Honest Achmed and his dysfunctional Arabian family are back for "Survivor: Panama, Exile Island!! To find out more and to see this upcoming season's recaps and commentary, log on to www.honestachmed.com
Hope to see you soon!
After noticing there were 18 castmates instead of the usual 16, though only an hour for us to get to know them, and with commercials this week claiming the first ten minutes were going to be insanely shocking, I expected:
They Came at us with Spears…and then wandered away.
After noticing there were 18 castmates instead of the usual 16, though only an hour for us to get to know them, and with commercials this week
claiming the first ten minutes were going to be insanely shocking, I expected:
Instead, we got something that was just, as Buffy sang in Once More With Feeling, “Going through the motions/walking through the part/nothing seems to penetrate my heart.” Survivor has to walk a fine line between giving us comforting tradition, and boring sameness.
We begin, as usual, with dramatic shots of Probst standing on the lip of a smoking volcano, belching out industrial-grade clouds, sharply contrasting with his neat tan. It almost looked blue-screened, to be honest, and I found it a touch distracting. He basically did his standard “We’re back, 39 days, 18 people, 1 survivor” shtick, which to me is as essential as “The tribe has spoken.” In other words, let’s put on a show!
Credit for the credits
There seemed to be more of a rapid-cut style in the edits, both with Probst’s welcome and during the credits, perhaps to go with the heavier “tribal” drum sound. I don’t know what the lack of tribe-definition in the credits means, as the web site gave away the boys-vs.-girls “twist.”
They came at us with boats!
When the “natives” came at the Americans, we had a return of the war-drums. Nahh, I don’t sense any exploitation at all! And the contestants just standing around open-mouthed, radiating passivity, until Wonder-Probst comes to rescue them, with tales of a “rite of passage” and flutes on the soundtrack. Although he uses “impact” as a verb, a verbal tic that should be solely reserved for dentists, by his upright posture on the boat we are clearly meant to see him as the godlike guide who will point the hero (whoever he or she may be) on the proper path for the quest.
We finally get an interview clip of a contestant, Mia, simply stating she’s nervous. However, in a Campbellian myth, the hero is at first always reluctant, so this makes me want to keep an eye on her. Unfortunately, with eight other women, I honestly lose sight of her the rest of the episode, unless I refer specifically to my notes.
Our second speaker is Travis, in a Bob Barker tee shirt. He talks about having only learned to swim six weeks ago, and so we get the expected punchline – his boat tips over. Well, it’s nice to have the jester identified early on. Like the fools in royal courts, often they are the only ones who dare speak the truth, so they’re always worth watching.
Once the all make it safely to shore, the titular Men With Spears menace everyone – except Rory, the sole African American in this season. Rory is also the first person to get a second interview comment. This much exposure can either mean there’s a limited time to show footage of him, because he’s out soon (which is what I expected after the find-the-beach flap), or because he’s so dang fascinating we’ll want to hear his comments constantly. Unfortunately, though he survives the first episode, we see more evidence of Rory’s outsider status, throughout the hour.
Pre-law student Eliza is another frequent commenter throughout the episode. With her, I admit, I pray it’s because she’s out soon, but I fear instead she is being made into the villainess. The women’s tribe (as we’ll see in the next act) quickly divides into young vs. old, and there appear to be more of the young. In other words, she could be a villain with a power base.
Sensitive, or Vanuatupliotation?
As she describes the ceremonial dance, I think of a “sensitivity training” presentation a friend went to. The man sat on a stool, the woman on the ground, and the man pushed the woman’s head to the ground. When asked what they thought, the audience complained about how it was subjecting women and terrible. But the ritual was, it was explained, because women were closer to Mother Earth, but men had to stay at a remove, but they can assist women in getting closer to the earth. In other words, the supposedly more “enlightened” audience members were the ones reading a negative meaning into things.
However, Survivor is a show for American audiences and American contestants with American worldviews. So even if the men got kava and pig’s blood and a magic rock, and the women were spared the lip-numbing and pole-climbing because they “have their own blood” or whatever, and if women were to be honored, I didn’t see it. And, probably as the producers expected, this simply strengthened the men vs. women team spirit. But still, the blood theme is emphasized (though the men get the blood-red buffs). Right before the first commercial, Mia states “we’re out for blood now.”
Map? We don’t need no stinkin’ map
We get more stereotypical gender dynamics when we return to each tribe attempting to find their beach. The women are epitomizing passive-aggressive, claiming they “don’t want to be a leader, but….” while Eliza narrates that they need a leader. Rory halts the men’s tribe, saying directly to the others “Let’s try this other plan.” OK, I admit it was a stupid plan (as they were to camp on a beach, and he wished to explore trails leading away from the water), but at least they all directly addressed it. They continue walking as they had been, and appear to immediately find camp, further cementing Rory’s outsider status. The editors cut back to the girls finding their flag, and cheering. We have no way of knowing how far away the camps were (Well, if someone really wants, I’ll track down the information on various survivor sites) and how long they walked. Still, I find it curious that the editors decided to show us the men successful first, perhaps to give us the impression of the women as “underdogs” to lead up to the challenge.
After some gorgeous night and day shots of the sky, surf, and clouds, we see we’re still at the girl’s camp. Though one of the men at the ceremony said he’s relieved to not have to fool women, as they stick together while men start competing against each other immediately, we see that in this tribe anyway, he would have done well. The tribe has immediately split into what appears to be Scout, Twila, Leann as the older crew, the worker crew and the bathing sorority girls. Scout comments about Eliza’s constant chatter, which the audience has already seen. Though Eliza so far appears to have numerical superiority, are we being led to see Scout has having wisdom and leadership? Only an immunity challenge loss will tell, and we’re not there yet.
