SURVIVOR – 12/8/11

Eh, this episode was like my morning coffee. Not all that great, but I watch (drink) it because I have to. I wish that TV networks had the right to just cut these reality show seasons off early the same way they do with scripted shows. I can’t tell you how many times networks have canceled a show that I invested several weeks/years into just to have them tell me my time wasn’t worth anything to them, but here we are in the midst of what has to be the most boring season of reality television to date and we have to put up with it for the entire way through to watch some unworthy tool win more money then I’ll have in my 401k 35 years from now. I’m glad you starved yourself for 39 days so you could go win more money than I’m going to earn myself in my entire career and then you’re going to go squander it on booze, hookers, and a Porsche while I’ll be living in some studio apartment in Forks, Washington running around like I’m a sparkling vampire because all those years of work and having nothing to show for it while year after year having to put up with people who have sex with random girls on Playboy television get to win thousands or even millions of dollars drove me f*cking insane! I’m in rare form this morning, so keep tuned…

We start off with Ozzy asking The Coch, “Did you learn your lesson?” No, Ozzy, he did not. He would later go on to talk about how he’s grown as a person and Probst even chimed in with saying that he seemed to have died on the island and been reborn a new person. No, Jeff, he was just participating in a fricken reality competition. People don’t change the way they are because they’ve been on Survivor. They are trapped on an island with people who don’t like them, with nothing to eat, no sleep to be had, no shelter from the elements, and trying to win $1 million. Anything that happened on the island happened because they were playing the game of Survivor, not because they “learned something” about themselves. I wish Probst would do a CBS Survivor Special with an update on all these contestants who left the show crying about how they’ve changed the way they look at themselves and how they’ve proven they could do “anything” and how they wanted to be an inspiration to all the people in the world…and for them to tell us all the wonderful things they did after the show ended. I am willing to guarantee 98% of said people went back to being the exact same person they were when they got to the island. The 2% of people who changed probably changed for the worse because they had newfound fame and thought they were the sh*t and started acting like it.

I’ll try and keep the rants to a minimum from here on out, but no promises!

Cochran gets insulted when Ozzy talks as if it’s an all-assumed assumption that Ozzy will win the Duel between the two of them. Ozzy apologizes and then tells Cochran that he does have a chance to win in a Duel against him. When they showed Ozzy saying Cochran stood no chance of beating him, I thought it might be foreshadowing to Ozzy actually losing, so I got a tad bit worried until I remembered that I didn’t care whether or not Ozzy or Cochran won. I think I’m rooting for Ozzy to win this season, but only by default. Who else can you really vote for? Everyone else has been worthless to the show.

We head on back to Say Tuna camp where Edna walks away from the tribe after Brandon asks for everyone to join him in a morning prayer “before everyone disperses.” I like how he made that point. Where exactly is everyone going to disperse to? I can’t imagine this person or that person has an appointment on the other side of the island they need to get to. Or that this other person is going to go out surfing for the day while another goes to work for the day. No, dipsh*t, everyone will be around. Let’s not boss people around so you can have some satisfaction of hashing out a prayer to the Lord above. It’s ok if you have to wait on someone and pray a little later. Me, personally, I’ve always looked at prayer as a personal thing between the single person and their God. I don’t like group prayer. I can understand it to an extent when it’s a sports team before a game, or a family at dinner, or something like that, but I imagine Brandon’s prayers going a little something like this, “Oh Lord, I want to thank you for allowing me to wake up this morning. I also want to thank you for sending home that skank Mikayla when you did because her t*ts were starting to make my pants bulge in a way that my wife doesn’t quite make them and I was scared…” Again, sorry, I’m running off on another tangent. Seriously, I just erased about another 75 words that were part of this fake prayer. I felt bad about typing some of the stuff, so I’ll leave it at this and move on!!

As it was, Edna walked away because she felt she was no longer party of the tribe, mostly because she was told she was the next to go. I can understand those feelings, but these six people had to know this day was coming, I would have thought she’d be a little better prepared for this moment. But, when you are dealing with irrational a-holes like Loco, I can understand her reaction. But, I would have walked away from his morning prayers a long time ago, not just because I realized I was the next person to be voted out.

We make our way to the Duel, where I have to say it was actually intense. It was anyone’s game and The Coch actually gave Ozzy a run for his money…or at least the editing made it seem that way! Perhaps if Cochran wasn’t laughing and staring starry-eyed at Coach in the middle of the Duel, he might have won by a few seconds, rather than losing by them. See you later, Coch boy. How’s that move you made look now? Don’t listen to Probst when he says it was the great move he wants to believe it was. It was the ONLY move made this entire season, so that’s why he’s saying that.

After the Duel ended, Ozzy got to pick three people to spend time with their family member who was on the island. I don’t know why he picked Brandon, though. That move made no sense. I guess he did that because he figured Brandon was a hot-shot at camp and a high-ranking member of the Upolu tribe. By looks alone, he picked the three highest ranking members of Upolu, so I guess that was his strategy, in hopes of swaying some votes if he were to make it back in the game and get to Final 3. Personally, though, I would have chosen Rick since he was the only one to have a spouse on the island. No offense to the mom’s, dad’s, brother’s and sister’s on the island, but there is something more special about time spent with your wife/husband. A man/woman needs that time with their spouse. I’m ok going 31 days without seeing my mom or my sister. As much as I love them, it’s just different once you’re married. But Ozzy isn’t married, so he doesn’t get that.

One other note I’d like to make, I like how they brought Brandon’s dad instead of his wife? I’m guessing either a) she didn’t want to come or b) CBS wanted to be able to introduce him as “Your dad and Russell Hantz’s brother.” Either way, still kind of telling when a wife chooses not to come see their husband when they’ve been away for as long as he has. But, they’re young, so she’s probably out partying and living up her freedom. God knows my wife would be, too, and she’s not that young…