My Dang Red Berets,

Wow! An episode that actually lived up to the hype. Let's grind it out!

We start on the night of Day 6 with Chuay Ghan. Ghandia says that with Ted around, "It's kind of like my husband's here with me." Yep, that made me uncomfortable.

Cut to a night-vision view of the group sleeping. We all saw the preview so we're looking for some action. There are Ted and Ghandia. Is that his arm around her? Her arm around him? Two elephants wrestling??

The next morning, things are starting to slow down for Sook Jai. Jake's feet are shredded with blisters. Even though they won a fishing net, they can't catch anything with it. Is Chuay Ghan the more united tribe?

No.

Ted "was grinding against me," Ghandia says. She confronts him privately, which is admirable. Ted says he was groggy from sleep: "I'm thinking I'm sleeping with my wife." Kind of peculiar, but he doesn't deny what he did and apologizes repeatedly, which is also admirable.

Ghandia then breaks down and says she was raped before, and she had expected him to deny the whole thing. "I'm really glad you apologized," she says. "That makes me feel much better." She then forgives him. Very admirable. Case closed, right?

The Best Challenge Ever.

We take a break for the reward challenge and, man, is it a good one. It is a relay race on floating planks and beams. The kicker is an "Attack Zone" where you can "engage contact" with your competitors. If you make contact out of the zone, you're out of the game and one of your items goes to the other team. The first group with 10 items gets the services of two Thai "red berets"--military experts who can teach them how to better live off the land.

Sook Jai has a 4-2 lead when we have our first confrontation. Ted has been having trouble keeping his balance, so he gets down on his hands and knees in the Attack Zone and blocks Robb's way.

Robb: "You gonna stand and try and punk me, bro?"
Ted: "Doing what I gotta do, baby."

Robb tries to jump over Ted. Ted gives him a shove and he ends up in the water. This wakes everybody up. Brian pulls Shii Ann into the water. Ken pushes Brian in. Sook Jai opens up an 8-4 lead.

Ken continues his bullying and disposes of Helen. But he wasn't in the Zone when he initiated contact. Ken is out of the game and SJ now only leads 7-5. Robb flips off the world.

Then it gets ugly. Robb rushes at Clay and goes straight for the throat with both hands. To make matters worse he wasn't anywhere near the Attack Zone. Jeff was just hilarious during this whole sequence. "Robb, you were not in the Attack Zone when you grabbed Clay around the throat." Classic. Now the score is 6-6 and Robb calls Clay a "little whiney baby" as he swims off.

You would think Sook Jai would get the hint. But after Ted pushes Stephanie in, she grabs his ankles and pulls him in with her. Jeff: "Stephanie, what are you doing? You were in the water. You weren't close to the Attack Zone." Jeff is really getting upset and I'm loving every minute of it. 7-5 Chuay Ghan.

"Who's the backwoods whiney baby hick now?!"

The last straw is when Jed tries to take out Brian with a forearm shiver. "No, Jed," an exasperated Jeff says, "you weren't in the Attack Zone when you first made contact. Come on, guys, I'm like a broken record." Clay then brings home the final item for the win.

That, my friends, was THE best Survivor challenge ever. Bravo to beatings!

SJ sulks back to camp and Robb starts mouthing off. "He's a weak little whiney punk. Backwoods hick!" The rest of his tribe just laughs at him. Shii Ann says, "Robb, idiot that he is…there's no way a logical thought goes through his brain because his mouth is always flapping."

And flap it does. "You know what though, forget this $#!% cuz I got a good shot on homeboy from the backwoods and big Teddy wasn't so big. That's what I'm saying!" The rest of us are laughing at him now too.

Over at Chuay Ghan, the red berets show them all the edible plants and they make things like a fire pit and cooking utensils out of bamboo.

"Put on some pants, Jan, or I'll start some more drama."

Whoa! Whoa! Jan's flabby behind! Someone get some pants on her, quick!

