Post by BCandScott on Mar 4, 2006 0:48:48 GMT -5
Nothing about the recap was exceptional, but I did enjoy the opportunity to see Casaya cracking up again and Cirie saying that the "alliance" is like some kind of psychotic joke.
I just noticed that La Mina has really built themselves a pretty nifty shelter. They have elevated the floor off the ground and have used the tarp to reinforce the roof's quality. The tribe wakes up and exchanges pleasantries with Sally, who is happy and proud to be the last female standing in the La Mina tribe. Dan is disappointed in the decision to send Ruth Marie home. Sally tells Nick that every day she spent with Ruth Marie, she was more and more amazed at the older woman's abilities. She says it feels pretty darn good that someone thought she was valuable enough to keep around.
Casaya is trying to get a fire going to boil some water. Aras is working on it and is not pleased that Bruce is out on the beach building a zen rock garden while Aras, Shane and Courtney struggle with the fire. When Bruce walks up after his rock gardening, Aras says they are having a huge problem with the fire and Bruce says "go get some firewood." Aras loses it and says, "Bruce we HAVE firewood. This is a really tough fire right now. You made your rock garden and nobody was complaining. I'm working on this and I'm working as a team, OK?"
Aras immediately feels bad about yelling at Bruce. He says that it was a matter of whether the tribe needed a rock garden or a fire. He apologizes sort of, but continues telling Bruce that the tribe has to have priorities. Bruce says that Aras has attacked his character. Bruce says Aras has no idea why he's building a rock garden and that it was childish for Aras to remark about the garden. Aras takes offense saying, "wait, are you calling me childish." Bruce says, "No, I'm not calling you childish, but your comment was childish." They basically say neither of them meant disrespect and that they need to communicate more and they shake hands and walk away. Aras says that even though he is the youngest member of the tribe, he often feels like he is the parent in their relationships. He adds he almost wants to go to Exile Island to escape his tribe mates.
Reward challenge is a sort of assembly line or fire brigade type challenge. Out in the ocean there are two boats anchored containing a bag of rice, a bag of beans, and 8 great big old fish. I mean BIG FISH. Around where I live, a fish that big is a carp. Nothing else gets that big. If you head north to the Great Lakes, you might get something the size of these fish. They are easily 2 feet long. A LOT of meat on them. The challenge requires a member of the tribe to run into the water and go out to the boat and get one of the items and bring it to shore. The rest of the tribe (minus the ones sitting out to even the numbers) is lined up from the beach on mats that lead to a table where a tribe member waits with a machete. The item that the first tribe member retrieves is thrown to the person on the next mat. That person, after catching the item, tosses it to the next tribe member, proceeding up the beach to the tribe member at the table with the machete. That last tribe member puts the item in a bin. The fish can only be put in the bin after the head and tail have been hacked off using the machete. If a tribe member drops/fails to catch an item, the tribe member that threw the item must get the item, return to their mat and try tossing it again. The fish are going to be slipper, I can just tell. Plus, I say again, these are BIG FISH. They are allowed to swap positions during the challenge.
The reward is all of the stuff that they retrieve from their boat, the rice, the beans, and the fish. They also get a basket of seasonings, spices, olive oil, a frying pan and four bottles of wine. Everyone agrees it's worth playing for. They all get really excited about the wine. The losing tribe gets to keep either their rice or their beans and one tribe member must go to Exile Island. Casaya chooses to sit Courtney and Danielle out. Austin and Aras are the designated retrievers for La Mina and Casaya respectively.
The first items are the bags of rice and beans. Shane and Nick switch out to retrieve. The bags go pretty easy. When they come to the fish, Cirie throws to Bobby and he can't hold on to the fish. Cirie has to run up and get the fish and throw it again. Terry is chopping heads and tails off the fish for La Mina and Bruce is chopping for Casaya. Now, you know, Bruce is this martial arts guy, and he's tough and strong and all that and I've seen him wielding the machete to chop bamboo like he was cutting butter, but for some reason, he cannot seem to hack the head and tail off that darn fish. It's weird because Terry goes "whack whack" and tosses the headless, tailless carcass into the fish bin. Bruce continues to hack. I'm reminded of the challenge last year where the one guy was trying to hack through a rope at the very first part of the challenge. It was the challenge with the little carts they got to ride at the end. Anyway, that guy hacked and hacked and the other tribe was almost finished before he got through that rope. The other tribe's guy went "whack" and it was done. Same thing here, Bruce chopping and chopping and pieces of fish flying off and fish blood everywhere, but he cannot seem to separate the head and tail from that fish. My admiration for martial arts just plummets at this. I love it when Jeff yells "watch your fingers."
La Mina moves on and is one full fish ahead by the time that Bruce finishes chopping the fish. They switch him out to catch from Cirie and Bobby is going to chop fish. Bruce can't hold onto the fish and Cirie has to throw it again. Bobby, fortunately, is able to make quick work of the fish.
