Survivor One World Recap: “We Are In A Tribe Of The Witless”

Before I get to this week’s episode, I want to touch on a couple of things from last week’s Season Premiere. Overall, I enjoyed the premiere, despite the anti-climactic (and predictable) ending with no Tribal Council vote, and I think this cast should give us a pretty entertaining season. I said that I was a fan of the “men vs women on the same beach” idea, because I thought it would be a fresh and interesting dynamic…and it certainly was, with stealing on both sides, and some early drama.

But what I didn’t expect, was a clear “Battle of the Sexes” in the fan base as well. I’ve been reading a number of message boards and forums, and it has been pretty cut and dry with the male and female fans getting rather aggressive with each other. I expected it from the players, but I suppose human nature has made a large number of fans gravitate to their respective sides based on gender.

The one thing that I heard a lot of from last week’s episode, was that after Kourtney was injured, the challenge should have continued. I read (and heard) a number of people say that either a) the men should have just sat someone out, b) the women should have had one member go twice, or c) that the challenge should have re-started.

All of those ideas (primarily suggested by female viewers who had vocalized their support of the Salani Tribe) are absolutely absurd in my opinion. Why on Earth would the rules for a challenge be changed simply because “your favourite team” was at a disadvantage? Manono won fair and square, since Salani—as a team—were unable to complete the challenge.

Now, on to this week’s episode, which finds the Salani and Manono Tribes adjusting to life together on the beach. Can the women get it together and stop their infighting? Will another Idol be found? And who's got gas?

My Random Thoughts:

- Previously on…Survivor: Troyzan wants to be the Greatest of All Time, Colton is unhappy on his Tribe, Sabrina found an Idol and gave it to Colton, Kourtney broke her wrist, and Jeff told the women they need to get along better. I’m pleased that there wasn’t a blatant “here’s what you need to know for tonight’s episode” sort of foreshadowing like we’ve seen for the last two seasons. Hopefully that’s a trend that will continue.

- Night Vision Recap: Manono told Salani they took care of the fire, and Kat said that she could have done it without them. Rather ungrateful don’t you think? Well, the actual quote from Kat was as follows: “Mind you, I am the fire person, and if they weren’t there, when I got back I probably would have set it…I would have been able to got it…WHOA!” (and then she got spooked by a bug flying by.)

Christina and Alicia had a heart to heart chat after attacking each other at Tribal Council. Alicia thinks Christina is rude, and Christina thinks that Alicia is disrespectful. Alicia did a lame attempt at a Sue Hawk impression by telling us “if I saw her swimming in an ocean and she was drowning, I’d probably look the other way.” In the end, though, they hugged and both said everything was fine, which neither of them believed.

Alicia then offered this nugget: “Nina looks like a bag of rocks, and I don’t even know what that analogy means.” No, Alicia…you certainly don’t.

- The next morning, Sabrina tried for a team building chat to set some ground rules, and before she knew it, this makeshift town hall meeting had seen her elected leader of the Tribe. She reluctantly accepted, saying truthfully that “managing the airheads is going to be exhausting.”

She quickly identified 3 areas that needed attention: Water, Food, and Shelter. Monica was on Water Duty, and Kat and Alicia were put on Food. As Sabrina was explaining to them, Kat piped up with a glorious piece of wisdom, saying, “I don’t want to observe the land. I want to get stuff.” Apparently not as bad as she wanted to go for a swim, though…as she and Alicia went in the water instead of searching for food.

- Tree Mail was a couple of wooden boxes and a letter that instructed the castaways to assemble both tribes in a neutral clearing. This was to be our first Do-It Yourself challenge of the season, which I had been looking forward to.

Bill read the instructions (in a fake British accent for some reason), which were simple: the first Tribe to untie all of the rope knots and free a ring from the center would win a tarp. Both teams would be able to keep their box and ropes, so that was kind of like a win already for each team.

Colton and his “jazz fingers” started everyone off with a dramatic “Survivors Ready…Set..Go!” which aggravated me because he was obviously trying to impersonate the Dimple-Tastic Jeff Probst, and any Survivor purist knows that it’s just “Survivors Ready…Go!” (there’s no “set”)

Go ahead, laugh at me if you must, but I know there’s a huge portion of the audience out there that thought the exact same thing.

- The Men won the challenge, Jonas spiked the ring into the ground, Mike lifted Leif, and Sabrina expressed her disappointment over losing by saying “We needed a tarp like a fat kid needs cake.”

OK, that’s a terrible analogy. The last thing a fat kid NEEDS is more cake, Sabrina! The fat kid may WANT the cake, but he sure as hell doesn’t NEED the cake. Someone needs to talk to this cast about making analogies.

- Back at camp, then men got all Bob the Builder with their new supplies, and Colton decided to sit, stretch, swing, and go visit the women. Not only was he not being helpful, but he was clearly being standoffish, and having a major attitude around camp. Jonas identified it, and saw that he was trying to make inroads with the Salani Tribe (last season’s cast would use the phrase “curry favor” here), and compared him to everyone’s favorite sock-burning Hobbit, saying “he’s making Russell look like a freakin’ little schoolgirl.”

Really??? How many terrible analogies can we have in one episode??

