The Shape of Days

Boom! Lava and ash spew into the air. An aerial shot zooms in on a tiny figure making his way across the precariously narrow lip of a volcanic crater. It’s our hero, Probst, and he’s as unflappable as ever. We cut to a close-up. He’s delivering his now-familiar speech: Vanuatu is an island nation, blah blah blah, fascinating history, blah blah blah. A gigantic cloud of ash is exploding just over his shoulder.

He keeps yapping about the adventure of a lifetime as we cut to a helicopter shot of an improbably tiny boat cutting through the waters off the Vanuatuese … Vanuatuan … Vanuatoid … off the island’s coast. Eighteen players this time, instead of sixteen. Three tribes of six, like on last season’s “Let’s give Rupert a second — no, third! — chance” outing? It’s a pretty standard Survivor crowd. There’s the blonde that’s going to be co-hosting “The View” in about twenty minutes. There’s the Ani DiFranco chick with the nose piercing. There’s the pudgy nerd in the ironic tee shirt. There’s the ex-military guy with the practiced thousand-yard stare of the functional sociopath. And three or four totally interchangeable boys with chiseled jaws and five-o’clock shadows and, no doubt, bodies handpicked to bring in the female 18-24 demo like bees to a honeysuckle bush.

Cut back to Probst standing before the mouth of Hell itself. “Thirty nine days, eighteen people, one survivor.” Yeah, I know, the math doesn’t work out. In previous seasons they’ve culled the herd once every three days, but they’ve only started with sixteen. They’re going to do something different this time around. Obviously.

Pull back to a wide, wide, really wide shot — look, it’s not a soundstage! — and smash cut to the credits, credits which prominently feature bungie jumping, volcanoes, outrigger canoes, and people with mud on their faces. Titles come up identifying each and every one of the eighteen adorable little scamps who, if the clips are any indication, are going to spend the next six weeks not bathing at all.

The boat with our contestants on it drops anchor in a cove a few hundred yards off of a pristine, white beach devoid of … wait a minute. This new. There are natives! The beach is positively swarming with islanders. The contestants and the islanders stare at each other for a second, then the Waponis take to their outrigger canoes and, yelling at the top of their lungs, start paddling out toward the boat. The contestants all picture the headline on page A3 of the Times: “Television cast wiped out by enraged Vanuatuans … Vanuatuis … islanders.”

CAPTION: Has perfect cleavage

Turns out it’s not nearly that interesting of an opening, but it’s not bad. After a breathless pep talk from Probst, the contestants board the canoes — inevitably, the nerd in the ironic vintage tee manages to take his canoe-mates for an unplanned swim — and head for the beach. Brunette #3 talks in voice-over about how she was “moved to tears” by the experience, which makes me wonder if visitors to America get “moved to tears” by their first ride in a taxi.

The rest of the gang heroically maintains their composure long enough to assemble on the beach. The moment they set foot on sand, a couple dozen Waponis in honest-to-God grass skirts run out whooping like crazy and brandishing spears. Rather than skewering the contestants and firing up the barbecue pit, the Waponis separate them into two groups by means of a complex ritual steeped in tradition, a practice anthropologists call “boy-girl, boy-girl.”

The men are led off thisa-way to their seats, and the women are led off thata-way to theirs. Cue the obligatory remarks about gender segregation from brunette #2, who would ordinarily have earned my scorn as a shrill harpy were it not for the fact that she displayed the most amazing cleavage ever broadcast on national television. You know how TiVo has that ten-second-instant-replay button on the remote? I’m happy to testify that mine works perfectly.

The boys are given kava, which is Waponi for “muddy water with twigs and dead bugs floating in it, plus vodka.” The sun goes down, there’s a square dance, a pig is sacrificed — I’m so not kidding — and the boys are anointed with its blood. Which, if you consider the fact that these guys aren’t gonna see a shower for the next six weeks, is a little on the nasty side. Amazing-cleavage-girl — who we might as well remember is called Eliza, ‘cause ain’t no way she’s goin’ anywhere for a while — expresses shock. Her remarks, which coming from anybody else would be vapid and tedious, are strangely compelling to me. “Go on,” I mumble, but they cut away from her.

CAPTION: Most likely to have killed someone for fun

Which brings me to my next point. Blonde-girl-who’s-going-to-be-a-talk-show-host-any-minute-now describes herself as a “shepherdess.” The Chyron calls her a “sheep farmer,” which I guess really should have been “sheep farmess,” though the AP style book is strangely silent on that point. She’s got adorable little pigtails and perfect skin and she talks at great length about slaughtering lambs. Cut back to a reaction shot of the pig sacrifice. Brunette #5 looks horrified. Dolly-the-sheep-farmess is completely glazed over, bored out of her mind at the whole thing. What I’m trying to get across here is that this is one scary chick. Imagine Mary Ann crossed with Hannibal Lecter.

Once the boys are all well smeared with hot pig blood, along comes Probst to give some kind of a speech about a rock. I wasn’t really listening so I couldn’t tell you exactly why the rock is important, but it doesn’t really matter because it turns out it’s just a pretense for a stunt. One of the Waponis shimmies up a telephone pole that has been, we are told, smeared with pig fat. He plops the rock into a basket on the top of the pole. Probst looks over at the boys and gleefully tells ‘em to fetch the rock. The chief of the Waponis picks one of the boys, seemingly by virtue of the fact that he’s sitting on the end of his bench. It happens to be one of the interchangeable Kens who the Chyron identifies as Brady, an FBI agent. For purposes of this column, he will be known as Chet Beefpile.

Chet rubs his hands and feet with sand and … climbs the pole. Seriously, he positively scampers up the thing like it’s something he does every day. He grabs the rock and slides on down looking singularly pleased with himself. Talk about an anti-climax.

Probst shuts the party down pretty quickly, shipping the boys off down the beach thata-way and the girls off thisa-way.

We’re off on a commercial break. There’s a promo for “CSI: New York,” which I’m actually kinda looking forward to because I like Gary Sinese so much. Turns out they’re using “Baba O’Reilly” for the theme this time around. What a crime that a truly great song like “Won’t Get Fooled Again” has to be bolted on to as crappy a show as “CSI: Miami.”

Back from commercial, and the crew has broken out their night-vision goggles. The boys are walking and bickering. The girls, by way of contrast, are walking and bickering. Nothing happens for four solid minutes. Eventually both groups get where they’re going and they do one of those neat dissolves to mark the passage of time. Cutting edge editorial it ain’t, but whatever. The Chyron pops up ominously: Day 2. Which I think is such a cheat. Day 1 was really just a few hours. It shouldn’t count as a full day.

The next morning, the girls are building their shelter. They’ve watched Survivor before, evidently, because they’ve got the whole gabled-roof with palm-frond thatching thing down pat. One of the girls says, “We’ve got a sturdy rack for our shelter,” and just as she says the word “rack” the editor treats us to a down-blouse shot of Brunette #1. Don’t even try to tell me it was a coincidence, either.

