Gone East

Rupert Rules!

He is the best.

He should have his own series.

I hope he starts dating and they start following him around in real life.

BTW, at the end of the vote off ceremony, they had a cutaway showing hte tribe. Burton was wearing the sword in the cutaway shot.

That's not right. Rupert was wearing it then, so they used a shot from before Burton gave Rupert the sword, after Burton gave Rupert the sword.

That's why I love TiVo. You can stop live TV and catch these silly things.

Did anyone else see what I'm talking about?

I like Rupert too, but I am really glad Burton is back...he is such a hunk. Glad that lawyer is gone.

Here's a great writeup of the episode:

http://www.ew.com/ew/aol/article/latest/0,11892,3113|85333,00.html

That's great Sherman, but you've got to be a subscriber to see it.

Oops. I guess I'll have to violate some copyrite:

Josh Wolk column from EW on AOL

So Burton and Lil are the two Outcasts back in the game. Burton I can see: He did lead their ousted tribe to victory. But Lil? What was the thought process there: ''Who will we be proudest to represent us and show that we're not losers? How about the grown woman in the Boy Scout uniform!'' Why not crown her with some Mickey Mouse ears before sending her back? Now THAT would really teach Morgan that the Outcasts are not to be messed with!
Other than Burton, there really wasn't anyone else who made a great case to be sent back to the game. Nicole said she was a bad apple, and that could work to her advantage. Yeah, that really worked the first time… when she was voted out BEFORE a grown woman in a Boy Scout uniform. Michelle's platform was that it would be awesome for a cute little girl to beat everyone: so she was going for the irony vote? And Skinny Ryan campaigned on his love of the game: Sure, he weighs 13 pounds and has proved utterly useless at all challenges, but hey, he has Gervase's autograph at home!
The morning after Burton returned to Drake, Rupert immediately pulled him aside to set things straight, telling him he dinged Burton because he made fun of his skirt and plumber's crack. Come on, Rupert, be reasonable: when is the last time you saw the words ''man's skirt'' and ''plumber's crack'' NOT in the same sentence with the word ''mock''? Add a big hairy guy into the mix, and you're just asking too much to stay quiet. But Rupert did give a touching speech about how Burton reminded him of all the bullies who used to tease a young, fat Rupert. Under all that hair, Rupert is just a troubled teen himself, isn't he?
Somebody needs to get rid of Rupert fast. Sure, we'd all like to see him win, but it wouldn't be ''Survivor'' if the obvious, deserving winner and strongest player skipped right to Tribal Council. Considering he has dominated nearly every challenge so far (take that, childhood bullies!), the other players would be wise to take him out sooner rather than later. Plus, we viewers will all get more entertainment value if he gets axed: he's sure to let out a wail and start smashing the Tribal Council stage. The other players and Jeff Probst will have to beat him back with their torches like townspeople battling Frankenstein.
Now, Lil may dress like a halfwit, but she played like at least a three-quarter-wit. Her response to Andrew's pleas to vote with Morgan was perfect, especially when he asked her to at least tell him who she was voting for before Tribal Council, and she said, ''Did you tell me?'' Go get 'em, Lil! Granted, she was probably emboldened by Rupert lurking over Savage's shoulder, giving her the stink eye, Rupe-style. I think he was trying to give her support, but he looked kind of threatening: I expected him to pull a Boy Scout out from behind a tree and hold a knife to his throat, whispering, ''Stick with us, Lil, or the Webelo gets it right in the neckerchief!''
So Lil stuck with Drake, and took out Savage. Now I wonder if we'll have to endure three predictable weeks of Tijuana, Ryan O., and Darrah getting voted out to finish off Morgan. (Then again, perhaps Drake will forget Darrah exists, and accidentally leave her to the last two. ''Wait, who's she? I thought she was part of the shelter!'') However, if Burton is smart, he'll convince the leftover Morgan to join him and Lil, then they could take out Rupert and the rest of Drake.
So the game might get dirty from here on in. However, in our real world, everyone seems to be at war either with guns or with words, so wouldn't it be nice if the Survivors set an example and actually bonded together one week, put their differences aside and worked together for the common good? And by that I mean throw that jackass Johnny Fairplay out of this game. Oh, what a wonderful world that would be.

