Andy DehnartSurvivor Tocantins is one person away from having a deserving, non-offensive final four. The alliance eliminated middle school principal Debbie last night after she tried to flip on Coach, and also started making promises about giving up immunity. Basically, she tried to hard and freaked everyone out.
As frustrating as it is to have Coachface this close to to the final four, Stephen and JT made the right call. As Stephen said, “Debbie is a very strategic player” and there’s “a lot going on underneath that persona,” and JT agreed, saying, “You gotta watch out for people like that.” As Brendan pointed out weeks ago, Coach is a predictable player, so he’s safer to keep around.
But I swear, if they get rid of Erinn next week, as the preview suggests they might, I’ll scream louder than Danny Gokey. (However, I do think it’s one of those total fake-out previews, over-emphasizing something that’s relatively innocuous.) It’s time for Coach to go. Even Jeff Probst has clearly had enough of Coach’s bullshit, and openly mocked him at Tribal Council. After Taj pointed out that Coach nicknamed himself, Coach said, “I didn’t come up with that, by the way.” Probst said, Probst “Let me guess: some chief in a small village…?” Coach fumbled a response; it was awesome.
The real story of the episode were the super-emotional reunions, which may just have been the most emotional family reunion in a while. We saw everyone cry (except Coach), but no one topped Taj’s extremely emotional response to even just seeing a video of her husband on a cell phone. She was so wrecked that she didn’t hear him say, “I’ll see you back at camp.” Probst pointed that out and Taj freaked, grabbing at Probst and saying, “See you back at camp! OH MY GOD!”
Taj bought that at the auction reward challenge after everyone pooled their money together and gave it to her, which was pretty stunning by itself, but then Probst offered her the option to let everyone else see their loved ones at camp if she’d send herself to Exile. The second she learned her husband, Eddie George, would be there, she agreed. Bravo to the producers for not pulling a dick move and depriving her (i.e., she gets no one and everyone else gets their loved ones).
Taj and Eddie had a great reunion; Taj said, “I just wanted to take him aside and have a conjugal visit,” while he told us, “She’s dirty now, she smells filthy … but it’s kind of a turn-on, you know.”
Back at camp, while everyone cried and talked with their loved ones, Coach reunited with his–wait for it!–assistant coach. I don’t even know where to begin. Yes I do: with Coach lying on the ground, slapping his thigh, and the assistant coach getting on top of him and thrusting. Explaining that he needed his back cracked, Coach said to the camera, “We are not doing weird sexual positions, by the way.” Who said anything about weird?
Anyway, their reunion was kind of sad and pathetic, especially since Coach was fired from his coaching job, but of course Coach had to lie during it. “Guess what they call me in this game? Dragon slayer,” he said. Actually, you call yourself “dragon slayer.” We call you liarface idiot douche.
