The Beauty and The Beast

Tonight’s episode of Survivor Tocantins was your standard Survivor fare. There was nothing really outstanding or spectacular. But there were just enough of the necessary elements to keep your interest piqued. Plus another theme developed that was settled at Tribal Council.

There were several components present tonight that qualified tonight’s program as a quality Survivor show.

The first ingredient was the Reward Challenge. Producer Mark Burnett went retro on us! He brought a Survivor classic. It was the renowned “How much weight can you hold on a stick across your shoulders” challenge! Always a memorable event.

As Timbira’s Brendan and Jalapao’s J.T. both approached the 200-pound mark, Survivor Geeks everywhere scrambled for their official Survivor Record books. Sure enough, after a little digging, there it was. One of the most hallowed name’s in Survivor history – Rupert Boneham!

The gentle giant from Indiana held the record, an impressive 220 pounds. But could Brendan or J.T. possibly shatter this unbelievable mark?

No. But J.T., the rawboned 24-year-old cattle farmer was able to equal the stunning achievement. Shortly afterwards he dropped his weight, leaving only the 5’2” Debbie and Taj, the 5’9”, 190 pound tomboy. When the weight hit 100 pounds the diminutive Debbie couldn’t handle it and Taj and team Jalapao were victorious.

The second event that took place was Tyson donning a loincloth. You heard me right. I don’t know if it was to flame his “bromance” with Coach Svengali or just to get a nice tan on his athletic buns, but he was prancing around in the skimpiest of loincloths.

To top it off, once he had had everyone’s attention, Tyson proceeded to do a monkey dance. This is the same guy who last week said, “I love seeing people cry when you crush their dreams!” Besides Coach Svengali, I wonder what he dreams about!

The third and maybe most interesting element in tonight’s episode was a theme that developed shortly after the crusty curmudgeon Sandy made the brilliant observation, “Those are fartin’ beans!”

This caused the lovely model Sydney to toss her luscious blond tresses in disdain and mutter, “I am getting tired of Sandy.” There it was! The claws were out and it was “go time.” The classic catfight – The Beauty and the Beast.

Sandy began to notice that all the young bucks in camp were attracted to the voluptuous Sydney. She noticed that Sydney went so far as to remove her brassiere at night! The brazen hussy! Sandy wondered just how low young Sydney would stoop.

At Tribal Council the astute Jeff Probst quickly picked up on the friction between the two. It was brought up that Sydney periodically wore the hunky J.T.’s boxers around camp.

Holding back tears, Sydney defended herself, saying it was awfully hot during the day and she only has jeans to wear. She then added being the pretty blond girl has been a terrible problem all her life. It was a very special Tribal Council moment!

But Sandy, being the mean old battle-ax that she is, promptly brought up the fact that Sydney flirts with Joe even more than she does with J.T. What’s wrong with Sandy? Does this woman have no compassion?

Fortunately the Jalapao tribe did and voted off the 53-year-old bus driver from Kentucky. Beauty had won over the mean-heartedness of the Beast. Sandy’s dismissal evens the tribes at six a side.

There you have it. A classic retro challenge where a longtime record is tied. Tyson does a weird monkey dance in his teeny loincloth to impress Coach Svengali. And finally, a catfight, which Sydney survived to flirt another day. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until next week…from Tocantins.