What. Just. Happened.

As I’m sure most of you are, I too am struggling to process what I saw on this week’s episode of Survivor. The first thirty minutes were normal, at least by Survivor standards. The craziness started with Alicia taking Kat’s comment personally for no reason whatsoever and devolved in to what will be remembered as either the craziest or worst tribal council in Survivor history.

We’ll come back to Alicia because if we start with her, we’re burying the lead. The problem is, where do you even begin with what happened with the Manono (the men’s tribe for those of you not paying attention) tribe after the immunity challenge?

Logic would say to go in chronological order, but logic was thrown completely out the window this week, so no sense in doing that, either.  For me the biggest part of the episode was the tribal council itself, even more than the men volunteering to go there when they didn’t have to.  Don’t worry though, we’ll cover that to.

Two weeks ago the entire premise of my review was thanking Kat for being awful at the challenge so we were not subjected to an entire episode of Colton’s whining.  This week Colton got us back.  His out of control and boorish behavior began when we should have been watching the women come to terms with voting Alicia out.

Instead we had to watch a petulant, immature, insecure a-hole hijack Survivor.  For no reason other than simply being immature, Colton refused to listen to Bill when he wanted to talk.  You know who does stuff like that?  My four year old nephew.

Louis CK has a great skit where he talks about what it would be like if adults acted the way toddlers do.  Louis, you can check out this week’s episode of Survivor if you want to see it actually happen.  The only problem here is that the rest of the tribe is somehow too afraid of Colton to stand up to him.

On some level Colton does not HAVE to listen to Bill.  It’s immature, but those are some of the choices we get as adults (and we’re using the terms loosely with Colton).  What he can’t do is be a complete jerk to Bill about it.  Yet, in the context of the game of Survivor, I can forgive the remaining men for letting it slide.  I cannot forgive them if they let tribal council slide.

Colton took his already tired act to a new level at tribal council in a verbal spat with Bill where he lost every point.  Jeff asked him to make his case why he didn’t like Bill and Colton had virtually nothing with substance to back it up with.  Bill, meanwhile, took the high road, said he did not dislike Colton and simply asked him not to judge him.

When Colton suggested his dislike was not racially motivated he embarrassingly substantiated that claim by saying he went to a private, all-white high school and interacts with African-Americans.  Those African-Americans he interacts with?  His parent’s housekeeper.  The women who’s paid to be there and clean up after him.

The coup de grace for me, however, was when Colton attacked Bill’s profession saying it wasn’t a real job and he needed a backup plan.  This nearly brought Bill to tears as he explained that he’s been on his own since he was 17, poor and is chasing his dream.  He doesn’t want a backup plan.

Colton’s lack of perspective is astounding.  As Bill points out, he’s never worked an honest day in his life.  He’s obviously a spoiled college student.  For him to call anyone’s job a joke and challenge their line of employment is laughable.  What would Colton even know about a backup plan?  His is mom and dad.

Just when things were Jeff-Probst-eye-poppingly absurd, Tarzan opened his big, clueless mouth to give us his two cents on what is going on.  Shockingly, Tarzan suggested that Colton was being misrepresented because he was white and people were assuming he disliked Bill because he was black. 

Um, Tarzan (or Greg for normal people), even if that is true (and no one believes it) he’s STILL being a giant asshole.  Anyone with half a brain can see that!

Now we come to what scares me about this episode and this season of Survivor so far: I don’t think Colton will face any retribution for this.  We’re only four episodes in to Survivor and people are already scared to challenge the status quo or whatever ridiculous episode one alliance they put together.

He absolutely should, however.  The start of next episode should be Jonas, Troyzan, Leif, Michael and Jay retuning from tribal council with the oh-my-god-what-the-hell-just-happened-faces on.  Quickly they all should realize they cannot let someone like Colton stay in the game because he obviously does not deserve it. 

Sadly, of course, it’ll take a blindside because Colton has an idol.  They’ll have to figure out how to get rid of him without him knowing it is coming.  Needless to say, I do not have faith we’ll get so lucky.

The same scenario likely would have existed on the women’s side if the men had not done the unthinkable.  Alicia OBVIOUSLY should go home because she’s useless in challenges, completely paranoid and a mouthy bitch.  Her display this week should warrant immediate removal.

But, from the moment Sabrina suggested the obvious Kim quickly hemmed and hawed and suggested Christina go home.  Every time Sabrina suggested a reason why Alicia should go home and Christina should stay, Kim had no answer, but still did not seem willing to budge.  Why?

Fear of going against the grain.  It’s why Kat stayed on this week and why Alicia would have stayed in the game this week.  It’s why even though the men did not have a majority on giving up immunity; they eventually caved because they did not want to be seen as the one challenging the authority.

As for the men giving up immunity under the guise of trying to remove any ‘cancers’ that would fester while they wait for the next tribal council, that’s utterly absurd.  So often we hear this talk from women with men scoffing, wondering why women can’t deal with such adversity. 

It was all garbage made up by Colton because he’s too emotional to see the forest for the trees.  Oh, boo hoo.  You have someone on your tribe you don’t like.  Cry me a freaking river.  Why would you willingly make the game harder for yourself by going to tribal council intentionally?

One thing that became clear to me with Bill’s ouster was that Troyzan, Tarzan, Leif and Jonas were all in on the ploy to get the other guys to go along with giving up immunity just to vote Bill out.  Tarzan oversold his treachery angle with Leif and Leif even oversold his guilt at tribal council.  Leif not defending himself doesn’t make sense until you realize he’s in on the ruse. 

For the first time in 24 seasons I actually find myself annoyed with the show.

I’ve never been one to let a character or two bring down my enjoyment of the game, but I fear what is development.  Characters you can root for like Chelsea and Jay unwilling to stand up to jerks like Colton and Alicia who are boorish because that’s who they are, not to try and win the game (like, say, Russell).  Sad.