SURVIVOR: MILLENNIALS VS GEN X RECAP – 9/22/16

The season’s first challenge is up next and it’s a good old-fashioned obstacle course with a puzzle finale. Jeff takes his tarps back and reveals the S33 Immunity Idol. “This is what you covet,” sounds so dirty when Jeff says it. He describes the challenge – which offers the tribes the opportunity to take short-cuts – thus changing the difficulty of the puzzle – but you never know what you’re in for. As the tribes chat about who should do what, Rachel steps up with,

I want to swing the club
I want to work on the puzzle

Um. Seems like there are stronger people on the tribe to swing a club and maybe, just maybe, there are others more adept at doing puzzles. I don’t know why I say that, perhaps it’s the fact the only knowledge I have of Rachel are the photos I found when I Googled “Rachel Ako nude.”

Now, before you judge me, I want to say that I have absolutely nothing against girls who pose for Playboy, or do adult films, or work the pole at your local strip club. And I certainly have nothing against a little breast augmentation… I’m just saying these types of women TEND to not be secret puzzle geniuses or club swinging monsters, that’s all…

Jeff releases the hounds and the players scramble into the obstacle course. Chris plays hardball right out of the gate and blocks Jay and Taylor (Jaybone and Tails) from untying one of their clubs. The ploy works well enough to set them back, but it’s kind of a sh**ty thing to do in the first challenge. We’ll see how that works for him later.

Gen X gets to their mat first and (seriously) Rachel is swinging the club. Why on Earth you’d want to have her doing something this physical is beyond me, but I guess the Gen Xers are all about equality…and losing.

Gen X takes another shortcut and is able to get through the ropes maze quickly. While they appear to have made the better choice, Millennials work quickly to catch up. With 10 fewer pieces to assemble, the Millennials just may have a chance. Once again, I don’t know why Rachel and David (boobie girl and Mr. Skittish) are doing the puzzle, but when I see Rachel’s nipples sticking out of her top, I know I’m okay with her decision. Damn you, blur!

With their poor choice of puzzle makers, Gen X decides to swap players, but it doesn’t matter, Figgy and Michelle are smoking the puzzle and making up tons of ground. They ain’t just cute, they gots brains… Sunday and Jessica are now on the puzzle for the Gen Xers, with Rachel trying to help from the mat, and amusingly, Probst calls her out that she didn’t do anything,

“F**k you, Jeff,” is probably what she was thinking…

But it doesn’t matter, the Millennials are on fire. They win! “Figs and the Bible” destroy the puzzle, and Millennials take the first challenge. Ouch, Gen X, you really got your asses handed to you. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate some choices, no? The Millennials celebrate while the Gen Xers place David and Rachel on the chopping block for their failed claims of competence.

Day 4 and the Takali tribe returns to camp. Rachel says she’s going to get water so that means the others can now talk about cutting her neck freely. Bret, Jessica and Sunday go off for a communal pee in the ocean, and confirm Tits McGee is going home.

And JFC, will Lucy please say something?!

David the Small emerges again and senses he’s on the chopping block, so he goes to plead with anyone who’ll listen that he’ll remain loyal to whomever saves him. Jessica, Bret and Chris want to know about his idol searching shenanigans, to which David cops that he did do, but only because he’s paranoid, desperate and afraid of dying. Not the kind of things you want to reveal in Survivor, but David’s not what you would call a poker player, or a qualified Survivor contestant. To each his own.

He throws himself at the mercy of their court and states he’ll remain loyal, as long as they don’t write his name down. Unconvinced by David’s plea, Bret still believes he found an idol (maybe his bulls**t meter is off) and is still deciding between Rachel and him. With 6 people on his side, he thinks it may be wise to split the vote.

And let me just stop you right there. You have 6. They have 4. You split the vote and it’s 3 vs. 3 vs. 4…

Why would you split the vote?

I’m never surprised by the stupidity of some players on Survivor, and in a way, I hope it works against Bret someday. But for now, it’s just chatter until they get to Tribal.

In camp, Rachel and CeCe are discussing what they’re going to do, and it’s Rachel who thinks something is up with the way the tribe is split. But while David is leaning toward the paranoid approach, Lucy Thai is going overboard and still trying to come off as confident. Here’s the deal: when you’re on the chopping block, ACT like you’re on the chopping block. Nobody gives a crap how confident you are when you could be going home. Pull it back, be contrite, and try to make whoever else is in trouble seem worse than you. Jesus, do I have to even type this sentence…?