When we go back to the boy’s camp, they appear to all be working together on creating fire and mispronouncing “embers.” Unfortunately, working together doesn’t seem to mean working smarter, as they are unable to transfer the embers to kindling. There are a surprising number of shots of the good luck rock, making me wonder if it’s flint.
In interviews, we see individuals snapping at each other, but we don’t get a sense of cliques. Chad reveals his prosthetic foot (alas, he didn’t get the sparkler toenail option), and everyone is suitably inspired. Brady (the greased-pole-climber/FBI agent) says in a self depreciating tone that he’s jealous: Chad has everything he has and a sympathy vote. Brook, in one of the few times I see him this episode, ironically states that a guy can be inspiring, he’ll still vote him out. (Acmebraintrust successfully predicted he’d be first out.) With that final thought, we go to commercial.
Flame on!
After commercials, there’s a beautiful shot of the mouth of a volcano shooting up fire and sparks – definitely a hint that the traditional “Quest for Fire” is on its way. And also a gorgeous shot. I need to write a play featuring a volcano, perhaps. Or perhaps a performance art piece, with me dressed as a superhero making marionettes bellydance in front of a giant screen showing shots of volcanoes … but I digress.
At the challenge, the immunity idol is a spear. Hmmmm. The challenge itself is 4 parts: crawl through a mudpit, solve a box maze, cross a balance beam, and create a fire (with matches). The mudpit could favor the men, with more upper body strength to haul themselves forward, but they also have more of a body to haul through. It seems towards the end of the mudpits, as Probst points out the women are working together, then the men pull ahead. The women are instructed to “drag” Scout to the mat. This does not look good for Scout’s longevity in the game. Again at the box maze, Probst mentions something about the women are working together, and the men win it.
The balance beam, traditionally favoring women, is where it gets interesting. The men have a few falls, but they also get a few men across before the women start. The men start to crawl along it, one at a time, and this time, the women steal their strategy, only with several on the beam at once. Scout is the last on the beam, and if Chris had won, it would reinforce the old vs. young theme, but instead, he falls (repeatedly), and she makes it through.
As the women win, they cheer. I’m not talking about the victorious yell: I’m talking about a planned chant. This makes me hate them. The men are then shown walking in groups of 2 or 3, armchair quarterbacking, while the women are still jumping. We fade to commercial with alternate shots of Chris walking off into the sunset and girls still cheering. Yes, they have flint and immunity, but the group-hug-jumping makes me think the editors want me to dislike them. And so I shall.
Who should go?
Back from commercial, we now have a more subdued shot of the volcano, showing only embers, not flames or lava. This echoes the ember they didn’t know what to do with, the dark torches they’ll carry back to camp, and the fact that I still can only tell a few of the players on either tribe apart. (I also sense the editors are telling me I should look up some geology sites).
As Chris goes off, others discuss booting him. Lea has apparently mastered the art of appearing to agree with people, without making a firm statement either way. This should serve him well in the game, and I sense a potential Iago here. Like in the girl’s tribe, there’s an old vs. young dynamic, but not as pronounced. And while Rory is named as a target, I don’t believe he’s in any vote discussions or confessionals. Again, this portion of the episode, normally deeply satisfying as we see various potential paths play out, because I still don’t know who everyone is, I feel muddled. I had hoped the editors would provide clear guidance, but they have failed me. I can see why Rory could be a target, but there’s no convincing case for the others.
The tribe has spoken, but why?
We have some great orange and black sunset shots, interspersed with shots of skulls and the river, taking us into tribal council. After the customary Fire is Life speech, Probst asks directly who wants Chris out (for his immunity loss). I am glad he addressed this head on, as typically tribes do vote out people who lost a very specific challenge, though they don’t repeat challenges until the tribes merge. Chris managed a nice deflection by stating that Rory “for example” was bothering people – indirectly isolating Rory a touch more. This made me worry that Acmebraintrust was wrong, and Rory was out, because the show has to make some sort of sense, right? Probst also asks what they thought of the women, and while some made diplomatic remarks about underestimating them, and changing the game, Brook states something about their “nice tails.”
At the actual voting book, we see Brook and Chris voting against each other, and Brady voting for Rory. Had anyone else voted for Rory, or if this had been season 1, that could have made sense, but I’m losing my love for the FBI man. Instead of an action movie hero, he is perhaps a romantic, idealistic hero like Cleante, the son in Moliere’s The Miser.
As the votes are read, whenever there’s a cut to Chris, there’s a grim smile-and-nod. At this moment he reminds me of a hero in a Western: he knows he has to take his hits, but the right thing will win out in the end. When Brook’s votes are read, he’s first serious, then nodding, then blinking. Again, I’m assuming the editors are feeling free to rearrange the order of events slightly, so reaction shots are inserted to communicate character, rather than necessarily what truly happened. I interpreted the path of Brook’s reactions to be first showing he was a touch surprised/concerned, then trying to “take it like a man” with his nodding, but the final blinks indicated he was ultimately surprised.
In Brook’s final words, my favorite part is where he admits “I didn’t learn anything about myself.” Neither did the viewers. Still, he served admirably as a disposable spear-carrier, I supposed.
What did we learn?
This was sort of an unusual episode, as all first ones are, because they serve more as the first act to the season than a satisfying self-contained one. Unlike sports, no players are retained from the past to give a sense of continuity. I sense that Mia and Lea are being set up as key players, but I’m not sure in what role. I don’t feel I learned much about storycraft either, which is disappointing. Please, feel free to write me at survivorstoryteller@webpixie.com to tell me what I’m missing.
Until next week ...
April Walters