Board Thread:Virtual Tribal Council/@comment-1294345-20160311105314/@comment-5392675-20160311152250

Copied from my Facebook review, as promised. (Verbatim)

This episode was a bust. From Caleb's evacuation to the highly predictable Alecia boot, the only bits that were really engrossing were the events of the horrifying Reward Challenge, which brought back memories of TAR 9 and Samoa.

Anyway, let's skip past the moments where Debbie calms down from her newfound power and comforts the newly dethroned Peter.

It's the next day and there's a Reward Challenge. Upon looking at the sand, I knew that it was going to be a bad time for the castaways - it was so well-lit... Time for a sunburn of a whole new level.

You know it's intense when the CBS videos show the "Dig It" challenge at three times the duration of the immunity "Jungle Relay". It starts out pretty innocuously - shots of the challenge, Chanloh walks in without Liz, the contestants do a log wiggle, then they proceed to do something reminiscent of the Puzzle Dig. It's when the "ELAPSED TIME: 45 MINUTES" tag pops out that you know shit has gotten real.

Still, everyone looks pretty fine - no one is showing any signs of dying. Sure, everyone is sweating buckets and Alecia is *cheerleading* and all, but no one is seen to be collapsing onto the sand, which I imagine must be as hot as magma by the time *45 minutes* have elapsed.

Out of nowhere Chanloh gets all their bags and achieves a blowout victory (in Jeff's words). Then Debbie collapses. I was extremely worried that she would end up being the medevac, but she manages to push through it - this is while Totang and Gondol are still digging for bags if I remember right. Losing Debbie would have been devastating - all that unintentional humor gone, all that strategy down the drain.

Gondol finds their third bag and proceeds to the carnival game from hell - I mean let's be real, any challenge after the sand dig must have seemed as if they were devil spawn.

Caleb completes the challenge for the Beauties, winning the runner-up reward in the process over Totang by just one or two balls. What a consolation! At this point he still seems pretty okay, since the heat exhaustion isn't apparent until he collapses. Then at this point Debbie makes a full (well, as far as 'full' goes) recovery and it's Caleb's turn to suffer. One moment he celebrates and the next he's in a corner exhausted. Medical sees to him and gets him to lie down as they do a series of tests.

Cydney is stuck to the pole and is seen crying. And her tribe doesn't even have a consolation prize. She is then brought under the shade, near Caleb. The entire crew is then called in to help with their recoveries - this is when shit officially gets so real, "Roll With It" is re-happening. Caleb is eventually unable to recover, but Cydney does. The former is brought to a chopper - poor guy. He really seemed to be an amazing person at camp; I can understand why Gondol was devastated. And we get to see the first of Michele in a long, long time. However, he was probably the most inconsequential of the Trifecta of Collapses, so while his evacuation was terrible, it could have been worse.

We then see the tribes at Camp. Debbie makes a highly emotional confessional that genuinely put me on the verge of tears. Cydney's position at Camp while listening in on the argument is literally me while watching an argument - BRING THE POPCORN! Scot and Jason's continued berating of Alecia is simply unacceptable though. The "keep cheerleading" quote lost Scot some of my respect.

Anyway, the Immunity Challenge is where Totang's dysfunction was at an all-time high. The challenge is essentially make-or-break for Alecia's stay in the game, and their loss sealed her fate. (Side note: "HIPPOCAMPUS, AMYGDALA, FRONTAL LOBES!" should become mainstream.)

The douchefest that is Totang proposes to Jeff the idea of an impromptu Tribal Council which Alecia rejects - no matter. The editing doesn't even bother to show us the at-camp strategising (nice going, Reward) and skips right to the Tribal Council. I don't know why they didn't show everyone's votes a la "Give It Cheese", given that the boot was so darn obvious. Alas, Alecia goes home.

I really hope the Tribe Swap puts Jason in his place. At this point (well, since the start) Peter is a better person than Jason, and that's saying a lot. Additionally, I hope it gives Cydney new life. And I'm pretty sick of Gondol being next-to-invisible, so the Tribe Swap will definitely take care of how Anna's Alliance will continue.

Overall, I give this episode 7 embryos out of 10. And this has nothing to do with the three collapses.

P.S. I can't wait for the "infection that can destroy in a matter of hours" evacuation (if it turns out to be one).

EDIT: I was just reminded of Debbie's random pose while recuperating moments after Caleb was evacuated. THAT POSE IS GOLD OMG.