Survivor, or how to manipulate your teammates for fun and profit

Usually the first four episodes of Survivor are a little bit of treading water. It is time to get to know all the characters, and allow some trimming of the weaker players that you don't really care about getting to know anyway. Every once in a while someone will, you know, declare that they have found love-at-first-sight with a member of the other team, but that kind of award-winning television doesn't often come this early.

So far, this season is breaking records and upping the ante for totally excellent Tribal Council shenanigans, and I, for one, couldn't be more pleased.

So we get the Penner/Cirie bickering right out of the way, which is fine with me. I like them both, but they are bringing out the absolute worst in each other. Fighting is only good as a motivator for devising some seriously devious outwit strategy. Otherwise it is just uncomfortable and boring. James is up to his usual tricks of refusing to let me decide if he is a hero or a villain. I was all over the map last season, and he is doing it to me again. Suddenly he turns into a bitch over Eliza. Now, I'm hardly an Eliza fan, but there is no need to be rude and dismissive. What kind of a team leader is that? Also, in a game where you never know who is going to be on that jury voting for or against you, it is simply stupid to pick meaningless fights like that with people. In any case, he has now cleared the way to make Ozzy my number one pick. (For now anyway.)

Speaking of Ozzy, he rocked out the reward challenge, as usual. What was funny is that early on Joel yells out to his team to take notice of Ozzy's strategy, but then they apparently ignore the advice. And lose. I was annoyed with them anyway though, because after all the talk about how pathetic Chet is, they decide to sit him out of a reward challenge, guaranteeing he will be competing in the immunity challenge? Dumb. Funnier was that they lost before half of their team even did anything, so it didn't even matter.

Color me unsurprised that Ozzy found the immunity idol. I'm so over Kathy, who seems to enjoy hanging out with the celebrities but otherwise has totally checked out of the game. I'd been assuming there would be two idols, one for each team member, but since there was only one I'm glad Ozzy got it. I bet the producers are mad that he found it alone, since apparently their plan was that two people would find it together and then have a Jungle Deathmatch for the spoils. I think it would have been more interesting to have two. I love it when people start cross-team alliances and strategies. How fun would it be if Exile Island was the lap of luxury, giving them time to really bond and make friends with each other? Anyhoo, it cracks me up that Ozzy must be out searching for quite a long time, but Kathy seems to accept that he is crab-hunting the entire time.

The immunity challenge we've seen before, but it is a decent one. With all the sick Eliza editing I'd been assuming they would lose, but instead they rock out and just kill the other team again. Ouch. And then, with everything seeming to be pointing to a simple Chet elimination, Tracy stops, knocks on the glass of the TV screen, beckons me over and gives me a full kiss on the mouth. She approaches Joel with some coconut milk in her hand and within seconds he is lapping it up. "I can't believe you are letting Mikey run the show like this. I'm actually kind of mad at you about it, letting yourself get played like that." Holy crap I love her. "This is your one chance, after this you won't have the numbers anymore, and he will get rid of you the first chance he gets". I know she is playing him, but she is so good even I almost believe she is being sincere. Joel seems to waver, but though I thought Tracy played it pitch perfect, I just can't see him falling for it with Chet sitting on the log one calorie away from falling into a hypoglycemic coma.

Then comes tribal, and the fraternal twins are having a disagreement. The dark haired dude who mysteriously appeared last week out of nowhere is talking about how they need to focus on tribe strength. Then Blondie is all "Physical strength isn't everything." Then my darling Tracy comes out with a devastating critique of her teammates. "Chet, Kathy and I didn't participate in the last two challenges at all, and you still lost." Sha-zam! She totally owned them! Tracy, no matter what happens after this, I officially welcome you as one of my Favorite Survivors of All Time. Brunette dude gets visibly nervous at that and literally starts pleading with his team to vote off the weakest person. But Mikey, who had already been annoying me with his "you have to give a little to get a little" attempt at strong-arming Joel, heads bitterly into the darkness.

The thing is, I have very little love for Chet or Kathy. They both seem to have given up, which is lame and boring and any other number of pathetic descriptors. But they served a purpose tonight, as much as the other two invisible girls did who voted for Chet. In a situation where the strong are being targeted far earlier than normal, I'm afraid they might make it farther than I'd like. But as long as I'm getting these kinds of tribal councils, I can't say that I really care.

Next week it looks like we have a team trade, which will shake things up. I really hope that instead of randomly picking teams, they do it four and four so they are forced to make cross-team alliances in order to survive. That is far more interesting than like last season where they just traded two making tribal council totally uninteresting for a couple of weeks. Gotta make 'em work for it.