When Survivor returned this week, we had the Fetus Tribe, still reeling from last week's amazing Tribal Council. Cute, young Benry wanted to put the tribe's focus back where he felt it belonged: "We need to go beat these old people." I sure hope he's talking about the game. But if it were NaOnka talking, I wouldn't be so certain.
NaOnka, who is officially The Most Annoying Woman in the World, and is a contender for Worst Human Being in America, said: "Coming back to camp after Tribal Council was so fake, faker than faux-fur." She's intent on deepening the Tribal divides that Jeff had told them needed to be united. I'm going to have a very hard time finding anything remotely positive to say about this horrible woman. Let me try. How is this? I am positive she's a wretched excuse for a human being.
Superbowl Guy can speak "Monkey." Well, he's had a career of communicating with football players, so monkeys are probably a step-up. He mentioned someone he called "Bradshaw." I have no idea who he is referring to. Why do people think the whole world pays attention to football?
Marty, the hot older guy on The Antique Tribe, is also unimpressed with Superbowl Guy, although in his case, it seems tinged a bit with jealousy. After all, who doesn't want to speak "Monkey"?
Jill, the ER nurse who isn't a lesbian, she just looks like one, knows Marty has the Hidden Immunity Idol, since she is the one who figured out the clue and then blabbed it to Marty and Shoeless Dan From Manahattan. Now her bright idea is: "I think we should real quick, go and get it and show it to everybody." Well, she was smart enough to figure out the clue, but this is a ridiculously stupid idea. Hidden Immunity Idols are only of use if no one knows you have them, you moron! Shut up!
Never, never, never, never tell people you have a Hidden Immunity Idol! If you don't know that, you are too stupid to be on Survivor, and should go apply to be on Big Brother instead, where idiocy is welcomed, and even encouraged.
Fabio, the not-too-bright surfer dude on The Fetus Team, has not yet learned, when fanning the fire, to blow on it from the upwind side instead of the downwind side. He keeps giving himself smoke inhalation. Just blow from the other side of the fire, dude. Apparently he's doing it deliberately, to get high. This is what people are reduced to when forced to live without vodka.
NaOnka hates Fabio, hated him at first sight. "His hair got on my nerves." NaOnka is ill-advised to criticize other people's hair, given the ropes she has hanging on her head.
Over in Antiqueland, Marty took Jill's extremely bad advice and told everyone he has the Hidden Immunity Idol, though in his defense, if he hadn't, Loose-Lips Jill would have blabbed it all over. Jimmy T thought this was a good move, the ultimate proof that it's a bad move.
Tyrone, the hot black fire captain however, found such a stupid move suspicious.
"I don't consider myself a weak link," said Shoeless Dan From Manhattan, the elderly weak link on the Antique Tribe. He's well over 60, almost as old as Superbowl Guy, and can barely walk. Yes, he's as strong a player as this supposed "Bradshaw" person, whoever he is. So in addition to being retirement age, in lousy shape, knees so hobbled it's all he can do to walk, dumb enough to bring $1600 dollar dress shoes to the jungle, hell, dumb enough to own $1600 dollar shoes in the first place, and now shoeless, thanks to Crazy Holly, he's also delusional.
"I do have a bad knee," he said, referring to a knee currently larger than a pumpkin, "but that doesn't make me weak." Yes it does. "I'm not as strong as Tyrone, obviously." Other things Shoeless Dan is not as strong as: my cat, two drops of vodka in a gallon of water, a baby that has been dead for a week, the brain power of Christine O'Donnell, the witch running for the senate in Delaware (I always thought Salem was in Massachusetts.), and the American economy. "I'm as strong as any one of the women, even though they're built like, some of them are built like mooses."
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the correct plural of "moose" is "moose." Parts of Shoeless Dan that are weaker than his knee: his knowledge of proper English, his chivalry, his respect for Bullwinkle. (On the other hand, I did think for a moment that I saw Sarah Palin trying to shoot Jill from a helicopter.) Yve, a woman on The Antique Tribe who is built like a moose that hasn't eaten in a year, wasn't fooled.
