SURVIVOR

Guatemala Episode 11: Everything Is Personal

Previously, Jamie had everyone either annoyed with him or creeped out by him so in the end, despite having an alliance with Stephenie and Judd that worked well for him until he started acting like he was auditioning for Marlon Brando's biopic movie, he got the boot the moment Waldo was taken off his neck and he couldn't win Waldo back. If you are paying attention to this season - and things are heating up and becoming exciting at this late stage of the season so it's worth paying some attention to - that means only three men, Gary, Judd, and Rafe, are left in Yownook. Place your bets now on which man will outlast the other two! (Hint: do not ever bet on Gary.)

Night, day twenty-seven. Hey, shouldn't that be day twenty-six? I think I must have overlooked the passing of one day in the previous episode. Since I've already wiped out that episode in order to tape this particular episode, I'm afraid there's no way of finding whether it's my mistake (most likely mine) or not but hey, it's not as if such a technical detail in any way affected the recap of the previous episode. Things that happened in the previous week happened, so let's just get back to day twenty-seven, night-time. As expected, Judd is not the happiest man around to be kept out of the "Let's Get Jamie Outta Here" plan by Stephenie, Rafe, Lydia, and Cindy, his allies. Stephenie gallantly asks him whether he's okay, although she probably won't like it if Judd goes off on her the way he went off on poor Margaret. Judd stutters and stammers like the bad liar he is that he's fine, only that he wishes that someone had told him of the plan. Stephenie tells Judd a credible lie, saying that the others didn't want to put Judd in the uncomfortable position of knowing that his buddy Jamie was going to get booted. I'm sure they really didn't tell Judd because they didn't want Judd to spoil their plan by lying badly or, worse, informing Jamie of the coup in the hatching. Judd assures her that he's fine and he understands the situation. Of course he doesn't. He tells the camera, using "like" and "man" like he's an extra in the movie Legally Blonde, that he's shocked that Jamie was gone and yes, he was angry about it and now he would wonder what happened to his alliance as well as what would happen to him next.

Elsewhere, a somewhat gruesome cozying-up takes place as Gary uses his puckered-up lips to thank Lydia for helping him stay on in this game. He even calls Lydia "babe". He doesn't reach down and smack her behind though. Maybe he really is a landscaper and not a footballer, hmm. Lydia tells him that she'd rather have Gary here than Jamie. Yeah, because what Lydia thinks about and wants are very important in the scheme of things on this show. Gary and his creepy dead eyes tell the camera that he thinks Jamie did him a favor by alienating the others but he thinks that his old ties with his old team mates (Stephenie, Lydia, and Rafe) helped him "dodge the bullet". Let him keep believing that for the rest of the episode. Back to the camp, the Yownooks all settle down to sleep while talking about how much nicer the camp is now that Jamie is gone. This has me thinking that it will be so cool if Burnetto introduces a new twist where Jamie, Bobby Jon, and future members of the Jury are allowed to form a tribe and wage guerilla-style sabotage on the Yownooks. Can you imagine what Jamie will do if he hears these people talking about him while he is hiding in the shadows? A plus will be that the Jury would have worked out their pettiness as a result of all this fun when the finale rolls in and I will be spared of hypocritical displays of self-righteousness and indignance from them. Hey, Burnetto, let's do something like this for the next season!

Day twenty-eight, morning. It's now time to study the evidence that Gary and Lydia can be really quite daft. First, Lydia tells the camera that she is still uncertain that she did the right thing by supporting the other Yownooks in booting Jamie. She also worries that she is next on the chopping block unless she plays her cards correctly and she wonders whether she has made herself more vulnerable now that Jamie is gone. Back at camp, Gary and Lydia are the first ones awake. As they sit around the fire, they begin to talk. Gary, in a manner that can't be mistaken for subtlety in any way, drills Lydia on what could be happening in this tribe and gets Lydia to confirm that Stephenie is the one calling the shots around the place. Gary tries to get Lydia to buy his belief that a four-person alliance can dominate a tribe of seven people. Considering how he was saying that Lydia was not worthy or deserving in the previous episode, I have a good laugh at Gary's stone-faced willingness to betray what is apparently his principles to stay on in the game. That helps me in starting to like him, a little. While Gary is conducting his idea of a conversation with Lydia, speaking loudly, Judd is awake. He pretends to be asleep, but oh, Judd is listening to every word. Judd makes fun of those two in his confessional, mocking Gary's efforts and Lydia's eyes that are apparently bulging out of their sockets. Finally, Judd moves about deliberately, causing Gary and Lydia to go "Oh no! He caught us!" to each other. Silly twits.