At this point we get the required parable of the ants and the grasshopper. These girls are sweating under the oppressive jungle canopy to build the shelter. Those girls are sunning themselves on the beach. Remember, children: the Protestant work ethic is good. Industry is the only virtue.

I’m not buying it, though, because the girls who are building the shelter are the hausfraus and the girls are playing in the surf are the swimsuit models, including perfect-cleavage-girl Eliza. If I were there, my ass would be playing in the surf too, work ethic be damned.

Meanwhile the guys are trying to start a fire. One of the Kens did a Google on it before leaving the house the previous morning, and constructs himself a little fire-starting device. A little sweat, a little elbow grease and a few minutes later they’ve got themselves an ember. But they don’t blow on it just right and it goes out, at which point they … stop. They just stop trying to build a fire. Despite the fact that, you know, it worked, and they almost had an actual fire going, they just call it a day. Baffling.

CAPTION: No longer fully human

Then comes the Big Reveal. One of the boys pulls off his pants to reveal that he’s wearing a prosthetic leg from just below his knee down. Because everything I know about prostheses I learned from “Star Wars,” I can only conclude that he’s more machine than man, twisted and evil. He somehow manages to conceal his evil long enough to tell the story of how he lost his leg — cancer, it turns out — and to make everybody else feel like asses for whining and complaining while one-leg-boy sucks it up and plays the game. The consensus is that Cyborg Chad, as he will from now on be known, will be a force to reckon with in this game.

Another commercial. The curly-haired guy from the Drew Carey show lands a supermodel girlfriend. That’s why it’s called fiction, people.

When we come back from the break, it’s suddenly Day 3. There’s no discussion of where these people are getting their food or their drinking water. I guess they’re all hungry and thirsty … which, it turns out, explains a lot about what we’re about to see.

The tribes assemble on the beach for their ridiculously elaborate challenge. As the boys walk up, the girls all check out Cyborg Chad’s prosthesis … if you know what I mean. I’m pretty sure I heard one of the girls mutter, “How far up does that thing—” before getting an elbow in the ribs from a teammate.

The ridiculously elaborate challenge is, indeed, ridiculously elaborate. It involves an obstacle course with a crawling component and a balancing component, and then there’s some stuff with a marble maze and a fire pit and a torch and another fire … whatever. Survivor challenges have gone from being tests of skill and luck to something out of a Japanese game show. How’s this for a challenge: build a fire. Huh? How about that? How about this one: catch a fish. Let’s get this thing back to the real spirit of the game. Here’s your challenge for the day: first one to find some food wins.

But no, instead we’re running an obstacle course. The reward for winning, Probst announces, is a piece of flint that can be used to light a fire. He also unveils the immunity symbol, which appears to be a spear decorated with an actual human pelvis.

Ready, set, go. The contestants crawl and get very muddy. Then they do a puzzle that’s not really even worth describing; rather than being a test of logic or wit it seems to just be a test of not being a total spaz. Then they scale a rope net and cross a narrow beam. And when I say narrow, I mean narrow. The Olympics were just a few weeks ago; we all sat and watched little girls dance on the balance beam. The gymnastic balance beam is four inches across. This beam might have been half of that. It looks like nothing so much as a two-by-eight turned sideways. One of the Kens crosses it barefoot, literally gripping it between his toes to maintain his balance. It’s actually a pretty impressive trick.

And here, Constant Reader, is where the wheels come off the wagon for the boys’ team. The last of the boys, Chris, simply can’t make it across the beam. He tries it on foot, he tries it on his belly, he just can’t make it. Even Cyborg Chad made it across, but Chris just can’t do it. Meanwhile the girls get their last hausfrau across — and give us our first wardrobe malfunction of the game, incidentally — and surge into the lead.

The rest of it, the crap with the fire and whatever, is just irrelevant, because when Probst triumphantly declares the girls the winner and hands them their goodies, Chris is still trying to shimmy his way across that damn beam.

Another commercial. It’s a department-store spot that is, I swear to God, the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Mannequins shouldn’t move. They shouldn’t walk around. They damn sure shouldn’t play footsie. It may have been a local insert, however, so those in other markets may have been spared the horror.

Back to the boys’ beach, and everybody’s talking about whether to go through the motions at tribal council or just murder Chris now and feast on his corpse. To his credit, though, Chris has a sense of humor about it. “To tell you guys a little bit more about myself, I’m not real good at the balance beam.” Cut to a montage of boys wandering around camp including a quick shot of what looks like one of the Kens masturbating. I’m completely serious. Why not, after all? We’ve seen a pig killed, its blood smeared over people’s faces, and Eliza’s perfect cleavage. Why not just go for it?

Around the camp, there are conversations. The Kens are going to vote for Chris. That’s a given. Some of the others profess that they’re still on the fence, but they’re going to vote for Chris too. I mean, come on. He fumbled the ball on the five-yard-line. He’s going home. All this stuff is just filler to pad out the hour.

But Chris, bless ‘em, isn’t going gently into that good night. He’s working the votes so hard you’d think he’s trying to get a budget bill passed. He and the Sarge confer and agree that their best bet is to vote for one of the Kens, the one named Brook. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a girl’s name. But it’s okay, see, because his momma dropped the “e” at the end of it when she named him, thereby making it a boy’s name. Sure, man. Whatever you need to believe to be able to sleep at night.

The boys head off for what’s apparently an hour-long hike to tribal council, because they leave before sunset and arrive at dusk. The tribal council set always looks like the producers spent a million bucks on it, and maybe they did. Then again, if the lighting’s bad enough you can get away with a lot on television.

The boys go through the now-familiar ritual of lighting their torches and taking their seats. Probst gets to play talk-show host for a few minutes. “Chris, at any point did you think, ‘I’m dead?’” “Rory, how are you fitting in with the group?” “Senator, are you now or have you ever been a communist?” That kind of thing.

Enough chit-chat; it’s time to vote. One by one the nine boys trudge off to cast their super-secret ballots. Brook, the Ken with the girl’s name, casts his vote for Chris and mumbles something that even after repeated viewings I can’t begin to make out. Chris casts his vote for Brook, confessing that Brook is the only other player in the tribe whose name Chris knows. Then again, he may have said something about how it’s all a part of the game, but my inborn vapidness filter edited it out and replaced it with something more entertaining.

CAPTION: Chump

Probst counts the votes. Surprisingly, it’s not five votes in a row for Chris. The voting is actually pretty even: three votes for Chris, three for Brook, and one for Ralph Nader. (“The ballot was confusing,” the anonymous player is quoted as saying.) But the last two votes go to Brook, and for the first time in Survivor history we have an upset on the very first night.

Cut to a long close-up of one of the Kens with his chin on his palm and beads of sweat on his forehead as he strains to absorb the thought: “Five is more than three.”

“The tribe has spoken,” Brook. Get your girly-named ass out of here.

Over the closing credits they play a tape of the just-ousted Brook saying, “The one thing I didn’t want was to be the first person off.” Well, look at the bright side, girly-named Brook. At least you got beat by a strong competitor … oh. Yeah. Never mind.

