Finding Your Inner Osten

Before we begin this summary, I need to let you know that answers to several persistent Internet rumors will be addressed in this episode. In particular, many “Internet fans” have noticed that Vegas showgirl Janu has basically said and done nothing on this show since about episode 2. This has led many of these fans to pour over “screen caps” and develop “conspiracy theories,” raising the following serious questions.

• Does Janu have anything remotely interesting to do or say? Are they concealing her for a “shocking, surprise win”?

• Are we sure Janu is still on the show and they aren’t just showing the latest version of the immunity idol lying in Koror’s hammock all day?

• Who are these “Internet fans”? Don’t they have anything better to do with their lives?

Anyway, through careful scrutinizing of said “screen caps” it appears quite clear that Mark Burnett was using recycled footage of Janu from about Day 7 on. There have been only two colorable theories as to why this is so. First, there was a major Wayne Newton performance in Vegas at the time of filming, so it is possible Janu was emergency airlifted out to do the show. Second, many have speculated that Katie, the only castaway in the history of Survivor to actually gain weight on the show, may have eaten Janu on one of the few days Tom and Ian didn’t catch her a four-course meal.

I am happy to report that last episode it was made clear that, with Wayne’s shows over, Janu could return to the cast, although she still did nothing even remotely interesting. And don’t worry, that won’t change too much this time around, although I’ll try to spice her up a little bit through this summary. Also, for those of you who missed last week’s episode “And You Thought Gas Prices Were High,” I refer you to the following link. A quick recap though.

• Even Stephenie proved to be a dull contestant when she had nobody to talk to but herself. Despite Jiffy’s hyping of how exciting her “scary night alone” would be, nothing even remotely interesting happened to her.

• To try to spice up the show again, the producers let Stephenie join Koror on their beach as a ninth member.

• Tom got totally drunk and passed out in celebration of Steph’s arrival.

• Coby let Steph know that Jen was her main enemy and whined when he didn’t get to make fish hooks with Ian.

• That horribly boring pole-standing challenge got used again. Tom won immunity and the tribe booted Coby.

• Katie ate chocolate chip cookies at the challenge and gained even more weight.

As this week’s show opens, we get treated to a great scene of all the flies and maggots surrounding the Koror camp. And this time I’m actually not talking about Katie. Janu is depressed that the tribe voted Coby out without telling her. Katie announces both to Jenn and in confessional that she could care less what Janu thinks because Janu always has this crazy look on her face. And because Janu is thin.

Naturally, the producers make sure Janu will overhear this little snitfit so that she can then start lecturing Katie. Janu tells Katie that if she has something to say to her, she should say it to her face. Janu doesn’t appreciate backbiting. Katie considers Janu’s position to be “completely irrational” because if Katie said all of the nasty things she’s been saying behind everybody’s backs to their faces she would get booted out of Koror just like that. And then Tom and Ian wouldn’t be able to feed her and do her bidding. Personally Katie, if you want to see wigged-out and irrational, I suggest you wait until Survivor:Thailand comes out on DVD so you can watch Jan bury a bat. And yes when the Survivor summaries start representing a previous rendition as bad and boring as Thailand, you know things have gotten pretty stale in Palau.

Greg tries to play peacemaker and finally gets Katie to apologize. He agrees that the Janu/Katie spat is kind of a buzzkill but at the end of the day he wants to keep Janu around to help him win the game and the cash. To him, Steph is the threat.

Just as a programming note, Janu has now spoken more words in the show’s first nine minutes than she did in the first nine episodes combined. I think she just tripled her confessional total.

So we’re off to a reward challenge. It involves building a water tower of scaffolding to retrieve a flag and a map. The tribes get divided in half and the winner will get a Palauan tribal feast. Obviously, the tribe with Tom on it is going to win. The random flotsilla that gets to work the challenge with him consists of Greg, Caryn, and Janu. While building the scaffolding, Caryn and Janu pretty much sit things out but Captain America of course still manage to take an early lead. To be fair, because the teammates do have to work together, it basically becomes a race between which team has the most useless member. In a pretty close contest, Katie manages to edge out Janu in this department. In fact, Janu manages to scale her body (all 78 pounds of it) up the scaffolding at the end and swim back with the flag to victory.

