Survivorfest week 6!

Sydney started Joe's fire, but had hers extinguished!


Welcome back from our two-week, NCAA-induced hiatus!

Jalapao was back at camp, fresh from cutting loose Spencer. Everyone seemed regretful with the exception of JT. Guess it doesn't pay to get on that guy's bad side. Seriously, was he that miserable in the lacrosse challenge?

Sydney began moping around using the old "I guess everyone will be voting me off next" routine. Maybe she should be employing a more useful strategy like the "I'm totally going to be a useful member of the tribe" one or "I'm going to kick butt in the next challenge, guaranteed!" one. Even the "I think we should get rid of so-an-so because he/she is a cancer" strategy is better.

Joe, however, is wearing Sydney-colored glasses: "I got a thing for Sydney...she's gorgeous!" Further, he declared that he would do what he could to take her to the merge with him. Is she $1M gorgeous, Joe? You can buy a lot of high-end glamour for that kind of scratch.

The camera showed the clouds pouring in at fast-motion speed. My wife wondered if Coach suspected it was going to rain.

Coach continued to aggravate his clan. This time it was by adding additional river water to the pot of beans because they weren't done enough to suit him. The rains came in before the beans were finished and Coach retreated to the shelter. This resulted in a heaping pot of burned beans that everyone got to scrape out of the pot.

Debbie: "Some of them are purple!" Sierra let him know that if one of the rest of the tribe screwed up the beans, he would have been all over them. Probably true. Coach spent the next several minutes explaining why everyone else was being a jerk because he burned the beans.

Speaking of Debbie and Sierra...I always thought Sierra was little, but she stands a full head taller than Debbie. Weird.

Brendan was still happy with having him around: "Coach is a predictable player, and in this game you want to be dealing with predictable people." That sounds like famous last words, to me.

Taj was interested in telling JT that she had the idol, but Stephen talked her out of it. Evidently he wanted to maintain his usefulness as a go between for Taj and JT. Bros before hos, as it were.

The reward challenge was for each tribe to build a set of barricades. Once completed the tribes would attempt to throw ceramic pigs through the other team's barricades to other tribe members. The team with the most unbroken pigs at the end wins.

Probst: "Those pigs hurt when they hit your body!" I'm still not sure what to say about this.

Initially both tribes struggled with the challenge and the first handful of pigs ended up in a shattered mess on the ground.

After a while both tribes got the hang of it and pigs did indeed fly. Timbera won by a snout!

Timbera (or rather Brendan) chose Joe to go to Exile. Joe elected to take Erinn with him. I predicted that he would take the best-looking or least-clothed female remaining. Joe doesn't disappoint: "The decision to take Erinn was strategic. Charm is part of my game."

At reward, the tribe enjoyed a barbeque feast at a waterfall. I laughed when I saw Coach jump into the tidal pool on a float and ended up hitting the water face first. Sometimes it's the simple things in life that you treasure.

At Exile, Erinn picked the urn with the clue. Eventually she decided to share the clue with Joe.

Erinn: "If we were aligned and had two idols, then that might be good." Duh...do you think? She is not shaping up as a Survivor mastermind.

Stephen and Taj decided that Joe will probably get the clue to the idol, so they must work up a fake one in order to hide the fact that they have it. Time to get to work on that fake idol!

Stephen blurted "I have some leather straps!" Really? Where the heck did he get those? Now if it was leather chaps, I would've figured that Spencer left them behind...

I can't help but wonder if Joe is smart enough to follow the clues and find the idol but dumb enough to believe that Taj hadn't found it after being on Exile like five times.

On the way to a fishing expedition, JT grabbed for an empty bag and happened to find Taj's idol. Stephen tried to make like he hadn't seen it before. Stephen is a terrible, terrible liar.

And evidently an idiot. Why would you hide an immunity idol with a bunch of empty sacks that people use for fishing?

The jig being up, Taj and Stephen fessed up to JT that they had the idol. Taj even offered to let him have it if he needed it. They elected to hide the idol in Stephen's dress pants. Why are they still letting this moron watch over it?

The challenge was to use a slingshot to break three sets of tiles, which would release sand that would eventually release a sack of puzzle pieces. Quite ingenious, really. I should make one of these in the back yard for the kids.

Tyson and JT went head-to-head. Tyson broke his first tile, followed by JT. JT seemed to be taking his good old time re-loading.

Tyson finished breaking his three tiles first. JT had some bad luck in that, while he broke the tiles, some were not completely shattered, so he was left aiming at partial targets in order to get larger quantites of sand to run out. Tyson, helpfully, offered to break JT's tiles for him. Nice.

Timbera had a decent lead going into the puzzle and managed to keep it. Another Timbera victory!

Back at Jalapao, Joe was nursing a nasty-looking leg infection. Everyone who has Joe as a winner should be collectively gasping. Particularly when someone noted that he had a red streak going all down his leg. I'm no doctor, but that cannot be good.

Joe didn't own up to knowing about the idol clue, but ran off at the first chance he got to check the tree mail idol. Where he found Taj's fake idol. My question was answered. He's bought it hook line and sinker. Still no points for finding a fake immunity idol.

Joe still won't vote Sydney off and even contemplated giving her his "idol".

JT and Stephen considered blindsiding Taj. I personally question this line of thinking. With the merge pending and Jalapao soon to be down two members, they face getting picked off one by one. In this situation it seems to make more sense to keep Taj, who has a relationship with members of the other tribe and who has promised to be aligned with JT and Stephen. Or they could take Sydney because she's hot.

At council Probst asked JT: "Break it down for me, JT...how are things at camp?"

I'm not sure what the heck JT said, but he definitely needed subtitles.

The votes were tallied and Sydney was voted off. I assume Joe was surprised since he didn't seem to give further consideration to sharing his "idol". Kind of a shame. I was hoping for another one of those "You idiot! Can't you tell this is a fake idol!?!" moments. Priceless.

Next week, the tribes merge and the game heads into the next stage as we can look forward to seeing the population of the jury.

See you next week on...Survivorfest!