I wasn’t really jacked about this week’s episode, but hey, Dave’s gone, so that’s reason to rejoice, no?
Reward Challenge
Once again, Dave comes up short in a challenge, although this time around it wasn’t specifically his fault – it was more of a cumulative group failure to execute here. Still, his refusal to listen to Frosti’s advice did contribute to the loss.
Speaking of Frosti, is anyone seeing him as Ozzy redux? You can almost sense that, when individual challenges start, Frosti will be a monster. And he doesn’t seem to be in any danger of getting booted.
Another thought is one that was brought up either by Bob or on the message board, but why would you sit out Courtney in the RC, knowing that she’s a liability in just about any challenge? Siting her out at an Immunity Challenge (at the time, they didn’t know that a guy had to sit) would seem to be the most advantageous strategy in my mind.
Post-Reward
Dave gets kidnapped, and as a result, we get the token “lazy African-American” edit as Sherea lies around Zhan Hu and everyone else does work. Now, I don’t know whether Sherea actually did anything or not, but one thing is clear – Dave did a crapload of stuff around camp, and with him gone everyone else had to step up and contribute. And since they did, the wheels were set in motion for the challenge liability to get the boot, should it come down to that.
Over at Fei Long, we finally see some of Jean-Robert’s strategy – start off lazy and slowly “redeem” yourself over the course of the season. Which has some level of brilliance, but requires that you dodge some bullets at Tribal Council, so it’s a risky play. In other words, something a poker player would do. This time around, we saw him not get discouraged in the Reward Challenge and even break out the Mandarin to act as a translator for the tribe. Of course, I’m not buying his “I haven’t used it in 20 years” line at all, since there have to be some Chinese poker players that can be taken advantage of with this skill.
Immunity Challenge
This challenge seemed to involve a lot of luck, and frankly wasn’t all that great. I was expecting something out of American Gladiators here (specifically, Snapback), but chucking a bolo around isn’t all that exciting, unless it’s Gatchaman or you’re tossing around this Bolo:
Anyway, Fei Long wins it’s third immunity and we’re pretty much saying goodbye to Dave at this point.
Tribal Council
Sherea tried to pull a Courtney here by pointing out reasons that she should get booted, but in the end we all knew that Dave was going regardless, simply because he was given a chance to redeem himself 6 days ago and was pretty much still the same ignorant dick he was back then. The thing I got here is that Sherea really needs to step it up at camp, because Challenges are good, but as many a Survivor runner-up will tell you, it won’t carry you all the way to the million.
Other Thoughts
– Todd lucked out when Dave gave him the hidden Idol clue. With Dave gone, the secret alliance of Erik, Jaime and Todd continues. We haven’t seen Todd have to pull off any sort of outwitting yet, but you know it’s just a matter of time.
– I hate the phrase “showmance”, but that’s what we seem to be getting with Jaime and Erik. What is it about stranding people together with very little food or clothes for 39 days that creates this romantic aura?
– There is no way that Courtney survives all 39 days without some sort of medical help. She wasn’t big to begin with, and 12 days in she’s already thinner than anyone I’ve seen on the show. No, I don’t think that she’s anorexic, but I have to think that she was either cast or a last minute addition, because there’s no way that she comes in that thin with advance knowledge of what’s going on.
– Given that she was ousted two weeks ago, shouldn’t Ashley Massaro be back on WWE television? Is this a case of WWE not having a plausible storyline for her return, or is there something Survivor-related that’s upcoming?
That’s all for this week.
