Episode Five: Pick-Up Sticks

By Dan Krovich

Ah, episode five, the episode where we've come to expect a twist, but first we need to take a look at the fallout from the last voting. At Camp Vagina, Deena is very pleased with her position because now that Joanna is gone, she is clearly the tribe's leader. Jeanne, on the other hand, is not a happy camper. She sees the situation pretty clearly. When the tribe voted out her closest ally instead of the half dead woman who was begging to leave, she knows she's in trouble.

In contrast, Camp Penis is cruising along. The guys work well together and seem to actually be having fun camping out. All is going well, and they are chopping some wood, and then Alex proceeds to stab himself in the face with a machete. It looked pretty innocent at first as a piece of wood bounced back, but in slow motion you can clearly see that the rebound forced the machete into his forehead. We almost had a Red Ryder BB gun moment. You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out! Alas, the injury is relatively minor when you consider what the result of being stabbed in the face with a machete could be.

Jeanne decides it's time to confront her tribemates. It's always a tricky proposition when you realize that you are in the minority. One thing you can do is try to suck up as much as possible. Jeanne decides to confront the others, but she does it rather mildly and Deena easily sidesteps the question, though Jeanne does realize there's not much sense in her continuing to do all the work around camp as she's the next to go anyway.

Now is the time on Survivor when we do the reward challenge, but aha, here comes that twist. The tree mail says that only the youngest person from each tribe will take part in whatever is about to happen. That means Dave will represent the Penis and Jenna will represent the Vagina. They are given a map, which describes where they are supposed to go, and amazingly Jenna is able to figure out how to get there. "There" includes a bungalow with a shower, a bed, and lots of food and drink. They discuss their respective tribes a bit. On Dave's part that seems to mean that he gives the basic biographical details about his tribemates. Jenna, meanwhile, spills all of the interpersonal dynamics and alliance details of her entire tribe.

Later in the evening, Dave decides it's time to turn on the charm by letting Jenna know that all the guys like to talk about her "sexy ass." Of course, here's where the editors decide to do one of their little jokes as they cut to a shot of Jenna picking said ass, though at the very least there were hours between Dave's ass comment and this shot, and I'm fairly certain that isn't even Jenna anyway. It doesn't appear that the hand in the shot is wearing the bracelet that Jenna always wears, so more likely, it's some random production assistant. Later they shower, and because the shower walls are somewhat see-through Dave can see Jenna's breasts. In Dave's mind "this is the greatest thing that ever happened" to him. So I'm guessing that Dave has never seen boobies on a real girl before.

When Dave and Jenna awake the next day, Jeff has a surprise for them. It's time for new tribes, and they are going to draft them. The drafting is going to go boy-girl-boy-girl, so the tribes will each end up with equal numbers of men and women. This is where Jenna's blabbermouth pays off for Dave. He strategically breaks up the women's alliances to use for his own advantage, and his tribe winds up consisting of the two guys he can count on most and three women who aren't exactly unified. Jenna is very upset about the fact that she and Heidi are going to be separated, but not nearly as upset as I am when it dawns on me that this new development is going to prohibit my juvenile need to say Penis and Vagina in these recaps every week. What the heck are these tribe names again, Tanqueray and Jambalaya?

I guess it's time to do a reset. Formerly Camp Penis, Tambaqui (thanks subtitles) now consists of Dave, Roger, Butch, Heidi, Jeanne, and Christy. Formerly Camp Vagina, Jaburu now consists of Jenna, Deena, Shawna, Alex, Rob, and Matt. So they do the tribal Chinese fire drill to rearrange the tribes.

The women that come over to Tambaqui seem generally pleased with the new arrangement, and why wouldn't they, considering that this is the lap of luxury compared to the mess of a camp they just left. Also, Jeanne went from the guaranteed next to go to at least feeling like she has a chance. Christy also likes this new tribe because unlike the girls, who shunned her from day one, the guys go out of their way to make her feel included. Roger and Butch's paternal instincts in particularly come out for Christy. There are somewhat mixed feelings at Jaburu. Shawna miraculously goes from near death to the life of the party the moment she has some guys to flirt with. Deena (the ugly one of the pretty girl alliance), however, is annoyed because she went from a position where she was in control to feeling that Shawna may jump the alliance at any moment for a piece of Alex's hot ass.

The new tribes are going to be put to the test fairly quickly as the immunity challenge is on deck. The challenge is in two parts. In the first part they have to do a word scramble to find five words, and then they have to paddle the canoe and grab five flags. Tambaqui takes the early lead, but when they get stuck on the last word, Jabaru takes a significant lead. Tambaqui does make up some ground on the rowing portion, but not enough, and Jaburu wins immunity.

So Tambaqui will be going to tribal council. The three women had agreed on the way to their new camp that they would stick together, so it is just a matter of deciding which guy they are going to vote for and hoping they can win whatever tiebreaker results from the three to three gender line split. Not so fast, my friends. Dave creates a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat with a triple dog dare, and he offers Heidi a deal. If she votes with the guys and votes off Jeanne, they'll keep her around.

They head into tribal council with Heidi as the swing vote. The guys are going to vote for Jeanne, and the women are going to vote for Butch. It's just a matter of whether Heidi will stick with the women like she agreed to. There is an attempt to build some suspense by showing everyone's vote except for Heidi's. Of course, that suspense is only if you have any doubt whatsoever that Heidi will turn on her fellow women in a heartbeat to save herself for a little longer. True to form, she votes against Jeanne (though maybe she actually did think she was voting against a guy seeing as she spelled it "Gene") and Jeanne becomes the fifth person eliminated as planned.

View other Survivor wrapups