Survivor 14 Episodes 2 & 3

Two weeks ago on An Ethnic Adventure:
Sylvia micromanaged the building of a shelter that she ended up not being able to live in. Hahaha. Moto won immunity and thus got to live in luxury forever. Ravu got a pot. Jessica was voted off.

Last week on The Story of the Saddest Tribe Ever:
This season hasn't been that exciting yet. I'm sure it will soon, but it's still early. I'm not quite sure I remember everything that happened in this episode, but we'll highlight the important parts.

Moto is living it up and Ravu is dying. Great. The twist for this season really makes things fair, doesn't it. At least on The Apprentice, living in tents doesn't mean you'll end up dying. I mean, they all clean up well because I can never tell they're living outdoors.

So at some point, Ravu is so thirsty that they're licking leaves. That's just sad. Anyway, Sylvia shows up and starts suggesting they do a lot of things. This is how I see it. I don't particularly like Sylvia, but I don't really dislike her either. She just seems like a typical Asian mama. I don't know, I guess it's something I'm used to. When I'm at home, I hear "You should do this" a lot. It's not trying to be rude or obnoxious, it's just the cultural divide and the difference in how things are phrased in the two cultures. It's much harder to unlearn than you would think.

Anyway, let's see.. on the Moto side, Lissi does this weird animated voice. She's the eccentric one, I'm sure. I don't know how I feel about most of Moto at this point. Except I like Lilianna. For whatever reason. It's not like she's said five words on the show yet.

We see Boo whacking at some wood with an ax or something and even if the previews didn't hint at it, it's pretty obvious he's going to hack off a finger or two. Yup. He cuts his hand and goes and gets it bandaged and lies down. Somebody makes a crack about how useless he is with his one hand, one leg, and one eye. Oh, right. He got something in his eye that makes him look kinda comical. Then he goes and lies in the hammock and the hammock breaks and he falls onto the wood floor.

At some point, Ravu searches for fruit only to realize they had a bunch of pineapples growing in basically their backyard.

So challenge. Their challenge was to paddle through a course attaching bags to this spool of rope attached to the boat. It's Michelle and Stacy spooling. And I'll say it now. I like Michelle. She might be tiny, but she's done a pretty respectable job so far. Last week, she untied those puzzle pieces really fast. This time, she did a good job with the spool thing. Better than Stacy at least, who got it caught a few times.

Once again, Ravu is ahead going into the final part of the challenge. They have to assemble this pole and then raise it to win immunity. At some point, Ravu is being stupid and Moto catches up. Erica is screaming and screaming about which pole should go next and it disturbs the flow of the tribe a little. Basically, Moto overtakes the lead and wins immunity. They get fishing gear. Ravu gets a big dose of sad. Earl gets sent to Exile and will return next episode.

Back at camp, a lot of people are ticked off that Erica flipped out. Particularly Mookie and Rocky, Erica's ally from last episode. Sylvia is pissed that Erica had to scream instead of just working through it methodically with the other team. Some people think she had no place to say that and was just being annoying, but I can kinda understand. If Muna (Apprentice) was there, I'm sure she would have been ticked off too. Sylvia strikes me as similar to Muna in that they both see the bigger picture on all things, are sensible and practical, and don't understand when other people aren't. But I like Muna so much more than Sylvia.

So it's pretty much a consensus that Erica gets the boot and Sylvia gets spared. Great. That's what happens. To me, it seemed like they took Erica's behavior a little out of perspective. Erica would have probably been a better physical competitor for the following week. Saving Sylvia for a week just to kick off someone who was a little over-the-top doesn't seem like good strategy. I don't know, it doesn't really matter.

Erica is voted off.

This week on Let's All Laugh About Papa Smurf Until He Tells Us He's Dying:
The Subtitle of this episode should have been "What the hell, Rita?" Regarding her vote.

So I just watched this episode and I felt like if I didn't recap it right away, I might forget again. We see Earl returning from Exile. The tribe tries to ask him about the Idol clue. He doesn't tell them that Amy Krebs was voted off. Instead, he just kinda mumbles something. Yeah, I know, weak reference.

