SURVIVOR

Amazon Episode 6: More Than Meats the Eye

Full moon. Night fifteen. The show has begun. Be quiet, people. Hyenas are very excitable and we have a few around the newly reorganized Camp Tampa Queen Version 2.0 tonight. They have just expelled Jeanne and C Girl wants to know why she's still here. Why isn't she the one kicked out? She tells the camera though that she's not angry at High D. She never explains, and I don't know why.

King Dick says that Jeanne is dispensible because she shares many of the same traits as the guys - gee, does this mean that those guys are dispensible too? - while they need High D for her strength (huh?) and C Girl for her enthusiasm. He really says "enthusiasm". He concludes by declaring that they must "forge forth"!

Dr Dave watches, his face mirrors mine as we both stare aghast at this transparently insincere speech. He tells the camera that this is the first time he is listening to the Two Old Farts talking about enthusiasm and love and munchkins. He says that the men gunned for Jeanne because she's the next to go in the old Jamboree. Which makes sense: instead of recruting an outsider against members of old tribe to play against the tribe, they keep High D and boot out a potential new ally. Smart.

High D tells everybody that she did what did for the good of the team. She keeps getting funnier and funnier every episode.

C Girl mutters that she is glad they see something in her. Dr Dave calls for bedtime, and they all take a nap.

How exciting. This tribe is turning into the love tribe, and it's sickening.

Whoa! It's an eclipse! No, it's the glory of Dr Dave's almighty torsal nudity. Morning shines bright, hello day sixteen, hello Dr Dave. He immediately drags the Two Old Farts with him on some "fishing trip", where you can bet there's going to be some heated discussion over last night's insincerity trip.

"Butch! King Dick! You promised me that I will be your pretty little darling forever! I did what you said, I did what you want me to do, and now you're tossing me over for some silly deaf chick?"

"Aw, shucks, Dave, we just want some privacy and you are always whining about me and Butch making too much funny monkey noises at night, what better than to get a deaf pretty lady will never complain? Besides, I want to borrow her bra. You think I look good in polka-dotted push-up, Butchie?"

"Oh, Dickie, red is such your color. Make sure you ask C Girl to lend you her pretty pink frilly knickers too!"

"You all are crazy!"

"Shut up Dave. If you want us to love you again and spank you like the bad lil' boy you are, you go steal me C Girl's polka-dotted push-up now!"

Back at camp, High D is bitching at the camera that she and C Girl are stuck here at camp while the guys are away fishing. So what is the problem, exactly? Is is surprising that the men don't want to even look at this skeletal craggle creature with bad boob job now that she has played right into their hands? Wake up and smell the coffee, High D. She wonders aloud whether she has done the right thing by stabbing Jeanne in the back.

Over at Jamboree Version 2.0, we get a truly fearsome close-up of Queen Elfreda and his pearly white teeth that he brushes with a toothbrush left behind by either Jeanne, Heidi, or C Girl. Ugh. He claims that this is the first time in sixteen days that he gets to brush his teeth properly, and to prove it, he swallows the toothpaste. Yummy yum yum. Does this guy even exist in society as we know it? I know he claims to hunt cannibals in Indonesia a few years back, but I can't help but to wonder if this sexy Jungle Book Mowgli dude is actually the one the explorers found in those Indonesian woods. Rat Boy asks if anyone wants to make out with him. I would be interested to see what his reaction would be if Hippodeena volunteers, but alas, she doesn't. He is shocked, he tells the camera, that the girls (read: Shameless and Jabba) don't jump at the offer. Oh Rat Boy is so funny he cracks me up. Sheesh.

Queen Hippodeena is readjusting to her new tribe after the initial shock of the last few days. She likes the guys but she suspects that she is their next target. Queen Elfreda concurs with her that she is a threat to them all when she and he meet for some royal queenly private chit-chat. She tells him that this new tribe is more laidback and casual and there is less plotting and scheming going on. This is how girls are different from guys, she says. Queen Elfreda nods earnestly as he swallows her BS, hook, line, sinker.

Alex and Shameless continue their flirtation. Which is stupid, if you ask me, because there's nothing like two pretty prom babes to make everyone else resentful enough to plot an ouster. "Is love in the air?" Alex asks rhetorically before answering his own question, "Maybe." He says he loves to flirt and it feels good to flirt with a spineless, whiny douchebag who loves to flirt back. They lie down on the shelter where she discovers her lifelong vocation of Being Every Guy's Pillow. She runs her fingers through his hair. He asks her not to stop. She says that the guys really saved her - pathetic - and that Alex has seen her at her worst - oh, really? - and she wants to know him better, if he's willing. Disgusting. It's like watching Barbie and Skeletor in love.

Then Rat Boy and Hippodeena find treemail and we're hauled off to the Reward Challenge before we all die of sugar shock in the Amazon.

