Survivor 26.4

Here is the Official Bodacious Baldies Survivor: Caramoan Recap for week four:

Mary Beth’s 2Cents: Night seven and it was business as usual as Gota tribe returned to camp after a Tribal Council that left whiny Shamar and weakling Laura still in the game. Reynold started off having a glorious hissy fit telling them that they can never win without him or Eddie. Someone stated the obvious by pointing out that they weren't winning with them either so it was a moot point!

At Bikal, the Faves camp, Special Agent Phil was walking around giving non-alliance members names and inducting them into Stealth R Us. Brenda became “Serenity” and Erik is now called “The Silent One”. Brandon, who previously was delegated to a middle management/need to know position, was now promoted to “The Conqueror” and bestowed “All the special rights and privileges” that came with it. Brandon was not impressed. Special Agent Phil gives a whole new meaning to the word “special”!

The producers must have heard Paul whining in last week's blog about having the Immunity and Reward Challenges combined because tonight they were, once again, separate events. In the Reward Challenge, each tribe had to transfer two members of their tribe on planks to platforms and finally get every person on the tribe up onto a high, smaller platform. Right off the bat, Laura takes up way too much time leaving the Fans in a bad place with no way to catch up.

The Faves are seemingly unstoppable as they easily win this one. Shamar, who was on the bottom of the Fans pile on the platform actually thought they won for a minute. The prize? A day with a local Bushman to show them how to survive at camp. The Bushman they get is a 4-foot tall senior citizen in a loincloth. My Malcolm calls him a “Filipino Gollum”! He shows them how to cook rice in bamboo and makes them some chicken. He fixes up their shelter for them and then spends the rest of his time ogling and hugging the bikini-clad women.

Back at Gota, they are yet again lamenting another loss. All except Shamar who spends his days sleeping in the shelter. He tells them that he was going to quit but since he didn't they can now help him stay by bringing him rice three times a day. Wait… what?? Yes, he is making demands and conditions on his staying in the game. Of course, this irks everyone. I must say that I lost a bit of my admiration for Sherri for actually doing it! I mean, no matter that she wants his vote there is a limit to what anyone should take.

Shamar, somehow, gets some sand in his eye prompting Reynold to call him a “big baby”. It is hard to believe Shamar was a Marine, on active duty, through two tours of Iraq because he really is a big baby! During the storm, camp gets over run by rats and the next morning Shamar's eye is swollen shut. Probst comes in with medical personnel and it's determined that Shamar has an abrasion on his cornea and has to leave the game. Probst asks the tribe to come and say good-bye. Now, I've watched every season of Survivor and there have been several people medivacked off the island but I have never seen a more unemotional good bye as Shamar's. Nobody seemed to really care at all.

At Immunity Challenge, the teams must swim to a platform; climb up, smash a tile to get a key. Once they get 5 keys they open the locks on a chest and then chuck beanbags to knock wooden blocks off a rail. The Fans struggles, again and the Faves pretty much fly through this thing getting a huge lead right off the bat. Laura, as usual the worst player, has a problem opening locks setting the Fans even farther back. Special Agent Phil starts hurling beanbags like a mad man and gets way ahead. Reynold starts tossing bags furiously and almost catches up but Phil pulls through and Faves win again!

Reynold's frantic catch up opens up some of the eyes of his tribe mates and they see that he almost won it for them. Back at camp, this is not lost on Matt who starts talking about keeping Reynolds and Eddy so they can start winning something. This means Laura would have to go. Sherri is not happy about that because she can see that would leave only two women and she might be on her way out.

At Tribal there is a lot of talk about weighing the “physical strength vs. strong alliance”. Laura especially tries to make that point but Reynold says it best when he tells her she's actually weighing “winning vs. losing”. Just to be safe, Reynolds is forced to play his Hidden Immunity Idol but, in the end, Laura gets voted off! No one was more surprised than Laura! Personally, I think this was a good move and one that might shake things up a bit at Gota. Now, the game begins!

Vag’s Evaluation: Tonight’s episode started out with the Fans (Gota) bitching and moaning about voting off Laura rather than my cutie pie Laura at the last Tribal Council. Right away I thought to myself, oh crud another night of grumbling and whining with very little action. Boy was I wrong. We were treated to a little bit of everything. There were even two challenges this week, both of which were rather entertaining. However, they were not quite as amusing as the Specialist from Stealth R Us, Special Agent Phil.

The man is a flat out trip.

My anxiety of being handed a night loaded with oodles of dialogue and only a modicum of activity was relieved within minutes. After the drama at Gota played out, we heard “OY LULI-LULI-LULI” as the opening credits were shown and some commercials ran.

Then we were treated to that loony psychopath, Special Agent Phil.

For the next couple of minutes we were regaled in the outstanding lunacy of the Specialist. Nobody does it like Special Agent Phil. He decided to welcome some more of the Faves (Bikal) Tribe into Stealth R Us.

And what better way to make them feel welcome but to give them a custom title. The Specialist knighted Brandon “The Conqueror”, Erik was designated as “The Silent One”, while Brenda dubbed “Serenity”. The only one who didn’t get a cool name was Andrea. Seeing that she is from Wisconsin, I thought “The Head of Cheese” would have been fitting. Oh well, what do I know? I’m not a Special Agent.

Next up was the Reward Challenge. Hopefully my colleague, Mary Beth gave you some of the details of the actual challenge. I was more concerned with the actual reward – a visit from a local Bushman who would train the castaways, giving them invaluable tips on survival on the island. Honest.

When the Bushman first showed up, Brandon shouted, “Hey, look at our little guy!” One of the women squealed out, “He’s like a Filipino Jesus!” Okay, the guy was little. Malcolm figured he was about 4-foot tall. But he was cool. His name was Ta Ta and was hysterical.

No one understood a word he said as he chopped things up and demonstrated how to boil rice inside a bamboo shoot in only 15 minutes. But that didn’t matter. Everyone was cracking up; I thought Malcolm was going to wet his cargo shorts he was laughing so hard.

The only one not laughing was Cochran. He became jealous when the diminutive Ta Ta starting dancing the bump and grind with Corrine, Brenda, Dawn and Andrea. He was all over those girls like a bum on a baloney sandwich. This caused Cochran to lament that he could never get away doing that, that he would be called a stalker.

The next piece of excitement was when Marine vet Shamar got some sand in his eye. Before you knew it, Probst was there with a team of medics. When it was determined that he had two scratches, one close to his pupil, Shamar was sent home. Hmm, my friend Patty 4-Names messaged to me on Facebook, “Cheez, what a PUSS! Wasn’t he in Iraq? You’d think he’d had sand in his eye before!” I have to agree…

With the Fans down to only seven members, they limped into the Immunity Challenge like a wounded puppy. The Fans quickly fell behind and it appeared hopeless. Then, like a man possessed, Reynold put on a valiant effort to make it close. Unfortunately, he was matched up against The Specialist, Special Agent Phil and the Faves were victorious yet again.

At Tribal Council, it was the perky Laura that was sent packing. I guess it doesn’t matter how cute you are in Survivor if you totally suck in the challenges. But she was cute. Very cute. Heavy sigh…

That’s it for this week’s recap. Next week it looks like Brandon goes ballistic, destroys the Faves camp while cursing and calling people bad names. I thought the boy was religious? Oh well. Until next time…from the booth.