We are expected to believe that this show is more worthy of airtime than The Reagans.

 

The recap begins on Day 22, much like the episode it is heckling, coincidentally. The nine remaining Survivors have been stranded together for three weeks -- enough time to go mad from starvation, but not quite enough to realize Jon is a world-class putz.

 

Lillian was feeling better about her situation. She had been worried that the Morgans would just pick her off again, but the merge changed everything and she now had plenty of room to stab each of them in the back. She'd also been worrying about her age hampering her survival chances, but once she heard about Letterman's baby she was inspired to give it her best shot. This morning she was happy and even smiling, though her feelings could scarcely penetrate her catcher's-mitt mug, which was getting droopier by the minute (though it didn't seem to hurt her movie career; all this time I'd been thinking Gollum was a CGI character).

 

Then we were introduced to Ryan Opray, who was nicknamed "Rhino" because of the birds that nested behind his ears. His new buff was not covered in scum and he could clearly see the Survivor logo, and the realization that he was actually playing the game hit him like a tidal wave. Now that Lill had switched to the other side and ousted Andrew, Ryan was becoming concerned about his chances. The other tribemates would giggle whenever he would approach them about an alliance, and they had "forgotten" to put his name on the Balboa tribe flag.

 

 To ignore Ryno's advances, Burton went fishing. He was not as skilled as Rupert, and couldn't manage to catch the slender fish that populated the lagoon, so he set his sights on an easier target. He speared a stingray, the marine equivalent of the broad side of a barn, and brought it back to shore. It was still alive, and so, as is standard procedure when dealing with all cornered and injured wild animals, Burton decided to start poking his finger into the ray's various orifices.

 

Bzzzt! He was shocked. That was odd, he thought. He poked it again. Bzzzt! Hmm. "Hey Rupert!" he called, and Rupert lumbered over. "This thing is shocking me. It hurts," Burton explained. "Hmm," said Rupert, and stuck his finger into the fish. Bzzzt! "That's weird," said Rupert, and stuck his finger in again. Bzzzt! The rest of the tribe wandered over and soon they were all poking the ray, getting shocked, and looking puzzled. This continued for the better part of an hour, as the ray unleashed shock after shock, and the editors graciously added the flash-to-skeleton cartoon effect each time. Eight thousand miles to the north, the Niagara power grid overloaded. Darrah asked if the ray would power her crimping iron. Eventually the tortured fish exhausted its electrical energy and slowly and agonizingly bled to death on the beach, at which point the tribe tossed it on the barbie.

 

 

 The former Morgans were more than happy to have something to eat. Rupert spent most of each day catching fish, which was a new idea to the Morgans, who had always assumed that fish would simply flop themselves onto the beach when it was time for them to die. Rupert himself was glad to feed them and liked being appreciated. Everyone appreciated Rupert. It was hard to look Rupert in the eye and tell him his fish were lousy. Billy did that on Day 1. No one talks about Billy anymore.

 

 Since the producers had exhausted the cultural mystique of the Pearl Islands, they decided to switch the show's theme from ancient pirates to ancient Survivors. This week's reward challenge was an authentic recreation of the traditional slingshot challenge. Players were to take marbles and shoot them at dinnerware, causing little torches or flags or something to spring up. The reward was breakfast, and to stir up the waters Probst passed around a single glazed cinnamon roll, and though it was nothing more than a stale bun from the day-old rack at McGlynn's, the famished players devoured it like wolves. Before taking a piece Burton poked his finger into it to see if it would shock him.

 

The players were "randomly" paired up and the challenge began. Darrah performed her best Brandon Quinton impression as she was unable to grasp the basics of slingshot operation, her marbles pelting harmlessly on the dirt at her feet. Sandra proved an excellent shot but misunderstood the point of the game, believing the objective was to knock out the other player's targets, and helped Ryano wing his way into the finals. Next came Rupert, who launched his marble so hard that it traveled around the world and smacked Jon on the back of the head, disrupting his aim and causing him to hit the wrong target out of turn. On his next shot Rupert missed again, but the marble splintered the main support leg of the target apparatus and the entire contraption came crashing down. Rupert was declared the winner by default.

 

Jeff then let Rupert choose a person to take along to the breakfast and plot with. Rupert couldn't make up his mind, so Jeffy gave him the additional option of giving up the reward to someone more interesting. Rupert considered this choice but gave it to Burton instead, who shockingly chose Lill as a travelling buddy. The next morning Burton and Lill were carted off to breakfast. Fortunately this gave them a chance to talk and strategize. Unforunately they discovered they'd be having their "delicious breakfast" at Denny's.