This week's Reward Challenge must rank as one of the best ever. Mark Burnetto must have gotten some almighty inspiration this week, because this one simply rocks. We have a pit of mud upon which a revolving log traverses across the pit. Two members from opposite tribes of the same sex with duke it out to see who can remain on the log the longest. Each winner gives the tribe one point. The first tribe to win five points wins a huge tray of fresh fruits and yummy goodies. The tribes are obviously very excited at the reward, and they can't jump onto the log fast enough. Except for Hippodeena, who sits out because she's tough and she'll trash every weenie that dares stand against her on the log.

The first to square off are King Dick versus Queen Elfreda. Who among the two former rulers of the old Tampa Queen will prevail? Queen Elfreda who can look truly menacing without even trying finally drives home the fear in King Dick's heart and King Dick falls into the mud with a loud ker-plop! to the cheers of everyone. Queen Elfreda pounds his chest, King-Kong searching for Fay Wray style, before retreating back like the Queen he is. See, Queen Elfreda has the power. All he has to do is to find the force within to unleash it and win this game. Jamboree one, Tampa Queen zero.

High D and Shameless square off. High D falls. Hi, fifth period gym class, say hello to your teacher! Jamboree two, Tampa Queen zero.

Alex and Dr Dave. Whoa, those two are really duking it out, as both try to stay in balance while moving the log to topple off the other... or is it? Watch the scene carefully: Dr Dave is barefoot when he steps onto the log, but we see a guy wearing slippers that fall when Dr Dave falls after Alex. Yup, Burnetto uses body doubles to reenact this particularly "exciting" scene. I wonder how "exciting" the actual square-off really is. Still, seeing the top of Dr Dave's red Speedos is exciting enough for me. (Please move away those "Sad!" signs from my face, please.) Jamboree two, Tampa Queen one.

Butch versus Rat Boy. Rat Boy, at an disadvantage due to his pendulous manboobs that affect his center of gravity, returns to the mud from where he crawls from. Ker-plop! I love this show. Jamboree and Tampa Queen tie at two points each.

Then it's the Duel of the Rival Femmes - C Girl versus Jabba! Will Good triumph over Skank? Ah, but C Girl is diabolical. I was worried for a while that the problems with her ears will impair her balance, but not this C Girl, oh no. Watch as determination etches on her face as she bends forward slightly to stabilize herself! Watch as she deftly moves the log! Watch as Jabba stands straight like a dummy, flounders, and falls head first down with a small scream! Wooh hoo! Tampa Queen three, Jamboree two!

King Dick versus Alex. Down goes King Dick. Man, he has no sense of balance, that King Dick. Tribes tie once more at three points each.

Shameless versus High D again, and once more, High D falls. Jamboree four, Tampa Queen three.

Butch versus Queen Elfreda. Queen Elfreda overestimates himself, trips, and offers Tampa Queen a free point. Tie at four points each, oh dear.

C Girl steps onto the log and looks impassively as Jabba once more confront her. But the power of Skank is no match for the power of Good, and Jabba is sent once more spinning down into the mud. Hey, with her acne, she could use some mud facial. C Girl's tribemates hug her and they all do a strange butterfly-fingers sign before whooping their tribe name. Weird. But C Girl doing her victory sight is a sight to savor. You go, girl! Swing those arms and flash that million-dollar smile at the world some more!

Jamboree is disappointed as the Tampa Queen begins munching away at the goodies they have won. "It's all about the immunity, guys," Alex tells his tribemates for what little consolation his words could offer.

As the Tampa Queens have the feast of their lives, the Jamboreers decide to do some little TLC of their own. Jabba says that they all decide to take what's left of the toiletries they have won previously and have a monkey-see, monkey-bathe orgy down the river. Poor Queen Elfreda. His tongue is all but hanging out as he begs to be allowed to rub Shameless' back with a loofah. His "Nice bikini!" to Jabba is the thing fat, geeky losers say to pretty girls at the prom, and Jabba's veiled look of disgust is the thing these pretty girls throw back at those losers. Queen Hippodeena tells the camera in her deliciously cynical way that there are lots of "monkey grooming" going on. Jabba tells the camera that if her assets can help her go far, she'll use them to her advantage. Queen Elfreda makes an obscene moan as Shameless scrubs her back. I don't understand how you can get a bunch of decent-looking people half-naked in a river and still create a totally unsexy scene like the one I'm seeing on TV now. Alex in Speedos? Okay, although his Skeletor thin state is not too sweet on the eyes. There is just too much of Rat Boy's hanging bare manboobs and his puppy fat physique in his bulgeless Speedos, however. Rat Boy declares that wow, he has bathed with two beautiful women and one of them is a bikini model. He forgets to mention that he is also bathing with the mad-looking cannibalistic Queen Elfreda, the Skeletor, and Queen Hippodeena.

