Blogging Survivor - South Pacific: "I don't put myself in a position where I'm playing soccer."

So, this week's episode began with yet another bizarre rant by Russell's Nephew, who for some reason was upset when Mikayla stated that she felt threatened by him at the previous Tribal Council. "The way that Mikalya answered Jeff's questions when he asked what she doesn't like about me...it was pretty prejudiced. The way she handled that shows that she had very little class...(he starts crying...again) These are real people out here. They got feelin's...I don't care what people think about me. It don't matter. I'm a good person, I'm a good guy."

Of course, Russell's Nephew would probably gain more sympathy if he hadn't neglected to add the part where he lied to his tribemates in order to get Mikayla evicted at the first Tribal Council simply because she emits the rape pheromone. And by the way, if Russell's Nephew really doesn't care what people think about him, then why is he always standing by himself crying like a little bitch on my television every week? Who does he think he is, "The Situation?"

At Redemption Island, the Elimination Challenge featured Stacey going against Christine. Stacey and Christine's challenge consisted of running a number of balls down a spiral course simultaneously and then catching them before they fell to the ground. However, Stacey failed to space out her drops properly, which allowed Christine to win her third straight Redemption Challenge when one of Stacey failed to keep up and one of her balls hit the ground.

Stacey, still pissed off because the Upolu deemed her too old and bitchy to be of any benefit to their tribe, "outed" Coach and his alliance to the Savaii Tribe when she blurted out, "Benjamin (which is apparently Coach's birth name), Albert and Sophie (are) running the team." When Coach found out what she had said he went nuts, not for outing his alliance to the opposing tribe, but because she called him "Benjamin." "If anyone calls me Benjamin to my face, I'm going to go nuts. My parents call me Coach. I've been being called Coach since I was 18!"

Unlike "Psycho" from the movie Stripes, "Coach" earned his self dubbed nickname by coaching one year of youth soccer at the age of 18.

At the Savaii Camp, an increasingly cocky Ozzy and Elyse taunted Cochran. After Elyse called him the "little Cochran that could" in response to his efforts to be more productive around camp, Ozzy asked, "How would you spell that, C-O-C-H?" That prompted Cochran to joke, "You're not going to have to spell that anytime soon man...Don't worry about the spelling man, don't even worry about the phonetics or anything."

After his Savaii tribemates came back from watching the Elimination Challenge on Redemption Island, Ozzy slipped up and blurted out how he thought Coach had made a mistake by not eliminating Albert, Upolu's strongest physical player. That caught Jim's attention, as he pointed out that if Ozzy thought that Coach should have targeted Upolu's strongest player, he'd obviously target Savaii's strongest player if put in the same situation. I will give kudos to Jim for using his skills as a professional poker player to sniff that one out. Of course, Jim also egotistically assumed that he was one of Savaii's strongest players, an assumption that I'm sure can be traced to the side of his brain that he uses to run two medicinal marijuana dispensaries.

As Albert searched for the hidden Immunity Idol given his concern over Stacey's comments about his alliance at Redemption Island, he stumbled across a hidden clue to it's location. When he could not find the Idol on his own, he shared that clue with Coach and Sophie. After reading the clue Coach simply said a prayer, then immediately climbed a tree and found the Idol (at least that's what the edited footage made it seem like). Meanwhile, back at Savaii's camp, Dawn, a devout Mormon, noted how she felt a disturbance in the force, not yet realizing how that bastard Joseph Smith had let her down once again.

Speaking of The Force Savaii, Cochran began his decent towards the dark side, as he began to question his onetime hero and mentor Ozzy for spending too much time sitting around and cuddling with Elyse. "Having watched Cook Island and Fans vs. Favorites, you see Ozzy as this superhero...guy who can do no wrong, but Ozzy has kind of faded into this middle-aged Ozzy, who has a few moments of glory where he runs out and gets some fish, but otherwise he's just sort of a lazy ass."

At the Immunity Challenge, the Tribes were presented with roasted pigs. However, instead of feasting, they were told to bite off meat with their hands tied behind their backs and spit as much as they could into a team bucket within the alotted time. In an extremely close contest, Upolu ended up winning by only 2 ounces, giving them immunity. As a "reward," Upolu was allowed to take their spit bucket full of meat back to camp for a "feast," which probably made Russell's Nephew feel like he was back home in Texas at a Hantz family barbecue...aside from the part where Mikayla and the other women were allowed to untie their hands after the contest.

Upon returning to Savaii's camp as losers, Elyse made a joke how they were all going to get "pig gut breakout tomorrow." Taking things up a slight notch, Cochran jokingly deadpanned, "We're probably also going to have oral herpes." For some reason, his fellow tribemates thought that his statement had crossed the line; however, it's not likely that the socially awkward Cochran had ever kissed anyone before, so it's hard to think that anyone would have really taken him all that seriously. That is, not unless he went to Comic-Con and back home with a dreaded case of "Space Herpes." 

Speaking of "Space Herpes," here's Kordell Stewart with "Face Herpes."

Jim, still worried that Ozzy would target the stronger members in his tribe if the opportunity arose, went to Keith about voting out Ozzy or Elyse in order to break up their sub-alliance. While Keith initially questioned the logic of pissing Ozzy off, he also realized that Whitney and himself were the swing votes, so he consulted with her on his decision...Actually, Keith is just a gossip whore who wants to get in Whitney's pants, but for now we'll say that he told her so they could "discuss strategy."

At Tribal Council, the Savii tribemates all brought up their "oral injuries" from gnawing on the pig at the Immnity Challenge, which ranged from simple lacerations to a broken tooth for Dawn. In response, Cochran facetiously stated, "Technically, I haven't been wearing my retainer as diligently as I should have been, so my teeth are in constant transition and flux right now. I definitely feel my teeth shifting."

That statement did not go over well with his tribemates, who found it to be condescending. Dawn tried to let it go, but ironically stated, "This is also a game about bringing people together that would never be together, so part of me is really tolerant."

So to summarize...On this year's season of Survivor we have a "tolerant" Mormon in Dawn, and a redneck like Russell's Nephew who feels that he is the victim of a lingerie model's prejudice because he got caught lying in order to get her voted out for no other reason than he finds her so attractive that he doesn't trust himself around her. Needless to say, I see a chemical castration in somebodies future...Unfortunately for Mikayla, that person is probably going to be Dawn.

When Jeff Probst asked Cochran if he was typically the kid who was picked last playing soccer. Cochran astutely stated, "I don't put myself in a position where I'm playing soccer," which is exactly what I've been trying to tell people from Europe and Latin America to do my entire life.

While Cochran drew a lot of negative attention at Tribal Council for his off color comments, he and Jim made a power move and convinced enough of their tribe to split Ozzy and Elyse up. Strangely, even though they acknowledged that they would likely face reprisal for backstabbing their "Veteran" leader, they voted out the beautiful but powerless Elyse (NOOOOOO!!!!!) instead of doing the smart thing in voting out Ozzy and ending that threat altogether.