Mixed Messages

A couple more interesting pullouts from this second episode. Azmyth has proven an agile contender. He's astute too, commenting that the competing Red and Black Crews are remixed every round. "Each time you finish one of these Expeditions, you look at everyone just a little bit different," he notes.

Finally, we must say goodbye to Christian, who is sacrificed early for no good reason. Is the big teddybear runningback too much a threat to the alpha males on board? He could certainly squash everyone on deck. Yet his heart is clearly too honest for Pirate politics. There isn't an ounce of bitterness in his exit interview (check the extended version in Webclips). He's a busy guy, he says -- Right, he has to get back to his charity work for children.

The most interesting part of this Pirates' Court was Louie's decision. It seems he was all talk when it came to Mutiny, egging Christian on. Instead, Louie voted to cut Kendra adrift. Or did he?

-Mr. Horatio

Update: Message Board user jakobfred comes to Louie's defense with some solid reasoning: "Louie's decision not to mutiny was based on the fact that you need all members to get a mutiny. He knew that wouldn't happen. He thought Christian would have a better chance if he voted for Kendra."

And concerning the team dynamics, ladymisskier posts:

"PM has a lot of faults, but I have to give it this much credit: it really found a new and innovative way of creating teams. By mixing the teams up weekto week, it forces contestants to rethink their strategy of just eliminating strong players from the getgo. The smart way to deal with this situation is to say: See, so and so may be my biggest threat right now, and I really need to get rid of him. But he's also a good player. If I get rid of him this week and leave behind a weakling, next week I might pay for this is the weakling I left behind gets randomly placed in a team with me.

Bacon and Rum

The show plays up the greed of Joe Don. "Bacon and rum, ah, the life of a captain," he says. Another little clip shows him gloating over his food and stuffing his belly again: "The crew's got no food while I'm chowing down, baby." Joe Don appears to be growing less popular by the minute, or so it seems. We hear mostly complaints from Alexis, our designated whiner, Jay, our cutthroat, and Louie, who is just a tad self-righteous.

Louie quips the Captain is "bright and bushy-tailed" while the crew slaves away: pumping the anchors, crawling up riggings and over yards, raising and taking down the sails, pulling and releasing lines, and doing lots of scrubbing and polishing. Isn't this how most ships run? Captains delegate and steer while the crew take commands and keep the ship sailing.

Louie's persistent disgust at Joe Don clearly sets him up as the main rival. Little strategy is evident so far in his moaning, unless behind-the-scenes he's building a big alliance. It seems he's not. Then again, just because he says he bonds most with Christian, doesn't mean Louie isn't courting other shipmates. As the numbers shrink, the closer I think we will get to a real Mutiny. By then though, both Louie and Joe Don could be history.

-Mr. Horatio

Cooking and Spying on the Castle

The second episode opens with a big shot of the moon. If only it were made of cheese...

Not too sad that John the wild one is gone, the crew rejoice below deck. But they soon find life on the Picton Castle less than satisfying. Nessa finds a couple hairs in her breakfast gruel. Alexis goes right to the cooks and protests. The best part about this scene is not her whining, but the fact that Jupiter, Sean's assistant cook, is stuffing her face while turning Alexis away.

It made me wonder, is Jupiter sampling the Captain's superior vittles? Are the cooks pocketing some of the good stuff on the side? I hope this is the case and I hope we'll be rewarded someday with a scene of Sean and Jupiter being caught dining like royalty in the middle of the night.

Besides making Sean the cook -- an intelligent choice -- the Captain creates a spying position for Jay. As Bosun, it will be his duty to keep his eyes and ears open and report back to Joe Don. "I'm playing both sides," Jay says to the camera. "I came here committed to being a Pirate and the only thing I want is the loot. That's it."



The question is, who's playing who? Both picks show the Captain has some good tricks up his sleeve. I think Jay is more a pawn than he realizes.

-Mr. Horatio

Pirate John resurfaces on the Web

Ahoy John Lakness fans, the first Pirate to be cut adrift is making some appearances on the Web. Hockeyson found an interview with John at In Touch Weekly that reveals a more humble and regular guy behind the swashbuckling swagger.

"I came across as painfully arrogant on the show and that's part of this brash pirate I was playing, but in general I'm quiet and I like to laugh, and Chippendales was the funniest thing I could do," he says of his side career in exotic dancing. "My friends are people who can laugh at themselves and laugh at me."

John also has his own site at johnlakness.com with a fun blog as well, A Pirate's Journal. Some samples from our scribe:

"The Gypsy Moon is once again offering their world-famous swashbuckling style to all the broken-hearted wenches I've left ashore."

And...

"Entropy is the state of disorder, a state which matter tends to. More precisely, it is a specific formulation of probability for any given state. A chemical reaction occurs until the chemical potential equals the differential entropy. This gives a clear equality between improbability and energy."

-Mr. Horatio

Read the Week One Blog