Survivor: Cook Islands Episode 9 Thoughts

Before I begin on Survivor, I'd like to give Global a Jenny-esque one fingered salute. Thanks for cutting away from Jenny's last words before she was done. Much appreciated, JERKS! (At least you show us the previews for next week's episode, which is more than I can say for every other show you air. Stupid CRTC rules not letting us see American feeds.)

How about that twist? Just when Raro thought they couldn't be kicked any harder, in comes Mark Burnett et al. with a running kick to their collective groin. After getting rid of dead weight Rebecca, Raro is informed via a Message in a Bottle that they will have to vote out another member immediately. And the Caucasian alliance held to form, giving Jenny the boot. And I think Jenny had every right to be angry. She knew what was going on and held with team Whitey, and yet they gave her the boot when thrown this twist. I have to go to point form on this, because there are a few things to cover:

Why did the Caucasians decide to vote Jenny out after trusting her enough to have her vote with them? Why not Nate, who's out in the cold?
Speaking of Nate, how comfortable do you think he's feeling now that he's truly the outsider in this tribe? (Once Jenny got voted out, I said that Nate was being held down by the man one more time. I think that might be giving the Whiteys a bit too much credit though.) All of the sudden, the Aitu decision to kidnap him looks amazingly smart - Nate has a bit of a bond, and might just be willing to come over to Aitu to give them the edge should a merge happen.
The reactions to the twist was fantastic. Initially, the reactions of "Oh, it must be about the merge," and "Maybe we'll live on the same beach but still act as tribes" were so funny and so far off (why is that is a bottle when Jeff has just announced it in the past?). Then at tribal council, Nate was amusing by reading ahead and having his jaw hit the ground, but Parvati wins with (a) her pre-tribal council realization that they don't normally give good things to losing tribes and (b) her reading the Message in a Bottle and following up with "That's not a merge and that's not cool". For all of her flirting prowess, she either (a) is an innocent little girl deep down or (b) knows how to play the innocent little girl role. (For the record, I don't care either way - she's still fantastic.)

Of course, there was a lot of amusement to be found in this episode. Candace's incredulity and sadness that the mean old Aitu tribe is picking on her and sending her to Exile Island is funny in a "What the hell did you expect?" sort of manner. The taunting of Candace when Aitu announced that she was going to Exile was funny as well. But Jonathan wins this week with his crotch full of fish.

One of the themes of the week was Jonathan working hard around camp to try to prove himself. And he sure did a good job on it. But his method of storing the fish was rather odd. He hung them presumably from his belt, but in a way that it looked like they were actually hanging from his crotch. Needless to say, the jokes were flying last night.

So now, we're into the merge area time, with Nate poised to jump is Jonathan doesn't get there first. So who's to go? For the second week in a row, I'm going with Adam. He's a phsyical threat and a part of the Caucasian alliance, so it's killing two birds with one stone. The only mystery is who puts the knife in his back, and I don't know the answer to that right now. It's probably Nate, but it could be Jonathan, depending on how comfortable he feels.