Survivor: That's Baked, Barbecued And Fried (Episode 1604)

How's that saying go? Oh, yeah: "Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill." Works for me!

It's Day 9 at Malakal. Anybody up for some bitter recriminations with their boiled water and coconut chips? Cirie and Jonathan rehash the same argument from Tribal Council the night before, with Jonathan saying that Cirie "flipped at my expense." I think it was really at Yau-man's expense, but I get his general point -- Cirie broke up the Core Four and now they're easy pickings for the Hookups. Seeing these likeable people being so unlikeable isn't any more palatable in daylight. If I wanted to watch people sniping and snapping at each other, I'd watch the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, or, you know, FoxNews.

Over at Airai, Jason skewers an eel on the beach while Chet lazes around, doing nothing. Natalie (Hey, Nat! Nice to see you!) says that Chet doesn't do any work around camp, and Joel pipes in that Chet is "bad for morale." I'll admit Chet's looking pretty rough, kind of like a cornhusk after harvest, but he's the one who's savvy enough to figure out that either Eliza or Yau-man would be voted off. Take that, Eel Boy!

Chet's not the only one feeling physically spent -- Eliza's so sick she can hardly stand up. James goes to check on her, which is sweet, then tells her to "suck it up." Nice. She lies down in the shelter, saying she's conserving her strength for the challenges. James is all for voting her sick ass off, to the point that he says, right in front of her, that they should have voted her off the night before. There's something refreshing about all these people airing their dirty laundry in front of everyone else. Oh, and James also says it was a mistake for his alliance to "fold to Cirie's will." Gee, you think?!?

The Reward Challenge is a water challenge, which leads My Mister to say, "There's no beating Ozzy in the water." It's ridiculously true. The challenge consists of four people from each tribe swimming out to a platform, then diving down to a thirty-foot-long cage containing painted coconuts. Some of the coconuts have letters stenciled on them. The swimmers maneuver the coconuts along the length of the cage underwater, then toss them in a floating box. Once they have all ten lettered coconuts, they bring the box back to shore, where the remaining tribe members unscramble the letters to spell out a word. First one to complete the task wins a big reward: Three egg-laying hens and a rooster. To show they're up to the task, the hens have dropped three eggs already! Go, hens! Maybe they won't make chicken soup out of you! Since the Fans have one extra player, they sit out Chet. He's old! He's weak! He wears dentures and support hose!

The Favorite swimmers are Ozzy (duh), Penner, Ami, and Parvati, while the Fans send Jason, Mike, Alexis and Natalie. With just a few flicks of his dolphin tail, Ozzy streaks to the platform and dives down to the cage, and then stays underwater so long I'm sure he's sprouted gills as he moves four coconuts all the way down the length of the cage, making it easier for the subsequent swimmers to get them out and up into the floating box. Jason does just fine, but Ozzy makes him look like he's treading water. Despite the leg-up from Ozzy, the Fans catch up at seven coconuts apiece in the box, but the Favorites still get to ten first, and bring their box in to shore to Amanda, Cirie, Eliza and James. As the women start juggling the coconuts around, trying to figure out the word scramble, James steps in, takes a look and says, "Triumphant!" Sure enough, that's the word, and the Favorites win reward! Okay, that was cute. I like James, most of the time, and I love that he played a crucial role in a challenge that didn't require him to bench press a small island. If you're keeping track, the Favorites have now won every single reward challenge.

The Faves choose Kathy to go to Exile Island. AGAIN. They send Ozzy with her. *scratches head* Okay. I don't get that. Why send one of your strongest players? Though Kathy calls him a "scrawny little kid," you can tell she's getting a kick out of being out there with one of Survivor's best players. It's a Fan's dream come true! She's so excited she completely forgets to look for the Hidden Immunity Idol! I bet Jeff Probst wishes he could have a night on Exile Island with Ozzy; they could braid each other's hair and Ozzy could regale him with tales of his athletic prowess. Ozzy tells Kathy he's going to find some food, then proceeds to dolphin and monkey his way right to the Hidden Immunity Idol. We don't see how long it takes, but the editing makes it appear that he gets the job done in about twenty minutes without breaking a sweat. Compare that to Kathy and Cirie's hours-long slog across the lagoon, and you begin to see why I question the tribe's decision to send Ozzy if they thought Yau-man was too much of a threat. Ozzy's tickled to find the Idol, which he puts in his hat, then slyly transfers to his bag right in front of Kathy. Then, using the idea he got from Yau-man, he whittles a makeshift idol he names "Igor," wraps it in the same cloth and puts it under the same rock where he found the original. Now that's smart thinking. For some reason, I also think it's adorable that he watches the show even when he's not on it.

