Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 12 Recap

Coach needs his own theme song. "And then there's Coach!" He had so many one-liners this episode I should have written them down (more gold with his belief that his alliance is the bestest alliance ever just because he gave it a name). Any time he mentions the words "integrity", "warrior" or "honesty" you can see his brain working triple overtime trying to help him ignore the fact that his actions and his words have nothing to do with each other. I know he believes himself, that is what makes him so entertaining. But boy I'm glad he isn't my next-door neighbor.

I don't even know what to say about the fact that his visiting loved one is...his assistant coach. What they coach together is never mentioned (chiropracty perhaps?), and I'm not sure I'd want to know anyway. It is absolutely something you'd expect, but at the same time I have to admit it made me a little sad for him too. That is, until he bragged to his assistant coach "Did you know they call me the Dragon Slayer?". Um, Coach, no one calls you the Dragon Slayer. You call yourself the Dragon Slayer. There is a BIG difference, not that you would ever understand something like nuance.

While Stephen is arguably the brains behind his alliance (I say arguably only because it hasn't taken much brains to outwit Timbira), he has been a disaster at each and every challenge. So I give him props for his win here, especially because he came from so far behind.

I don't know what to say about Debbie. Stephen keeps saying that he thinks she is a clever player who is "playing hard", but I never saw that. I think his compliments come from a place of paranoia more than anything else, so he is giving her way too much credit for her scrambling. Debbie went home not because her scheming was anything unusual, but only because the boys got paranoid about her somehow doing, I don't know, something. She seems like a terribly nice lady, and other than her ridiculousness with Sierra over the last few weeks, I think she played the best game she was able, and as usual I appreciated her high-road farewell speech. Also I bet she gets a terrific makeover for the final show. But while I was sort of hoping for Coach to go, I wasn't sad for it to be her either. As long as Coach goes next. I mean, I love him, I really do, but the relentlessness of his ego is wearing me down, and I just can't tolerate a Dragon Slayer speech in the finals.

Side note - my Dad was here this week and watched American Idol with us. The rock week theme was pretty hard for him to get over. "I like two kinds of music", he says, "Country, and Western." Still, he watched, and thought Danny would go home. I thought the scream was awesome, in a bad way, but not as awesome as Paula slutting it up with a bunch of young boys. I mean, Paula is like my mom, so that was just disturbing. Good for you Paula, but next time remember that at this point in your career, you should be thinking more Marie Osmond than Cher.