Off-camera during the commercial I’m assuming Jenn does something noteworthy. Otherwise, I can’t figure out how she got picked for the show.

The four victors are excited for their feast. They arrive in a Palauan village. Tom, not realizing that the villagers will not be on the jury, immediately starts shaking hands and politicking. Caryn is given a crown and some flowers, which moves her to tears of happiness. Greg is excited to “experience what life in Palau is really like.” Based on the camera footage, life in Palau is like a bunch of half-naked women surrounding Greg and dancing in unison. Sigh. Four hours away from Jen and he’s already upgraded.

We are briefly treated to a few scenes of mostly naked women and some incomprehensible guttural sounds. And since Angie and James were booted weeks ago we know it must be part of a tribal ritual.The happy foursome then revels in a food feast. Janu eats her bodyweight and then proceeds to bring it all back up again. Greg points out what a waste this is with four others starving back home. Well, three others since we can’t really count Katie.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter since there are plenty of left-overs which the four bring back for the others, who seem to really enjoy it. Janu, proving herself even less adept at tribal politics than I thought, actually decides to sample some of the food they brought back. At least this time she doesn’t puke. Caryn apparently eats a little more as well, but since everybody’s pretty much ignoring Caryn these days that raises little note. Naturally, Janu’s actions cause Katie to go ballistic. How dare Janu eat “her” food. Next she orders her minions back in the water to get her more fish.

On to the immunity challenge, which the castaways surmise from their treemail has something to do with being caged underwater. Steph knows she is on the chopping block because the guys view her as a threat, so she’s going to give everything she has to win.

At the challenge itself, Jeff temporarily takes the immunity necklace back from Tom, and announces that this challenge will be the twelfth in a row to come straight out of the NYFD training manual. The castaways must position themselves under a steel grate in the water. As the tide rises it will eventually wash over the grate, drowning them. At that point, a new set of castaways will be brought in and everybody will be permitted to forget that this season ever happened.

No, seriously, the castaways can quit whenever they run out of air or get too scared to continue. But there is one more catch. The first person to fail will face the “ultimate test of fear.” They will be abandoned for the night on their own beach with Wanda. When all of the castaways announce they would rather drown, Jeff relents and allows them to go alone and take flint and steel, a machete, water, and fishing gear. So much for the ultimate test of fear.

Six minutes in, Janu gives up. I’m not kidding. The water isn’t even up to her neck yet. Jeff can’t believe it either. Janu announces she’s worried because she’s never made fire before. Katie busts out laughing at Janu’s fate. The other members join in before Jeff pretty much lays into them about their lack of caring. Katie then makes a face and, for the first time in weeks, shuts up.

About forty minutes, in the tide really starts to rise and the castaways all are running out of breathing space. Finally, the water starts to rush over their faces, and Caryn opts out, quickly followed by Katie. Jenn and Steph try to breathe under water for as long as they can, but it is soon down to just the men. Greg fails, followed by Ian. Tom wins again. Five bucks to the first person who didn’t see that win coming. A boat comes to pick up Janu. Only Greg and Ian even bother to wave goodbye.

Janu gets dropped off on her new island. She tries to teach herself how to make fire. For a while, it looks like she might not be able to do it. Darkness falls and still no fire. Still, Janu says she feels alone at camp anyway, so she’d rather be on her own.

Suddenly a vision comes to her: it’s Osten, Jenna, and Sue. “Janu, they say. You don’t have to die alone in the wilderness. Just make it through the night and you can quit!” Somehow this inspires or terrifies Janu enough to clue in to the fact that rubbing the flint and steel together will eventually make fire. Eventually, she gets the fire going and does a little dance of celebration under the full moon. After that minor episode of creepiness, Janu proves to be just as boring as Steph when abandoned alone in the wilderness.

