Last week on Survivor, I was in Boston and did not write my recap. I am now recapping the show from the magical future world of this week, having seen episodes 5 and 6 already, so maybe I will bring special insights to today’s post. Or maybe “special insights” and “survivor recap” are antithetical elements.

Let’s refresh our memories: Jean Robert and Courtney wanted to get rid of each other. Everybody wanted to get rid of Dave. Sherea won’t work around camp, but Dave got voted out for being a big meanyhead.

ZHAN HU: Sherea has developed a strange pink stain on her bra. Nobody here wants to spend any more time looking at Sherea’s bra. Nor do we want to look at her gloriously hirsute armpits. I wish someone would toss the girl a red unitard, already. Zhan Hu whine about bored they are. You’re on freakin’ Survivor – why don’t you write a sonnet. Put your feet in a river and rhapsodize about chocolate chip cookies. See how long you last in the game.

Jaime and Erica flirt in the water. I can tell you from my position here in magic futureland that this is going nowhere. Eric likes her, but she does not like him. It doesn’t help that he is a virgin. This is the romance the commercials promised us, but it is not the romance the show delivers.

FEI LONG: Miraculously, incredibly, beautifully, James the grave digger confesses his attraction to Denise the lunch lady. Allow me to say, "WHAT?!!?!" The dead-eyed mullet-wearing lunch lady has cast her spell on giant James. He says she’s a "strong good" woman. She’s there to compliment you and work with you, he says, and that’s attractive. Then he says, in all seriousness, "If Denise was ten years younger, or I was older, whichever way, Denise would be in trouble." Denise interviews that she can trust James and ride his coattail. Is she oblivious or a lesbian? Something tells me that this is not the first time this question has been asked about Denise. Oblivious or a lesbian? Tonight on CBS!

A Chinese person brings a message: Fei Long much choose two members from Zhan Hu to capture and make part of their tribe. They immediately grasp that Zhan Hu has received a similar message. They decide to kidnap Frosty and Sherea, and hope that Zhan Hu will not take away James.

ZHAN HU: When these turkey-snoggers get their note, they begin celebrating! Now they will have seven members! And Fei Long will have five! They are being given an amazing gift! It’s crazy! A huge power shift! What beautiful world is this! They choose Aaron and James from the list on their message, like kids on Santa’s lap, and then embarrassingly continue their gloating. When the next boat arrives, they figure out that life isn’t made out of candy canes and unicorns, and they lose Sherea and Frosty. Sad music plays and Sherea manages to squeeze out a lazy tear.

FEI LONG: A boat arrives and Aaron and James go off to Zhan Hu. Jean Robert’s blurred buttcrack mutely mourns. Lunch lady predicts that Jean Robert will now have to work. Jean Robert lopes toward irrelevance by talking about himself in the third person.

Both tribes strategize that they will vote off their new captured members first.

ZHAN HU: James awesomely complains that everyone at Zhan Hu is happy. “My people over at Fei Long are miserable. I like misery.” Pei Geih interviews, “We have control of the two strongest players in the game right now. It’s just a matter of what we choose to do with them."

FEI LONG: Sherea plans to be a better, stronger, nicer Sherea now that she has a chance to start over at Fei Long. Jean Robert has the same plan. They are going to try and out-useful each other to stay alive. When he rises early to make nobly make a self-sacrificing pot of rice and then rouses everyone else to do the rest of the work, Denise accuses Jean Robert of being bossy and corrects his manners.

ZHAN HU: This tribe is always in the damn lake.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE: Now to the important part of the show!

Pei Geih has devised a plan that is more complex and diabolical than the Six Finger Plan, which Nakomis devised on Big Brother, causing us all to say, “Who here has six fingers? This is America!” Here is the plan: Zhan Hu will throw the challenge, getting rid of the Fei Long members at their camp and protecting the Zhan Hu members at the other camp. They will go to tribal council and vote out James or Aaron, guaranteeing that Frosty and Sherea will survive. They plan to make it to the merge with 5 on each tribe, evening out the inequity that now exists.

The most important aspect of this challenge, however, is not the strategy. It is the glorious fact that the merciful producers have, without comment or fanfare, given all of the survivors the swimming suits they packed from home. Thank you, kind producers. One more round of Sherea and Denise in their underwear with the awful bits blurred, and I was going to have to put forks in my eyes and die. Apparently it only takes a couple weeks of filming to realize that denying them their suits was hurting us more than it was hurting them.

Zhan Hu throws the challenge while giggling. Jeff Probst does his usual pious, snotty thing that he does when people throw challenges. James and Aaron are extremely frustrated, but figure out which way the wind is blowing. Fei Long wins immunity! Jeff reveals that Jaime actually went so far as to throw one of the puzzle pieces onto the other tribe’s pile.

ZHAN HU: Back at camp, James berates the girls while they giggle. He is completely disgusted and interviews that he can’t support people like this. Erik doesn’t like it, but has to stick with the girls.

TRIBAL COUNCIL: James rants sensibly about how foul it was for the girls to throw the challenge. All around me, I can feel America loving James. Zhan Hu loves James too, whether he likes it or not, and they vote off Aaron, whose lack of a personality makes it impossible to joke about his demise.

NEXT WEEK ON SURVIVOR: The tribes get ball gowns!

Labels: episode 5, recap, survivor, survivor china