After a week of recaps and old clips, the game recommenced where we left off two weeks ago, just after Brenda was blindsided. Kelly Still-Here felt left-out and at the bottom of the totem pole. She wasn't left out. She was forgotten. Her closest allies greet her with: "What was your name again?"
NaOnka's, or as it says on her birth certificate, Beelzebimbo's, betrayal of her game-long ally Brenda made Holly trust her more. Holly would have promoted Benedict Arnold.
Beelzebimbo displayed the sort of grasp of English grammar we look for in someone who teaches our young at a high school: "[Brenda] literally threw me under the bus." Yes. Brenda had a bus helicoptered into the jungle locale, and literally threw Beelzebimbo under it. Given how expensive that must have been, I wonder why they didn't broadcast it.
"Bitch, you make me look good," cried Beelzebimbo, looking like the scariest robot in Disney's Haunted Mansion.
Crazy Holly: "What Brenda said about you tonight was in one ear and out the other." Why would it be any different from any other knowledge that comes Holly's way?
It was raining in the rain forest, to everyone's surprise and annoyance. The campers were stunned to see erosion actually happen.
Beelzebimbo was having a self-pity party. Given how awful she has shown herself to be, she is the only person left who can pity her, except perhaps for Chase, who is, in his own way, dopier than Fabio. Beelzebimbo claims to be anemic, probably leftover from when Dracula first drank all her blood, bringing her into Her Satanic Lord's Cult via the undead. Now she claims that when it rains, her joints freeze up. She's like the Tin Woodman; when it rains, her joints need oiling, and she has no heart.
Kelly Still-Here finally began to compete. Sadly, all she was competing at was trying to out-whine Beelzebimbo. It was a hotly-contested battle of self-pity.
Fabio opted out of the self-pity party, finding his happy place, and somewhere private enough to touch it.
Benry felt the self-pityers were welcome to go home. Please don't tease me about targeting Beelzebimbo. It's all I want for Christmas. Well that, and vodka.
Beelzebimbo, out of nowhere, gave her idol to Chase. Just gave it to him. My eyes literally didn't pop out of my head, but they sure figuratively did! That was the idol she bashed Kelly One-Leg to the ground for, and wrestled away her clue to acquire. Now she's just handing it out, like a social disease? Maybe she is anemic, and her blood isn't reaching her brain. Chase claimed never to have seen an immunity idol before, although Marty used to leave his out hanging on display, and his idol also.
Apparently a new re-alliance has formed between Jane, aka, Madame DeFarge, Holly, Sash, and Chase. Chase declared his new loyalty: "I'm not flopping. Obviously not. I'd be stupid to." But Chase is stupid! Uh-oh. Sounds like Chase is flopping.
Sash however, is allied in word only. He told us he doesn't trust Chase, who is easily deceived, Madame DeFarge, who has tasted blood twice, and wants more, or Crazy Holly, who thinks she is sane. He trusts Kelly Still-Here, who is too dim to betray anyone, but who wants to quit, and Beelzebimbo, who is Evil Incarnate, and also wants to quit, and just gave her idol to Chase for reasons beyond my comprehension. Beelezebimbo moves in mysterious ways, her horrors to perform.
Reward Challenge: Since Palin's Pimp never met a product he couldn't place, this was a product-placement challenge worthy of Big Brother. The challenge was tied in to the release of the charming comedy-fantasy, Ray Harryhausen's The Three Worlds of Gulliver. This struck me a teeny bit odd, as the movie came out 50 years ago. Little Dougie remembers seeing it when it first came out, back before he hit puberty. That's right; it came out before he did. And speaking of coming out, the film's gay leading man, adorable Kerwin Matthews, died three years ago. But maybe it's only just now getting around to opening in Nicaragua.
The players were divided into two teams, schoolyard pick rather than random draw, and then were tethered together. They had to untie an eight-foot dummy of Kerwin Matthews that was being tortured on the beach, and lug the giant doll with them through an obstacle course. The winning team got to see the 50 year-old movie with their giant doll, while eating movie food, which I assume is popcorn and vodka.
Beelzebimbo told us: "Every time we go to challenge, I'm not going to just be mediocre because I'm ready to go." Then why is she going to be mediocre? Because she's not been burning up the challenges.
What a shock. Neither team picked Twice-Shoeless Dan, who would simply be redundant anyway, as each team was already lumbered with a giant dead-weight bag of guts with their stuffed Kerwin Matthews. Dan bet on the Blue Team, Benry, Chase, Beelzebimbo, and Crazy Holly, to see or not see the elderly Harryhausen matinee fodder.
Okay, lugging the giant dummies around made for some entertainingly odd images. As the heads of both dummies crested the climbing fence, Jeff yelled out: "We are neck-and-neck right now." He could have said: "We're literally neck-and-neck right now," without my mocking him.