There are 8 fish total. As they get more tired and fish seem to get bigger, there are more drops and re-throws. Sally has trouble with a small whale thrown by Dan. Casaya manages to catch up due to the problems throwing on La Mina and Bobby's amazing ability to chop. It comes down to the last fish and while Terry is really good at fish chopping, Bobby is our Iron Chef of the day and Casaya wins reward. They send Terry back to Exile Island as "a sign of respect". Terry is sort of amazing, I have to admit. Sometimes it's like everyone else is struggling and he's barely breaking a sweat. If he was more fun in his "diary" conversations, like Cirie, he'd be one of my favorites.
Casaya returns to camp and it's raining. It's REALLY raining. Courtney says, "d**n, we're about to sail away on Lake Casaya. Indeed, the camp is almost a lake, at the very least a pond. We see Cirie standing in ankle deep water saying, "we returned from reward challenge and TA DAH! there's a lake." They have rice, beans and a ton of fish, but no dry wood and no fire. Bruce starts cutting up the fish and they decide to have sushi. I love the look on Cirie's face as she says "It's cool for us to eat this like this, right?" She says she doesn't want to wake up in the morning with some kind of sickness or something but they say it's OK to eat. They also seem to be enjoying the wine.
Now, I'm funny about some stuff. I admit that. I'm not as bad as Cirie was at first, afraid of leaves, but there are some creature comforts that I need to exist and I don't do well without them. I like to be dry while sleeping. I like to know that no snake or something is going to swim up in the murky muddy water and try to swallow me whole. I've seen that show about the anacondas a bunch of times because it's in HD and well HDTV rocks. I do not want to meet an anaconda at my nose whilst I sleep. Knowing this, I prioritize and see to first things first. They have obviously built their camp in a little low spot that fills with water. It seems to me that even their shelter was pretty darn wet when they got back to camp and yep, they had NO DRY WOOD to make a fire (this could be part of their ongoing fire problem back when Aras was aggravated about rock garden not being a priority). So, while I might eat some fish, because of the starvation factor, I'm going to be fast looking for a better place to put my shelter. This doesn't seem to cross anyone's mind as they eat raw fish, and drink. Remember how silly it was in Survivor Outback when the one tribe built it's camp in the middle of a dry creek bed as rainy season approached? Remember the winner that year was Tina, the woman who dived into the raging water to save the tribe's rice supply? Confronted with a similar situation, Casaya would have probably said, "wow, look at that" while waiting for the water to go away so they could crawl back into the middle of the creek bed to sleep. I would not fit in well with this group.
Austin is bummed that Casaya won again. Austin doesn't know that he need not envy the Casaya tribe because they are....well, they are Casaya. He is sitting in a nice elevated shelter that is dry with a nice tarp roof. They are not living in a lake.
The La Mina tribe does bring back a bag of beans from the challenge. They quickly cook some and eat them. I'm not sure how long they soaked the beans. You can quick soak a pot of beans using hot water in a couple hours, but you really have to soak them before out and out cooking them and I like to let mine soak in cool water overnight. Otherwise, your beans are hard and not that nice soft starchy texture like mom used to make. Anyway, I doubt they soaked them at all actually, because they were starving. They dive in and eat away, using clam shells as sthingys. This tribe hadn't had anything to eat in a while and apparently the beans hit their stomachs like an h-bomb. Austin and Nick are both very nauseated and spend a lot of time throwing up and running off in the woods to do what bears do in the woods over the course of the entire night. Literally, Austin will return to the shelter and within a minute he'll say "oh, god, I have to go again." Nick asks, "both ends going?" Dan says, we probably didn't cook them enough. If I was on this tribe, good old West Virginia girl that I am, they would have had a much better time with the beans. Plus, by now, I would be catching some of those rays or fish that hop around near the beach tantalizing this hungry tribe with their seafoodly goodness. We would have had something paella like before I was done.
It's raining over at Lake Casaya. Apparently, Bobby decides that the other tribe members have crowded him out of the lakefront shelter and he has no place to sleep. Bruce has been huddling up in the outhouse they won in the reward challenge last episode. Bobby also finds the last bottle of wine. He decides to join Bruce in the outhouse. The two of them sit there drinking and promising never to vote each other out, ever. Bobby confesses that he can't fake it, he can't bond with everybody. He says if he makes it to the merge, he's bouncing to the other tribe, no matter who is over there. They bond.
The next morning Courtney and Danielle are up saying there's so much to do, they don't know where to begin. Courtney says she doesn't know what happened to Bruce and Bobby but that she heard they spent the night in the bathroom. Danielle says that the last bottle of wine is gone. Cirie wants some soap so she goes up to the outhouse and opens the door to find Bruce folded up in there still asleep...with the empty bottle from last night's wine. Cirie (and this is one of the reasons I'm liking her so much these days) Cirie says, "I would have to be dead and someone would have to pour it down my throat before I would drink the last bottle of wine that we, as a tribe, won."