Judd later reports to Rafe and Stephenie, saying of Gary and Lydia, "He's trying to get her in bad!" Thanks for the gruesome imagery, Judd. Rafe tells the camera that Judd, now insecure about his place in the tribe after Jamie's boot, is always trying to seek reassurances of his position in the tribe from Rafe and Stephenie and of course those two are always happy to placate Judd. It's only sensible gameplay to do so, after all. Stephenie tells the other two that Lydia is disposable - it's Cindy that they have to work to ensure that she doesn't defect to the other side, especially now when, as Rafe tells the camera, they are starting to believe that Lydia is getting closer to Gary and Danni. Stephenie emphasizes to her two cohorts that it is very important that they don't let Gary win the next Immunity. She announces that she doesn't even want him to win the Reward. From being reasonable, gameplay strategy-wise, to being outright petty in a heartbeat, that Stephenie - I wonder what Gary did to her. Then again, this is Stephenie, the self-absorbed Guatemalan Queen of Bitter Sense of Self-Entitlement. Judd then gives a silly confessional where he accuses Gary of being a liar because Gary told Stephenie and him in their stay at Louie's mansion in the last episode that Lydia and Cindy aren't deserving to be in the game and now Gary is trying to ally himself with them. True, that makes Gary a hypocrite if he truly means what he says of Cindy and Lydia not deserving to be on the show - and honestly, it's hard not to agree with Gary when it comes to freaking useless Lydia - but it also makes him someone who is trying to win the game. Gary may be a dumbass if he believes the deserving crap he is spewing but he is quite smart if he is flexible enough to bend his principles in order to win. Isn't that right, Rafe? Besides, who is Judd to condemn other people for lying? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Gary is still working Lydia on a four-person alliance but Lydia is not certain of her ability to turn Cindy against Stephenie, Judd, and Rafe. However, Lydia tells the camera that she is willing to try and work things out for herself in this game, even if it means that she has to break away from her alliance. She says that she has to "cover" her "own ass" so if someone comes up to her with a better deal, she's all for it. Wow, Lydia is making sense for once, good for her! It's time that she realizes that she is at the lowest point in the totem pole of her alliance and she's only in that alliance to serve as an extra vote and nothing more. Lydia is smarter than the idiots in Palau, which, considering how wretched Lydia is so far as a non-player on this season, damns the Palau idiots like Gregg, Katie, J Lyo, and Ian very much indeed.

It's now time for the Reward Challenge which is the now predictable variation of the Coconut Chop of Marquesas Challenge. One can argue that Burnetto is beating that pattern of Challenge to death, but it is dismaying that apart from All-Stars where the entire dominating alliance conspired as one to hand the biggest prize to the clueless Hagrid just to hide the nature of their alliances, no Survivors seem to understand what the hierarchy-exposing Challenge can do to their gameplay. In the Guatemalan version of this particular Challenge, there are three pots of corn for each Survivor. If they answer a multiple-choice question from Probby correctly using the now familiar alphabet blocks, they get to break a pot of any of the other Yownooks with a cute-looking club. The Yownook with the last unbroken pot wins a trip to "a natural wonder of Guatemala", where a "cascading" waterfall of hot water falls into a pool of cold water to combine and create a spa-like environment. In short, it's some hot spring where they get to eat mojitos and other goodies plus a massage. Of course, alcohol is always provided. We don't want to deprive these Survivors of the bare essentials after all.

Probby asks the first question, what the natives carved their stories and other doodlings on. Stephenie makes a face and chooses "Sanskrit". Okay, at least she didn't choose "origami", I suppose. Everyone else gets the answer right ("stella"). Judd goes and breaks one of Gary's pot and Probby acts like whoa, that's a surprise. It isn't, Probby. Stop auditioning for WWE, I hear your contract is only up after the next season. Lydia stupidly smashes Stephenie's pot, causing Stephenie to go, "How did I know? How did I know?" She then goes, "Man!" when Danni smashes Stephenie's second pot. Cindy breaks Gary's second pot, Rafe breaks Danni's, and Gary smashes Cindy's pot. As you can see from his vote for her at the Tribal Council two episodes ago and his vote at the end of this episode, it seems like Gary has some grudge against Cindy that isn't shown on TV. It is most likely that he doesn't like her for sticking so hard to Stephenie's alliance, thinks that she has "stolen" his place in Stephenie's alliance, and perceives her action as a betrayal to her original tribemates.

