Robb, Bbro, You Got Bbootted, Dude; or Why Robb Should Not Have Been Voted Off

I have dreaded this day since the first episode of Survivor: Thailand. Robb so deserved getting booted. He was stupid at times, in your face confrontational, over-the-top competitive, annoying, and pretty much a loser. So how could I come up with a good excuse for keeping him around? it was hard enough to come up with something for Stephanie, last week - I thought for sure my writers block would continue. However, as I was watching Survivor unfold this week and it became obvious that Robb was going, I was released. Siddhartha came and whispered in my ear all the reasons Robb should not have been voted off.

Number one reason Robb should have stayed: Because he is the only interesting person on S5. Honestly - what is up with these tribe members? Yes, they all have the potential to be interesting - Brian, for example, has the ability to charm his way into an alliance with just about anyone and manage to convince everyone they are the only one, yet all we see is an alliance with Ted. Like it wasn't a given? Helen is not an idiot, why are we not seeing her playing the game more? She and Jan could align with Clay, who probably would never do this because they are women (Can you believe this guy was raised in a house full of women?), but if he doesn't feel the Brian and Ted alliance, he must be lacking in all his senses. You can see it with your eyes, hear the whispers, feel the tension, etc.

Jan is just sad. She really needs to go home. I can understand the dead bat empathy - if she were at home and a baby bird fell out of the nest in her front bush, she would act the same. She is desperately trying to continue on some sense of normalcy in this very abnormal situation. Jan is hard to watch because you know you would rather see her at home making a hash brown casserole for Sunday after church brunch.

And Ted. Come on. The only thing I ever see this guy doing (other than looking for the boat he lost) is blocking people. Good in-the-moment game strategy, but he might as well stick a target on his back that says "I AM THE FIRST YOU NEED TO BOOT AT MERGE."

What about Sook Jai? Who are these people? We have the Mensa Genius who cannot do math in Shii Ann. Erin pretty much does nothing, neither does Penny. Jake, our fearless leader, looks really uncomfortable, but not much else. Ken should be quiet. I like the guy when he is not talking, but when he started bringing himself down to Robb's level, I lost a lot of respect for him. (I think Robb was right on this point - if Ken told him he would always tell Robb when Robb was a boot possibility and then comes back and says Dude, you were up for the boot a week and a half ago but never told Robb that fact, then Robb is right - Ken withheld information from him. Should Robb had confronted him in front of the camp? No.)

So we basically have a bunch of boring, one-dimensional people who we know nothing about. Except Robb. Robb is there up-front, larger than life, being obnoxious and funny and stupid. Robb is a Jim Carrey movie playing in the middle of a documentary about the activity level of the sloth. Robb was incredibly entertaining to watch.

There are other reasons to vote someone else out. Many others. In fact the whole thing about voting three of their four strongest tribemates out of the tribe has been questionable. We never saw any documentary evidence that Jed or Stephanie or Robb was lazy. The real reason they voted them out was a personality conflict, but this year that is not a good reason. No one on this tribe even seems to be interested in getting close to each other. You saw the faces when Robb was waxing poetic about how the experience changed his life, some of them were touched but too many were entirely too uncomfortable with it. They could not even make eye contact with each other. Maybe it was because they were all caught up in the emotions, but I think it is because they are shallow, shallow, shallow. It takes some amount of depth to do what Robb did, and I don't buy that they were drunk; maybe a little buzzed, but not drunk. There were only four bottles of wine. Robb knew what the situation was. He was gone. He gave them permission to vote him out. Not that they needed it, but it was easier this way.