Blogging Survivor: Philippines - "Apparently the estrogen kicked in and we had to have our freakin' clothes cleaned"

Just as I suspected, Jonathan Penner began this week's episode pissed off about the lone vote that he received at the previous Tribal Council from Katie.

That was partly because he was paranoid about being targeted by someone, and partly because he didn't like the fact that he wasn't kept in the loop by his alliance that Katie was considering voting for him in the first place.

When Jonathan confronted him about it, Jeff Kent said, "She was kind of pissed off at you for some reason."

Of course, Jeff left out the part where he was partly responsible for leading Katie on about voting for Penner in the first place.

In fact, Jeff is becoming so obsessed with lasting longer in the game than Jonathan that he's ignoring the big picture, which is winning...Kind of like he did with his much noted rivalry with Barry Bonds or any other black person that he played professional baseball with.

As a returning player, Michael Skupin proclaimed that everyone was on equal footing, as he had previously fallen into the fire on Day 17, thereby giving him no more experience going forward than anyone else in the game.

That caused Peter to proclaim, "Dude, you barely made it this far. Look at you!"

Former Survivor contestant Michael Skupin celebrated his anniversary of falling into his camp's fire on day 17 by once again looking like a burn victim.

When the contestants were informed that Tandang and Kalabaw were finally merging and that they'd be leaving for a new camp in five minutes, former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel worried about her shoes and socks.

"You're making sure you don't have any socks hanging on a line somewhere and shoes hidden under a rock somewhere."

Meanwhile, Malcolm scrambled to find the hidden Immunity Idol he had buried before Tandang's raft set sail to their new tribe's camp.

Pete worried about the merge, realizing that there was a strong likelihood that Skupin and RC would change allegiances given that he, Artis and Abi-Maria had treated them like poop for much of the game.

In regards to continuing the original Tandang alliance, Peter conceded that it was likely over. "RC is someone who would never allow that to happen, and Skupin doesn't have a brain of his own. He does whatever RC tells him to do."

I'll take RC Saint-Amour's "brains" over Peter's any day. 

However, Abi-Maria still had the audacity to ask RC to serve as a spy and pick the former Kalabaw Tribe members' minds for information.

That caused RC to explain to her why that wasn't going to happen. "We aren't one big happy family. We can pretend to be all we want, but we haven't been for 17 days."

Upon arriving at the merge, former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel decided to assume a motherly role and go through everyone's bags in order to "dry out everyone's clothes."

Of course, in the process of doing so, she found Malcolm's bag of weed...I mean Immunity Idol.

Not realizing that Lisa was a former child star, Malcolm bemoaned, "Apparently the estrogen kicked in and we had to have our freakin' clothes cleaned!"

"Hallelujah, the church lady found it, who hopefully has a heart." That forced Malcolm to make a final three deal with Lisa, along with his original alliance partner, Denise...Making him a gigolo of sorts for the old ladies of Survivor.

Much like Lisa promised not to out Malcolm for his Immunity Idol, Penner promised not to out her for being a former child TV star, and Lisa definitely seemed to have an interest in Jonathan beyond just forming an alliance.

"If we weren't on this island, we'd have a great time over lunch just talking about each other's lives." And if Penner wasn't gay, that's exactly how that might happen.

Retro Commercial Break of the Week: "We've Got the Colgate Pump"

In his quest to last longer in the game than Penner, Jeff Kent went on to betray their alliance by disclosing that Jonathan had found a hidden Immunity Idol to their rival Tandang Tribe members.

After hearing that information, they then concocted a plan to spit their votes 4-4 between RC and Penner, which would protect them in the event that Jonathan played his Immunity Idol.

At the first Individual Immunity Challenge, the contestants had to hold buckets of water on a pulley system that contained 25% of their body weight at arm's length the longest.

Apparently pleased with his own prowess, at one point Artis adjusted his grip and then kissed each of his biceps...And then proceeded to drop his bucket shortly thereafter while the ultra skinny Carter continued to hold his bucket without any problems, or the need to kiss any of his own body parts.

Artis is an Ed Hardy t-shirt away from being a douchey white guy.

Denise ended up taking first place for the women, while Carter outlasted Jeff for the men.

While Jeff made a point of telling Carter that he owed him a favor for "dropping out," it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to outlast Carter, who's either autistic, from the south, or both.

Carter's efforts to count the number of people needed to vote somebody out makes the slow soldier on trial in A Few Good Men look like he's in the gifted program.

Even though she didn't win immunity, RC still felt confident in her position in the game, "It's been a good day...With our six, we're in the majority."

Of course, along with being the hot girl with big boobs, feeling confident is always the kiss of death when it comes to playing Survivor.

Jonathan felt less confident. "If the people I believe that are going to vote with me are really not...If all of this is just smoke, then I'm a terrible judge of character and then I really don't deserve to stay in this game."

At Tribal Council, Abi-Maria and RC finally had it out, with Abi once again wrongfully accusing RC of digging up the clue to the hidden Immunity Idol that RC had initially found and shared with her.

Of course it was Peter who had dug up that clue and planted it in RC's bag to frame her, but Abi was too busy talking nonsense to listen. "I trust my actions, not yours."

Blessed with a fat ass, a face like a man, and an irrational temper, by that point Abi was only a soccer ball, a Brazilian bikini wax and a metrosexual quarterback boyfriend away from reinforcing every Brazilian stereotype known to man.

After the vote, Penner's paranoia finally paid off, as he elected to play his Immunity Idol.

While Peter received RC and Michael's votes, the rest of Kalabaw went along with the plan to try and blindside Penner, which caused RC to get voted out as their fallback plan since their votes for Jonathan did not count.

And just like that, the last good looking girl was voted out of Survivor.

Meanwhile, Jeff's plan to backdoor Penner failed, meaning things will get real interesting around camp next week now that Jonathan knows that he was betrayed.