This woman is on "Survivor" this year! No, I don't recognize her either!

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF DELICIOUS SPOILERS BELOW!

Welcome to our first Marty-Free Week here on “Survivor: Nicaragua!” Yeah! Sadly, it doesn’t mean the smugness is dead. In fact, it’s become an infectious disease. And the worst part is that the person most deeply infected is so lousy with it that she sees a plot against her written in the sky, bordered by spotlights and angels, and still assumes she doesn’t have to do anything about it.

Oh, little Brenda. Perhaps you’ll have time to reflect on this, now that your high-and-mighty butt have completed the Walk of Booting. Couldn’t have happened to a more self-important person. Good thing for her that she’s still hot. She’ll need that, because apparently that thinking thing isn’t paying off for her. Read the full story

America's new Mr. Rogers?

THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW.

So this week, I’m not gonna do a recap so much as just drop some thoughts on you that bubbled up while watcing yesterday’s episode. And what a delicious episode it was – pretty much, everyone hewed even closer to the impressions you already had about them, and America learned a new word – “Dirt weasel.” And with corresponding weasel sounds! Oh, the riches we’ve been bestowed! Here are just a few:

— NaOnka keeps on NaOnka-ing, and it’s both highly uncomfortable and fascinating to watch. Jeff Probst, in his excellent weekly blog on EW.com, writes today that the key to dealing with that wacky PE teacher/hater of prosthetic limbs is to remember that she operates like a seven-year-old. She does crazy, indefensible things like stealing fruit that the tribes got when they merged, without thinking how she’s going to explain it, and then lashes out when people don’t believe the stupid excuse she came up with. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to her decisions because they seem to be guided by anger, impulse, hunger and just enjoying cheesing people off. Why she’s still around, I can’t figure out. She’s super fun to watch, though. I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with her.

— Jane and Chase are the new power couple: Show! Thank you for merging just so that these two good ol’ North Carolina dynamos could find each other and bond over their shared heritage, family losses and combined awesomeness. Evil Marty and his Salt-N-Pepper Spike of Doom are right – that’s a bond that’s gonna be impossible to break. And I love it because I love Jane and her shotgun-toting, dog-loving, P90x-doing self, and because it drives Marty mad. Anything that drives Marty mad is A-OK with me.

— Speaking of Evil Marty, somehow he lives to scheme another day, which I think is dumb – Alina was no threat. Marty isn’t as strong as he used to be, as he has no idol and no real allies. But the longer he’s around, the more he could worm his way into people’s heads. Right now, he’s just annoying everyone, particularly because he is targeting Jane, everyone’s favorite down-home grandma. He does have a point that she’ll be hard to beat at final Tribal Council. But, as Probst points out in his blog, Marty’s like the Jerk Who Cried Wolf. Keep on crying, man. Nobody’s listening.

— Sash reminds me, for some reason, of 90′s pop star Eagle Eye Cherry, who sang “Save Tonight.” I have a very funny story about a drunk dude at a bar in Harrisburg in the mid-90s who came up to my friends’ band and asked if they knew that song and if he could sing it with them. But he only knew one line – “Girl you know I got to go/How I wish it wasn’t so” – and he sang that like 12 times over and over before they realized that he wasn’t going to sing anything else. And there are few people harder to distract than drunks with microphones. This has very little to do with Sash, except for this point – he’s dangerously focused at this point and he’s gonna be hard to shake. I have no confirmation on his feelings for Eagle Eye Cherry. But I’d watch him and Brenda. Girl, you know they got to go. And I’m not sorry that it’s so.

— Benry: Don’t like him. He’s a bully and he seriously miscalculates his own coolness. I’m ready for him to go. There’s something ever so bully-esque about the way he made those “dirt weasel” sounds when voting Alina off, like a frat boy in an ’80s movie.

— “Uncle Fabio’s got tree mail!” Don’t you kind of want Fabio to get his own kid’s show called “Uncle Fabio’s Tree House,” where he reads notes that hang in trees, shakes his hair a lot and tries not to burn himself or impale himself on pieces of his own tree house?

This is one of the best episodes this season, because people are struggling to think for themselves, when they really have to. It’s an individual game now, and group think might get you voted right out by the group.

What do you guys think?

Don't eat me, bro.

When last we saw our wacky  band of generationally-separated castaways, Jimmy T. tried to convince his tribe that they should be Jimmy T. fans and boot lame-ish Dan instead of him. The tribe responded by voting Jimmy T. out anyway, apparently confirming that those Jimmy T. Fan Club T-shirts shall go unused.

The Old Espada tribe’s Marty, who believes himself to be the king of the world right now, says that even though it’s wrong to get cocky in this game, he knows he’s in control. Sir, I’m not sure if you know what the word “cocky” means. He says that unless something “completely whacked-out” happens, Jane and Holly are next to go, because that’s his plan. He sounds a little like Russell Hantz last year, with one difference — Ol’ Russ delivered his Pronouncements O’ Doom in an excited, gleaming-eyed cackle, while Marty states his with a disturbingly dispassionate clarity like he’s reciting his lunch order. His cold-blooded matter-of-factness is almost more creepy. And you might remember that Russell creeped me out PLENTY.

