34. The Horse Race Confessional

The Funny 115 - The Third One

#34. The Horse Race Confessional
Worlds Apart - episode 5

One of the joys of writing the Funny 115 is that, every so often, I get to highlight a confessional that most people might not actually remember from an episode, but that I always personally thought was incredible.

The posterboy for the underrated, overly-dramatic confessional, Chris

This is going to be a really fun entry to write because...

... well...

Dark eyes. The devil's eyes.

... because this is one of those confessionals.

Naturally, it stars one of the snarkiest players of the modern era, Jenn

Okay, let's make this one short and sweet. Let's get to Jenn Brown's incredible horse-racing confessional about Max and Shirin.

WHY DO I HAVE TO SEE YOUR GUYS' GENITALS SO MUCH??

So it's the fifth episode of Survivor: Worlds Apart. Which some people call the funniest season of the modern era. And which others call the greatest season of the modern era. Either way, take your pick, to me it will always be a buffet of goofiness and craziness and awesomeness.

It's the fifth episode of Worlds Apart, and the three tribes are about to merge and be combined into two.

Because at the start of the fifth episode, Jeff utters his usual dread cry of...

"Remember, Edge of Extinction was a really good season."

Shit, no, that's not it. At the start of the fifth episode, he tells the Worlds Aparters to..

"Drop your buffs. It's time for a twist."

And oh brother, is everyone excited about this.

Boom! Go the White Collars.

Disrobe! Go the No Collars.

FUCK YEAH, I'M DAN FOLEY!!

From now on, there will be only two tribes, explains Jeff in between adding advantages.

"From now on, you will be known as Escameca and Nagarote."

So the tribes twist.

They select new buffs out of a basket.

And, oddly enough, the No Collars and the Blue Collars basically just all stay together.

The core of the No Collars. Will, All-American Hali, and Jenn.
Who will all stay together and become Nagarote.

And of course, the Blue Collars.
Dan literally just jizzes right there on the beach when he hears they'll become Escameca.

So these are our two new tribes. Escameca and Nagarote.

The new tribes aren't exactly all that even anymore. Especially because Escameca wound up with all the big strong athletes (plus Dan), and Nagarote wound up with everything else. But hey, at least it's still Survivor. And at least it's going to be fun. I mean, how can it NOT be fun when you start throwing no collars and blue collars and white collars together on one tribe.

Right, Jen? Don't you think these new merged tribes are going to be fun?

Yes, says Jenn. Yes, they'll be incredibly fun.

So anyway, here's the new Nagarote tribe.

TO VICTORY!

It consists of the three no-collars, plus three white collars, plus I guess there was apparently a player named Kelly? In any case, there are six of them and then Kelly is there too.

Hi, my name was Kelly. Avenge me.

Jenn and the No Collars are pleased to get an influx of new personalities onto their tribe.

At least, they seem to be pleased about it at first.

I mean, I don't actually hate it yet

But pretty quickly, they learn that there are two players from the White Collars who are slightly annoying to live with as members on your tribe.

And guess what?

Due to a sadistic stroke of God being a dick, the Nagarotes just wound up with both of them.

When the Keymaster meets the Gatekeeper

Yes, that's right. The peaceful tranquility of No Collar beach is about to be invaded by the Superfans (tm), Max and Shirin.

Who you might remember as the really tall naked guy.

And the one who loves monkey sex.

HE GOT HER IN THE G-SPOT, YES!

Max and Shirin are together again.

And ready to wreak havoc on a new crew of non Superfans.

And life as we know it on No Collar beach will never be the same.

This is going to be exciting for all of us

Oh yeah, besides Max and Shirin, the No Collars are also adding another White Collar to the mix. Her name is Carolyn.

And she invites you to get off her lawn

Carolyn has already spent eleven days living with Max and Shirin. She has already spent nearly two weeks having to put up with their overbearing Superfan shit, on pretty much an hourly basis.

