I just reached Sleeping With The Enemy in my Thailand rewatch, and.. god damn, how does ANYONE actively dislike that episode? That episode was 100% straight character scenes and nothing else. I would love to see more episodes like that. Every single scene was about the people, and I thought all the Sook Jai scenes were really powerful. The fact that I'm on a serious food high that coincided perfectly with all the sentimental stuff is probably a part of it, but still, I wanted to cry and give 'em all a big hug. One of the most touching parts of the episode to me is how when Jeff read the 4th vote, everyone - including Erin, even though she knew these people had just voted her out - was holding hands in the middle. We're in an era of Survivor in which contestants who play like Rob and Russell are worshipped by the casual audience -- contestants who only stop talking soullessly about numbers for as long as it takes to make fun of everyone else around them as they walk out the door -- so seeing something like this where you have four people who just /do not want to vote anyone out/.. it is strikingly different from the entire mindset of modern Survivor. I have more thoughts on the episode at the end, but first, my cast thoughts:
- Clay has approximately zero time for anyone's bullshit. He has no time for Penny flirting -- let it be known that if you flirt with Clay Jordan, you will not get shit from him. He has no time for Jan crying about a dead chicken. One of the funniest moments this episode was a short, bizarre shot of Clay staring at Erin's ass.. way to go, Clay, having your perving displayed on national TV.
- If Jan was going to get so upset over Lucky dying, then... why did she stand right there and watch it? I don't know, but I don't care, because the results are hilarious. Jan Gentry
- The entire "Helen talks about her recipes" scene was hilarious. They played all of this ominous music and zoomed in on shots of her talking and shots of Clay/Brian/Jake overhearing it, and then showed a time lapse of the clouds to make it look like she was /still/ talking about it hours later.. it shows how the editors can take something as mundane as a woman talking about food and make it comical. Loved it and her.
- Jake was unquestionably the star of this episode. We didn't get to see much of the Sook Jai dynamics but I imagine that he was always their de facto leader, having put them together and being the oldest and probably the hardest-working and really good in challenges for his age. I feel like Jake really thought of it as /his/ tribe and he was just shattered at the realization that his group of four, who from day one he wanted to see go all the way to the end, was forced to split up. He had a gut-wrenching confessional about how hard it was to /want/ to openly cry but be unable to but still be feeling it inside.. I've been waiting for Jake to finally have a breakout episode and this was definitely it. He was the star.
- I love how the show randomly tries to build up Penny as this big villain for... being young and attractive?? I don't know, maybe she was fake to Chuay Gahn but it really doesn't come across on TV. She was just as emotional as anyone else about Sook Jai's loss so she can't be as bad as the edit apparently wants us to think she is.
- Ken's accent is still awesome, and I like him by affiliation with the other people in his alliance. He hasn't ever really been a big character but I like when he's around, and of course as a Sook Jai member he was around a lot this episode. Got a good confessional about how Survivor isn't the kind of emotionless game you think it is from watching at home - it isn't like Monopoly. (I mean, Monopoly is a bitter game that instills horrible, emotional, personal grudges, so maybe Ken has never played it -- but I get the metaphor he was going for. He should have said checkers or something instead.)
- Erin.. really wasn't big in the season. Which I didn't expect her to be, but still. She's a nice girl and all but just not someone who is made for television. She gave a really sweet pep talk to Jake after he lost the challenge, so I'll always like and remember her for that, but she really is just kinda a footnote in the season.
And that speaks to the one flaw I have with the storyline of this episode -- if these four in Sook Jai are so tight, why didn't we see it earlier? We really never got any footage of them being so close to one another before this.. or of them at all, really. So I mean that's not a flaw with this episode, because this episode was essentially perfect. I'm upset Erin didn't get a confessional (only the second player to not get one in their boot episode) but other than that minor grievance it was great.. but it would have been more powerful if we'd seen these people in advance or had any sign that they were so close that it would hurt them to have to vote one of their own out. If they were this close then there had to be some footage of it. Oh well. The episode itself was a top-tier one and easily my favorite of the season; anything that shows how Survivor can even reduce a tough NYC cop to tears is good in my book.
Something underrated I have to point out is how the challenge played out at the end. It came down to Brian and Jake, which is just killer -- Brian, the guy who is cool and collected so he is built for the challenge more than anyone else, up against Jake, the guy who is heartbroken at the thought of voting out one of his four so he /wants/ the challenge more than anyone else. Pretty awesome showdown.
And of course the two tribes on one beach setup was awesome; this is the only episode where we really saw it explored. The prior episode was about the twist, the next one is the merge, so this is the only episode where from start to finish we saw what it was like for the two tribes to have to coexist with one another like that. It made for a really interesting dynamic and I think it intensified a lot of the emotions that were going on; not only does Sook Jai have to deal with voting out one of their own, but they also can't show it because they're with this other tribe. Tough shit.
Damn good episode, though. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's one of the best ones ever; the only things that could have made it better would have been changes in other episodes -- this episode itself did exactly what it was supposed to do.