Next question, is it true or false that the losing team in a Mayan courtball game are decapitated and have their heads encased to be use as the balls in future games. Rafe has his mouth all-open in an "Omigosh, that's digusting!" manner. I bet he didn't read Terry Dreary's The Incredible Incans because I did and I know that the answer is true, heh. And so do Lydia, Danni, and Cindy. Lydia smashes the last of Stephenie's pot, sending Stephenie out of the game. Stephenie's response is typical high-school silly girl-speak: "Jealousy gets ya nowhere!" Only, Stephenie probably spells "jealousy" as "jellusy". Or "jealousey". Probby is like, "Oh no, Lydia, are you crazy, girlfriend?" while Lydia tries to justify her stupid move by saying that Stephenie has eaten enough good food and it's time for someone else, like Lydia presumably, to enjoy the rewards of the Challenges. That's a really crazy move on Lydia's part because she is pretty much cutting her ties with Stephenie when her back-up gameplay plan hasn't even been formalized yet. There are only a few more weeks into the game. Lydia should have been more patient because she could go to as many spas as she'd like with a million dollars in her hand! Stephenie tightly points out to Lydia that Gary and Danni - the enemies to Stephenie's alliance that Lydia, technically speaking, is a part of - have enjoyed great rewards too. The unspoken question here to Lydia is: why are you taking out your own allies and not the enemies? I don't like Stephenie but she has a point here when she points out to Lydia about Gary and Danni. It's a truly bad move on Lydia's part to overplay her hand like that, especially when Stephenie isn't the most mature person around and will therefore plot some kind of retaliation, and that's too bad because I'm starting to believe that there's more cunning and strategy to Lydia than I initially suspected. In other news, Danni smashes Judd's first pot and Cindy smashes Gary's third pot to send Gary to join Stephenie at the sidelines.

Probby asks the third question. The Ancient Mayans believed that their Gods fashioned man from what? The answer is corn. I can believe that Probby is made of corn. Judd thinks that it's cocoa beans and he's the only one wrong. Lydia smashes Judd's second pot - boy, she's really sending a message to her allies, doesn't she? - and Danni sends Judd out of the game by smashing his last pot. Cindy smashes Danni's second pot and Rafe smashes Danni's last pot, sending Danni out of the game.

The fourth question asks about the country that doesn't border Guatemala - Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras, or Costa Rica. It's Costa Rica and Rafe is the only one with the correct answer. Since he's Stephenie's lapdog, he breaks Lydia's first pot for Stephenie.

Probby now asks whether it's true or false that the Temple of Tikal is the only temple that was built with the aid of "modern machinery". I don't think Probby is talking about cranes there. The answer is of course false because, as Probby says, there is no "modern machinery" in "ancient Maya". I think that qualifies as the Most Obvious Statement of the Century. Everyone gets that right. Cindy obeys Stephenie and takes out Lydia's second pot. Rafe takes out Lydia's third pot and Stephenie grins because Lydia is such a bitch for daring to go against her, the Bestest Survivor Evah and Doncha Forget It Biatch, and Lydia takes out Rafe's first pot before she joins the others in the sidelines.

Both Cindy and Rafe have two pots unbroken. Probby wants to know whether it's true or false that there are thirteen volcanoes in Guatemala. Cindy thinks that it's true while Rafe thinks that Probby is bluffing. Probby isn't bluffing so Cindy takes out Rafe's second pot. Next question, is it true that the most active time for crocodiles is at dawn? Rafe says yes and Cindy says no. Probby reveals that crocodiles are most active at dusk so Cindy gets to smash Rafe's third pot and wins this Challenge. Some guy, most likely Judd since I can't imagine Gary cheering for her, goes "Wooh! Cindy!" from the sidelines. Cindy is predictably allowed to take one person along with her on her trip and she errs on the safe side and picks Rafe, the person who came closest to beating her when it comes to being under the radar in the recent popularity poll that was the Reward Challenge.

