‘Survivor Nicaragua:’ Chicken Little/Little Chicken

Marty started off last week’s episode of Survivor: Nicaragua telling us how he’s got it all figured out.  The game is going exactly as he planned it, he’s completely masterminding the Espada tribe, and he can see two or three tribal councils ahead, so they might as well just give him the million dollars now.

WHOOPS!

Unfortunately, Marty failed to realize that this strategy doesn’t work when you systematically vote off the alpha males in your tribe, leaving your team of geezers severely weakened to the point that the producers have two choices a) take the Espada tribe behind the barn and put them out of their misery or b) mix up the tribes.  Not surprisingly, they chose option B.  Should have seen that one coming Marty.  We take back the million dollars.

So with Marty shifting over to La Flor, along with Jill and Jane (whose unabashed glee at the swap was the first annoying thing she’s done all season), Tyrone took up the mantle of chief of Espada, giving the new arrivals the lowdown on camp protocol.  While Tyrone was clearly the premier physical player for Espada, Marty was the bigger vocal presence, so it was interesting to see Tyrone step into the breach, especially after he seemed content to let Jimmy J, Jimmy T and Marty fight amongst themselves.  But Tyrone, perhaps feeling a bit paternal, decided to be the silverback, and tell the new guys how things are done.  Honestly, the rules and regulations for Espada camp didn’t sound all that outrageous, pretty practical really, and Tyrone didn’t deliver the orientation with a condescending or hostile tone.  But the younglings, led by Benry and Chase, were going to take any excuse to vote off their biggest male competitor, and when Tyrone appeared to overindulge on the chicken he initially protested killing and cooking, he put the final nail in his own coffin.  Always remember, Tyrone: LOOSE TYRONES SINK SHIPS.

Which wouldn’t be so difficult to swallow if they didn’t vote Tyrone out rather than NaOnka, who basically quit because she was afraid she was going to melt.  Rain rain, go away!  Oh, and they didn’t even consider voting out Dan.  Dan, who CAN’T WALK.  But at this point, keeping the tribe physically strong becomes less and less of an issue as they near the merge, so it’s conceivable that Dan could, inconceivably, stick around for a while as a loyal vote.  He can’t win any challenges, so he’s not a threat, thus he would just shut up and vote the way he’s told.  They would literally be carrying dead weight.  But at juncture, that could be a decent strategy.

So to commemorate Tyrone’s early exit we proudly present, in the style of our fallen hero Coach Jimmy Johnson, The Faces of Tyrone:

Which brings us to, ta-da, this week’s A-B-C:

Always Be Chicken

Because this was basically NaOnka as the rain came down:

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!

And in addition to Chicken Little, the Espada tribe, with the exception of Tyrone, only ate a few bites of fowl.  Tyrone, on other hand, apparently had his fill.  And now Tyrone can eat all the chicken he wants.  Although he’d probably trade it all for another shot at the game.

Other thoughts:

– Before the tribe swap the survivors entered the challenge site to find two imposing, daunting pyramid type structures.  But, instead of scaling or moving or deconstructing or doing something otherwise awesome with the obstacles, they basically served as giant plinko boards for a game of “don’t drop the ball.”

– As lame as that challenge turned out to be, the Immunity Challenge was epic, submitting the contestants to nothing short of water torture.  It’s amazing that this concept – strapping three players from each team to a giant wheel and then submerging them in order to take in a mouthful a water to then fill a tube – was approved and implemented, and even more shocking that no one required CPR.  We could have done without the anti-climactic tile breaking at the end (and it’s kind of enough with what are essentially carnival games), but this was one of the more memorable, and intense, challenges in show history.

– Oh, and Benry is a Jedi:

USE THE FORCE, BENRY!