Letters From Camp Koh Tarutao: Back to Normal

Dear Mom,

I am so glad to be out of the infirmary. I never thought that I would be able to get back to my campers and their wonderful exploits. Then again I never thought that the eighties hair fashion stylings could have such a therapeutic effect on a person.

Anyway, things here at Camp Koh Tarutao are slowly getting back to normal. I guess we can start with Penny since she's no longer around. I'm not really sure what to make of her and her actions. She knew that her days were numbered but I'm not exactly sure what she thought she was doing by alienating the only person she knew she could trust in Jake. First she opts to pair up with Ted in the reward challenge and then she decides to take out one of Jake's torches in the immunity challenge.

"Oh, Brian," she said, "they know I'm not really aligned with Jake anymore. They'll choose me over him any day."

Well, Mom, in effect, she slit her own throat. Jake, although he didn't vote for her in the final tribal council, was left to wonder what Penny was holding against him. The team in turn... well let's get a little serious here, Mom, Jake called them on the carpet at the last tribal council. He point blank said that they had always talked about how it was important to be a good provider and a good teammate by pitching in on chores. Basically it was the whole line about it being more important what you do for the group than whether or not you are a threat to the other tribe members in terms of the immunity challenges. Jake was telling them that he's been pitching in and being a valuable working member of the tribe and that if they were really the honest, upstanding people that they said they were... well, that meant that they should keep him around.

I don't know if that's what did Penny in the end, but I have to admit that it put them on notice that they were going to be judged by their word - at least Jake was going to judge them that way. Penny got the huge axe and was out of the game leaving Jake to fend for himself, but let's face it, he's playing every card in the book and it's really not working... or so it seems.

Brian won the reward challenge (I know, he's won two of them now) and opted to take Clay with him on the Thai dinner date thing. Helen got specific instructions from them to watch out for Jake the Snake. Now for a moment I was sure that they were referring to the wrestler from the Eighties and Nineties but I was wrong. It was just good ole boy Jake. Now he has Helen's ear and he's basically telling her things that she already knows - there's a pecking order in the tribe of who is to go and when.

Now Helen plays it smart. She doesn't let on that she knows that he's telling the truth and doesn't let on that she knows exactly what he's talking about. But you have to admit that she has to be wondering what the heck is going on. Jake knows about the boot list that was supposed to be secret, but I guess it's not anymore.

Of course this means that Clay has to be the one that's having a bad case of diarrhea of the mouth. Now the question is whether or not Helen realizes that it's Clay or if she thinks its Brian or Ted or, dare I say, my adoring Jan. Well since she's only been seen as being close with Brian and not really that close with Jan, something tells me that Helen is going to put it all together and it just isn't going to be pretty.

Now over to my adorable Jan, who I love more than I loved my time in the infirmary eating an endless supply of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia Ice Cream. Can I just be honest for a moment and say that I was pulling for her in the final rounds of the immunity challenge. I just hope she realized that Helen was sending a message (whether she knew it or not) during that challenge that Ted, in essence, was more important to her than Jan, who therefore was more expendable. I would love nothing more than for Jan to get immunity next time and rub it in Helen's face, but something tells me that she'll be too much of a lady to do something like that. My ultimate hope is that people start talking and realize that Brian is playing them all and they try to get him ousted.

Sigh... it's just nice to have everything back to normal again...

Love,

Your son...

C. Brian Devinney is a human resources consultant from New York City. When not reporting on reality TV, he can be found rooting on his beloved Yankees, writing in his online diary, Tales From the City, or designing new items for his online store BlogGear.com. He can be reached at TheRealityFactor@aol.com.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find all of our recent Survivor articles at the Survivor: Thailand page and take a look at our sections on Big Brother 3 and The Osbournes. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about reality TV, be sure to check out RealityTVFans.com and SirLinksALot!