Immunity & Reward Challenge: Again with the one-challenge episodes. Hello? We like two-challenge episodes. They move faster.
The Antiques were amazed that the Fetus Tribe had voted out Shannon, their strongest male player, in their first elimination, but then, The Antiques didn't get to see his amazing, homophobic, foot-in-mouth, angry meltdown at Tribal Council.
This challenge involved retrieving 10 large, heavy barrels, arranging them on platforms in a triangular pattern, and then throwing sand bags onto each one. The barrels were closed, so the sandbags had to land on top, where they could fly off the other side, rather than into the barrels, which would be easier. The rewards were Tribal Immunity, and a collection of fruit, sauces, spices, and a "herb garden." Now I'm no gardener, I have a brown thumb, but don't herbs take time to grow? In over 70 years, my Great-Uncle Herb never did get to be very tall. Would a garden be likely to yield much in just under a month?
The Fetus Tribe had The Medallion of Power [Fanfare], which this time was good for having two barrels in place and already sandbagged, a 20% advantage, down from the 25% advantage it yielded last week. The overconfident Fetus Tribe decided not to play The Medallion of Power [Fanfare].
The barrels were heavy. The only way to move them far was to roll them, although Tyrone was able to carry one. Bullwinkle was impressed. The Fetuses took a small early lead, though really, the contest would be all about the accuracy of the sandbag tosses.
But quickly we heard Jeff yelling just what I expected him to yell: "Dan, you need to do something." Meanwhile, Kelly One-leg was proving herself as strong as a one-legged moose. That uniped is one heck of a physical competitor.
Tyrone smoked in the sandbag toss round. He was landing bag after bag. He was literally sandbagging the children, who were choking badly. Has Tyrone experience at Barrelball?
But Benry, who is not the evil leader of The Others, but just the guy who used to actually photograph the drunken young ratbags flashing their boobs and vajayjays in the Girls Gone Wild sleazeball videos, began to find his rhythm, just as Tyrone was finding the farther-away barrels harder to nail, and it got tied up again.
As Tyrone's game faded, Jimmy T demanded to be let in to shoot. "Jimmy T, be quiet," yelled Tyrone diplomatically, as the children moved to within one shot of winning. (Had they played The Medallion of Power [Fanfare], it would have been all over already.) At Antiques 7, Fetuses 9, Superbowl Guy put Jimmy T in for Tyrone, though Benry was one sandbag away from taking it. Was it too late?
Yes. Before Benry even made the winning shot, we knew it was over, because the background music was in it's wind-up-to-climax phrase, completely cuing the viewer that this was the winning shot. At that point, the music went from being an excitement-enhancer to a musical spoiler.
The kids won, and I suspected Shoeless Dan would be doing the Hobble of Shame some 35 minutes later, which is a lot of time to fill with just squabbling and maneuvering, when it's obvious who should go. Plus, this means no chance of losing NaOnka this week.
So, did Jimmy T's insistence on taking over the tossing from Tyrone blow the challenge? Or would Tyrone have lost it on his own? This is unknowable. What is knowable is that one player hadn't pulled their weight, and it wasn't any of the moose - mooses - meese. It was he who once walked in alligator hides.
Kelly One-Leg, in retrieving the fruit basket, saw a Hidden Immunity Idol clue in it, but her arch-enemy, NaOnka the Big-Mouthed Bitch, saw it also.
The second the Fetuses hit camp, NaOnka dropped the fruit basket, shoved Kelly One-Leg to the ground, and then both went clue-scrambling, literally wrestling and fighting each other like two-year-olds fighting over the last Halloween lollipop. Their tribemates, unaware of the booty, were appalled. A woman who will just shove a one-legged person to the ground and try to slam her aside; NaOnka must be fun at home, stealing crutches, shooting guide dogs, charging ahead of wheelchairs to get on the bus first. Readers, she teaches P.E. in a school. If you have kids in her classes, have them moved to another class.
