Survivor Cook Islands: Heavy Metal Bites the Dust

Act 1 Hiki
I’m completely confused as this episode begins because the Hiki tribe is complaining about their lack of water and desperately trying to make fire. Huh? Didn’t they take lit torches home from the tribal council last night? Hiki’s only guy tries and tries and tries to make fire but no matter how many sparks come off the flint he just can’t. So of course, he quits trying. Because as we all know if at first you don’t succeed…quit. Besides, who really needs that stupid ole water anyway? We’ll get along just fine without it. Since the big strong man quit, it’s once again up to the women.

Act 2 Aitu
This team is working really well together—welll, except that Billy’s really lazy and Ozzy and Cristina are in a power struggle. The problem is that Ozzy thinks he knows everything and so does Cristina. Shoot. Two people who know EVERYTHING. How lucky can one tribe get? Other than that—they’re working really well together. One thing they’ve done right--they’ve caught a bunch of fish and crabs and CHICKENS! Apparently free-range chickens are everywhere so the tribe set up a coconut trap and the chickens walked right in, down dropped the net and yeehaw. One thing that Ozzy and Christina argued about was, should the net swoop UP or drop down? These are apparently important issues to be fought over. Anyway, who knew chickens eat coconut? See Survivor’s not a guilty pleasure, it’s EDUCATIONAL.

Act 3 Puka
Over at Puka, the tribe has had the same idea--let’s catch these chickens just running around. They improvised a trap with coconut for bait (again with the coconut) then tripped the stick that held the box and the box dropped down and…well, you get the idea…chicken dinner. Yul and Becky agreed to an alliance based on their shared Korean heritage (so much for the groupings by race--maybe on the next Survivor, teams will be divided by STATE). I think it’s also because Becky’s a lawyer and Yul’s a management consultant. My guess is education is as great a magnet for bringing people together as anything. Nalon Salon manager Cai Boi probably doesn’t have a chance with these two.

Act 4 Raro
Over at Raro, Jonathan returns to see that after his two days at Exile Island, the rest of the Raro tribe hasn’t done jack to improve the hut or the campsite. Jonathan appears to be from the school of thought that thinks winning Survivor is all about working hard and having a neat, clean, comfortable camp. I would have thought the fact that last year’s winner came from the laziest, most dysfunctional tribe with the filthiest, most disgusting camp ever would have caused him to think again, but I’m not batting a really great average for this episode, so apparently not. Adam is from the opposite school. He wants to save his energy for the competition, so he came out of the closet and said that he didn’t see the point of having a floor for the shelter. Hello! Ever slept on the ground in the rain? Water seeps, dude. Everywhere. You need a floor to avoid chronic dampness and its associated fungi and mildew. Hmm, wonder what the difference between fungi and mildew is—is mildew a fungi? Something to Google later. Anyway, Adam got shot down by the people who want to sleep on dry bamboo instead of wet, cold sand. I don’t know why they all had to agree one this issue. I would have said, “Ok, you know what, I’m going to build myself a floor for my bed--if you don’t want one, fine.” Raro tribe’s disagreement is a lover’s tiff compared to what’s brewing over at Aitu.

Act 5 Aitu
CBS does some weird editing in the shift back to Aitu, so we get to watch the tribe bring in the fish that we watched them catch in the water back in Act 2. Then it’s Billy time. In the early episodes, it’s never a good thing to get a lot of screen time because it means you don’t have much life left in the game. Billy brags about conserving energy and eating food that other people gather. Again, I ask “What’s with the all-for-one garbage?” Make it a rule: you catch it, you eat it. You gather it, you eat it. You don’t work, you don’t eat. Instead Ozzy orders Billy to do things and being a wimp, Billy does them.

Act 6 Puka
Jenny gets the red mark. After working in the hot sun, she gets a headache. Cai Boi cures her. Jenny asked him not to give her ‘the red mark’ but he doesn’t listen. Why Jenny cared about having a red mark on her forehead on an island with no mirrors is a question for the ages, not for poor blogging me. That night Cai Boi starts his standup routine in his daily effort to offend all of his pc tribemates. I’m mostly offended by the fact that we never heard the punchline to the joke about the Vietnamese with 3 dogs. For the record, let’s take a minute to list all of the groups of people subjected to jokes about them which use exaggerated stereotypes: Blondes, the Polish, Catholics, Red Necks, the Irish, Surfers, the British. I’m running out of space so I’ll cut to the chase: EVERYBODY. Yes, they can be offensive but try not to take yourself so seriously, dudes.

