Episode Six: More Than Meats the Eye

By Dan Krovich

We begin with spin. Tambaqui has returned from tribal council with Christy being the only person left who didn't vote off Jeanne. It shows pretty good instincts to be worried when you are the only one to have voted a certain way. Roger babbles on, flattering Christy, saying she is still here because she is valuable to the team and now they have to work as said team. Dave remains quiet, but in his own personal interview tells it straight - Jeanne went because it fit their plan to break the women up. They sing Kumbaya, extol the virtues of team once again, and go to bed. The next morning, Heidi has a rude awakening. When tasks are doled out, it miraculously works out that the guys go do one thing, while the women do another chore. Oh, and the topper is that their chore is to dig a new latrine. Heidi is now doubting the choice to go against the women and putting herself in the minority.

At Jaburu, the men are rediscovering the joy of tooth brushing since Jaburu won toiletries as a luxury item a while ago. Deena is still trying to adjust to this new tribal arrangement, but after getting over her initial frustration of having all her initial plans derailed, she is back to re-evaluating and making a new scheme. Matthew is enjoying life after going from the odd man out to being given a second chance. Alex and Shawn are also enjoying the new arrangement as it gives them the opportunity to canoodle.

Tree mail brings news of the reward challenge. The reward in this instance is some spices and some fruit, and the challenge is essentially one on one log rolling; first team with five wins gets the reward. Jaburu takes an early lead until Dave wins a tight game against Alex to close the gap, and then Rob loses to Butch (who is wearing sandals - not the obvious footwear of choice for this challenge) to tie it up. It finally comes down to Christy versus Jenna in the rubber match, and Christy clinches the reward for Tambaqui.

Jaburu tribe members are trying to lick their wounds from their loss, and decide the best way to do that is group bathing! The bathing consists largely of (in Deena's words) monkey grooming. Rob is able to get back at Deena when he expresses his joy at having bathed with two (he stresses) hot women. Deena is now officially the Lance Bass of the Jaburu tribe. But don't feel bad for Deena, because she shows her game playing skill by taking advantage of the fact that the two hot women will do the flirting to later be able to influence the men to do her dirty work.

Tambaqui digs into their bounty back at camp, and Heidi is mostly relieved that the victory shows that they are indeed a strong tribe. Of course, then, what does it mean that she (along with Roger) was responsible for all of the tribe's losses in the log rolling challenge? Christy, on the other hand, is positively glowing from her success, especially when Butch launches into some overly sentimental, but sweet praise of her.

While it's all about love and togetherness at Tambaqui, it's time for positioning and strategy at Jaburu. Deena, the ugly one, and Rob, the not-much-better-to-be-known-as-funny-one, begin to trade notes as they are the two most aggressive game players left. They plot their strategy, and Deena convinces Rob that it's a good idea to keep Matt around because he catches a lot of fish, so Rob begins to cozy up to Matt. Matt, on the other hand, seems to want to cozy up to Shawna, who has become very popular with the guys. They play the dating game, where each of the guys describes the date they would take her on. This turned into Elimidate so fast, I hardly even noticed. Shawna has been rejuvenated by the attention. All is not 100% well, however, and a Matthew-Shawna-Alex love triangle is developing.

It's time for the reward challenge, and I'm thinking that this has been a pretty uneventful episode. The challenge clue talks about feeding frenzy and voracious, so it sounds like it might be the eating gross stuff challenge. That turns out to not exactly be the case, but close. The challenge involves a hunk of beef hanging on a bone. With their hands tied behind their backs, the teams must rip the meat off the bone with their teeth and put it in a basket. The tribe with the biggest meat wins. It's not the most pleasant thing to watch; though we do learn that Heidi spits. Things go from bad to worse when a piece of meat gets stuck in Roger's teeth, and Butch has to get it for him using his own teeth. Frenzy is the appropriate word as we watch them all go at it, and it's close, but then Heidi shows her skill in taking a big piece of meat in her mouth to put Tambaqui ahead, and they win the challenge.

The new Jaburu tribe will have take their first trip to tribal council. Instead of a lot of back door dealings, they actually sit down together and have a candid talk about the upcoming vote. Shawna actually volunteers that if one of the women is to go, she would like it to be her. Alex is thinking that with Shawna around, he might get some action, so he launches into an effort to save her by proposing that it come down to him or Matt. That little plan does get a "don't drag me into this" look from Matt. Rob is just plain frustrated at this point because he has worked hard to win over Matt, and now Matt is in jeopardy of leaving. So it's off to tribal council. Jeff does his little inquisition, and I think that drinking every time Rob rolls his eyes should be part of any drinking game as long as you don't value your liver. Jeff also brings up Shawna's mood swings over the past several days, and it becomes obvious that Shawna is manic-depressive. In the end, Shawna's complete lack of usefulness for anything other than scratching Alex's head catches up to her, and she is voted out.