Survivor Nicaragua Recap: "Maybe I Should Have Scrambled"

Last week, we saw the end of Marty, as the fake Chess Grandmaster made his way over to join Alina on the jury. Would Marty’s hair still be as crazy once he actually had a shower? Would Sash and Brenda continue to run the game? And why did CBS give us a cryptic teaser at the end of last week’s episode, only to reveal what happened in a later preview?

My Random Thoughts:

- At the beginning of the episode, Brenda talked about how she and Sash were the King and Queen at camp, but she was more like the King, and Sash was the Queen. Come on, be honest…you laughed. And you knew it was true.

- Upon returning from Tribal Council, Holly told Jane (and this is verbatim): “There comes a time in this game, Jane, that you have to start saying “See ya”…no matter how friendly they are, or how whatever.” Incredibly awkward sentence structure aside, Holly is absolutely right…but that day is DAY ONE! Not Day 25. Remember that we’re talking about the woman who ran around camp in the first hour telling everyone she trusted them, and then started sinking shoes for no reason.

- Then, as if Holly was in a zone where all she says is things that make people look at her like she’s insane, she told Chase “Kelly Purple crawls up Brenda’s ass.” Someone needs to talk to her about wording her thoughts a little better.

- I’m getting really tired of all of the snake imagery. I get that the producers always like some predatory sort of creature to use as a theme, and for the moment, I’ll just be happy that it’s not spiders again…but it’s way over the top this season.

- NaOnka asked: “Did I come all this way, from South Central L.A., to go home with nothing?” Well, I sure hope not, because that would have been the worst strategy ever, but if NaOnka keeps acting like an escapee from a mental institution, she’s not going to have much of a choice in that. And let’s be honest, even at this point, there’s no way she could possibly win this game.

- At the Reward Challenge, I was temporarily distracted by the fact that Jeff Probst was wearing a Green Shirt instead of the standard blue, but recovered enough to say to my girlfriend as the challenge was being explained, “The team with Dan loses.”

Sure enough, Dan’s team was never in it, and Jeff got in two HUGE burns on them: 1) “Brenda trying to roll on one of the barrels. That’ll work…for a minute., and 2) “If this were life and death…you’d be dead.” As the blue team won the reward, Jeff threw his arms upward in his trademark gesture and hollered, “Pizza, Brownies, and Volcano Surfing!”, which I have to think is the only time those words have ever been spoken together in the history of the English Language.

- Let’s talk about the Reward for a minute, shall we? First of all, it was more like Volcano “sledding” than “surfing”, but it still looked like fun. Fabio made a spectacular wipeout, and Jane looked like an old retired science teacher who volunteers at a prison, sitting there in her orange jumpsuit and goggles.
- I’m no camping expert (as my girlfriend will attest), but moving the fire CLOSER to the shelter never really seems like it would be that good of an idea. Of course, a worse idea would be to build a border around the edges of your fire to “protect” it…with all of your wooden items. I will re-iterate once again that this is the dumbest cast in the 21 seasons of this show. Their goal was to protect the fire from the rain, and what they did was create a roaring inferno…and they still lost their fire. Morons.

- Chase to Kelly: “You never talk really.” A hearty thank-you to the editors of the show, because I laughed so hard at that, I had to pause the show. Seriously, I was laughing so hard, my chest hurt.

- Chase told us “I trust Brenda. I trust her, and I’ve put my game plan in her.” Chase has such a schoolboy crush on Brenda, his “game plan” isn’t the only thing he’s trying to put in her. Jane said it much more succinctly when she said“Chase is sucking up to Brenda like he wants to get in her pants or something.” Mama Carolina is not pleased.

- The Immunity Challenge was another good one, but I have to think that it would have been a good choice for that Final Three Endurance challenge we generally see at the end of a season. Thoughts on the challenge: the rope burns would have been awful; credit to Dan for outlasting 4 others; seven players were out before the Survivors had to go to the 2nd knot (under 5 minutes), and Probst essentially talks Jane into the win when she was about to quit. Should Jeff be able to potentially influence a contest like that, or is it just Jeff being supportive to everyone? Your thoughts?

I liked that it was Jane and Chase at the end…All-Carolina. Kind of like a Duke-North Carolina game heading into March Madness. Knowing that Chase is a Tar Heels fan, that would make Jane the Blue Devils. The wily old veteran with experience against the strong young buck. By the way, who won the National Title this year?

- NaOnka turned into Shaggy at Tribal Council, refusing to admit her role in the plan that ultimately saw Brenda get voted out. But I appreciated Brenda’s parting shot when she voted for NaOnka, drawing the Immunity Idol on the parchment so everyone knew that she had the Idol.

- Did you see Sash look away when Brenda looked over hoping he would give her the Idol. Kind of like that fake “look-the-other-way” look that people do when you happen to run into someone from that one time…remember when you were really drunk? What were you thinking, anyways?

Next Week: NaOnka goes crazy…again.

Just one quick final note: since the message boards at both CBS and Entertainment Weekly have been proliferated with number of spoilers for this season, and some have found their way here to the Comments section (where I have deleted them), I have decided to temporarily enable Comment Moderation. So now, I will have to approve Comments before they get posted on here. Rest assured I will post every Comment (positive or negative) that does not contain spoilers.

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Thanks for reading.

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