Survivor: Fiji - Ep. 4: "Let's Just Call Jeff On The Jeff Phone"

Cafe Society
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Previously on Survivor: It was the best of camps; it was the worst of camps. Moto sat around drinking freshly brewed “tea” from fancy china cups with their pinkies sticking out and their (invisible) robot monkey butlers fetching their morning papers; meanwhile, back at the Bat Cave, Ravu sat around eating dirt and pineapples and trying to scratch their butts but lacking the energy. Desperate, dehydrated, and determined to come up with another appropriate adjective that starts with “de-,” Michelle and Rita tried to start a fire with (I think) Yau-Man’s glasses and some kind of free-verse poem/prayer/love letter to the sun. AND IT WORKED! There was some crazy Survivor Slip-N-Slide Skee-Ball action, where we might or might not have seen some pixellated boobies, and then there was an Immunity Challenge where some guy who ate worms called some other guy a big fat stinky wussy-pants because the latter couldn’t eat two gross hairy pig snouts without hornking all over God and everybody. Moto won both challenges – again – and Ravu had to vote somebody out – again – and they sent home a woman – again. Read all our previous snarky comments here, here, and here. What will happen tonight?

According to CBS.com:

· Frustrated over losing a challenge, one Survivor explodes in anger, berating other tribemates and throwing rocks around camp.
· One Survivor’s deteriorating health becomes a major problem, causing the medical team to arrive. Can this Survivor recover and continue in the game or will their tribe be forced to continue on without them?
· A surprise twist is revealed at the Immunity Challenge, forcing the winning team to make a tough decision that could change the course of the entire game.
· One Survivor becomes suspicious of another’s strategy when they’re caught flirting with members of the opposite sex.

And according to TVGuide.com:

Gary’s health worsens and the medical team is called in to check him over. The winners of the immunity challenge are faced with a surprising twist that forces them to make a difficult decision that could alter the game. At tribal council, another castaway is voted off of the islands. Jeff Probst is the host.

Just because I know you’re dying to know what Sylvia thinks about her whole Survivor experience, you can check out this article here. And then I want someone to tell me if they think Sylvia’s friends are being “ironic” when they (allegedly) call her “the Asian Oprah.”

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Hmm … someone else opened a thread, too. I’ll link to that one here, in case more than three people watched tonight’s episode.

Is there a Mod lurking about? Should one of these threads be closed? Which one? I’m not sure where to post my comments …

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I vote you post your comments here, because this thread has more content than the other one does.

I’ve also reported both threads, so that the mods can decide.

And now that I’ve looked at the date stamp on yours, I think you started before whoever started the other one.

So, we’ll see what happens.

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FWIW, I blame myself for the double-thread problem: I often (usually?) start the Survivor threads, and I was early this week because of a full schedule this afternoon, and it looks like I fell off Page 1 early. Sorry about this!

Anyway … more impressive challenges this week, which I appreciate. I’ve done a similar balance-beam walk before, at corporate teambuilding events, and it’s harder than it looks – no doubt moreso when “feast or famine” is essentially the end result. I also liked the cages-and-pyramid challenge, even if I do slightly suspect that they would never have come up with something like that if they didn’t have a cheerleading coach in the cast this year. (Would have been funny if Dreamz busted out some herkeys or toe-touches afterwards.)

Specific info, spoiler-boxed because … because:

