I thought this was a pretty good episode. Unusual things happened, plenty of comedy.
Courtney won something! I did not know that being as light as paper was a hidden mutant power.
One of Tod’s plans actually worked. The second plan, anyway.
I thought J-R’s cluelessness knew no bounds before today. Now I know better. I was waiting for another anti-HII firetoss, but it was foiled by Eric, damn him.
James was looking mighty scared at the TC, and seems to have wised up about his non-invincibility. He didn’t look that convincing in the IC, it looked like he maybe gave up early, always a dumb move.
Lunch Lady now knows officially that she’s at the outer boundary, cliqueless.
Yeah, I waited for a while for the thread to pop up, and nothing. I have reported Rockle to the admins for dereliction of duties.
James sure looked seriously scared at the TC. I am glad he lived to learn the lesson. In fairnes, it was only JR and the John-Who’s who voted for him, with the PG vote adding to the tension. He was always safe from his “friends”.
JR was so amusingly stupid with the “I have the II” bit. And then trying to bully James, WTH?! “I know you have the II and you have to choose between going with me or going alone”, pffft.
Courtney won by virtue of the laws of physics more than by her own virtue. Still, I am glad for her. She looked so happy about it withouth being a prick about it. I am beginning to wonder if she will actually get to final 3.
The John-Who’s have survived long enough that they might become valuable. Someone might start to think that going to final 3 with 2 enemy tribe members and a full tribal jury is a good way to get the final vote.
Thanks for starting a thread. I was afraid to do it since I’m such a chronic lurker. I was shocked that they picked Cortney for the reward challenge. Sure she’s light, and they could assume her boat wouldn’t sink as quickly. But they seem not to have realized that she would be on the bucket brigade for at least one and possibly two of the rounds. And as it turned out, her lightness didn’t help because of her inability to properly position the boat and bail.
You guys, I am SO SORRY about how much I COMPLETELY SUCK. Yesterday was a bad day: I couldn’t get on to the SDMB for most of the afternoon, and then I went home and had some sort of sneak-attack coma or something. It was all very unpleasant and I hope to get my mess together soon. I make no excuses; I am a terrible slack-ass with a chronic attitude problem. You are right to mock and despise me.
Anyway … I attempted to catch the episode this morning, and it looks like I had TiVo issues or something. (I don’t know – I can’t get the hang of our new HD DVR – none of the buttons are in the right place and it isn’t very intuitive.) I saw the Immunity Challenge and the very end of Tribal Council but nothing else (so, I know who had immunity, and who got voted out, but not how or why). Could someone please recap? Pretty please? With cherries?
Rock on. Sorry I let you down this week. I will make it up to you all as soon as I can – personally, if I have to. (Incidentally, are any of you in California? I could really use a vacation.)
I’m was very amused by J.R.'s continuing strategy of “If feeling endangered threaten someone”. Yes, threaten them. That’ll make them want to keep you around camp. Also, how did he fail to make the connection between the thing that Jamie gave Jeff and the three things that looked exactly like it that he pulled down? He had all 5 clues, and still couldn’t figure out exactly what it was?
Another thing: he is a poker player, and yet can’t tell when 3 other people at the same table as him are lying through their teeth? Isn’t telling when people are lying a key part of playing poker well?
I’ll do a recap. I make no pretense at objectivity, though.
Working from memory:
Episode begins at night after TC. James continues to be amused by Jaime’s attempt to play the Pretend Idol, and of course who can blame him, as I am still laughing a week later. For Jean-Robert, however, the whole thing was a bit of an epiphany, because he has done the complicated maths in his head and figured out that if Jaime’s Pretend Idol had been an actual Immunity Idol, he’d be out on his ear by now. It’s pretty funny, because he appears to realize for the first time that if just about basically everyone thinks you are a colossal tool, they may at some point do something to make you go away. Jean-Robert is hilarious in this episode, by the way. So there’s more awkwardness surrounding the fact that Jean-Robert takes up a lot of the sleeping area, and Erik is too neurotic to ask him to roll over. James needles Erik about it a bit, but the point, in case you didn’t get it before, is that everyone thinks Jean-Robert is such an enormous suckhole that they don’t really even bother talking to him anymore; they just talk around and about him.
Reward challenge. The tribe will split into two teams. The challenge is pretty stupid. One player from each team sits in a little wooden boat that’s placed in the middle of a series of docks that form a square. The other players from the other team will run around and try to pour water into their opponent’s boat, while the person in the boat tries to bail it out. First boat to sink loses; first team to win twice gets the reward. They start by schoolyard picking teams, with Jean-Robert and the insufferable P-G as captains. J-R picks James, P-G picks Erik. James picks I’m going to say Todd, and Erik picks Frosti. So at this point, it’s going right along tribal lines. Todd picks hot Amanda. Frosti picks Courtney, probably on the grounds that if her boat sinks with her in it, it will be because her ass poked a hole in the bottom.
