Alright, by now you probably know how utterly confusing and mind-boggling and “bum puzzling” this week’s Survivor: ONE WORLD! was, so we’re getting right to our ABC of the week.
Always be CuckooBananas.
Because that was perhaps the most baffling, head-scratching, what the fuck is going on episode of all-time. Of ALL-TIME. It had everything: racism, sexism, donuts, senility, betrayal, stupidity, and the most despicable fucking human being ever to play the game.
Whew. Glad we got that out.
Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, Huh?, The Worst, Tribal Council
Four days have passed since Lindsay Lohan returned to host Saturday Night Live, and the benefit of time does nothing to portray her performance in any more of a positive light. Yes, in spite of her wooden, stumbling, at times helpless appearance, the show delivered some of its strongest moments of the season (including Bill Hader reaching new levels of brilliance as both Shephard Smith and James Carville, and an inspired, if somewhat haphazardly placed, “Music of the 70s” commercial parody with a retro-coiffed Jason Sudeikis), but those sketches don’t negate Lohan’s awkward struggle, her 90-minute death march, and nor has almost a week of reflection.
It wasn’t always this way. And that’s why this is so sad, so tragic. There was a time when Lindsay Lohan was a bona fide star, white-hot and electric. The next big thing while simultaneously being the “it” the girl. And, yes, she had curves, but she also had talent. Was she a young Jodie Foster? Outside of the freckles, no. But she had something that a young Jodie Foster did not. Sizzle. Sparkle. That special something.
Before we start this off, we need to speak to Kat for a second. Girl, get it together. You bawl at Tribal Council like that one time Robbie Morris told his dad the dirty joke that we had told him at indoor recess earlier that day, and we were sent to bed without TV and ice cream (the joke, if you must know, is entitled “Seymour Upmore.” We’ll let you fill in the blanks). Kat, you need to toughen up. That was just your second of – if you’re exceptionally lucky – many Tribal Councils. But don’t take it from us, take it from Jimmy Dugan.
Got it? Good.
Unfortunately, once the ladies are able to dry their eyes, they’re doused with what was either ten minutes of drizzle or seven days of apocalyptic downpour. Either way, those bitches be WET (of course, one has question Chelsea’s decision to try to wait out the storm in the ocean. Then again, four feet of water probably offers more protection than their shelter. You know, cause chicks can’t build shit (jk, jk!)). But, defying their earlier histrionics, the women remain resolute, refusing to run to the big strong men and their big strong tarp (and the palms fronds the women themselves had woven. It’s kinda like a Gift of the Magi where one person gets totally fucked). Also, they somehow rejected Colton’s offer to cuddle. Now that’s will power. Girls, we had you all wrong.
Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, God Laughs, The Worst, Tribal Council
We made a joke last week in our Survivor: ONE WORLD! recap about girls having tiny brains, just not having the mental capacity to compete with the male sex. But, hey, that was all in good fun. And we would never legitimately call these women or any women dumb. But Nina -a women herself – has no problems doing so. And she pretty much does so for forty-four minutes in this episode. Also, Kat is really dumb. We know what we said three sentences ago, but, empirically, scientifically, she’s a numskull. Our word, not Nina’s (her’s was “nitwit.” Also accurate).
But do you know what Kat also is? She’s a master of fire, and she wastes no time in picking up where we left off last week, telling us that no one touches the fire but her, not even the men who were so chivalrous enough to keep the Salami Tribe’s fire going while they were off at Tribal Council bickering and voting off no one. Because even if the fire went out, she could start it right back up. No big.
Tell em, Kat!
Things are starting to fray at Salami, but Alicia’s not worried. A) She’s won’t be weighed down by appropriate fitting clothing, and B) she’s got her alliance.
Read on: The women get a taste of their own medicine. And what’s that in the woods???
Our Redemption Island journey came to an end Sunday night, and while the home stretch of the season had been rather uneventful and predictable, if economical, we still had the chance for fireworks in the last two hours. Would Rob complete what was unquestionably one of – if not the – definitive Survivor performances, winning it all in his fourth attempt? Or, perhaps, would Matt fulfill his destiny and return from Redemption Island to become the Sole Survivor (if that was God’s will)? Or would Mike, the lone remaining member of Zapatera, the double threat of soldier and Jesus lover, reenter the game and lockup votes from his former teammates? Or would Grant, the remarkable physical specimen, go undefeated down the stretch, the jury rewarding his unparalleled athletic prowess with a million dollars. Or, finally, would Andrea prove victorious in the final Redemption Island duel and surprise us all by going all the way to the end? Well, there’s no way that could happen, right?
Wrong! But could anyone possibly stand in the way of Boston Rob???
We sincerely apologize for the absence of Redemption Island recaps the last month; Gawker.TV ceased publishing weekly recaps and our day job has been monopolizing our time. But, with the finale airing tonight night, we felt it was our responsibility (and our pleasure) to give some thoughts on what’s transpired since our last recap and what is still to come.
Before we delve into the eliminations, duels, blindsides and bonehead moves of the past month, it’s come to our attention that we’ve been going easy on Matt and his love of Jesus. So, to right that wrong, we’re going to go ahead and dedicate the first part this post to Matt and his savior.
“Are you there, God? It’s me, Matt. Why have you abandoned me?”
