Survivor, or the one where the talking outfunned the action

SURVIVOR Fans VS Favorites

I love presents. And CBS just gave me one with an unexpected episode of Survivor a day early. Why is this so awesome? Because tomorrow I leave on vacation to Florida where watching television is hardly going to be on my list of things I want to do. I'm still going to be delayed watching next week's episode, but only by a day or two. It is much better that I won't end up being two weeks behind, and I don't even have to sacrifice any of my standards. That standard being, of course, making fun of people who watch television while they are on vacation. Seriously, you are 21 and in Australia and all you want to do is spend the morning sitting in a grungy hostel watching Jerry Springer? But don't get me started, I have a couple of Survivors I have to kiss on the mouth.

If I thought I was relieved having mean Joel gone, it is nothing to the relief I felt not having Chet around. Just as I'm wondering how Kathy could possibly screw up badly enough that people would go back to the old way of doing things, namely voting off the lame weak people, she gift-wraps my idea for me and quits. Note to producers: I realize that you want colorful characters. A crazy mother, a gay pagent consultant, well, they probably sounded good on paper. But don't you put these people through a psych eval? Frankly I would love a season chock full of James and Ozzy clones. Let the warriors battle it out. Especially with a dynamic like this one, with half your contestants already battle scarred, why let these emotionally/physically unstable folks through? Any why do people who quit always say "I don't want people to think I'm quitting." Uh, we will think that, because you are quitting, it is sort of the definition of the word. It doesn't automatically make you a terrible person, but it doesn't change what you are doing. Anyway, whatever, they are both gone and I couldn't be happier about it. In Kathy's defense, she did at one point do the "I Dream Of Jeannie" doing-magic move, which was sort of awesome. Chet could have at least led the girls in a walk-off or something.

OK, let's just say it, I am love love loving Cirie. Even if she hadn't done anything else all season, calling out the boy-crush Erik has on Ozzy was delicious. Cause it is cute, really, all that straight male bonding. Her Lion King comparison had me in stitches. When Ozzy was being his usual kick-butt self on the immunity challenge and in the background you can hear Erik scremaing "GO OZZY!!!!!" (the cameraman who missed that shot should be fired), you know he is like one of those girls in the 60's who were crazy for the Beatles, and I couldn't possibly approve of this story line any more than I do. Heh. Mufasa even lets his lion cub make one run out to retrieve some puzzle pieces, but just once. For me Erik just storylined himself into my hope for Last Fan Standing.

Anyway, reward challenge was pretty good. Cirie got her team off to a quick start and even if she confused her left and right still led her team to victory. And then, Ozzy gives Tracy the boot to Exile. I thought that was pretty lame, especially his "Can you take one for the team?" line. I get it, and really you want her out of the picture so she can't bond with any of the other girls, but still I sort of felt Ozzy should have sucked it up and went back himself. But I guess he isn't there to be a gentleman. Although, if he had gone back it also would have sent a message to Jason that Ozzy was still looking for the Idol, and I want nothing more than for Jason to believe his idol is real. Also, totally bummed that we didn't get any footage of Tracy and Jason on exile. What did they talk about?

The "spa reward" was notable only for some more entertaining commentary by Cirie. Ozzy with his head between two sets of bosoms, Erik looking longingly in from the side, and Cirie watching it all and giggling with us about it. More, please.

Immunity challenge was fine, although the "physical first then puzzle" formula is getting a tad predictable. Funny how Eliza is turning out to be one of the strongest players on her team. She has mostly faded into the background the past few weeks, but she is consistently strong in challenges, especially considering her size. Just noticing.

Ok, then the real fun begins, and Amie is the one puckering up to me in the camera this time. She devises a brilliant plan of deviousness to boot off Ozzy, putting herself in control of her tribe, which is something I always root for. I mean, how awesome would it have been if she had played so many people like that? Ozzy is my man, I totally love him. Well, apparently not as much as Erik does, but enough to be happy if he won. However, the truth is that I will be very surprised if he does. He just has too big a target on his back, as does James. They are useful for now, and for the most part very likable, but I will be amazed if either of them really make it to the end. Yao was in that same boat, which is why I'm not at all mad at Cirie for targeting him. Targeting him was smart game. So while I'm in no rush to see Ozzy go, I was totally down with Ami's plan to better her position in the game.

That said, any triple layer plan has rather small odds of actually working, there are just too many variables. I'm fascinated to know whether she even approached Erik about it, and what he said. Did he flat out refuse to vote out his papa bear? Did Ami just decide it would piss too many people off? Wish we knew more. In the end, I was unsurprised to see Tracy go. (Although if I were those girls, I'd rather have had Tracy on the jury than Erik.) Which was a bummer, she played some very good game herself and should be very proud of what she accomplished. She also helped reveal a chink in Ozzy's armor, who got his panties in a bunch when she called him out about being their team leader. If even your girlfriend is complaining about your arrogance, well, getting defensive isn't going to help your cause. Even that is a nitpick though, Ozzy is still way cooler than anyone else in any season who has been as strong as him.

So we are two extra people down now, I wonder how that is going to affect things. In most any other season I'd be talking about how that unfairly affects the otherwise winning team, but since there really hasn't been any cross-team alliances made anyway, I just don't really care. I want those two Fan girls to go next, poor things can't seem to make themselves interesting at any cost. We get a hint that Parvati may try to woo them next week, but if all they become are Parvati-pawns, well, it might make me like Parvati more but I doubt it will do much of my opinion of them.

My Tivo also cut off Tracy's farewell speech, but I just watched her whole remarks on the cbs website, and she is just awesome. She is easily my favorite player among the fans, I wish we'd had more time with her. My only disagreement with her is the very common thought that Parvati and Amanda are going to take Ozzy and James to the final four. I just can't believe that those two girls don't have higher aspirations than to fight over third place. They will turn on their men eventually, it is just a matter of timing.