- To Cirie: " Me, you and Aras have the numbers now."
- To camera: "There's five of us left now. Danielle goes next, and then we're in the final four."
- To the rest of the tribe: "I'm so glad that chick [Courtney] is gone. It couldn't have happened to a loopier broad." (OK well that's technically true, but only because Shane – while undeniably loopier than Courtney – is biologically male, as confirmed by Cirie's medical examination of what's in his perma-moist underpants).
- To Terry: "Danielle's depressed because she knows she's next." And later, "I'd like to see you and me in the final two."
- To Cirie: "You, Danielle and Aras aren't dicking me: correct!? OK I fell pretty good. We're good to the three."
- To camera: "I'm in a great space. I've set myself up so that I'm safe, and I feel like at this point I could beat anybody."
- To Jeff at Tribal Council: "I've not lied to anyone. I've not cheated anyone. My integrity is 100% intact."
Other stuff happened this week, too. For a start we had the reward and immunity challenges, where Shane comes last as often as Terry wins. The reward challenge involved bits of previous challenges, starting with the one where Survivors had to dig up a pillow buried in the sand beneath a hexagon. The first four over a finish line went through to the next round: Shane didn't. Next they had to untie one of the big timber snakes from week 2 and carry it and the bag over a finish line. That knocked Cirie out, so only Aras, Danielle and of course Terry competed in the leg to untie a huge fish from the middle of a pond and carry it, the bag and the snake over a finish line. Running out of hands, Terry actually carried the fish by the tail in his mouth. Maybe nobody told him it wasn't the gross food challenge (which seems to have peaked and expired with the Balut in Palau). Finally Terry and Aras had to carry the bag, the snake and the fish through a maze of tunnels and towers, and still be willing to kiss their loved ones at the end.
Yes, the loved ones were there in person. Terry's reward was that he got to decide how to share out the love, but it was more about sharing out the punishment for those he thinks are working hardest against him. Aras was allowed to at least hug his mom, but Danielle and her mom only got to wave and call out inanities to each other before Danielle was sent to Exile Island for a few days. Cirie, who really is cruising under the radar, got to take her husband back to camp for a night of outdoor horror and slavery. Terry naturally took his wife on the conjugal visit, and invited Shane and his son Boston to also share in the overnight stay at a two-bedroom villa with a very well stocked fridge.
Boston has clearly inherited his father's tiny attention span. Well, either that or he was actually listening to Shane's minute-by-minute description of the previous 33 days and was just bored. Either is possible. What was absolutely indisputable is that he's inherited his father's knack for being vastly wrong: "I think my dad's doing really well in the game, 'cause he knows how to play the game and he's really smart and athletic." Fortunately we were spared their farewell, although we did have to sit through a whole lot of jokes about the sleep to 'snuggling' ratio Terry and his wife managed for the night.
Cirie's husband is even more of a city slicker than she is, if that's possible. How else can we explain his duck and cover reaction to the sound of a stick cracking in the fire. There's not too many cars at camp from which to commit a drive-by. After recoiling in horror at the level of suspended particulate in their drinking water ("What are you gonna do with that; drink it? I thought that was the basin y'all washed your feet in!") he spent the rest of the time hauling the stuff back to camp, as well as gathering firewood, scaling fish and not complaining about it too much.
The TV guide description for this week read "A fight between two castaways leads one to learn something important about the other." Aras learned that Terry thinks a wife's love is more important than a mom's. Aras pointed out that his mom is his 'rock' in the absence of a wife. They both got defensive and glared at each other over the fire. Cirie sat and watched, absorbed everything and said nothing, as she usually does. Hardly a fight, and she did all the learning.
The immunity challenge put each Survivor on top of a twenty foot high pole out at sea, trying to use a bucket on a rope to pour enough water in a tube to raise a flag. Shane came last and Terry won, but then Shane had completely misunderstood the instructions and was pouring water into the wrong hole.
With the immunity bauble around his neck yet again and the individual immunity idol in his bag, Terry is now guaranteed a place in the final three. Either the others still don't believe he's got the idol or they haven't done the math, but there is still absolute certainty in the mind of each person that their own alliance will make up the final three, and since most of those alliances don't include Terry someone is about to be rather disappointed.
As a contrast to Shane's rubbish, Aras made one of the most accurate statements ever heard at Tribal Council when asked about Terry's unchallenged ownership of the immunity necklace: "The challenges are just one part of the game. You can win all the challenges you want, but if you don't win the people over you don't win the million dollars."
As you probably guessed by now, Shane won't be winning anything. It was hard to tell whose face betrayed the most emotion: Shane's shock at being voted out, Captain Terry's fury that the crew disobeyed him yet again, or Courtney's realisation that she's now sequestered in the jury's hotel with Shane.
No comments:
Post a Comment