Unofficial Summary – Episode 9

The following is not a CBS summary. The sarcasm contained herein does not necessarily reflect the sarcasm of CBS, its owners, operators, heirs, assigns, parent corporation or affiliates.

This summary does bear the official authorization of Ramoaner Gray, who is determined to appear in any media outlet remotely related to Survivor to make her fifteen minutes last a few seconds longer.

First of all, this show needs a better theme song. Something catchier, such as:

The Rattana Bunch (Sung to the tune of The Brady Bunch theme song.):

It’s a story, of a man named Gervase,
Who was bringing up some kids that numbered three,
All of them had hair in braids,
And different mothers,
From promiscuity.

It’s a story, of a girl named Jenna,
Who was busy with two girls of her own,
She ran off,
To hang out on this island,
Where she turned down Sean’s bone.

And then one day with Colleen they grabbed the clue phone,
And realized it was much more than a hunch,
Their new group, was booting their old family,
It’s the Rattana Bunch.

Last week on Survivor: “Food was scarce, Rich was the only one providing fish, and the scabs on Colleen’s legs threatened to take over her whole body, permanently immobilizing her and forcing her to spend the rest of her pathetic existence begging for change outside 7-Eleven like the little fucking matchgirl. The reward challenge brought videos from home, showcasing such monstrosities as Colleen’s pussy (the real, animal kind, not the one that’s likely covered in oozing sores) and a cute little girl who justifies the reason for better sex education in our public schools. For Jenna, however, there was no video (Likely it was sent to Ricki Lake for an episode called “My single mom dresses like a slut.”), and instead of CBS picking a different reward, we exploited this absence to drive her to tears. Annoying whiny bitch. At Tribal Council, Sue and Kelly lied badly, indicating our need to ##### with people like Jenna to cull some genuine emotion out of this show before fall, when we’ll be airing crap like Judging Amy, and our viewers flock back to Friends. In a moment of high soap opera melodrama, love-em-and leave-em Rich mushroom-headed, I mean spearheaded, the ouster of Greg, who was promptly shipped off to Kota Kinabalu to lodge in the same hotel where Stacey revealed to Dirk she was actually the sex-changed former Green Beret who fathered the half-Austrian triplets Sonja found in the O’Hare baggage claim the night she went to get a Mexican Divorce and wound up a zombie instead. Tonight, eight castaways remain, and since we didn’t post the summary on our web site, everyone in America is pondering the same question: Did Greg get voted off because he wouldn’t put out, or does he just have an unimpressive Pagong?”

Immediately after the credits, we learn that Survivor is sponsored by Budweiser, the, “fresh clean beer that’s never filling.” This claim would be more credible if shots of reptiles slinking into puddles of slime didn’t accompany it. We are also treated to a commercial promoting the new Richard Gere - Winona Ryder movie. Is it just me, or do his costars keep getting younger? How long until he stars in a romantic comedy with the girl from the Pepsi commercials?

We open on day twenty-five with Rich informing us that outright lying is essential, especially when JP is bold enough to ask Sue whether there’s an alliance. We then cut to Sue, who asks rhetorically, “You think I’m gonna come out and say we have an alliance.” No, it’s better to just stand there and stutter. I can’t imagine why she’s not on Millionaire.

Come on, Sue. I haven’t seen such bad acting since “Mr. Belvedere.”

Colleen, evidencing the lucidity Kelly found last week, says “Those people flat out lied in front of a national television audience.” Gee, maybe you should have gotten a clue when Gretchen was voted off by a landslide and you had a better chance of doing something about it. Moron.

Kelly tells us she didn’t sleep last night and the “whole alliance thing is getting too stupid and crazy.” Ummm, no, it’s working. What happened to the edge she had last week? For once it seemed like she got the whole point of the game. But, no. Kelly goes on to say, “If we stick with it, it’s like lining lambs to the slaughter. That’s no fun.” Didn’t she say that if people wanted fun they should have gone to summer camp? Let me state that Kelly, and Kelly alone, is half the reason I write these summaries. I mean, here’s a girl who has a problem with a little deception to win a million dollars, but has no problem swiping a credit card to steal 30 bucks worth of crappy pasta from Olive Garden. Way to think big, Kel. I’m just glad the Cold War is over and there’s not even a remote possibility of her thumb being on the launch button.

Kelly further claims that she’s not happy playing the game this way, and that if she is going to really win and be the last survivor, then it has to be on her own.

See ya. A strategy like that is soon to result in a one way ticket back to her creepy boyfriend.

Sean tells us that Rich is in a good position because he’s catching fish. Sean, it’s nice to see has pulled his Superpole out of his ass and has begun to group rays in the fish family rather than simply being petulant and bitchy because he hasn’t caught any marine life, including Jenna’s mustached clam.