Next week, perfect-cleavage Eliza will be heard to say, “Being here is like being in prison.” Judging by all the all-girl prison movies I’ve seen on the special channel late at night, you can be sure I’ll tune in!

Correction

The original draft of this article incorrectly stated that the gymnastic balance beam is four feet across. I was, obviously, off by a factor of twelve. The error has been corrected. I generally don’t post correction notices about typos like this, but this one made me laugh when a reader informed me of it, so I thought “What the heck.”

Previously on Survivor … oh, screw it. Read this.

It’s the morning of Day 4 on the Lopevi beach. The boys are standing around the big empty spot where their fire would be if they weren’t such losers. They’re cold, they’re grumpy. Travis of the ironic vintage tee says that he slept like a baby: woke up every three or four minutes and cried. The Sarge eats an earthworm, then the boys try for the second time to start a fire.

I have zero practical experience starting a fire in the wilderness, but I did see something about it on TV once, which is apparently more than I can say for the boys. I know it takes a long time, a lot of sweat and a big ol’ pile of dried grass and twigs. These guys labor for five minutes and produce a spark the size of a pinhead in a pinch of moss. And they’re shocked and dismayed when it doesn’t erupt into a blazing bonfire. Poor boys.

The girls, meanwhile, are climbing a banana tree. They apply their instinctual cheerleading skills to form a human pyramid. Brunette #3 hacks away at the tree while giving fifty million people an excellent view of her really bad boob job. She nearly drops the machete — says Mia, the Ani DiFranco lookalike, “Please don’t drop the machete, dear” — but ultimately she manages to hack through the branch and bring a big bunch of bright green bananas to ground.

Anybody who’s ever eaten a green banana knows what’s going to happen next. I steel myself for a twelve-minute montage of girls with the runs. But no, they’re more clever than I am. They decide to boil the bananas.

While the bananas are on the fire, the girls take turns complaining. Mia: “It’s about a thousand times harder than I thought this would be.” Eliza of the Perfect Cleavage: “The beach is uncomfortable. The water’s uncomfortable.” I have no idea what that last part meant. How can water be uncomfortable? Never mind; I’ll chalk it up to her having subsisted for four days on a diet of earthworms and unripe bananas. Plus, she could be babbling incoherently for all I know. I’m staring at her chest. She goes on to say that it’s like being in prison, which once again makes me think about all those all-girl prison movies I’ve seen. It gives me hope. You have to hang on to the little things, you know?

The bananas are done. The tribe gathers around the stew pot, Quest-for-Fire style, and eats. Whoever prepared them wasn’t paying attention, I guess, because one of the girls notices that the bananas are infested with maggots. Twila the construction worker takes it in stride: “I’m eatin’ it anyway.” Then she starts mumbling to herself about how she’s gonna eat ‘em up. She strips down to a loincloth and squats on a rock in the surf, mumbling to the last banana which she calls “My precious.” That part might just have been in my head, though. I’m a little delirious from all the excitement.

Scary sheep farmer Dolly — by far the most attractive girl on the island when she’s not glazing over about leading her lambs to the slaughter — is having a tough day. “It’s rough,” she confesses tearfully. She breaks down sobbing. She and Ami — not to be confused with her anagram, Mia — share a warm embrace. I start thinking about prison movies again. “But I’m having fun,” Dolly insists, in what’s sure to be the biggest display of sheer denial ever captured on videotape. “I’m so happy to be here.” The tears roll down.

Twila the construction worker … okay. Let’s just take a minute here, shall we? A moment of indulgence for your humble chronicler, if you please. There aren’t many things in this world that just plain piss me off. I’m a pretty easy-going guy most of the time. But Twila’s smug sense of superiority over the younger girls in her tribe is driving me absolutely batshit. “I don’t know. These young ones … I don’t know if they thought this was a joke. I don’t know what they was thinkin’. If it comes down to eatin’ maggots, I’m gonna eat maggots. To me, if they was, they were cooked. They were good. Protein. Eat ‘em. Shut up.”

Let’s all just agree here and now that we hate Twila, okay? Okay.

While Twila’s talking about how she’s oh-so-superior, we’re treated to a shot of what appears to be Perfect Eliza hacking her own foot off with the machete. It occurs to me that they might be making a bigger deal of this if that’s what were happening, so rather than running screaming to the TV I wait it out. We cut back to Twila (whom we hate) and then back to Perfect Eliza, and we pan down … oh. She’s hacking at a coconut that, for some reason, she has placed right next to her own foot. This is obviously brilliant in some way that I’m not equipped to see right now. Because it’s Eliza doing it. Duh. If it were Twila, it would be really stupid. But it’s Eliza, which means it’s obviously Perfect.

“If they wanna be pampered,” Twila says by way of conclusion, “they need to go back to the Holiday Inn.” The fact that a Holiday Inn is Twila’s idea of the high life tells us a lot, I think.

We’re back to the boys now, and Travis of the ironic vintage tee and one of the Kens — John, the chyron tells us — are out enjoying a little stroll. John asks Travis, “Before Tribal Council, did my name come up?” Travis, thinking on his feet, shoots back, “This past one?” As opposed to what, Travis? Some other Tribal Council in some other season? There’s only been one, you dork. Not the best stalling tactic ever. John scrunches up his forehead and says sonorously, “Yes … one before … now,” so I think Travis squeaked that one by.

John and Travis talk at length about … I swear to God, I can’t even tell you. “You’re a threat,” Travis says. “Who else is a threat?” John demands. “Everybody else playing the game,” Travis deadpans. Steam shoots out of John’s ears. His head spins around a couple of times. Sparks fly. “Error, error,” John drones. “Does not compute.” Travis cackles maliciously and stomps off toward the beach for a well-earned lie in the sun.

Flash forward to the ridiculously elaborate reward challenge. For those new to Survivor, get out now while there’s still hope. To anybody who’s determined, against all sage advice, to stick it out, there are two kinds of ridiculously elaborate challenges, classified by what you get if you win: reward and immunity. The line between the two is sometimes blurred, but this one is real simple. Winner gets some blankets and pillows, and also dignity. Loser gets nothing but the searing agony of having been beaten by a bunch of girls.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Two planks are erected out in the surf, about ten feet long and six inches wide. The members of each tribe line up on the planks side by side. At one end of each plank is a set of steps and a little platform. The idea is to make it from the far end of the plank to the platform by inching past your tribemates. The plank, remember, is six inches wide. This game is called the “everybody’s hugging” game. It’s also known as the “the guys are gonna lose so bad” game.

Perfect Eliza takes the lead-off position for the girls. She reaches over and grabs Brunette #5 in a passionate embrace, gradually squeaking her perfect breasts past her teammate. Meanwhile, Ken #2 contemplates Ken #3. You can almost hear his thoughts: “Aw, hell no.”

You know that funny thing guys do when they hug, that keep-the-hips-apart thing? When guys hug, even guys who care about each other very much, they sorta lean into it and maintain about a foot of clearance between their respective crotchal areas. Try doing that while balancing on a six-inch-wide plank. Ken #3 panics and falls off the plank almost immediately.

