The
Funny 115 - version 2.0
#91. Shambo's
Dream
Samoa - episodes 12 and 13
When it comes to most of the big over the top characters in
Survivor history, if you're like me, you spend half the season
thinking, "You know, there's a chance that this person is actually
nuts. You know, like actually certifiably crazy.
There's a
chance that's what we could actually be looking at here."
With Shambo in Samoa though, it's not like that. With her, it
is sort of the other way around.
Actual crazy person
I
swear, most of the time during Samoa I wasn't sitting there wondering
if there was a chance that Shambo was nuts. With her, I was
wondering if there was a chance she actually wasn't
nuts. Because I assumed that she was. So I spent
all season
looking for evidence in the other direction. I spent all
season
looking for some small bit of evidence that she actually was playing
with a full deck -- that maybe the editors just made up this complete
train wreck of a player, and that everything we were seeing
was editing.
Sadly, I never found it. There was no
evidence. At no point during Samoa was I convinced that we
were
looking at anything other than an actual crazy person.
Although
for the highlight of the "Shambo is insane" Experience, you
have
to go to her dream storyline in episodes 12 and 13.
Shambo relaying the conversation she had with poultry
At
the beginning of episode 12, Shambo talks to the chickens.
Which,
we are meant to understand, is something she does pretty much on a
daily basis around camp.
Wistful chicken memories
Afterwards,
she summarizes the conversation for us. Including the chicken
side of the conversation. Which, probably not surprisingly,
sounds a lot like "Buk buk buk, bkuuuuuuck."
Bkuuuuuuuck!
Then
comes the fun part. Now Shambo goes back to camp, and she
gets in
a fight with Dave Ball (always Dave Ball, never Dave, remember that)
about soup. Which, for those of you who are history
buffs,
you might remember is also how World War I started.
The soup fight
The soup
After Soupgate us over, Shambo falls asleep and she has a very vivid
dream.
And
in one of the trippiest, weirdest, most film school-y sequences ever
shown on Survivor, we get a peek inside the twisted mind of Shambo.
The beginning of Shambo's dream
Inside
her mind, we see random quick-shot images of Dave Ball, chickens,
crabs, Shambo, Topanga from Boy Meets World, and the forest.
It's creepy. In fact, it sort of looks
like the scene
in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where they take the boat
through the tunnel and everyone gets nightmares.
Nightmare image #1 - the chicken
Nightmare image #2 - the crab
Nightmare image #3 - Shambo herself
Nightmare image #4 - Topanga
Nightmare image #5 - Another chicken
With
that little bit of psychadelia over, Shambo wakes up from her dream and
she announces to us that God has now spoken to her. He has
come
to her in a dream, and He has told her that Dave Ball is going to be
voted out of the tribe tonight.
And, well, since God can
do no wrong in Survivor*, and since Shambo is a fucking lunatic, that
means the pieces have now officially fallen into place. Dave
Ball
is going to be the target for the vote tonight.
* Survivor trivia: God defeated Amanda Kimmel 5-2 at the end
of Survivor: Jerusalem.
Shannon informs us that God is now running the game
Seriously,
I could watch the Shambo dream sequence a hundred times (including the
soup fight and her speech after it) and I will never get tired of it.
What a weird, trippy, completely un-Survivorlike scene.
It's like the editors let their little brother in
film
school run the editing machine for a day. I have never seen
another scene in Survivor history even remotely like it.
Especially because you can tell the editors thought she was
100%
completely nuts.
Oh yeah, and then of course we get the
great scene afterwards of Shambo announcing God's plan for Tribal
Council to her alliance mates, and Russell laughing at it.
Shambo informs Russell that God is about to drop the hammer on Dave Ball
"Shambo
had a dream that they voted off Dave. I said, 'That's a sign
Shambo. That's a sign! That's that God talking to
you.'"
No words. Just laughter.
"So she has her dreams, who she's votin' off, and then...
that's who it has to be."
With
God on board with the vote, and Russell and company now along for the
vote, it seems to Shambo like she can just sit back and relax the rest
of the night. After all, they have essentially just piggy
backed
off of her free vote like it's an even stupider version of the
Alphabet
Strategy.
So that's exactly what she does. Shambo relaxes the rest of
the night.
Meanwhile, without her knowledge-- or, presumably, God's knowledge--
Russell switches the vote to John.
Russell and Mick switch the vote to John
And
now comes the best part of the scene. The Aiga tribe goes to
Tribal Council, and Shambo is completely blindsided (and I mean
completely blindsided - to the point where the jury starts laughing at
her) when John winds up going home instead of Dave Ball.
In fact, at one point even Jeff Probst is shocked by how out of step
she is with the game.
Bye John
Shambo is shocked
The jury laughs at her
Jeff can't believe how dense she is
So
episode 12 ends. God was wrong, Dave Ball didn't go home.
Perhaps God needs to read the spoilers more closely next time.
But, you know, that logic doesn't matter when you are dealing with a
crazy person.
Still crazy
What I love about Shambo is the fact that-- yep-- she's tenacious
enough to still be
following the dream strategy in episode 13!
Yep, God might have been wrong last night, but he's sure as
heck
not going to be wrong tonight. Because she is still following
the
"I dreamed that Dave is going to be voted out so that's how I am
voting" strategy train the following episode.
Hooray for tenacious insanity!
At
the end of episode 13, Dave Ball is finally voted out.
Probably
not because God said so, but because Russell had numbers and Dave Ball
was a Galu.
But hey, you never know.
Maybe
God was indeed calling the shots in Samoa. Maybe that's why
Natalie the Prayer Warrior won, and Russell lost. Maybe
that's
why Brett got the single most rushed and ridiculous edit in Survivor
history, when the editors randomly started inserting him into the
season in
episode twelve.
For now, all you have to know about Samoa is that God called the shots,
God is no fan of Dave Ball, and that Shambo is crazy.
Owned by God