Night falls and we’re off to Tribal. The contestants file in, take fire, and take their seats. Jeff recaps the eventful Day 2 evacuation and notices Jessica’s eyes look like she’s been hitting the bottle. When Jeff directs a question at David, his “Oh crap” indicates what we already know: David is not suited for this show. Just get him off the island…

He begins to explain how bad he is, and why he shouldn’t be here, and how out of sorts he is, and even Jeff calls him out for basically saying he’s ready to leave. David doesn’t go that far, but knows he’s in trouble.

Jeff goes around a few times with standard “How do you feel about your place in the game” questions, but the only one who matters right now is Rachel. Jeff asks her point blank about how she’s feeling and while she knows she’s in hot water. She knows she has to do some damage control and apologizes for any ‘tude she’s thrown at her tribemates. Let’s see if that does any good at this point.

Camera pans around the tribe to gauge their responses, but when it falls on Kwai Chang Caine (Lucy – or, “She, Who Doesn’t Speak”) we almost know what’s about to happen. Jeff asks a perfunctory question about idols, but since we know David doesn’t have one (or they’d show it to us), we pretty much know what’s about to happen. But, will the Power 6 alliance split their votes and shoot themselves in the foot…? It’s time to vote.

Votes are cast and no idols are played. Duh… Jeff reads the votes:

David
Rachel
Sunday
CeCe
Rachel
CeCe
Rachel
CeCe
Rachel
Rachel

And with that, we just lost all those pervs who tuned in this season for some full frontal nudity. True, that group includes me, but I’m still going to come back and see where things go from here. Surprising that David only received one vote, considering how feeble he’s played the game thus far. I’m sure things will continue to go poorly for him.

Without a look back at her tribe. Rachel gets her fire snuffed and exits, and we know that’s the last we’ll see/hear from her. Because I’m sure that unless she exposes a little nipple on the reunion show, we’ll never hear her speak. Too bad…

Next week, we see that Tails and Figs may start playing Adam and Eve in the jungle, much to the chagrin of JayBone, who isn’t into a menage. And once again, health concerns seem to be ever present as someone may be having a heart attack. Oh god, who could it be? Maybe the “old guy?” I sure hope Paul can make it through 6 days of Survivor since David Lee Roth could survive 11 years of doing coke in Van Halen. We’ll see who survives next week. Regardless, David is ecstatic that someone’s near-death experience bodes well for him, so he’s got that going for him…which is nice.

So, once again, thanks to all of you who came back to read my recaps. Without your support, I would just be writing these for myself – and how fun is that? I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who offered me support over the past 6 months. I know some of you may have wondered what happened to me last season, and why I couldn’t recap S32. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of last season anyway, with many of the stronger players going out early, so I don’t know how my recaps would’ve turned out. There’s only so much comedy in bullying, self-aggrandizing, life-threatening emergencies, and dorky/effeminate players who had no business being at Final Tribal. It was definitely one of the worst seasons in my memory (bottom 5?).

That said, I didn’t mind Michele winning because I wasn’t a fan of Aubry or Tai, so by default, someone’s gotta win. To be fair, Michele wasn’t so bad, she/her tribe did win a lot of rewards, and she actually scored pretty high on my Rankings of Every Survivor Player. She came in at #64, which is higher than Tony Vlachos! So go figure… I’ll probably Tweet (or post here) the updated list of the top 150 players (or so), just to satisfy those of you who are addicted to stats.

Once again, I really dig all the interactions I have with my readers and I hope to continue amusing you. I’ll do what I can to not dip into serious matters that often, because I know you don’t come here for that. So, until next week, flush those toxins, hug your kids, and give thanks to whoever/whatever you give thanks to for everything you have. Life is too important to be depressed about things, and don’t ever let periods of ups or downs define you. You’re a work-in-progress, and there’s always more to experience. So, calm down, drink up, and go have some fun…

See ya next week –

“nobody listens to techno…”

Completely lucid,
Fish

Email: bryan.fish.fischer@gmail.com
Twitter: @BF_TheFish
AIM: bryan.fish.fischer@gmail.com or Bryan Fischer