Tony’s Rant

I came in almost 15 minutes late tonight, so I missed the early part of the show, but I came in on the last part of the reward challenge. At this point, Terry, Danielle, and Courtney have passed the early parts of the reward challenge, and are competing for a new vehicle. Courtney and Terry have taken an early lead in the game, and have only one tile left, but Terry has taken out his last tile, neither of them make their shot, so Terry wins the vehicle, and reward. This is actually bad. No one - read that - NO ONE, who has won the vehicle has won the million dollars. Terry is a pretty strong competitor though, will he be able to maintain his strong lead and manage to win Survivor? Will his immunity idol aid in his bid for winning? I guess it is possible that he would be the first to win the vehicle and the game. We will just have to see.

Aras is at exile island, and he is actually accepting the fact that the immunity idol is no longer at the island, but in Terry’s bag. The three who competed for the vehicle have gone to Terry’s Yukon, where they drove to a beach and pulled a picnic basket out of the back. They also discussed game strategy, of course. Cirie and Shane are discussing who they will be voting off next - obviously they haven’t figured out that they are no longer in charge of this game. One thing is for sure, Cirie cannot win this game - it is getting painful watching these people who fly under the radar and manage to win the game. Cirie goes to try her hand at fishing, and manages to catch a fish, not a huge fish, but a fish, none the less.

For immunity challenge, this is an endurance test. They are given two ropes that are holding up weights. The weight is roughly 10 percent of their body weight. If they let go of both ropes, they go in the drink. Shane looses one rope right after adding another 10 percent of their body weight. Cirie goes out next. At 30 percent, Danielle goes out next. Aras is next, leaving Courtney and Terry. They go up to 40 percent of their body weight and Courtney is loosing grip. She looses one rope and Terry is struggling to hold on. She looses her second rope, dropping her into the water, giving Terry his fourth straight immunity.

So Terry has it again - and this presents an interesting dilemma for casaya, because they now HAVE to vote out one of their own. This is a situation that has never come up for them before, this combined tribe having no La Mina member to vote out. What is interesting is, if this immunity idol works the way I think it’s supposed to work, then Terry is in a very interesting situation. He’s won this week, which takes them down to 5. If he wins next week, it takes them to 4. He intentionally looses the next week, they vote him off, so he plays the idol - if it is a unanimous vote against him, his vote is the one that will count, being the second most votes. He now decides who will be in the final 3, and I’m sure he will pick wise enough to assure himself position for final 2. He actually could come away with the vehicle and the win - a first for Survivor.

We go on to the vote. It looks like it will come down to Courtney or Aras. Here’s the vote - Aras, Danielle, Aras, Courtney, Courtney, 11th person voted out of Exile Island - Courtney.

So the game is on now. I’m still upset that Cirie, flying under the radar from - like episode 5 - even after Shane stood there and told her “I don’t care which one of you is leaving, I just know that one of you two are gone.” You would think that at some point between then and now, she would have been voted off, but no such luck, just keep flying under the radar.

That’s it for this week - let’s hope that Terry has what it takes to be the first Survivor to walk away with the vehicle.

Tony
:dance:

Tonight is an exciting night! With the air thick with tension over whether or not Terry has the immunity idol, the rest of the tribe - read Casaya - are trying to figure out how they are going to deal with Terry. Before he is forced to use the idol, he first has to loose individual immunity, something he hasn’t done since they have merged. Shane continues to try and minimize the importance of the immunity idol, but there is no way to minimize something of that magnitude. Shane is trying to also tout themselves as the first tribe that has ever managed to stay together until the end - but he seems to forget that there is still one La Mina left and he’s not going down easily.

Bruce has announced that he has not defecated in over 12 days now - I can’t imagine. He’s going to have some real problems.

