Survivor Caramoan: Let it be Childish

I have been watching Survivor since the beginning and in doing so I have learned quite a few things. I have learned is that if the producers show us an arrogant guy at the beginning saying he will not be voted off while another guy is saying that the arrogant guy must go then it means two things:

1. That tribe will lose the immunity challenge and head to tribal council and
2. The arrogant guy will not get voted off despite half-hearted efforts by the producers to get us to believe otherwise.

So was my early assessment on target as usual? Well, read on…

Our episode began with the tribe of faves, Bikal, returning to camp. Brandon was visually upset. So upset in fact that new tattoos seemed to suddenly appear on his body. Just for a second, let’s recall how Brandon was like on his first go-round. Let’s see, he was very religious and did everything for Jesus, proclaimed he was nothing like Uncle Russell and gave up his immunity like an idiot and was voted out. (No wonder Brandon & Erik get along so well) Okay, that was old Brandon. New Brandon was very angry at seeing Francesca voted out at tribal council going as far to say “That’s the harshest thing I’ve ever seen in my life”. I find that hard to believe. One would think he’d see harsher activities at the annual Hantz family picnic, but whatever. Dawn pleaded with him to not be mad, but Brandon replied with “I’m being vicious, I’m a mother f----ing honey badger, dude.” This made Dawn head off to the beach and cry. Not sure if she was crying because Brandon was so nasty to her or because he called her a dude, but cry she did. And Dawn is a very nice lady too. Making her cry is not nice.

Well young Brandon went off into the jungle to complete his fit of anger and it got bad. He said “I’m thinking of going Russell Hantz style on these mother f------s right now! I honestly feel my uncle’s blood running through my body right now.” Okay, first of all, yuck. Second, is this really the way a nice young Christian man is supposed to act? And third, he cools down and reconsiders this plan the next morning. Phew! I sure hope no one pisses him off again.

Oh wait, here comes Phillip to piss him off. I cannot say I honestly understand what Phillip is trying to do, but he has brought back an old favorite, Stealth R Us, to go along with the B.R. Rules. In doing so he not only continued to refer to himself as The Specialist, but now he has decided to anger Brandon by referring to him as middle management. So Phillip gives himself and others cool assignments and then sends Brandon off to play Dilbert in an office in Lincoln, NE. Way to go Specialist. The kid has Hantz blood and you do not want it boiling. You also don’t want him pissing in the rice which he has promised to do. Even Russell was never that cruel.


This got me to thinking about the Hantz family bible must be like.  I'm no expert on scripture, but I am pretty sure that Jesus never used that kind of language and I don't think he cares for it.  However, let's take a passage and translate it to Hantz:

Regular bible: "Father, forgive them: for they do not know what they are doing." And they parted His garments, and cast lots (Luke 23:34).

Hantz bible: "Hey dad how about smiting these mfers for me?  They're idiots!  Hey, give me back my stuff or I'll go all Russell Hantz on y'all."

Over at Gota sparks were flying. Although not from Shamar who has decided the best strategy is to play himself as a beached whale and lie in the hut for 19 hours a day. On top of that he has chosen to be as obnoxious as possible and had the wherewithal to tattoo the Roman numeral XIV on his arm. I certainly hope that Shamar is not a true representative of the people in the Marine Corp because he’s going to give them all a really bad name if he continues at this pace. Somehow Sherri has decided that it’s a good idea to align with this lazy loudmouth and while I understand her reasoning (who would vote for this dunderhead at the end?) I just don’t see how he does not annoy her.

At the immunity/reward challenge Jeff was amused when Phillip could not plant the tribe flag in the ground without knocking it over. Just think how much Jeff would have laughed had he heard Phillip try to pronounce narcissistic. Anyway, the challenge was one of epic strength and agility. Well, not really. Each tribe would have three people on a raft and would use a rope to get them out to a platform. Once they arrived at the platform they would take turns (except for Sherri who insisted she could do it all herself. Guess what? She was wrong) jumping in the water and releasing rings that would magically float to the top. Once all nine rings were secured the team would get back on the raft and be pulled back to shore. The remaining players would have to play ring toss and the first to get three would win. Since it was already pre-ordained who would win I was a bit surprised when Gota made it so close, but as expected the Bikal tribe reigned victorious, won immunity and fishing gear. Brandon went bonkers as he is apt to do.

This is where things got a bit more wonky. Normally we would not see the winning tribe after victory and just focus on the losers scrambling to figure out who to vote for. However, the producers tossed us a golden nugget and allowed us the opportunity to see Phillip hand out the code names to his tribe. I’m not really sure how he comes up with those names, but I guess you feel good about it unless you are labeled as middle management.

When we got back to see Gota we saw Shamar in his natural position in the hut. It’s really pathetic and out of nowhere Reynold went on the attack telling Shamar that “your behavior is not acceptable where I come from”. Shamar just starts yelling “let it be childish” back at him repeatedly. I was going to county how many times he said it, but then I realized that the editors probably had to take out 561 instances of “let it be childish” for time constraints. Reynold walked off and Shamar kept yelling. Easy big fella, you don’t want to over exert yourself.

Matt, who has shown no love for Shamar or his antics thus far, then has a conversation with the good looking people and tells them that there is no one else he’d rather get rid of than Shamar. He wisely tries to convince Sherri that they should dump Shamar and then they would still have an advantage over the pretty people alliance of four. (Okay, even a week later an alliance of four in a tribe of 10 still makes no sense) Would Matt flip and then become a target of Sherri? We shall see.

Reynold then wanders off and with almost no effort locates the hidden immunity idol. Great for Reynold! All he needs to do is keep the thing a secret and he’s got a huge advantage. He knew this as well and he said “I’m trying to just check myself, be smart about it, not walk back to camp with some giant, stupid grin on my face and a huge bulge in my pocket.” (Possibly my favorite line of the night) Unfortunately for Reynold he was on a tribe with Laura who is apparently an expert at finding bulges in men’s pants. Laura brags that “right before we’re about to leave for Tribal Council, I see a bulge in Reynold’s pocket and it seemed like there was definitely something in it.” Okay, maybe that was my favorite line of the night. Let it be childish, let it be childish, let it be childish.

At tribal council Jeff is as smooth as he always is.  He is able to get the Gota tribe bickering and fighting among themselves.  Shamar declares his problem is that he is loud.  Wow, what insight you have.  Then Jeff, clearly knowing that Reynold has the immunity idol and Laura knowing it as well questions Laura about what is on her mind.  Laura responds by talking about seeing a bulge in someones pants, but will not tell us who she is talking about.  Jeff, ever so crafty, takes notice that Laura is staring at Reynold.  Reynold then takes IT out.  He too IT out.  IT.  Yes, Reynold removed his bulge and declared it was really just the hidden immunity idol,  He also said that he would play it, which he did not.

So off to vote they went and the alliance of six trumped the alliance of four by dispatching "not the cutest" Allie.  This was very sad becauseAllie really was quite attractive and now we have to deal with at least another week of that blowhard Shamar.  Yuck.  Previews of next week seem to indicate that he is now bothering everyone except maybe Sherri.  This leads me to believe that the fans will win immunity next week, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.