Welcome to the 804th running of Survivor, this time featuring former Hurricanes and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson turning into a crazed hobo before your very eyes in the beachy jungle of Nicaragua, and then wandering through your scenes with a snack of live crab. We were recapping his survival each week, because he’s Jimmy Johnson, but then he got voted off. Can't stop, won't stop, etc...
Last week: The tribes merged; Jane used an unfortunate expression to describe Marty and Jill; and Tyrone nagged his way to a hot shower at the losers' hotel.
This week: Now we really miss Jimmy Johnson: Chase and Purple Kelly and Jane are pretty much the only likeable people left, and La Flor does something so incredibly stupid we wish he'd been around to coach them out of it.
Bur first, at Espada, not-a-mobster Mobster Dan tells Holly he's ready to "pack it in" as rain threatens. "I got a Range Rover. I got a Ferrari. I mean, why in the world am I doing this?"
"You can't quit!" Holly preaches to the camera, clearly the least self-aware crying person Jimmy Johnson ever talked out of doing that exact thing. "If you can't handle the rain, the wind, you should have thought about that before you came. You signed up for something. Suck it up and finish."
While we're at it, can we talk about the one shirt Holly has? Most of the time it has one sleeve, which looks ridiculous, and at other times the sleeve appears. It appears the right sleeve TIES ON, a reason enough to vote someone off if we've ever seen one.
At La Flor, Marty says he feels like he fell into Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure as the young ones chill and nap all day. Dude, you are not Rufus.
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Nearby, former Dolphins cheerleader Brenda immediately puts a good plan into motion. "If we go to tribal council tonight, I want to have three people vote for Marty, and three people vote for Jill. That way you flush out the idol, and whatever happens, one of them is going home."
But this is Survivor, and best-laid plains yada, yada. Brenda's mission is shortly aborted when Jill wins individual immunity in a ring-tossing challenge. Jill also beats out Holly, Espada's winner, to earn her tribe a kabob dinner, but it doesn't save them from tribal council -- a Probstian twist arrives on the news that both tribes will have to vote someone out.
That means all Marty has to do is use his immunity idol, and his alliance with Jill lives on. But Brenda is not dismayed, noting that the younger majority can still get rid of someone they want gone, although "you never know with Fabio, though, because he's clueless. So it's gonna be a little complicated."
And it does get complicated as soon as Fabio is left alone with Marty and Marty "confesses" to Fabio that he's a grandmaster in chess, something, he lies, that he's been keeping from his own tribe.
"Guillermo Vilas is an Argentine grandmaster," Marty tells his awestruck patsy. "When I was a kid, I beat him twice...If you wanna make the biggest move of this game -- ever in Survivor -- I've got it all laid out."
And just like that, Fabio is taken in, giggling and impressed and more stupid than ever. "The best thing is," Marty tells him, "you don't have to make any decisions."
Marty smugs to the camera that he's not a grandmaster at all, and Guillermo Vilas is one of the greatest tennis players of the '70s, but "I can pull anything out of the '70s on these guys."
We can only hope he's not referrring to his pants.
Marty agrees to vote for Jane at Sash and Brenda's insistence, though the younger pair actually plan to split their votes between Marty and Kelly B. And at Tribal, Brenda tries to force Marty to use his immunity idol by claiming in front of everyone that it was Marty's idea to offer up Jane.
But Marty plays a very, very bold hand, declining to use his immunity. And when the vote ends in a tie between Marty and Kelly B., his face reflects what could have been a catastrophic mistake. But for reasons that escape us, because it leaves Marty in the camp another three days to work his game, they vote out one-legged Kelly B. to avoid a "sympathy vote" down the road.
Are we watching "Wheel of Fish"? What the HELL? It's almost like Brenda has watched a promising but crumbly offense from the NFL sidelines.
While there's no way that's not going to come back to bite Brenda, Espada also chooses poorly -- axing a game and able Yve in order to keep a hobbled Dan so non-threatening he can't really participate in challenges.
That'll come back to bite them, too. We can only hope whatever form it takes, it fangs NaOnka.
Next week: Sash gets crafty, Fabio pees in a challenge pool, and, we can imagine, Jimmy Johnson orders his 17th steak at the losers' hotel.
