Survivor Guatemala: week 6

I've had an entire week to come up with a metaphor or analogy or other allegorical device to describe the almost biffo between Jamie and Bobby Jon that occurred during this week's challenge. For those who didn't see the ads, the two of them went toe-to-toe and chest-to-chest screaming at each other. It was entirely Discovery Channel in nature, but what particular animals were they behaving like? Eventually it came to me: seagulls fighting over a chip. Although I've never heard a seagull walking way from a fight tell the other contestant, "That's not nice!" the way Bobby Jon did.

We were spared the pain of listening to the crappy tree mail poem, so only found out when the tribes arrived at the challenge site that there would be no tribal immunity this week since both teams were going to Tribal Council and voting someone out that night. In yet another very early departure from formula, the members of the winning team would get the reward and then compete in a second challenge for individual immunity. As a further twist, the person with immunity would sit in on the other Tribal Council and get some secret inside information about the other team.

Of all the challenges so far, this was the one most obviously lifted from an Indiana Jones movie. Two members from each tribe had to try and roll that big rock from Raiders of the Lost Ark across their goal line. At one point Jamie's team scored a win over Bobby Jon's team, and we had the seagull incident. Jamie later explained it as follows: "He's in my face yellin', and I'm from the South, and the only thing I know how to do is yell back." I think that explains much of George W Bush's foreign policy.

Amy rolled her weak ankle again, but still managed to help Yaxhá win the following round and earned considerable respect from both her team a certain couch here in Kingsville. In the end Nakúm won both the overall game and a meat tray which then sat out in the 45ºC heat while they competed for individual immunity.

The second challenge was a simple relay to collect three bags and rearrange the big Scrabble tiles they contained to make the words "Ancient Ruin". Judd couldn't even get his own bags open, but could see Rafe's tiles well enough to tell him the answer and hand him individual immunity. It’s pretty embarrassing to be standing there, close but utterly stumped, and have Judd of all people provide an intellectual leg-up.

While Stephanie mistook two consecutive victories for a winning streak, the rest of the tribe got stuck into their reward of barbecue and beers. The production crew had soaked the labels off the bottles (obviously the companies weren’t prepared to pay the exorbitant product placement rates), which made it a bit tricky to keep track of who'd drunk what. Judd was the obvious culprit when some beer went missing (or was that just because we saw so much footage of him drinking), but nobody else in the tribe seemed brave enough to directly accuse him. They didn’t have to, really: he protested his innocence with an unnatural degree of vehemence, and then claimed that he'd won the reward for the team so he'd earned the extra beer anyway. The prosecution rests, your Honour.

Yaxhá was first to Tribal Council, and it quickly became apparent that Judd had neither cooled down nor sobered up. He assured us all - twice - that he is a good sportsmanship, and his use of the word "man" in lieu of punctuation was so pervasive that I rewatched the entire episode and kept count: 43 that I heard, which is an impressive per minute average when you take out the ads, the challenges and the scenes of the other tribe.

Arguably the funniest moment in the series so far came when Margaret claimed Judd doesn't listen to other people. He interrupted her, then he interrupted Cindy answering his question "Do I listen to you?" Next he interrupted Rafe's answer to the same question (well, it was more a demand than a question) and the didn’t give the others a chance to answer. He even interrupted the normally unflappable Jeff, who has seem some pretty childish behaviour at Tribal Council in the past but still seemed shocked. Here's a hint, Judd: it doesn't help your claim that you're not ADD if you can't sit still or hold your temper.

Everything Margaret said about Judd was true, but equally true were Cindy and Judd's observations that Margaret was miserable about the tribe switch up, and that there'd be peace at camp so long as either she or Judd left. When she was evicted, in what to me was a surprise unanimous vote, Judd gloated like a smug eight year old and I fear he will make the next few days peaceful but unbearable for everyone.

Yaxhá, meanwhile, was a model of unity. Well, at least everyone was saying the right things, even if they didn't actually mean them. Bobby Jon was full of praise for Brian's gamesmanship, and indeed Brian has been a very skilled Survivor. He was spot on with his quote as he voted for Bobby Jon: "This is the outwit part of outwit, outplay, outlast." Unfortunately he was the one being outwitted, as Amy and Gary had sided with the old Nakúm to unanimously vote Brian out.
In yet another twist, however, Brian still had one chance to stay in the game. Immediately prior to the vote commencing, Jeff announced that Rafe, who had sat in on proceedings, would hand his immunity to the person of his choice by placing a name in an envelope in the ballot cookie jar. Who knows what would have happened if Rafe had given Brian immunity, but he gave it to Gary instead (why, I do not know), so the votes against Brian stood. Not knowing who couldn’t be voted out certainly added a degree of novelty to the voting process, and there's been some pretty good twists so far this season already. It'll be very interesting to see if the immunity idol has been retired or just given a rest this week.