Survivor Fiji: week 4

A soliloquy
Is not an excuse to talk
When no-one listens

Mark Burnett and his fellow Survivor producers seem to have some sort of magical gag over contestants because they NEVER talk to each other during the return trip from a challenge or Tribal Council. It gives the camera crew time to get set up in camp before the recriminations start, and make sure not a juicy second is missed.

This week they must have been wishing they could gag Earl even after he was back at camp. Earl wanted a calm, rational discussion to clear the air and prevent social pressures from building to the point where someone explodes. Luckily for the ratings Rocky had plenty to say in a soliloquy at Anthony that was as illogical and sexist as it was one-sided. Apparently he’s not used to dealing with people who are emotional, unless it’s a ‘broad’ (no offence to the ladies). And (no offence to Anthony) but apparently he doesn’t deserve to be there as much as Jessica and Erica, with whom Rocky did get along even though they’re both ‘broads’ and Erica was ridiculously emotional. If they deserved to still be in the tribe more than Anthony why didn’t Rocky lobby harder to keep Jessica, and why did he lobby so hard to get rid of Erica? He finished with the words "some people got it and some people don’t". Presumably the ‘it’ about which he spoke was hypocrisy.

Poor Anthony. Apparently he got picked on in the playground as child, and here someone is picking on him in front of the whole world in the manner of a child. He assures us, however, that "If they want me off this island they’re going to have to push me off!" His performance in this week’s reward challenge suggests he’ll probably fall off before they get that chance. He couldn’t stay on the balance beam, which was enough for Ravu to lose yet again and for Moto to add a king-sized bed and a spice rack to their already impressive camp facilities.

Rocky’s reaction to losing yet again (once they were back at camp and the camera crew shouted "Action") was just as irrational and spectacular as his earlier outburst promised him capable of being. He threw coconuts, shouted, blamed Anthony – which was actually justifiable this time – walked around naked for a bit and then put on one of Rita’s many bikini tops and turned up for the next challenge in drag. Bless him.

As this episode went to air in Australia, Paris Hilton was being released from prison to home detention because she was crying a lot and has a bad rash. Papa Smurf Gary was evacuated from Moto’s camp to resort detention because he wasn’t breathing a lot and has a bad rash comprised entirely of insect bites. He’s had malaria and done a tour of ‘Nam but neither was as bad as the way his broken ribs were making him feel. Lisi’s laugh couldn’t have been helping either.

The decision that Papa Smurf was too sick to return to the game must have come through after the immunity challenge was all set up and ready to go, because in previous seasons they’d have just cancelled it and Tribal Council for the week. Instead the challenge went ahead, with a nasty little twist at the end.

This one had lots of swimming and unlocking each other from bamboo cages. Moto won of course, and then found out that they could keep either immunity OR their luxury camp, but not both. They chose luxury, so Ravu got a week off from Tribal Council and Yau-Man has an extra three days to try and dig up the immunity idol following his stay on Exile Island and receipt of the fourth clue.

Andre aka Dre aka ‘Dreamz’ is Moto’s version of James aka Boston aka Rocky. His strategic approach to their first Tribal Council was to talk at his tribe mates for over half a minute, with many references to snakes but no reference to anything intelligible about what they should do. Finally he announced his solution: "There’s two people we can afford to lose and – I ain’t pointin’ no fingers – (points at Lisi) it’s Lisi (points at Cassandra) and Cassandra." Logically what he said was correct because the double negative meant he was pointing at those two, but logic doesn’t really feature much in Dreamzland.

Lisi was bemused because she seems to have a pretty solid alliance with four of the others. Cassandra was just horrified because with Papa Smurf gone she’s the next oldest person in the tribe. Alex and Edguardo both refused to vote for Lisi and said they would therefore vote for Cassandra. Liliana – who has barely said two words on camera all season but has done a lot of bedtime massages for the buff young men in her tribe –told Cassandra that she had to vote for her to stay in good with the rest and protect her own interests. Oddly enough, nobody mentioned just getting rid of Dreamz instead.

Those who actually still watch the show will be familiar with the little moments of the local wildlife going about its day that get edited in between scenes and in the return from ad breaks. Sometimes it’s a dangerous beastie like a crocodile, sometimes it’s a little cutie like a fruit bat with big puppy eyes, and sometimes it’s a creepy crawly like a big spider. This week we had a twelve second close-up (yes, I rewound and timed it) of one snake sliding forward out of another snake’s mouth. There’s conjecture in our house that it was a snake shedding its skin, but they both had eyeballs and the one doing the regurgitating had a tongue. I don’t know how the other snake got in there. I don’t know why it suddenly wanted out. I’ve watched it too many times now and I don’t want to see anything like it ever again.

Anyway, back at Moto, Lisi and Stacey tried to convince the three boys in their alliance to vote out Liliana instead of Cassandra. The boys said it didn’t make any sense since Liliana is as strong as the boys in the challenges and Cassandra is bad at everything. What they perhaps meant is that Liliana gives really good massages and Cassandra is, like, old (for the record she’s only 42, but remember this is Hollywood).

Dreamz clearly has no idea what a soliloquy is but at Tribal Council he assured Jeff that he didn’t go off on one, which Lisi had accused him of doing. Actually he assured Jeff that he didn’t go off on a "shaquilla or whatever..." Boo laughed, but I suspect that’s just because everyone else laughed. There’s no way we’ll be hearing Boo doing scenes from Hamlet any time soon to demonstrate his extensive knowledge of English Literature.

Maybe it was a done deal before Tribal Council, or maybe what convinced people how to vote was the bit where Cassandra complemented Liliana on how strong she is and how far she’ll go in the game, but was really pointing out what a threat Liliana will be if she’s allowed to stay. Either way, the massage queen is gone (it's been all girls so far) and Cassandra lives another day. Actually if Moto keep winning challenges at this rate they won’t be back at Tribal Council for a while yet and she’ll make it onto to the jury!