Both teams remained literally neck-and-neck throughout the whole course, and Jeff saw no reason to vary his turn of phrase either, as he said it more often than I've typed it. The suspense was unbearable. Which team would get to watch an old kid's movie? I was on the edge of my coma.
Blue won. Oh, the excitement. Sash and Madame DeFarge quietly plotted to kill their remaining chicken and eat it while the winners were off seeing the wonders of Super-Dynamation. 28 days in the wilderness, around a shirtless Chase, had taken their toll on Holly: "I just want a hot dog. That's all I want is a hot dog," she cried. Too bad. All she's getting is movie food. This won't be at a drive-in, after all.
And then Beelzebimbo quit. Hello? I know Jeff said that Jack Black was in the movie (Nonsense! He wasn't even born when it was made!), but that's still not reason enough to quit.
Jeff, thinking to mock her, asked if anyone else wanted to quit with only 11 days left. Kelly No-Longer-Here had her hand up in a flash.
Jeff, who hates quitters (since those slots on the show could have gone to other people who would have had the stones to stick it out.), had at them for being quitters.
"I'm not a quitter," said Quitter Beelzebimbo, as she quit. She's been taught the meaning of "Quitter" by Sarah Palin. I missed some of this segment, because, once over my shock, I was dancing around my television lounge with joy. Oh jubilation! If they'd run this episode last week, I'd have had something to be grateful for on Thanksgiving.
"I had integrity the whole time," said Kelly No-Longer-here, leaving me wondering what on earth she thinks the word "integrity" means. It apparently doesn't include honoring her legal contract with Survivor.
Jeff rashly chose not to accept their immediate walking papers, but insisted they wait for Tribal Council that night before making their final decisions. He's gambling with our lives here! Beelzebimbo could change her mind. Though on the upside, she would now be forced to watch a Jack Black movie, which some fool had substituted for the Harryhausen classic. I hope he was fired!
Meanwhile Dan, who can't do squat, who never watched the show before becoming a contestant on it, sat stunned to realize he wasn't even the second-lamest player there. He'd been bumped up to merely third-lamest player.
Jeff then made a devil's offer, though not of Beelzebimbo's sort: if one, only one, of the challenge winners volunteered to stay behind and not see the movie, the whole tribe wold be given a new tarp to replace the one ruined in the fire, and a supply of rice to replace the food they stupidly burned up. Now bear this in mind: Everyone benefits. You get to be less cold, less wet, and more fed; you get to be a hero everyone is grateful to, and you don't have to watch a Jack Black movie. There's no downside! Needless to say, Beelzebimbo, who has stated that she's leaving that night, wasn't being pried loose from her popcorn-and-candy reward. Chase wasn't chasing after glory. Dan was on the phone. Holly finally took the bullet for the tribe.
Benry tried talking Beelzebimbo into making the sacifice, doing one unselfish thing, since she'd be eating her brains out back at the hotel tonight anyway. His words went in one ear and out the other. Mind you, nothing was preventing him from throwing himself on the sacrificial pyre, but that apparently didn't occur to him. Were these people even listening when Jeff warned them, twice, that Jack Black was in the movie?
Crazy Holly turned back and looked at Beelzebimbo, risking becoming a pillar of salt, and had a late epiphany: "I can't believe that you didn't step up, after you are leaving..." [Okay, this sentence is going a bit astray, but let's try to hang onto it.] "...It told me right then and there, I misjudged NaOnka's personality. I misjudged the person that she really was." Holly misjudged this selfish woman, who tackles and beats disabled people, spits venom left and right, steals garments, steals food, lies, lies, lies, and lies, betrayed her "best friend" in the game with what can only be called glee, and has announced that she's quitting the game, but first she's seeing the movie. And now it turns out she won't step up for Holly and the tribe. Wow, Holly, I never saw that one coming either.
Fabio was very impressed by Holly's gesture. "Holly's a genuine person. She likes doing nice things for people," said Fabio, to whom Holly does not owe a $1600 pair of shoes.
Holly gave Kelly a firm don't-quit lecture. Shut up, Holly.
Kelly whined more. Holly told her: "There's going to be a lot worse things in life than this." There is? Worse than living in a bamboo lean-to, freezing through rainforest typhoons with no food, warmth, nor adequate clothing? Well I suppose, when she gets cancer in 50 years or so. I've never been through anything so awful, and I've been clinically dead twice, and once worked with Sonja Hennie.
Kelly's logic for leaving was lucky to get aired on CBS: "I've been sucking it up for 28 days. There's - I have nothing left to suck." That would get me to quit also.
At the "Reward" (in quotation marks because it involves having to watch Jack Black.), Chase told us how selfish he thought Beelzebimbo, the woman who just gave him an immunity idol out of the blue, was for going on the challenge. He's right, but there was nothing preventing him from being unselfish now, was there? Oh yes, it didn't occur to him.
