Ep 10 - Beefcake needs beefsteak NOW

And then there were eight

Yaxhum Night 24 saw an increasingly erratic Jamie pick a fight with Gary. He told us that "Everybody thinks he's a good guy. I don't." That may be, but at least Gary had enough wits left to speak sense.

Bless his sweet little confused heart because Jamie then tried to remind Cindy that Gary voted for her in an effort to get her on his side against Gary. She was about as interested in setting up an anti-Gary fan club as she'd be in swapping her own legs for Lydia's.

Jazzy Jamie's third attempt at razzing the GazMan involved calling him a liar, over ...??? something or other.....like breathing??? He was making no more sense than a wino in the carpark of Flemington Racetrack. His usually-faithful buddy, the slimmed-down doorman Judd, told us: "Emotionally this game might be taking a toll on him. Psychologically he's losing it." Just goes to show that a beefcake can't last long in Sanityville without a bit of beef steak.

We'll move on from the individual lunacy of Jamie to the bigger lunacy of the Reward Challenge. Two teams were to race against each other made up of two boys and two girls. Attached to rope they were to negotiate over and under three obstacles to get pots of corn back to the start. All done in wet, thick, sticky, black mud. First team to fill up their pot with corn would then win a helicopter flight to a luxury villa for the night - pool, seafood buffet, hot shower, clean pyjamas, a soft bed and a well-rested wake up to the smell of fresh plunger coffees (some brand that we don't get here in Oz but I'm sure they paid for the making of this entire episode).




Don't worry about the final six Jamie; you're getting great skin out of this mudbath - girls pay a fortune for this stuff at home!









Predictably, Lydia fell in the mud (although being four feet tall wouldn't have helped) and her team mate Cindy saw their victory pass to Danni and Stephenie. Twice. The stumpy old girl was about as popular as the pox when the others - Danni, Steph, Gary and Judd - squelched home to win. Jamie, for some bizarre reason, wanted the still-struggling Lydia and Cindy to finish their leg. "But they've already won, Jamie," called out an irritated Cindy. All Rafe could do was pat Jamie non-committally on the shoulder; kind of like you would to an overheated pit bull.




Ooooh Judd - I didn't realise you felt that way about me!















The helicopter immediately came and swept off the still-muddy four, although I'm not sure how thrilled the pilot would have been to discover that his four passengers were covered in black mud that would end up all over his chopper. After flying over the rainforests and river, they landed at a beautiful house, eyes all a-poppin' at the seafood feast, poolside showers and gorgeous pool.

They all immediately scrubbed off the mud in the showers, but only Judd was brave enough to strip off (surely they must have all had mud in their own private little nooks and their crannies?) and then started diving into the banquet.

Back at the camp, Lydia was still apologising to Cindy for her even-less-than-Commonwealth-Games-level performance. Jungle Boy Jamie, on the other hand, was busy hassling Rafe about himself, Rafe and Judd going all the way to the final three. Rafe looked about as thrilled to have the discussion as he would if he'd discovered a suicidal scorpion in his shorts.

Back at the mansion, the lucky four were again freshly showered, wearing matching pyjamas and bonding. Gary decided he'd better try his luck at being Mr Congeniality with Judd and Stephenie "because I'm the next to go." He tried the tack of appealing to their athletic and competitive sides - shouldn't the final four be people who are strong, athletic, do their share around the camp and work hard? All stuff worth thinking about as they then went to sleep - together. (What sort of 'mansion' is this place anyway?)

The next morning, Day 26, arrived and with it six different flavours of plunger coffees. "All of us tried all of the flavours," said Stephenie, trying her hardest to stop her hands from twitching and her head jerking uncontrollably on camera. But wait - there was more to their reward. Louie, the owner (and presumably, instigator of the four-in-a-bed romps) came in with videos from home. We saw Judd's wife, daughter and mother; Steph's huge family; Danni's two dogs and her Mum ("I knew my family would be fine - I wanted to see if my dogs were OK."), and then Gary's family.

