SURVIVOR: PHILIPPINES – 9/27/12

We get our first glimpse of the Kalabaw tribe, where Jeff Kent thinks the terential downpour is to his advantage, so he can rest his knee and allow the others to break down while he stays strong and waits them out. Good plan. I foresee Jeff lasting a little while in the game, but not because of his smarts, mostly just based on the fact that other people are going to make themselves targets more than he will. So, in a way, I guess his plan is somewhat right, so I will apologize right away for inferring that you aren’t the brightest, Jeff Kent. Am I being serious? I don’t know. Maybe. No, wait, I take the apology back, I think he’s just going to back into a good plan here, we’ll see. I will say the checkers idea was actually a pretty good one. I wonder how many other tribes in past seasons have done something similar. You could break out into so many board games of yesteryear, possibly even manufacturing some dice, gathering a bunch of leaves for money, and fashioning yourselves a game of Monopoly. Don’t stop at Checkers, people. Dream big. You have 39 days, break out a game of Risk in the sand. If you’re losing, just wipe out a few countries with your feet and blame it on the wind.

With all the rain and the dummies around camp trying to figure out how many squares go into a board of checkers, Jonathan Penner is still trying to get some alone time at camp to dig for the idol. The clue told him it’s right under his nose, and you would imagine the person would realize the key word in that would be nose, so I’d look for anything shaped like a nose, or anything with an actual nose on it. Eventually, the people leave the camp to go take cover in a cave that looked like it was just a hole in a rock more than a cave, leaving Penner with some time to search. He searches and searches, finding nothing, but rather getting caught by Dawson, who is coming back to camp to get some flint. She’s only coming back for the flint, yet everyone follows right after her and I guess they just all decided to give up on the “cave” idea. Seems somewhat odd is all I will say. Anyway, Penner gives some story about he lost the glasses that he was holding in his hand, which still happened to be in the case, while wearing contacts, which also happened to fall out of his eye and under the bamboo, into SAND! If Abi would have been on his tribe, she might have stabbed him right in the neck realizing just how terribly stupid that sounds coming out of someone’s mouth.

A little later on, Penner realizes that the word “nose” is important and that the clue was in the rice bucket, which happened to have an emblem on top of it, with a bull picture on it with a prominent nose. He knifes the emblem off the bucket, and on the back it actually says “This Is The Hidden Immunity Idol.” Seriously, Survivor? You can’t have it be any more obvious? I don’t ever recall them telling the contestants what the idol was. If they found something in the forest, they just had to have faith it was the idol. Of course, carved out wood pieces on string, wrapped in cloth usually aren’t just lying around in a rain forest, but still, don’t just tell them right away that they found the idol like that! Add some suspense to it. Perhaps, Penner wouldn’t believe it was, and he would just leave it lying around for someone else to find, who was desperate enough to play it at Tribal Council, and voila, they are saved!! I’m ashamed of you, Survivor! This many seasons and you’re going all lazy on us now?

Let’s head back over to Matsing and catch ourselves an eyeful, shall we? Roxy is all in an uproar about the snuggling going on between Malcolm and Miss Perky. She tells Russell about the cuddling, yet we just saw a scene of Russell waking up about three feet away from the snuggling couple, yet he had to be told?!? Then, Russell lays it on us with: “She’s got some boob thing going on.” Yes, Russell, she does. Indeed, she does. And, yes, Malcolm would be an idiot to say no to a game of “slap & tickle.” Maybe I’m a bit slow, but what the hell would a game of slap and tickle actually entail? I can guess, but I’m not so sure I’m trying to slap or tickle anything. I’d gather it would more be a game of Poke & Shoot, but that’s just me. But, if Chief tells me I should slap and tickle a b*tch, I’m gonna slap the sh*t out of her and then tickle her until she agrees not to press charges.

Oh, and Malcolm, welcome to Survivor! Yes, if you are snuggling with a girl at night, you’re going to paint yourself a big target on your very own back, as well as the poor girl you are snuggling with! Did you not think this through? Wait, wait, I’m an idiot, of course he thought this through. Most likely with the brain at the end of his 5-7 inch penis. She does got some boob thing going on.

Back at Tan Dong, Chrissy Snow tells us she’s an introvert and doesn’t know how to make small talk. While she’s telling us this, we hear someone ask “What’s your favorite food,” followed by the answer, “Ham and cheese sandwich.” Are you f*cking kidding me? Of all the food in this world, your favorite is a f*cking ham and cheese sandwich? I’d only accept that answer if you grew up in a country where they didn’t kill pig, then moved to the US at the age of 20 and had ham for the first time. That’s it. I get it, ham paired with cheese, in the middle of nice white bread is a delicious snack food, but your all time favorite? I would have punched that person in the face. As well as the person who said “french fries.” Start branching out a bit more. I’m not saying it needs to be lobster or filet mignon or some food I can’t pronounce, but at least make it something you can’t throw together in under 6 seconds. Just saying. Where was I?

Oh yes, Angela Bower was having her mental breakdown because she was an introvert and didn’t know how to make small talk, which meant she probably shouldn’t be playing the game. I consider myself an introvert, as well. I understand that it’s hard for us to know how to make conversation with others, I get that, but when you are in a situation where you are being forced to interact with other people, it typically makes it a little easier. We tend to keep to ourselves mostly because we just don’t feel like other people want to talk to us. If a person answers a question with a quick response and doesn’t follow it up with a question of their own, typically our conversations are over. It’s why we are terrible when it comes to “picking up” the opposite (or same) sex. We just don’t know what to say next, unless we’re prompted. So, I get where Maggie Seaver is coming from with all of this, but let’s calm it down a bit. She seemed perfectly fine having some conversations in other parts of the episode, so I think this was more just a particular moment for her and they tried to drum it up to be more than it was.