More incident. Ghandia decides tell Jan and Helen about Ted. "I accepted Ted's apology to his face, but then when I had time to think about it, I kinda thought that the excuse he gave me was a little bit disingenuous--a lot disingenuous." And as she retells the story, "The only part I think I left out was that he apologized." Oops.

Controversy is brewing at Sook Jai as well. The fishing net is gone because Jed was napping. As they search for it, the camera person catches a shot of the net floating about 20 feet behind Jed. Brilliant work!

Back at CG the rumors are flying. Helen tells Brian what Ghandia said about Ted. Brian confronts Ted.

Whoa! Whoa! Porn Man's Daisy Duke swim shorts! This whole tribe needs some pants. And is Brian growing more chest hair each episode?

Ted says, "A mistake happened and I rectified it." Brian says, "Good. Nothing happened though, right?" Ted: "No. At all. Nothing happened at all."

To the ladies out there, I think in this case "nothing happened" means "did you have sex with her?" Notice Ted admitted "a mistake happened." When he said "nothing" he didn't mean NOTHING. Nice and confusing, right?

He's got legs and he knows how to use them to make us ill.

So Brian tells Helen what Ted said. Helen tells Ghandia what Brian said Ted said. Ghandia freaks out.

She screams, beats on a fallen tree, and throws rocks. Clay is not impressed. "My two year old did that once. I whuped its ass and put it back to bed."

Ted calls the whole group together to try and clear the air. He admits to the "grinding." Ghandia now says there was also sexual biting and hair rubbing. Ted gets defensive and yells, "I'm not even attracted to you!" The rest of the group just sits there awkwardly. Not fun. Ted tells us later, "I think we put a band-aid on it for right now."

OK, none of us knows all the details, but here's what I think. Ted was wrong for what he did. Ghandia called him on it, and he apologized. His excuses were a little weak, but he seemed sincerely sorry and I believe he wasn't going to do anything like it again. Ghandia accepted his apology, so that should've been the end of it. She was wrong for talking about it to the others. They were both hugging (remember she compared him to her husband), he crossed a line, apologized and promised to not do anything like that again. Should have been the end of the story. We'll see what the rest of the tribe thinks next week.

Back to the show! It's Immunity Challenge time. And, oh my goodness, Erin speaks! "We're actually hoping that we lose. We're ready to get rid of some people."

The game is the classic stacking puzzle where you move the pieces from spot A to spot C with the help of spot B, and you can't put a bigger piece on a smaller piece. (Yes, I know I'm terrible at explaining challenges.)

Chuay Ghan wins again! Rather easily actually. Jed was calling the shots for Sook Jai and he blew it badly. Afterwards the Shii Devil says, "I could do a logic puzzle in my sleep. That one that we did today--so easy. What happened? I could've stepped in. Jake could've stepped in. But did we step in? No." Very interesting. Who is their target?

Watching the net is hard work.

Robb wants Shii Ann out to no one's surprise. But Ken says it should be Jed. "It's not that he's not valuable, he's just flat-out lazy." Flat-out freakin' lazy, right Ken?

Off to Tribal Counsel they go and Jed is wearing a silly mini cowboy hat. Ken votes for Jed and Robb votes for Shii Ann. "You're a sweetheart but I'll catch you on the flip side, baby." You're so smooth, Robbie.

I expected to see a vote for Robb. But all the anti-lazy votes go to Jed and he's gone 5-3.

Like John, Jed says he didn't see it coming. As a Christian, I'm embarrassed. Jed talked about praising God with his actions and he just sat around. John works for God for crying out loud, and he was bossy and self-serving. Booooo.

Next week on Survivor: There's a dummy in each tribe and we're not talking about Robb and Clay. And Ghandia continues to freak out. Oh joy.

After this episode, I like Shii Ann a lot. She had the most reason to vote off Robb, but she put her personal feelings aside and did what was best for the team. Robb is a total moron, but he does work. Shii Ann seems to have a nice bond with Jake, Ken, Penny, and Erin, and that should take her into the merge and beyond. Nice work Shiister!

A great episode all around! I don't know how they're going to top this, but I'm excited to see them try. Watch your necks, backwoods homies!

All choked up,
Scott