“Because, Matt, I don’t care about reality television. I’m the almighty creator, and I have infinitely more important things to do than interfere with or preordain some reality show competition. And if I were to get involved with any of these shows, it wouldn’t be Survivor, hands down it’d be Top Chef, because a) I fancy myself as a bit of a foodie and b) have you seen the rack on Padma? One of my finest creations.”
“Oh, so that one set of footprints. That wasn’t you carrying me on your back?”
“Nope, no way. All you, buddy.”
“Shit.”
This is it, guys! Merge time! And the end of Redemption Island!
Which would have totally been a surprise if they didn’t already tell us this in the preview for this week’s episode. And they didn’t just tease the game changer, but pretty much announced it. Which is kind of regrettable, as it took away a potential surprise in the midst of a run of pretty mundane episodes.
Also pretty regrettable – to us at least – is that the producers chose to coincide the merge with the reentry of the Redemption Island ultimate warrior back into the game. That’s too neat, too obvious, and we reckoned it would be too much all at once. Wouldn’t have it been more enjoyable, more entertaining if the Redemption Island duels continued while the remaining players vied for Individual Immunity? In short, in crass terms, our concern was that combining these two moves would pretty much be the equivalent of the show shooting it’s load. Would that be the case? We should see.
Keep reading: The Christian, The Sheppard, and The Last Supper
Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, Tribal Council
A few weeks ago we griped that the recent prime-time special Saturday Night Live Backstage was thoroughly underwhelming, in large part because it recycled previously seen interviews and failed to deliver any new insight into what goes on behind the scenes. What kind of stuff you ask? Stuff like this:
Vodpod videos no longer available.Wouldn’t had it been great if they talked about Galifianakis’ last hosting stint, when he shaved his beard late in the show, only to don a fake beard for the goodbyes? Or just gave us an-depth look at your run-of-the-mill costume change. How do they change clothes so quickly? How do they adhere the wigs? Do they get notes about the upcoming sketch? Do they ever change the order of the sketches mid-show? Wouldn’t have those all been fascinating parts of the show to learn about? Instead we heard again what a genius Will Ferrell is (which he is, but still).
Or, take for example, the Titanic sketch that closed out Galifianakis’ show. This sketch seemed to require an immense amount of tech and an elaborate middle-of-the-ocean set, especially for a two and a half-minute sketch at 12:55am (and, indeed, it seemed to suffer a misstep towards the end). We would have loved to see the frantic scramble to get this kind of sketch safely to air (and to see the reaction when it doesn’t go off exactly as planned).
Vodpod videos no longer available.So hopefully they’ll heed our advice and showcase all of this in the eventual sequel, SNL: Behind the Comedy.
Filed under Analysis, Saturday Night Live
Over the last couple years we’ve become ardent devotees to the concept of “Occam’s Razor,” the tenet that the “simplest explanation is most likely the correct one.” There’s a similar paradigm that works itself into any season of Survivor, but focuses less on the simplest explanation and more on the theory that players will make their moves based on the belief that the other competitors will make the correct, smartest decisions. Unfortunately, as the show as often proved, playing that way does not always lead to the best results. And we saw an example of this again last night.
But more on that later. First, (as teased last week) Matt arrives on Redemption Island and Francesca is shocked (shocked!) it wasn’t Phillip who was voted out by the Ometepe tribe earlier in the night. He had no allies, posed no threat, and basically begged for mercy, so why would Ometepe (and its leader, Boston Rob) want to keep him around? Oh, yeah, for those very reasons. Phillip may be a loose cannon, intolerable, and borderline bipolar, but right now, as Rob says, he’s a loyal solider. Plus, he’s endlessly entertaining. Back at Ometepe camp Rob breaks down the alliance, explicitly telling Phil that he’s the fifth person on a five-person alliance and Phil is basically responds “Cool! Just happy to be here! Thanks, Rob!” And then they seal Phil’s blind allegiance with a first bump, which in the three federal agencies that Phil used to serve in is tantamount to swearing on one’s parents’ graves.
Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, Huh?, It's gross., Top Scallop, Tribal Council
Miley Cyrus came by SNL this week and, despite generally positive reviews, we still found it pretty average. Nothing egregious about it, nothing particularly horrible, but really nothing to write home about. And the feedback for Cyrus was mostly polite, praiseworthy even, commending her for at the very least not embarrassing herself, at the best acquitting herself remarkably well. But we really weren’t surprised by that. It’s no fluke that she was a star of a hit cable show and a pop music phenomenon. She’s got talent. Sure, she might have headlined a terrible, cloying cable show for Tweens, and she might perform grating, insipid kidz bop, but she’s been tremendously successful at it, and there’s really no denying that she has some kind of talent. So by all rites she should have been fine on SNL. And she was. And she parodied her image, parodied Justin Bieber, parodied Fergie, all to perfectly okay results. But nothing transcendent. Nothing special. Nothing that resonated like a sketch from a few years ago that featured an at the time teenage superstar. Lindsay, show Miley how it’s done:
Vodpod videos no longer available.Sure, Miley had fun. She sang and danced. She even impersonated Lohan. But, unlike Lohan, none of Cyrus’ sketches will be remembered in five years.
Oh, and Jason Sudeikis reprised his Satan on “Weekend Update” and it was pretty cool. The dude can do no wrong (Sudeikis, not the Devil).
Filed under Analysis, Saturday Night Live
Jumped The Snark 