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by Jim Van Nest Published: February 21, 2003
LADIES STRUGGLE, MEN THRIVE Ok, I've had a chance to watch the show a second time and dammit...they still piss me off. Let's get started. The episode starts off dull enough. We're at Jabaru (you know, the women) and they're discussing how they still have no shelter and no plan for a shelter and are essentially leaderless, which is causing them to pretty much wander around the jungle aimlessly trying to look busy. They're trying to designate tasks, but it's simply not working. This tribe is in some serious trouble. In a complete 180, we check in on Tambaqui and we find that the guys have found a way to cook their manioc flour so it makes an ok meal. Apparently, they were having trouble getting it to stick together and were essentially eating it dry. Ewwwww! Alex tells us that the shelter is working great, the flour is ok and they're doing pretty well. They're not at the Ritz or anything, but not doing too shabby. They decide to do some fishing, and the entire tribe heads out on the river. Unfortunately, they have no luck. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, a huge storm moves in over them and they barely make it back to camp before the downpour. As they sit comfortably under their shelter, one of the guys remarks that other than a couple drips, the shelter is pretty dry. Dave remarks that he would hate to be out in this storm. Perfect timing Dave... We head back to the Jabaru camp and what do we see? 8 soaking wet women trying to figure out how to keep their fire from going out. *sigh* It's going to be a long 39 days for these women if they don't figure it out soon. I mean, this is pretty brutal. We're 4 days in and they may as well have just landed at the camp. Once the storm lifts, we see the tribes head out for... REWARD CHALLENGE #1 The first reward challenge is the ole "everyone's blindfolded and one person has to lead them" challenge. Only instead of an obstacle course, this time it's completing a puzzle. Each team will have one "guide" and this person will lead the rest of the team (in pairs) in putting together a 30 piece puzzle. The trick, the 30 pieces of the puzzle are scattered throughout a clearing in the jungle littered with holes, tree stumps, logs and the like. Once the 30 pieces are gathered, the team may remove the blindfolds and put the puzzle together. First team to complete the puzzle wins. And this time, they're playing for a jar full of fish bait. Considering the lack of success on both sides, this could prove to be a very important reward. The women decide to sit out Christy, and have Joanna as their guide. The men go with Butch as their guide. So, the challenge begins and it's really difficult to tell who's doing well or who's leading. For the viewer, it's just a jumble of faceless people and voices. The first thing I noticed was how Butch is seeming to have trouble with the guys' names. And unfortunately, with everyone blindfolded, "Hey you!" isn't gonna cut it. Before you know it, Jeff is telling us that the women have 27 of their pieces, while the guys only have 18. WOW! In a challenge like this, that's an almost impossible difference to make up. The guys are really struggling, and the blame has to fall almost 100% on Butch. He's looking like a terrible leader. Shortly, the women finish collecting their pieces and begin work on assembling them. Amazingly enough, the guys actually get all their pieces before the women are done and almost make a contest out of it. But, alas, the women just had too big of a lead and pretty much coast to victory to keep the men shut out for the season. FISH, HOMOSEXUALS, IDOLS AND GRANOLA BARS "Name 4 things that had me screaming at my television screen, " said Carnac. And those are just 4 things off the top of my head. We get back to the men's camp, and we hear Roger talking about how he's just not used to losing to women. It just doesn't happen. But he's not a chauvinist. Writer's aside: The first of many, I'm afraid. Yeah, Rog....sure you're not a chauvinist. You've been dogging these women since you frickin got in your boat. You don't even know any of them and up to this point, they're kicking your ass all over the rainforest. Hey, but keep slamming them, that's been working great for you so far. Ya know...one of the things that get under my skin as much as anything is the attitude of "oh, I'm going to put down an entire group of people, be it women, blacks, gays, Muslims....but I'm not prejudice. I'm just saying..." No, wrong. You ARE prejudiced! By trying to convince people you're not, you're only making it more obvious. Roger, you should shut the hell up now if you want to have even the slightest chance of making it in this game. Back at the Jabaru camp, the women are discussing how they can't stand the manioc flour and they need to get some real food. Looking at their pot compared to the guys...it doesn't look like they know how to cook it yet. We hear Janet talking about how she's handling the mental part of the game pretty well, it's the physical part that's the hard part. And we also hear