And then she bragged to us about it. She was proud of her behavior! Could she be more a more appalling person?
She did toss off a hostile "apology" for smashing the tribe's bananas in her selfish rush. Class, pure class.
"And if it happens again," continued The Worst Woman in Los Angeles (except when Meg Whitman comes through in a campaign stop), "I'm gonna pull ya again. And hopefully, I'm gonna pull - push you so hard, that damn leg will fly off!" If any of my readers know her, or meet her, or just see her passing by, please take a moment to stop and spit on her. Who, I ask you, is more handicapped here: the woman who is physically-challenged, or the woman who is morally empty?
In NaOnka's CBS online bio, we find these:
Personal Claim to Fame: "Not having any kids at 27!" Well of course not. What man would be so depraved as to have sex with her?
Pet Peeves: "Old people driving." Not, please notice, "old people driving slowly," just "old people driving." So she hates old people as well as handicapped people. There is no end to her charm. Whoops. I meant no beginning.
3 Words To Describe You: "Unique, spontaneous, funny." I hope she's unique. Two of her would be three too many. "Spontaneous"? Yes, like a brush fire, or a stroke. "Funny"? Yes, but not funny as in "humorous." Funny as in "Funny in the head," and in severe need of institutionalization.
NaOnka, I hope you read this, or have it read to you. You are disgusting.
But, there was an upside to her getting the clue. She was utterly unable to make any sense out of it. Jill may not know strategy, but She's Professor Stephen Hawking (You know, the genius NaOnka pushed out of his wheelchair so she could steal its cool electro-voice electronics) next to stupid bitch NaOnka. Come to think of it, calling NaOnka a bitch is insulting to dogs everywhere, even rabid ones.
She also schooled us in the difference in her twisted excuse for a mind between "'hood" and "ghetto." The word she needs to learn is "civilized." Does this woman possess even one redeeming quality? If so, it hasn't been seen on CBS yet.
Three more-accurate words to describe NaOnka: Nasty, Stupid, Revolting.
NaOnka showed the clue to Brenda, the Hispanic-Asian beauty queen. Between them, they worked out that it meant: "8 steps west of something." Mind you, this was the second clue, so it was easier than the one Jill figured out without help. But then, Jill is a ER doctor, which requires intelligence and education, and NaOnka is a P.E. Teacher, which merely requires one to be socially maladjusted, while Brenda is a beauty queen, a position in which vapidity and shallowness are advantages.
How did Shannon, NaOnka, and Brenda all end up on the same show? Were they only casting people who failed the psych evaluations?
Back at The Antique Tribe, Jill was sad that the other tribe walked off with: "a whole mess of bananas and spices." If it's any compensation, Jill, that "whole mess of bananas" was indeed a "whole mess" by the time NaOnka the uncivilized bitch finished beating up the crippled girl on top of them.
Jimmy T has two big failings. One is wearing tight tank tops when he has manboobs that are particularly repellant. The other is not knowing when to keep his mouth closed, which would be always. After insisting on being allowed to lose the challenge for the tribe, instead of more-wisely allowing Tyrone to take all the heat himself, he then had to loudly announce to the whole tribe that his "talents" were being wasted. My talent is being wasted also. I'm really good at being wasted. Two more vodkas, and I'll be too wasted to finish this column.
Jimmy T modestly told us "The guys that are leaders here are squelching me because I'm an obvious leader, and they know it." I wonder how he defines the word "obvious," because all that's obvious to me about Jimmy T is that he's an obvious gasbag.
Tyrone's defense for being reluctant to stop tossing the sandbags was that it was about winning, not about everyone getting "to touch the ball." Is there a sign-up sheet to - ah - touch his ball?
As Jimmy T, Tyrone, and Superbowl Guy did their Monday morning analysis, despite it being impossible to determine if sending in Jimmy T, or anyone else, would have won it for them or not, Marty just sat there quiet, hoping that one, two, or all three would dig themselves a rut with their mouths before they hit Tribal Council.