According to Gervase, Rich hasn’t done a damn thing but fish. This offends Gervase’s strong work ethic of not doing a damn thing at all. Including wearing a condom. Hey buddy, before you stone the last wall in that glass house, think about who’s gonna feed your lazy ass.

Ever the peacemaker, Rudy says he liked Rich even before he knew he was queer, which makes it sound like knowing Rich was gay would have made Rudy like him. Seeing that I have two or three brain cells more than Ole Rudy, I think he meant to say, “I liked him before I knew he was a butt pirate, and if I knew right away I would have drowned him when had to jump off the boat.” Gee, with compassionate conservatism like that, it’s a surprise Rudy wasn’t on George W’s vice presidential short list.

After Sean complains that Rich is immature about always bringing up his “fish-worthiness” at Tribal Council, Rich says that catching fish makes people happy but he’s staying around because he’s bright. I’m sure the Mensa application is in the mail.

According to Rich, they’re not voting him off, because he’s not letting them. Well, excuse me, Mr. Stay-Puf Marshmallow Ego. I’ll be sure to keep a look out for your flying monkeys.

For the second time in two weeks, we see Colleen become visibly uncomfortable when the others are killing the fish. How did she ever pass the screening process for this show? If she were really ever stranded on a desert island, she’d last about 20 minutes.

We then witness a catfight between Rudy and Sue over cooking the fish. Evidently Rudy didn’t get the fire hot enough and he should have listened to Sue, who knows about cooking wild game over an open flame. Can I just ask, with a mother of two still on the island, how is it that the choice of who would cook came down to a retired Navy Seal and a trucker?

As Rich taps on his leg with the knife, which I was sort of hoping would slip and cut off his Pagong, he tells us that Rudy is clueless when it comes to cooking fish. Hey, since you’re so indisposable, Aquaman, go catch some more instead of sitting there throwing a hissy fit, you girl.

Colleen, perched up in a tree (thus needlessly extending last week’s “cat” metaphor,) bitches about Rich, and in expressing her frustration at him she utters the best line of the night: “Oh just go home and go get your liposuction and go catch more fish.”

I’m still laughing.

As the girls set out to do some fishing of their own, we are treated to yet another shot of Rich in his bathing suit and black socks, debunking the myth that all gay men are well dressed.

Kelly tells us that the biggest problem now is food. Unaware that this episode would air shortly after the story of her outstanding arrest warrant, Kelly gives us a textbook example of high irony when she says, “It bothers me that I can’t get my own food, and that I have to rely on someone else.” Evidently, Kelly is a modern day Blanche Dubois, always depending on the wallets, I mean kindness, of strangers.

Finally, after almost four weeks, the girls finally manage to catch one fish. They’re so damn happy about it you’d think they had hooked Moby #####.

Nevertheless, this bounty is enough to almost shatter Rich’s emotional security. Much moping ensues.

Day 26 brings the reward challenge. As Brattana makes its way over, we hear Colleen yell, “Look who it is!” when she sees JP. Why is so excited? Don’t they see him everyday? Who was she expecting, Charo?

The challenge is some sort of ropes course like the one I remember doing with youth group back in high school to teach team building skills. The prize is a barbecue, and again I question the relative intelligence of taking people who have been eating, like, 12 calories a day for a month and letting them gorge themselves. The winner also gets a letter from home, and unfortunately, there’s even one for Jenna, who I personally would have liked to see “accidentally” left out again because I think it would have driven her so far into Greg-like realms of insanity that she would have rammed the fishing spear right through JP’s dimples. Watching them compete was as nauseating as last week’s challenge and I couldn’t figure out where anyone was. All I learned was that Jenna can crawl through Gervase’s legs (and given that they have five children and no spouses between them, I’m not surprised) and that Sue has beefier biceps than the last guy I slept with, and he was a muscle queen.

Finished collecting medallions, the race comes down to Colleen and Kelly who have to rush back to the center of Charlotte’s Web to win. With a gravity-defying flip that made Kerri Strug’s Olympic winning vault look like hopscotch, Colleen noses out Kelly to the center of the web. That Colleen. Radiant. Terrific. Some Pig.

Whatever.

Colleen gets to invite only one other person to the barbecue, and that person gets their letter as well. Of course she picks Jenna.

Annoying whiny bitch.

On to the barbecue, complete with burgers, hot dogs, and the requisite cheery island rhythms. Evidently, CBS doesn’t credit its audience with enough intelligence to figure out that a barbecue is a lot more fun for these starvation victims than yet another bowl of watery rice and burnt fish. Instead, we have to tolerate the happy music contrasted with dour melodies as the losers sit around like the orphans from Oliver eating out of coconut shells.