Later, back at camp, Stephenie is on the roll when it comes to sanctimonious and hypocritical self-righteous anger towards Lydia, saying that she didn't really eat that much. Okay, there was that feast in the first Immunity Challenge after the merge, but she says that it shouldn't count because she "put" her "ass" "on the line" to eat. Okay, if she says so. Then there was that feast in Louie's Lodge, the sharing of Judd's steak and lobster while she dines on her burger, so yeah, Stephenie ate well after only three of the previous three Reward Challenges so how dare Lydia pretend that Stephenie has eaten a lot! That lying cow! She says that Lydia was only lucky to have come this far - as opposed to Stephenie being only lucky to be even on this season at all - and Lydia is just being jealous. "If you're going to be jealous, then you're an idiot," she declares to the camera. This, coming from Miss "Oh, the other tribes always won while I was living in a bad dream that wouldn't end" Self-Entitled Wah-Wah-Wah, is so rich. This is why I say that Lydia is very foolish to openly strike out at Stephenie like that: Stephenie is right now behaving just like I expected her to. Stephenie is truly on the roll, saying that the Challenge proved where people's loyalties lie (as in, their loyalty to her, naturally) and then she moves on to express her wrath on Cindy for daring to take Rafe instead of Stephenie to the hot spa waterfall spot. Oh dear, I hope Stephenie isn't, you know, jealous of Rafe or something, because that would make Stephenie an idiot like she has just said. And the best part of Stephenie's rant? She's speaking all this while with her mouth full of food.

Gary tells the camera that Stephenie eats more than her share in camp, which, to him, is a reason why Stephenie isn't losing weight. Okay, I think he means that Stephenie isn't losing as much weight as some others like Danni because Stephenie has lost weight and to me, her rate of weight loss is about the same as her time in Palau. Unless, of course, she stole Bobby Jon's share of the food or something back then as well. Stephenie, back at camp, is still going at it, now changing her story to that of how everyone left in camp is now "equal" when it comes to eating good food. She's crazy. There's no way that anyone can say that all of them ate the same amount of yummy food no matter how delusional Stephenie can be on a good day. Besides, she just said earlier that she, Gary, and Danni ate more than Lydia. Which is which, Stephenie? Lydia tries to say that her action back then wasn't personal and she planned on taking fellow starving loser Rafe along with her all along (bad answer, she should have said that she had planned to take Stephenie all along because that is an answer that Stephenie obviously would like to hear). Judd announces that everything in this game is personal. He also has announced, by saying that, that he is this season's Jury member who will be bitter and vindictive for all the wrong reasons. Bah. Lydia tells the camera that she doesn't understand why everyone is treating Stephenie like she's some special Miss Thang when she's clearly the biggest threat in the game. I don't think so, honestly, if we look at the number of people in the Jury and in this tribe who don't like Stephenie. I have a hunch that Stephenie would either win by a landslide or be utterly destroyed in the Final Two with no in-between, depending on how Stephenie plays her game. Right now, Stephenie is playing in a way that she's only going to go as far as second place, especially when we have someone like, say, Danni who doesn't give the Jury any reason to dislike her standing beside Stephenie. Back at camp, Stephenie, her mouth still full of food, says that she doesn't want to hear any more about Stephenie eating all the food. I agree. Can we please eliminate Stephenie from my TV now?

Away from the ridiculous pettiness back at Camp Yownook, Rafe and Cindy have a predictable great time. They get massages, they eat, they swim, and as Rafe says, they get touchy-feely in a non-sexual way, which Rafe thinks it's great because he is a touchy-feely person. I guess he thinks that the world should be more touchy-feely. I agree, especially when it comes to Hugh Jackman and me. Ahem. Oh, and they speculate about the reaction back at Camp (they're aren't too far off about people being unhappy) and how Lydia is such a pushover for Gary and Danni. Funny, they don't mind that aspect of Lydia when she's being a pushover for Rafe and Cindy.

