Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 8

The sexual tension between Courtney and Shane reached marital status tonight with an entirely conjugal fight over who had more than their fair share of the doona. Here’s a quote from Courtney about how cold it was in the shelter without blankets; "Like, just no warmth. I mean it was, like, seriously hell." You heard it here first folks: hell has frozen over.

In describing her cold night in hell, Courtney used the word "like" twelve times in a single minute, only one of which was an appropriate context. She, like, uses the word "like" as often as Judd in Guatemala used the word "man", man.

Sally, meanwhile, was oblivious to the cold in her happy place on Exile Island, safe from the vote at the previous night's Tribal Council. She did a little half-hearted digging for the Individual Immunity Idol and seemed very relieved to be dropped off by the production crew not at the La Mina beach but the Casaya beach, which is now home to everyone. Instead of the traditional "Drop your buffs" command from Jeff at a challenge, a crappy tree mail 'poem' had announced to Terry, Nick and Austin the much-anticipated merge. One tradition that remained, however, was the merge banquet. Casaya must have forgotten about it because they gallantly ate as much rice as they could once the boys appeared on the horizon, leaving little room for seconds.

Another tradition at merge time is coming up with a tribe name and painting a new banner. It's usually a group activity, but Bruce the art teacher (is there anything this guy hasn't taught?) took the initiative and actually did a really good job of it. The new name – Gitanos – is Spanish for gypsy. No points for, like, guessing who, like, came up with that one.

Actually there is something that Bruce probably hasn't taught: workplace safety. If you're going to cut a piece of rope by rubbing it on a machete, do it with the blade facing away from you. Nick, are you listening? Otherwise, when the rope cuts through, the blade will swing up and hit someone in the face. Bruce, pay attention! Oh, that's right, you're trying to find that piece of tooth Nick just knocked out of your mouth. Of course, if Bruce hadn't blunted the machete by using it to clean all the seaweed off his Zen rock garden every morning it might have been sharper, with less force required to cut the rope and fewer subsequent facial injuries. Karma in the Zen garden, huh.

The machete wasn't the only thing to go to Bruce's head this week. As soon as it became clear that the merge was imminent, Shane had gathered Casaya and notified them all that they are once again in an alliance, and that they must stick together. (Three days ago he pleaded to get out of an alliance with these same people, but don't worry about that.) Shane and Aras knew that Bruce was the most likely swing voter, but they waited until La Mina was ashore and Terry had started sucking up to Bruce to do likewise in the hopes of winning his allegiance.

What Bruce forgot was that he's only one of six potential swing voters, with Shane and Cirie also subjected to Terry's rough wooing. Since Terry could only offer a maximum of two weeks' safety at Tribal Council, plus the risk of joining the losing side, it wasn't a particularly attractive offer to anyone. And naturally, Shane was utterly graceless in his rejection of it.

The first individual immunity challenge was a straightforward stamina trial to hang from a horizontal pole, sloth-like. Cirie was first to fall, followed by most of her cocky Casaya tribe mates. The final three were the La Mina men, all of whom desperately needed immunity. Austin was the first of them to go, with Terry eventually beating Nick. We may as well just hand Terry the million bucks right now, since any time he doesn't win individual immunity he's got the idol as back up.

This week's prize for stupidity - from an incredibly strong field - goes to Austin. In his little private piece to camera before Tribal Council he confessed to having 'faked' weakness at the challenge so that Casaya didn't see him as a threat and vote him off. As strategies go that's pretty smart. Caving in at Tribal Council to a grilling from Jeff that wouldn't melt ice, and confessing your strategy to everyone, is not. When Courtney and Danielle are shaking their heads at your stupidity it's time to consider whether you really want to show your face in public ever again.

Bruce's facial expressions during Tribal Council were carefully edited to suggest he might be thinking of swinging after all. Shane had shown his class yet again by calling a Casaya powwow just before everyone headed off to Tribal Council so they could decide who to vote off. Doing it right in front of La Mina was cheesy enough, but making a flagrant effort to include Bruce in the circle of trust was pathetic.

Unfortunately it must have worked, because the 6-4 vote went strictly along tribal lines to Nick's detriment. Hitting the key swing voter in the face with a machete probably didn't help his cause and sadly for him he misses out on a place in the Jury.

Shane got the four La Mina votes and looked a bit like he'd also been hit in the face (bad Jeff for reading them all out first and falsely getting my hopes up that Shane was gone). I'd love to know who Shane thought they would vote for. Actually I don’t think I want to pollute myself with any more about what Shane thinks.

What he might want to remember is that in previous series the stronger team going into the merge gets rid of their crazy people as soon as the numbers make it safe to do so. And as Danni in Guatemala and Chris from Vanuatu will remind us, it's possible to win even as the odd one out…