Survivor: Tocantins, 4/16 recap: Friction and Fiction

[Lucy]

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Welcome back to Survivor! A huge thanks to IguanaChocolate, who filled in while my computer was being devoured by a nasty virus. You don’t even want to know the torture I would apply to virus-writers if I could find them.


Replace Rednecks With Amazonians and I Think You’ve Got Yourself a Movie

Anyway, all seems well now, so let’s get this show on the road. Last week, Brendan was in trouble, but Joe got evacuated instead for a medical issue. We rejoin the action on night 21 at Forza, the merge tribe, as they sit around the fire being a bit dejected.

Coach says there is a “funk” permeating the camp. He decides to fix this by talking about himself.

He starts by saying there are three people in the world who know the story he’s about to tell. He claims to have had a military helicopter drop him off with a kayak at the head of the Amazon. Paddling along, he felt he was being watched, and looked up to see six or seven “indigenous people,” who he describes as four and a half feet tall, and says they tied him up to a stake and took turns beating him with a club. Are we sure this happened, or is he just recasting “Deliverance”?

Anyway, Coach claims he escaped, somehow found his kayak, and got away. Debbie says no one said a word, everyone was sort of looking at each other. Finally Brendan asks how much the military helicopter costs. “That would be free, because I pulled some strings,” Coach says.

Brendan says Coach is either the “second coming of Jacques Cousteau” or a huge fraud. Gee, I think I’ll take “fraud” for a thousand, Alex. Especially after Coach adds that National Geographic called and wanted to come with him, and Coach said no, the trip was about him. Yeah, and I’m a size six. Riiiiight.

Brendan tells us he doesn’t believe a word out of Coach’s mouth anymore, and if he can’t believe his stories, how can he trust Coach in the game?


It’s So Rare Because It’s FICTIONAL

The next day, or some day, we see Coach doing some sort of meditation/yoga thing by the river. The others watch and talk.

JT tells us Brendan’s targeting him, but that he’s in a “power alliance,” being himself, Coach, Debbie and Tyson.

Coach says he was doing Chongg Ran, and that if you do a search on it, you won’t find it, because it’s passed down verbally and you have to go to a monastery to study it. Oh really? That’s funny, because I actually remember a reference to Chongg Ran in my reading. Was it from an ancient Asian text, you ask? Why, no! It was in “The Book of the Dead,” a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the duo who wrote “Relic,” if you remember that particular “monster unleashed in a museum” novel, which was made into a movie. I have all the Preston/Child books, they’re not high literature but they’re entertaining.

Interestingly enough, I also took Coach’s challenge to google it, and on a page about the Preston/Child books I found this: “Although Chongg Ran certainly can have its real equivalent in Eastern religion, the practice with this particular name is an invention of the authors.” Bwahahahaha, busted!

Coach says he has a power alliance, and to win you have to behead the dragon and Brendan’s the head of the dragon and he, Coach, is the dragonslayer. Sierra tells him he looked funny doing his “Chongg Ran”, and he says he doesn’t care, but later tells us after the comments she made today, Sierra is “the bowel movements that come out of the dragon.” Wow. So, Brendan is the dragon’s head, Sierra is the dragon’s poo, Coach is the slayer of the dragon, but – WHO is the dragon, Coach?

At the river, JT and Erinn talk about missing Joe. She says she likes their tribe better than her own, and JT asks if she has any alliance. She says pretty much not, and offers herself up for alliance purposes. She tells us she feels good about having the potential to ally with JT’s side.

He tells us her vote would be huge, adding her to him, Taj, Stephen and himself, and it’s nice to know if he needs her, he can call on her.


Stephen Births a Flame

Three different-colored sets of blocks are lined up. Jeff says they’ll be in teams of three, and each will have a row of colored ceramic tiles, they’ll throw things at them to break the others’ tiles.

The winning three will go whitewater rafting. Coach is excited. I hope he wins, so we can see how little he probably actually knows about rafting. Oh, and they’ll get some food too.

They draw for teams, and it’s Debbie, Brendan, and JT; Tyson, Taj and Coach; and Stephen, Sierra and Erinn.

Several people in a row go after the black team. JT’s irritated about that, and someone says they’re just throwing things underhand to try to break tiles and none of them have done it in their lives. Coach raises his hand and says he has. What, was that some sort of torture trial with the Amazonians? Whatever, dude.

Red only has one tile left, black and white still have two. Coach hits his, leaving black with just one. Erinn takes down red. Brendan takes out the next to last white tile. Then there’s some misses as black and white are on their last, half-broken tiles.

Finally Brendan breaks the final white tile and the black team wins reward.

They send Stephen to exile, while Coach tells him to “be the wizard.” What does that even mean, you freak? Is the wizard supposed to, like, enchant the dragon or something?

Coach says he’s pissed at losing, he’s been wanting to get on that river in some sort of raft since he got there.