 

Next followed one of the most convoluted days of scheming in Survivor history. The producers switched back and forth from the breakfast pair, who were trying to get rid of Rupert, or Christa, to Sandra and Christa, who were trying to get rid of Rupert, or Burton, to Jon, who was trying to get rid of anyone but him, to Tijuana and Darrah, who were spending their day hitting a log with machetes.

 

The Drakes were beginning to notice that Morgan seemed to have some sort of allergic reaction to work. Rupert shrugged it off and suggested instituting a welfare program, but Christa waved him off and complained some more. "Their whole tribe is lazy," she said. "They probably voted off all their hardworking players. Like that black guy. I bet he was a machine." Then she sniffed loudly, which seemed to be a habit of hers.

 

The immunity challenge was another salute to the proud tradition of Survivors past. In ancient times, Jeffy explained, players would be asked inane trivia questions and show their answers on brightly colored cubes. The players who answered the questions correctly would get to take an axe and chop down their enemies' targets. The shocking twist in this installment, Probst explained, was that they had blown their budget on the water challenges, and all they had left were painted coconuts and pieces of the hotel's rain gutter.

 

Probst's Puzzlers
1. True or False: "Pieces of eight" refers to an island chain. (Only four players correctly answered "False." Ryan and Burton guessed "True," while Darrah held up "C").
2. The act of hauling a pirate underwater by a rope tied to the ship's keel, as re-created in last week's Keelhauling challenge, is known by what name: A) Keelhauling B) Pagonging C) Chevy Malibu? (Lill and Christa got this one wrong, though they were possibly just holding the cube so the correct answer was facing themselves).
3. Which explorer ransacked Panama City in 1671: A) Drake, B) Morgan, C) Neil Armstrong? (The correct answer was Morgan. No one guessed correctly, as none of them could believe that any Morgan could be capable of the effort required in ransacking a city).
4. True or False: Panama, which is Spanish for "not a peninsula," is a peninsula. (Three players managed the brainpower to guess correctly. Darrah avoided missing this question only because she had already been knocked out of the game).
5. True or False: If you stick your finger into a stingray, you will receive an electric shock. (No one got this one right either).
6. The "cat-o-nine tails" was most commonly used for what: A) opening Ameritrade accounts B) torture C) foreplay? (Jon then asked why there was a "D" on the cube when it hadn't been needed yet. Probst disqualified him from the game).
7. True or False: Jon Dalton is a smarmy, irritating jackaninny.
8. How many Visa commercials have been played so far this episode?
9. Which pirate was famous for stealing the Ivory Diamond: A) Long John Silver B) Roberto Clemente C) Strongbad?
10. Which of the following Survivor: Africa contestants had no piercings?
11. True or False: Lillian looks like the guy in "The Scream" painting.
and the final question: 12. Which of the following items would you not find in a treasure chest: A) a kind of money B) a different kind of money C) the Horsehead Nebula?

 

Christa inexplicably answered this incorrectly. In fact she had answered nearly every question wrong, even the ones that required simple memory of the previous answer, yet still managed to survive to the end, which does not bode well for us with regards to the game at large. Rupert, meanwhile, won his second consecutive challenge, and used his brain to do it, proving that he is more deserving than the others both physically and mentally, which means he will almost certainly not win.

 

Back at camp, Ryno perceived a growing threat against him, and started courting potential alliance mates. He appealed to Darrah and Tijuana, saying --and I am not making this up-- "we've worked too hard" to simply be Pagonged. Jon and Burton were also trying to rally the troops to overthrow the Rupert-Sandra-Christa bloc. Much plotting ensued, and by the time they began to hike to Tribal Council it appeared that tonight's boot would be either Burton or Lillian or Christa or Jon or Sandra or Darrah or Tijuana.

 

At Tribal Council, Jeff began his traditional solemn prattling about how the vote was "different" now because the bootees became the jury, as though this had affected any other vote in Survivor history. By now the players eyed the host very suspiciously and took everything he said with a grain of salt. "I suppose the jury comes back as another tribe and re-enters the game," Jon sneered derisively. "Nonsense!" Probst retorted, then took a mini-tape recorder from his pocket and muttered, "Note to self: bring back jury."

 

Jeffy asked Christa about the work ethic at camp. Christa called Darrah a lazy whore. Darrah shot a nasty look at Christa. Jon poked Burton in the ribs and whispered, "Catfight!" It indeed looked like it might come to that, until Darrah realized that if she wanted to fight Christa she would have to get up at least four feet.

 

They voted, and in doing so upheld the grandest of all Survivor traditions: the more scheming and plotting shown in an episode, the greater the inevitable landslide against the obvious Pagonged target.

 

And so the votes came down on Ryno. It turned out to be unanimous. Ryan received votes from everyone, including Tijuana and Darrah, who had been approached by no less than four people in three days about mounting a coup against Drake, but in the end decided that though a revolution sounded fun and would probably save their skins, it just sounded like a little too much work.