Solarrion, Day 24, Treemail arrives and it looks like the Reward Challenge will result in some kind of “spa day” reward. While the ladies (mostly, Jefra) are looking forward to washing the funk out of their nooks and crannies, Tony’s more interested in winning so he can go strategize with players. I guess he’s comfortable with his own funk…
The challenge looks pretty intense. No need to break down each stage, but here are the random teams of 3:
Orange
Jefra
Trish
LJ
Purple
Tash
Kass
Woo
Green
Spencer
Tony
Jeremiah
Out of the blocks, I’d assume the Green team has an advantage, but you never know with “Mr. Puzzle” (LJ) and Ninja-Woo on the other teams. Sure enough, in stage 1, the Greens are finished first and moving on. A short while later, LJ succeeds in advancing the Orange team, and after a personnel change, Woo gets it done for Purple. In stage 2, with Green making steady progress, both LJ and especially Woo, have mastered the throwing task and are catching up to Green. But Green still completes stage 2 first and we’re moving onto stage 3. This involves bouncing sandbags into baskets and Tony’s going to be the man for the Green team. After a couple misses, he finds his groove and goes on a hot streak, making 3-in-a-row. The other two teams have now joined the Green team in stage 3, but Tony’s built up too much of a lead, and sinks his last two bags before anyone else drops one. Green wins the challenge!
So it’s rub-a-dub-dub, 3 men in a tub tonight!
And it’s back to camp for the losing 6 and their funkage… Maybe they’ll spend the time, I don’t know, looking for the Tyler Perry Idol!
Tony’s only interested in speaking to Spencer and Jeremiah about voting out LJ. And the food. And the massage. But I think Tony’s most interested in talking shop with the guys. The man never rests…! I recall watching in Morgan’s After Show interview with Parvati that Tony hardly ever slept while on the island. While others were trying to get some sleep, he’d be tending fire, or working around camp, or just sitting around…thinking. Spooky.
As the losers return to camp, Woo is heartbroken he didn’t get his “mani/pedi” on, but he’s happy that his boy, Tony, is taking care of business. Who knows how much business Tony’ll actually do, but Woo knows he needs to get back into work mode and tend the fire for the next 4 hours, and probably have to listen to Jefra bi*ch about not getting a massage. I think if Woo wanted to get his schwerve on, he’d suggest giving massages rather than tending fire for 4 hours, but maybe there’s a couple people who he wouldn’t want to be rubbing on…
LJ, Jefra and Trish head out on the outrigger, and have a little “State of the Union ” about things. They reiterate that Tony’s getting paranoid, Woo might have an idol, they have plenty of votes to make all the decisions for now, and…at the very least…Spencer, Tash and Jeremiah have to be the next 3 to go… But whatever happens, as long as things go as planned, the 3 in the outrigger should be good for a while.
Over at the Cagayan Day Spa, the guys are welcomed with a cocktail and spread of food. In between drinking and eating themselves silly, they also get to enjoy an outdoor shower and comfy robes suitable for…anyone who stays at a Double Tree. However, the proximity of the shower to the table allows the guys to discuss strategy while taking a shower, which is a little weird in my book. “Yeah, I’m gonna wash my balls and think about how to get Woo off…”
Tony asks Spencer if now is a good time to discuss strategy, and of course, he (and the showering Jeremiah) are willing to talk. As 2 of the people on the bottom, they’ll entertain all the talking Tony wants to do.
Later, while the guys are receiving the most disgusting massage/pedicure these poor Filipino beauticians have ever given (seriously, I don’t get a pedicure when I have a little cat scratch on my foot). These guys are sporting scratches, gnarled toenails, open wounds, and a host of other things that should preclude them from receiving a pedicure. But f**k it, they’re drinking Bikini Martinis so who cares if these poor women have to endure giving a Flintstone pedicure.
At this stage, neither Spencer or Jeremiah is trusting Tony very much, but his assurances they’re not going home is all they got. Both reveal that they’ll go along with anything Tony suggests at this point, but if he doesn’t feel 100% comfortable, Spencer always has the hidden immunity idol to play.
Solarrion Camp, Day 25: the post-spa day feeling around camp seems a little subdued. LJ is suddenly starting to look very old, or maybe he’s just very tired. While Tony is busy doing Tony things, Tash whispers to LJ that she’d like to talk to him. “I’ll listen…” he tells her, clearly not wanting to do anything to “rustle any feathers.” She tells him to meet her a short walk away from camp, but as LJ ponders how paranoid Tony is right now, he knows that if he’s discovered speaking to anyone outside his alliance, Tony will flip out. He stands up Tash on their date, which clearly pisses her off. It’s an obvious sign that Tony is running the Tiger show, and no one wants to piss off the trainer…
We find out the Immunity Challenge is one that will test the players’ minds. It’s a simple memory game where contestants have to recall a sequence of colors that Jeff shows them. This will clearly favor the smarter players, but after the way the Brains have played the game thus far, who can say who’s smarter than anyone else…? Since this may be the challenge that determines if LJ stays in the game, I’m wondering if his puzzle skills may help in any way.
