If this met you in the jungle, where you were starving, and asked you to take it home, would you reject it? Or would you be a big candy slut?

DANGER: SPOILERS DOWN THERE AT THE BOTTOM. THAT IS ALL.

I returned from a week and a half off to find Cirie gone, and aren’t that surprised, because anyone who paid attention to her game play in her last two seasons knew that it was a smart thing to have her out of contention. Smart move.

Unfortunately, that means that the Heroes keep losing, and that Russell’s still hanging around. He apparently cheesed his tribe off by searching for the hidden immunity idol when they’d agreed not to. I’m not sure why a team called the Villains would be surprised that one of them was sneaky – that’s his job – but I kinda figured that his brand of mean would make him a target. And this week, there he is again, looking for the HII while everyone is doing yoga. Drat. He found it. The thing of it is that these other villains didn’t get a chance to see him play the game, so they don’t know what a HII magnet this dude is. Smart of him to play that to his advantage. I still hate his smugness, but in this instance, he has a reason to be smug.

Speaking of smug – I said it early in the season and I’ll say it again – the Heroes are getting mighty tiresome with all their posturing, the certainty they seem to have in their own superiority. The reward is a big festival of chocolate, and Probst offers both tribes some bonus chocolate right now, just ’cause, before the challenge, and the Villains are like “Yeah, man, bring it on!” while some of the Heroes are rejecting it with this holier than thou attitude like “How dare you give me something delicious to eat! I’ll pound you, sir!” Colby, Probst notes, seems annoyed, and Colby’s like “I just want to get to the challenge” and Probst is like “Slow your roll, son. You’re not the boss of me.” Colby’s kind of a jerk today.

The chocolate denial, oddly, seems to be working for the Heroes, at least at first – James does something hinky to his knee, but the Heroes rebound for a while. It doesn’t last, and they get Hero’d off back to camp with no chocolate. Shoulda taken the freebie. Dummies.

The Villains are whooping it up in Chocolate World, before taking a dip in a cool-looking pond. They all figure out that Russell has the idol, and he tells Pavarti he has it, a strategy I don’t understand, although it’s apparently not a secret. He and Pavarti decide to get Coach, who she calls “a scarred little puppy” in that condescending mean girl way she has, to join them before dragonslaying his little heart. Oh, dear. He’s got all that crazy warrior trust and honor and moxie, and it’s gonna just get torched like a S’more. I mostly hate this because he’s feeding Russell’s ego, and that’s all kinds of ugly. Again, I’m rooting for Boston Rob to take that sucker down, just like I was a few weeks ago, because as much as I never liked Rob on the show, I REALLY don’t enjoy The King of All Bragging. I want him to go away now. He’s a smart one, yet his smarm makes me crazypants.

Over in The Land of Self-Righteous Chocolate Haters, they’re wondering what’s happening with James – Amanda is freaked that he might not come back, leaving her without an ally, while Tom’s like “Nothing personal, but one more person down gets me closer to the top, so…..” James comes hobbling back, but Candace suggests in her interview that he shouldn’t get too comfortable, as he is now a large muscular sack of dead weight with that bum knee. Ouchy. But true.

James and his knee are the caller for the immunity challenge, and they don’t rock it. At all. Back in Loser Chocolateless Land, the Heroes ponder why they suck so bad, and the decision to keep James is pondered. Candice sees that this is sort of dumb, as they need all the challenge help they can get. James pleads his case, while Rupert suggests Candice or Tom. Amanda’s loyal to James, and is watching J.T. to see if he’s gonna be loyal too. That doesn’t look likely to Tom. Oh, drama. Colby pegs him as a flip-flopper, and maybe also as a giant chocolate milkshake with legs, because if I went that long without treats in the stinking jungle and passed up some chocolate because I was trying to be all special…well, J.T. would be the sweetest-talking Southern accented Fribble the world has ever seen. And wake up with a straw in his ear.

Tribal Council is the usual den of finger-pointing and scrambly self-preservation that it always is, especially with this crew. I get a kick out of Probst telling James “my niece could beat James in a race right now.”

“No she couldn’t,” James says. That was awesome. Also awesome was James telling the tribe to vote for him if they really think they can win without him. Tom takes this opportunity to do just that, telling the camera that James is “all mass and no class.” And that’s classy, Tom? What happened to my favorite Survivor? When did he – and his buddy Colby – become such self-righteous Nellie Olsens? Yikes. Sadly, Tom won’t get to redeem himself in my eyes, because he’s outta there. Well, that’s probably stupid, but Tom predicted that everyone would keep James around to protect their voting block.

Hello, geniuses – If you had a stronger team, that didn’t include a guy with a CAST, you might win immunity and not need to worry about who’s gonna get voted out. You’re bringing this on yourselves, y’all. On yourselves. But you’re all so humorless at this point, I’m starting not to care.