Perfect Eliza scooches past Brunette #5, planting a quick kiss on her cheek as she finally lets go. Hey, you write about the episode you watched. I’m writing about the one I watched.

Ken #2 has to go back to the beginning and start over. This time he makes it as far as Cyborg Chad before the realization hits him — ”I’m hugging a guy!” — and he panics. This time he takes Cyborg Chad with him. I expect to see electricity arc through the water as Cyborg Chad shorts out, but he seems okay. Amazing what they’re doing with technology these days.

There’s not a whole lot more to say about the “I’m not gay, I’m just experimenting” game. It’s kind of a one-joke skit. The boys don’t like touching each other. They’re all pale, and a couple of ‘em are shaking a little bit. Probst comes out with a prop and says to Ken #3, “Use the doll to show me where the bad man touched you.”

The girls, meanwhile, get all giggly as they spend the next few minutes feeling each other up. It’s gonna be a hot time on the girl’s beach tonight. In my mind.

Finally, after an incredibly awkward five minutes, the girls win. Ani DiFranco clone Mia, the last girl to cross the plank, does a little victory dance. They get the blankets and the pillows and the hammock and the dignity. The boys take home the bitter taste of defeat, and a general sense of being pissed off that they had to play the game instead of just getting to stand there and watch the girls.

Commercial break. A car, iced tea and Pringles. Oooh, the CSI season premiere is on next. Bonus.

We’re back, and Rory is pissed. That little dance that Mia did really rubbed him the wrong way. The Sarge is the voice of reason, which serves only to piss off Rory more. He takes a walk down the beach to cool off, which gives the other boys a chance to talk about him behind his back. The Sarge says Rory is rubbing him the wrong way. Which is kinda funny if you think about the game they just played … okay, maybe it’s only funny to me.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Yasur beach, day 5: The girls are primping themselves and cleaning each other and, I swear to God, singing. Amazing what a couple of throw-pillows and a blanket can do. Or maybe they’re all just basking in the afterglow. Footage of the girls’ celebration was conspicuously absent, come to think of it. And they all looked a little flushed and sweaty after the hugging game, come to think of it. And, come to think of it, if I want to get this column finished any time soon, I’d better stop coming to think of it.

Moving along, the girls finish their morning ablutions and gather ‘round the fire — a commodity, we are reminded by Brunette #2, that the boys still lack. Off in the distance the girls spot what looks for the life of me like a chicken, but that I am assured is actually some kind of exotic Vanuatuan … Vanuatese … island bird. Because we’re really in the middle of the Pacific ocean here and not, say, some back-lot in Burbank.

The girls, in an operation that single-handedly set the idea of gender equality back a thousand years, set off to catch the chicken. They manage to scare it real good a couple of times — Dolly in particular cracks this reporter up when she decides the best way to bring the chicken to ground is to chunk a rock at it from about thirty feet away. Finally, they either corner the chicken or they stumble upon a nest occupied by another chicken. Either way, we end up with Twila the construction worker standing over the nest — out of frame — with a machete. She’s all broke up about it. She actually apologizes to the chicken, then lets fly with a blow that might have mortally wounded a fly had it found its mark. The chicken, clearly too annoyed by the whole proceeding to linger, takes off like it was shot out of one of those chicken-gun things that NASA uses to test the windows on the space shuttle. The expedition is a failure … or is it? With the chicken out of the way, off on the other side of the island laughing its chickeny head off, the girls spot a treasure in the nest: eggs. Five undersized eggs split among nine girls isn’t exactly a feast, but food’s food. The girls plop the eggs into a pot of boiling water resting on logs over their fire. Logs which … um … burn. The pot collapses, spilling both eggs and water into the fire. A huge plume of steam erupts. Breakfast is ruined.

For no apparent reason, Starbucks employee Ami decides that now’s a good time to show the producers how she’d look on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. There’s a rumor floating around that she’s already been in Playboy, so who knows what the hell this girl has planned.

Cute-as-a-button sheep farmer Dolly does this really weird thing. I think she thinks she’s scheming. If this is her idea of hatching a plot, she’d better think seriously about going back to her farm. She has a lengthy conversation with construction worker Twila, who I swear looks just like one of the old dudes from The Dark Crystal. Not the bird-things, the other dudes. I shall attempt to find photographs to back up my assertion later. No time now, because during this commercial break I have to listen to a very important message from Lowe’s.

Day 5 on the Lopevi beach, and there’s a picture of a skull on a stake. Seriously. There’s a human skull on a stake among some rocks on the beach. When we cut back to the boys I’m going to have to take a head count. (Heh heh.)

Speaking of the boys, they’ve turned their attention back to the spirit rock from last week’s episode. You remember the spirit rock, right? It’s … well, it’s a rock. The chief of the Waponis stuck it up on top of a greased telephone pole and told the boys to fetch it down. Hilarity was supposed to ensue, but nobody told Chet Beefpile, who discourteously scampered to the top of the pole like a little rhesus monkey and fetched that rock right down. The boys have been hanging on to this thing ever since, evidently unaware that it was just a pretense to get the boys to make asses of themselves.

The boys lash the rock to the end of a log and plant the log in the sand. This is supposed to bring them luck somehow. I’m unaware of any rich cultural tradition that says that rocks on top of posts are lucky, but what the hell. When in Vanuatu, do as the Vanuatuans … the Vanuatui … the islanders do.

Time, at last, for the ridiculously elaborate immunity challenge. Survivor is usually chock full of intrigue and scheming and planning between the ridiculously elaborate challenges, but this week’s episode consisted of a failed chicken hunt and the mounting of a rock. Gripping, this ain’t. So I look to the ridiculously elaborate immunity challenge to entertain me. No pressure, now. Ready? Go!

The ridiculously elaborate challenge this week is a variation on that tried-and-true Survivor game, the “everybody’s wearing a blindfold but me and I’m an incompetent moron” game. There are puzzle pieces scattered all over the beach, including in the surf. One member of each tribe mounts a small platform, and the rest put on blindfolds. The leader shouts directions to lead the other players to the pieces. Hilarity ensues.

Long story short: Sarge, the boy-leader, has anger issues. Scout, the girl-leader, can’t count. Sarge manages to lead his tribemates to their destinations pretty well, but sorta slips into drill instructor mode about halfway through. Think Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. I’m sure the editor had fun cutting around the blistering profanity. Scout, meanwhile, loses track of how many pieces she’s collected and thinks that they’re done when there’s one piece left to go. She calls for the team to take off their blindfolds, but quick-thinking Probst is there to narrowly avert disaster. “Scout, no!” he shouts, not even trying to be nice about it. He mutely points out into the surf. Under his breath, “Ya dumbass.” That might have just been in my head.

After the pieces are collected it’s just a matter of putting together the puzzles. There’s a brief moment of panic when one of the Kens grabs a piece and exclaims “Pretty!” and another one tries to eat, kill and make love to another piece — in that order — but Sarge screams something about not knowing you could stack shit that high and gets the team back on track.