Jenna bragging about winning the 2 challenges from the men. With the talk of food, we see Jeanne out with the new fish bait working on catching some fish. We get a great camera shot of the fish in the river by their camp. So, we know fish are there, it's just a matter of getting them to bite. And at that moment, Jeanne gets a bite and actually manages to hook a fish. But, in her excitement, she actually drops the fishing pole trying to grab the fish on the hook. When she does this, the fish manages to get loose from the hook and swims away. Writer's aside: We then see Jeanne talking about how great having this bait is and how she's going to catch a lot of fish with it, because she knows how to fish. Well, let me say that I'm no kind of fisherman. I hate fishing. And even I know that once you hook a fish you don't DROP THE POLE!!! You give it a good yank to set the hook. Then you work on getting hold of the fish and removing it from the hook. I couldn't believe it when I saw her drop the pole on the ground and then act surprised that the fish got away. Somebody get me some Excedrin, cause my headache's a-growing. So, we check back in with the men and Roger and Alex seem to be having a get to know you type chat. What bothers you, what doesn't bother you, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, the subject of homosexuality comes up. Roger's original point was, as long as it's not hurting anyone else, people should be able to do what they want. With this Alex agrees 100%. But then Roger also says that as long as "they're" not flaunting it in front of everyone else, he doesn't have any problem with it. Alex takes exception to that. And mentions that he doesn't see a problem with it at all. If it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone else, then all's good. As this is starting, Rob is standing by grinning like the Cheshire Cat. In voiceover, he mentions that he'd been looking for a way to sway one more person to his side to dump Roger (I'm assuming he's already got Daniel and Matthew with him) and he just may have found one. So we're back to Roger who's now saying that it's "not natural." To which, Alex disagrees. Alex tells us that he's straight, so he can't speak for gay people for sure, but as long as they're happy, who cares? Roger goes on about sex being for pro-creation. To which Alex replies, "I guess then you've only had sex with your wife twice then. Since it's just for pro-creation." Nice!!!! Writer's aside: Well, this is strike 2 on Roger. I have expected to hear him say, "But I'm not a homophobe." I don't know if it's possible for someone to be arguing a point that he knows less about than Roger arguing about homosexuality. This guy's just a first class jerk. If you're not W.A.S.P. male, well, then you're a second class citizen. At least that's how he comes off. I hope Rob's little coup against him works ASAP. This one has to go. He deserves no more air time than he's already received. While this is going on, we hear Rob say again that he's hoping after this conversation that Alex will see Roger for what he is, a bigot. Rob has definitely been watching these shows hard. Cause he knows how to play the game. And he's working it pretty well. I just think he might be playing people a little too soon, and this might come back to haunt him down the road. Now, night falls on the Amazon and before I get calmed down from the Roger thing, the women, well one woman, gets me all worked up again. Seems that the discussion at the female camp is Joanna talking about not liking the immunity idol. Since she is a Christian and worships (she said like 4 or 5 different names that I've never heard before) whomever, she can't touch the idol, look at the idol or even be around the idol. The other women tell her it's not something to be worshipped at, it's just CALLED an idol. What it really is, is a trophy for winning the challenge. Joanna doesn't care. The Old Testament tells you what will happen if you worship false idols....and somewhere around here I stopped hearing Joanna and started hearing Charlie Brown's teacher. "Mwah, mwah mwah, mw-mwah!" Writer's aside: What is it with Survivor and the religious zealots? And that's what I consider Joanna. She's not JUST a religious woman. She's a zealot. And because she doesn't want to be around the idol, they should just get it away. I am sick to death of watching people manipulate the Bible to support their opinion. I mean, all the while she's whining about this idol (which, by the way, when she APPLIED to be on the show, she should have been aware an idol would be involved) and using the Bible as her moral high ground, she must have misplaced the portions of the Bible dealing with tolerance and the whole do unto others thing. You know, she's a devout Christian and that works for her. Congratulations! But, dammit, leave it out of the tribe, out of the game, and for crying out loud, OFF MY TELEVISION! So, the next morning, Christy is out walking with Jeanne and tells her of the problem she has at night. Knowing that everyone's talking and BSing around the fire, but not knowing what they're talking about. So, Jeanne