· Poor Gary! Hope he’s OK! I am hoping that CBS.com posts info about what was wrong with him tomorrow, when the episode recap goes up. The blood pressure the medics announced wasn’t too bad, so I don’t think HBP was his problem – I almost wonder if he didn’t have heat stroke or something. Although it’s hard for me to say, since I have no medical degree whatsoever, unless 10th grade health class and a WSI certification count.
· Interesting strategy, voting out Liliana. By which I mean, “probably very stupid.” Liliana did all the challenges, as far as I can tell (Lisi & Cassandra sat out 2 each, I think), so I doubt very much that “strength” or lack thereof was the real reason she was targeted. Lisi seems like quite the Queen Bee, and I daresay she was jealous of Liliana’s ability to (successfully) flirt with Edgardo and Alex.
· The choice to switch camps isn’t a new one, but I think this is the first time that a tribe was allowed to choose between immunity and changing camps. I can’t say I necessarily disagree with Moto’s decision; nobody wants to give up home field advantage. But I’ve been watching this show for a while now, and everything old is new again, and I smell a tribe scramble coming up hard and fast. Next week, maybe, or the week after.
Also, even though we didn’t see much of him this week, I just want to say that my love for Yau-Man grows every week. I kind of want to bring him home and keep him for a pet. He’s like my own little philosophy or something – where others have the “Tao of Pooh,” I have the “Yau of Survivor.” He’s quite awesome and adorable.

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No problem, Rockle, I started the other one because this one had indeed fallen off the page. Geronimo!

Anyway, wow did Team Luxury fall apart. And so did I at Lisi’s rant, Dreamz’ so-lil-o-quy, and that snake coughing up what looked like another snake (unless sea snakes molt their insides instead of their skins.)

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It kills me how close the losing tribe keeps coming to winning. (And I wonder how the comfort or immunity vote would have gone had the other tribe won. Bet Pride would have been a factor).

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I’ve done the balance beam challenge before–but our beam was three inches off the ground. So even though one ended up hugging a whole bunch of members of the opposite sex which one had just met, one didn’t end up wet along with it.

(Freshman orientation at college. I lived in an all female dorm. So a group of guys from an all-male dorm were paired with us. Given the amount of time which has passed, I remember a scary amount of who the guys were–more so than I do the girls.)

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What was that snake coughing up? That was weird and gross and fascinating.

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See? There IS something I can agree with you on! :smiley:

In other news, Rocky’s an ass. Even given that Anthony IS a little whiny, that whole “Men aren’t sensitive!” came off as entirely too neanderthal to let pass without comment. Obviously, Anthony is more sensitive than I am, because right after that little conversation I’d have been keeping the sound editors really busy on the bleeper button with an inevitable reading of Rocky’s beads…

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It was shedding its skin

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I was always led to understand that they rarely come off quite that cleanly, like stepping out of your own mouth. I considered that possibility, but I’m skeptical*…

*sorry, Lib…

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No, it was puking up a small eel it had eaten.

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Wow. Lisi’s a bitch. Her comment about ‘little Mexican mind’ was appalling.

I saw Gary’s legs last week. Good god, the man was being eaten alive!

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Jayjay, make that two things, because I’m totally with you about Rocky and Anthony.

The snake definitely wasn’t shedding (which is what I thought at first) because when it was done it stuck out its tongue. I rewound and watched it several times. I guess it was vomiting up an eel or something, but man…

And one more time: Rocky’s an ass.

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I wouldn’t read to much into that, because I don’t think Lisi meant it in quite the way it came out. Then again, maybe she did. Hard to say. I actually kind of like her, though, so I may not be the best person to take up her cause.

That was easily the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen on television, and also one of the most interesting. This kind of stuff is why I really love this show sometimes.

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I have a real fear of snakes, so after watching last night, I had a nightmare that there was a snake slithering up my back and shoulder. I woke up screaming.

Poor Papa Smurf. I hope it was nothing serious.

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Maybe it’s just me, but I think Moto made two shockingly poor decisions in this episode, that could cost them big-time in the weeks to come.

First of all, picking their luxuries over immunity was stupid, stupid, stupid. I was astonished that they not only made that decision, but made it almost unanimously. Maybe, maybe, if they hadn’t lost Gary, I can understand making that decision, but under the given circumstances? They had a chance to make it 8-6 (tribe-wise), a huge advantage given the likelihood of an eventual merge. Now, though, all of a sudden, after all the winning Moto has done, the two teams are basically even. If Ravu can pull out one lousy win next week, suddenly all the advantage painstakingly built up by Moto, all the winning and dominating and thrivalating, will have resulted in Ravu ahead. Talk about your confidence builders. And all because Moto couldn’t manage without their potty and their fluffy bed?