Queen Hippodeena, ignored by the rest because even if she looks more beautiful than Jabba and Shameless at the moment because she lacks those plastic hips and ballast breasts, says that it's okay - she sits back and watches and takes note of who is playing the game and who is just drooling. She is watching and taking notes, plotting a plot like the deviously cunning Queen that she is. They will all pay when they realize that this Queen will end up on top at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, at camp Tampa Queen, High D, looking like a dessicated old hag wearing a dead poodle on her head, says that she is now confident that her tribe is a strong one and she has made the right choice in sticking around. C Girl is happy that she sinks Jabba not once but twice in a day. Dr Dave watches, looking lost and not too happy with the way things are going, as C Girl bonds with the Two Old Farts. Butch launches into a cringe-inducing and totally insincere speech about how he will remember C Girl's smile as one of the most defining moments in his life. Yeah, Butchie? Define my middle digit, you fake drama queen! Poor C Girl, always desparate for acceptance, bites the bait as Butch, the King of Suck-up, tells her, "You have no disability." She thanks Butch coolly, but falls apart in happy tears to the camera. Oh, C Girl, you are so gullible. They will vote you out without much ado.

Back at the Jamboree camp, Rat Boy says that he used to have an alliance with Alex, but now Alex seems more preoccupied in getting a close look at Shameless' bikini bottom now. Alex is losing momentum, he says, and that is stupid. Is Rat Boy jealous? Awww. He recognizes Hippodeena as a fellow outcast of the tribe, however, and decides to approach her. That woman, he says, is as power hungry as he is. Even better, nobody would ever suspect that they both are in an alliance. He takes the opportunity to broach the subject of an alliance to Hippodeena as they wash their clothes together at the river away from the other tribemembers. Queen Hippodeena says that they both need help, so they may as well help each other. And they form a plan. Rat Boy wants Queen Elfreda out, but both teams recognize that Queen Elfreda is the only guy who has the mojo to catch fish and also, they may need Queen Elfreda's vote to help swing the advantage their way. Rat Boy nods and concurs to Queen Hippodeena on this.

So Rat Boy talks to the blissfully oblivious, socially inept Queen Elfreda. It is quite amusing to see how Queen Elfreda completely misreads Rat Boy, actually saying that it's great that Rat Boy is distancing himself from the tribe and not playing the game too much. Is this man blind? Rat Boy rightly comments that Queen Elfreda is an idiot who doesn't even know how he is making himself a target of the other tribemates or how he just doesn't seem to be playing the game at all. He tells Queen Elfreda of how they will squash the tribes and be in the winner's circle and all that rot, but hey, he will ditch Queen Elfreda the moment his vote becomes unnecessary.

Queen Elfreda, happy that he's now in an alliance, never pause in his vigorious woodchopping, fishing, and lying down at the shelter in exhaustion to wonder how he even got himself into one. He's just happy being there, among happy people who likes him, that poor pathetic fool. Although who knows, him stumbling into this alliance may eventually save him from an early ouster. He owes his stay more to Hippodeena that he will ever know.

Incidentally, I like how this season Mark Burnetto is revealing all the intrigues and scheming going on, unlike Thailand where nothing is shown and everybody gets bored and go home. This is what good Survivor is all about: outscheme, outsmart, out-BS!

Night falls, still day sixteen, still Jamboree. All huddle around the fire, and Jabba, for reasons best left unsaid, decides to start a "How will you date Shameless?" game. How nice. She must be so fun to have over at sleepovers. I'm not even going to touch this shamelessly corny conversation, although Queen Elfreda hints that he probably stuffs his date in the trunk of his car for a jolly good time. Creepy, that guy. I like him. Shameless is happy because she is the center of a testosterone weeing contest, although seeing how her suitors are a cannibal-lookalike creepo, a pudgy loser, and a Skeletor, I won't be so fast to feel high if I were her. Shameless reiterates how these guys have saved her from the women. She is such a pathetic clingy doormat that she still couldn't stand upright even if they inject testosterone into her spinal cord.

Ah, it's a new day, day seventeen to be exact, and a love triangle is brewing. Queen Elfreda sighs as he rests his cheek on Shameless' tummy - while a displeased Alex looks on from where he is resting beside Shameless, mind you. Alex is not happy, naturally. He doesn't like the idea of a menage-du-anaconda with Shameless and Queen Elfreda. I guess he may get confused about which side he should swing with Queen Elfreda thrown into the loop.

Hippodeena notes sagely that Alex and Shameless are just digging their own graves: one of them will have to go. Nobody gets any when she isn't getting any! ("Yeah!" her new minion Rat Boy will chime in. "And not when I'm not getting any either!")