Boys, amazingly, win. Maybe there’s something to that whole rock-on-a-pole thing after all.

Commercial break. That Lindsay Lohan movie is out on DVD. I pretend that I won’t be renting it over the weekend and slow-moing through all the good parts.

Back on Yasur beach, the girls are, amazingly enough, sad. Perfect Eliza breaks down in tears, to be comforted by Scout.

Hang on a second. Scout — yeah, Scout, like from To Kill a Mockingbird, and the poor lady looks about old enough to have lived through it — is the one who, due to her inability to count to twelve without taking off a shoe, cost the girls the game. Where’s the screaming? Where’s the seething? Where’s the plotting? This makes no sense at all. “Oh, well,” the girls seem to have concluded. “These things happen. Wasn’t Scout’s fault.” That’s no way to win a game. I want anger, dammit! I want conflict!

Right now, the only apparent conflict is over who can be more reassuring and positive. Big ol’ pile o’ crap, is all that is.

Some time passes, and we find scary sheep farmer Dolly on the beach with a girl that, I swear, I have never seen before in my life. We will call her Brunette #6. They talk about who’s voting for whom. They’re both voting for Eliza, it seems.

Wait. What? What?

I hit the rewind, twice. That’s what they said. They’re voting for Perfect Eliza. Bitches. Heartless bitches.

All is not lost, though. A random conversation ensues in which farmer Dolly and Brunette #6 mention the names of at least twelve girls. I’m having a very hard time keeping track. It’s made a little better, though, because of the way I just don’t give a damn. Scout’s the one who screwed them over, but they’re plotting against Perfect Eliza. Bitches.

“I’m definitely in the middle and I hate that,” Dolly says. Which makes no sense to me, because it doesn’t sound like she’s in the middle of anything. But if that’s what she thinks, okay. She’s there, I’m not.

Finally we cut away from incessantly yammering sheep farmer Dolly to Perfect Eliza, sitting on the beach next to Brunette #2, who we learn is named Leann. We know this because Perfect Eliza asks, “Who are you voting for, Leann?” Leann says she doesn’t know. Which continues to baffle me, because on this day and in this place there should only be one answer to that question: Scout. I’m voting for Scout. I’m voting for Scout because she can’t count to twelve. Scout.

But no, she says she doesn’t know who she’s voting for. She and Perfect Eliza commiserate, because apparently rumor has it that one of them is going home. Why? “I guess it’s just how the cookie crumbles,” Ami says. Perfect Eliza and Leann sit there, dumb as rocks, not realizing that there’s no cookie and that they’re going to have to take some responsibility here.

Perfect Eliza, it seems, is doomed. And as perfect as she is, I’m having a hard time believing that she doesn’t deserve it. She’s trying, by God, but she just doesn’t have it. “I don’t know what the heck to do,” she says. Smash cut to a time-lapse shot of the sunset, and poof. It’s time for Tribal Council.

Probst asks Scout what she was thinking during the challenge. “I definitely feel like I blew it,” she says. Cut to a reaction shot of the other girls looking at each other with the look of sudden realization on their faces. Too late now, ladies. Should have thought of that before.

Probst is a stronger man than I am. He asks Perfect Eliza a question, and somehow manages to refrain from gibbering or completely losing his train of thought as he stares into her flawless cleavage. I have no idea what he asked or how she responded because I, unlike Probst, was enchanted.

There’s some more chit-chat. Who’s working, who’s not? (Everybody’s working, lies Twila.) Is being withdrawn a disadvantage in a social game? (I’m going home tonight, says Leann with startling candor.)

Then Probst earns his paycheck. I don’t know if it was planned out in advance or if it just kinda happened, but he asks Dolly a perfectly innocuous question and she sticks her foot right in it. “How are you getting along?” he asks her. “I feel like I’m getting along almost too well,” she says. “Four people want to vote one way and four people want to vote the other way and I’m kind of the deciding factor.” Another reaction shot of the girls: “What the hell? We’ll see about that!”

Time to vote. Off they go, one, two, three, right on up to nine. Probst fetches the Urn of Democracy and reads off the votes. Three votes for Leann right out of the gate. (And can I just take a second to ask why nobody on this tribe can spell the poor girl’s name? Then again, I guess it would be kind of awkward if you walked to to somebody right before the vote and said, “So, um, how do you spell your name?”)

And then, wham wham wham, it’s three votes for scary sheep farmer Dolly. Ani DiFranco lookalike Mia looks over her shoulder at Brunette #6; ‘Nette #6 just shakes her head in disbelief. I guess they had a plan, and this wasn’t it.

A fourth vote for Dolly, and the poor girl is starting to tear up. Yeah, she likes to talk about slaughtering livestock a lot, but she really is a cutie. Whoom: a fourth vote for Leann, and we’re all tied up. The ninth and final vote comes out of the Urn of Democracy, and it’s for undeserving scapegoat — scapesheep? — Dolly. “The tribe has spoken,” blah blah blah. Dolly slinks off wiggling an ass which I just now discover is simply fantastic. There ain’t no justice.

Swing vote, my ass.

Next week on Survivor: Mia gets in Twila’s face, Sarge gets in Rory’s face, and both tribes send somebody packin’. Will there be any more red-hot girl-on-girl action? Tune in and see!

“Do you realize that right now is your opportunity to, like, find the feminine side of you and just let go of ‘this is what I am’ and realize that there’s so much more to you than just that?” Merciful God, somebody stop her before she explodes and cheap paperbacks about releasing the child within and achieving self-actualization fly out like shrapnel from an extremely annoying grenade.

Week 3 on Survivor opens with grainy night-vision footage of a volcano erupting played over Saturday matinee serial sound effects. The girls are hiking back to their camp after their first tribal council, the one that saw the departure of Dolly the terrifying but adorable sheep farmer with, we learned at the last possible second, a stupendous ass.

Perfect Eliza says that Dolly was blindsided and that she did what she had to do to make sure she stayed in the game. “How about cluing us in, Eliza?” asks one of the girls who will have to remain nameless because she was off-camera and they all sound alike. Perfect Eliza gets all defensive, understandably so. Mia, the Ani DiFranco lookalike with the conspicuous facial piercing, confesses that Lisa and Julie are the only two people she trusts. Yeah, I know. I had to hit the Web site to figure out who the heck these people are. I swear the producers keep flying new people in to be on the show ever week, knowing that we can’t keep ‘em all straight anyway.

Time-lapse footage of the sunrise, followed by an aerial shot of the volcano. It’s Day 7 at the Lopevi beach. The boys are building a shelter. Yeah, I know. After a week on the island they’re building a shelter. Ain’t too bright, these fellers. Everybody’s chipping in, even Cyborg Chad. Well, almost everybody. Sarge looks around and asks where Rory is. The editor, helpfully, cuts to Rory who’s on walkabout in dense jungle of the interior.