Bobby wanders up to Courtney and Shane and Courtney asks him what happened to him last night. Bobby says that since they took his spot in the shelter, he spent the night in Casa de Charmin. Courtney asks what happened to the last bottle of wine. Bobby replies, "I drank it." Courtney asks if it was just him or did Bruce drink it too. Bobby says he shared with Bruce, but he took it because he planned to drink it himself. Courtney asks him how he feels about that. (Now let me insert here that Courtney is a twit. How do you feel about that? What kind of question is that. He wanted it Courtney, he took it Courtney and he drank it Courtney. The only thing worse that someone trying to psychoanalyze you is if the person doing it is a total twit.) Bobby replies, "I feel swell about it." I gotta give Bobby props for his ability to smack Courtney up the side the head verbally with a blunt answer. Courtney insists that there was plenty of room in the shelter and that it was really bad judgment taking the last bottle of wine. Courtney keeps pushing how he "stole" the tribe's wine. Finally Bobby says (gotta love this one) that he doesn't feel bad about stealing Courtney's wine. He feels a little bad about everyone else, but about Courtney, nah...doesn't bother him at all. We get a shot of Cirie just smiling ear to ear and then one of Courtney, completely flummoxed. In some more civilized situation, somewhere back home, I'm sure that the offending person (Bobby) would be all contrite and the offended person (Courtney) would get a chance to be self-righteous but forgiving. In this case, Courtney just stands there with her mouth hanging open and blinks, trying to make sense of it all.
Bobby says that Courtney is one of the most annoying people in the history of the world. Thinking back about Hitler and Mussolini, Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, the lady who lives upstairs from me, a particular flame-baiter on a discussion board I participate in, it's hard to verify that Courtney is really one of the most annoying people on in the history of the world, but then I've never had to live with her on an island while starving, being eaten alive by bugs, and sleeping in an outhouse with a little martial artist who can't hack the head off a fish. I will simply have to take Bobby's word for it.
Terry is peacefully hanging out on Exile Island. He says he doesn't have as much to do since he already has the immunity idol from the last time he was there. He says he does like to use his time out there concentrating on getting re-hydrated and getting food to be strong for the challenges. He manages to start a fire and he admits he is concerned about his tribe because he is worried about them not feeding themselves and staying hydrated. Considering that Austin and Nick spent at least one whole afternoon and evening running into the woods to either throw up or "drop a deuce", his worry is well founded, I think. As we leave Terry at Exile Island, we see him standing atop the huge wooden skull thing looking healthy and fit. That guy isn't just on Survivor, he's SURVIVING.
Tree mail arrives and it's a little wooden coffin. Dan reads it.
To the depths of the ocean floor
You'll hold your breath till you can take no more
Paddle and swim as your body strains
Then immunity depends on how you use your brains
Austin says this is exactly NOT what the doctor ordered. He and Nick have been really sick for about 24 hours. They desperately need to win but now they are going in having lost four in a row and they are going in semi-wounded.
Terry arrives back for the immunity challenge looking great. Seriously, this guy is NOT getting that gaunt survivor look at all.
Three tribe members must paddle out and find four coffins on the ocean floor. Then, they must dive down and untie the ropes that are securing the lids on the coffins. Inside the coffins they will find a skull puzzle piece. They must collect all of the puzzle pieces, return to the shore and the two remaining participating tribe members must assemble the puzzle, a pyramid puzzle that ends up with a gold skull on top. My Scott tells me this is a super easy puzzle, sold in every puzzle or game shop or toy store and that anyone who has ever done any sort of puzzle in their life should be able to work it in about 30 seconds.
Casaya is sitting Cirie and Bruce out for this challenge. Jeff rubs it in that Casaya has won the last four challenges. Courtney, Danielle and Aras head out in the boat for Casaya. Terry, Dan and Nick are paddling out for La Mina. Danielle and Terry dive in first. Terry pops up with a puzzle piece first but Danielle is close behind. There are four knots to untie on each coffin and another knot that must be untied to release the puzzle piece. Dan goes in and come up hard under the boat and looks a little dazed from whacking his head a good one. Both tribes are still in it, but La Mina has edged a slight lead. La Mina finds their third puzzle piece and Casaya starts going down with all three people to try to catch up. La Mina extends their lead with a fourth piece and starts paddling for shore. Casaya doesn't give up and finds their puzzle piece as La Mina reaches the shore and Sally and Austin start trying to solve the puzzle.
Shane and Bobby are now also solving the Casaya puzzle. It's close, but La Mina finally works the puzzle and wins immunity. Casaya will now go to tribal council.
Back at camp, Casaya can see about a zillion rays swimming in the ocean. It would make a good paella, guys. Shane announces that they are voting Bobby out. Immediately. He says, no more discussion. Aras isn't of like mind. He says he does not want Bobby to go. He says they can't control Bruce. Shane says that when they get to the merge, and Austin and Nick are still around on the other tribe, he's always felt that Bobby would join up with them.