This leaves Denise without a team, and thus without a chance to win reward, so once again the power alliance takes an opportunity to let the folks lower down in their pecking order know exactly where they stand.
The game proceeds as you might expect. James, J-R, and Todd sink Courtney’s boat long before P-G, Frosti, and Erik can sink hot Amanda’s. The next turn it’s Todd and Frosti in the boats, and P-G is tired and Courtney can barely even pick up a bucket, so it’s pretty one sided and Frosti gets wiped out.
The reward is, Todd, James, J-R, and hot Amanda go to a thousand year old Chinese village for a traditional meal. They march straight on into this beautiful example of a culture older than most people can even imagine, full of buildings that have stood since Leif Erikson was sailing around the world, and in a show of deference to the historical treasure into which they have come, Amanda walks around the entire time with her butt hanging out so far they have to pixillate it. I write hate mail to the CBS censors.
OK, best part of the episode. Todd, James, J-R, and hot Amanda are given the fifth and final clue to the location of the hidden immunity idols, which of course James already has. Well, the scales fall off old Jean-Robert’s eyes, and he suddenly realizes how important those immunity idols could be. Now remember, he’s sitting at a table with three people, all of whom know that one of them has both idols already. And he proceeds to get awesomely drunk and babble on for what seems like hours about how “this changes everything, everybody, oh, my God, imagine what we could do with a hidden immunity idol.” It’s pretty clear that he’s very impressed with himself - I think he thinks that no one but him could have ever imagined the strategic value of the hidden idols. Todd, who should never, ever play poker, is basically wetting his pants the entire time. Hot Amanda looks nervous, because I think she’s pretty smart. James just eggs J-R on, basically for entertainment value. J-R calls the item in question the “American Immunity Idol.” James drinks another beer.
And… scene. They go back to camp, but J-R, high on his sudden realization that the hidden immunity idol might be relevant to his chances, can’t sleep. He pokes around the camp, eventually finding one of the non-idol plaques that Jaime had. Now, remember, he was there at TC when Jaime presented an identical plaque and had it thrown into the fire. But he is nonetheless absolutely certain that he has found it, and the game is his.
The next morning, more hilarity ensues. Coupla things happen here, all of them weird:
Todd, pissed all of a sudden that James hasn’t given him one of the HIIs, starts hatching a “vote-out-James” plan. It’s actually not a bad plan, because blindsiding James might be the only way to keep him out of the Final Two at this point.
J-R goes swimming with Erik, and in hilarious scene #8, gets all smarmy with the “what if I told you that I have the immunity idol?” Erik, who earned all kinds of funny points this episode, basically responds, “What if I told you that you totally don’t?” Erik rats out James, and J-R is furious. So…
J-R goes to James and attempts a Godfather style confrontation. He comes on very strong with the accusations, but James is unwilling to admit that he has the Idols, and J-R is a weenie, so again, it’s pretty funny. J-R, who has no power at all, basically threatens James with expulsion - he actually says something like, “you will do very badly if you go against me.” Which, considering that James has two immunity idols and everyone hates Jean-Robert, is just amazingly funny.
The immunity challenge involves this big dragon made of segments, where some segments are big metal drums filled with water. The contestants sit on the drums, which are then slowly drained of water, making them more and more unsteady. Last player standing (well, sitting) wins. The players all sort of needle each other, but it’s kind of friendly, and I realize that, with the exception of everyone hating J-R, these people all basically don’t mind one another. Even the ones who are playing against one another in game terms are treating it as a game, with relatively little in the way of hard feelings and no blathering about honor. I think that’s pretty cool.
Courtney wins. She is delighted, and she makes a crapload of self-deprecating comments to cover up how happy she is, because she’s one of those people who feels vulnerable when she’s happy.
Back at camp, Courtney doesn’t give a shit who they vote out, as long as it isn’t her. Todd, who is turning into a weird mutation combining Rob Cesternino, The Brain from Pinky and the Brain, and Mr. Short Term Memory from Saturday Night Live, has decided that never mind that voting out James, let’s vote out Jean-Robert. There is a very funny moment where Frosti walks into the conversation just as Todd says “Let’s vote out Jean-Robert,” and Frosti kind of yelps, “Jean-Robert?”, because of course, if it’s J-R, it’s not P-G or Frosti himself, so it’s very good news for Frosti’s alliance.
Hot Amanda, very sensibly, hates this plan. She thinks they should vote out P-G. She’s right, of course. J-R is a complete outcast. No one will ever work with him. They can dispose of him at their leisure once they’ve solidified their position. But Todd is insane, and he’s so in love with his own cleverness, and I think as I watch that Amanda and Todd will both go far in the game, but Amanda might win whereas Todd will not, beacause Todd doesn’t get that the whole point is not to scheme for its own sake, as he is doing here, but to scheme with a purpose.
