New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

In between the testosterone battles, the men attain fire. Shortly afterward, Sabrina visits from the women’s tribe. This is the first of what will be innumerable negotiations between the two tribes, which is the genius of the One World concept. Sabrina offers a chicken in exchange for one of the men to create fire for the women. Matt quickly rejects this proposal.

Soon afterward, Monica Culpepper arrives. She is the second wife of an ex-NFL player cast on the show. Her husband, Brad, spent nine years as a defensive tackle, primarily for Tampa Bay. She has an interesting biography and we are particularly curious about her participation since Eddie George’s wife, Taj, was one of the better players in recent seasons. Monica’s first move is a curious one. After saying she is too old to negotiate, she makes a dive for the fire and attempts to retrieve a burning log to take back to her camp. This ploy fails miserably and annoys the men further.

Eventually, Faux Queen Alicia joins Monica and demonstrates a startling lack of imagination. She becomes the first member of Salani to bring sex into the mix by asking if the men will give the women fire in exchange for Monica taking her pants off. For the sake of clarity, this technically makes Alicia the pimp, not the whore. Tarzan and Troyzan like the sound of that but the entire situation is more about the men having power over the women than anything else. This entire negotiation is loosely the basis for Swept Away. We hope the National Organization of Women isn’t watching this atrocity.

At night, the women again attempt to make inroads on the fire matter. Alas, they make a mistake when one of the alpha males ask who the women believe is running the Manono tribe. One of them guess Tarzan, who is like, old and not fit and stuff. The Gap model wannabe is offended by this. Eventually, one of the women intuits that the answer the man is looking for is himself. Women like power after all. Still, Michael comes across less well than he did when he was stealing stuff. Let this be a lesson to you. Crime always pays.

After the men fall asleep, Monica the housewife and Christina the consultant sneak over to their side of camp. They proceed to steal some embers in order to make fire. It works temporarily but then the embers burn out. The women embark upon several more attempts to make fire. Nothing works. When Christina again approaches the men’s camp, she takes a more disciplined approach. This time, she asks the men what would be fair market value for fire. Jonas requests 40 fronds to be weaved by the women. Michael senses her reticence and counters with 20. Christina makes this deal and the women are finally poised to have fire.

Then, Alicia enters the conversation. Her body language identifies that she is not serious about brokering a deal. In fact, she suspects that Christina is getting too friendly with the fellas. Alicia finds the smallest issue possible to undo the negotiation. The men must bring the frond materials over to the women’s side of camp. Believe it or not, this is a deal-breaker for some reason. We had not realized that Alicia has veto power yet somehow she winds up ruining all of Christina’s negotiations. She also apparently has execution powers as well. Alicia states that Christina will be the first one to go.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5       6       7