Marty discussed the uselessness of Shoeless Dan with Superbowl Guy, but Superbowl Guy was his real target. Frankly, despite Superbowl Guy being nearly 70, getting rid of him at this point would seem to be a hard sell. The tribe is star struck, and want his coaching, although it didn't exactly spell victory that day.
Marty to Jill: "Coach has got to go."
Jill: "Whatever. I don't care." Well she's deep into the game. I take it that, despite working in an Emergency Room, triage isn't her forte.
"Who should we treat first? The woman stabbed in the gut or the man having a heart attack?"
"Whatever. I don't care. Where's that kid with the sniffles?"
Jill further demonstrated her diagnostic abilities: "In my mind, Danny, Coach, and Holly are all the same person."
Hello? One is an elderly mook who can barely walk, and is a total liability in challenges, one is a beloved tribe star who may or may not have value as a coach for them, and one is a raving lunatic around whom no footwear is safe. Or maybe she thinks they're a single, three-headed person, like the Knights Who Say "Nee!"
"Doctor, we have a pregnant woman in labor, with contractions coming 30 seconds apart, a man who has been shot in an artery, and is bleeding out, and a man who is on fire. What should we do first?"
"Cosi, cosa. What's the difference? Got a smoke?"
Marty's approach to Shoeless Dan was to tell him what stones his goons back in Manhattan would think he had if he blindsided Superbowl Guy. This is probably a fairly strong approach to use with him. If he can't win a challenge to save his life, at least he could blindside a famous player. If you can hobble to the voting platform (which is not a certainty with Shoeless Dan), you can blindside a vote.
"I'm in much, much, much, much better physical shape than he is" said Shoeless Dan of Superbowl Guy. Superbowl Guy can at least walk, his knee is not larger than his head, and he's not delusional.
Marty's strength would appear to be knowing just how to play people, an excellent skill for getting far in Survivor. His approach to Jimmy T was to play on his resentment that he hadn't been sent in to replace Tyrone in the challenge earlier. Marty definitely has a Machiavellian side.
But not everyone could be so easily swayed. Marty: "People like Jane and Holly, I mean, look at Jimmy Johnson as if he were the Pope." They look at Superbowl Guy like he was a superstitious "ex" Nazi, somewhere to the right of Attila The Hun, who preaches discrimination against gays and women, believes himself to be infallible, is a firm roadblock to social progress, dictates policies that ensures the spread of AIDS, dresses like an overly-rich drag queen with no taste, and devotes his time to protecting child molesters around the globe? Well then, he ought to be easy to vote out.
Jane, the feisty old lady (Really, she looks older than Superbowl Guy, and yet she's 11 years his junior.) dog trainer (She should try housebreaking NaOnka), wants Shoeless Dan out, for fairly sensible reasons. I kind of like Jane. And she's "Firewoman," the one who made fire without flint. She wants to keep Superbowl Guy because he's her "fishin' buddy," which doesn't sound like she thinks he's the Pope, unless it's this whole "Shoes of the Fisherman" deal, which would make Dan "The Shoeless of the Fisherman."
But then, Jane doesn't really want to vote out Dan either. If only she could vote out NaOnka.
Superbowl Guy is a bit crafty himself. He went for a blatant pity vote. He was out fishing with Yve and Holly. Now this is risky right up front if Holly thinks he's the Pope. Could the Shoe Thief possibly resist stealing the Shoes of the Fisherman? Anyway, he said to them as they fished: "Girls, after tonight, I may not see y'all for a while," a bit of obvious faux-self-pity designed to provoke a chorus of "No, no, no, no, no." Cagy, Supes. Way to passively-aggressively campaign to be kept without seeming to do so.
