'Survivor' contestant Rodger Bingham helps a thirsty Michael Skupin
Now, as a fellow soldier (reservist, Public Affairs) I'll give Kel the benefit of the doubt in the Jerky Incident, mainly because I don't know where he was supposed to have gotten the stuff, and because in Big Green they teach even intelligence officers a little about honor and such.
But guilty or not, the guy folded like a tent in front of Queen Jerri and the assembled cool crowd, offering up his razors with a truly pathetic look on his face. And if you're an Army guy who can't fish, can't bond with others, and lets an old lady with plastic teeth outsmart you in the Tribal Council (although technically, Maralyn voted for "Cal," so maybe that doesn't count), you're better off back at the base saluting toilets with a toothbrush.
I'll bet the Army brass thought they'd pulled off a real p.r. coup when he made the show. Next season, stick to the sponsorship.
But Low Cal wasn't the only disappointment of Week Two of "Survivor: Back to the Outback." The contestants are really starting to sound like they'd watched all the tapes of "Survivor 1" before they got on the plane, and the cattiness we're supposed to eat up like pasty rice really sounds forced. Frankly, gross-out Wheel of Gastronomical Misfortune or not, at about the halfway point the director's-cut 40-minute "Friends" with George Costanza was awfully appetizing, clicker-wise.
But I am a professional, as Hunter Thompson used to say, and at least there's no shortage of future castoffs. Keith, the master chef who can only cook when there's porcini mushrooms involved and who's trying to pass himself off as a do-rag-wearing stud who can carry "big logs and stuff." Alicia, who may be able to wash the Kucha Tribe's clothes on her stomach but can't even make bitchiness entertaining. Nick, who doesn't have a discernible personality, and Tina, who's sweet and earnest but can't keep her grub down or my eyelids up.
The story-within-a-story, and the truly entertaining moment of the episode, was the drama around the gross-out food wheel. Kimmi, a vegetarian who will eat fish but has a moral objection to "land-dwelling animals," including cow brain, should have been canned for costing her team the win. But Tina choked — literally — on her tripe, and Kimmi came back impressively by scarfing down a foot-long mangrove worm, which apparently didn't bother her morally. (I guess the Vegetarian Code doesn't cover anything nobody in the West ever thought to eat before, even if it is land-dwelling.) And kudos to CBS for the well-designed tiebreaker.
Mark my words, the Cool Kids are taking over this game. Jerri, the camera-seeking missile who apparently gets it on with "rice is rice" Colby in Week Three, is getting more and more abrasive but is ruling this place with the hand of the high school prom queen that all the plain girls were scared of. She and Mitchell have the makings of an alliance, judging from the way they froze out Kel, and Keith or Tina will be their next victim as soon as the Kucha Tribe gets their act together and wins an immunity challenge.
That's also bad news for Rodger, despite a heartwarming cliff's-edge performance in the Reward Challenge — don't worry, buddy, the Sundance Kid couldn't swim either — and Michael, who is catching fish and making breakfast but can't seem to get any love for it, possibly because of that stupid war paint. Keith and Tina are marked for passage, as is Jeff, who's young enough to pass but way too spiteful to have not made enemies by now. Maralyn, she of the tooth-removing "I'm ready," may actually have the spunk to last awhile, but the 30-and-under crowd (and I'm being charitable to Jerri, who is probably lying about her age, as the Aspiring Actress Code requires) will waste no time in weeding out anybody they couldn't have gone to high school with.
The good news is, by Week Seven any loyal viewers nostalgic for "Friends" may not be able to tell the difference.