Aras convinces Shane that Bruce should be the one voted out. Shane, the UPI of the island, goes to Bobby and says, you were the one, you were going to be voted out, but now you're not. It's Bruce. But you must promise not to flop over to the other side at a merge. Shane's strategy is apparently "tell everyone everything you know, and then demand they all do what you want them to and then (and this is the incredible stupid part) swear on the live of your children." It would be divine retribution if when this guy gets home, his kids run up to him and say, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU DAD?
? This time he actually makes Bobby swear on his kids. Bobby may be thinking, I don't care about this guys kids.
Cirie has been walking on eggshells because way back she was told she would be the next to go. At this point, she's relieved that they seem to be ignoring her.
Bruce is aggravated at Courtney because she has no respect for him or anybody. she insists on doing her exercises and stretches in Bruce's rock garden. Courtney and Danielle are suddenly friendly with Cirie and they decide that they, as women, should make the decisions. Danielle wants Bobby to go (she's probably still mad about the "deuce" dropping). They go to Shane who freaks because he can't vote for Bobby because he....yep, he did....he swore on his kids. He said I wanted to vote Bobby off in the first place and all of YOU said, no, we vote off Bruce.
Cirie makes a smart play her, but it's subtle. I loved it. She says to Shane, "you know, Shane, you were right all along. We should have listened to you. We thought about it, decided you were right and now we are here to tell you we want to do what YOU thought was the best thing all along." Instead of arguing with him like Courtney and Danielle seem to do constantly, she puffs him up...and gets exactly what she wants. This gets Bobby voted off, which is what Danielle and Courtney wanted and solicited her help for. They will now think of her as "on their side." She has done this without making Shane feel threatened because she is telling him that they are doing this because HE was right all along. Clever girl.
This is Bruce's first tribal council and he has to light his torch for the first time. Jeff tells Shane that the last time they were there, he felt that the Casaya tribe was in disarray and he wonders if Shane feels that's still the case. Shane calls the tribe the "dysfunctional functional tribe" that is capable of pulling together at the challenges to perform well as a team, but that at camp it's very very tiring. Jeff asks about the rains and how their shelter is holding up. Bruce tells him that he spent the night in the outhouse one night and the story of Bobby and the bottle of wine comes up. Bobby admits that he took the wine and drank it and found out later it was not OK with the tribe that he had done so. He repeats the story that he had no place to sleep. Bobby says he realized that people were disappointed. He's not sorry for the act, but he's sorry for the way it made people feel. Cirie said it was a huge mistake because they all as a group fought to win the challenge. Aras pops up to say it's not fair to blame this all on Bobby, that Bruce also drank the wine and has never bothered to own up to it or say that he's sorry about it. Obviously, the Bobby voters are piling it on Bobby but Aras, who still wants Bruce voted out is trying to make a case for keeping Bobby and voting Bruce out of the tribe.
Bruce says he's sorry, but nobody had even said anything to him about drinking the wine. He didn't realize that they were upset with him. Aras says it wasn't their responsibility to tell him he'd done something wrong, he should have stood up and said he did and and apologized. Jeff asks Bruce if he feels unappreciated. Bruce says that they will ask his advice about things but they never listen to what he tells them and they question everything he says. He says that never in his long teaching career have students questioned him like this. Aras is quick to tell him that THEY are NOT his students. Aras adds that he shouldn't look at being challenged about his opinion as some big ego blow. Danielle (remember she wants Bobby out) says that Bruce is an older man, a wiser man, with a lot of experience and that she doesn't think he gets the respect he deserves. Bruce breaks in to say that he will take everything that is said to heart and that he will work much harder at letting people know what he's thinking. They all touch fists to show that they are all pals again. (Riiiight, I believe that.)
Jeff mentions Exile Island and that Bruce has been there and could have the idol.
I have to tell you that before the vote, Scott and I were talking and we both laughed and said, wouldn't it be funny if everyone on the tribe voted for someone else and they all ended up with one vote each. Seriously, this group is so dysfunctional and everyone is so aggravated at everyone else, it's hard to imagine them ever reaching a "majority" decision on anything.
First vote is Courtney, second is Bruce, third is Bobby, and fourth is Aras. OMG, we may have been right.
Next vote is again, for Bruce, the next is for Bobby. The final deciding vote is for Bobby.
Tribe breakdown is as follows:
Shane (having sworn on his kids) votes Aras
Aras votes Bruce
Bruce votes Courtney for exercising in his rock garden
Cirie votes Bobby
Danielle votes Bobby
Courtney votes Bobby
Shane would have voted Bobby but he didn't want harm to come to Shane, Jr. He didn't want to vote Bruce because he knows Bruce may already have a vote and doesn't want to run the risk of Bruce being the one voted off because of a stray vote somewhere. The three women have become a force to be reckoned with. They have in effect, taken control of the tribe. This is very very good news for Cirie.
The preview shows us that the Casaya women want Shane out, Austin is eating something ugly, slimy and apparently foul tasting because the La Mina tribe has hit "rock bottom", a big twist may provide salvation for one, and we are promised a tribal council like no other. Until then, MOVE THE DANG SHELTER AWAY FROM THE WATER, YA TWITS and SOAK YOUR BEANS.
