Survivorfest week 8!

Brendan blindsided!

Fresh from Joe leaving due to injury, Coach appears to have gone off his rocker. I haven't seen a person go this batty this quickly since Lindsay Lohan after the release of Herbie Fully Loaded.

Perhaps he missed Joe: "With Joe leaving the way he did, there is a funk permeating the camp." Perhaps it's the fish guts. Or the stink of Herbie Fully Loaded.

Coach proceeded to tell a camp story culled from his "real life". Evidently during a kayak trip to the Amazon (he was dropped off by a military helicopter) he was abducted by a tribe of natives. They bound and beat him until he was able to slip out of the ropes and flee with his kayak. Well. I guess I have nothing further to say about that.


Just kidding. Of course I have something to say about that! I think he should have skipped the part where the tribe of natives beat him within an inch of his life. He was giving everyone ideas...


He ended by saying that he couldn't describe how it felt to be stalked by another human being. I'm pondering another Lindsay Lohan reference.

Brendan wondered how much renting the military 'coptor set him back. Coach indicated: "I pulled some strings".

Allegedly it was some type of National Geographic shoot, but he refused to let anyone else travel along because the trip was "just about him".


The next morning Coach did his WWF poses in the surf. When asked about what type of exercise he was doing, he replied "It's Chong Ran."

As I was typing madly, he followed with "don't bother Googling it...you won't find it. It's passed down by word of mouth." Dang.

Actually he was wrong. When I Googled "Chong Ran" it was listed as "the ancient art of making s%#t up".

Coach was in rare form this week. He reiterated that he had nicknamed Brendan "the Dragon" and that he was "the Dragon Slayer".

He ran with the analogy and dubbed Sierra "the bowel movement that comes out of the end of the dragon". If they make a movie about this, what actress will play the part? I vote for Kathy Griffin.

JT and Erinn had a nice chat. He asked her whether she was aligned with any of her tribe. Her response "aligned...not so much. I've stayed neutral." That's another way of saying that the rest of her tribe thinks she's a lost cause.

Frankly, at this point it would seem that anyone who has Sierra, Taj, Erinn and maybe Stephen should feel pretty good. It seems like once the tribes merge the usual strategy is to drag along the non-physical threats so you can win individual immunity week after week.

Reward challenge was to break the group into three teams. Each team tossed metal balls at blocks with tiles set into the tops. The last tribe to have unbroken tiles remaining would win the challenge.


Brendan was grousing about the strategy since "none of us have ever done this before."


Coach raised his hand "I have." Naturally. He probably taught the Amazon natives how to play before he eluded them.

Brendan, JT and Debi won a close match and headed off to a white water rafting trip. Great. Just what you want as a reward when you're starving and exhausted. That kind of trip will wear you out when you're well-fed and rested.


They decided to send Stephen to Exile.

Coach gave him some encouragement "Be the wizard, Stephen...be the wizard" Seriously, he was just blurting weird stuff like that all day.


At Exile, Stephen got the idol clue which confirmed that there was no new hidden idol to be found.

He had concerns about making fire: "I figured I would make food, make fire or die."


After hours of trying he finally managed it. Could be a big moment for a tie breaker down the line.

After white water rafting, JT and Brendan chatted. Brendan had taken a liking to JT and formed a plan to keep JT in the game and blindside Coach or Tyson. Little did he know that the actual plan had him packing his things before Joe had to drop out.

Back at camp he tried to mend fences with Taj, whom he had been avoiding since the merge despite their special cross-alliance at Exile. It was hard to determine if she was buying what he was trying to sell.

The immunity challenge was an obstacle course that each player would have to navigate while tied to a rope that was threaded through the course.

Tyson, Brendan and JT jumped ahead to advance to the next round. Coach got stuck on the first section. Probst uttered "nothing prepared Coach for the rope-a-dope!" Probst showed his age with that Muhammad Ali reference. None of the younger crowd was likely to pick that up. Right, Mike?

The next round was a two-tier course. Brendan got hung up at the end while JT fell behind. Tyson took immunity for the second week in a row!

Coach: "the wizard is coming to the man of the mountain!" I think at this point he has gone delirious and no one has noticed. Did he get bitten by some sort of frothing mammal and the camera guy missed it?

JT and Stephen discussed Coach's weird camp story. JT indicated: "I don't know about that Amazon story...I think I'd have gone back with a 30-30 Winchester..."

Stephen: "uh, yeah." I can picture Stephen going back with an Uzi and seeking vengeance on some Amazon pygmies. Not.

Brendan ran around camp happily working his "plan". Since Tyson took immunity, Coach was now on the block. Brendan seemed awfully sure that nothing else was going on. That should have been a warning. If everyone else was really planning to vote off JT it was strange that everyone was professing how much they loved him.

At tribal council Probst wanted to hear more about Coach's campfire story: "Coach, that sounds incredible! Did you tell them the TV version?"

Coach missed the insinuation that "TV version" meant that he was adding a lot of extra crap that never happened. He thought that he meant "keeping it PG-rated".

"I toned it down. I didn't tell the part where the Indians were talking about my ass and how they wanted to eat it" Yup. Liars creed. When someone's on to you, start telling even bigger whoppers.

Coach went on to share how he had faced death 5, 6, 7 maybe 8 times! Sharks, alligators, ninjas, Russian spies...yeah, he's definitely missing the marshmallows from his Lucky Charms.

Probst started asking about who had the hidden idol since so many had gone to Exile. Everyone claimed not to have it, but Brendan fessed up. The funny thing is I think he was joking around.

Brendan was voted out, blindsided. He is the first member of our jury! Add him to the pantheon of "people who had an immunity idol and didn't use it". I formally proclaim this as the "James effect".

I think I speak for all of us Brendan-owners when I say "damn!"

My daughter amused me when she said "Well, at least I still have Coach." Bwahahahaha!