Sorry this is so late. this week was busier than I thought it would be

Previously on Survivor: Matt was voted out, came back into the game and threatened Robfadder only to be…voted back to Redemption Island again. “What?!?!” he said.

Meanwhile, Zapata abounded with the type of drama normally associated with Junior High girls. Serape, the token hippie chick, said “David is all, like, freaked out in the challenges.”
“Nuh-uh,” exclaimed David with an eye roll.

Then Mike was voted off…and David followed him to RI.

As usual, Matt was praying when this episode started. Unlike most of the board community, I don’t find that funny, so I won’t ridicule it. But he was clearly beaten down by the game and his mistakes so far.

Then, David showed up and they commiserated about how tough it was to get picked off one by one by the vicious Omelet-Teepee tribe, ruled with an iron fist by Glorious Leader Kim Jong Il. “I control their every thought, and they will do my bidding,” KJI said, with an evil cackle.

Matt couldn’t understand how David could be voted off. Matt, Matt…I am trying to root for you, but how could you be surprised by one of your allies being voted off? Did you expect that Omelet-Teepee would kick KJI to the curb?

Steve and The Sasquatch were talking the next morning over breakfast when Phillip had another mental episode, apparently mumbling even more incoherently than he usually speaks. Right before the intro montage, Steve opines that there is “always a chance”. Well, if by a chance you mean a snowball’s chance in hell, then yes, you have a chance.

The montage was shorter than a 60s miniskirt so we knew that there would be either a longer challenge or a crazy tribal council tonight.

After the commercials, Phillip began to blather at the camera that he got into Buddhism and now realizes that he is “connected to all living things”, including Natasha and Boris, who some people call God (he might have said Victor Borge, I have real trouble understanding him and CBS doesn’t usually subtitle his rants). He said that we just need to accept it. While meditating, Phillip said that he got in touch with his ancestor, Justin Bieber, who said he should have a relationship with Rob. Phillip said his role was to be The Glorious Leader’s door mat and man servant. He said, “That doesn’t mean I don’t want the million dollars. I will try for that. But of course, if I somehow happen to win it, I will give every penny of it to The Glorious Leader, keeping none of it…not even to pay the taxes” or something like that.

Julie said that Zapata had plenty of rice, and they would happily gobble down 100 pounds per person per day to be sure they finish it before they are unceremoniously axed by the Glorious Leader’s minions.

So Phillip decided to redistribute the rice himself since “all the rice here belongs to all of us”. Darn shame that the tarp doesn’t fall into the same category, eh, Secret Agent Man?

Phillip snuck over to the Zapata rice container and filled a bag of rice to take back to The Glorious Leader’s toadies, managing to only mention honor and duty a half a dozen times in the 30 seconds he is looting the food of his rivals on camera. Secret Agent Man mangled the Murlonio tribe name into something that sounds like Marlene Dietrich.

Then the whole Dietrich gang was whisked off to watch the three-person challenge for RI survival. This was a reprise of the House of Cards…er, House of Tiles challenge from a couple of seasons ago.

Matt said he was frustrated and bothered by the fact that he was fooled twice. Sounded like a foreshadowing edit that Matt might be leaving. Surely, he couldn’t win again, right?

I just knew that David would win this one. He is, after all, the Smartest Person to Ever Play Survivor. Surely that brain power would translate into at least ONE puzzle win, right? I know that he lost every challenge puzzle so far, but surely, he would win the one that matters most, right?

Nope. Mike blew out to a big lead and then was able to finish well faster than David to stay alive. Matt finished second to survive AGAIN. So, The Genius will now become the Smartest Jury Member Ever.

The Glorious Leader sounded mildly paranoid as he realized that nobody can beat Matt in a RI challenge. “If he comes back, it’s over for me.” The Glorious Leader then launched some artillery into South Korea, killing thousands of innocents to vent that frustration.

After the 2nd commercial break, the Glorious Leader and challenge-hog Grant were putting on a very bizarre concert when Secret Agent Man discovered that his ancestors had crapped in the Omelet-Teepee rice container. Karma stinks, doesn’t it, Your Honor?

Andrea found maggots (or something close to maggots, like oil futures traders) in the rice, so Secret Agent Man demonstrated the sort of planning and judgment that must have made him a superb agent. He dumped the rice onto a blanket without having another container to put it into.

The Glorious Leader commanded Secret Agent Man to confiscate the Omelet-Teepee rice container to put ALL the combined rice of both tribes into. In a rare moment of lucidity, Secret Agent Man said “I wouldn’t do that if I was them”. Ya think? Maybe, JUST maybe, The Glorious Leader has been leading you around by your nose for 10 episodes, making you do dirty work and stoking the anger between you and everyone else on the tribe! Why would he do that, though?!?! Maybe, just maybe, he is doing it so that if he takes you to the final Tribal Council, nobody will vote for you, Secret Agent Man! But it’s a good thing that you know how to read people, so you saw right through that ploy, right?

Um…no. After Andrea asked Steve and Julie for their rice container, they told her no. So Secret Agent Man went into confessional talking about how this damaged his faith in human goodness. I guess Buddha doesn’t throw lightning bolts at his followers when they demonstrate incredible irony, because he wasn’t incinerated. Not even his feathers were singed.
Then Secret Agent Man charged over to bully former NFL player Steve into merging the rice. Steve played it smoothly, saying he would talk to The Sasquatch, who was off stomping through the woods doing whatever sasquatches do. But Secret Agent Man played REALLY bad cop and kept demanding that he take the Zapata rice can.

Secret Agent Man got frustrated by Steve’s refusal and challenged him to use reason. The best line of the entire episode was Steve asking, “Wouldn’t it have been smart to talk about this before you dumped it out?”