Later, those two return to camp where Stephenie and Judd get Rafe and Cindy to relate their experiences at the hot spa waterfall spot. Stephenie is all, "I'm so glad you guys got to do that!" Yes, because Rafe and Cindy being happy is all about her and I'm sure her lapdogs are glad that Stephenie has given her permission for them to win that Reward, sheesh. Lydia sulks to the sidelines and tells the camera that she is annoyed with Cindy for not taking her to the hot spa trip because Lydia has eaten the least good food out of everyone at camp. She's an "outcast", she laments. Okay, time out. Lydia is entering Stephenie's All About Me territory here. She's not a starving woman in some wartorn third-world country, she's stuck here for thirtysomething days in a game to win a million dollars. How about some perspective here and SUCK IT UP, Lydia? Rafe and Cindy notice Lydia trying to make soup and kindly ask her about it. Lydia then makes this case about her making soup out of leftovers. Lydia needs to play her cards a little more discreetly there, if you ask me. Cindy says that it's not easy for her to see Lydia eating leftover soup, true, but this is a competition and she should not feel guilty about Lydia's situation. Especially when Lydia is trying to exaggerate her own situation just to play the martyr, I say.

Stephenie, on an obnoxious trip, rallies Judd, Cindy, and Rafe and tells them that they all need to stick together because Lydia is no longer one of them. Stephenie then goes on to wonder how Lydia made it this far. Well, she made it this far because Stephenie and the other three needed her around to win the game of numbers. How about some self-awareness, at least, about how Lydia has helped them in the game instead of dismissing her entirely? Stephenie is such a dumb bint. Rafe, no doubt thinking of how the likes of InVeeSible of Marquesas and Big Sandra of Pearl Islands get to win the million dollars, says that the next few days will be very important when it comes to finding out whether Lydia will make it even farther or she will crash and burn.

Day thirty. Hmm, looks like we've skipped a day here. Anyway, it's morning and the quartet of Cindy, Judd, Stephenie, and Rafe are patting each other's back about what a fine day it is, especially when they are going to be the last four standing. Judging from previous seasons, the fact that they openly talk about their supposedly steadfast alliance means that this alliance is doomed to fail sometime down the line. Meanwhile, Gary and Cindy try to come up with a way to crack the quartet. They have Lydia and they want to take out Cindy and Judd. I don't know why they don't want to target Stephenie considering how they seem to think that she's a threat in the Final Two. However, since their plan hinges on getting Rafe to go along with them and Rafe has made it clear that he's sticking to Stephenie even if it goes against his purported conscience to do so, I don't think they have much chance at success when it comes to convincing Rafe to join them as per Danni's suggestion. I think they have a better chance at convincing Cindy, since they can make a clear case of Stephenie, Rafe, and Judd being tight and Cindy being the fourth person in the alliance, but I don't think Gary is able to put aside his dislike of her to go there. Danni tells Gary that they have to keep trying with Rafe.

It's now time for the Immunity Challenge. The Survivors file in, Probby waits for them with a stupid hat on his head, Waldo is up for grabs again, the usual. This time, Probby will tell them a story about some old Mayan goddess who has what seems like zillions of affairs with other people - that explains why Probby calls her one of the most popular Mayan deities around, I suppose - and then quizzes the Survivors on what he has just told them. It's like what happens in school when the teacher decides to conduct a verbal comprehension quiz, only this time the teacher looks like Probby and is smarmy to boot as he launches into a G-rated story about promiscuity and sex. And that you have to run around grabbing items around the set as answers to Probby's question. In the end, it's down to Rafe versus Gary and Rafe beats Gary when it comes to racing for a flag. Rafe wins Waldo again.

Back at camp, Rafe gives this speech about how he is this "little gay Mormon" - okay, so he's officially out now, hurrah - and therefore he is surprised that he can win so many Challenges in this place especially when he's not the athletic kind. He goes on to talk about how he doesn't think that athletes are people who "looked" and "acted" gay. How naive of him. Hasn't he heard of all those gay athletes who have to hide their sexuality in order to remain competing professionally? Gay athletes aren't a novel concept, not since Greg Louganis wrote a book about it. Still, I'm glad that Rafe is realizing that he is learning to reconsider his own stereotypes about what it means to be gay in his stint in Guatemala. Maybe one day he'll write a book too. I have to admit though, I never thought that mild-mannered and happy-go-lucky Rafe would turn out to be the Immunity hog in a season filled with alpha males and buff dudes like Bobby Jon, Jamie, Brandon, and Blake. Later, the Quartet enjoy a moment of mutual back-patting away from the outcasts. I'm sure they will progress to mutual lice-picking one of these days. Stephenie takes a break from their mutual admiration of each other's awesomeness to tell the camera that it feels too easy, her swing from being a helpless underdog in Palau and (in her own mind) early this season to a member in a dominating alliance. Once again, it's all about her. I understand that she enjoys being in control - who wouldn't - but I really don't enjoy seeing the worst aspects of her personality being in full display as a result of her situation.

