Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 12

It's almost impossible to underestimate Shane's impact on the entertainment value of this season. This week he found a piece of driftwood in the shape of a Blackberry. He sat on his 'Thinking Rock', 'sending text messages' and 'checking for email' and generally looking rather pleased with himself; "I'm communicating with people not on this island!" L Ron Hubbard might not be on the island, but the men in white who took Bruce away will be back soon.

This week's reward challenge was held in two parts, neither of which was the least bit original. What has been new is the number of reward challenges being played out in teams so late in the season. Survivors were clipped by the waist to a rope, which in turn was tangled around various obstacles (including the big hexagonal frames of marine-grade plywood left over from the Triominoes challenge a few weeks ago). Terry, Danielle and Courtney easily won, because Aras and Shane had to spend so much time hauling Cirie over and under the barricades.

With the losers out of the way, Jeff announced that the reward of a barbecue and chocolate cake on a private beach was stowed in the boot (sorry, trunk) of a car (sorry, GMC Yukon) which would soon be owned by Terry (sorry, the winner of phase 2). Jeff had a choice of people to throw the keys to, but cleverly he picked the girl with the nicest cleavage against which to display them for a gratuitous close-up shot. Danielle, Terry and Courtney had to use slingshots and marbles to break three tiles, with the winner getting the car (sorry, GMC Yukon). Gee, big surprise, Terry won and we were treated to forty seconds of careful camera work to show off the car (sorry, GMC Yukon) from every conceivable angle that could include a badge. Don't look so happy, Terry: the person who wins the car had never yet won the series.

With Aras on Exile Island, Cirie and Shane were left alone at camp. After some half-hearted strategy talk she decided to go fishing with live snails as bait, presumably because if she had to spend time with something slimy it may as well be something slimy and sane. Believe it or not, the girl voted last week as "least able to cope in the wild alone" caught the biggest and most edible-looking fish since the one that Tina found 'washed up on the rocks' in week 1. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that we only got one fleeting view of the water. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that a close-up of her stupendous bosom overwhelmed our attention as she 'hooked' the fish. Perhaps there was a scuba diver hiding in the water waiting to set her up. We'll never know.

Her contagious excitement lasted all the way through to Jeff's announcement that the immunity challenge would have each Survivor trying to hold their own body weight. In one of the most mechanically complex challenges ever, each person had to kneel on a long plank suspended over a pit of water, holding on to two ropes connected by a network of pulleys to a hook suspended above another platform on the other side of the pit. Hanging from the hook were sandbags, initially equivalent to 20% of each person's own body weight and increasing by 10% every 15 minutes. When the weight became too much the ropes slipped from their hands, the platform fell and they were catapulted into the water. First Triominoes, now Mousetrap.

Failing at the 13 minute mark, Shane didn't even last to the first weight gain. Cirie made a respectable 18 minutes, while Danielle's 19 minute effort gave us plenty of time to inspect what was surely more than a mere 30 days' worth of armpit hair growth. I wonder why we never noticed that before? Courtney and Terry both made it past the 30 minute mark before Terry won his immunity necklace back and the infighting began to decide which one of their own Casaya were going to vote out.

Terry, Danielle and Courtney had formed a strategy during their beach barbecue. It apparently involved Cirie as fourth place, but she had her own idea of an alliance with Danielle and Aras. Shane wanted to vote out Danielle, and everyone else pretended to just go along with that in case he used his Blackberry to send a barrage of abusive emails and text messages.

Actually Shane did say one sane thing this week, although it was right at the start in the recap from the previous episode so it doesn't really count. "Courtney is a dream to take to the final two. Anyone could win against her. Anyone!" Yes Shane, even you. With six people left it was surprising to see how much the focus was on the make up of the final two and not who to get rid of in the meantime. Danielle seemed to have a lot of trouble working out who she was actually voting for compared to who she was supposed to pretend she was voting for. I had just as much trouble keeping up with it all, so I was planning to cut her some slack until she announced at Tribal Council "My brain is, like, about to explode!"

In a very unusual move we got to see how four out of the six voted before Jeff did, and it was an utterly fragmented result. Aras and Danielle, Cirie's buddies from the spa reward last week, both received votes but the three of them stuck together to get rid of Courtney. Shane, who still mistakenly believes that he's the one controlling the game, was almost as shocked as she was. Like, I'm, like, so not going to miss her, like, at all.