You've had plenty of time to see it, so the cone of silence is lifted, after the jump …
Pretty nice week for TV reality. First the dreadful Antonella Barba gets the boot from "American Idol." (I know, Sanjaya is still there. But half a loaf …) Then Rob & Amber leave a trail of miscalculations and nastiness on their way to elimination.
Yes, I broke my vow not to watch until they were gone. But the spoiler boards had them going, and show host Phil Keoghan dredged up numerous variations on "shocker" for an online promo and, well, I had hopes.
And I loved it even more because of the way they went out. No whining about competitors' getting special treatment from an airline this time. Rob purely outsmarted himself: bad spelling, stubbornly sticking to a challenge long after Amber had said they should move on, then, most amazingly of all, getting rattled.
Rob's whole approach to reality is about confidence and smack, about the certainty that other teams will be so worried over his scheming that he doesn't really have to scheme that much.
Of course, he still schemes — and had Amber dropping lies for him on Sunday's show, too. If they hadn't been so smug about messing with Mirna and Charla (whom I dislike far less than most of you), I might even have felt some grudging respect for them. At the very least, I liked Amber's forcing Rob to admit that being in first place mattered to him.
Still, his uncertainty after falling back into the pack was pretty good television. His heart obviously wasn't in the envelope search, and I relished that air of defeat.
Not that I think we are free of him & Amber. As I've said, reality TV is their profession, and they probably began looking for a new show to appear on before they had returned home.
