since their families
didn't send in a video, we're forced to watch Brian's.
Probst holds up a tape labeled "Brian,"
and asks the winner if he's ready to see the tape his wife sent from
home. Eyes darting nervously, Brian's mind races back, frantically checking
his memory to make sure this is not one of the tapes that was lying
around the bedroom, or one of the films he and his wife appeared in.
Sadly, CC does not reenact any of her past performances, possibly because
those parts of the tape were spliced out, and were currently playing
on a continuous loop in the production tent. Still, Clay, having been
unable to ogle Erin for a full two days, watches in slack-jawed amazement,
drool cascading from his lips, as Brian's wife displays her assets.
Only Helen seems to notice the luxurious furnishings and vehicles behind
said assets.
With the tribes now merged, Ken rightfully figures
his time is now pretty much over. Hearing this, the producers convince
Ted to take off by himself in the boat for a while, to create a diversion.
This allows everyone to stage a confessional, loudly declaring that
they're definitely voting for Ted tonight, because he's such a loner.
Optimistic Jake, seizing on a highly reliable report from Clay that
everyone is voting for Ted, hatches a brilliant strategy, on a par with
his clever decision to intentionally get rid of the people on his tribe
that were helping Sook-Jai win challenges, so that they could enter
the merge with a numerical disadvantage: the Sook-Jais will all vote
for Brian. He reassures Ken, "Trust me on this! Sure, we're outnumbered
5-3, but we'll nail Brian if just one of them will vote with us."
Ken says he's not sure what kind of math they teach the kids in Texas,
although it might help explain Enron's accounting procedures.
Soon, we're relieved of this insightful look
at the fruitful strategizing, and taken to the long-awaited first individual
immunity challenge. True to Mark Burnett's word that the challenges
will be a mixture of brains and brawn, this one involves memorizing
the numerals 1 to 10 in Thai script, then lifting a heavy 16-oz stack
of cards with the Arabic (English) versions of them. Once this thrilling
competition gets down to two people, they will have to dig for buried
tokens in a gigantic gridded field. But first, there's the elimination.
Which, these being Survivor contestants, happens almost immediately,
with five of the eight contestants being eliminated on the first question.
Then the next brings it down to two. Whee!
Clay and Ken then face off at digging up their
ten buried tokens. Now you'd think that, being given the exact location
of the pieces, with the coordinates given using the same Thai numerals
(and a handy conversion key sitting a few feet away on their tally board),
might make this relatively straightforward. And if your name is Clay,
you'd be right. Not so poor Ken, who just tosses the directions aside,
and begins taking a random walk through the grid, digging wherever he
feels like. Not that this in any way impugns the impeccable abilities
of NYPD officers to connect simple clues. No, not at all. Clay wins
handily, 10-3.
So, that's about it for the drama. Sure, we
still have to wade through the traditional misdirection implying that
everyone except for Ken is vulnerable. Apart from Clay, of course, who
spends his time commenting on how fabulous he looks in his immunity
necklace, which looks not unlike a rusty bicycle wheel from which the
rim has been removed. There are the usual questions and trite answers
at Tribal Council, filled with almost as much political bilge as your
average pre-election commercial break. And then the voting, in which
shockingly, despite Clay's assurances to the contrary, Ken gets snuffed,
5-3, along tribal lines.
Yup, CBS Thursdays will keep you guessing, all right.
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