Elsewhere, Lydia and Danni talk. Lydia realizes that she amounts to nothing more than a vote to her old allies. "Now that the numbers game is over, I'm not useful anymore," she complains. Talk about being the last to know. She tells Danni that she suspects that she'll be gone before Danni and Gary (meaning, the next Tribal Council), because in Lydia's mind, she is apparently a bigger threat than Danni and Gary because omigosh, Lydia is onto the Quartet so she is a really big threat. Lydia and Stephenie can both give lessons on placing too high a value on one's importance and significance in the scheme of things. I mean, just because her ex-allies don't like Lydia doesn't mean that they are tripping over themselves to get rid of her! They have bigger fish to fry than Lydia the stumpy, leathery, and so-powerless twit. Lydia then complains to the camera that this is how her ex-allies repay her after she has done everything they asked her to. What does she expect, honestly? "I think I'm screwed!" she announces to the camera. How nice for her. Does she want some fries with that?

Poor Gary is trying to figure out a way to save himself, especially when he thinks that out of Danni and Gary, he will be the first to go as he is perceived as the bigger threat than Danni. Since Cindy and he don't like each other - I really like to know why but the show doesn't want to enlighten me one bit, stupid Burnetto and his editors - he feels that only Rafe will be the most likely person to swing to their side. He approaches Rafe but being who he is, Gary is once more selling Rafe the idea of an alliance based on "good people" making it to the end. If Rafe doesn't buy that concept when the merge first took place - and I don't blame Rafe, really, because he's in the game to win a million dollars, not to make some statement about his worth as a human being - he will never buy that proposal now. Still, Gary thinks that he has done the best he can. Because Rafe tells him that Rafe doesn't fully trust Judd (Rafe only trusts Stephenie entirely), Gary thinks that he has found a way to chip Rafe away from the clutches of Stephenie. I think Gary is the only one who believes that. Maybe he could have swung Rafe over by talking about how it is somehow in Rafe's better interest to join him, Lydia, and Danni, although I don't think that will work either since Rafe is better off with Stephenie at the moment, but at least that's better than giving Rafe some amorphous and utterly irrelevant proposal about an alliance of "good and trustworthy people".

Dark storm clouds gather overhead, prompting Stephenie to talk about "Jersey storms". Huh? Maybe someone from Jersey will get that reference better than me. As some people work (Lydia and Danni) and some people just laze around (guess who), Judd tells the camera that he can't trust anybody because everyone is "scouring all over the place". Take Lydia, for example, who Judd thinks is a loose cannon at the moment and therefore should go. He also thinks that Gary should go because Gary is trying to get everybody and anybody to his side. I wonder whether Judd gets the memo that everyone else should go if he wants to win the million dollars so there's no use complaining in the first place about people's apparent sneakiness. Still, I get it. Judd thinks that the people around him are sneaky and untrustworthy. I wonder where these people learn those horrible traits from.

Night, Tribal Council. After the Survivors take their seats, Bobby Jon and Jamie walk in to take their seats by the sidelines. Drats, they haven't reached the hand-holding stage yet. Maybe they're still at the "let's share our clothes" stage. Maybe they have cut each other's hair as well because those two look like two stoner dudes who have wandered in here from a nearby emo rock festival. Bobby Jon and Judd exchange a hilariously awkward "Yo, bro!" exchange where Bobby Jon makes this... sign with his fingers while Judd thumps his chest in response. Maybe that's some secret sign to let Judd know that Loser Lodge is swarming with college-aged drunk girls willing to give out as long as Jason Mraz is played on the radio.

