‘Survivor,’ where no one knows the correct amount of rice to cook

Welcome back! I missed you. The readers, I mean, not the show. You all give me strength to carry on and I want you to know that I appreciate you.

Sadly, Balls Up was eliminated last week, right after I was prepared to type “Balls Up” for the next 12 weeks. And of course, John Rocker is two weeks removed from the island now, but his girlfriend, Julie, remains. FOR HOW MUCH LONGER?! Read on, brave soul, and find out.

- Julie may as well not have been on this episode. And John Rocker is but a distant memory. How quickly they forget, after he was the Poochie of the first four episodes. (Yes, even the first episode after he was eliminated.) And Julie’s team won the Immunity Challenge, so she’ll still be with us for at least one more week. See? You get your answers right up front this week.

NOW ON TO THE QUESTIONS.

- Everyone on the previously-dominant team (read: not John Rocker’s former team) is now seemingly gunning for Jon, the former Michigan State football player. Not really sure why. I guess because you need to pick on the former athletes? Everyone’s “strategy” vacillates wildly between “eliminate the weakest competitor” and “eliminate the strongest competitor” at breakneck speed. It’s almost as though no one has any idea what they’re doing, ever!

- Balls Up’s brother’s mind is basically ENTIRELY BLOWN when he finds out Balls Up has been eliminated. (Hey, I get to keep typing “Balls Up” as long as his brother is on the show! Hooray!) He doesn’t understand that his brother was a total choad, I guess.

- Right before the first commercial break, Jeff Probst asks everyone to take their bandanas off (which he calls “buffs”) and everyone starts freaking out. This probably means something, but now I have to wait a whole commercial to find out!

- Oh, everyone is switching teams. I guess this is a thing that happens? Jon ends up with his girlfriend, Dale ends up with his husband and Baylor ends up with her mom, all on the orange team (John Rocker’s former team). This means Keith is the only person on that team without his “blood,” while the blue team now has only one “blood” pairing. This is supposedly meant to cause strife and turmoil. This show has more forced narratives than [literally any sporting event].

- The teams switch campsites, too? That seems needlessly dumb. Bummer for the blue team, though, because they had tons of food and gear. Now they have like two cups full of rice.

- Baylor extremely creepily watches Jon and his girlfriend make out, then complains about being single. And about her mom being single. Do ... do you think they meant to sign up for “Temptation Island” instead?

This is the face Baylor makes while she watches Jon make out:

Oh, Baylor.

- The two teammates who were previously dealing with Balls Up and are now on a team with Balls Up’s brother (Balls Up II) can’t get over how these two dumdums are exactly the same, yet attempt to form an alliance with him. That didn’t work out great last time, everyone. Balls Down.

- The people who suddenly find themselves with a wealth of rice don’t really appear to know how to cook rice and are also awful at rationing. JUST THROW IT ALL IN THE POT WE GOT A MILLION OF THESE RICES. You guys clearly did not deserve rice. It’s gone to your head. YOU’VE GOT RICE MADNESS.

- Meanwhile, the other team (new blue team) is so hungry, they’re debating throwing a rock at a vulture to kill and eat it. NO ONE TELL THEM THE OTHER TEAM IS MAKING TOO MUCH RICE.

- They march to another Immunity Challenge and it’s on a massive football field-sized area off the beach, which has a freshly-constructed, really elaborate obstacle course on it. How big is this place that they’re on? It doesn’t seem to actually be an island. Now I know why everyone just sits around and spends all day talking about bullcrap: because a bunch of carpenters and PAs have to build this stuff every day. I bet the catering for the production staff is REALLY good. I bet they just toss out entire steamer trays of rice every single day. Probably feed the vultures with it.

- Everyone has to crawl through what Probst calls “mud” but is essentially just oil. Gross oil. It results in the group photo you see at the top of this article. On the bright side, it helps bring out everyone’s muscle definition. Dig those striations!

- The orange team is totally smoked in the Immunity Challenge and for some reason Probst insists he’s shocked that all the family members being together doesn’t result in better communication. Have you ever met a family, Jeff? They’re horrible.

- The 20 minutes of conversation about who should be voted off and who should form an alliance is easily the worst part of the show. It’s a dozen people who think they’re chess masters playing an Immortal Game, but they’re actually just playing tiddlywinks without a cup.

- Dale’s daughter Kelly gets voted off. I’m not really sure why, because the talking points were mainly “the blood needs to stick together” and “Dale is old and should be voted off.” But there you have it. They just keep flipping those tiddlywinks around and there’s no place to put them.