I just noticed that La Mina has really built themselves a pretty nifty shelter. They have elevated the floor off the ground and have used the tarp to reinforce the roof's quality. The tribe wakes up and exchanges pleasantries with Sally, who is happy and proud to be the last female standing in the La Mina tribe. Dan is disappointed in the decision to send Ruth Marie home. Sally tells Nick that every day she spent with Ruth Marie, she was more and more amazed at the older woman's abilities. She says it feels pretty darn good that someone thought she was valuable enough to keep around.
Casaya is trying to get a fire going to boil some water. Aras is working on it and is not pleased that Bruce is out on the beach building a zen rock garden while Aras, Shane and Courtney struggle with the fire. When Bruce walks up after his rock gardening, Aras says they are having a huge problem with the fire and Bruce says "go get some firewood." Aras loses it and says, "Bruce we HAVE firewood. This is a really tough fire right now. You made your rock garden and nobody was complaining. I'm working on this and I'm working as a team, OK?"
Aras immediately feels bad about yelling at Bruce. He says that it was a matter of whether the tribe needed a rock garden or a fire. He apologizes sort of, but continues telling Bruce that the tribe has to have priorities. Bruce says that Aras has attacked his character. Bruce says Aras has no idea why he's building a rock garden and that it was childish for Aras to remark about the garden. Aras takes offense saying, "wait, are you calling me childish." Bruce says, "No, I'm not calling you childish, but your comment was childish." They basically say neither of them meant disrespect and that they need to communicate more and they shake hands and walk away. Aras says that even though he is the youngest member of the tribe, he often feels like he is the parent in their relationships. He adds he almost wants to go to Exile Island to escape his tribe mates.
Reward challenge is a sort of assembly line or fire brigade type challenge. Out in the ocean there are two boats anchored containing a bag of rice, a bag of beans, and 8 great big old fish. I mean BIG FISH. Around where I live, a fish that big is a carp. Nothing else gets that big. If you head north to the Great Lakes, you might get something the size of these fish. They are easily 2 feet long. A LOT of meat on them. The challenge requires a member of the tribe to run into the water and go out to the boat and get one of the items and bring it to shore. The rest of the tribe (minus the ones sitting out to even the numbers) is lined up from the beach on mats that lead to a table where a tribe member waits with a machete. The item that the first tribe member retrieves is thrown to the person on the next mat. That person, after catching the item, tosses it to the next tribe member, proceeding up the beach to the tribe member at the table with the machete. That last tribe member puts the item in a bin. The fish can only be put in the bin after the head and tail have been hacked off using the machete. If a tribe member drops/fails to catch an item, the tribe member that threw the item must get the item, return to their mat and try tossing it again. The fish are going to be slipper, I can just tell. Plus, I say again, these are BIG FISH. They are allowed to swap positions during the challenge.
The reward is all of the stuff that they retrieve from their boat, the rice, the beans, and the fish. They also get a basket of seasonings, spices, olive oil, a frying pan and four bottles of wine. Everyone agrees it's worth playing for. They all get really excited about the wine. The losing tribe gets to keep either their rice or their beans and one tribe member must go to Exile Island. Casaya chooses to sit Courtney and Danielle out. Austin and Aras are the designated retrievers for La Mina and Casaya respectively.
The first items are the bags of rice and beans. Shane and Nick switch out to retrieve. The bags go pretty easy. When they come to the fish, Cirie throws to Bobby and he can't hold on to the fish. Cirie has to run up and get the fish and throw it again. Terry is chopping heads and tails off the fish for La Mina and Bruce is chopping for Casaya. Now, you know, Bruce is this martial arts guy, and he's tough and strong and all that and I've seen him wielding the machete to chop bamboo like he was cutting butter, but for some reason, he cannot seem to hack the head and tail off that darn fish. It's weird because Terry goes "whack whack" and tosses the headless, tailless carcass into the fish bin. Bruce continues to hack. I'm reminded of the challenge last year where the one guy was trying to hack through a rope at the very first part of the challenge. It was the challenge with the little carts they got to ride at the end. Anyway, that guy hacked and hacked and the other tribe was almost finished before he got through that rope. The other tribe's guy went "whack" and it was done. Same thing here, Bruce chopping and chopping and pieces of fish flying off and fish blood everywhere, but he cannot seem to separate the head and tail from that fish. My admiration for martial arts just plummets at this. I love it when Jeff yells "watch your fingers."
La Mina moves on and is one full fish ahead by the time that Bruce finishes chopping the fish. They switch him out to catch from Cirie and Bobby is going to chop fish. Bruce can't hold onto the fish and Cirie has to throw it again. Bobby, fortunately, is able to make quick work of the fish.