While Ozzy's off finding the critical, game-spinning Idol, the rest of the Favorites hang out and talk some more. *yawn* Eliza and Parvati go off for a walk and lie to each other, then lie to Penner when he creepily stalks them from behind. Wow, none of these people are coming off looking particularly good this go-round, are they? Parvati says Eliza's throwing Penner under the bus because she doesn't trust him. Penner considers Eliza an outsider, when it's pretty clear to me that Penner himself is the one who doesn't have anyone in his pocket. For a smart man, sometimes he doesn't see things too clearly.

The Immunity Challenge turns out to be a good example of where prior experience is a huge advantage for the Favorites. Six members of each tribe are harnessed into this weird spider-webby thing made with poles. First they have to unlock themselves, then move, as one, through the "forest" and pluck necklaces off trees. The necklaces have colored beads that then fit into a "decoding wheel" to form a three-word phrase. It's awkward, to say the least, and luck plays into it a little bit with trying to find the right keys for the right locks, but basically the Favorites just smoke the Fans, completing the entire task in the time it takes the Fans to start collecting necklaces. Whoa, the Fans sucked at that. Let's blame it on the old people! Oh, wait, that's right, they sat out Tracy for this one, because she's…what?...OLD! She wears girdles! And orthopedic shoes! And they put Chet and Kathy (Old! Blind! Deaf!) on puzzle solving, which they didn't get a chance to even try because the six young'uns failed so completely at the first part of the task.

At the Fans' camp on Day 11, Joel says the "crew of misfits" lost again. "Not even close again," he says morosely. Mike says he's going to pretend to ally himself with Joel, then, "cut his damn head off." Quite a blood-thirsty crew of misfits, huh? Mike tells Joel he wants to vote Chet out, asking him to "give a little to get a little." Meanwhile, in the Old Folks' Home, Tracy tries to shore up both Kathy and Chet, who are looking like they're ready to cave in and start believing their bad press. Chet says his head is still in the game, but his body's not. Doing her best to motivate her little block of voters, Tracy says, "Go down with a fight."

Now comes my favorite part of the episode, where Tracy plays Joel like a freaking fiddle. She tells Joel that she thinks he's "rolling over" for Mike, letting him call the shots, following him like a herd of cattle. She might as well have said, "You know his penis is way bigger than yours, right?" She says she's "intuitive" and she senses that Joel himself is on the chopping block. Then she says if one of the "old" people gets voted off, their block of three votes can't help Joel anymore. She encourages him to find one more vote for Mike, so they can take him out 5-4. Man. Tracy's got balls. I do a little dance in my chair at the look on Joel's face. He has absolutely NO IDEA what just happened; frankly, that's how we women like our men.

At Tribal Council, Erik and Jason (who look so much alike I'm having a hard time telling them apart) both take time -- including Jason interrupting Jeff to spout more platitudinous bullshit -- to blah blah about stuff, including the fact that the Fans have lost four of six challenges. Chet owns up to not performing well in challenges, which Mike dickishly agrees with. Then Tracy steps up again and points out that the "old" people didn't compete in either the reward or immunity challenges and the fuckers still lost. HA! Take that, you ageist jerks! Mike repeats his "give a little trust to earn a little trust" mantra, but it doesn't seem to be getting him anywhere. They go off to vote (after Jason's little speech about How Important This Vote Is), and since we saw Joel fall like a ton of bricks for Tracy's line, it's not too surprising to see that though Chet gets three votes (Mike, Jason and Alexis), it's Mike who gets his torch snuffed, ending up with not five but six votes, as Joel managed to pull both Erik and Natalie into voting with him. Interesting. Very, very interesting, and much more satisfying than last week's vote. Joel gets to retain his alpha dogness, but Tracy's shown she can sway him using the sheer power of her awesomeness. This might turn out to be one of those seasons where the weak vote off the strong. Well, if by "weak," they mean "a smart, beautiful, resourceful woman of a certain age," then I say, "Bring. It. On."