Survivor Guatemala: week 7

The opening 75 seconds of this week's episode featured Judd using the word "man" at an average of every eight seconds. At some point during this burst of eloquence he uttered the biggest understatement in Survivor history to describe his behaviour at Tribal Council that night: "I kinda had a little outburst." Ironically, if he'd just admit he's ADD he could probably use it as an excuse for forgetting how bad his behaviour really was.

It's hard to think of a Survivor who is more rude, self-centred, obnoxious and overbearing than Judd. "Johnny Fairplay" from Survivor Pearl Islands comes close on a few of those measures, but since he'd probably enjoy the attention I refuse to include him as a nominee. Jamie this week confirmed my sneaking suspicion of why the others are putting up with Judd at all: whoever takes him to the final two is guaranteed of winning the million dollars for themself. At least Judd can say his life has a purpose.

Christo inspired this week's reward challenge. First one person had to wind fabric off a pole and around their body by twirling and running at the same time. Then they had to run to the next pole, clip onto the next contestant and spool another piece of fabric around both of them. They then had to try and run like Siamese twins to the third pole where they did the same again, until finally there was four of them all trying to twirl and run simultaneously. The truly funny bit came when they had to unwind again and run to the finish line, because those at the middle of the pack were completely dizzy by the end and couldn’t run straight. Guatemala's Funniest Home Videos, here we come!

Jeff announced the reward and asked, "Worth playing for?" as he always does. This week it was a flying fox ride through the jungle canopy, followed by a chocolate feast (apparently the Maya were the civilisation who discovered chocolate and to whom we all owe a debt of incalculable thanks). Bobby Jon tried to describe the wide variety of forms the chocolate took: "There was cake, praline, cookies, strawberries; everything!" Um, strawberries are a member of the fruit food group, Bobby Jon, not the chocolate food group. Don't worry your pretty head about it, darl.

At least nobody got hurt this week. Amy's ankle injury from rolling under the big rock in last week's reward challenge was obvious, but the next day the only person in Yaxhá who didn't seem to have seven layers of skin missing off their shoulders was Gary (maybe he had his quarterback shoulder guards on under his T-shirt). One could easily blame the rock itself, but nobody in Nakúm seemed to have huge weeping sores sticking to their t-shirts and attracting small fish when they swam.

During their chocolate-induced sugar high, Yaxhá decided to paddle over to Nakúm's camp and invite them back to a pool party for Danni's birthday. Despite the unexpected invitation interrupting their game of Old Maid (played using a deck of cards made out of leaves), and deep reservations on the part of both hosts and guests about whether Bobby Jon and Jamie could be trusted to behave themselves, the invitation was duly accepted. Nakúm got to polish off the leftover chocolate, and much fun was had by everyone until Judd stripped down to his white t-shirt fabric boxer shorts and jumped in. Actually the jumping in wasn't so bad as when he got out again as they had become slightly translucent. Was white really the best colour underpants to choose for 39 days straight in the jungle?

In the immunity challenge the teams had to find big jigsaw puzzle pieces buried in a sandpit and then assemble them to form a replica of the Maya calendar. Heaven forbid they should have to do anything really challenging, like navigate using Mayan astronomy or solve problems using some of the mathematical principles the Maya developed. Actually that's being a bit unfair. Bobby Jon was able to work out all by himself that if Yaxhá lost the challenge they'd only have four people and Nakúm would have six, which would be bad going into the merge. Between his Alabama accent and the mumbling there were parts of his soliloquy at which even the subtitle people weren't game to hazard a guess, but that was the general gist of it.

Nakúm manage to take an early lead and keep it, despite Jamie dropping one of the larger puzzle pieces on Stephanie's foot. She wasn't complaining when they won immunity for the second week in a row and sent Yaxhá to Tribal Council. Amy, who looks more and more like a young Kurt Russell in drag every week, knew straight away that she was vulnerable but fought right to the end regardless. Gary promised to vote with her against Bobby Jon, but only if she got Danni on side. Obviously that didn’t happen, and it was yet another unanimous vote with Amy as the stoic victim.

This week's twist was Jeff's announcement at the end of the episode that the merge had just happened, followed by the distribution of red buffs for Gary, Danni, Bobby Jon and Brandon to take with them to their new home at Nakúm's camp. With ten Survivors now left, the break-down is five original Yaxhá (Stephanie, Rafe, Lydia, Gary and Jamie) and five original Nakúm (Danni, Cindy, Brandon, Bobby Jon and Judd). As Bobby Jon pointed out, however, it's 6-4 in favour for the new Yaxhá tribe. It's going to be very interesting to see how the numbers stack up.

It's also going to be interesting seeing how Stephanie and Bobby Jon cope over the next few weeks, with a lot of their tribemates saying that nobody deserves a second chance at Survivor unless it's an All Stars series. Bobby Jon is just hoping to make it to the jury, claiming that it has been a "lifelong dream" of his. Since the show only started in 1999 I somewhat doubt that. Don't worry your pretty head about it, darl.