There are 8 fish total. As they get more tired and fish seem to get bigger, there are more drops and re-throws. Sally has trouble with a small whale thrown by Dan. Casaya manages to catch up due to the problems throwing on La Mina and Bobby's amazing ability to chop. It comes down to the last fish and while Terry is really good at fish chopping, Bobby is our Iron Chef of the day and Casaya wins reward. They send Terry back to Exile Island as "a sign of respect". Terry is sort of amazing, I have to admit. Sometimes it's like everyone else is struggling and he's barely breaking a sweat. If he was more fun in his "diary" conversations, like Cirie, he'd be one of my favorites.
Casaya returns to camp and it's raining. It's REALLY raining. Courtney says, "d**n, we're about to sail away on Lake Casaya. Indeed, the camp is almost a lake, at the very least a pond. We see Cirie standing in ankle deep water saying, "we returned from reward challenge and TA DAH! there's a lake." They have rice, beans and a ton of fish, but no dry wood and no fire. Bruce starts cutting up the fish and they decide to have sushi. I love the look on Cirie's face as she says "It's cool for us to eat this like this, right?" She says she doesn't want to wake up in the morning with some kind of sickness or something but they say it's OK to eat. They also seem to be enjoying the wine.
Now, I'm funny about some stuff. I admit that. I'm not as bad as Cirie was at first, afraid of leaves, but there are some creature comforts that I need to exist and I don't do well without them. I like to be dry while sleeping. I like to know that no snake or something is going to swim up in the murky muddy water and try to swallow me whole. I've seen that show about the anacondas a bunch of times because it's in HD and well HDTV rocks. I do not want to meet an anaconda at my nose whilst I sleep. Knowing this, I prioritize and see to first things first. They have obviously built their camp in a little low spot that fills with water. It seems to me that even their shelter was pretty darn wet when they got back to camp and yep, they had NO DRY WOOD to make a fire (this could be part of their ongoing fire problem back when Aras was aggravated about rock garden not being a priority). So, while I might eat some fish, because of the starvation factor, I'm going to be fast looking for a better place to put my shelter. This doesn't seem to cross anyone's mind as they eat raw fish, and drink. Remember how silly it was in Survivor Outback when the one tribe built it's camp in the middle of a dry creek bed as rainy season approached? Remember the winner that year was Tina, the woman who dived into the raging water to save the tribe's rice supply? Confronted with a similar situation, Casaya would have probably said, "wow, look at that" while waiting for the water to go away so they could crawl back into the middle of the creek bed to sleep. I would not fit in well with this group.
Austin is bummed that Casaya won again. Austin doesn't know that he need not envy the Casaya tribe because they are....well, they are Casaya. He is sitting in a nice elevated shelter that is dry with a nice tarp roof. They are not living in a lake.
The La Mina tribe does bring back a bag of beans from the challenge. They quickly cook some and eat them. I'm not sure how long they soaked the beans. You can quick soak a pot of beans using hot water in a couple hours, but you really have to soak them before out and out cooking them and I like to let mine soak in cool water overnight. Otherwise, your beans are hard and not that nice soft starchy texture like mom used to make. Anyway, I doubt they soaked them at all actually, because they were starving. They dive in and eat away, using clam shells as sthingys. This tribe hadn't had anything to eat in a while and apparently the beans hit their stomachs like an h-bomb. Austin and Nick are both very nauseated and spend a lot of time throwing up and running off in the woods to do what bears do in the woods over the course of the entire night. Literally, Austin will return to the shelter and within a minute he'll say "oh, god, I have to go again." Nick asks, "both ends going?" Dan says, we probably didn't cook them enough. If I was on this tribe, good old West Virginia girl that I am, they would have had a much better time with the beans. Plus, by now, I would be catching some of those rays or fish that hop around near the beach tantalizing this hungry tribe with their seafoodly goodness. We would have had something paella like before I was done.
It's raining over at Lake Casaya. Apparently, Bobby decides that the other tribe members have crowded him out of the lakefront shelter and he has no place to sleep. Bruce has been huddling up in the outhouse they won in the reward challenge last episode. Bobby also finds the last bottle of wine. He decides to join Bruce in the outhouse. The two of them sit there drinking and promising never to vote each other out, ever. Bobby confesses that he can't fake it, he can't bond with everybody. He says if he makes it to the merge, he's bouncing to the other tribe, no matter who is over there. They bond.
The next morning Courtney and Danielle are up saying there's so much to do, they don't know where to begin. Courtney says she doesn't know what happened to Bruce and Bobby but that she heard they spent the night in the bathroom. Danielle says that the last bottle of wine is gone. Cirie wants some soap so she goes up to the outhouse and opens the door to find Bruce folded up in there still asleep...with the empty bottle from last night's wine. Cirie (and this is one of the reasons I'm liking her so much these days) Cirie says, "I would have to be dead and someone would have to pour it down my throat before I would drink the last bottle of wine that we, as a tribe, won."
