Water Cooler Talk from Two Guys Who Look Alarmingly Similar
Week 14
Woo -- Amber is in the Final Four! Or are Rachel and Ross in the Final Four? We may have watched a little too much TV tonight.
Whatever the case, we're very glad to see that the Executive In Charge of Subtitles will finally get that much-needed vacation he's been wanting as Big Tom has finally been sent back to the Tower of Babbling.
As tonight's episode began, Big Tom was making so little sense that even the Subtitle Guy couldn't figure out what on Earth he was talking about. His tribemates were even more confused. Tom could have been having a heart attack or something, and he was probably very insulted that everyone ignored his desperate pleas for help.
Jenna literally drives Rupert up a tree.
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Meanwhile, Jenna, who is clearly the Mastermind of the Operation, decided to have a Highly Secretive Conversation with Rupert, where they concocted a brilliant scheme to oust Boston Rob from the game. There was a teeny flaw with their plan, considering Rob was hanging out right there, and heard the whole conversation.
Rupert, thinking quickly on his feet as he realized that Rob was listening, began to pretend they were talking about getting rid of Tom. Rupert apparently figured that it would be easy to fool Rob into thinking they were talking about Tom all along, considering that "Rob" and "Tom" both have three letters in their names and all.
The Survivors can't imagine why the challenge course has turned into a parking lot.
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Soon enough, it was time for the Reward Challenge. Everyone wondered what the reward could possibly be, and why the heck did someone park a brand new GMC Chevrolet Colorado truck in the way of the obstacle course.
Well, surprisingly enough, it turned out that the truck was the reward! The game consisted of elements from several previous challenges from this season.
There was a balancing board challenge; a challenge with one of those things you have a hard time crawling under, particularly if you happen to belong to a gender that has bosoms; an annoying puzzle challenge; the "launch a beanbag into a laundry basket thing" challenge; and one of those zip line doo dads.
Jeff Probst starts talking about Rob and his plank...
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At one point during the competition, Jeff Probst noted that Boston Rob was "adjusting his plank." We're not quite sure what that meant, but it sounded like a personal issue. It reminded us of the time on Survivor: Amazon when Rob Cesternino announced that he hadn't "tuned his bugle" for a while.
Anyway, apparently it was a good thing for Rob as he narrowly beat Amber for the reward. In addition to winning the truck, Rob got to choose someone to join him on a Hot Date. And, while Rupert or Tom may have been logical choices, Rob shocked everyone by selecting Amber to share the reward.
Rob gets confused, thinking he had actually won a boat.
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The happy couple sped off in the new truck, with Jeff Probst acting as a chaperone. Soon they arrived at a drive-in movie theater, where Amber & Rob looked forward to the opportunity to forget about the fact that they were stranded on a deserted island for a while. Unfortunately, the theater happened to be showing the Tom Hanks film, Castaway that night.
When Amber & Rob got back to camp, Amber broke the news that she also got a brand new car out of the deal. Virtually nobody was jealous about this revelation, except maybe Jenna, Rupert and Tom.
Soon enough, it was time for the Immunity Challenge, which involved brains. Needless to say, Tom had some trouble. Everyone had to find the names of previous Survivor tribes in a word search puzzle, and then they needed to unscramble intersecting letters to spell one final word.
Tom assumes the "voted off" position.
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Captain Immunity, Boston Rob, managed to win the contest by unscrambling the code phrase: "The Water Cooler Guys Rock." Big Tom made some last-minute attempts to save his hide. He explained to Rob, "Narl weil seeah weah dis flergle smoot blearmishes in sa mooka."
Despite that sincere plea, the Ho-Down was over for Tom. On to the Final Four for Amber, Rob, Jenna and Rupert!
An Important Note To Our Valued, Yet Insane Readers: Under normal circumstances, we tend to post our recaps just a couple short hours after each episode of Survivor airs. Sunday's finalé will be a bit of an exception, though. We'll be out of town, attending a bit of a party, so we'll be rather dreadfully late in posting our amazing insights about the last show.
Amber thinks deep thoughts. Namely, "IWBATSTF.D."
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We strongly encourage you to sit at your computer, constantly hitting "refresh" on your browser until around Tuesday. Just do it. Don't ask questions.
Since we won't be able to write our column as promptly as usual, we would like to offer the following paragraph as our initial reaction to the finalé. Please simply circle the appropriate selection to correspond with what happens on Sunday night:
"We wish to offer our sincere congratulations to (Amber | Rob | Rupert | Jenna | Elvis)! You really played this game (with amazing integrity | as well as could be done under the conditions | as a human slimeball | as a scum-sucking toad)! We hope that the million dollar prize will bring you (great happiness | a secure future | leprosy)."
Well, before we close things out for this time, we feel we should offer some insight into the Big "IWBATSTF.D." Controversy of '04, or at least what we know about it.
Some folks with eagle eyes have spotted a teeny little series of initials at the bottom of Amber's web site this week, initials that clearly identify the winner of Survivor All-Stars to those who are able to decipher the code. Or maybe it's the model number of a muffler for a 1978 Ford Pinto. We really have no freakin' idea.
Initials are fun.
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This series of letters first appeared on another popular Survivor site, hidden in such a way that only true geeks might take notice of them. Once the true geeks found out about this mystery, they posted them to other discussion boards on the web, where people began to speculate what it all meant.
We enjoy screwing around with people as much as the next guy, so we thought it would be a barrel of fun to post the same set of initials at the bottom of Amber's site. We did this on Tuesday, and by Wednesday the message boards were buzzing with new speculation about why this would appear on Amber's site (we also posted it on Jenna Morasca's site for a little while, just to add more fuel to the fire).
Well, we have been getting all sorts of e-mail from people, wondering why... WHY... WHY!!?!?! Why are these initials appearing here? What is Amber trying to tell us?! Could these messages be a prelude to the end of the world?
As we mentioned, we don't have the slightest clue what IWBATSTF.D. might mean. Perhaps it's a hint about the outcome of the presidential election, or the key code to Osama bin Laden's cave. Maybe it's a recipe. It really could mean anything. We're very sorry if anyone fried any precious brain cells while trying to figure this out.
But if you really spent that much time trying to figure this out, well, um, you have way too much time on your hands to begin with! Of course, you're hearing this criticism from people who have so much time on their hands that they'd post this message on the site just to goof around in the first place, so what're ya gonna do.
Insightful Commentaries:
The Amazing Race
Survivor: All-Stars
Survivor: Australia