At the barbecue, Colleen makes fun of the fact that Sean still needs one more tribal council to be sure there’s an alliance. I can’t determine which I find more amusing: the fact that Colleen finally figured it out or the fact that she did so before the neurologist. Dr. Superpole may still be on the island, but I bet after hospital administration sees this show he’ll be voted out of medicine.

The girls also get their letter.

Jenna cries.

Annoying, whiny bitch.

Morning brings Rich’s birthday, and he’s determined to spend it in his birthday suit. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was stunned to find out Rich was only 39. He’s got the body of a 24-year-old. A 24 year old walrus.

Sean tells us that you never get used to the sight of Rich naked. No kidding. Even with the naughty bits blurred out, after watching that, I think I might be straight.

Jenna says she didn’t think she’d have a problem with it, but that it’s awkward sitting next to a naked gay man.

Not for me.

Rudy, with a frown of disapproval, as opposed to his frowns of frustration, joy, and flatulence, exhibits political correctness when he says he’ll tell his wife when he gets home he’ll tell his wife he was on the island with a “queer who ran around bare-assed.” Yeah, after you’ve been on a deserted island for two months, I’m sure that’s exactly what your wife wants to hear.

The immunity challenge, we learn, involves intelligence. With this crew, that should be fun. Personally, I think all future challenges should be devoid of the cheesy American Gladiator quality and simply be each castaway beating the living crap out of the others until only one is left standing. Hey, it would give Sue a shot at winning.

In discussing immunity, Sean tells us that his alphabet system adds a new dimension to the voting. Yeah, autism.

And why is he telling everybody about it? I hope when he gets to “S” he votes for himself.

Finally, we get to the challenge: “Squared off” or “Hip to be Square” or something. According to JP, the game is kind of like chess and kind of like tic-tac-toe. Yeah, and sort of like Connect Four with a dash of Battleship and a pinch of cinnamon.

Seeing the castaways all lined up at the beginning leaves me with only one thought. For the next Survivor, let them bring more clothes. I mean, even Anne Frank packed a suitcase. Those outfits must smell like industrial waste.

There is little point in summarizing the challenge itself, since it took forever and even CBS had to edit it because it was so boring.

Rudy wins.

I was almost happy for the homophobic old bastard. I sort of wished Stacey could have been there.

As evening falls, pre-Tribal Council angst is back. Colleen, Jenna and Gervase finally wake up and try to organize quickly enough to save their collective asses. Kelly starts to get friendly with Jenna and Colleen. Hold on to your wallets, girls. Kelly even gets to the point of wearing her hair in pigtails and looking like Baby Snooks. This of course, threatens Sue and Rich (who after the ego-crushing blow of someone else catching a fish is dancing on the very precipice of sanity.)

Rich hopes that Kelly hasn’t “shifted trust and joined forces with someone else.” Okay, it’s a game, dude, it’s not like she’s defecting from behind the Iron Curtain.

Rudy is worried because the girls are dressing alike and holding hands, so he’s worried about a female alliance, and has even thought about lesbianism. I was confused for a second, because I thought maybe he thought about lesbianism for himself, until I realized he was talking about Colleen, Jenna and Sticky-fingers. What’s with this guy? For someone who claims to be straight, he’s thinking about alternative lifestyles an awful lot. C’mon, Rude, you were a SEAL. All those young muscular sailors with their taut bodies and their skin tight uniforms. Didn’t you ever let another sailor polish your periscope?

Time for council. Colleen tells us she knows she, Jenna and Gervase are voting for Rich. With all those votes, obviously, Rich is staying. Gervase says even though Rich catches fish, he doesn’t care, he’ll vote him off and they can all starve together. This brilliant foresight from the guy who plays cards all day tells me why he’s so inept at family planning.

Whatever, dude, just wear a condom. You’re bringing down the curve for the whole country.

At the tribal council, Greg returns as part of the jury, presenting one clear question: Why the hell hasn’t he shaved. JP asks Sean why he’s voting alphabetically. Sean says it gives him an order he can follow easily. I get the feeling this guy gets confused with paint-by-numbers. Suddenly, I find myself seething at the effect HMOs have had on our system of medical care.

Interestingly, Susan sums up the relative merit of this system when JP asks her opinion: “He’s an idiot.”

The vote. I can honestly say I didn’t know what would happen. I knew Rich wasn’t going anywhere, but I really had no idea who the alliance was gonna boot. Two things about the vote were hysterical though.

First, Kelly, in a stunning display of independent thought for the first time in 27 days, votes for Sean and breaks the alliance. Second, Sean, thinking Jenna was a safe vote (despite the fact that the votes against her have been mounting week after week) is the vote that sends her packing. She should have touched his Superpole.

I might even miss Jenna.

Annoying whiny bitch.

Next week on Survivor: Gervase manages to father a fourth child before his over 30 (that boy may not be able to swim but his sperm sure can), and Kelly tries out her new backbone.