What happens next is actually kind of cool: Rory finds some kind of citrus tree, bearing fruits that look like limes on the outside by that are a sort of pale orange on the inside. “Vitamin C!” he exclaims. But unlike most people who’ve screamed that, he’s not referring to the short-lived one-hit-wonder pop star best known for a guest appearance on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” He’s just happy to have fruit.

When next we see him he’s walking back into a camp carrying a sack that only we know is positively packed with yummy fruit. Sarge lays into him in what he probably thinks is the nicest possible way, but he kinda blows it. “I’m so used to supervising forty people,” he says, “that I see what everybody’s doing and I can’t just concentrate on what Sarge is doing.” Third-person-talkin’ aside, who elected you king of the damned, Sarge? What’s that you say? You know how many ways to kill me bare-handed? Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I’ll be over here writing my recap, sir.

Rory, naturally, drops the bombshell: “This is why I go on all my walks,” he says, holding up a lime-lemon-orange citrus thing which for sake of expediency we will from now on refer to as a roryfruit. Sarge, to his credit, shuts up pretty quick. “You found that?” he says. “That’s cool.” High praise from the Sarge.

That’s not the end of it, unfortunately. Rory and Sarge get up into each other’s faces for a bit while the other boys sit around and wonder if mom and dad are fighting because they’re not good enough. It’s really very sad, in an After-School Special kind of way. In the end they all learn that mom and dad weren’t going to stay together no matter what, and that they’re all okay just the way they are. Next week, Tracy Gold struggles with bulimia.

Back to the Yasur tribe, where construction worker Twila is dragging a rock across the blade of their machete. I guess she thinks she’s sharpening it, but I’ve sharpened a few knives in my day, and she’s not doing anything like what I consider sharpening. Maybe she’s just playing the “if they all think I’m crazy, they will leave me alone” card.

No such luck. Ani DiFranco-lookalike Mia has, shockingly, an opinion. She thinks the girls should go on a food hunt. I guess she heard the rumors about vast fields of roryfruit growing in the interior of the island. And beyond them lies the tomb of Extopacopaqetl. Therein lies the jade monkey of legend. Find your way through the devious traps and escape the raging Hovitos, and we’ll all be rich, rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Oh, sorry. Did I mention that I usually just make stuff up to entertain myself? I probably should have mentioned that.

Mia, for no apparent reason I can see, cops an attitude. Twila, not knowing how to leave well enough alone, sticks her enormous nose into it. What follows is a solid minute of two girls yelling at each other, making “bitch, please” faces at each other and generally being pains in everybody’s asses. What are they arguing about? Oh, who gives a damn. Assume it was about the best way to retrieve the jade monkey without suffering the awful, awful curse and you’ll be just fine.

One funny thing does come out of it, though. Construction worker Twila concludes her rant at the camera guy with the tried-and-true Survivor adage, “I ain’t here to make no friends.” Twila, apparently, has never seen this show before, otherwise she’d know that making friends is exactly what she needs to be doing if she’s got any hope of hanging around for another three days, much less of winning the million-dollar grand prize.

Anyway, the point that you should take away from this little vignette is that Mia and Twila are arch-enemies. Make a note of that or something, ‘cause it’s gonna come up again before the hour’s out.

Commercial break. It’s that credit-card spot where the one guy pretends to be an automated telephone whoosis and the other pretends not to be experiencing murderous rage. It’s kinda cute. Also, Joan of Arcadia is apparently going to turn away from God tomorrow night, and God’s gonna go all Old-Testament and smite some shit. Funny, funny stuff.

We’re back, and did I mention that Vanuatu is an island with a volcano on it? I feel like I should mention that specially since the editor went to the trouble of inserting a wide shot of a volcano every three and a half seconds and all. So now you know.

Back at the Yasur, or bitchy, beach, Perfect Eliza and … um … Julie, maybe? The one in the yellow tank-top. You know, it’s funny. After a week in the jungle, Eliza looks perky and has a healthy glow, while this other girl who we will tentatively conclude is Julie looks like a patient suffering from a wasting disease. Ah, Perfect Eliza. Is there anything you can’t do? She can’t shut the hell up, apparently, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The girls hike out to the special tree and find a little package from the producers: “treemail.” Get it? It’s like e-mail, only it comes in a tree. Yeah, I thought it was cute too, nine seasons ago.

On the way back, Julie and Perfect Eliza meet Ani DiFranco-lookalike and Lisa who has no particularly distinguishing characteristic. The four of them bond for a second, reinforcing each other’s power and being supportive wombyn for each other, then Mia calls for a hit. “Let’s get rid of Twila,” she says. “I can’t stand that bitch.” See? Told you it’d be comin’ back.

The girls reassemble at camp and read their “treemail,” which I swear is written in bad anapestic tetrameter. Please don’t tell anybody that I knew that. The treemail announces the nature of the next challenge, which is supposed to be a reward challenge. That’s how it goes in Survivor: reward, immunity, day off, reward, immunity, day off. Well, this time they’re jackin’ with the rhythm, because the next challenge is for immunity. The girls, for their part, seem way more upset by this than you’d expect them to be. Must be an early symptom of scurvy. They should have gone out and harvested some roryfruit when they had their chance.

The boys and girls show up at the appointed place at the appointed time, and they do that ritualistic “Who’d they vote out?” thing. Followed immediately by the “Dolly who?” thing. It’s always kind funny to see a bunch of folks murmur to each other about who’s gone only to realize that they never knew the person who got booted in the first place.

Probst goes through the basics: y’all are competing for immunity, blah blah blah. Then he hits ‘em with the surprise: there will be two tribal councils tonight, one for each team. Two people are goin’ home. The teams are outraged, outraged I tell you! The two tribes are going to compete against each other in one game, then the team that wins that challenge is going to go on to an individual competition in which one member will win immunity for himself. Got it? Okay.

Oh, there’s also a fishing pole and some goggles involved. Winner gets ‘em. That’ll be nice.

The challenge itself is, naturally, ridiculously elaborate. It involves … oh, really, why bother. Trying to write about a Survivor challenge is like trying to sing about fireworks. There’s just no point. It involves two tribes having to get from one place to another, dealing with various obstacles along the way. First one from point A to point B wins.

What with one thing and another, the boys win. It’s not because the girls screwed up or because the boys particularly rocked the house. It just kinda happened. Totally ordinary challenge.

The boys line up for their second challenge, this one for individual immunity. It’s a little more interesting than the first one. It involves a set of sand pits in which are buried rungs to a ladder. Dig up your rungs and assemble your ladder, first one to the top wins.

Ready, set, go.

The boys all do fairly well — or at least equally poorly. One of the Kens gets to the top first, a Ken who we might as well start referring to as John. Probst climbs the platform and crowns John with the immunity doohickey which was assembled from bleached human bones and that still stinks of death. Spare nothing in the name of authenticity, guys.

But at the last minute, Probst pulls a Steve Jobs: “There’s one more thing.” John dismounts the platform and everybody gathers around. See if you can follow this: John, immunity boy, leaves his tribe and goes back to camp with the girls’ tribe. He’ll hang out with them for the afternoon, then he’ll return to his own tribe and go to their tribal council, where he will be immune from being voted off the island. When the boys are done with their business, they’ll leave but John will stay behind, where he will pass his own immunity on to one of the girls.