The minute Carolyn sees the members of her new Nagarote tribe, she knows exactly how it's going to go.

"I was so excited to get my new buff. And I opened it up."

"And I'm with Max and Shirin."

"What is this? The Survivor gods trying to kill me?"

Well okay then. Thank you, Miss Sunshine.

This is not going to end well

Okay, so let's head back to Nagarote.

It's time for Max and Shirin to quickly annoy the ever-loving shit out of everyone.

The new tribe heads back to amp, and Max immediately starts spouting out Survivor trivia facts

"These bushes look exactly like Richard's pubic hair in Survivor: All Stars"

Wait. What?

"Shirin once saw a monkey get nailed by a trio of chimpanzees. Shirin, tell them about it!"

Wow

"There are three hundred different uses for coconut, you guys. All of which I will tell you about right now."

... The fuck are these people?

Right from the start, it's possible that this might not be the love connection that everyone anticipated.

If the beard guy sniffs my hair, I swear I'm punching him

Max and Shirin clearly get off to a bad start with their new No Collar tribesmates.

But it's nothing compared to their second day on the tribe.

Because the morning of the second day on Nagarote is where the war on Max and Shirin officially begins.

Especially when Shirin wakes everyone else in the shelter up in the morning...

By singing to them

Oh dear god

Shirin then doubles down by pointing out she has a side job as a professional whistler.

And she treats everyone in camp to a display of her amazing whistling skills.

Nailed it

And at this point, Jenn likely just can't even.

Seriously. Can we just have Vince back?

At this point, Jenn sits down for a confessional. And she goes on her first diatribe against the two new members of the tribe.

It's important to note, by the way, that she doesn't even know what Shirin's name is yet. Yet she's still already made up her mind what she thinks about her.

"The chick with the long hair, I don't know her name. But I don't like her."

"I don't know, I just don't like her."

"Maybe it's her voice."

"I haven't even been around her for twelve hours, and I know most of her life."

"And I know things that I never wanted to know."

As if right on cue, the Survivor editors then immediately cut to this scene.

Where Shirin loudly announces to everyone she has to go take a dump.

"If I don't try, it'll never happen. Right?"

Yeah, you go do that

So anyway, no.

Jenn is not a very big fan of Shirin at the moment.

"She hasn't stopped talking since we got here."

"It's driving me insane."

"It's like, just shut up, man."

"Just SIT."

After twelve hours, Jenn is already on team HELL NO ON SHIRIN.

But, unluckily for her, it's about to get worse.

Because next up we're about to get the official Max Dawson highlight reel.

I wonder what Dirk Been is doing right now

And this one is going to annoy her just as much.

Okay, so it's the fifth episode of Worlds Apart (seriously, all this happens in the exact same episode), and we're about to get the subplot about Max's nasty foot wart. Now, for me personally, I would have been annoyed if the editors had included this as a major subplot in my boot episode. But they did, probably because they wanted to humiliate the guy, and there's not much you can do about it now. So here we go. The day Jenn officially becomes team HELL NO ON MAX as well.

Max comes back to camp one morning after walking around in the surf.

And he apparently suffered some sort of a foot injury.

Oh no. Max has two different stingray injuries.

Fun fact: In the next "Previously on..." segment, Probst actually gives Parvati the credit for stinging him.

I got stung in each foot, and that sucks

So Max comes back to camp with his two injured feet.

And Jenn, who is a former lifeguard, immediately tells him to soak them in hot water and that will make the sting go away.

So he does.

Sanctuary

The Max Dawson sex face

And that's when the rest of the tribe realizes he actually has something else on his foot.

Uh oh. Turns out Max has a fairly big plantars wart.

Now, if you don't know what a plantars wart is, it's basically a...

Well hell, I'll let Wikipedia define it for you.

"Plantar warts are small growths that usually appear on the heels or other weight-bearing areas of your feet. This pressure may also cause plantar warts to grow inward beneath a hard, thick layer of skin (callus). Plantar warts are caused by HPV. The virus enters your body through tiny cuts, breaks or other weak spots on the bottom of your feet.

