The Real Gilligan’s Island 2, Episode 6: Regrets, I've Had a Few

This is the sixth hour of our coverage of the second season of The Real Gilligan’s Island. You can read about episode five in my review.

We start the show right where we left off. Randi has just betrayed the orange team and joined a women’s alliance with Erika and Melissa. The alliance has the Skipper as a fourth member. How long it will last is anybody’s guess.

The next morning dawns and Shawn is now regretting the tirade that he unleashed on Randi the previous night. He thinks he is now the most hated person in the game. And, he’s probably right. Only Tiy-e should be on his side anymore.

He tries to mend his fences. He approaches the Skipper and calls him a gentleman. He then asks for Charlie’s vote. Charlie stares at him incredulously. He does offer him the advice that he shouldn’t go around getting on everyone’s bad side.

He then goes off and offers to run the shower bicycle for the ladies. There is no conversation between them as they each seem to know where they stand. Shawn just drops his head down onto the handlebars. He knows that he screwed the pooch.

Meanwhile, Randi says that she is enjoying hanging out with the women. Unlike hanging with the men, she says that she can get in some intelligent conversation. She is enjoying spending time with them.

Of course, later on, Erika and Melissa are chatting and mention how difficult it is to get close to Randi. She’s a very closed person. Erika mentions that every topic she starts ends with awkward silence and that she’s run out of new topics to start.

Over in the Skipper and Gilligan’s hut, we find Shawn fixing to take a leak in the corner of the hut, rather than walk down to path to the latrine. Charlie stops him and tells him that he’s never going to do that again. Shawn thinks he’s on the chopping block and just doesn’t care anymore.

Soon enough, the radio crackles to life and invites the players down to the beach. Shawn stops everyone and takes the opportunity to apologize to Randi for his outburst the previous evening. He said that he realized that she was just playing the game and picked the option she thought was best. The rest of the players seem to accept his apology. He tells the camera, however, that he was not sincere at all.

And with that, the castaways head for the beach. Scott meets them and explains the game. He shows them several incomplete totem poles. The group will be split into two teams of three and shackled together. The team that collects all the pieces and correctly assembles their totem pole first wins a treasure chest with $3,000 in it.

Now, as I recall, last season’s contest like this featured a treasure chest with $5,000 in it and was split by only two people. I guess the budget’s getting a little tighter this season.

Anyway, Scott waves his arm and they’re off! The team of Tiy-e, Randi, and Melissa stumble off into the water. The team of Shawn, Charlie, and Erika go after the more strenuous pieces first.

Randi later says that Tiy-e just took control and dragged the two frail women from task to task. Tiy-e also notes this and says it was sweet revenge to drag Randi through the water. They get both parts from the water and starting digging the one out from the sand.

Shawn’s team has dug up the one in the sand and gotten the one off the pole. They are headed to the water. But, Charlie is pretty winded. Soon, though they have all four pieces. Tiy-e’s team only has three.

Shawn’s team assembles their totem first and plants it in the sand. Tiy-e’s team quickly follows. Scott declares both teams to be wrong and makes them try again.

Both teams do a quick rearrangement and replant their poles. Shawn’s team barely gets the correct totem pole into the holder first to win the money. They are rather happy with their win.

Back at camp, the talk quickly turns to strategy. Erika says that Tiy-e has pretty much checked out of the game. When Jim was banished, Tiy-e said that his spirit was broken and he was ready to go home. That would, of course, explain why, 23 minutes into the episode, we’ve barely heard more than two sentences from a guy who, in previous episodes, never shut up. The women wonder whether he is faking it to not seem like a threat.

Shawn horns in on the discussion and comes away with the opinion that Erika is not really showing her cards and he doesn’t know where he stands.

Meanwhile, Melissa has a different fish on the hook. She’s just speared her first fish and shows it proudly to the group. It’s really small (She says it looked much bigger under water) and she sets about cleaning it for cooking. By the times she scrapes the scales off and guts it (and accidentally squirts the guts onto Randi’s shoe), there’s enough meat left for a couple of bites. She says that she feels really empowered by her accomplishment.

A little later, Randi smells fresh pee over by Gilligan’s hut. This gets Charlie all riled up again and points out that Shawn did it. The other players aren’t pleased either and yell at Shawn that he’s disgusting. Charlie thinks that this may cause everyone to vote Shawn off the island. Shawn just rolls over in his hammock and grunts.

Later, Tiy-e seems a little bit energized and talks some strategy with Shawn. He suggests that they make an offer to Erika that they give their votes to her, allowing her to vote the person of her choice off the island. Shawn thinks that Erika will take the opportunity to boot off Melissa.

That sort of sounds like a good idea, but Erika would be a fool to fall for it. Remember that the final three players run an obstacle course for the win. This kind of challenge heavily favors the man, as we saw last season. Her only chance to win is to be in the final three against Randi and Melissa. If there is a male in the final three, he will win. Mark my word.