Got all that? Yeah, I don’t really see the point to it yet either, but I have faith that all things will be made clear.

Commercial break. “Star Wars” is out on DVD. If you don’t have it already, you should buy it, says the tee vee. Also, Joe Torre is the object of fun and Honda makes cars. See what you learn from tee vee?

Back at the Yasur camp, the girls plus one are slinking back to camp. As soon as they make it, John takes charge like the man he is. “Everybody who voted for Dolly, hands up,” he says. There’s a show of hands. “All right,” he says, turning and starting off in a random direction. “This way.” Half the girls meekly follow. Ani DiFranco-lookalike Mia says that it makes no sense and is completely ridiculous. Remember, kids, she’s the one who has no problem at all working in a group or following instructions. Uh-huh.

So John and the five Dolly-voters take a seat and John demands to know what the deal is. See, the lesson here is that sometimes you should just cut the crap and tell women what to do. No discussion, no debate, just do it this way now. Works great.

Perfect Eliza tells the story: These guys were gonna vote for me, I voted for Dolly to stay alive, blah-de-blah-blah. She just gets a good head of steam built up when John says, “That’s all I need to know” and stands up. Perfect Eliza, bless her heart, just keeps on talkin’. All mules within a fifty-mile radius are rendered stone deaf.

The other three girls in Eliza’s clique — Ani DiFranco-lookalike Mia, terminal disease patient Julie and undistinguished Lisa — spend this time burning Perfect Eliza in effigy. “Good, Eliza, keep talkin’,” says Julie, “dig yourself in a hole.” John comes away with an opinion of Perfect Eliza that’s less than flattering. “She seems really sweet, she seems really nice, but the bottom line is, oh my God would you please stop talking.”

Having adjourned class with the Dolly-voters, John reconvenes with Mia, Julie and Lisa. “Flat out,” he asks, “who do you guys think you need to get off?” Mia: “Don’t give it to Twila, please!” Way to play your cards close to your chest, Mia.

After a couple minutes, Perfect Eliza wanders over and the four of them — with John sitting beside — strike up a conversation about who they’re voting for. They’re not exactly of one mind. Perfect Eliza wants to vote for Scout. Undistinguished Lisa doesn’t. That’s basically all I got out of it before it dissolved into four girls babbling and one guy thinking to himself, “Eliza’s got a big mouth on her, but look at that rack!”

Finally Perfect Eliza manages to get the floor. “You’ve been mad at me since I voted for Dolly,” she says, “and I understand why,” and I swear to God her hands are shaking as she says it. I just wanna grab her and give her the biggest hug and hold her and whisper comforting words into her ear and stare unblinking into that Platonic ideal of a cleavage.

The four of them finally sort it out, or at least Mia thinks so: Mia, Julie, Lisa and Perfect Eliza are going to vote for Twila, and Twila, Leann, Amy and Scout are going to vote for Mia, and then there’s going to be some kind of tiebreaker involved. As long as John doesn’t screw everything up by giving the immunity to either Mia or Twila, that’s how it’s all going to work out.

Now that we’ve been told this at the 34th minute, the only thing we can be sure of is that that’s precisely not how it’s going to work out at all.

Back at Lopevi camp, the boys are breaking their arms patting themselves on their backs, but the celebration is tempered with reality. Two of the Kens are on a fishing trip and taking the time to conspire. (You can’t possibly expect me to keep their names straight. I made a heroic effort to learn all the girls’ names, and they have tits. The boys aren’t getting that much of my attention tonight.)

The Sarge is on a tear about Rory, and says some nasty things about him to ironic vintage tee-shirt Chris. “I understand that,” says Chris, “and we’ll deal with it, but this just isn’t the time.”

And that’s it. That’s all the machinations we get to see at Boy Camp, because just like that they’re off to tribal council. As they hike we hear Sarge in voiceover talking about how he hates tribal council, how he hates building a team and then seeing it torn down, and I again ask myself who the hell elected him the Pope of Lopevi Beach. None of my business, I guess. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the expensive and dramatically lit tribal council set we go.

Probst does his cross-examination. Cyborg Chad says that he’s seen the tribe grow closer, which is such shocking news I can’t even believe it. Probst gets John to tell the tribe how things went at the Yasur camp, and he tells his story of taking charge and interrogating the girls based on who they voted for last time around. The team expresses pleasant surprise, but Probst can always be counted upon: “Who knew young John was this bright?” he asks.

A word about Probst. He’s cool. I like Probst a lot. He always looks like he forgot to shave yesterday, which is quite a feat if you think about it. But here’s the deal: It’s tough to be sarcastic and witty when the host of the damn show is gobbling up all the best lines. So Probst, throw me a bone once in a while, okay? Next time you see an easy shot, just let it go on by. I’ll make it up to you.

Probst finishes up with John: “You feel confident in the decision you’re making?” John replies, “I feel 150% confident.” Hyperbole with a high degree of precision always cracks me up.

Now that that’s over with, Probst gets back to the business at hand: throwing one of the Lopevi teammates under the bus. He asks J.P. what he’s basing his decision on. J.P. replies with a little speech that’s so perfectly constructed, so effortlessly delivered, that he had to have been practicing it all day deep within the jungle primeval, walking between row after row of roryfruit trees. The gist of it is that he’s voting out the pussy. He declines to elaborate on who he thinks the pussy is.

Sarge: “The person goin’ home tonight’s a casualty of war.” Given that we all know how Sarge is voting, doesn’t that sentiment make us all just a little uncomfortable? I’m struck with this sudden vision of Sarge in a makeshift camp somewhere out in the godforsaken desert dragging one of his bunkmates downwind a hundred paces and un-holstering his sidearm. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. It is my sincerest regret to inform you that your son Tommy gave his life today in the service of his country. He just took too damn many walks. Hooah. Sincerely, The Sarge.” Creeeepy.

Probst reminds everybody what “immunity” means, then sends the little scamps off to vote. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Probst collects the Democracy Urn and tallies the votes. J.P. and Rory split the first seven votes four-to-three, but the last vote comes up for J.P. He slinks off into the jungle night, and Rory is left feeling visibly uncomfortable.

The boys go home, all but John who stays behind to stick his schnoz into the girls’ business. The girls file in single-file, and Perfect Eliza’s got her hair down. She looks positively fetching in the light of the fire pit, her skin glistening slightly with rainforest dew. She licks her lips … okay, sorry, must concentrate.

Third and final commercial break. If you don’t go out and buy all new clothes, a Disney movie on DVD, an air freshener and a can of Pringles, you fucking suck.