At exile, Stephen finds a clue to an idol he’s already got. He’s alone, and says at least he knows there’s no new idol. He’s concerned because he’s never been able to make fire on his own. He says he will either make fire, make food, or he would die. Die? Really? He’s out there for what, a day or two?

Finally he does successfully make fire. “It was like giving birth to my first child.”


The Dragon’s Head Plans to Bite the Dragonslayer

The rafting trip looks like a good time, the rapids are pretty big. JT says he’s always wanted to go rafting and never has. By the way, I highly recommend the Gauley River in West Virginia for domestic rafting purposes.

They fetch up on a big sandbar for their picnic – chips, wings, sandwiches, brownies.

JT says it was a really good day. He had worried about going with Brendan but it was ok. Brendan asks him if the Timbira folks have approached him and JT says no. Brendan says he’s got some ideas. He wants to take JT to the finals with him, because he wants a satisfying outcome at the end of the game. JT winning would still make him happy.

Back at camp, Brendan says he stayed up all night running scenarios about how to get JT to the finals, and finally saw the pieces. He talks to Sierra, and says he doesn’t want to send JT home. He, her, Taj, Stephen, and JT need to take out Tyson, Coach and Erinn.

He goes and talks to Taj, to explain this plan. Taj is confused, because Coach and Tyson want to blindside Brendan. She says her old tribe hasn’t had to do anything because the others are so busy trying to get out their own tribe members.


Eh, Ropes, Yawn

We leave things there and go to immunity challenge.

Jeff explains they’ll each be attached to a rope threaded through obstacles. First three to get through move on to the next round, where they’ll do it again with a bigger obstacle.

Coach isn’t doing well, surprisingly since surely he has some experience getting out of ropes when he escaped the Amazonians? Yeah.

Tyson, JT and Brendan are ahead, and Sierra right behind them. Taj and Stephen fall far behind.

JT and Tyson get to the end, and Brendan beats Sierra to be the third.

And Tyson wins.

Coach says Brendan is going to go home and it’s going to be “the biggest power move.”

Brendan, meanwhile, is targeting Coach since Tyson won immunity.


More Skulduggery

Back at camp, they congratulate Tyson on his win and Stephen on starting a fire. Tyson, Taj, Stephen, JT and Debbie quickly count votes – four to Brendan, three Sierra. Just in case Brendan uses his idol. Tyson says he’d enjoy Sierra leaving and having three days of bossing Brendan around.

Brendan goes to Sierra and JT and Stephen with his plan. Brendan thinks voting Coach will be one of the biggest blindsides in the game.

Out in the woods, JT fills Stephen in on how he bonded with Brendan and wants to vote Coach off to save him. Stephen says that would be a really strong play and they’d have to think about it. JT says Coach’s story about being captured on the Amazon is just really hard to believe. You think?

JT tells us he’s a deciding factor right now and it’s huge.

Brendan feels like this is the one time in life you’re allowed to mislead people. So he asks Coach about all getting together. He and Tyson and Coach and Sierra agree to vote JT. That’s at least one conversation I know is untrue from all parties. Coach says Brendan suspects nothing. Tonight, he says, they’ll see “who really was the chosen one.”


Near Death Five to Eight Times

Jeff says certain roles are emerging, and Jeff asks who is the funny one. They say Tyson. Coach tells the best campfire story, and Taj says the Amazon one was the best because it was “so unbelievable.”

Jeff asks if it really happened or was a “movie version.” Coach says he toned it down because the Amazonians talked about “eating my ass.”

“I’ve got scars all over my body that I could point to of the five, six, seven or eight life or death situations I’ve been through,” Coach proclaims. Jeff is disbelieving. Coach lists a hurricane, a shark attack, etc. He says people don’t have to believe him, but “They cannot question my integrity and my honesty.” Funny, I think they actually can.

Tyson says of trust that if a Timbira member goes home, everyone will rethink their strategies. Stephen hopes he has more time to get to know more people. Taj agrees that those who are physically threatening are in trouble – like JT, who’s a “triple threat.”

Coach babbles something about seven layers of heaven with Vikings. “I want to surround myself with warriors,” he says. Everyone else giggles at his nonsense.

Tyson assumes everyone who’s been to Exile could have the idol. Taj says she doesn’t have it. Erinn, Stephen say the same. Brendan admits he has it.

Unfortunately for him, he’s not wise enough to use it. The vote is, two for Coach, three for Sierra and four for Brendan. He’ll be the first member of the jury.

Brendan says he didn’t know he’d be a target that quickly, but it kind of feels good to be blindsided. He thinks Sierra is next.


Next time:

Sierra fears she’s next to go. She tells Tyson she wasn’t a mastermind, and he says he knows because she’s not smart enough for it. Coach says it breaks his heart to have this girl begging and crying.

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