The Morning After: American Idol

Very brief spoilers for last night's Survivor: Gabon coming up after the jump: 

After the producers of Survivor introduced the concept of Exile Island and the hidden individual immunity idol, it took a while to pay off; people had a tendency to find the idol and then not use it. But the discovery that this makes it possible to create a fake immunity idol and scam people with it ("It's a stick!" —Eliza) is one of the most delicious innovations the show has managed. And last night it resulted in perhaps the most satisfying Survivor elimination ever. 

There's a general rule in blockbuster action movies: it is not enough for your villain to simply die—he must die spectacularly, in a giant fireball, or impaled on something big and pointy. Last night, Randy—the abusive cretin who, somehow, reminded me of a mean version of The Office's Creed—died spectacularly. Conned by Bob and Sugar into believing he had an immunity idol, he spent a day insulting his tribemates, smugly presented the idol at tribal council, then was told it was a fake by Jeff Probst—who threw it on the fire—and was embarrassingly voted off. The reaction shots, before and after, were priceless. 

I am a bad person for enjoying this so (Bob, a much better person than I, seemed to be chagrinned at taking part in the trick), but Randy made it hard not to. It's good to see Survivor is still capable of being shamefully entertaining.