Previously on Survivor

Life felt desperate to the Upolu tribe last Wednesday on Survivor. Upolu had just endured another wrenching, disorienting visit to tribal council, this time having lost a big lead when it couldn't use a massive slingshot to fire coconuts at oversized wooden masks accurately enough. At the subsequent reckoning, the usual melodrama engulfed its members. Jeff Probst, as only he can, asked questions that purposely tore at the seams holding the blue tribe together, and the governing inner circle did its best to advance an agenda and manipulate the vote. Some of the answers were honest and, accordingly, disarming. Others were so clumsy that the contrived attempts at projecting control were hilarious. (Sitting at tribal council noticeably holding back a grin has earned its place in a diagnostic manual for stupidity.) Crying for no good reason and deploying ever more of his evangelical malapropisms, Brandon was characteristically unstable and chilling.When a few pounds of flesh had been...