Bobby wanders up to Courtney and Shane and Courtney asks him what happened to him last night. Bobby says that since they took his spot in the shelter, he spent the night in Casa de Charmin. Courtney asks what happened to the last bottle of wine. Bobby replies, "I drank it." Courtney asks if it was just him or did Bruce drink it too. Bobby says he shared with Bruce, but he took it because he planned to drink it himself. Courtney asks him how he feels about that. (Now let me insert here that Courtney is a twit. How do you feel about that? What kind of question is that. He wanted it Courtney, he took it Courtney and he drank it Courtney. The only thing worse that someone trying to psychoanalyze you is if the person doing it is a total twit.) Bobby replies, "I feel swell about it." I gotta give Bobby props for his ability to smack Courtney up the side the head verbally with a blunt answer. Courtney insists that there was plenty of room in the shelter and that it was really bad judgment taking the last bottle of wine. Courtney keeps pushing how he "stole" the tribe's wine. Finally Bobby says (gotta love this one) that he doesn't feel bad about stealing Courtney's wine. He feels a little bad about everyone else, but about Courtney, nah...doesn't bother him at all. We get a shot of Cirie just smiling ear to ear and then one of Courtney, completely flummoxed. In some more civilized situation, somewhere back home, I'm sure that the offending person (Bobby) would be all contrite and the offended person (Courtney) would get a chance to be self-righteous but forgiving. In this case, Courtney just stands there with her mouth hanging open and blinks, trying to make sense of it all.
Bobby says that Courtney is one of the most annoying people in the history of the world. Thinking back about Hitler and Mussolini, Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, the lady who lives upstairs from me, a particular flame-baiter on a discussion board I participate in, it's hard to verify that Courtney is really one of the most annoying people on in the history of the world, but then I've never had to live with her on an island while starving, being eaten alive by bugs, and sleeping in an outhouse with a little martial artist who can't hack the head off a fish. I will simply have to take Bobby's word for it.
Terry is peacefully hanging out on Exile Island. He says he doesn't have as much to do since he already has the immunity idol from the last time he was there. He says he does like to use his time out there concentrating on getting re-hydrated and getting food to be strong for the challenges. He manages to start a fire and he admits he is concerned about his tribe because he is worried about them not feeding themselves and staying hydrated. Considering that Austin and Nick spent at least one whole afternoon and evening running into the woods to either throw up or "drop a deuce", his worry is well founded, I think. As we leave Terry at Exile Island, we see him standing atop the huge wooden skull thing looking healthy and fit. That guy isn't just on Survivor, he's SURVIVING.
Tree mail arrives and it's a little wooden coffin. Dan reads it.
To the depths of the ocean floor
You'll hold your breath till you can take no more
Paddle and swim as your body strains
Then immunity depends on how you use your brains
Austin says this is exactly NOT what the doctor ordered. He and Nick have been really sick for about 24 hours. They desperately need to win but now they are going in having lost four in a row and they are going in semi-wounded.
Terry arrives back for the immunity challenge looking great. Seriously, this guy is NOT getting that gaunt survivor look at all.
Three tribe members must paddle out and find four coffins on the ocean floor. Then, they must dive down and untie the ropes that are securing the lids on the coffins. Inside the coffins they will find a skull puzzle piece. They must collect all of the puzzle pieces, return to the shore and the two remaining participating tribe members must assemble the puzzle, a pyramid puzzle that ends up with a gold skull on top. My Scott tells me this is a super easy puzzle, sold in every puzzle or game shop or toy store and that anyone who has ever done any sort of puzzle in their life should be able to work it in about 30 seconds.
Casaya is sitting Cirie and Bruce out for this challenge. Jeff rubs it in that Casaya has won the last four challenges. Courtney, Danielle and Aras head out in the boat for Casaya. Terry, Dan and Nick are paddling out for La Mina. Danielle and Terry dive in first. Terry pops up with a puzzle piece first but Danielle is close behind. There are four knots to untie on each coffin and another knot that must be untied to release the puzzle piece. Dan goes in and come up hard under the boat and looks a little dazed from whacking his head a good one. Both tribes are still in it, but La Mina has edged a slight lead. La Mina finds their third puzzle piece and Casaya starts going down with all three people to try to catch up. La Mina extends their lead with a fourth piece and starts paddling for shore. Casaya doesn't give up and finds their puzzle piece as La Mina reaches the shore and Sally and Austin start trying to solve the puzzle.
Shane and Bobby are now also solving the Casaya puzzle. It's close, but La Mina finally works the puzzle and wins immunity. Casaya will now go to tribal council.
Back at camp, Casaya can see about a zillion rays swimming in the ocean. It would make a good paella, guys. Shane announces that they are voting Bobby out. Immediately. He says, no more discussion. Aras isn't of like mind. He says he does not want Bobby to go. He says they can't control Bruce. Shane says that when they get to the merge, and Austin and Nick are still around on the other tribe, he's always felt that Bobby would join up with them.
Aras convinces Shane that Bruce should be the one voted out. Shane, the UPI of the island, goes to Bobby and says, you were the one, you were going to be voted out, but now you're not. It's Bruce. But you must promise not to flop over to the other side at a merge. Shane's strategy is apparently "tell everyone everything you know, and then demand they all do what you want them to and then (and this is the incredible stupid part) swear on the live of your children." It would be divine retribution if when this guy gets home, his kids run up to him and say, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU DAD?