The tribe receives a box with their treemail. In the box is a doll for each of them, which they are to decorate to represent themselves. These are voodoo dolls. The challenge is that Jeff will ask questions and they will have to decide who he’s talking about. If they get it right (matching what the majority say it pertains to), they get to cut a rope on anyone else. The first round, no surprise, has those who got it right eliminating Terry right off. But now that they have eliminated the common enemy, what is going to happen now? We will finally get to see how it’s going to go down. Bruce is the next out, which Terry warned him of weeks ago. For a while, everyone is trying to keep things even. Danielle is next out - no surprises. Then things get interesting. Courtney takes her next two hits on Shane - this sets off a chain of events that is unbelievable, and like nothing we have ever seen on Survivor before. The order from this point on is Danielle is next, Courtney, Shane, Aras, and Cirie manages to win her first reward. She chooses to take Aras with her, since they have had an agreement since day one. She also chooses to take Danielle (I’m sure by process of elimination) and to send Terry to Exile Island. What is so amazing is the way that Shane behaved. When Courtney takes her second hit on him, he starts his tantrum - saying that her life at camp has changed. When he gets taken out, he throws his answer pad in the air and starts his moaning and bitching about being taken out. When Cirie wins, he feels that he should be chosen to go with her because he “just wants to go in a jet (sic) and eat a sandwich”. He doesn’t understand how Cirie could possibly choose anyone other than him. So his tantrum continues. I guess he doesn’t remember telling Cirie back at the beginning that he didn’t care which one of them was going first, just that one of them were. Shane shows in this segment that, in his relationship with his son, his son is obviously the more mature in the relationship.

Bruce continues to have increasing pain and difficulty from his lack of evacuation. The winners fly out on the helicopter to their mud massages and feast. Back at camp, focus goes back on Bruce, who is at the point of moaning on the ground, writhing in pain. He reached the point where he was asking for the medics. He says he doesn’t want to quit, he just wants to get well, but the medics arrive and begin to treat him. From my past experience as a medic, I am guessing that they found absent bowel sounds, elevated blood pressure, possibly signs of jaundice (depending on how advanced it is), and clinical dehydration (even if he was drinking twice the normal amount of water, if it can’t absorb into the walls of the bowel, the body doesn’t get it). At any rate, they start him on an IV (I’m guessing either Normal Saline or Lactated Ringers - probably Ringers), and have him inhale on something - I’m not sure what this item is, it is unfamiliar to me, but the crew they use for medics is from Australia - and back when a survivor fell in the fire and had to be evacuated, they had an inhaler there as well, that they said would alleviate the pain. They then load him up in a stokes basket and evacuate him.

Shane then asks Courtney if she would vote his way “without breaking his back in the process”, and then goes on to insult and yell at her - what great people skills! On his side comments to the camera, he starts talking about what a lunatic SHE is! The three get back from their reward, and Shane goes on with his guilt trip because he didn’t get to go. This guy has the mentality, emotions, and social skills of a three year old. He thinks he can change this whole game because he wants it that way - Cirie tries stroking his damaged ego, which ends up with him swearing on his sons life AGAIN (didn’t he try taking that back at one point??) and sealing an alliance between him, Cirie, and Aras. How this jerkwad, inconsiderate, self-centered, immature, sphincter on legs has ever made it this far in the game amazes me.

The girls all make a message of concern for Bruce in his Zen Garden, and Aras and Shane sit to the side, totally unconcerned. Terry comes back to camp, and Jeff is with him. The report on Bruce is that he was sent to the hospital, and it was a good thing that they did when they did. His entire colon and bladder were completely blocked, nothing was coming out. That is not a good thing at all - no one can go long like this before other organs start shutting down - pancreas, liver, kidneys - all will eventually shut down - and eventually the situation will evolve into peritonitis (the same thing that killed Houdini). This is a dangerous and serious condition. He’s lucky that he got to medical attention when he did. Since he will not be returning to the game, there is no council tonight, no one voted out. No immunity challenge, and the hop is that Bruce will be well enough by the next council to return as a jury member.

All in all, and eventful episode. Bruce comes close to a deadly situation, Cirie wins her first challenge, many people find out where they stand with the others from the reward challenge, and Shane show just how immature he can really get. Every week we see more behavior from him that makes us wonder how he manages to function in the real world, yet he does. He talks about how his son is his inspiration, his friend, his confidant, and his son - he forgot to mention that he is also his maturity.

Tony

As usual, I typed my weekly Survivor comments as the show was going on, but the wrong push of a button at the wrong time, while I was trying to run my Google toolbar spell check, browsed me away from the page and lost the entire blog entry. So let me try and get as much as I can remember in this…

We start out this week in pretty much the same shape as everything has been going. Six dysfunctional Casayas trying to play storm and rule over the last two La Mina’s. Courtney, even though she has been shown the immunity idol, refuses to believe that what she has seen is the real idol - I guess she thinks that Terry is capable of coming up with a shrunken head in the middle of the jungle.

