Survivor: I Have the Advantage ... For Once

The tiresome two are lazing around in the shelter (imagine that) and gloating. Apparently, they think getting Jonathan booted was a victory for them. Sorry kids, it was only delaying the inevitable.

Pavarti chirps, "We're the underdogs, we gotta fight!" STFU.

Yul and Ozzy bring in the Treemail, which tells our tribe that the next reward challenge involves mud and a luxury getaway. Pavarti and FrankenAdam decide one of them has to win, otherwise Adam's getting a trip to Exile Island.

I wonder why Pavarti wasn't afraid of being sent to EI. Maybe the other tribe members are wary of the Hissy Fit of Doom she'd throw. Gee, now I want Pavarti to go to EI.

It's the return of the mud pit challenge! Messy madness! Probst explains the game: Survivors run and jump into a giant pit of mud, roll around in it, and then crawl through some obstacles to a bucket, where they will scrape the goop off. You can't use your hands to carry mud. Person with the most mud in 10 minutes wins a luxury spa getaway with food, booze and all the goodies.

Before they start, Probst says the winner will take two people with him. Yul makes a gesture towards Becky and Ozzy. Sorry Yul -- the second and third place finishers will get the spots.

A challenge like this, while hysterical, is damn hard to narrate, and Probst's lame commentary shows that. "Yul's got some mud! Ozzy's in the mud! Wow, that's a lot of mud!"

So to sum up: Yul puts his back into it, Ozzy uses his head (and his neck), Sundra piles mud into her hair, and everyone gets very, very dirty. Pavarti is the funniest, as she tries to pile mud on her chest and finds she doesn't have the rack to hold it. Ozzy beats everyone by more than 20 pounds, Pavarti comes in second and Yul beats Adam by a half a pound to win the third spot.

Ozzy sends FrankenAdam to EI. Bye!

Alone at camp, an extremely grubby Sundra and Becky hide from a downpour in the shelter. Becky points out how competitive Ozzy is, how the two of them really have no chance of beating him and how he really likes to win. Duh!! If its taken you 34 days to realize what a challenge monster Ozzy is, you're not as smart as I've given you credit for being.

Yul, Ozzy and Pavarti take a mud-covered helicopter to a spa, where they are greeted with flowers and showers. Ozzy says it's the best shower he's ever had. It'll be released on Skinimax next year. The trio then get hot milk and coconut oil massages, which Yul commentates through. Pavarti says that the massage has given her the strength to make it for five more days.

In a great cut, they go from massages at the spa to Adam sprawled like a dead whale on EI, complete with flies crawling over his sores. FrankenAdam pouts because Yul's got the hidden idol, and then he sucks down a raw crab and a raw clam, commenting "who needs fire?" Arrruugh! Fire bad! I hope he got some sort of nasty intestinal disease.

The rain pours down, and he huddles in a little lump under the shipwreck. I kept waiting for him to say he wanted a hug from Candunce.

We leave FrankenAdam's delicious misery too soon, and return to the reward trio. Pavarti's shaking her moneymaker at Ozzy. Ozzy says he was once in the position where she was, having to fight to stay in the game. She says she got Ozzy to "open up." His pants? Maybe. His game? 'Fraid not.

Yul, Ozzy and Pavarti share dinner and quite a few drinks. Pavarti thinks flirting with Ozzy is her ticket out of Loser Lodge. Mid-dinner, there's a blackout, and Yul immediately asks Ozzy to light a fire. OK, so now we have confirmation on who does most of the work at camp. Tribal dancers arrive and put on a show by candlelight.

After dinner, the tipsy Survivors drop their drawers and hit the hot tub. Ozzy does a humpback whale imitation that requires massive pixilation by CBS. Pavarti giggles and flirts like the drunken sorority girl she is, cooing about having two naked men in a hot tub. (OK, it was Yul and Ozzy. One can understand the appeal.) Then she confides "I just peed my pants, and I'm not wearing any!"

Yul's pretty sure Pavarti's flirting with Ozzy to advance her game, and says he underestimated her dubious charms. Ozzy says in a confessional that he's playing an individual game, and he might play the game with Pavarti while there's an opportunity.

Get behind that palm tree baby, and give Ozzy some sugar.