Jeff shows a series of 4 colored tiles. This is kid’s play, right? Everyone’s gonna be fine this round. Oh wait, damn, Trish got it wrong…ON THE SECOND TILE! I guess you don’t need to be a genius to teach Pilates, folks… And then it appears you only need to be marginally smarter to be a martial arts instructor as Woo goes out on the third tile. Seriously!? Are you freaking kidding me that you can’t memorize Y-B-R-G for – I don’t know – 90 seconds!? Just repeat those four letters in your head: Y-B-R-G Y-B-R-G Y-B-R-G. If anyone asks you a question, you just tell them to “shut the Y-B-R-G up!” I mean, really, thousands of people want to be on the show and you perform like that…?
Round 2. It’s a little bit harder. Red-Green-Purple-Black-Blue-Green-Blue
Yeah, now we’re talking. Make these undernourished, under slept, under bathed, castaways work for it a little…
Side note: I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, but are you seeing Jefra’s neck? It’s disgusting! It looks like Lucy’s feet after she stomped on those grapes. Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but you’d think someone would say to her, “Hey J, you may not have noticed BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE ANY MIRRORS HERE, but your neck is looking pretty gross. Let’s go out to the beach and I’ll clean it for you…” It seriously looks like the back of my kid’s ears after I forgot to wash there for a “few” weeks. I mean, you don’t have to be in an alliance with someone to help someone look presentable, right? I can suggest a number of guys (and gals too!) from past seasons who’d be willing to do that for her. Come on, folks, help a beauty queen out…
Anyway, back to the challenge and I know we’re going to lose a few this round. Surprisingly, after the first 5 tiles, everyone’s still good. But on tile #6 (green) we lose everyone except LJ, Tash and Tony. And as they pick the seventh tile, all three have chosen different colors. LJ has a shi**y grin on his face like, “I got this,” but as Jeff reveals the last color is blue, only Tash has it right. Tash wins immunity! Take that, Mr. Stand-Up Tash on Prom Night guy!
As Jeff places the necklace on Tash, LJ informs us in confessional that all the Tigers need to do is split the vote 3-3 between Spencer and Jeremiah, and one of them will go home. I can’t tell if that’s an astute observation (because if they split it 3-3, and the Lambs vote all 3 against one of the Tigers, then upon revote, all the Tigers will vote for one of the two lambs) or a stupid one (because why would you split your vote minimizing your clearly dominant power?). I’m not sure if I’m confused because we’re not seeing LJ’s entire confessional, or am I just giving him too much credit and he’s just making a big mistake here? I’m lost…
Enjoyed the recap as always. 🙂 Do you watch the Ponderosa videos? I watched the one where LJ got to Ponderosa and the look of hate Morgan was giving him was really weird. I wonder what that’s all about. Can you clarify how he was boorish? I doubt Morgan used that word herself. Ha Ha. Anyway, as much as I hated to see him go, he had a weird video. He got all Zen-ish at Ponderosa (doing yoga on the beach) and said he was going to be the most influential person in Boston, to paraphrase. Maybe he and Vytas should be buddies. Kinda funny.
Thanks, kinb! I do watch the Ponderosa videos. There’s usually some very revealing info in them. Not just how much weight was lost, but since it’s the first time the players are “out of the game” but still dealing with people “in the game,” (who oftentimes have a lot of unanswered questions!) it’s neat to see how those interactions go. And I totally know what you mean about Morgan’s hate look. As I mentioned in the recap, in her After Show interview with Parv, she mentioned that she didn’t like LJ at all. I don’t wanna go back and watch their whole video, but she mentioned something like, “his stories were very boring.” I get the feeling that either A) she tried to work her magic on him and he just blew her off, which pissed her off, or B) she liked him enough to want to pursue an alliance with him and he just blew her off. As we’ve heard, she’s a girl who usually gets her way based on her looks, and since that didn’t work on LJ, he’s “boorish” (my word) and she’s a bitch.
Yeah, I think he went a little bonkers on the island. I wasn’t kidding when I was saying that he started to look very tired. Not just physically, but mentally. Maybe the weight loss, sleep deprivation, and PTSD got to him. Sometimes, saying crazy big things seems like a good idea, but after some thought, he probably realized that sounded kinda dumb. But hey, more power to him if he’s aspiring to do great things. I just think he’ll try to milk his 15 minutes, and either find someone to spend his life with (or 6 months) or just go back to his farm. And I’m not trying to rip him, as I said, I liked LJ from the get go… Good luck to him!