agrees to take some time every day to fill Christy in on what she missed the night before. Well, she tells Christy about Joanna's little idol problem, to which Christy replies, "Well, that's stupid." And wouldn't you know it, Joanna hears her. Lllllllllet's get ready to rumblllllllllllllllllle!!!!! Needless to say, Joanna is quick to jump up in Christy's face. As Christy is trying to explain/apologize, Joanna puts her hand up in Christy's face. Well, as it would anyone, this pisses Christy off. Christy does a real good job of trying to smooth things over, but in a conversation where her remark of "I made a mistake and I apologize. We both made mistakes here" is greeted with, "well you made your mistake first", I think we all could see how this argument was going to go. Writer's aside: Oh no, I'm not done with Joanna by a long shot. First off, should Christy have said it was stupid? No. Silly? Maybe. Odd? Sure. Frickin wacko? Probably not. But stupid is pretty insulting and she should have thought before she spoke. But, the way Joanna bowed up at Christy made it look to me like she was going to hit her. I mean, I thought we were going to see some fisticuffs. There was no need for that. Especially when Christy apologized. Joanna needs to step down from that high horse she's riding and realize that there are 7 other women in this tribe. And that they might have feelings and opinions too. And that their opinions might actually be just as right as hers. I know for the type of person she is, it's hard to imagine ANYONE else being right...but Joanna, if you're reading this...believe me...it happens. Sometimes there are 2 right answers. I'm sure you can find that in the Bible somewhere. Course, it doesn't support you're argument, so I don't expect you'll take too much time out looking for it. I just can't say enough how sick she made me tonight. And I just can't wait to watch the hypocrisy from Joanna as the show goes on. So, later on in the day, the women decide to unpack their supply box. Apparently, when the rain started coming down, they took all of their personal stuff and put it in the supply container. No biggie, right? Well, as they're removing articles, at the bottom of the box is an unopened granola bar. Everyone gets automatically pissed off and start demanding to know who smuggled in the food and had no intention of sharing. Not surprisingly, no one fesses up to it. To be fair, they take the bar and throw it in the fire, so that no one will have the advantage. Of course, that's not the end of it. We have to have the witch hunt. Oh yeah. We have to find out who did it. Actually, for the first time, we get to see Deena's sense of humor. A district attorney, she says something along the lines of, "Don't make me cross-examine all of you." And she meant it as a joke and it was taken as such. She seems like such a stiff, I was surprised to hear humor from her, especially with everyone else so angry. Well, in a smaller group, Jeanne is telling people that she saw the same wrapper in Janet's bag a couple days ago. Needless to say, they run with this info and the anti-Janet league seems to have been formed. Writer's aside: Personally, I was always under the impression that smuggling food onto the set of Survivor would be next to impossible. So, my question is, did ANYONE smuggle a granola bar in? I mean, can you honestly say you wouldn't believe it if it turned out that Mark Burnett had one of his cameramen drop the bar in the box while the ladies slept? Now, I'm not accusing, I'm just saying, it's something to think about. IMMUNITY CHALLENGE # 2 Prior to the tree mail, we join the guys talking about how important this challenge is. They've lost the first 2 challenges and they really need to break the trend. Upon reading the tree mail, it seems as though we've got ourselves a "memory challenge." The rules for this one are pretty simple. They have constructed 2 replicas of Amazon villages. Each tribe will have 2 minutes to check the villages out and remember as much as they can. Then, they will be asked 10 questions about the village. The team that answers the most questions right, wins immunity. The women sit out Shawna this time around. Since we can't see the villages here, I'm not going to bother to list the questions as they don't make much sense without the visual. The 1st question was for Jeanne and Dave and they both missed it. The 2nd question was for Deena and Rob. Rob is right, Deena wrong. Guys lead 1-0. The 3rd question was for Christy and Butch. Butch is right, Christy is wrong. Guys 2-0. The 4th question is for Jenna and Alex. Both are right. Guys 3-1. The 5th question is for Janet and Daniel. Both are wrong. Guys 3-1. The 6th question is for Heidi and Matthew. Both are right. Guys 4-2. The 7th question is for Joanna and Roger. Both are right. Guys 5-3. The 8th question is for Jeanne and Dave. Both are right. Guys 6-4. The 9th question is for Deena and Rob. Both are wrong. Guys 6-4. With only one question left and the women down by 2, the guys are declared the winners and the ladies will have to make the trek to Tribal Council. So, we say goodbye to the men for