SURVIVOR: BLOOD VS WATER 2 – 10/8/14

The recap from last week – oddly – covers everything we already know: Julie beat John, John and Jeremy promised to look out for each other’s woman, John found the idol, Val lied to John, John couldn’t do anything to save her, Josh got suspicious, and ultimately switched his vote from Baylor to Val (Hey! I didn’t catch that!). Ok, so maybe the recap did tell us something new.

Coyopa (Night 6) returns from Tribal and Baylor realizes she’s in trouble. As close as she was to being voted out, she knows she needs to cozy up to anyone to stay in the game. If I was her (I’d write better songs… Oh no, I di’n’t!) I’d sidle up to Rocker or anyone else who’s not in the majority alliance and try to make something happen. Or…just kill it at the next immunity challenge so you don’t have to vote anyone out.

Thankfully for Baylor (poker reference here) Val tried to bluff last night, but she was holding a 2 and a 7 off suit, so she really had nothing to bluff with. Rather than trying to play the “I have two idols” card, she should have played the “Who else is being targeted?” card. Sucks to be her.

Dale agrees that Val played it poorly, and so does Rocker, who confesses that Jeremy is going to be pissed at him. But what else could Rocker do? He told her to play (one of) her idols, so it’s her own damn fault she got voted out. But Rocker is also savvy enough to know that since he didn’t divulge this to his alliance, they may be ready to turn on him. He then wonders aloud who flipped, and Josh fesses up that he did, to which Rocker replies, “That was smart.” They’re both interested in the impression of the 5 Guy Alliance being tight, so let’s keep this mutual admiration society intact for a while longer.

Josh confesses that when he found out Val and Jaclyn were flipping their votes to Baylor; he knew something was up, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Rocker had something to do with it. He’s going to keep his eye on big John now, but the next players to go will probably be Jaclyn and Baylor. We’ll see about that…

Over at Hunahpu, Drew (the meteorologist)’s knee is twitching, so that means a monsoon is coming. Maybe this is a metaphor for the s**t going down with Rocker tonight, but regardless, Hunahpu needs to improve their shelter’s roof, which is looking like Swiss cheese. So as some of you may have seen in the advance promo, the tribe gets busy weaving a new roof from palm leaves, but Drew’s just not a weaver. He’s a napper. And a snorer. To the dismay of the rest of his tribe.

Especially Natalie, who’s the only one vocal enough to call him out for being lazy. And while he’ll not entertain her criticism at the moment, since it’s interfering with his nap time, he’ll probably regret this down the line. Natalie and Jeremy take a walk and share a conversation about how self-centered Drew is, which is exactly why Jeremy wanted to string him along for a little while. He confesses that Drew probably won’t last that long, and fantasizes about him quitting on Day 20, lamenting,

“I wanna go home. I’m done. Take my million dollars, Jeremy. You can have it…”

So far this season, Jeremy is the only player who gives me a hint of the player that Tony was last season. A player willing to call out other player’s weaknesses and then being the benefactor of said player’s weakness. I’m keeping an eye on Jeremy from now on…

But Jeremy’s “high” is short-lived when the tribes enter Exile Arena and Hunahpu sees that Val was sent packing. The disappointment, turning to anger, on Jeremy’s face is evident. You can see he’s pissed at Rocker for not looking after his wife, but he also theorizes there’s a “strong guy” alliance brewing on Coyopa that will take out all the girls if they’re not careful. Rocker (for some inexplicable reason) takes this opportunity to publicly apologize to Jeremy for not making good on his promise to protect Val, which comes as a huge surprise to the other guys in the 5 Guy Alliance. “What?” says Josh, as he hears Rocker coming clean. Josh thought that Rocker might have been working with Val, but to come out and admit it in front of everyone is moronic.

In the Reward Challenge (thankfully, it’s one we’ve never seen before) one player from each tribe must balance themselves on a suspended plank while transferring wooden squares using a paddle. First one to transfer 6 squares across and stack them up wins a comfort reward (tarp, blankets, pillows, and mattress) or it can be traded for Ozzy’s Fish-gasm from last week. Coyopu wins the “toss” and, upon Wes’s suggestion that his dad would suck at this challenge, Wes volunteers for Coyopa.

