An “Insider” Look at Survivor: Exile Island, Episode 10: Revenge of the Nerds

Your normal recapper is off at the St. Louis Airport Hilton doing geeky stuff, so you are stuck with me! Of course, I have fond memories of that Hilton and the two gaming cons I attended wherein the fantastic bartender told us we outdrank the Hell’s Angels. Hell, we drank the Hilton out of alcohol!

But I digress.

Reward Challenge Voodoo, Part I & II: This is ten minutes of clips that we saw in the episode. It’s the reward challenge. My comments: Aras, the hair has GOT to go. Patrick in Coupling couldn’t pull it off. You can’t. Terry amuses me with his slamming the cleaver on Aras’ rope.

Best line EVER: What’s a poser? A poser is you. BURN. I loved how put out and pouty Courtney gets. And she wonders why she’s most annoying? Hah.

I do note that as Shane pouts and rants his way to the bench, he loudly grumbles that Cirie is totally playing under the radar. Yep, she is. Are you man enough to do something about it? We’ll see, eh?

Cirie shows self-awareness by picking herself as the one most unlikely to survive alone. Courtney, take some lessons.

Odd Man Out: They should have put some of this in. We’re not seeing enough clips for Exile Island, in my opinion. This is Terry on Exile Island, a place he’s become very familiar with. He explains that it was a little bit of a surprise, but not much really, that he got ousted so quickly and got sent here. He’s still pissed off about it, though. Of course you are, you’re a competitor! Anyway, Terry sums up what he thinks is happening at camp, and he’s eerily close. He says Cirie will take Aras, and Shane will go batsh*t (well, that’s my term, but it sums it up so well), and that Danielle, Courtney, and Bruce will be wondering what happened. He hopes that Bruce can make some inroads with Courtney and Danielle after that challenge and he could jump onto that.

Visitor In Exile: We get a shot of Studly, er, Jeff heading towards Exile Island, then we cut to him approaching Terry. He lets Terry know something has happened that changed the game, so he’s here to take Terry to camp and explain it. Terry asks Jeff if he can say more, but Jeff won’t. Another shot of Studly and Studly Two on the boat.

What A Difference Two Days Makes: This is Terry in a post-Probst-bad-news interview. He was enjoying his days on Exile Island away from Casaya (can ya blame him?), he had plenty of food, good fire, etc., when suddenly up walks Probst, he recounts. He got about ten minutes, he tells us, to pack up and head out with Jeff. Intelligent man that he is (usually), he put the wood in a dry spot, assuming he’ll need it again. Heh. He explains that what happened to Bruce could have been deadly if something had perforated. Shudder. So true.

The ramifications, game-wise, of the departure mean that Terry no longer has a hidden ally. He explains that Bruce was on his side, but when the other plans kept falling through, he’d tell Bruce to vote with Casaya to keep things off him. VERY interesting. Terry calls Bruce a man of his word. He does feel Bruce is a vote for him in the jury. He claims he will be nice as pie from here on out and extra helpful in order not to piss people off. Uh, Terry? I think you’re a bit too late judging from what we’ve been hearing. But Casaya is nothing if not fickle, so you might be okay. He’s going to hopefully take someone on a reward challenge with him. Anything could happen though in the 12 remaining days, he finishes.

Courtney Vents: By the seven hells, this clip is not available. Mutter. How entertaining would this have been? The woman’s vents are SO amusing.

Reaping The Reward: This is also known as “high school clique behavior.” You know how you get people in a room together and they talk badly about the others that they claim to be friends with? Yeah, that’s what this degenerates into. First, though, Cirie, Aras, and Danielle all order off a menu, and I do not see why they bother. “Give us each two of everything and be snappy” would be much quicker! The waitress is laughing in amazement at the copious amounts of food they order. Aras loves it and exclaims that he wants to always be able to order multiple plates and just take one bite off it, without worry. Didn’t your mother teach to clean your plate because there are starving kids in China? They all hold hands and Danielle tries to pray, but it’s really bizarre. Whatever. Cirie and Aras are all, like, “Vote me off now and leave me here.”

They start dissing Terry. Aras works the women by playing up to their insecurities and claiming he doesn’t like Terry, but can understand him from a “macho” level, and then says he doesn’t like how Terry treats the women. The hell? I’ve never seen Terry be misogynistic. Confidence is NOT chauvinistic. I am impressed with how insidious Aras is here. He plants the seed without SEEMING to plant the seed. Who is truly working the women? Hah.

They move on to Shane and his trademark InShanity. They laugh about his hissy fits some. Next up on the list is Bruce. They praise his artwork and really seem to like him, but they do mock his sleeping and work habits, and how he always seems to tell them about everything like that. I’m sure if the clip were longer we’d hear some fun Courtney talk. I only wish they’d left it in!

And that, my friends, is it. Seriously. One non-working clip. Two clips that rehash something we’ve already seen, and a few clips of new stuff. No final words, nada, zip, zilch. Anyway, join us next week as our favorite geek, Mike, returns to recap!

Heathyr Fields Ford resides in central Washington with a terribly patient boyfriend. An aspiring writer, she loves fan mail and suggestions for each week’s MIA, so email her at heathyranne@hotmail.com.

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