Who knew that Lurch (aka Gazza) was such a softie? He wept as the videotape rolled and was beaming as he told us: "It was the best reward we could have had." Finally - we get to see him cry and smile!

"Welcome to the hellhole," Judd muttered as he walked back to the camp with Steph, Danni and Gary. The Lucky Four brought back a coffee hamper which they agreed would be most appreciated by Cindy.

Well, the twelve packets of freeze dried instant coffee Cindy inhaled certainly set her up as a serious contender in the Immunity Challenge. The event saw each player tied to a l-o-o-o-o-n-g rope that was wrapped around, up and under three obstacles that they had to work through to the end. The first four across the line would then progress on to the next round – still involving rope – wrapped around some wooden towers.

Unsurprisingly, Lydia lagged behind and was a total non-contender, but perhaps more surprisingly was that she was joined at the rear (so to speak) by Judd and Danni. Up at the front meanwhile, a determined Gary was leading the pack. At least, he was until Cindy’s feed of caffeine kicked in – she pipped him at the post and joined Super Steph, Jamie and Rafe for the second leg of the challenge.

Right from the start of the second race she was leading; caffeine working its best, until…… she got stuck and the sweet lad Rafe trotted across the finishing mat first. Again. Gary looked sick with worry.

I'm trying Rafe, I really am, but this catch is really hard to do up at the back here....

Camp Yaxhum (I've given up on trying to spell it properly) on Day 27 saw Rafe regretting his recent wins: “I’ve just made myself a huge threat in this game. I’ve got to change the way I play.”

Jamie was busy working his paranoid powers of magic amongst the original ‘six’ of Steph, Lydia, Rafe, Judd and Cindy. Cindy told us that “Jamie’s paranoia is getting old. He doesn’t know when to be quiet.” Rafe was asked to play whatever that wooden game is with the sticks and corn bits again and again and again so that Jamie could strategise with him. He rolled his eyes: “It’s ‘stick with the six…..stay with the six…..are you still with the six’….. if you ask me again I’m going to throw this corn at you!”

Rafe decided to tell more people than just us at home about how Jamie was more single-mindedly annoying than a blowfly at a glassed window. He and Lydia had a wee chat about it and were then joined by Steph – how about voting off Jamie tonight instead of Gary? Steph wasn’t too sure: “Gary is a smooth operator.”

At Tribal Council my mind was immediately distracted by Bobby Jon – aka BoJo, the original hunk of man-meat as he sauntered in to take his place as the first member of the jury. Humina humina humina! He looked absolutely luscious freshly shaven, with clean hair and that ------oh, sorry, you want to know about Tribal Council…..

Judd told Jeff that “Gary’s a man’s man and he makes me try to be a better man.” That’s nice, but I don’t see much evidence that Judd’s taken on Gary’s rather quiet, man-of-few-words approach. The GazMan himself just said that he was trying to be positive and take it day by day – classic sports speak by a classic athlete.

Jazzed-out Jamie – without irony – told Jeff that “You can go insane out here, it gets to you….. But all these people here have been really supportive.”

Jamie voted for Gary (as per the original six strategy);
Gary voted for Jamie; and
Judd voted for Gary.
Judd was just as surprised as Jamie when Jeff snuffed out Jamie’s torch. “Blindsided – NICE! Now that’s how you vote someone out!” Rather well handled by someone on the edge of insanity and obsession.

Next week – Judd’s now in limbo with the remnants of the ‘six’ and Steph gets shirty at, well, something, presumably.

The premiership table is starting to get interesting - only three are in the lead with all three of their original picks remaining, give or take a BoJo or SS. Those lucky gents are Special Ray (maybe he should stay in China to keep up the good luck); Ian of QV (never watched the show before - makes me sick!) and Brett Turner (an unknown quantity; a man of mystery).

Bye bye Jamie - now go and get some help, will you?!