At camp Tampa Queen, Butch and C Girl find treemail - it's a big bone. Butch tells her that he doesn't want to meet the dog that has lost this bone. I don't think he's talking about King Dick. The tribe discuss what they may have to do. Dr Dave sighs when C Girl tries to play coy and tells her bluntly that she will do whatever they're going to do at the immunity.

Jeff Proboscis announces that the Immunity Challenge will bring out the piranha in each contestants. Eh, I thought the Pretty Princesses did that already last episode? There are two huge pieces of beef - cooked and even sauced, so don't worry, people - each hanging from a hook. The tribe members will be tied up and they must chew off the meat with their mouths. The tribe that chewed off more meat in ten minutes win immunity!

Aw, too bad nobody here is a vegetarian.

Jabba sits out. Meat ain't good for bikini models.

This must be the grossest challenge ever. Seriously, watching these people tear apart meat and then spitting it to a dish nearby is bad enough, but watching their sauce-smeared face tearing at chunks of meat is nothing compared to Hippodeena stepping on a piece of meat Queen Elfreda drops and then the man picking it back up anyway, or when a piece of meat gets stuck between King Dick's teeth and High D shoves her tongue in some disgusting perverted kiss to take it out! She bites his tongue and quickly apologizes. This is the first time I actually feel sorry for poor High D for having to snog a man who smells like spoiled vinegar and who hasn't brushed his teeth properly in seventeen days. Shameless holds her piece of meat - no, not Alex's, the big meat (no, not - oh, forget it). Jabba cheers them on: "Get a huge piece, you guys! Everybody chew!"

I think I'm going to be sick.

Ten minutes can't pass fast enough! Jeff Proboscis calls the chewfest to a halt. Queen Hippodeena straightens at that, and the meat bone whacks against the back of her head hard.

Jeff Proboscis weighs the meat, and then announces that the Tampa Queen wins immunity by a slight margin. The winners cheer and do their butterfly fingers thing. C Girl smiles wide and bright and they all hug and celebrate their victory by running their scrubby paws and sauce-smeared face all over the Idol of Sexy Goodness. The Bride of Satan would be so happy to watch such pagan, abandoned worship of that idol.

Day eighteen at last. We are with the Jamborees. They are all disconsolate and Shameless is crying as they all lie down at the hut and stare at the roof. Hippodeena announces that she doesn't want to go. Shameless says that she doesn't want the girls to go before she does. Alex calls her awesome. She calls him awesome. I call them both sickening. Alex is certain that either he or she will go. Queen Hippodeena prefers Shameless' company to Queen Elfreda's. Rat Boy is not happy because, as he tells the camera, he has worked so hard to bring Queen Elfreda to the darkside. To the others, he says that it sucks that the guy he wants to vote out (King Dick) is on the other tribe. Shameless laughs weakly.

What I'm struck by is how Shameless is so willing to lie down and die just because she thinks she will be going. She has at least two men under her thrall - why won't she use it to her advantage? Like Queen Elfreda, she has powers she just doesn't know how to use to her advantage. These people are like Luke Skywalkers without Obi-Wan Kenobi to guide them to release their force.

At the Tribal Council, Jeff Proboscis gets the tribe members to BS about their roles in the tribe. Queen Hippodeena says that there is a lot of scheming, sorry, energy going around. Queen Elfreda relishes the role he plays as the tribe provider because, in his own words, they "need to eat well" and "eating fish is good". He really must be a modern-day Mowgli. Rat Boy calls himself the tribe bitch, I mean, joker.

Shameless announces that she has left her darkest hour and she gets all high and glowing, thanks to the guys. She's in the long haul, she says when Probby asks her, but the last two days are like someone hauling her head out of her butt. She can breathe again. She is free! She is alive!

Queen Hippodeena says that this is the most difficult vote for all of them.

Oh, really? I see everybody - except Alex and Shameless, naturally - casting Shameless out of the darkness to the Loser Lodge. So difficult, huh? Rat Boy calls Shameless "one of the nicest people I have ever met. You put what's good for others ahead of what's good for you. Unfortunately that makes you a terrible Survivor player". Alex calls Queen Elfreda a threat to him.

Queen Elfreda is really dripping sweat and looking terrified when Probby "tallies" the votes. Aw, poor man, let momma here give you a machete and let you go wild with it. Shameless looks calm, resigned. Jabba tries to look shocked when Shameless goes, but since she is one of the four people who throw Shameless out of the tribe, she has the nerve to fake it so blatantly.

Shameless actually looks overjoyed to be gone in her final words. She thanks everyone on the show for giving her an educational and enlightening experience. Yeah, yeah, be off with you lady. One down, two more to go.

Before YouTube, recapping music videos is totally a thing and not a waste of time. Really..

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