Michelle goes on to prove that while she might not be able to stand up anymore, she is still superwoman. Not only has she been a great competitor for Ravu thus far, but she decides she will go and make fire with glasses. First she asks the sun to come out and play and anybody watching was probably thinking there's no way she's going to make fire. Well, it happens. She's persistent and eventually a little fire is started and she hands it off to Anthony who, with the help of others, is able to nurse the fire to full flame. This is kinda amazing. Michelle's own special way of sticking it to Sundra and Becky who needed an hour with matches to get something going.

At the first reward challenge of the season, Ravu announces that Michelle made fire and Michelle looks really proud. Jeff tells her that it's a rare occurrence on Survivor to make fire out of scratch. In his head, he was laughing at Sundra and Becky.. you know it. He gives them flint since they were able to get fire on their own.

This challenge involves sliding down a muddle, slippery lane to retrieve a ball with a particular number and then make a basket. First person per round to do so gets a point and six points wins them a choice of three rewards. The first is their luxuries from home. Which nobody wants. You can just tell. The second is an identical set of fishing gear that Moto won last time. The third is a fruit basket. Which is really random. Both teams seem to have a good amount of fruit around camp.

Anyway, we start off by watching Gary take two huge falls, which look painful. And his tribe laughs. At some point, Sylvia makes the saddest attempt at moving down the slippery lane. She does an exact imitation of "swim frightfully" that Michelle did on Top Model. I'll get the clip up here soon if I can. I'm telling you.. imagine Tyra standing there watching this saying to Sylvia, "Okay, girl, you get 'swim frighteneneningly'."

Yao-man is last up against Dreamz and when Jeff announces this, stupid Lissi who isn't even competing laughs at the pair-up. Both of them suck at throwing the ball, so shut up, Lissi. Anyway, eventually, Moto wins reward. And they choose the fishing gear, which is probably smart. I was sure they'd be stupid and pick the fruit.

Moto gets to send someone to Exile and it's Sylvia again. Surprise. Except she gets to come back before immunity so she can get voted off later.

When Moto gets back to camp, they're sitting around laughing about Gary's big fall at the challenge. Until they realize that Papa Smurf is in a great deal of pain and might have broken a rib or two. The medics come and basically say it's nothing and say to let them know if it gets worse. So, my own personal experience lately with doctors has me doubtful about the medic's nonchalance about it all. I find that when it's not openly obvious that you have a particular ailment, the doctors I've come across at least, tell you it's probably nothing and then give you some basic drug that doesn't work. At least that's my case right now.

Cassandra seems the most affected and is really sad in a confessional. I hope Gary is okay. Him saying he didn't know where he was or what his name was really alarmed me and I'm surprised nobody thought it was important.

Next is immunity. Their challenge is an eating contest. It's back. They do this weird rotation where the teams pair a girl against the other team's guy and vice versa all throughout the competition. Not that significant, except you have to think it's tougher for Michelle to get the food down compared to a big guy.

Ravu is ahead at one point, but true to form, they eventually fall behind and the nail in the coffin comes when Anthony chews his pig snout like he's got all day. Moto wins immunity.

Back at camp, Mookie and Rocky are pissed. They don't like that Anthony was whining so much. So they've devised a plan to vote out Sylvia but throw votes at Anthony in case Sylvia whips out the idol. They tell Sylvia they're voting out Anthony, which basically defeats the purpose of throwing votes for Anthony if Sylvia's going to be voting for him now anyway. If she had the idol, Anthony would be going home and they wouldn't even need the rest of the tribe's throwaway votes. So basically, I'm sensing that part of the tribe actually just wants Anthony gone. Stupid rationalization. Who decided to listen to Rocky and Mookie anyway?

So at tribal council, Mookie comes out and says he was really pissed at Anthony's performance. Stupid. He thinks he runs this tribe right now and really needs to get his ass handed to him sometime. It comes down to what could have been a 4-4 tie if Rita had not randomly voted for Earl. She mentions that she doesn't want to go with the tribe on either vote choice this week and why she chose Earl is beyond me. I wonder what it would've been like had it come down to a tiebreaker. Maybe Rita doesn't like Earl because he writes too small. Every week, he's written his vote under a microscope and then tried to pass it off as legit.

Sylvia is voted off. 4-3-1.

Next week on Get Him Some Real Medical Help, Please:
Gary still isn't feeling well and I want him to bow out and go to a real hospital somewhere. On the Ravu side, Rocky is yelling at Anthony. Sounds fun.