I thought for a golden moment we might have the Biggest Brawl in Survivor History because it looked like Secret Agent Man was going to summon his lion or silverback or whatever he calls his tattooed arms. Steve looked ready to unbuckle his chin strap and start throwing his helmet around, too.

But Secret Agent Man decided instead to steal the Zapata can and hide it. He directly threatened Steve with doing just that and they lobbed bleep-able bombs at each other. Steve called Secret Agent Man a #$*&#ing lunatic.

Remember that phrase, because Secret Agent Man doesn’t. What Secret Agent Man heard was Steve dropping a racial slur (which he didn’t).

The Glorious Leader and Grant were stunned that Secret Agent Man played the race card in this confrontation that was 100% his own creation. Somewhere Al Sharpton was shouting Amen at his TV and preparing to picket Steve at the reunion show.

Secret Agent Man again threatened Steve with a physical attack, reminding the NFL lineman that Secret Agent Man is crazy and unpredictable in addition to knowing Wang Chung, or some kind of martial arts that should scare me. He probably learned that killer stuff at the same time he was learning how to read suspects and how to get them to crack under pressure.

Secret Agent Man said that Steve feels “better than him” and that Phillip is “prepared to self-destruct at any moment” like a lot of black men. And in the most ironic line of the season so far Secret Agent Man points out that “if you don’t start none, there won’t be none, but if you start it, I will finish it”. Wow. OK then.

For one nanosecond I considered the possibility that maybe Steve had actually used the N-bomb in his remarks and Mark Burnett had edited it out. That is possible, I suppose as MB doesn’t have the most sterling reputation for portraying African Americans in the best light. But I really think that if ANYONE on the tribe had dropped a racial slur on Secret Agent Man, then we would have seen and heard it. It would be ratings gold after all, wouldn’t it? And Secret Agent Man was getting something of a sympathetic edit when he was confronting the Beauty Queens a few episodes ago, so I think that if Steve HAD used a slur, we would know it. Grant’s comments confirm for me that Secret Agent Man just went off the deep end on his own.

The Sasquatch got to stand there and be the voice of reason, urging Secret Agent Man to just play the game. Will wonders never cease?
The Glorious Leader hinted that Secret Agent Man was getting annoying enough to vote him off soon. Ashley, she who had no time to work because her eyes were always rolling at Secret Agent Man, said she would rather die than keep him around.

So we were led to believe that Secret Agent Man might go before one of the Zapata Three. Yeah, sure.

The immunity challenge was to spin off a wheel after doing one of those things that they do at every minor league game. You know, put your head on the bat, run around in a circle 10 times and then try to run in a straight line to home plate. Still, it’s funny seeing Ashley fall down and Sasquatch stumble like a drunken…sasquatch. They put together a puzzle and Steve moved on after Secret Agent Man prematurely said he had won. Grant was the final qualifier and Secret Agent Man failed.

The Glorious Leader nosed out Steve for the immunity necklace. Darn shame that David wasn’t around to lose and look flustered like he has in every other puzzle challenge.

Last episode, Zapata did the Most Pathetic Job EVER of trying to lure outcast Secret Agent Man to their side. This time, Zapata was hoping that Ashley’s eyes would roll right out of her emaciated head and that she would mistakenly vote for Secret Agent Man. Well, they can hope, can’t they?!?!

Julie knew that she or one of her allies was toast. She hoped that some Omelet-Teepee denizen might throw her a bone, but she knew that she was likely dead. So in a fit of pique, she stole Secret Agent Man’s swim trunks and buried them.

Naturally, he threatened everyone in sight, threatening to “go off like…that” on Steve. Secret Agent Man’s immense interrogation expertise told him that Steve was at fault for the theft. Julie almost ruined her own undergarments trying to keep from laughing.

The Glorious Leader couldn’t believe he had so much power over his brain-dead robots, but he was glad that he did.

At TC, Jiffy pretended to interrogate Steve and Secret Agent Man about The Incident because he wanted to know what happened. Now, I don’t for one second buy that Jiffy was clueless about this confrontation until informed at Tribal Council. I think that he was informed by a breathless production assistant about 10 nanoseconds after cameraman #1 filmed the confrontation.

Still, once he got the story out, Jiffy did an admirable job of trying to talk both of them off the ledge. Doctor Phil is somewhere frantically taking notes. The scene was interesting, but it took way too long to get through the politically correct genuflecting to make sure that none of the whites were being insensitive to Secret Agent Man. Secret Agent Man says that his father had been insulted in the 1960s or the 1780s or somewhere back then when some white guy called him boy in a grocery store. Apparently, that means that Secret Agent Man can now infer racism whenever it suits him if it SOMEHOW reminds him of that incident. So, using that line of reasoning, any of us can be offended at any time if any of our ancestors were ever insulted at some point in the past.

The TC itself was anti-climactic, other than Natalie earning Secret Agent Man’s vote with a very squishy response to a question. The kid has learned some tricks!

Julie was booted without much thought and no defections, though Ashley strained at least two muscles trying to roll her eyes continually when she realized that she couldn’t vote Secret Agent Man off yet.

Is it just me, or is the best part of every episode watching Sasquatch mangle the name of whoever he is voting for? This time he votes “Phile”, which is probably as close as he has been in 10 episodes.

When she gets to RI, Julie sneaks up on Matt and Mike and yells Boo! Mike flashes back to his time in Afghanistan and stabs her to death with his Kbar knife. Just kidding, she wasn’t hurt, but she wasn’t very smart to do that, was she?

Next time, Secret Agent Man has his best day yet. Andrea might be booted, and Matt hits rock bottom.

Agman made this fancy sig for me