Back at camp, Becky admits she misses Yul, and wants to have his babies. No, she actually says she wants to talk strategy with him. After he gets back from the spa, they immediately take off to talk tactics -- and whether or not to boot Ozzy when they have the chance. Yul says that either they take the high road and go to an all-Aitu Final Four, or they take steps to keep Becky and Sundra in the game longer.

Sundra joins them (with a great snarky comment about how Pavarti's asleep because she's all tuckered out by getting a massage) and Yul admits that Pavarti was hitting on Ozzy something fierce. Becky and Sundra are not pleased, and Sundra sums up their thoughts: "You know at this point, we know the other two Raro members are desperate ... Let's cover our bases, let's cover our bases, let's cover our bases, we don't want any surprises."

There's balance beams in the immunity challenge. Why are we even bothering to run it?

OK ... sigh ... Survivors will run across a series of balance beams (the tricky, increasing in height kind) carrying puzzle pieces. Do that four times. Untie the puzzle pieces, put the puzzle together to build a maze. Maneuver two cannonballs through the maze to the corner holes. First person done wins immunity.

Ozzy, predictably, dominates. Yul's pretty close behind, and Becky and Pavarti are doing OK. Becky takes a nasty fall, though -- it so should have been one of Kenny Blankenship's Most Painful Eliminations of the Day.

It's tough to say who sucks more though -- FrankenAdam or Sundra. Neither of them complete a single trip across the balance beams.

Ozzy pulls ahead. Yul's still in it, though -- until he puts the puzzle together wrong. He's still trying to work it out when Ozzy gets his balls in the right hole and wins immunity.

Adam kisses Yul's ring and asks to not be voted off. Yul so sounds like Marlon Brando in this scene, as he tells Adam that if he wants to stay another night, he can make it happen.

FrankenAdam says in confessional that "as long as it benefits me, I'm OK with it." Umm, when Jonathan made a move that benefited him, weren't you the one who called him a "rat cancer" and said he "sucks at life"?

Hey Adumb -- who sucks at life now?

Pavarti approaches Yul. He tells her that she's a threat, but that Adam may be a bigger threat, so it might be him that's going.

Pavarti chills in the shelter with Ozzy and FrankenAdam. She asks Adam who's he's voting for, and he says Sundra. She asks Ozzy who he's voting for, and he's noncommittal, but wonders if he should vote for Sundra too. OK, I see no strategic benefit in voting for Sundra, but whatever.

Yul, Becky and Sundra see the little scene in the shelter, and Yul decides to cut in. He tells FrankenAdam not to try to sway Ozzy.

OK, I adore my Yulie, but exactly where does he get off telling people who they can and can't talk to?

Adam worries that his big mouth may have just gotten him voted off. Man, are these people scared of Yul or what?

As they leave for Tribal, Yul picks up Jonathan's hat, which he asked for when he was voted off. He wonders if its OK to take it to Tribal, and if Jeff will yell at him. Everyone sees him with the hat.

At Tribal, Yul leaves the hat on the jury bench before the Jury comes in. Dang, Jonathan cleans up nice!

Probst immediately turns the conversation into a Congressional investigation of Hatgate, accusing Yul of pandering to the Jury and trying to curry favor. Even Becky says he's guilty of it.

OK, first off, the man asked for his damn hat back. There's no reason *not* to give it to him, and risk pissing him off even more. Second, no one on the Jury would have known who left the hat on the bench unless Probst blabbed, so STFU!

Sometimes a hat is just a hat.

And if Probst wants to call Yul out for interacting with the jury, he should be calling Adam out on that tongue waggle, as well as all the waving, mouthing words, eye-rolling, spit-takes, Doom Faces of Hate and shucking and jiving that's been going on.

I think I liked the Jury concept better when they watched and listened. This season they've been the Cook Islands Mime Theater.

Pavarti talks about her flirt-till-you-get-lucky strategy, saying "Me and two guys in a hot tub, the odds were in my favor, I guess." And boy, I bet Candice just *loved* watching her hang all over FrankenAdam.

Ah, showmance. How quickly it fades.

But the odds weren't enough in Pavarti's favor, and she and her big beaver teeth get sent home. In her final statement, she actually says she should have "worked it harder in the hot tub." I am embarrassed for my gender, and horrified that she's allowed to drive cars and vote.

On the finale: The Brains, the Dominator, the Crafty One, the Outsider and the Heart. They combine to form Captain Planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!