The HPV strains that cause plantar warts aren't highly contagious. So the virus isn't easily transmitted by direct contact from one person to another. But it thrives in warm, moist environments. Consequently, you may contract the virus by walking barefoot around swimming pools or locker rooms."

To sum it up, warts aren't especially serious. And they usually go away on their own. But they do tend to thrive in warm, moist environments like... oh, I don't know... THE TRIBE'S ONE AND ONLY POT OF WARM DRINKING WATER.

The minute the No Collars realize their water is now tainted, they're not very happy about it.

"Ack. Warts are contagious."

"That's disgusting."

"Anyone who would do that to our water is only thinking of himself."

So Max is now officially on the tribe's shit list, as well as Shirin.

And at this point, the race is now on.

The race to see which one of them is going to be voted out first.

The mood around camp

Oh, and I should point out it doesn't help that:

A) Max and Shirin are constantly going off to the side, and only talking to each other, and always talking about strategy.

I think we should pull off the old Daniel Lue gambit. Remember that one, Shirin? It was glorious.

And B) Carolyn is hanging around camp, trying to undercut the two of them behind their backs, and get them both voted out as fast as she can. Mostly because she has already lived with the two of them for a couple of weeks and she already knows she can't stand them.

So yes. The first time Nagarote goes to Tribal Council, they're going to blindside either Max or Shirin.

And people couldn't be happier

And so here we come to Jenn's famous confessional.

It's day fourteen.

And Dan "The Danimal" Foley has just won immunity almost single-handedly for the Escamecas.

Consider this one a win for adoption

Which means that Nagarote is headed to Tribal Council.

One half of the Max and Shirin Sideshow is going to be voted out tonight.

Max reminisces how this is the same thing that once happened to Rarotonga

Back at camp, Max tries his best to strategize.

Which, in his case, generally means showing off his knowledge of the Survivor Wiki to people.

You know, Debb Eaton was the first player with A- blood type to be voted out first

Jenn then sits down to unleash a savage confessional about Max and his unending dorkiness.

By the way, this is what I love about Jenn. This isn't even the confessional I am basing this entry around.

This is just her OTHER fun one in this episode.

"I've seen every season of Survivor. And I'm a huge fan of the game."

"But Max knows every little detail about everything that's ever happened on Survivor. It's crazy. Like, why do you know this much?"

"Why do you like, remember like... the tiniest..."

"It's like people that remember, like, the '96 Bulls game against the Heat on like, October 13th."

"Or whenever basketball happens."

But at this point the debate is officially on.

Max or Shirin?

Which one of them should go?

"I don't know which one of them I like less," Jenn points out to Hali.

Carolyn, of course, is more than happy to dump either one of them.

Which she is happy to point out to anyone on Nagarote who will listen.

She even pulls off a tribute to Mike Holloway with an exaggerated percentage analogy.

"If you guys are in, I'm one hundred and fifty percent in."

And, oh, this makes Jenn so very very happy right now.

"Awww Mama C you're the greatest."

I'd even let you sniff my hair right now if you wanted

The tension builds.

And it builds.

Which one will it be?

"Why did they let us know they know that much about Survivor?"

"I don't think she's stopped talking since we got here."

"It's like a race for who's most annoying for me. I can't decide."

Before I get to Jenn's confessional, I should point that Will is actually the first one who compares their situation to a race.

It's not as fun as Jenn's version is, but it does get the job done.

"The debate tonight is between Max and Shirin. Who is the most annoying?"

"I think it's about neck and neck."

"Because, um, neither one of them will shut up, and they won't stop strategizing."

"They just go off on their own, and they'll only talk to each other."

But, as usual, here comes Jenn right after the Will speech. To trump everyone and blow everyone else's confessional away.

If there were ever a modern day equivalent to Courtney from China... well... here you go.