Beelzebimbo let us know that she hadn't given 110% (And she's right. She hadn't. Because you can't. It's mathematically impossible.), just to give up stuffing her face before going to the hotel and stuffing her face. She's no fool. That's right. A fool is not what she is. A fool has an excuse. He's a fool.
We then were shown some of the movie. It did not sell me a ticket. In fact, it sold me a ticket to anything else!
"I love Jack Black. ... That was real good!" - Beelezebimbo. Worst Movie Blurb Ever!
Kelly Maybe-Here-Maybe-Not: "Anything can happen tonight. Nothing is set. And I think that's the scariest part." I agree. For instance, I'm terrified that Kelly and Beelzebimbo will change their minds and stay. Damn you, Probst!
Fabio: "I think having a good amount of rice tonight is better than having a bunch of candy and popcorn." Fabio, look at what you've just said. Do you see how insane it is? You're having rice tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, etc. The others are having hotdogs with all the fixin's, popcorn, some sugary swill, and all the chocolate they can eat tonight, and then tomorrow will have rice, and the next day, and the next, etc. Which sounds better? Remember, one involves chocolate.
Tribal Council: Teacher is not happy. Teacher wants to give punitive homework. Plus, it's raining on everyone, even Teacher.
First mean assignment: making us listen to Holly's long tale of how Superbowl Guy talked her out of quitting. I was ready to quit watching before she was done.
Madame DeFarge, pointing out that she was rock solidly into staying put, tried shaming the two lame-os into staying. Why? Let them go. Two more people removed from between you and the million, two people, well one anyway, who might turn on you and kick you out, while they stay.
When Beelzebimbo began complaining of her joints hurting, Twice-Shoeless Dan, who's knees are like Berlin after the war, gave a double-take. Her joints are hurting?
"I'm literally freezing!" said Beelzebimbo, who still hasn't figured out the literal meaning of "literally."
Fabio vowed to stay the whole time, even if it snows. Well that's a safe boast.
When it began to look clear that Beelzebimbo really intended to return to Hell early, Jeff let his disgust fly: "Realistically, you think you had any shot to win this game?"
Beelzebimbo: "Yes!" Marty roars with silent laughter. He is eating this whole council with a spoon.
Jeff: "Based on what?" The naked contempt in his voice was sweet dandelion wine.
Beelzebimbo: "Based on my driiiiive, once upon a time."
Jeff: "This is amazing. Please go on. Regale me with a story, woman." Seldom have I ever seen Jeff so openly scornful of a contestant. Gorgeous.
But then Jeff blew the product placement by asking if they liked the movie, and Beelzebimbo said: "I liked it. It was fun," providing another anti-blurb to scare audiences away.
When Jeff asked Beelzebimbo if she could see that her own not-volunteering to forfeit the reward when she intended to be back at the hotel, eating anything she wanted, well before midnight anyway, was at all selfish, Beelzie launched into a confession that was honest: "I didn't want to. I wanted to go out with a bang. ...I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't care about anybody's opinions. I'm still the same NaOnka I was before, and I'm still going to be NaOnka after I leave here." Every word of that was true, and with her last 11 words, did she bespeak her own damnation.
Jeff: "Right now, NaOnka, you have a one-in-nine shot at a million dollars." No she doesn't. She has a no-chance-in-hell shot of winning a million dollars, though second place is still a possibility, as she'd now lose to anyone!
JOY TO THE WORLD! BEELZEBIMBO QUIT! LET HELL RECEIVE HER QUEEN!
Kelly Gone-Now quit also, but then, it was like she was never really there in the first place. She left about as big a hole in the game as your hand leaves in the water when you take it out of a bucket.
Jeff asked Beelzebimbo what should be done with her torch, and this person with a California State Teaching Credential replied: "It should be smuffed."
And then came the big shock to me: Although they quit, Beelzebimbo and Kelly Never-Really-Here will still be on the jury! Excuse me? They quit! They should be tossed out of Nicaragua, and certainly not allowed on the jury. They've shamed themselves and the show. Why should they have votes in deciding who will win?
Marty clearly felt he should now be sent back into the game, because he wants to play. Not happening, Marty.
Jeff: "You wanna go?"
Beelzebimbo: "Yes."
Jeff: "Go!"
Beelzebimbo's exit speech showed her infinite capacity to learn and grow as a human being, should she ever become one: "I feel like I owe nobody an apology, not even myself, and I have no regrets whatsoever." I strongly suspect that she has never regretted anything in her entire life. A sociopath like Beelzebimbo can not feel regret.
And lo, their torches were both literally smuffed!
Cheers darlings, and Happy Chanukah to those of you Chosen out there.
To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.