Survivor Caramoan: Filipino Jesus or Filipino Gollum

Our episode began with the dysfunctional Gota tribe returning to camp after another testy tribal council. Somehow, Shamar was still in the tribe and boy oh boy was Eddie pissed that his tribe voted off Hope. Eddie said “it’s mindboggling to me that we got rid of Hope tonight. She was the prettiest one here”. I’m with you on this one Eddie. How they can keep that lazy brute Shamar and get rid of Hope is beyond normal comprehension. Seriously, if I am stuck on an island for up to 39 days I want the prettiest people around me. But alas, I am not playing the game. Reynold went on a bit of a tirade as well since he had been blatantly lied to by Laura and apparently he had not realized that being lied to was a time honored Survivor tradition.

Over at Bikal it was all unicorns and flowers as Phillip continued enshrining tribe mates into his secret “stealth R us” alliance. Frankly I am having trouble remembering what everyone’s secret name is, but it hardly matters. Andrea quickly questioned why Phillip was adding Brandon, Brenda and Erik into the group and I have to say that I agreed with her. I say that fully knowing that I would probably have agreed with anything and everything she said while wearing that bikini. Maybe it was my imagination (it was, but then again I have a great imagination) but I could have sworn I could almost see nipple. Oh, Brenda was called Serenity. I remember that now. I suppose that Phillip is still bitter about Firefly being canceled 10 years ago. Again, I really do not understand the need for Phillip to give everyone a code name, but if you are going to do it why include those outside your alliance? The man is whack I tell you. Whack!

It was time for the reward challenge and the winning tribe would get the services of a local bushman for the afternoon. Wow, I did not realize how dirty that sounded until after I wrote it. Anyway we had both tribes, sans Cochran, attempting to use planks to transport two tribe members over the water from one platform to the next. Once both of the tribe members were transported to the third platform all tribe members would swim to the fourth and final platform where they would all have to squish themselves at the top to achieve victory.

The challenge was surprisingly close. This despite the fact that Shamar is as lazy in a challenge as he is in camp. Shamar got to the top of the final platform first and instead of getting up there and helping others up he just decided it would be better to lie down on the platform and get everyone else to stand on top of him. It was an interesting strategy, but unfortunately for the fans it failed and the favorites shouted in victory. Then when the pile got off of Shamar he too decided to scream in victory. Shamar is so stupid he did not understand that his team had lost. Naturally everyone looked at him like he was insane (and he has certainly not done anything to prove otherwise) and Phillip told him he was a loser.

So Bikal went back to their beach and began waiting for Bushman. His name was Tata and I think he was about four feet tall. That’s a tiny Bushman if you ask me and by reading this you actually did so there. He was dubbed the Filipino Jesus at first and then later after he spoke for a while he became the Filipino Gollum. I was not sure which I liked better, but ultimately it was clear that he was much more of a Gollum than a Jesus. Tata went about showing the tribe how to cook rice inside bamboo, which was really cool, and also helped them to strengthen their shelter. Much like I was when I saw two men clean a toilet with their bare hands, I was shocked and humbled to tears watching Tata put his Bushman skills to task for these pathetic individuals.

When Tata was done showing them how to do things around camp he got busy showing Cochran and the rest of the guys the proper way to flirt with girls in bikinis. Yes, Tata was a player. A four foot tall ladies’ man that took advantage of every available hugging opportunity. Funny, but I don’t recall the real Gollum getting that kind of attention.

Back at Gota Shamar was in his usual spot lying down and doing nothing. Once he got settled he proclaimed “I’m not leaving, but y’all gonna bring me rice once a day.” Seriously? Who are you, the reincarnation of King Tut? If you want rice Shamar get off your lazy ass and get it yourself. No one is going to…wait, what is Sherri doing? Sherri is bringing that fat bastard rice! Oh my gosh! She doesn’t even do that for her own husband. This is insanity. Pure insanity.

Despite the fact that Shamar has barely moved for the last 19 hours he somehow gets something in his eye and it begins to swell. Like Reynold, I initially thought that Shamar was faking it for more attention and/or pity. But then Jeff shows up on the beach with a medical team and they diagnose the fat bastard with a scratched cornea and remove him from the game. Listen, I am never one to cheer for someone’s pain and agony, but hallelujah! Bing, bang the bastard’s gone. Good riddance you dope. Nice show of class from Eddie by helping the guy off the beach and on to the boat in which he would be whisked away for further medical attention. (At this moment I am doing a happy dance, though I realize you can’t see it. Honestly you are better off not seeing it)

So the beast is gone and poor Gota is left with one less person to use on the immunity challenge.  Again, no big loss.  The challenge consists of crossing some planks on the water, swimming to a platform, jumping off said platform while smashing a tile which will then release a key.  Once all five keys are released and back on shore two other tribe mates will unlock a chest filled with sandbags.  (Again, that sounds dirty to me)  Then they take the sandbags and knock off a bunch of blocks off a shelf.  Once all the blocks are gone the flag is raised and victory is achieved.  Sherri royally screwed up by missing her tile on her first jump thus poutting the favorites very far in the lead.  Reynold did his absolute best to get the blokcs off the table and made an amazing comeback, but it was too little, too late and the Bikal tribe tasted immunity once again.

This put both Reynold and Eddie on the defensive.  They were now an alliance of two and their nemesis was gone so who could be voted out?  Well, the guys decided that Laura was the weakest link (very true) and made her their target.  Matt came to discuss with them how they could have easily won more challenges if it were not for Laura being incredibly horrid in those challenges and he pledged to give Laura his vote.  Reynold had already been burned once and while he was hoping Matt was telling the truth he could not be 100% certain.

In reality getting rid of Laura would be the smart way to go.  Despite being on the outs from the beginning both Eddie and Reynold played well in the challenges and if they had any chance of getting on a hot streak they would need both of them.  Sherri was seemingly convinced that it did not matter because they had lost the challenges with them already.  But Sherri was missing the big picture; they did not lose any challenge from a lack of effort from the guys, but they did lose challenges due to the weakness of not only herself, but of Laura as well.

So it was off to tribal council and I must say that Laura did a fascinating job of trying to make herself seem worthwhile to the tribe.  But even she could not convince Sherri and the vote ended up 6-1 and Laura was gone,  Reynold did use his hidden immunity idol and I really can't say that I blame him.  After all he had no reason to trust anything anyone had told him, but in this case he was handed the truth.  And now with Laura gone that means that every person voted out thus far has been a woman.  Interesting.

What will happen next week?  Well, if the previews are any indication it appears that Brandon goes completely off his rocker, dumps all of his tribe's rice and starts destroying the camp.  I wonder if he decided to pee in the rice first.  We shall see next week.