It’s really interesting how the producers set this up, actually. Presumably, all twenty (well, 19) people expected, coming into the game, to live lives more like Ravu has than like Moto has so far. Really, all Moto was asked to do in exchange for immunity this week is to agree to live exactly the way the vast majority of past survivors have lived, and the way they expected to live when they arrived in Fiji. But because they’ve been softened by a few days of comfort, they’ve completely lost sight of the strategic elements of the game. They’re not thinking about the game at all anymore.

Look at mistake #2 - voting out Liliana instead of Cassandra. That vote had absolutely no strategic purpose; it was just “we don’t like you, so off you go.” Never mind that Liliana stands a much better chance of helping them regain the advantage they just threw away over Ravu.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the islands, where they’re scrambling to survive and find idols and politic and just win one damn challenge, all they have to do is think strategy. I actually think that with just one small break, Ravu could actually turn out to be much better suited to the mid- and endgames than Moto.

And I bet they won’t scramble the tribes at all, at least unless Moto regains an advantage, because the storyline - “Plucky have-nots, toughened by adversity, overcome complacent partiers” - would be good TV.

Fun season.

Oh, and I loathe Lisi. The way she talked about Gary, and about Liliana, was classless and nasty. I think she’s just one of those people who thinks she’s honest, clever, and bracing, but is actually just unpleasant and mean.

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That reminds me of the woman from Grants Pass on Trading Spouses, who was ‘being honest’ about her bigotry.

Maybe I’m reading too much into a single comment; but IME people who use a person’s race in that way have a certain amount of prejudice.

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Only watching sporadically this season. Yesterday caught bits of the 1st 1/2 and most of the 2d.
I was astounded that they would choose to vote someone off for their comfort. Reminded me of the generally regretted “let’s intentionally throw a challenge” strategy. When they agreed so quickly, I figured there must be 1 person who was the clear target, but it didn’t prove to be the case.
I know they edit it to make the challenge look close, but I wonder whether it really was. I guess if the 2d girl had lucked out and hit all of the final keys right on her first try …
Had the girl who got voted out done something to piss the other folk off? Or did they just consider her a threat?
The pattern of the skin of whatever that snake cacked up was quite different from the snake’s striped pattern. The few examples of shedding I’ve seen involved rubbing a spot on their nose and slipping out. As opposed to yesterday’s exit from the mouth. IIRC shed skin generally looks dry - the snake yesterday still looked shiny. And I also thought I saw the tongue flicker after whatever was coughed up.
Is that cheerleader stupid or just naive?
And yes, Rocky does seem quite the ass.

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I completely disagree with this. I would have picked the comforts as well. The fact that one tribe gets to eat, drink plenty of water and sleep in comfort is, IMO, a huge reason why they have yet to lose. Rest and strength means that they have the stamina to win challenges. Have you noticed that the losing tribe always seems to start off ahead, but then fades? The reason for this is stamina, they just don’t have the strength to keep up the pace while the other tribe has no problem keeping it going.

Making it unanimously was not much of a surprise either. I think everyone of them thought “oh it couldn’t be me”.

The vote itself was stupid. Getting rid of Liliana was dumb. They should have picked Cassandra or Lisi, both of whom are annoying. Why does Cassandra cry so much? Its annoying. Lisi was jealous of Liliana being at least somewhat attractive. Neither one is shape either, and are pretty damn useless IMO. Still I don’t see the comfort tribe losing very much.

Which means we will have a top 5 of the white folk (Ok, 1 maybe Banana Asian girl, is that wrong of me to say?). Lisi will probably last a while, which sucks because I don’t like her.

The loser tribe, Rocky is an ass, but he has a point. That one guy is wimp. I hope Earl and the yummy mommy get out of that tribe.

Last thing the dismount Dreamz did was pretty cool.