Survivor recap: You Can't Handle the Tooth!

Typing with one hand is hard. I know this because I sit here writing up my Survivor TV Watch while my left hand remains glued to my mouth in horror. At the sight of Coach, you ask? For once, no. At the fact that I’m all out of Milwaukee’s Best? Nope, since there is some leftover Corona in the fridge from my recent 4th Annual Tacky T-Shirt Party. No, this particular horror involves…teeth. I have a teeth thing. To be clear, teeth themselves I don’t have a particular problem with — although years of headgear and retainers gives me every right to. No, my issue is with any sort of chipped or knocked out teeth. Freaks me out. I have nightmares about all my teeth falling out which I am fairly certain is symbolic for something very horrible that I am too scared to look up. No one loves seeing people get whacked in the face more than I do, but when it comes to tooth damage, I lose it. And contrary to what that may lead you to believe, I am not a big softy. Hell, I can take a movie like Evil Dead 2 — in which a character cuts off his own hand with a chainsaw, watches the hand escape and give him the finger, and then blows it away with a shotgun — no problem. But as soon as teeth get involved, I automatically retreat to my happy place and start humming “Me Ol’ Bamboo” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (By the way, it just took me five-and-a-half hours to type this paragraph).

So watching J.T. lose part of his tooth in the immunity challenge was hard to take. And I’m guessing I’m not alone. Even tough guy Probst got a little wincy upon hearing the news. But there were plenty of other wince-inducing moments from this latest episode of Survivor: Tocantins. The episode began the way all episodes should begin — with sex noises. However these sex noises were merely Taj on the receiving end of a Stephen back scratch. “I’ve never brought such pleasure to a woman before,” said Stephen, and deep down I think we all believed him. Taj promptly repaid the debt by pulling the hidden immunity idol out of the statue’s butt and giving it to Stephen for safe keeping. Show of hands if you yelled “IDIOT!” at the top of your lungs at the TV screen right about now. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Look, I get that Stephen has pockets so he can conceal the idol better than you, Taj, but you never, ever, ever hand the idol over to someone else to hold for you. Hell, I’d rather wear it around my neck for everyone to see instead of giving it to someone else who could potentially then vote me out or simply decide not to give it back. True, Taj could threaten to send her husband over to separate Stephen’s head from the rest of his body after the game ends if he turned on her, but if I want an idol to stay safe, it stays with me.

NEXT: Miles and miles of toilet paper

Meanwhile, over on Timbira, Brendan and Sierra finally got a chance to chat as the rest of the tribe went down to the water. Sierra was all like, “Why didn’t you tell me about the secret alliance?” and Brendan was like, laughing, and I’m like, “Why don’t you both shut up and look for the other idol which you still haven’t found?” Seriously, have they given up on that or what? That fire pit is where they were digging, right? What’s going on there? My confusion and anger on this topic, however, were quickly replaced by utter shock at the sight of Sierra smiling. And not some lame half-smile either, but a real, full-fledged grin. I truly didn’t think she was capable. “We rule! It’s over!” Sierra declared. Getting cocky on day 13: never a good idea.

Hey, does anyone have the sudden sensation of needing to go to the bathroom? And needing to stay there for a really, really long time? I’m talking about the kind of trip that could require, oh, 52 or 53 rolls of toilet paper? Well, you’re in luck! Welcome to the Charmin Café! With enough toilet paper to serve a small country! But to get there, you need to win the reward challenge. As the teams lined up for instructions, Coach looked over to see Sandy had been voted out and remarked, ”It was only a matter of time.” Hmmm, randomly going out of his way to dis another woman. Interesting. The challenge involved a tribe member pulling a rope to spin another tribe member sitting on a circle and holding on to a pole. The spun tribe member then had to dizzily try to walk along a balance beam without falling off. Good fun to be had here, watching the contestants stumble around slowly like a pack of inebriated zombies.

And Jalapao certainly had fun seeing as how they won. Stephen announced they were sending Brendan to Exile, so Brendan turned right around and brought Stephen with him, leading Joe to sarcastically proclaim ”That was classy, dude.” Wait, what exactly was unclassy about it? Was there a classier pick to be made there that I’m missing? Plus, Joe, you’re not one to talk about classy. YOU DROPPED A FREAKIN’ GRENADE IN YOUR PARTNER’S LAP ON THE SHIELD! HOW CLASSY WAS THAT?!? Plus, of course, Joe was unaware of Brendan and Stephen’s secret cross-tribe alliance. Tyson, however, had his suspicions, but more on that a bit later, because it’s time to get poopin’ over at the Charmin Café!

”You guys have a fun afternoon in store,” Probst told the victorious Jalapao tribe. ”The Charmin Café is waiting!” I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but there’s something odd about wishing people to have a fun time at a place named after a product designed to wipe off human feces. Once there, the tribe ooooooohed and aaaaaaahed over the pastries, hammock, and toilet stocked with a lifetime supply of toilet paper. (Seriously, what are they planning on doing in there?) Of course, all of this was overshadowed by the discovery of letters from home, which automatically begged the question: Who’s gonna cry first? Oh, it looks like it’s going to be Taj. She is opening her envelope — repeat: opening her envelope! Could be any second now…. But wait, what’s this? No! Out of nowhere it is Sydney in a huge upset! No one saw that coming! Of course, once Sydney let loose, all the waterworks opened up. Even J.T. got all teary, announcing that ”My mom has only told me she loved me three times in my entire life.”Are you kidding me? I tell my kids that three times before breakfast every morning, to which they respond ”We know! We know! Enough already! Where are our damn Eggos? And don’t skimp on the syrup!”

