‘Survivor’ is staring at you from the bushes, murderously

Yes, Survivor persists, as does John Rocker’s girlfriend, Julie. This week brings a really awful trade, a lot of rain, a lot of Jeremy thinking everyone is the absolute worst and a lot of Dale staring at people like he wants to wear their eyeballs as earrings.

Read on for this week’s pertinent Survivor musings.

- Julie is still wearing her team bandana as a halter top.

- Julie talks about how scared she is about the impending rice trade while wearing this:

That’s a bikini bottom, a bandana as a shirt and probably a shirt that Xander wore in one of the first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A bold, daring look. Just ... maybe not the one I would have gone with.

- Reed selects Julie from his tribe (the blue tribe) to go to Exile Island with Baylor, who super blew it for the orange tribe during the physical challenge. Reed explains why he picked Julie, saying, “I just kind of feel like Julie’s been doing so great out here. It would give her a chance to show John just how much she can deal with.” What? This stuff doesn’t air until some time after it’s shot. It’s not like John Rocker is hiding just out of shot, secretly hoping she’d suffer just a little more hardship.

Wait, he isn’t, right?

- Luckily for Julie, Natalie volunteers to go to Exile Island because ... it’s not really clear. Because she says Julie has been doing so great, so she doesn’t deserve to be sent away? Something to that effect.

- When it rains on the blue tribe’s recently-depleted shelter (more on that later), she begins crying, saying she can’t handle a full night of cold, uncomfortable rain. Jeremy takes exception to her showing weakness, but consoles her the next morning, when she’s curled up in a fetal position and sobbing because of how cold and miserable she is. This show is depressing.

- Julie ends up being the extra tribe member who sits out the Immunity Challenge for her team, on account of general miserableness. This is about the time I expected the blue tribe to totally throw the challenge so they could vote Julie out. Crap, I’m starting to understand the strategy (such as it is) of this show, aren’t I?

- When Jon (the former Michigan State player) is excelling at the Immunity Challenge, he yells, “YEAH WHO’S BIG JOHN NOW?!” and the camera cuts to Julie, so ... I guess Jon was feeling Little Big Jo(h)n Syndrome. That’s probably a thing. A psychoanalyst should chime in in the comments below.

- Shockingly, although they fell behind by a huge amount during the Immunity Challenge, the blue tribe pulled out the victory once again. So Julie is safe for yet another week.

- Dale makes a fake Immunity Idol in between staring at people like a serial killer.

He carved the fake Immunity Idol himself, in a cunning plan to trick everyone into thinking he has one. He may have carved it out of a human femur bone. He doesn’t really elaborate. It’s probably a femur bone.

- The blue tribe trades for a giant bag of rice. Jeff Probst says there has never been a tribe that needed this much help. I haven’t ever watched this show before, but I know that can’t possibly be true, because this isn’t the same tribe as before. They switched teams. This is like half of the pathetic tribe from before. Get your narrative straight, Probst. Anyway, it turns out the cost of the trade is ... basically all of their stuff. Their tarp, their blankets, their bedding, the hammocks, their machete, their extra flint, one of their pots. Can’t they just be like “Nah, we don’t want rice that bad?” Seems unreasonable and really sort of makes this less of a competition show and more of an excuse to be cruel to people who are afraid they’re about to die. Anyway, everyone but Jeremy gladly agrees and the segment ends with Probst dragging all their stuff away up the beach.

- Jeremy’s reaction to this trade is PRICELESS:

“You know he just took all our stuff, right? Why y’all happy?!” Well said, Jeremy. I enjoy the amount of guff you take, which is “none.”

- This week’s physical challenge, which is really ridiculous, requiring people to be blindfolded and run an obstacle course, feel a mask with their hands, retrieve bags of puzzle pieces and recreate the mask in a different location from memory, still while blindfolded. In execution, it’s just blindfolded people hitting their heads a bunch and then doing a puzzle when exhaling heavily a lot.

- The physical challenge has a BBQ and meat skewers as a reward, which everyone reacts to like the prize is a double showcase showdown. I half expected Probst to be like, “Weber has provided this amazing grill for you all.” There is a shocking lack of product placement in this hit primetime show, which would be admirable if it wasn’t a show about taunting hungry people.

- Jeremy doesn’t care for Reed and Josh’s “huggin’ and kissin’.” Not because he has a problem with gay people or anything, but because “that’s not how you’re supposed to play the game.” I guess David Eckstein should have been on this season instead of John Rocker. Really plays the game the right way.

- Dale offers Jon his fake idol in exchange for not being voted off. I suddenly REALLY start hoping his massive bluff works, because that would be hilarious if “Big Jon Now” traded his fealty for a poorly-carved magic bean.

- Jon: “I’m trying to line myself up so that, when the merge happens, Jaclyn and I are a power couple.” I swear to god, this show is in Esperanto.

- Sadly, Dale gets voted out. Because everyone on this show hates old people. Or they hate people who lurk and stare at them like straight-up murderers.

Yeah, like that. Stop that, Dale.