? This time he actually makes Bobby swear on his kids. Bobby may be thinking, I don't care about this guys kids. Cirie has been walking on eggshells because way back she was told she would be the next to go. At this point, she's relieved that they seem to be ignoring her.
Bruce is aggravated at Courtney because she has no respect for him or anybody. she insists on doing her exercises and stretches in Bruce's rock garden. Courtney and Danielle are suddenly friendly with Cirie and they decide that they, as women, should make the decisions. Danielle wants Bobby to go (she's probably still mad about the "deuce" dropping). They go to Shane who freaks because he can't vote for Bobby because he....yep, he did....he swore on his kids. He said I wanted to vote Bobby off in the first place and all of YOU said, no, we vote off Bruce.
Cirie makes a smart play her, but it's subtle. I loved it. She says to Shane, "you know, Shane, you were right all along. We should have listened to you. We thought about it, decided you were right and now we are here to tell you we want to do what YOU thought was the best thing all along." Instead of arguing with him like Courtney and Danielle seem to do constantly, she puffs him up...and gets exactly what she wants. This gets Bobby voted off, which is what Danielle and Courtney wanted and solicited her help for. They will now think of her as "on their side." She has done this without making Shane feel threatened because she is telling him that they are doing this because HE was right all along. Clever girl.
This is Bruce's first tribal council and he has to light his torch for the first time. Jeff tells Shane that the last time they were there, he felt that the Casaya tribe was in disarray and he wonders if Shane feels that's still the case. Shane calls the tribe the "dysfunctional functional tribe" that is capable of pulling together at the challenges to perform well as a team, but that at camp it's very very tiring. Jeff asks about the rains and how their shelter is holding up. Bruce tells him that he spent the night in the outhouse one night and the story of Bobby and the bottle of wine comes up. Bobby admits that he took the wine and drank it and found out later it was not OK with the tribe that he had done so. He repeats the story that he had no place to sleep. Bobby says he realized that people were disappointed. He's not sorry for the act, but he's sorry for the way it made people feel. Cirie said it was a huge mistake because they all as a group fought to win the challenge. Aras pops up to say it's not fair to blame this all on Bobby, that Bruce also drank the wine and has never bothered to own up to it or say that he's sorry about it. Obviously, the Bobby voters are piling it on Bobby but Aras, who still wants Bruce voted out is trying to make a case for keeping Bobby and voting Bruce out of the tribe.
Bruce says he's sorry, but nobody had even said anything to him about drinking the wine. He didn't realize that they were upset with him. Aras says it wasn't their responsibility to tell him he'd done something wrong, he should have stood up and said he did and and apologized. Jeff asks Bruce if he feels unappreciated. Bruce says that they will ask his advice about things but they never listen to what he tells them and they question everything he says. He says that never in his long teaching career have students questioned him like this. Aras is quick to tell him that THEY are NOT his students. Aras adds that he shouldn't look at being challenged about his opinion as some big ego blow. Danielle (remember she wants Bobby out) says that Bruce is an older man, a wiser man, with a lot of experience and that she doesn't think he gets the respect he deserves. Bruce breaks in to say that he will take everything that is said to heart and that he will work much harder at letting people know what he's thinking. They all touch fists to show that they are all pals again. (Riiiight, I believe that.)
Jeff mentions Exile Island and that Bruce has been there and could have the idol.
I have to tell you that before the vote, Scott and I were talking and we both laughed and said, wouldn't it be funny if everyone on the tribe voted for someone else and they all ended up with one vote each. Seriously, this group is so dysfunctional and everyone is so aggravated at everyone else, it's hard to imagine them ever reaching a "majority" decision on anything.
First vote is Courtney, second is Bruce, third is Bobby, and fourth is Aras. OMG, we may have been right.
Next vote is again, for Bruce, the next is for Bobby. The final deciding vote is for Bobby.
Tribe breakdown is as follows:
Shane (having sworn on his kids) votes Aras
Aras votes Bruce
Bruce votes Courtney for exercising in his rock garden
Cirie votes Bobby
Danielle votes Bobby
Courtney votes Bobby
Shane would have voted Bobby but he didn't want harm to come to Shane, Jr. He didn't want to vote Bruce because he knows Bruce may already have a vote and doesn't want to run the risk of Bruce being the one voted off because of a stray vote somewhere. The three women have become a force to be reckoned with. They have in effect, taken control of the tribe. This is very very good news for Cirie.
The preview shows us that the Casaya women want Shane out, Austin is eating something ugly, slimy and apparently foul tasting because the La Mina tribe has hit "rock bottom", a big twist may provide salvation for one, and we are promised a tribal council like no other. Until then, MOVE THE DANG SHELTER AWAY FROM THE WATER, YA TWITS and SOAK YOUR BEANS.