Midway through the challenge, both men are neck and neck through the first 3 squares, with Keith having a slight edge. Just as Probst announces that “Wes is gonna need to make a move,” Keith takes a fraction too long picking up a square and Wes overtakes his dad. As both men are bringing back their fourth squares, Wes is starting to build a lead when Keith tries to reverse his feet and almost takes a spill. Somehow, he manages to stay on the board and not drop the square and places it shortly after his son. 4-4.

As the fifth squares are being brought back, the wind suddenly picks up dramatically. Wind machine, much? And while Wes manages to fight through it, Keith finally drops a square and has to go back to pick up a new one. That’s all that Wes needs as he hustles back to pick up #6 and without much ado, walks back and places it for the win. Ahem, I mean the FIRST WIN OF THE SEASON for Coyopa!

And gentlemen, start your tears!

Keith is emotional because he’s so proud of his son, so when Jeff asks Wes if their relationship is like this at home, Wes says (I think, because it’s hard to understand through the blubbering, accent, and grammar) that he’s only seen his dad cry when his grandfather died. (I may be wrong about that, but that’s what it sounded like to me…). My Duke’s of Hazard Hillbilly Translator needs batteries, so I’m just guessing here…

Now Baylor’s emotional and then Missy’s tearing up, and holy s**t, this season should just be called “Blood vs. Tears II.” Wait a minute, that’s what I called it 2 season’s ago!!! I need to start hash-tagging #bloodvstears2…

Once everyone’s dried up, Wes now has to decide who to send to Exile Island with Keith. This is again, a big decision because you can pick someone to punish or someone to reward (by them possibly getting an idol clue) so Wes selects Josh. For the sole reason that, “I get along with him; maybe my dad’ll get along with him…” Hmm…hillbilly fireman and Broadway performer. Sounds like an interesting pair…

So off to Exile the polar opposites go and now Coyopa has to choose between comfort or fishing gear. Fishgasm, it is. And as Coyopa heads off, with Jeff wondering aloud if the tides are turning, Rocker (taking up the rear…oh myyy!) whispers to Jeremy that he did all he could for Val. But Jeremy doesn’t want to hear it. Or doesn’t believe it. His wife is gone which means Rocker didn’t do ALL that he could. Elmer Fudd’s got Rocker in his cross-hairs now. So, watch out, Mr. Wabbit…

Thankfully, we finally get our requisite boob shot of Julie just to keep our 18-34 male demo happy…

When Hunahpu returns to camp, Jeremy is consoled some more, but he’s still fired up that Rocker turned his back on his agreement. I guess Julie senses that Rocker is going to get trashed so she takes a walk away from camp. While she’s gone, Jeremy finally reveals to Hunahpu who John Rocker really is, since no one evidently had heard of him. (You see, right now, if the show had any balls, they could have put someone else on the tribe who was a closeted bigot and would secretly protect Rocker. But, that would be too awesome, so it’ll never happen…)

After Jeremy tells everyone about the Sports Illustrated article and the bigoted, homophobic things John Rocker has done/said, some of the tribe begins to wonder how much Julie would protect him. And on the flip side, Natalie says that John probably wouldn’t give a s**t if they voted out Julie next. Hmmm…this is getting interesting…

So while Julie is out dealing with her emotions (more tears!) she’s worried about how John’s exploits could affect her. Missy is there to support her, but what I find interesting is that Julie says she’s worried about what Jeremy said about Rocker BEING A LEADER ON THE OTHER TRIBE…but she didn’t say that she was worried about Jeremy saying he was a bigoted homophobe. So, she probably didn’t hear what Jeremy said to the others, and I’m wondering what Missy thinks Julie is referring to. Spider senses are tingling…

Off to Exile Island we go and Dad-gummit, this time Keith is gonna see a dad-gum immunity idol clue! Josh and Keith seem to be getting along nicely, so they share the clue and discuss if Rocker and/or Jeremy might already found an idol. Here we go, more crap for Rocker to fend off later this episode.

Before the guys settle in for the night, they go searchin’ for snails, dine heartily on escargot, and then expound on how different the two of them are, but how well they can get along. While “there ain’t gonna be any spoonin’ tonight,” I can only wonder if there was any “forking.” (oh myyy!) However, I’m drawn away from my sordid thoughts by the big quote of the evening (oh, how I wish there were more of these on reality television). Josh postulates,

“I think it’s so cool to hang out with people from a different walk of life, that you wouldn’t get to normally do, because how else do we change? How else do we grow?”

And right now, I’m wondering if this is the statement that’s setting us up for a big John Rocker Monster Truck Showdown!