Anyway, they decide on J-R, but they don’t tell Denise. I don’t know why; it’s a pretty jerky way to reinforce the lesson they taught her at the Reward Challenge - that she is at the bottom of their alliance.
Tribal Council is pretty boring this time. Jaime shows up looking like a prostitute, Erik looks like he wants to quit the game and go back to Loser’s Lounge to discuss the subject of his virginity further, Jean-Robert gets voted out, and gives one last stupid speech about how he was voted out because he was obviously the best player there. And that’s about it.
storyteller’s recap is spot-on, with one addition - Jean Robert actually removes all 3 remaining plaques from the 2 arches, but apparently doesn’t notice that one plaque has already been removed, implying that perhaps someone has already found the American Immunity Idol.
Are all professional poker players egotistical assholes? The few times I’ve watched poker on TV, it seems that the player who just got tossed off the table always accuses the winning player of not playing correctly. Anyone who says “They voted me out because I’m the best player” deserves 12 hours of the bastinado. No, if you were the best player, you wouldn’t be doing this farewell testimonial at loser lodge.
For one thing there were lots and lots of wildlife shots, more than in any previous show I think. I lost count but there were monkeys, including mama and baby monkeys, snakes, panda bears, calling frogs, fish, and a lot of blurring of Amanda’s behind, which I assume means there was some wildlife there too.
Hey, you’re talking about the guy who’s main strategy was acting like a lazy blob so people would swoon when he walked a twig from one side of camp to the other.
I liked Jaime’s outfit. Very much. How much do hookers like that cost?
Do they drop the pixelation on the DVDs? If so, I’m going to have to buy this season.
Does anybody remember where JR plays poker? Because if it’s in Vegas, I’m going to hunt him down and take all his money. He couldn’t read another player if his life depended on it.
I’m starting to think that Courtney could be in the Final 3.
Texas Hold Em does boil down to bluffs and knowing when to call bluffs. Although poker players have a reputation for knowing when to call a bluff (knowing someone is lying), it’s a highly situational skill that doesn’t necessarily apply outside the poker game around the Hey-Da-Phone camp.
It’s too bad he didn’t bring a deck of cards with him, Jean-Robert could’ve bonded with his tribe better over a friendly game of poker, with rice grains for chips.
J-R did play the game like a poker player - too bad Survivor isn’t much like a poker game. In poker, players often fall into three camps - the quiet guys who will pounce on a telling move and rip your liver out with a smile (Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Daniel Negraneau), the wild chatty guys who don’t shut up (Scotty Ngyuen), and the complete asholes (Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, J-R). The assholes just try to irritate you to get under your skin, and play very aggresively at al times, especially with timid and weaker players. J-R didn’t realize that Survivor is not a game of individual confrontations, but a team game of alliances and back room deals.
In Survivor, when other people are telling you stuff that you had no idea of, you know you are the dead man walking. Theres no all-in showdown that is going to save your butt in this game.
While I realise that everyone hates J-R, both in the game and here too, I can’t believe how dumb these people (read: Todd) were to not vote out James while they had the chance. They had a great plan to blindside the strongest guy in the game, who just happened to have 2 hidden immunity idols as well, and they (Todd) throw it out the window because someone else came up with exacatly the same freaking idea!
Guess what, idiots? Now, not only did you get rid of a guy that no-one would have given the million too, you’ve still got the big immunity threat with 2 hidden idols still in the game. Not only that, but the big immunity threat with 2 hidden idols is now on his guard, even if it was only Zhan-Hu - Frosti + JR that voted for him. 3 votes is still going to be a wake up call that maybe he needs to take his II’s with him to TC next time.
Oh, yeah. James is going to be on his guard from now on. If he’s smart, he’ll team up with Denise and Courtney and start thinking about screwing Todd before Todd succeeds in screwing him.
Speaking of which, aren’t you supposed to be losing weight on this show? It’s day twenty four and I swear his gut was just as big as it was the first time he took his shirt off.
Mama and baby monkeys? And I missed it? I hate my life so very, very much.
Oh, and storyteller0910? If I were not already married, and we did not both root for different teams in the NL East, I would have no choice but to stalk you. Le sigh. Alas, our love was not meant to be.
Alas! But it’s just as well. Everything would roll along just fine until around September 15, and then they’d find my bullet-riddled corpse awkwardly hidden under an Aaron Roward jersey.
Rockle, don’t forget that you can watch it on CBS.com (innertube or something it’s called). You can also get it on iTunes if you feel like tossing two bucks out the window.
