Survivor Carmoan: The B.R. Rules

As I have said before the Fans vs. Favorites format is not my favorite. I would much rather see 20 new people compete as opposed to 10 new people playing against Russell’s nephew, fuchsia undies, a woman no one remembered and seven others. However, after seeing Jeff standing majestically on his perch while helicopters flew by I was already hooked.

The show began with the newbies on the Gota tribe arriving by boat. We were introduced to them before they were introduced to the favorites they would be playing against. As the favorites exited the helicopters the Gota tribe cheered and giggled when they saw who they were to be playing against. Well, except for Francesca since no one could remember her and Malcolm since they had no idea who he was. The favorites would now be known as the Bikal tribe.

Jeff explained that they would have a challenge right away to play for fire and 20 pounds of farting beans. Okay, maybe he didn’t say that, but they played for beans nonetheless. It was a water challenge, which was great because those are always fun. Teams of two played against each other in a race for a ring followed by a battle to get back to your teams pole. As Jeff so eloquently said, to win a point a player had to have the ring in one hand and their pole in the other. I love Jeff’s double entendre.

Gota took the first point, but after that Bikal took the next four to win the challenge. I have to admit that seeing Phillip in his fuchsia undies tackle Michael was pretty funny. Not as funny as it was when he dragged him through the water as he yelled “Come with me boy”, but still funny. It was also during this challenge where I became slightly afraid of Shamar who encouraged one his tribe mates to get an edge on the other time by breaking a wrist. That got Jeff’s attention.

During that challenge Malcolm decided to introduce himself to everyone by losing his shorts in the water. Erik encouraged him to go naked, but alas modesty won out and Malcolm pulled them up. After getting to his pole of course. Also, Brandon beat his chest like Tarzan for no apparent reason which made me wonder why neither Tarzan was invited back as a favorite. He also has added several tattoos since his last visit and has designed his arms to allow him to look like a zebra. Yeah, that’s sexy.

The tribes went their separate ways and as is often the case, one tribe seemed to get things going pretty well while the other…well, not so much. I am speaking of Gota where an epic battle of wits between Hairy Matt and Shamar the Giant battled it out. Matt & Shamar had a major disagreement on whether it was more important to build a shelter or to get a fire started. In reality they were both correct and with 10 people on the tribe there were plenty of folks to do both. But no, they had to fight and pout instead of just saying you four work on the fire and the rest of us will build a shelter. So then as other people worked on the fire Shamar decided he was just going to sit there and do nothing for a while and then swoop in and BOOM, start a fire. I thought he was being super childish, but then he swooped in and started a fire. My apologies to Shamar the Giant.

The 90 minutes of Survivor was filled with some great lines. One was spoken by Reynold as he brokered an alliance with the adorable Allie. He said it was the perfect alliance because Allie is not the cutest girl out there. Now that’s a great way to compliment a woman, but it gets even better. Eddie alligned himself with the super-hot and ultra-luscious Hope, who apparently is the cutest girl out there. Eddie said “Me and Hope are the two best looking people here and I’m not just saying that. That’s just the way it is.” Just think of poor Eddie out there for potentially 39 days without a mirror to admire himself. Very sad. And then these two couples of extreme beauty all hooked up and created an alliance of four referring to themselves as the cool kids and letting us know that they are sitting at the cool kids table in the lunchroom. Apparently cool kids and math are sworn enemies as it does not take much to realize that an alliance of four in a tribe of 10 is in trouble.

Naturally the rest of Gota could see the couples hooking up and immediately knew that couples in a game of Survivor absolutely have to be broken up ASAP. Reynold and Allie (not the cutest) did themselves no favors by participating in some extreme snuggling during the night. It was difficult to figure out exactly what they were doing, but it looked like (bad pun alert) Reynold was wrapping himself completely around Allie.

And speaking of difficulty figuring things out let’s talk about Phillip. Now, we had an entire season of Phillip once. He never was voted out of the game, but he did not win either. He was bizarre from beginning to end and while I cannot say how well he will do this time, he may be even more bizarre then before. Francesca made an attempt to work things out with Phillip since things did not go so well the first time. Phillip just responded with awkward silence. It was not pretty. (Francesca is, but I’m guessing she’s not the cutest either)

Moments later we get to what is the heart of this episode: the B.R. Rules. The rules, I am told, are inspired by Boston Rob who has played Survivor approximately 157 times as well as 93 appearances on the Amazing Race. From the mouth of Phillip, here are the B.R. Rules:

1: Get in an alliance.
2: Get in an alliance within an alliance.
3: Get rid of your alliance before it gets rid of you.

If that sounds like nonsense when you read it you should have heard it when he said it. Phillip then goes and makes several alliances and refers to himself as “The Specialist” while at the same time handing out festive nicknames for everyone else. Don’t ask me to remember them all as I was still traumatized by Reynold’s Wrap. (Sorry)

But Phillip was not done. Nope. It was time for him to threaten Erik by telling him he is either with him or against him, but he is already on the outside looking in and if he doesn’t join in he’s out. Does that make any sense? No, but it gets worse when Phillip then tells Erik that he is the Errand Boy and he was sent to give him the message. So The Specialist (Phillip) got an errand boy (Phillip) to tell Erik that he was already out, but he could be in except that he’s already out. Erik hit the nail on the head when he said “He’s a combative idiot loser who makes everybody crazy.”

Is it just me or is Cochran the whitest person on the planet?  Cochran was out there for a mere day and already he has the worst sunburn in the history of sunburns.  He is red all over and his feet look like baked potatoes.  Cochran is going to suffer from spontaneous combustion before the season ends.

The immunity challenge involved sending teams of two up ladders to progressively higher levels and then throw boxes full of sandbags down to the ground.  Then two more members would gather up the bags before playing a game of Toss Across.  No not Toss Across, but that would have been awesome.  Their were six holes that the bags had to be tossed in.  Bikal took a big lead, but Malcolm could not finish the job and Gota was victorious sending the favorites to tribal council.

Now back at the beach the favorites went back and forth as to who should be voted out.  First it was Phillip then Andrea and the Francesca, but what about Corinne, yada, yada, yada.  It was enough to make ones head spin.  But Francesca made it clear that she was not going to be voted out and declared she would eat a rock if she was.  (Uh-oh)  Francesca makes it clear at first that she wants Phillip gone and them for some reason switches it up to Andrea, who is very cute and needs to stay.  I think she should have stuck with Phillip.

We arrive at tribal council and we find that there is still no love lost between Phillip and Francesca and Phillip is as big a pain in the ass as he was the first time around.  History is made when Francesca is voted out first for the second time.  I think her only hope is to somehow get on in a season when all of the players are former contestants that were voted out first.

So Francesca is gone once again and we will likely never know her very well.  Sad, but true.  Next week it looks as though Brandon is going to drop all his honesty and religious devotion and become like Uncle Russell.  Will this finally make him interesting or will he go full zebra?  We shall see.