Yve, falling for it hook, line, and sinker, to keep with the fishing theme: "You're like my favorite person here." He's "like" her favorite person there? Who is her favorite person there? Because he doesn't seem like any of the others to me. Is it that he's elderly, like Shoeless Dan? Is it that he has an inflated view of his own value to the tribe, like Jimmy T? Is it that he's feisty and crafty, like Jane? Is it that he uses a penis-enhancing drug to overcome a natural "smallness," like he says in his commercials for Extenze that The Soup has been nice enough to keep showing since Superbowl Guy joined Survivor, and is actually hung like, well, Yve herself?
(Those commercials, with Superbowl Guy grinning as he brags to us about taking pills to enlarge his junk, are genuinely flesh-crawlingly creepy. He must be rolling in money. How much dough do you have to pay a rich man to get him to go on TV and smile as he tells America he has a small penis, and needs drugs to make it bigger?)
Marty's approach to Tyrone didn't go so well. Tyrone isn't quite so easily manipulated, and Marty hasn't found his hot button yet. Tyrone sees through him, and has his own sites set on Shoeless Dan from Manhattan. "The dude's got ailments," Tyrone rather hilariously, but accurately, said.
Tribal Council: Jimmy T, bitching about too much time on the bench: "These people have been with me for a week. I think they have seen my skill set, and I don't know why I'm not getting a little more court time, if you will." Perhaps it's because they have seen his skill set, which mostly consists of running his mouth. He is very skilled at running his mouth.
Superbowl Guy denied that he's coaching, and running the strategy of the challenges, which is a flat-out lie disguised as polite disingenuousness. We've seen him running his team at every challenge. Who does he think this is fooling?
Asked if he felt threatened by Jimmy T, Superbowl Guy said: "I feel like I've got a great relationship with Jimmy T. We never have sat down, one-on-one, and had long conversations." Well obviously, that's why he feels he's got a great relationship with him. He has managed to avoid getting cornered by him, and never had to listen to the gasbag run his mouth.
Jeff Probst: "Dan, what about you is strong in this game?"
Shoeless Dan From Manhattan: "I think I'm average. I'm not the top of the ladder, but I'm not the bottom of the ladder."
So what's strong about him is his delusional state. A 63 year old man, with a knee the size of Milwaukee, who can barely walk, let alone compete, is "average"? Where? Leisure World? Forest Lawn? And if he's not the "bottom of the ladder," who on earth does he think is? Crazy Holly?
Jeff asked each player in turn if they were one of the weaker players. Only Superbowl Guy admitted to being a weaker player. Shoeless Dan, whom Jeff himself had had to call out during the challenge to "do something," as all he was doing was hobbling around, getting in the way of the players who were actually doing stuff, stated categorically that he was not one of the weaker players. He would be right, if the rest of his team was dead.
Oddly, when we saw the ballots, Marty had voted for "JJ". Was Jimmy "JJ" Walker even playing? I haven't noticed him, and I used to know the man.
Marty's plan worked. Superbowl Guy's torch was snuffed out. The celebrity player lasted only three episodes. Tribal triage had resulted in voting out only the second-weakest player.
Supes left with class, and demonstrated what Shannon hadn't last week: good sportsmanship, with "win a million bucks, okay?" being his parting words to the tribe that had voted him out. My bet is that NaOnka, when her torch is snuffed, won't be leaving with class like that.
The vote was unanimous. Only Superbowl Guy had voted for Shoeless Dan From Manhattan, and Crazy Holly had no votes at all.
Next week, we were warned, "Hurricane NaOnka strikes," and we saw her threatening Kelly One-Leg to keep her artificial leg "away from the fire." Isn't there a word for an able-bodied person who threatens, and has physically assaulted, an amputee? Oh yes, there is: "Bully"! Also "degenerate." Looks like next week will be called: "S#*t NaOnka Says."
May I watch the pilot for Law & Order: Los Angeles now please? Cheers, darlings.
(Irrelevant I know, but Rest in Peace, Tony Curtis, a true screen immortal. Some Like It Hot alone would guarantee your immortality. Bernie Schwartz, you were a True Star!)
To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.