NEXT: A challenge with real teeth

Back on Timbira, Tyson told the rest of the tribe that he thought Brendan was trying to build relations with Jalapao and should go next. There’s a lot to like about Tyson: He’s obviously amusing and good with the one-liners, but the guy is also smart, cunning, and does well in the challenges. I know I picked Brendan to win it all back in episode 1, but at this point I’m not hating on Tyson if he takes home the large novelty check either, even as he strategizes to take down my man. And then there’s Coach. Coach also chimed in about Brendan getting friendly with the enemy, but I was honestly too distracted by his shirt being draped over his shoulders like a cape to catch most of what he was saying. But I shouldn’t poke fun at Coach. After all, he possesses the awesome power of meteorology! He told us all about the wind shifting when there is rain coming but how an incoming storm would miss them. Cue the thunder: Next thing you knew the camp was getting positively pummeled. Too priceless.

While Stephen and Brendan were getting to know each other on Exile (non)Island, Sydney was busy dreaming about her boyfriend eating chips and salsa during an earthquake. (There are worse ways to die, I suppose.) She then asked Spencer if he had any special ladies in his life. This was it: Would he admit to being gay? Would this be his big Survivor coming out party? Uhhhh, no. ”There’s a lot of cute girls at UF,” he replied, declining to mention that he was interested in none of them. Turns out Spencer was worried that J.T., being from the south, would perhaps be somewhat prejudiced against homosexuals. Now, one could wonder if Spencer was in fact being prejudiced against southerners by saying such a thing, but seeing as how he is himself from the south, and gay people have had to fight against bigotry much worse than southerners, I’m letting that one go. Besides, it’s immunity challenge time, and there will be plenty of reasons to pick on Spencer there.

The challenge was a Survivor standby — the ol’ launch and catch. First team to five wins. J.T. caught the first two balls to give Jalapao an early lead, but then Brendan caught the next two to even the score. Taj was getting sick of Brendan getting free so she decided the best way to slow him down was to grab his pants — not the first lady to do that, I’m guessing. When that didn’t do the job, however, she went for the full bear hug technique. It worked, as Brendan would be shut out for the rest of the game. J.T., meanwhile, caught another one, but lost something along the way — his tooth. Not a trade I’d be willing to make. So what does J.T. then do with his precious chomper? He spikes it! Like he’s just scored a touchdown! (Maybe he was trying to impress Taj’s husband?) When asked by Probst what the heck he was doing, J.T. said he didn’t want the tooth, so Probst did the right thing by stopping the game to go retrieve and pocket the sucker. I don’t know what was on your mind, but I know what I was thinking at this point — eBay that mo-fo!!! (Unfortunately, he gave it back to J.T. after the challenge although I have NO IDEA what the hell he was supposed to do with it back at camp.) After catching another ball to give Jalapao a commanding 4-2 lead, J.T. was forced to sit back and watch Spencer get dominated by the much taller Tyson, who caught three straight to give Timbira the win. J.T. yelled at Spencer for not stopping him, and finally threw his net down in disgust.

NEXT: Taj on a rampage

Things were not looking good for Spencer at all. If only some lunatic could start ranting and raving for no reason whatsoever back at camp to take the pressure off of him. Oh, hello, Taj! Apparently the victim of a mind-erasing ray that had wiped out any and all memories of her allowing Brendan to score two of the five goals against her team, Taj started yelling at everyone else announcing that ”everybody can kiss my ass” which, last time I checked, was not the sort of thing you want to be blurting out right before a visit to Tribal Council. My favorite part was when she screamed at Joe for not trying to make an alliance with her. How dare you, Joe! You know better than to not make an alliance with a woman with whom you’ve barely spent any time and have nothing in common with. What’s wrong with you, man?

So it was off to Tribal Council to see whether it would be Taj or Spencer getting the boot. Taj had the athlete clichés down cold, even announcing that she gives ”110 percent” in the challenges. The weirdest part of T.C. had to be when Joe called Taj out for never actually saying the words ”I do not have the idol,” then said she didn’t have to say it, but then said she did have to say it, and then finally said he believed her. I felt like I was in the middle of an old Abbott and Costello routine. Wait, who’s on first again? No matter. Spencer was voted out unanimously, leading to these odd parting words of wisdom from Probst: ”Well, you’ve lost two immunity idols in a row, two tribe members in a row. Worse than that, you lost momentum.” Actually, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that that is by no means worse. I mean, how is losing momentum worse than actually losing? The goal of the game is not to not lose momentum, but to stay in the freakin’ game! Plus, they had only won one challenge in a row before that, so what momentum exactly were we talking about here? The whole thing was like saying, ”You’ve failed your math test. But even worse is that you lost the math study guide that would have enabled you to study and pass the test.” No, I failed the stupid test! That sucks way more! Probst usually nails those little post-elimination speeches, but this one was kind of a WTF? moment.

Speaking of Probst, don’t forget to check out all the inside dope he’s dishin’ on his weekly EW.com blog. Also, make sure to watch the exclusive deleted scene from last night’s episode right below. Don’t cost nuthin’. And not only will Spencer himself be here for a brand spankin’ new edition of Survivor Talk on Friday afternoon, but we’ll also be joined by another super secret former Survivor guest. Now it’s time to let your voices be heard. Got somethin’ to say to Survivor producers or contestants (many of whom read these message boards)? Then post away now. Would telling people he was gay have helped Spencer strategically in the game? Should Stephen have voted off Taj when he had the chance and kept her hidden immunity idol? And am I the only one freaked out by teeth? Get your post on!

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