We quickly go to reward challenge, which is a challenge where the tribe has been broken up into two teams - even men and women. Courtney, Terry, Sally, and Bruce on one team, Shane, Aras, Danielle, and Cirie on the other. The challenge is that they have to put one member on a pallet supported by a bungee cord. Three ropes are connected to the support and they have to pull the person on the pallet to pick up flags and place them into peg holes in order. Shane knocks two flags out during the process, and they have to be put back into place by the person in the contraption. This puts them far enough behind that they cannot catch up, and Terry’s team wins reward. They get their videos from home, as well as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ice cold milk. PB&J may not sound like much, but the protein and sugars in those would be a real help right now. They also agree to send Aras to exile island.

Shane, Cirie, and Danielle return to camp and belittle the reward, saying that the videos would only hinder them at this point. Shane then tells Cirie (a nurse) that he has a delicate medical problem that he wants her to look after. VERY reluctantly, she looks after Shane’s problem, only to announce that it is basically “diaper rash”. Now Shane is stripping down to allow the area to air and dry, which the two girls find extremely amusing.

The four winners return to camp and they have been allowed to have their luxury items that they have previously not been allowed to have. Bruce gets his sketch pad, Sally gets her journal, Courtney gets her fire twirling equipment, and Terry gets an American Flag. The three who didn’t get their luxuries find this even more insult to the injury of not getting sandwiches.

Immunity challenge finds a common twist, and it couldn’t have happened at any other point in the game. They arrive for the challenge, and Jeff gives them the choice of either participating in the challenge, or eating cheeseburgers and fries for the entire time that the challenge is going on. The entire Casaya crew, except Aras, take the food, and leave Terry, Sally, and Aras to compete for immunity. They have to run out into the ocean, swim underwater, look at a series of symbols, which they have to memorize, and make their way back up the beach to re-create the symbols in order. Aras makes it back first, but he doesn’t get the symbols right, and has to go back to the water. Meanwhile, Terry makes it to the beach, and gets the symbols right the first time. This gives him immunity, and stops the eaters from stuffing themselves. The certainly don’t look happy to have to stop eating!

Now the politics begins as Terry and Sally try to get someone from the other side to switch sides. Terry shows the immunity idol to Bruce, and now two people now have seen it directly, but few still believe that he actually has it. The politics continue as well as the denials that Terry has the idol. So we move on to council.

Jeff opens the discussion, as he always does. Courtney talks about how Terry is becoming arrogant in that he always has the necklace, and how confident he is that he can keep it. Jeff points out that arrogance is choosing not to participate in the challenge, feeling so secure in the game that they could sit aside and eat while others try to get the immunity. Good move Jeff! So we go to the vote. Sally, Sally, Aras, Aras, Sally, Sally, and the second person voted to the jury, Sally. Did Terry give Sally the idol?? NO! Sally gets up and leaves the council, leaving a smiling Terry behind.

Next week, things should get interesting. If Terry gets the necklace, they now have to vote someone from their own team off. If he doesn’t get it, they have to keep in the back of their minds that he could have it - even if they don’t want to believe that he does, and they have to decide how the vote is going to go if they try to vote him out. The blurbs hint that someone will be leaving the game next week on a medical emergency. Who will this be? how will it change the game? Will it count as the vote off for that week? I guess we will see!

Until then!

Tony

We start tonight out with a merged tribe, in body at least. The tribe is far from merged in spirit, in fact, it is still two very distinct tribes vying for superiority in the game, as if they were two tribes living on the same island. Normally, there are one or two members from the dominant tribe who are glad to see the merge, but even with their dysfunctional nature, Casaya still seems to be acting like a tribe. Probably the best illustration of this is the comment that was made, “snails are like members of La Mina - slimy and hard to get out”. Everything I have seen shows that the real slime is on Casaya.

