Rupert Walks the Plank, Five Swords In His Back
Posted by scrtprncs on 2003-11-20
Rupert Walks the Plank, Five Swords In His Back
In all of the seasons of Survivor that I have watched, I have never seen such blatant editing in any of the episodes I watched. I was tricked into hoping that it wouldn’t in fact be Rupert that was voted off, due to how much camera time he was getting. Unfortunately, my final bubble of hope was burst, as Rupert becomes the second member of the jury.
This episode held a melancholy tone, as Rupert was portrayed in a way the viewing audience is not familiar with seeing in Rupert. Usually a jovial, happy-go-lucky man, the Rupert in tonight’s show was depressed, melancholy, and subject to bouts of conversation with himself. The opening scenes portray Rupert, alone late at night discussing with himself his strength in the game. With it being so late in the game already, and Rupert discussing how much he missed home, I thought for sure that tonight’s reward challenge would be some item from home. Be it, a letter, video, visit from home, or my likeliest guess was their luxury items. That was not the case however, today’s luxury challenge was once again, food.
The luxury challenge consisted of a ropes course through a set of a pirate ship set. The survivors were broken into sets of two: Lil and Burton, Jon and Rupert, Sandra and Tijuana, and Christa and Darrah. Lil and Burton faced Jon and Rupert in the finals, with Lil and Burton winning the challenge. In the first of many stabs in Rupert’s back in tonight’s episode, Burton decides to hand his reward off to Jon, after promising Rupert that if Burton won, he would give his reward to Rupert for last weeks passed reward. Lil decided immediately that she is not passing her reward off, so it is Lil and Jon that win the opportunity for Pizza and Beer aboard a Catamaran with an afternoon of deep sea fishing. This picture is so completely obtuse in so many ways. First of all, the obvious: Burton should have honored his promise and given his reward to Rupert. Instead he passes it off to Jon who is the least deserving man on the island. The wanker not only has never ever won any form of competition, but also cost Rupert and himself the reward challenge win by forgetting a step at the challenge, and having to go back and repeat it. Then, on top of Jon not being deserving of a trip of a lifetime, Lil for certain is not all that deserving either. Burton carried Lil through the entire competition, with her bumbling and ambling and rolling along behind the workhorse. Aside from the fact that as I stated last week, she is not halfway near the point of starvation as the rest of the Survivors are. Then, of course, there is the simple fact that it is Rupert who catches all of the fish on the island. He of course, then, should be the one who is taking part in such an awesome adventure. Burton’s refusal to allow Rupert to take part in his reward sent a message on so many levels. Not only did it tell Rupert what a low opinion of him he had, but it also showed me how desperate Burton is to prove his worth, by having to stoop to the lowest measures possible to beat him. Burton knows that Rupert is by far the strongest person on the island, so he needs to use any sneaky positioning he can to oust him. He does this by not only by removing his opportunity to gain strength from the food on the ship, as well as the fish that he may have caught. Burton also breaks Rupert’s spirit. Once the spirit is broken, there is no hope.
Before Jon and Lil leave the island for their mini-adventure, they have a pow-wow with Burton to reassure each other of the alliance they have together. Sandra over hears this and passes the information onto Rupert. Rupert tells Sandra that he isn’t worried that he knows he has Lil in his back pocket. However, that of course is not the case. Lil is very charmed by Burton, and seems to be holding strong to this outcast alliance. That saddens me, because Rupert is the only person on that island that befriended Lil no questions asked, and never treated her like the others have treated her. She turned her back on the one person who was 100% her friend. While Rupert goes fishing, and Sandra and Christa head off to collect lemons, Burton rallies the rest of the Suvivors and creates a “Burton” alliance to vote out Rupert.
Going into the immunity challenge, Rupert already knows that there could be a shift in power and this immunity is the most important for him to win. The challenge consists of a board of darts, played slightly like the game “cricket”. Each survivor needed to hit their own color, before being able to seek out other survivors colors, and take them out. Rupert pulls to an early lead, by hitting his target first, allowing him to seek out the other survivors. Jon and Burton followed close behind. Rupert was able to take a double shot at Darrah, before Burton hit Rupert’s target, worth double points. Sandra then, in a move I’m sure she is still kicking herself for, accidentally hit Rupert’s target and knocked him out of the game. Burton proved his strength, and ultimately won immunity.
Back at camp, it was an Oscar winning performance, as the “Burton” alliance made Rupert believe Darrah was the one going home. At tribal council, Sandra plays up Rupert’s strength, as Lil shoves that dagger in a bit deeper, and contradicts Sandra’s statement about Rupert being the soul fisher. Lil chimes in the Burton, also, is a fisher, or at least a Sting Ray[er]. Jeff asks who clearly is not pulling their weight around the camp, and Sandra is not shy about naming Jon as the laziest one at camp. Jon attempts to deflect Sandra’s finger pointing with poor attempt at wit, and the voting begins. Unfortunately it is Rupert that gets voted off, with the exception of Rupert and Christa voting for Darrah and Sandra voting for Jon. This is what absolutely confuses me. Was she so pissed off at Jon’s attitude at tribal council that in the heat of the moment she decided to write him down? What would have happened if Rupert had gotten a few more votes which possibly would have ended in a tie, and she stupidly threw away her vote. Of course, if’s and and’s are no concern now, since Rupert is now gone. However, I think it does give us a glimmer into the thoughts of Sandra and possibly a preview of things to come. Next week supposedly Jon gets some tragic news ( hopefully enough to send him home) and Burton is shown trying to prevent some sort of mutiny. Don’t forget next week’s episode is on Wednesday night to accommodate the American Thanksgiving. Please feel free to join us on the Reality TV Planet message boards. Registration is required before posting. Until next week, the princess has spoken.