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Psst...Jeffy...the tribes have names!

SPOILERS! LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS!

So I go on vacation for a week and we lose Jimmy Johnson, Probst still refuses to call the tribes by their actual names, and NaOnka bumrushes our dear Kelly B. for the clue to the immunity idol? Yikes. I’m never going away again. Even if you want me to. You’re welcome!

We join Espada, the real name of the older team, after their dumb decision to vote Jimmy Johnson off. And for some reason, Jimmy T. is summing up this moment with a tuneless version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s “American Girl” during an apparent torrential downpour. I’m not sure why, but he’s expressing his feelings that Jimmy J. had to go because he was not a Jimmy T. fan or something, You know who else isn’t a Jimmy T. fan? EVERYBODY! But it’s the Jimmy T. show, as Marty says, and “it’s just obnoxious.” And that’s the first time I’ve agreed with Marty, who himself is chock full of obnoxious. And possibly chock full of nuts.

While Jimmy T. was singing about the waves crashing on the beach, a lot of rain, debris and general grossness was crashing on the “Survivor” beach after some massive storms. It looks like something out of a “Mad Max” movie, very apocalyptic and bleak. Even the birds look scary. And unless they can get the aforementioned bird in a trap and onto a spit, there’s no food, because the water seems to be gone. But Jimmy T., who happens to be a fisherman, notices that our bird friend is finding fish, so why can’t they? Read the full story

Jillian Behm, James "Jimmy T" Tarantino, Jimmy Johnson, Yve Rojas, Marty Piombo, of The Espada Tribe

SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Nicaragua! They’ve got monkeys! They’ve got volcanoes! They’ve got Jimmy! Crikey!

I love Kelly B, not just because she’s from Palm Beach County, but because she’s got a secret – she’s a record-holding triathlete – and that her tribemates think she’s gonna rely on sympathy votes because of her missing leg. They never suspect that her real threat is being able to kick much butt…with her remaining leg.

And that’s something I can’t wait to see.

To review last week: Wendy talked too much and got bounced, thanks to a quick-thinking Jimmy Johnson and his ability to pretend that he was putting himself on the chopping block. But really, he was sort of waving his arm over the block while tripping Wendy onto it. He doesn’t have two Super Bowl rings because he doesn’t know how to handle people. Read the full story

“Survivor!” It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Who needs Yuletide when you have Jeff Probst standing on a scary-looking cliff in the middle of a scary body of water, trying to get all philosophical and deep amid the ankle sprains and bikinis? This rugged land has survived for centuries, Probst says. But will it survive the chaffing and showmances?

Apparently, we know something the contestants don’t, which is that they’re going to be on tribes defined by age. As usual, they’ve not been allowed to speak on the way in, but have a lot of opinions about each other, most of which will be proven wrong. I missed this show so much! I love how people are like “he’s on my nerves already” and they’ve never even spoken. And there’s no one with more assumptions being made about them than Kelly B., our Palm Beach County “Survivor,” and an amputee since childhood. They’re already thinking that she’s gunning for the sympathy vote, without knowing that she’s a frigging Iron Man triathlete.

SHE IS IRON MAN! Eat it, bipeds!

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Greg Stoda: Jimmy Johnson will need a clever game plan

By GLENN GARVIN

When Jimmy Johnson was football coach at the University of Miami, he told its president to go to hell — and survived. After coaching the Dallas Cowboys, he mocked the owner for getting a face-lift, compared him to Michael Jackson — and survived.

Now he’s going to Nicaragua as a contestant on the TV show Survivor.

I’m betting on Nicaragua.

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And it’s Colby.

And since The Donaldson has been anything but a force of nature during this strangely hypnotic “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villians” season, it’s tempting to say that he probably won’t be a factor in Sunday’s finale.

But what if he is?

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Fine. He's brilliant. Evil and troll-like with crazy eyes. But brilliant.

Yes, Russell fans. I said it. Dude can play this game.

He still behaves like a scary, threatening troll with an eerie, misogynistic bent and crazy eyes.

But Dude can play.

The head trip that he played on Jerri at the second tribal council, staring at her with said crazy eyes and whispering the name “Danielle” to her like he was telling her which zombie warrior to take out? Brilliant. Jerri, and her Hero counterpart Colby, have been oddly passive this season. Maybe they’ve realized that the game has gotten so out of hand with the Hidden Immunity Idols and the superfans like Russell who are better students of the original players and the game than they are. But Jerri’s been drifting, and she can’t make a decision for herself. She used to be so tough.

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Don't trust this woman.

SPOILERS HERE! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Remember how the dearly departed James told the “Survivor” camera overlords how disappointed he was in Colby Donaldson, the previously awesome dude who seemed to have given up? It was like, James opined, “my Superman sucks!”

Well, clear out that phone booth and dust off that cape, babies, because Colby’s back. Even though he hasn’t done a lot of impressive physical stuff, Mr. Donaldson emerged last night as the wise advisor, the sage taskmaster, and Dad. My two favorite moments:

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