Back at Koror, Tom and Greg strategize about the vote. Greg lobbies very hard to vote out Steph, whom he views as a threat with her strong competitive drive, rather than Janu, who has no chance of winning the game. Tom feels torn. On Day 2, he, Ian, and Katie made an alliance with Stephenie. But now Tom also has an alliance with Jen and Greg too. Dilemmas, dilemmas. Greg says that “everybody” wants to prevent the “feel-good” story of Stephenie conquering Ulong and Koror and surviving twenty or so tribal councils. I’m not sure that’s what Mark and Jiffy want, but I’m sure they could just arrange for America to vote her a million bucks like they did with Rupert. Or come up with some other way to manipulate the game in Steph’s favor.

Janu returns from her adventure. Her spirits are renewed. In a confessional, Janu admits she didn’t even want to come back because she can’t stand any of the people there. Steph knows she’s being told by Koror it’s Janu getting the votes tonight but is very paranoid that it’s her. She finally confronts Ian, but he won’t even look her in the face.

On to tribal council. I am happy to weigh in on our first jury report with the news that, although Coby still looks like a goofball, he did at least remove that mangy beard. Janu says she did great on her night alone. When Jiffy asks her if she felt the others were being sincere when they wished her good luck, she says “absolutely not” and that she felt they were just saying nice things to play the game.

Caryn responds to Janu’s claim by saying she is “shocked,” but it’s unclear whether that is because she thought that she was supposed to be the character responsible for biting negative comments or that she can’t believe how much facetime Janu is getting in an episode where Stephenie is the one the tribe is voting out.

Tom says that at this point everybody votes based on the game not on how much people are worth to the tribe. It’s all about eliminating competition. Greg also says he wants to keep in the game people who aren’t threats and don’t really want to win. Katie immediately points out that she poses no threat to anybody and offers to prove the point by trying to finish behind Janu in the next immunity challenge. Janu says there’s no reason in the world for the tribe to keep her around, causing Stephenie to begin her Guiding Light audition with a tearful, heartfelt outburst. Her voice cracking, body shaking she announces, she’d “kill to be here.” I don’t think the speech going to win any Emmys, but based on the look on Probst’s face, Julie might want to put in a call to the Cheaters Hotline.

Steph can’t believe that she showed “too much heart” while the tribe is going to keep around somebody like worthless Janu who is just begging to leave. But Tom remains impassive. He’s happy to lobby Steph for her jury vote by telling her she’d fit in great with the NYFD, but it’s clear he’s writing her name down tonight.

In one last bid to keep the Steph streak on a role, Jeff starts his cross-examination of Janu. First, he gets her to admit that she wants the tribe to vote her out. Then he points out that there’s simply no difference between asking to be voted out and laying down her torch. No explanation as to why he didn’t feel that way about Osten. Still, Janu gets the point and says that to let Stephenie stay in the game, she’ll quit. Steph then does her wishy-washy best to blow up Jeff’s plans completely by telling Janu not to quit on her account but only if she really wants out. Janu, though, has already used up every last calorie in her body just by speaking for the last few episodes and decides to go out in style. I’m sure the fact that it throws a bit of a monkey wrench in the tribe’s plans and means she won’t have to listen to Katie for three days had nothing to do with it.

With that, Janu brings her torch over to Jiffy. For the fourth time in the last four Survivors somebody quits. And this quitter actually gets to join the jury.

Jeff tells Steph she can thank him immediately following the reunion special.

Tune in next week to watch Steph lobby Tom, Ian, and Katie to stick to their alliance, Steph lobby the women to vote out Tom, and Steph lobby Jeff Probst to rig another tribal council in her favor. Bebo will have all the details, so you know the summary will be far better than the episode itself.