Watching Reality TV

If you want to catch up on what happened last week, too bad.  There was no new show last week (just one of those cheesy recap shows and that totally doesn’t count).  But to see what happened the week before, check out this post.

James is getting awfully cocky, isn’t he?  We start out where we left off, with Jeff’s little “cliffhanger”.  He excuses the jury from Tribal Council and then addresses the group.  They’re going to immediately participate in a reward challenge before going back to camp.  The winner: stay in Shao Lin Temple, get a kung-fu demonstration, a vegetarian meal and return to camp after.  It’s a trivia question challenge and everyone has “true and false” tiles to display.  Most answers right, wins.  Most of the answers were pretty easy, but some were pretty obscure.  PG wins and then gets to pick a friend to take along.  She chooses Erik and Denise (pity, perhaps?).  Everyone is dismissed back to camp, where PG, Erik and Denise will get picked up for the adventure in the morning.

The remaining players are actually kind of happy to have only four people at camp.  They plan to eat lots while the others are away.  James wants to frolic.  He wants to avoid getting cozy with PG and Erik.  However, no one else really feels the same way.  Amanda doesn’t want to go to the final four with any of them, for one.  Meanwhile, the winners on board the plane are strategizing as well.  They contemplate being the final three.   Denise is a little skeptical, but she prefers to wait and see what happens before ruling it out.  They arrive at the temple and it is rather amazing.  The kung-fu demonstration is incredible to watch.  These guys know what they’re doing.  That would be an awfully cool reward to get.  Denise, as it turns out, knows a little kung-fu herself.  Impressive!   Their feast, while vegetarian, is still sumptuous.  And I imagine, has to taste pretty fantastic.  They get to sleep inside the temple itself which… dang.

Back at camp it’s raining and everyone looks pretty depressed about it.  So much for enjoying themselves while the others are gone.  They return to camp and no one greets them.  Well, Amanda did.  The rest have no manners, apparently.  Courtney doesn’t like other people, namely PG, coming into “her” cave.  I think what she didn’t like was hearing about the fantastic reward.  Denise tells Todd that PG wants to vote him out.  Which pisses him off, naturally.  Erik also mentions voting off Todd to James.  James lets him know that he’s not sticking his neck out for no one.  If the five want to vote one of them two out, he’s going with the five.

They get a message about the immunity challenge and while reading the tree mail, Amanda suggests getting rid of James to Courtney.  The big deal being he needs to be blindsided so he won’t use his immunity idols.  It makes sense.  The challenge involves throwing Chinese throwing stars at cutouts of people.  Fun!  Good for getting that aggression out.   Points are awarded on what targets they hit and where on the target they hit.  PG goes first and does abysmally.  Todd goes and the bar isn’t too high.  He does better, and actually scores 3 points.  Erik is up and scores 6 points.  Courtney takes her turn and amazingly gets 6 points.  James goes and nails are bitten.  He scores 6.  Amanda goes and scores 6 as well.  Denise goes up and scores 2.  Amanda, James, Courtney and Erik then compete in the final round.  Courtney gets no points, Amanda gets 2, Erik gets 3 and James gets no points.  Erik wins immunity!  He’s very pleased.

Back at camp, much strategy is discussed.  Todd is open to suggestions.  Amanda and Courtney are still championing for voting James and Denise and Todd are up for it.  They tell James that PG is getting voted out and then do the switcheroo at the last minute.  They broach the idea to PG and Erik and PG is nervous.  Amanda warns her to keep her mouth shut and act like she’s getting voted out.  PG doesn’t trust easily though and tells Erik they should vote for Todd.  Erik isn’t sure.  PG packs up to leave camp, playing her part.  James will bring the idols with him, just in case he gets a bad feeling.

At Tribal Council, Jeff does the usual small talk.  The big deal is keeping things under wraps about voting James out.  It would appear that their strategy will work!  Jeff tallies the votes and everyone keeps their faces passive.  He asks for the hidden idol and James does not play it.  D’oh!  As Jeff starts reading the votes, James gets a look and he KNOWS.  That was slick.  It really was the only way to get him out.  I’m just amazed that it worked.