Survivor

I have a Corey Hart song stuck in my head. No, not the one about wearing sunglasses at night....Oh, wait. Crap! Now I have that song stuck in my head. ''Don't switch the blade on the guy in shades, oh, no/Don't masquerade with the guy in shades, oh, no!'' See! Dammit! I hate that song! Anyway, I used to have another Corey Hart song stuck in my head: ''Never Surrender.'' It should be the Survivor theme song (except Corey Hart is Canadian and they don't let Canadians have anything to do with Survivor). Erik is merely the latest example of how when all hope seems completely lost, start a fire and see if someone else manages to get burned. Never surrender, baby! Frankly, last night his ability to continue in the game seemed in doubt even before his tribe lost the challenge. That was due to one of the nastiest wipeouts in recent Survivor history. At least one of the nastiest not involving Eliza. Erik tried to jump over the stepping-stone portion of the immunity challenge, and instead it became an introduction of epic proportions. Erik's chest, meet a plank of hard wood. Plank of hard wood, meet Erik's chest. It was intense. It was brutal. I watched it five times. Then in slow motion. And backwards. And then in slow motion again. And then I went to get some Double Stuff Oreos. And then six more times. And then my wife yelled, ''What the hell's wrong with you?'' at me. And she left the room. I waited for her to go upstairs. And then three more times.

But Erik survived that mishap. And then he survived the threat of being booted out of his tribe by planting the seeds of doubt about Ami. It didn't seem to work with Amanda and Cirie, but it did lead to one of my favorite back-and-forths of the season after Ami felt she had finally cleared the air with the other female favorites.

Ami: ''I owe you a thank-you. We had a really good talk.'' Erik: ''That's what I wanted.'' Ami (pointing machete): ''That's not what you wanted.'' Erik: ''That's not what I wanted.''

Hey, point a machete at me and I'll repeat whatever you say too! It's like the biggest, sharpest, pointiest Jedi mind trick ever. (''These aren't the droids your looking for.'' ''These aren't the droids we're looking for.'') But while Erik's plea may have fallen on deaf ears with the ladies, he still had the don't-call-me-a-leader leader to work, and work him he did. Somehow Erik convinced Ozzy, who in turn convinced Cirie and Amanda, that Ami would flip on them, even though — as far as we saw — Erik made no assurances whatsoever that he would stick with them come the merge. Think about that for a second. He didn't have to promise away his firstborn to stay, or even a few scoops of rocky road at his ice cream shop in Hell, Michigan. He never — again, as far as we saw — said that he'd stay true and not vote any of them out, yet he still got them to vote out someone who was pledging complete, 100 percent support anyway. Amazing.

A few other things I found amazing about this episode:

· Jason bragging about killing a rat and talking about eating it, only to be followed up by this kinda genius quote from Parvati: ''I think Jason's been trying to impress the favorites ever since the switch-up. It's not working, though. I think he's a loser.'' She said it so matter-of-factly, without a trace of animosity. As if it was just so obvious. People really, really, really do not like Jason this season. Even Probst gave him a little lip at the challenge when Ozzy Lite asked, ''How about what we're playing for?'' and the host tersely responded, ''How about first you give me immunity back? How about that?''

· I got news for you, James. I think Popeye and Jacques Cousteau could handle that water (which looked roughly equivalent to the wave pool I used to swim in as an 8-year-old) just fine. I also didn't get James' comment that ''I don't care if I win anymore, as long as I make it back to the merge.'' James never struck me as a quitter. Then again, that seems to be in fashion these days on Survivor, so you never know.

NEXT: Ami's strange exit

· Last episode, I bitched about the challenges turning into Puzzlepalooza. This week's was significantly better, even if those people throwing sandbags or whatever were pretty useless. (Even when they landed, they didn't appear to knock anyone off balance, save for one Eliza spill that was totally avoidable.) What I especially liked — besides the wipeout, of course — was the twist of having each tribe take one of their opponents out of the challenge and to Exile Island. An interesting twist in that you could take away their most formidable player, but you also gave that player immunity, ensuring they couldn't be voted out. Nice.

· This quote from Jason: After the challenge, ''I would definitely say I was the MVP today.'' Oh, okay, so that's why everyone finds him so annoying.

· James opening a beer bottle with his teeth. So freakin' badass. Man, the chicks I could have scored back in college with that move! James and Popeye could totally bond with that opening-stuff-with-their-teeth thing while they sit on the beach being terrified of the water together.

· Probst's opening remark at tribal council: ''Cirie, you're clearly the inferior tribe at this point.'' Whoaaaaaaa there, mister! Couldn't you at least warm 'em up with a softball question or two — something about Ozzy's humongous hat or Ami's humongous implants? Actually, I love just calling them out right off the bat.

· Is it just me or was that one of the weirdest tribal-council exits ever? A sobbing Ami turned to Erik, told him, ''You're gonna have so much fun'' (which seems like a rather bizarre thing to say at that point), then informed the entire tribe that they'd ''better start winning'' even though the merge was coming right up so there would be no more team challenges to win, and then ran barefoot and fancy-free down the cold-blue-light-of-death path. What is this, a Phish concert? I hadn't seen anything that hippy-trippy, wavy-gravy since, well, I guess TK and Rachel.

What do you think? Should Ozzy have kept Ami around? Would you eat dead rat? And which Corey Hart song rules more — ''Sunglasses at Night'' or ''Never Surrender''? Don't forget to check back Monday for a full Survivor Talk video with Ami. Until then, post away!