Survivor China: week 5

The title of this week’s episode was "Love is in the air". A more technically accurate title would have been "Unrequited love – thus far at least - is in the air", but that’s not as catchy.

At Crouching Tiger, Jaime and Erik were getting romantic in the lake. Erik is still a virgin so they swapped twee details like middle names instead of bodily fluids. Jaime did, however, say "I’m trying to make it with him all the way through". I’m surprised the producers didn’t edit that last word out and add a wacky ‘boing’ sound. Erik thinks that ‘Jaime Nicole Dugan’ is a nice little sweet Southern name. His later use of the phrase, "Jaime and I’s relationship" was a perfect example of nice little sweet Southern grammar.

At Hidden Tiger, meanwhile, James was checking out Denise’s work ethic. There’s a mutual appreciation society happening there, with James going as far as to say that if she were a couple of years younger and he were a couple of years older, "She’d be in trouble, hee hee!" Never mind the age or the racial differences; with a hair cut like hers I suspect they’re both into women, so their similarities might be the problem.

Actually their biggest problem is that they’re now in different tribes. Some fishermen turned up with a note asking them to circle the names of two Crouching Tiger members to become part of Hidden Dragon. The note was a little bit coy about whether this is a temporary mutual kidnapping, a permanent swap or some kind of substitute merge. Either way, Courtney immediately sussed that Crouching Tiger would receive exactly the same note and pick James and Aaron, whereas PG got all excited that they were about to get an extra two members without realised they would also lose two. Courtney was spot on, but the Crouching Sheep believed PG and so the second note telling Sherea and Frosti to pack their bags came as a massive shock.

While both tribes received a basket of fruit and alcohol to smooth the introductions, one pair of nomads clearly got the better end of the deal. My pick for scene of the week came when James asked Crouching Tiger, "Who is the brain of the group?" (and please note his use of the singular form of both verb and noun). There was silence for a bit, and then Jaime said in her nice little sweet Southern voice, "We kind of all are." James didn’t look convinced. Aaron just sat there and looked blond, bless him.

Frosti and Sherea had it much better at Hidden Dragon. Jean-Robert seemed to find either his work ethic or his survival instinct in the bottom of the fruit basket. The next morning he was up starting a fire, boiling water and cooking rice while the others took the opportunity to comment sarcastically on this sudden burst of hitherto unknown energy. Jean-Robert is supposed to be a professional poker player, but he looked like he’d been dealt a pair of twos when he asked Denise to set the fish traps with him and she replied "Yes, Tribe Leader". He claimed not to be the tribe leader, looking very nervous about how this was playing out in front of the new kids, so Denise simply asked why he was throwing around orders if he’s not a leader, and then explained the power of asking nicely. I’m starting to see what James likes about her.

The Survivor’s suitcases must have also been at the bottom of the fruit baskets because they all inexplicably turned up to the immunity challenge wearing proper swimwear (Denise’s perhaps being the ugliest in Survivor History). Two people had to alternate to dive under the water, release puzzle pieces (oddly enough by pulling out sticks, not untying knots), and return to the mat for three others to solve th puzzle. PG and Jaime had decided to throw the next two immuity challenges so that they could vote out Aaron and James and the numbers from the original tribes would be five-five going into the merge. Like most things PG says, there were huge gaps of logic in that sentence, the biggest being her assumption that the tribes would even merge, let alone at the point where there are ten people left.

Erik and Aaron had Crouching Tiger in the lead coming back to shore with the 12 Chinese zodiac puzzle pieces. PG and Jaime were so obviously trying to lose that Jeff noticed it, even if James didn’t because he was so obviously trying to win. When Jaime confessed to her Erik that they’d thrown the challenge he was really hurt, and decided that perhaps there’s some trust issues with his nice little sweet Southern belle. Unfortunately his only chance for survival now is to stick with the brilliant, failure-proof plan that PG and Jaime have conjured up and forced upon him.

At Tribal Council, Jeff grilled Jaime until she confessed to throwing the challenge, which left poor James in a moral dilemma. On one hand he hates quitters and doesn’t want to be part of a tribe that could willingly lose, but walking away would make him a quitter and he hates quitters so he has to keep living with them. Aaron seemed a bit confused by it all, bless him, until Jeff read out his name a lot and then said "Aaron, the Tribe has spoken."

Next week is the return of one of my all time favourites – the gross food challenge. Having seen what’s under the covers on the trolley our local yum cha usually doesn’t bother bringing to our table, it should be a season highlight.