Act 7 Aitu
Ok, this is not good at all. We’re back to Aitu without revisiting Raro or Hiki. That’s not very fair. Somebody from this tribe is getting evicted today for sure. Who will it be? Well, we last we saw Aitu, lazy Billy was under the microscope. Who is it this time? How ‘bout that! It’s Billy--keeping everyone awake with his snoring. (I didn’t see that coming!) Rest is very important to a tribe involved in competition. This can’t continue! Who will have the courage to speak out and say what needs to be done? Not JP, that’s for sure. But Ozzy, he’s a MAN. “We should throw the challenge and kick Billy out. He’s a drain on our resources!” Cristina doesn’t think she can ever trust Ozzy again after a suggestion like that. Oh well, life’s full of little disappointments.

Billy--Heavy Metal Twilight Zone inhabitant

Act 8 Raro et al.
Treemail! Along with lots of rah, rah team from three tribes and lots of angst from the cheating, quitting tribe who want to kill one of their own.

Now the competition: Another race. Duh. First, the teams listen to a story. Then, all the tribemates are tied together while they navigate through a series of logs, (up, down, up…you get it, right?) then they climb through a pole field filled with slats with answers on them. They must collect all the answer slats as they go. After scooting across a rope bridge, they reach a puzzle table where they must place their seven answer tiles in the correct positions to answer five questions, and so win immunity and reward. The reward is two tarps.

There’s more drama at the start while Aitu has trouble picking who to sit out. Billy doesn’t think he would be any good at this so he wants to sit out, Cristina wants no part of throwing a competition (I got that from my incredible insight into the character of people I don’t know), and JP wants to sit this one out to make it easier to throw. Guess who was the most determined? JP!

The story is about James Cook’s three voyages. An idiot could have remembered the details, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to come down to the race portion of the contest. Aitu stopped to read the story again in an effort to provide extra cover for their ‘throwing the competition subtly’ plan. In the end, this race came down to the ability to undo knots. Ozzy, clever boy, took the lead or should I say the rear by undoing the knots for his answer flags at an incredibly slooooooow rate. There was a bit of excitement at the end when Raro and Puka both jumped on their mats at the same time but Jeff read the answer board for Puka first and called the challenge for them. Happily, the producers used instant replay Jeff later corrected this error and declared a tie so both teams got tarps. Hiki tribe, bless ‘em came in third, thrilled to death. After taking every opportunity to go slowly, Aitu was finally crossing the rope bridge after all the teams were finished and Billy fell off it. Because, you know, fat guys are rope bridges go together like peanut butter and jelly. Hmm…I’m wondering now if Ozzy couldn’t have gone as fast as he liked untying those knots. Thinking back, I can see there wasn’t any way that team was going to get across that rope bridge with Billy in rear. Their slowdown effort was unneeded.

Aitu picked Yul to go to Exile Island and then, in a soap opera moment--Raro tribe and Aitu tribe stood next to each other on the mat and Candice told Billy that she feels really bad for them. You know, for losing on purpose. Billy presciently told her, “I’m next.” Candice replied, “We love you”. Angels sing! Billy responded, “I Love YOU.”

Candice--Billy's New Love

Act 9 Aitu (AGAIN) then Exile Island
The tribe commiserates. Ozzy says they did what they had to do. He believes they COULD have won that no problem. I say, talk is cheap--prove it. Oh wait, you can’t.

Now we follow Yul to Exile Island. He reads his clue and then finds the immunity idol. Bing Bang Boom. Maybe next year the tribes will figure out not to send the smart, strong men to the island. Maybe.

Back at Aitu, we’ve got the obligatory scheming to set up the doubt factor. We all know Billy’s going but wait…maybe not. Maybe Billy will scheme with Cristina and instead of Billy--Ozzy will get booted. Maybe.

Act 10 Tribal Council
We learn at Tribal Council that Ozzy is the big voice in the tribe according to everyone except Ozzy. Ozzy thinks the team together is the strongest entity. JP and Ozzy are outed for throwing the challenge. They defend their actions. Billy defends himself for a minute, then we leave the Tribal Council and enter the

do doo do do,

Twilight Zone. Billy confesses. He has FALLEN IN LOVE--with Candice from Raro tribe. When he said I love YOU—he meant her, in specific, not just generally in an all part of the same world kind of way. He also seems to think when Candice said, “WE love you.” that she, too, was speaking in specific of him. Uh oh, my nutcake meter is off the charts and into the red. Jeff Probst shows that no matter the rumors, he does not use Botox. He looked more surprised than I’ve seen in all my years of devoted Survivor viewing. Not even Cristina could support this nutball. Billy’s out. The tribe has spoken.