New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Today's Elimination Challenge is basically coconut bowling, save for the fact that the ball itself looks more like an oversized skee ball than a coconut. Also, it rolls about as well as Ralph Wiggum's banana. There are four heats where the player who knocks down the most pins moves on to the final round. In all honesty, this seems just like Shambo's thing, because we think she probably hangs out at a lot of bowling alleys. And in fact, Shambo does win her heat versus Natalie, followed by Evil Russell beating Brett (who never even knocks down a single pin). Then, Jaison beats Monica, while Dave gets a strike to knock off Mick. (He follows that with a stupid Mr. Miyagi bow. Dave bugs us.)

Round two pits Shambo versus Evil Russell, and the girl wins! (That's gotta burn.) Jaison goes against Dave, and though they both try their hardest to lose (neither one hits a pin with his first toss), Jaison comes away with a chance to roll against Shambo for immunity. With their first rolls in the final round, both Shambo and Jaison get gutter balls. Shambo misses again with her second ball, which means that Jaison only needs one pin to win. He gets about two or three pins, and takes home immunity for the second time in a row.

This means it's time to play It's Anyone But Dave. At this point, the numbers are still questionable enough that the Foa Foa four need to stick with voting out a Galu. Monica tries to convince Evil Russell that if he takes Shambo to the final, he might not win out in a jury vote. "With me on Dave's side and whispering Shambo's name in Russell's ear, anything can happen," she says. Of course, the editors try their hardest to make us think Evil Russell is considering this play, even going so far as to show him approaching Dave about a Shambo vote. It's a pretty half-hearted attempt at trickery, though, and it's obvious that Dave's torch is being extinguished tonight.

And with the Tribal Council vote, there is very little suspense. The only vote Shambo gets is Dave's. Obviously, Dave gets the remainder of them. Here's a guy who relied too much on luck and faith and did absolutely nothing to further his own position in the game. Good riddance.

If you're thinking, hey, that was the fastest time getting to Tribal Council ever, wait! You have spoken too soon. You see, the producers of Survivor are apparently tired of several players here, and we will be having another Elimination Challenge and vote in the second half of the show. Of course, we're probably just going through the motions. In fact, we'll refer to Monica as Dead Meat for the rest of this recap.

As we return from the commercial break, we're allowed to ponder the question "how nice is Brett?" The answer to this can be found in Evil Russell commenting how much he likes the guy. Obviously, he's realized that if the jury is choosing between ELR and Brett, the nice guy is going to finish first. This puts a (temporary) target on Brett's back, and also allows a little editing to show some (fake) tension between Evil Russell and Mick with regards to who should be the next candidate for elimination.

Continued:       1       2       3