Back to tribal council, and John’s got the power. He walks over and hangs his immunity necklace around Ami’s neck. That’s Ami, not to be confused with her anagram Ani DiFranco-lookalike Mia. John’s reasoning is actually pretty damned sly: “Of all the people there, Ami wasn’t getting voted out tonight no matter what. And I think you guys really need to figure out who you want to vote out.” In other words, he did the closest thing he could to throwing his immunity into the sea. Clever boy. Perfect Eliza bites her lip and looks at him out of the corner of her eye, simultaneously wanting to throttle and jump him. You can almost hear the feral growl building in her … shit. Sorry. Concentrating now.

His work done, John recedes into the jungle night. Probst asks Scout about what happened the morning after the last vote. She spills the beans about Mia and Twila, a fight that’s now reached legendary status in the Survivor annals. Expect to see that footage played incessantly during the post-season recap show later this winter. Mia insists that the fight didn’t have anything to do with being stressed about the vote but says that she was just pissed at Twila … which is the exact opposite of what I was expecting. Plus ten for honesty, minus several million for good sense. Terminal patient Julie says that Twila has been mean to her. Twila says that Julie has been mean to her. Both hug and collapse in a giggly pile, pinky-swearing to be, like, best friends 4-evah. Okay, not really. What really happens is that Mia and Twila get into another catfight.

At this point, Newly Immune Ami says something that made me roll my eyes so hard I actually gave myself a headache. She says, “Do you realize that right now is your opportunity to, like, find the feminine side of you and just let go of ‘this is what I am’ and realize that there’s so much more to you than just that?” Merciful God, somebody stop her before she explodes and cheap paperbacks about releasing the child within and achieving self-actualization fly out like shrapnel from an extremely annoying grenade.

But no, she just keeps going. And going. I promise you, my loyal readers, that I lie to you all the time, but that I’m not making this up right now: It ends with the girls promising to French-braid Twila’s hair the next day. Honest to God.

The other girls, and Probst for that matter, look around as if they’re trying to remember where the nearest emergency exit is. A beat. Probst: “Scout, what are you basing your vote on tonight?” Scout: “Well, I was going to say some shit about maintaining a healthy attitude in camp, but now all I can think about is Skinny-Ass Oprah up there in the front row. Can we take her immunity away somehow?” Probst: “No.” Scout: “Please?” Probst: “No.” All the girls except Ami in unison: “Please.” Probst: “No, quit asking.” Scout: “Oh. Well, then I guess I’ll go with the healthy-attitude thing.”

Mia, in extreme close-up, makes like a ten-year-old who’s just been told that she’s up past her bedtime. Probst calls her on it. “You’re shaking your head, rolling your eyes, what’s up?” he asks. “I feel like Scout’s comment was directed toward me,” Mia says. Project much, hippy lady? She goes on to say something about how it’s just not fair, but nobody gives much of a damn.

Perfect Eliza gets the last word. I have no idea what it is because as she’s saying it she drops her chin and makes her eyes real big and kinda bats her eyelashes and she could be reciting the prologue to Mein Kampf for all I care.

The girls vote, and Probst pushes the little button that causes the Diebold machine to cough up the results. Probst and the producers confer before coming to the conclusion that a total of 531-338 is probably not accurate, so they send the girls off to vote again with paper ballots.

Unsurprisingly, the ballots come up Twila, Mia, Twila, Mia. Twila is sitting there like a statue. Mia is bouncing like she really needs to pee, like she’s hungry for her next cop, or like that really good Indigo Girls song just came on the jukebox. (Who says I’m not the hardest workin’ recapper in the biz? Three similes for the price of one, baby. Show me love.)

Now, before Probst gets to the last couple of ballots, let’s pause for a moment to do basic math. There’s no sense being coy about this: The final tally will be five votes for Mia and three for Twila. Mia obviously voted for Twila, since she couldn’t vote for herself. When Probst pulls out the last ballot and calls it, terminal patient Julie buries her head in her hands and Perfect Eliza looks shocked out of her mind. (On anybody else, it’d look kinda stupid. But Perfect Eliza is perfect, so of course on her it’s merely endearing.) There are your three votes right there: Mia, Julie, Perfect Eliza. Poker faces are a new and wonderful idea to these girls, one that they don’t quite fully grasp.

The camera, of course, lingers for a long beat on Lisa who bows her head in a look that’s either contrite or relieved, or maybe both.

Probst makes a touching speech about how they all said one thing and then did the exact opposite, then confiscates the immunity necklace and sends the girls home. And boy, is that gonna be a fun trip.

Next week on Survivor: The Jets meet Miami. Oh, no, wait. Sorry. Next week on Survivor: One of the Kens tries to play the provider role, bringing home a fish that any of the boys could have swallowed hole without a chaser. At the Yasur camp, Perfect Eliza and terminal patient Julie lay into turncoat Lisa — hey, look at that. She now has something to distinguish her. Perfect Eliza: “That bitch.” And can I tell you, did hearing her say those words ever turn me on.

I … um … have issues.

This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who has the smallest ears in the Southern Hemisphere, and it’s just not very funny. I know, I know, I’m sorry. But I can only do so much. When the producers hook me up with material that’s just not that interesting, my hands are tied. Anyway, to protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

Read the rest of this entry

This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who gets busted. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

Read the rest of this entry

This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who, astonishingly, doesn’t. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who turns out to be playing for the other team … if you know what I mean. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who’s responsible for it. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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Sarge, as is his privilege, shows up to the challenge with the immunity necklace around his neck. He’s also got that same icy cold stare that he’s been wearing for three days now. “Wow, Sarge,” Probst says. “You look angry.” Sarge stares him down. “Are you an assassin?” he asks. “I’m a game-show host,” Probst replies. “You’re neither,” Sarge says. “You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.”

“Oooooo-kay,” says Probst. He decides not to talk to Sarge any more.

This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who’s an errand boy. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

Read the rest of this entry

This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who’s a cheap date. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my epic, 7,300-word recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who, in the end, cackles maniacally. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who gets punched right in the mouth. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who goes home and who hid the bananas. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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This is my weekly recap of “Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire.” It tells you all sorts of secrets, including who wins. To protect you from scary spoilers, the article is hidden out of sight on the other side of the jump.

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“Where’s he been?” wondered the adoring public. Only now can the truth be told.

For the past three-and-a-half months, I’ve been putting a pretty startling amount of effort into writing a weekly column about the TV show “Survivor.” Some of y’all may be aware of this already; it’s gotten some attention out there on that Internet thing.

Last week, on Sunday, the 9th season of “Survivor” came to an end, and with it ended my column.

I’ve spent the past few days assembling my columns into a book, a book that you yourselves can download and read at your leisure. The book weighs in at 3 MB (PDF format), is 263 pages long, is handsomely typeset and comes with a table of contents and an index that I promise you will be more amusing than actually useful. (See sample at left.)

Along the way, I did a fairly half-assed editing job. Why lie about it? I can’t edit my own work; I just lack the ability. But I fixed as many typos as I found, which was more than a couple.

Download your very own copy of Pants of Fire by clicking here. The file is protected against copying and printing; if you want to print a copy or do something else that’s entirely reasonable, just drop me an e-mail and I’ll make an unencrypted copy available for you.