Survivor Cook Islands: week 10

This is turning into a cracker of a series, which kind of makes the staying up worth it. The best part is that it’s probably going to get even better.

It was an inauspicious start with Jonathan yet again doing all the housework for the rest of the frat house, which is essentially what the Raro campsite has turned into thanks to Adam, Candice, Nate and Parvati prancing about like an ad for Tommy Hilfiger’s latest. He tried to rev them up, but why get excited about collecting firewood and water when everyone knows Jonathan will do it anyway if nobody else does.

Luckily for Jonathan the reward challenge was cancelled in favour of the merge, which was accompanied by new – and, more importantly to him, clean – buffs. Also on offer was the semi-traditional merge feast, held this time on a traditional Cook Island catamaran. The feast was matched with complimentary alcohol in quantities only limited by the size of Adam and Nate’s bladders. Adam seemed to spend the later stages of the journey leaning over the stern with his head almost down in the water. And no, I don’t believe he was looking for fish. The water clarity probably wasn’t that great by the time he stopped anyway.

Between scenes of Adam and Parvati flirting and caressing shamelessly in the shelter, and scenes of Adam and Candice flirting and kissing shamelessly in the jungle, there was an immunity challenge. Survivors had to hold onto a pole for as long as possible, with only some rope as a toe hold. Adam lasted 9 minutes, with Jonathan and Nate not far behind. By comparison, Sundra was the first of the girls to give up at a respectable 32 minutes with Ozzy finally beating out Candice after two and a quarter hours up there. The guy is apparently a freak on land as well as in the water.

Also straddling the immunity challenge was Yul’s attempts to get Jonathan back to Aitu’s faction. A few hypothetical discussions about trust and possession of the immunity idol softened Jonathan from his initial avowal that he’d never betray Raro. Some or all of the following comments from Yul probably helped, too:

1. I have the immunity idol and if Raro votes for me I’ll use it to save myself.
   
2. If you don’t join our alliance, I’ll make sure that Aitu all vote for you so you’ll have the next highest number of votes and will be sent home.
   
3. I want to take you to the final two because I know I can beat you.

$100,000 as runner up is better than nothing, so Jonathan didn’t have a whole lot of choices and he knew it. He’s already betrayed Aitu with his mutiny, and while rejoining them looked to be his best hope of surviving a bit longer in the game it meant betraying the few remaining people left in the game whom he hadn’t betrayed already. And don’t forget that he stole that chicken in week 1. He used some choice words to describe his situation, which must have slipped past the producers who were busy wielding the pixelation machine for every time either the front of Nate’s pants or the rear of Ozzy’s appeared on screen.

In a very unusual move, not one vote or comment was shown to us on the couch out in TV land, which made the "has he or hasn’t he" tension about Jonathan’s vote rather fabulous right through the poorly-timed ad break. Yul and Nate also had to wait through all nine votes to see who got peel his hands off his eyes and lift them above his head in triumph and relief. Fortunately for the rest of the season that was Yul, and Nate slunk off into the night to begin a video message that was little more than a barrage of vitriol aimed at Jonathan for his betrayal. The looks Jonathan was getting from Adam, Parvati and Candice were silent but no less furious. It’s very clear that they won’t remain silent for long, so next week’s episode should be fantastic since none of them seems to have the nous to shut up and regroup. And we all know what great TV that makes.