this week and head back with the women. When we get there, we see Christy chopping on some wood and trying to get some work done on the shelter. Meanwhile, we see every other woman just sitting around. So, Christy asks if she can get some help building the shelter. No one relly responds and she gets a little ticked off at the group and in confessional calls them the laziest group of people she's ever worked with. Deena takes exception to the comments, but steps away rather than getting into it with her. So finally, the women start collecting palm fronds and bring them to Christy to work on the shelter. So naturally, Christy's reply is, "I don't want to work on the shelter now. I want to go fishing." Writer's aside: WHAT?!?!?!? My 3 and 4 year old use that kind of rationale. "Well, you wouldn't help me when I asked you...so now I don't want to do it either." I mean, has she never watched Survivor? Throwing a little temper tantrum like this is going to paint a big red target on her face. Deena then tells us that Christy is not making friends and that if she gets the boot, it's because of her attitude, not her hearing. Janet is telling us that she thinks it's either going to be her or Christy. She also takes this time to call the group together to tell then that she did not bring the granola bar. If they wanted to vote her off, that's fine. But if it was because of the granola bar, then they are wrong. She then tells us that she probably should vote for Christy, but is going to vote for Jeanne, since Jeanne is the one really stirring the pot on the Granola-Gate. Tribal Council #2 So, we get to Tribal Council and after lighting their torches, Jeff gets right into it. he asks Janet who's emerging as a leader for their tribe, Janet says that a lot of people go to Joanna and to Deena because of their strength. He then asks Deena about their shelter. To which Deena tells him that they have no shelter. What they have is just a hodge-podge of a mess of nothing. Joanna chimes in saying that they can't build a shelter all day when they need water and food also. Jeff then tells them that it doesn't sound like they have ANY plan. He then asks Christy if there's anything that can be handled better. Her only answer is that the shelter should have been done days ago. Once again Joanna chimes in mentioning the incident with the fronds when Christy wouldn't help. I suppose it's her version of tattling on Christy. Christy responds that she was pissed that no one was helping her. She asked and they refused to help. He then asks her if she feels excluded. She said that she does. And it's because of her hearing. Then she made the #1 mistake, she said something about how she works harder than everyone else. Jenna then mentions that she is insulted and that everyone in the tribe pulls their weight. Writer's aside: Ok, one last time. So, this is a tribe that is in complete disarray, right? Right. Well, I'm wondering why Jeff didn't give them a harder time. I mean, I can't imagine what he would have said to the guys had they come to TC and behaved like this. Bottom line, Christy made herself look really bad tonight. Personally, had I been in that tribe, her little temper tantrum in TC would have been enough for me to switch my vote. And with that, it is time to vote. We get to see 4 votes this time around. The 1st we see is Heidi's vote for Janet. She mentioned that Janet was sick and that she's ready to go. We then see Joanna, not surprisingly, voting for Christy saying that she doesn't like her attitude. We then see Christy's vote for Jenna?? They give no reason why. The final vote we see is Janet voting for Jeanne saying she's too aggressive. So, the final tally is Jeanne, Heidi, Shawna, Jenna and Deena voting for Janet. Christy for Jenna, Joanna for Christy and Janet for Jeanne. Making Janet the 2nd person voted out of Survivor: The Amazon. JIM'S PREDICTIONS Well, I didn't pick Janet to go far. I gave her only 50-1 odds. However, I did have 2 women pegged to go before her. What's worrying me about my predictions is that I predicted Matthew to be one of the first 2....yet, he's getting along really well, and has been the guy that's going under the radar. And it looks like Jenna might be getting herself into an alliance that could help keep her around for a while. QUOTE OF THE WEEK All righty, then. My favorite quote of this week's show came during the whole Christy/Joanna fight. During her confessional , Christy says, "Man, if you are a vessel of Christ, don't you think you need to be a little nicer." Perfect comments. Well kids, that does it for me for this week. Down below is the Vote History Chart updated with tonight's info. I hope you enjoy it. Until next time, my friends, take care and God bless.
Survivor: The Amazon Recaps at The Trades: Preview | Ep 1 | Ep 2 The S-Ratings at The Trades: Episode 2 | For all your Survivor News and Interesting Tidbits and to see what our guest contributor from last season, Jakey, is up to please check out these sites: Sirlinksalot's Survivor 6 Page | SurvivorNews.net | SurvivorFan.com | Jakey's Corner |
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