Probby starts the ball rolling by bringing up the animosity between Lydia and Stephenie during and after the Reward Challenge. Lydia says that everyone here tends to try and win Stephenie's favor (bringing her to Rewards, et cetera, which I don't believe is true unless we're talking about Rafe or Judd) and how Stephenie runs the camp. Stephenie is like, "That's not true, I just stopped the discussion about me eating up all the food around here so that doesn't mean that I'm running things now and... oh, I'm not fat, I'm not eating everything, so shut up!" She tells Probby that Lydia has an attitude, apparently because, in her own words, "If you've got something to say, say it to my face, otherwise, I don't want to hear it anymore!" Which is exactly what Lydia is doing now and what she did back at camp after the Reward Challenge, so I don't know why Stephenie isn't all ears about what Lydia has to say right now. I suspect that Stephenie doesn't understands half the things she is saying. Gary then redeems himself for all the "good people" nonsense he's been dishing around by telling Probby that some people here are "starstruck" by Stephenie. He generously allows that it is not Stephenie's fault, that, but she can always give out her autographs to these people after the show. Here, Jamie and Bobby Jon start laughing with Jamie snorting and pressing his forehead against Bobby Jon's shoulder. Awww, that's so heartwarming to see, the boys are really good friends now! It's amazing how mutual dislike for a girl with cooties can bond these two overgrown little boys together like that. Hold hands next week, boys, and spread the love around!

To demonstrate how low this show has sunk into, Probby now talks about "ethical" gameplay when ten seasons ago we would be calling schemers like Big Gay Hatch in the first season a great player. I tell you, since Burnetto realizes how that dim-witted hypocritical Hagrid is so popular, this show has gone to the dogs when it starts emphasizing "work ethics" and "integrity" at the expense of actual strategy and intrigue. When this show starts to attract morons who call actual contestants who play the game like Porno, the Robfather, and Big Gay Hatch "evil" and "disgusting" while applauding useless navel-gazing "I am FULL of INTEGRITY!" blowhards like Hagrid, that is how low the show has sunk into, I tell you. But that's a rant for another day. Back to the show. Cindy says that she is pleased at how she has played the game, which of course doesn't specifically mention whether she thinks that she has played ethically or not, heh. Judd, however, takes navel-gazing to spectacularly new heights of delusional awesomeness when he, in all sobriety and without any irony, announces, "To be honest with you, I don't think I've lied yet. But I think I'm gonna start lying though. Everybody here is lying about everything. I mean, for the last past couple of days, there's been lies, man, over here, over there, over here - that's basically what's going on, man! I mean, everybody's sitting here like things are fine and dandy, but that ain't the case, man, seriously. So if I want to stick around in this game, I better start lying, and you know what? I'm a damn bad liar, so I might be in trouble, man." The only part that is true in that verbal diarrhea of Judd is the part where he says that he is a bad liar.

Probby is understandably confused by Judd's babbling and asks Judd what the man is talking about. Judd says that he is talking about Gary because Gary told him and Stephenie that Lydia and Cindy should go but later he went to try and get Lydia and Cindy into his alliance. Gary points out reasonably that he wasn't lying, he was just playing the game. Judd continues to babble incoherently until Gary, in what must be the most awesome moment of this season, punctures Judd's bloated hot air verbal balloon by saying in a perfect tone that can't be bettered, "This is a lie: Hey, you guys. The idol is on the ground." Just beautiful, Gary, it's perfect and it brings a tear to my eye. Judd mumbles, "Okay." But Probby isn't going to let this juicy matter die down and asks Gary to explain. Gary does, and he even points out that he specifically followed Judd around to finally get clues as to where Wally was located. Oh, Judd is so, so busted and he's humiliated in the process as well. This is such a beautiful episode, I tell you. Judd tries to wiggle his way out by saying that hey, he did say that he is a bad liar and smiles weakly, hoping that it's a smile that will charm others into forgiving him.

Probby sends them to vote, where Judd is shown to vote for Gary while saying charmingly, "Gary, you've been running around the jungle for two days, man, like a squirrel looking for a damn nut, man. Do me a favor. Get the hell out of here!" He is so adorable when he is humiliated on TV, I tell you. Probby goes off to "tally" the votes. Let's see: Gary, Cindy (guess who voted for her), Gary, Gary, Gary. That's enough for Gary to be booted. Probby puts out Gary's torch and Gary leaves for Loser Lodge. Probby tells the others some inane nonsense about upcoming battles before banishing them all from his sight.

Gary predictably wastes his final words talking about how he is glad with the way he played, even if, you know, he is booted and he doesn't get the money anymore. For someone who is the first to lie on this show, that guy is sure hung up on talking about integrity and merits. What a weird guy. But I'll give this to him: he knows how to decimate Judd and Stephenie effortlessly by telling the truth and leave the Tribal Council with style. It's too bad that his gameplay doesn't come close to matching his scorched-earth Tribal Council performance.

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

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