- But Johnny Sea Foam didn’t just stop at visiting the women, he was now helping them build their shelter, and trying to stay at their camp the whole time. It didn’t take long for the women to tell him bluntly that he wasn’t welcome at their camp. He left briefly, but returned shortly with a tearful plea for them:

“I don’t care about the game. I don’t care about strategy. Y’all can all call BS. This is what I’m saying. I literally feel like I have no one on this island. Not one person.” That may be so, Colton…but you can’t expect the other people to not care about the game or strategy so that you can feel good about yourself.

Kim spoke for the Tribe, telling him bluntly once again that they were two separate Tribes, and he is on the other Tribe. She correctly told him that it would be a dumb move on their part to let him stay.

Some people will make the comparison to Cochran from last season, being ostracized from the rest of his Tribe, and finding solace in the opposing Tribe, but this is different. Cochran was made to feel like an outcast by the rest of his Tribe (including that Cheatin’ Whitney!), where Colton is ostracizing himself from the Manono Tribe. This is a self-imposed exile.

- Seriously, what’s with all the bats? I was joking when I made The Dark Knight Rises comment last week, but now I’m starting to wonder.

- Why were my eyes subjected to having to watch Greg/Tarzan in a speedo? I was longing for the return of Philip’s droopy pink briefs after seeing that. And what made it worse was the odd campfire dance he was doing at night, carrying a spear and doing pelvic thrusts? Did he hit himself in the face? Is that how this happened?

But the better night show was Colton, as he showed the Idol to Troyzan, Leif, and Jonas, who all agreed that they need to “get the muscle out”, meaning blindsiding Matt or Mike at the first Tribal Council. Colton told the viewers,“They can call themselves the Misfit Alliance, I’ll just be their King.”

- At the Immunity Challenge, Jeff continued his anger-inducing (from me) transition to more green shirts, and Bill walked into the challenge slapping his fingers like a 12-year-old boy who just saw a boob for the first time. Well, maybe he just saw Monica’s hot pink bathing suit, and that’s what he was responding to.

I’m going to call this challenge Rubbin’ On Your Tribemates, as each member had to work their way across a narrow beam, manouevering around each other. You couldn’t fall, and you couldn’t touch two people at the same time. This was a good challenge. A simple one to set up, but a tough one to complete. I guess after constructing a giant course last week that went unused after Kourtney broke her wrist, they went minimalist with a beam over water.

Kat had trouble getting around Monica, stating “She’s got these big ol’ boobs. I can’t get past.” But we soon learned that Kat had trouble with pretty much everything in this challenge, and she wouldn’t be able to blame it all on Monica’s breasts. She fell in the water a number of times, threw her teammates in the water, and even jumped in the water on two occasions where she didn’t have to.

By the time Monica figured it out, the men had already completed the challenge, with all 8 of their Tribe members finished, while only one (Monica) had finished for the women. Everyone jumped in the water to celebrate, except Leif, who was pushed in by Matt. I half-expected Kat to jump in too since she had done it so many times already.

Chelsea wondered if Salani’s physical assets hindered them in the challenge, saying “It’s definitely the boobs are hard.” (which I sure hope meant ‘difficult’), but Nina summed it up more aptly, saying that there was “No communication. No Teamwork. Same old story.”

- At camp, the girls tried to hash out what happened during the challenge, and it was identified that Kat is eager, but also young and emotional, and can’t control emotion. Don’t we all know someone like that? Just a little too immature for the way they carry themselves?

Nina tried to campaign for Kat to be the one voted out at Tribal Council, but her argument was that Kat jumped in the water twice. Personally, I would have gone with “she can’t do it, won’t listen to anyone, AND jumped in twice.”

AND apparently thinks it’s ok to fart on her teammates! Did you see that? At camp where she just walked up to Alicia, raised up on her toes and dropped the bomb right on her hip? Who does that??

“We are in a tribe of the witless”, Nina told Monica, who agreed but also knows that it’s a fine line. How do you approach an alliance of 5 and ask them to splinter?

- Nina then pleaded her case to Chelsea, saying “you’re too smart to let this happen.” Chelsea told her that she was embarrassed, and talked to Kim about the option of voting Kat out instead of Nina. While they both agreed that Nina deserved to be there more than Kat, they still needed to keep trust within their alliance. Tough choice.

- At Tribal Council, Probst returned to the Blue Shirt, and told Salani that after only 5 days, they were off to one of worst starts in the history of the game, due to “absolute and total dysfunction within this group.” He then said that talking to them was like talking to sixth graders.

Jeff, please talk to these people about how to make a good analogy like that.

- Nina outed the Tribal division, and talked about being a retired LAPD officer, asking what experience Kat brings to the Tribe. Kat’s response was less than impressive: “I’m outdoors and I do sales and I work with people all the time, and um….”

Probst then interjects and says, essentially, “No, you should say ‘I’m young.’” and she pretty much says “Yeah…what he said.”

Chelsea and Sabrina agree they wish their alliance was different, Kat talked about never failing at anything, and then out of the blue called Christina out for some reason, while claiming that she wasn’t calling her out. (??)

I was hoping that the Tribe would do the right thing and vote Miss Farts-A-Lot out, but the downtrodden look on Chelsea’s face during Tribal Council made it painfully apparent that she was voting in a way she didn’t really want to, meaning Nina was taking the blue-lit walk of shame.

- I have to say, this season is shaping up to be a wash for the Manono Tribe. If there is no Tribal switch-up in the next 2 or 3 episodes, I fear that Survivor One World will be as one-sided as this.

Next Week: Here Comes The Rain Again

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