Survivor Psyche, Episode 7: Evicted

Paradise Lost

The Jaburu Tribe is missing the adorable Shawna, especially a despondent Alex. "Alex is a little bit depressed that Shawna's not here anymore," Rob says sympathetically. "But maybe he'll get his head out of his ass and start thinking about the game again like he should be."

Rob sets about getting his game pieces - oops, we mean players - in order as soon as they get back from Tribal Council. His strategy is to have the male Jaburu members pose as false allies of the male Tambaquis at the merger, and use Deena and Jenna to turn Heidi and Christy. Or, as Rob sees it, "make sure the knuckleheads understand the plan." It all sounds very logical until you realize that Rob's primary mission is to take down Roger. "Once we have that majority…," Rob wrings his hands as his inner Snidely Whiplash emerges. "Ooooh - Shut up, Roger! Finally - the shoe will be on the other foot! Bwaaa Haaaa Haaaa!!!"

Object of My Affection

When the two tribes open their mail, they discover something that sets all their hearts a flutter. The girls shriek, the men shout, and everyone takes off running. Is it a "get out of Tribal Council Free" card? No! It's the key to the lock-box! After 18 long days, our curiosity is satisfied. The boxes are opened to reveal parchment scrolls that bear the captivating message, "Time To Live As One." "Boy, isn't that great," Dave sighs.

The Jaburus ooh and aah over the prospect of living together as one tribe - except for the resident teenager with the bad attitude. "Oh, we've got to build a new shelter - that sucks," gripes Rob. (Rob's negative attitude sounds eerily reminiscent of good old irascible Roger's grousing here. Remember, Rob, we resent people who subconsciously remind us of a quality in ourselves we detest.)

Lest we wonder about the authenticity of this merge, the editors include a remark of Deena's emphasizing that the note "clearly says that we should become one." Everyone packs up and takes their leave of their old campsites. "Goodbye, camp!" Heidi calls out in her squeaky Care Bear voice. Tambaquis and Jaburus row down the river, with a tender touching of the bows in midstream. Even the prospect of lurking piranhas waiting to strip the flesh off an errant finger or toe doesn't dampen their ardor.

Awaiting the arrival of the happy co-eds is a big boat as red as a tropical sunset, new buffs the color of a Valentine heart, and a feast fit for an intimate honeymoon supper, at Coney Island that is. "Wow, is there chocolate?" Jenna immediately blurts out. (Foreshadowing alert! We hear she'll do anything for even the slightest prospect of chocolate.) Laid out on a picinic blanket (thank you Yogi Bear) are burgers, chicken, beer on ice, slaw, chips, corn on the cob, and lots of flying wieners. "It's a flurry of excitement. Nobody's thinking of who's going off next, at that point," Dave the Happy Camper assures us. Deena proposes the new name for their tribe - Jacaré, which is Portuguese for he who will make a midnight snack of clueless white man. Everyone is relaxed and simply enjoying each other's company and the contents of the picinic basket until Ranger Smith breaks up the party. Antsy Roger starts poking, prodding, and provoking everyone into action. He's not happy with everyone sitting around. "We're burning daylight, dammit!" Roger tries to micro-manage even the ice down to the very last cube. Butch plays peacemaker and reminds Roger that their precious beer stash needs ice, too. That's when the fireworks start. "So it's warm, so it's warm!" Roger shouts. Christy looks upset, Butch makes soothing noises, and everybody else pretends they're a rock. It's the familiar hair-trigger Dad at the dinner table. The guy whose temper snaps when everyone fails to immediately grasp his superior wisdom and leap into action. (Think Ralphie's Dad in A Christmas Story when he's working on the furnace.) Even easygoing Alex is aggravated enough to vent. "The problem with Roger is he's an ass. He's loud, he's obnoxious, he's bossy, he thinks he knows everything and he's always yelling at everybody."

Love Shack

What should be a fun barn raising among experienced adults working together towards a common purpose turns into a sexist debacle, like something out of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where the he-men put the womenfolk in their place.

Deena tries to give Roger the benefit of the training she underwent before coming to the Amazon. Roger wants to locate the new camp in a level area close to the riverbank. So close that Deena and some of the others are worried about caymans coming into camp at night. Roger gives Deena's advice his full consideration for about a microsecond before casually dismissing it.

Rob assumes his usual position in the background of the sparring couple. "Deena is a very strong woman who I have a lot of respect for. She's a lawyer, she can argue her way out of anything, and Roger loves to hear himself talk." Rob smirks happily. "So you get these two together. Roger thinks women are stupid, Deena thinks women are better than men and you have a millions ways the conversation can go." Meanwhile, Roger is gassing on about things like "differential" while everyone fumes. Deena makes a mocking, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, face behind his back while Roger drones on and on. Roger doesn't dismiss just Deena. Even Christy, his old tribemate, gets the patronizing, "there, there, honey, just go make us some coffee," treatment. When Christy the Trail Guide approaches Commandant Roger to help construct the fortifications, he sends her back to the Mess Tent to weave pretty rattan mats. Good-natured Christy gives the camera a knowing smile as Roger leads her to a pile of palm fronds. "Helping Rob split the fronds would be really great," Roger tells her dismissively. (Roger sounds exactly like the smarmy office manager in Office Space, as he's telling Christy this. "M-kay, that'd be greaaat.") Both Christy and Deena comically let off some steam and inform the camera as to just what an obsessive, wind-bag of a Neanderthal Roger truly is.