Jonny, We Hardly Knew Ye....

Survivor 16:1 Micronesia minicap

The newest season of Survivor hit your living rooms Thursday night, and it promised to be an exciting romp through Palau. After all, we got fans, we got favorites, we got Fairplay. In the immortal words of Breathless Mahony, who could ask for anything more?

The show opens with the two tribes entering in traditional Micronesian canoes. The first canoe contains the favorites, superfans who have studied the game ever since the days of snakes, rats and a free Richard Hatch. (How I missed that boat is beyond me.) This tribe is officially Airai (but will be known as the Fans in the minds of avid Survivor viewers, as well as on this blog).

The Fans don't know that they will be playing with seasoned pros, so much shrieking and applauding goes on as the Favorite team is revealed. Well, at least for most of the favorites. Yau Man gets the warmest reception, but Ami and Eliza get polite clapping - the blank look on many Fan faces conveys a "VanuaWHO?" expression. Fairplay, the last to appear on the beach, sports a hat reading "Will Lie 4 Food."

Jonathan Penner remarks that you may be a fan of the Red Sox, but you don't want to play against the Red Sox, which is probably true when you're talking about the current World Series champs. But let's face it - this is Survivor, and none of the Favorites won the first time out, so they're more like the Phillies than the Red Sox. There are a couple of high school teams who could give the Phillies a run for their money, y'know?

Just for the record, Jeff officially dubs the Favorites "Malakal," but we're gonna stick with "Favorites" (for alliteration's sake).

First up - a race for immunity. The tribes are told to head to the beach, where they'll find a boat for each tribe. Inside the boat is a map to their site as well as a special immunity idol - one for each tribe - that can only be used at the first tribal council each tribe attends. (Are you with me here?)

Fan Erik (who's identified as an Ice Cream Scooper) gets an early lead and even beats Aquaman Ozzy (who ruled in all water challenges). Jonny Fairplay takes the turtle route - slow and steady - until he reaches the beach and finds the idol hanging from the boat. He grabs the first idol he sees, which turns out to be the Fan idol.

The lightbulb goes off over Jonny's head - but Yau Man realizes the mistake, too. They race to the Favorite boat, and reach the Idol at the same time. Yau pushes Fairplay out of the way, and secures the Idol (and for the next fifteen minutes, we're exposed to Jonny's whining, although Yau did apologize). In his hurry, Fairplay tossed the Fan idol on the beach, and Yau tells Fan Kathy to "just pick it up," giving her immunity as well.

We get a brief introduction of the fans, which I will detail in a later post. Suffice to use Mikey B's description - "My team consists of Big Bird, a Southern Princess, the Incredible Hulk, a young Jon Bon Jovi and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Kathy talks to Chet (the aforementioned Queer Eye) and asks if he prefers "gay" or "homosexual." Of course, the correct answer would have been "Chet" but he says he's not offended either way. Kathy proceeds to push his patient nature by asking if "gay" means he wants to be a girl. "Heavens, no," Chet replies graciously. (Where did they find this woman?) She tells him she knew he was gay right way and she's never had a gay friend, so she hopes he'll be her first. Chet says he'd bet she had a gay friend but just doesn't know it. I'll bet these two will never end up as alliance-mates.

Kathy continues to endear herself to the other Fans by telling Tracy (whose chest is rather noticeably enhanced) that she never saw breast implants up close before. The Fans vote Kathy "Most Likely to Need that Immunity Idol" (also "Most Likely to Put Her Foot in Her Mouth").

Over on the other beach, the Favorites are hard at work on their shelter. Fairplay jokes he found a message in a bottle saying his grandmother died. The truth though - he has left behind a girlfriend who's seven months pregnant.

In a confessional, Pavarti says her strategy last time around was to flirt, but she'll be playing it smarter this time. Then she proceeds to show us she learned from her mistakes by flirting with James. James comments that Pavarti is a sex kitten type - which seems to be just his type. And our first showmance of the season begins.

Not that it's the only one. Amanda and Ozzy are snuggling up to each other as well, and Eliza notices. "Dangerous" is how she describes the groupings, adding Pavarti will have James wrapped around her little finger. And, judging from the action in the shelter that night, he's wrapped around everything else as well.

Sunrise. The two new couples are still canoodling. Yau, Jonathan, Eliza and Ami decide to make an alliance, and they join in a four-way handshake. The couples are also aligning, and Ozzy and Parvati ask Jonny to join them in voting Eliza out first. He agrees, then immediately goes to the other alliance (should they be the Singles? the Leftovers?) and tells them about the plan. The women say Parvati is a bigger threat than Ozzy the immunity hog, because she plays a better social game. Thus the Singles alliance agrees to target Parvati first (believing that Fairplay is on board with them).

Of course, any fan of the game would know what happens next: in confessional, Jonny reminds us that no one should be believing a word he says. "Have you not watched this show before?" he wonders.

On the third day, Yau uses his glasses and a drop of water to light up a coconut husk. Is there nothing Yau Man can't do? (Well, except for hold onto gift cars.)

The Favorites have shelter, fire, food and experience. Unfortunately, that doesn't add up to a win in the immunity challenge. The challenge is a race to put together four wheels, place them on a cart, and pull the cart through an obstacle course leading to a sand pit. Once they reach the pit, the tribe mates dig up a bundle of planks, which are used to complete a bridge. Then they pull the cart over the bridge to the finish platform, where they take the wheels off the cart and put them back together to complete a turnstile, which they'll use to raise a fire wok and light the top. First to light up wins.

The Fans take an early lead, work together well, and bring home the idol. The Favorites face tribal council - and that's bad news to my personal favorite, Cirie, who admits she has no plan beyond "anyone but me." Hey, it worked for Sandra in Pearl Island, right?

Then, in a twist that seemed almost unbelievable as the dead grandmother, Jonny Fairplay decides he has had enough. He misses his pregnant girlfriend and thinks he should go home. It sounds like another Fairplay trick, and Parvati thinks so too - so much so that she suggests he tell that story so the other players all vote for him, but their alliance will vote for Eliza, successfully offing her. Jonny asks Ami to vote him off, but she knows a rat (or, in this case, skunk) when she smells it and suggests to her alliance this is just a trick to save Parvati.

Tribal council. Jonny repeats his tale of woe, saying last time he played, he learned to be an asshole, but this time he's learning to be a good dad. He does refuse to quit, though, so everyone still has doubts about the story.

Or maybe it was just me, because when the votes came down it was unanimous. Fairplay is out.(And if you're wondering, the story was true - Jon and his ex-ANTM girlfriend had a baby girl, Piper. Whether he is a better dad for leaving Micronesia remains to be seen....but will be blogged about this week!)

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Jonny, We Hardly Knew Ye....

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