I love this guy's stuff. Here's last week's:

Another episode, another shocking twist. Which outcast will be voted back on? Hopefully, for all our sakes, it won't be Osten, says Josh Wolk, who was finally -- after weeks of begging -- allowed to quit

 
SWEET SURRENDER Osten finally gets what he wants -- a boot off the island

In ''Big Brother 3,'' when the evictees were kept on ice until they came back to compete to get back into the house, the producers sent them all to beach resorts. But on ''Survivor,'' Mark Burnett continued to starve the ousted ones so their competition to get back in the game would be fair. No wonder they were all fired up to compete: While banished, they'd been eating just as little as the contestants, but weren't getting filmed for their troubles. You can take a reality-TV contestant's food, but if you really want to hurt him or her, take away their camera time.
Some might complain that letting cast-out players back into a game messes with ''Survivor'''s integrity. To that theory I must paraphrase Jon's memorable words to Shawn: ''SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!'' Burnett is amazing at introducing enough twists to keep his concept interesting. Compare it to ''Joe Millionaire'': The brain trust behind that show thought and thought about how to eke out another year, and the best they could come up with was casting patronizing European women and a really, really dumb guy.
So without knowing who is subbing in, where does this leave the tribes? Over at Drake, Rupert is getting cockier by the minute. It is inconceivable to him that anyone should vote him out: he ranted at Jon, asking him how he could ding Rupert when he had gotten them all the food. He seemed like a troll's Jewish mother. And when he made Jon and Shawn argue for their lives in front of him, Sandra, and Christa, he was getting dangerously hubristic. Anyone remember what happened to John, Zoe, Tammy, and the General when they thought they had control of the game in Marquesas? Well, it ended with John in tears: I don't want to see Rupert get all snuffly, mostly because it will take forever to get snot out of that beard.
But he's still in control, for now, as Shawn is out. There must be miles of footage on the cutting-room floor of him being a complete ass: That's the only way I can understand someone wanting him out over the hateful Jon. ''Survivor'' thrives on casting a Guy You Love to Hate, but the weasley, arrogant Jon is just a Guy You Love to See Get Kicked in the Groin. And until someone does so, there's nothing to Love.
Over at Morgan, Andrew is also getting dangerously authoritarian. When his tribe lost the challenge, he was apoplectic over the idea of one of the ''misfits'' coming back into the game, and demanded a pledge from his teammates that the returnee would be voted back out immediately. Andrew is turning into the Colonel Kurtz of Morgan. If he shaves his head bald next week, I advise the rest of Morgan to back away slowly.
But Andrew didn't need to worry about his delusions of power backfiring, since Osten volunteered to go. He said his body was a temple, and I guess he was packing up his Torah and going home. In this game, Osten has been a more pointless muscleman than Arnold Schwarzenegger at a NOW rally. And has anyone else noticed that the more tired he's gotten, the more his Boston accent has come back? ''If I can't give a hundred and one pah-cent, fahget it.'' He claimed that he hit a wall, which implies that there was a time before when he was actually effective. Hmm... wonder exactly what percent he was giving when he almost drowned?
His surrendering seemed to infuriate Jeff Probst. Robbed of the suspense of tribal council, all Probst could do was browbeat Osten, determined to make him admit that he was a failure and a quitter. But Osten was far more dedicated to bailing out without apology than he ever was to playing the game. So Probst made his way around the rest of the tribe, making them all say Osten was a wuss. It was like the Bizarro world version of ''An Officer and a Gentleman,'' with Lou Gossett Jr. wanting Richard Gere to stay. I was waiting for Osten to start wailing, ''I've got too many other places to go!''
Finally, Probst let Osten leave, and was visibly disgusted. I expected him to say, ''Get off my island,'' and boot Osten in the pants as he left. He wasn't even allowed to say his final words over the closing credits. I wouldn't be surprised if Probst told him to find his own way home, and Osten is still living on that island.
So who will the outcasts vote back into the game next week? People won't be able to vote for themselves, since they all would. And there's not much incentive to rally behind other people, since there's no splitting the winnings, and there's not much pride in losing a vote twice in this series. Well, at least Morgan might get a stronger player than Osten to replace him: in other words, Lil it is.

(Posted:10/31/03)

I can't believe no one commented on the fact of the sword changing during the tribal council's reaction shots. It SO shows the editing tricks they play--showing supposedly true reaction shots of people during Jeff's questioning, when in fact the reaction shots are NOT reactions to what he says at all! I have TIVO too, and my wife caught the sword bouncing from Rupert to Burton, too. I'm really surprised there's not more criticism of the Survivior producer's on this blatent misleading of the audience.

My worst fear is when darrah will win. There has been rumors spread in some websites that she is the sole survivor. God forbids, but that girl is lazy and a parasite. She just depend on others to feed her. She doesn't help look for food. But If the souls of the dead in the mortician's office would use their powers to help her win, then she is lucky. But may those souls can't enter heaven.

if i was on the episode that aired on November 20th, 2003 i would have walked up to john after the teribal council when Ruper got voted out and wiped that little look off his face.