Treemail makes reference to the challenge being “political” - this could be the changing factor for La Mina. There will be three teams of three - they have to put coconuts into others canoes - which will slow them down, then they have to go out, in the canoe, and retrieve their team flag. They then have to make their way back, pull the boat up, and unload the coconuts. Reward is an excursion away with breakfast in bed. The girls all ended up on the same team. Sally, Bruce, and Aras are on the team in the lead - the girls have fallen so far behind that they have to put the coconuts in their own boat! Shane, Terry, and Austin on another team have caught up, and they are unloading the coconuts into the fishnet to pull up the beach. Sally, Bruce, and Austin put all of their coconuts into the fishing net at once, pulling it up the beach, but Sally forgot their flag! She dashes back to get it and they manage to win the challenge! They will be picked up in the morning to be taken to breakfast in bed. They then have to choose one person from each team to go to exile island. They choose Austin and Danielle to go to exile island. Now the politics make sense - three will be at reward, two will be on exile island, and four will be at camp - interesting possibilities. It is good that they chose not to put all of La Mina’s people on the same team - this gives them a fighting chance.

Breakfast in bed was almost a letdown at first. They pull up on a sandbar that has a canopy bed sitting on it - in the wind and rain, and they climb into it. Everything is wet and they think they will be miserable, until the food arrives. Food, to survivors, make all other hardships go away. The three get back to camp, and of course, the rest are - all so welcoming - to them. This is the first time I have seen the winners not bring anything back to camp. But they did bring back stories of more bacon than they can eat. This, as you can imagine, did not go over well with those who are “starving” (they have food, just not GOOD food - they don’t really know what starvation is). The two at exile island are the only ones through this who found any bonding. Terry tried to find some inroads with Shane, but all he received for his efforts was cold stares and short answers.

Sally and Terry, while getting water, are discussing how they will strategize, and Terry admits to Sally that he has the idol - she now thinks that she has a safety net in council because she thinks Terry will save her with the idol if she needs it.

Today’s immunity challenge is a multi-phase, multi-heat challenge. The first phase they have to dig themselves a hole to get under a wall, six people will win this round. Aras is first through, Courtney follows, Sally comes in third, followed by Danielle, and then Terry. Shane comes in next, finally Austin pulls in the sixth spot. The next phase is a brain teaser involving colored rocks - this is like one of those logic puzzles. Austin comes in first, followed by Sally, and Terry, Sally, Shane and Courtney and Danielle - they now have to race through an obstacle course to be one of the first three. All three ex-La Mina members get those spots. Next phase is that challenge we have seen before where they have to take planks and build the bridge as they go, picking up the plank behind them as they go to make the bridge in front of them - Terry and Sally win this heat. Now is an obstacle course they have to navigate to come in first. At the end is a burm they have to dig through - they both come through almost the same time, but Terry holds his lead and crosses first, giving him immunity.

Terry has it all figured out. He’s going to try and lure Danille over to their side by using the hidden immunity idol. He’s also going to ask Bruce if he will switch over to their side. Once Bruce figures out that he’s the first Casaya that will be voted off, should it come to that, he’s ready to switch over. Most of the Casaya’s still want to deny that Terry has the idol, this throws all of them into their normal dysfunctional behavior. Terry giving the idol to Danielle makes a whole big difference - holding it could get her a shoe-in to final three, at least - that’s a powerful tool to have right now. So did it all work? We will see as we go to tribal council. Even while they are sitting at the council, there are those who still want to deny that the idol has been found - you can see it in their faces when it is mentioned. Danielle admits that she and Austin bonded at the exile island, and the importance of this shows on Shane and Aras’ faces. Jeff, in his classic form, brings up things that they need to be thinking about - such as - at any point, they could realize that they are at the bottom of the pack. Shane still thinks that they have the numbers, no matter what - because La Mina would have to flop over two people - duh! number 5 and 6! And don’t think that Terry is too stupid to figure that out either. When Shane let slip who his plan for final four was, it told Terry what they needed to know. Now for the vote - Aras, Aras, Austin, Aras (Shane is looking confused), Austin, Austin, Austin, and eighth person voted out, and first person of the jury - Austin :survivor:. Looks like their ploy didn’t work… We saw that Bruce wrote down Austin’s name, and Danielle stayed true to her alliance. Now, especially that everyone knows he has the idol, the Casaya’s have to collude to vote them off carefully - they have to vote Terry off with the most votes, forcing him to use the idol, and come in with enough votes for the second person to be voted off - I wonder what happens if they all vote for Terry, then HIS vote votes off the next person! This really has made this game to have an interesting twist in the voting politics. This has taken a long time to get to this point, but it’s starting to get interesting!

Tony
:chips: