So Terry and Sally are fighting for their Survivor lives right now. La Mina is down to two and Casaya's still strong with six. Terry's cool with the situation because a) he still has that Immunity Idol, and b) he's confident he'll win any upcoming Immunity Challenges. He's telling some of the group about his days as a fighter pilot, much of which sounds extremely cool. Terry uses his time with the guys to ask them about his chances of making it to the final six. They tell him to not even go there because the chances of that are pretty slim.
Courtney, Cirie and Danielle, who are in the shelter, talk about the Immunity Idol Danielle claims to have seen. She tells the women about him showing her the Idol but admits that all she saw was some furry looking thing, so he could have been lying. I mean, the last furry things she saw were the handcuffs the director told her to use in her scene with Rock Hardson, so she doesn't know for sure. The women wonder, as Terry continues telling his story about dropping bombs (no not that kind) how they're going to beat a Navy pilot. Cirie says that maybe Terry will just break his arm or something. She's going to call Louie and Vinnie to see what they can do. Danielle also says that after Terry and Sally are gone, she wants Aras to go next. I think maybe she hit on him and he doesn't like fake boobs. He does live in California though, so maybe that's not the case. Danielle even quickly looks in Terry's bag, I guess to prove to the other girls that she's telling the truth, and to prove to herself that she's not crazy.
Aras eventually comes over to the girls and they talk about Terry the Terminator. He says that the girls need to calm down because it's not like Terry's an American Gladiator. Ha, do you remember that show? That was awesome. He also tells them that if they have to send someone to Exile Island, he wants it to be him. He wants to do a little snooping of his own. The camera quickly pulls in to Aras' eyebrow, which lifts.
At the Reward Challenge we know it's going to be something good. From the previews I saw some people were crying so either, its letters from home or relatives are there to visit. Jeff tells them to come back in a hut to get a preview of the reward. I'm right, it's video messages from their loved ones. Shane starts crying like a frakin' baby. Seriously bawling. Grow some balls you sissy. Anyway, they all get to view about fifteen seconds of a longer video from each of their families. This is the time we see who's married, if they have an ugly ass wife, and who's living the single life with their dog. It's all fairly uninteresting. Courtney's mom and family are throwing her "love signs". Okay, how come when hippies do it it's called "love signs" and when I do it they're called "gang signs"? That's messed up. Peace! Shane's son finally comes on and damn if he's not crying like a baby again. Jeff probes (not Probsts) him and Shane says that he and his son grew up together. I'm expecting him to say he was seventeen, eighteen when his kid was born, but he doesn't, he was twenty-one, which I think is a fairly decent age, but I guess not to Shane. As much as this douche irritates me, it's nice to see he has so much love for his son, who he calls his other half, best friend, brother. I really want to be creeped out by this, and think it's stupid to call your son your brother, but alas, it's nice. Aras' dad is in his back yard with a teepee and says hi and that he wants to show him something. Unfortunately the tape cuts off and we don't get to see what it is. Aras tells us that his dad's always wanted a teepee so he got one. I'd like to ride in the Oscar Meyer Weiner Truck but people would point and laugh so I'm not gonna do it. The winning team will not only get to see their full length video, but will also get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with milk.
Drop her. Drop her. What? She'd just bounce back up
On to the challenge. I'm going to just relay on the picture above for this. In short, someone lays in a stretcher type thing and gets pulled around a large area with pulleys. The other three teammates have to pull the person around so they can pick up numbered flags and then place them sequentially, on another part of the contraption. The teams are Bruce, Sally, Terry and Courtney, and then Aras, Danielle, Shane and Cirie. They pick Courtney and Danielle to be on the stretcher. Not sure if this is the best idea, seeing that Shane looks like he weighs about a buck ten and one of Danielle's rocks weighs that much, but I guess they have their reasoning.
The challenge starts and Aras' team is kicking a little booty. I'm upset because I really want Terry to have some food so he can win the Immunity Challenge. I also want to see what the hell is in Aras' dad's teepee, so I'm torn. Everything's going great for his team, until he accidentally knocks over one of the flags in its post. They have to pull Danielle around to have her reset it. This takes up way too much time and Terry's team's able to make up some time and get ahead of them by three or four flags. Cirie knocks over another one of her team's flags and this sets them back more. Ultimately it's Terry's group that wins and gets Reward. When Terry and his group deliberate on who to send to Exile Island Terry suggests Aras. Obviously Aras is his biggest threat, but he says it's because Aras will eat anything. What kind of reasoning is that? Are we 10? Now Shane, that Mofo, looks like he'd eat anything. But it's not a big deal because Aras wanted to go anyway.
When Shane, Cirie and Danielle get back to camp, Shane tells them that if they were going to lose a challenge, this was the one. Yeah, the tapes would be nice, but they could live without it. And the sandwiches, that's nothing. Cirie notes that he was just trying to make them feel better, which is nice. What's not nice is Shane coming up to Cirie, who's a nurse, and announcing that he has something wrong with his penis. She tells him that some men just aren't as blessed as others. Apparently he has some sort of rash on Little Shane. Cirie thinks this is hilarious, and I feel sorta bad for Shane. She asks if maybe he can just explain it to her, but he says no, that she needs to look because it hurts so much he can't even touch it. He's gone around the corner to hide from Danielle, although hiding from the crew would have been my first priority. She finally looks at it and tells us that it's not his penis that has the problem, it's his testicles. Not that I'm a doctor or anything, but I've been watching ER for a long time and I try to guess what could be wrong with his nuts, eh, I'm sorry, testicles. Poison Ivy or Oak is the first thing that comes to mind, although I don't know if they have that in Panama. Actually, I don't know about anything they may have in Panama. Regardless, it turns out his nuts are just irritated from being in wet pants. They've chafed. She explains that it's sorta like diaper rash. He has to dry out his nuts and the chafing should go away. He decides to make a "chafing skirt" out of his shirt and let his boys feel the air. In Cirie's download she says that Shane's like a cartoon character. Yeah, kinda like those ones that get run over with a steamroller and are all flat and skinny when they get up. Yeah, I can see that.
Aras is doing well on Exile Island, he's made a fire and started looking for the Idol. He's pulling up rocks, looking at the map upside down, quite curious about where the damn thing can be buried. He figures out that Terry sending him there reveals a lot. First, he sent him there because he feels he's his biggest competition, and wanted to weaken him. Second, he has no fear of him ever finding the Idol because he already has it, so why not send him there. Wow, Aras is a smart one.
"Porn Night" in Panama
When the winning group finally comes back to camp, not only are their bellies full but they've been able to bring their luxury items back with them. Terry brought back an American flag which he tells us was on his father-in-law's coffin and symbolizes, zzzzzzz. Oh, sorry. Anyway, Courtney was nice enough to bring back her fire ball things that she lights on fire and twirls around. Cirie thinks it's a fun item. The boring items go to Bruce who brings his sketch book and Sally who brings back her journal. The last place I'd want to be sh*t talking people is in that thing. They are some nosy people.
A day passes and Terry and Sally are nervous about the pending Immunity Challenge and Tribal Council. As much as the whole Casaya alliance bothers me, so does the La Mina one. They want to get down to the final two, obviously, and want to have someone come over to their side. I think a better plan would be to get everyone on your side and make them vote for, let's say, Shane. But hey, that's just me. Instead, they think if one of them wins the challenge, then they'll warn Courtney or Danielle that they'll play the Immunity Idol, which means someone from Casaya will go home. I mean I understand what they're trying to do, and I really hope it works out for them, but as strategies go, not sure if it's the brightest one.
We're finally at the Immunity Challenge. Aras come back and plays like he may or may not have the Immunity Idol, which should just make people laugh because over half of them know Terry has it. Jeff hands each person a nut and shell and tells them to hold onto them for a minute while he explains the challenge. About twenty feet out in the ocean, underwater, is a row of symbols. They have to dive in, memorize as much of the symbols as they can, swim back out and line the symbols up in a small box. Whoever can line them up correctly, wins. Kinda like the game Memory. The catch of this game is that anyone who thinks they're safe from elimination, can sit down at a table and eat cheeseburgers, fries and soda. Jeff tells them to show him either the shell or the nut, depending on what they want to do. Every Casaya member except Aras decides to eat the cheeseburgers. The others gather around the food and prepare to stuff their faces as long as the challenge is going on. The challenge starts and they swim out, trying to memorize the symbols. They get back around the same time and start arranging it. Aras finishes first but unfortunately, or fortunately for Terry, he doesn't get it and heads back out to get another look at the symbols. While he's out Terry finishes and Jeff checks it, he's right! Terry wins Immunity and all the other Casaya members have thoroughly stuff they're faces with food.
My strategy would be to ditch the buns and fries and go for the protein.
Later at the beach Aras takes his tribe mates aside and says that he looked high and low for that damn Idol. He thinks that either someone found it or it's well hidden. Wow, he must be a rocket scientist. Meanwhile, Terry decides to show Bruce his Idol. Get a room you two. Sally's trying to work on the women and tells them about Terry playing the Immunity Idol tonight and how one of the Casaya members will go home anyway, and that it'll most likely be Aras, so they should vote for him anyway. Why she doesn't just use the argument that they should vote for him, I don't know. Perhaps she wants Terry to use the Idol so she can vote him out later. I doubt she's thinking that straight.
Terry tries to work on Courtney much in the same way. In her download Courtney reasons that although Terry's hard to beat at Immunity, Aras would be harder to beat once it's just the two of them. This is interesting for two reasons. First of all, why does she think she's getting into the final two, Danielle and Cirie are the only ones who like her, and barely. And second, why would Aras be harder to beat then Terry? Terry's an all around nice guy who's played the game well, and if he's in the final two then he's won half a dozen Immunities and has to have the respect of all the players. Either there's more going on with Terry being a douche then we know, or Courtney's off her rocker. I wonder which one it is.
Cirie calls it when she comments that if Terry uses his Immunity Idol to save Sally it'd be the dumbest move in Survivor history. I can't really comment on that because I only watch every other Survivor and don't know if that's true. Terry also tells us that he's not sure if he's going to use the Idol to save Sally.
We've finally made it to Tribal Council and Jeff goes around asking everyone about their feelings, and lots of mushy stuff. He gets on some of them about not doing the Immunity Challenge and Shane says that he's lucky he wasn't worried about the Challenge and over performed by eating two cheeseburgers. I bet that was the first time he's ever over performed. Sally's a bit irritated that some people have that luxury of being so confident and not being able to do the Challenge. Jeff then brings up the good point of Aras feeling like the whole thing was on his shoulders since no one else from Casaya decided to do the Challenge to help secure Terry or Sally not win Immunity. We find out that he wasn't competing so the two of them wouldn't win, he was competing because he knew his head was on the chopping block.
Jeff asks Shane if they've talked about how dominant Terry's been. He tells him yes, and that unless he keeps winning Immunity Challenges, he'll be gone soon. He says that he'd have to win all six to get to the final two. I haven't done the math here, and quite frankly, I don't want to, but that's a lot of challenges to win. If anyone could do it it'd be Terry, so I'm crossing my fingers. Terry tells the group that he'll be winning them. Jeff asks Danielle about Terry's confidence and she seems annoyed by it. Jeff so wonderfully points out that that's exactly how they're all acting being in Casaya with the numbers. Tell 'em Jeff! The voting starts and Courtney writes down a name we don't see and says that the person she wrote down is nice, but too much of a threat. Okay, so this has to be Aras she wrote down right? Jeff tallys the votes and wouldn't you know it, two for Aras and all the rest Sally. Sally gets up with a slight hesitation, thinking maybe Terry will use the Idol, but he doesn't. She leaves and in her exit interview says that she's not mad at Terry for not using it. Here's hoping she goes back to the holding camp, has some food, a shower and bonks Austin!
