Deal or No Deal Island Recap: Retiring Dr. Evil

You know you’ve screwed up when you’re more hated than the guy who showed up to the beach party in a tuxedo and called everyone losers. One would think that Dr. Will, reality-TV extraordinaire and general thorn in everyone on Deal or No Deal Island’s side, would be this season’s ranking villain. No one has ever wanted the title more. No one has ever tried harder to piss off more players at once. And yet somehow he’s not even close. Instead, we’ve spent the past several weeks watching C.K. bravely pioneer new ways to make an entire beach full of people hate her guts.

Unlike Dr. Will, whose villainy is largely a tactical position, C.K. seems to genuinely think she’s a good player, both in terms of skill and intention. She has somehow convinced herself that she’s the one running the game, but in reality, she has just gotten very lucky these past couple of weeks. Unless the players who hate her seriously lose focus, she’s already dead in the water. If cheating last week weren’t enough to make the whole island want her gone, throwing her team under the bus this week sure seemed to do the trick.

We left off on a cliffhanger last week as C.K. faced the banker to “redeem” herself for cheating during the challenge. Sadly, she made a good deal at the top of this week’s episode, so she got to pick who to send home. Because she can never be trusted, C.K. sent home Seychelle despite making a promise to her, Lete, Phillip, and Dr. Will that if she played the banker and won, she’d take out Dickson, the lowest-ranking member of the game’s only real alliance, “the Family.” This sucks in more ways than one. C.K. didn’t just prove (again) that she’s a predictable huckster; she also sent home the show’s best source of behind-the-scenes commentary.

On her way out, Seychelle reminded us exactly what we’ll be missing with an incredible takedown. “My love,” she told C.K., “you know that if you would have kept me here, I would’ve ate you up. Because at the end of the day, no matter what happens in this game, you are nothing but a cheat with a flat ass.”

Lete might be ready to eat C.K. alive for her betrayal, and that time will almost certainly come, but at least she has already been roasted within an inch of her life.

The only person who likes what C.K. did is Survivor goddess and chaos enthusiast Parvati, who knows that C.K.’s unpopularity will leave her starved for friends on the island — a plum opportunity for Parv to strike up an alliance of convenience when necessary. Meanwhile, Dr. Will continues to think C.K. is a hubristic “joke,” and Phil (who got so mad at C.K. during the Temple ceremony that he awakened Harriet Tubman’s spirit) thinks she’s “gross” for betraying the pact she’d made with him, Lete, and others.

Ever the strategist, Dr. Will hatches a new plan to continue his siege on the Family — and once again, he taps Lete and Phil to help. This time, he says, he’ll get on a team with C.K. and/or some Family members, tank the mission, and leave the group vulnerable to elimination. Of course, both Lete and Phillip love this, and, better yet, this week’s excursion offers the perfect opportunity for sabotage.

As our host and tropical auditor, Joe Manganiello, tells us, this week’s challenge is designed to test players’ integrity. As the winner of last week’s challenge, Lete becomes our first team captain, while C.K., who beat the banker, helms the other team. The two take turns picking; ultimately, Lete ends up with Phillip, Parvati, and La Shell, and C.K. recruits David, Dickson, and Will. Each team has a list of nine cases of ascending values, and only the captains can see which cases contain what amounts. The captains must send runners one by one to retrieve the cases, and the runners can decide whether to grab the case they’re assigned or go for a different one. Whichever team secures six cases first will end the game, and whoever winds up with a higher collective value wins the challenge.

But here’s where the integrity part comes in: Each team also has one case with a $0 value that provides safety for the team captain only. This is tempting to both Lete and, of course, C.K., who both feel like targets after that fiery Temple ceremony. But even before this game begins, we already know that only one of them is shady enough to pull something that low.

Lete works strategically to secure as many high-value cases as possible. Both she and C.K. send their first runners (Parvati and David, respectively) for the highest-value case: $2.5 million. In round two, they do the same, sending Dr. Will and Phillip for the $2.25 million. Dr. Will isn’t convinced C.K. is playing aboveboard, so he decides not to throw the game and instead runs as fast as he can — which is still slow enough to eat into the head start David gave him. But the third round is when things really get spicy.

You knew — you just knew — that C.K. would give Dickson the no-value case. He’s a slower runner, so he takes it as an act of mercy when she assigns him a closer target. And though the rules of the game do not punish the player who grabs the lowest-value case for their team, I can’t help but think that C.K. stuck Dickson with it just in case it could wind up mattering. She has, after all, been extremely outspoken about hating his guts.

Unlike C.K., Lete plays like a Girl Scout, so she sends La Shell (also a slower runner) for the slightly close but still high-value $1.5 million case before sending Parv back out for $1.75 million. In the end, Team C.K. collects six cases first, but because she sent Dickson out for the no-value case, Team Lete wins with a higher collective case value — which C.K. must have seen coming all along.

I realize that games like this are easy to armchair quarterback, but I’m going to indulge myself real quick and say that I think everyone on Team C.K. played like dummies. We already know that she hates Team Family and Dr. Will, so why did she choose them and only them for her team? By throwing the game and securing immunity for herself, she guaranteed that someone she hates will be eliminated. If I had been any of them, I’d be running for any case except the ones she chooses. At least then you’d have a shot of taking the team down together without handing her immunity. But, hell, what do I know? I put Seychelle second in my bracket last week, so take everything I say with a huge pile of sea salt.

For those keeping track, this marks the third week in a row in which Lete gets to choose who will face the banker, and once again she plays it smart by letting the vulnerable decide who among them should meet their maker. This time, David decides it’s his turn to take the game into his own hands. He promises both Lete and Dr. Will that if he wins Deal or No Deal, he’ll send his own “son,” Dickson, home — effectively destroying Team Family. I will go to my grave wondering why anyone believed that obvious lie.

Maybe it’s because Lete didn’t know David isn’t just some hottie from Australia — he’s the “Golden God” of Australian Survivor, a fact only his Team Family wifey, Parvati, seems to know. Will knows he has won something but can’t figure out what. Regardless of David’s credentials, why on God’s diminishingly green earth would anyone send one of their strongest alliances home? David would be left on his own, and given how much of a threat others perceive him to be, he wouldn’t last long without a couple of people watching his back. But whatever, I guess. Apparently, anyone who isn’t an obvious traitor like C.K. receives automatic trust. Dummies, all!

I will say this for David: Between establishing personal animosity with certain briefcases that looked at him funny and actually picking fairly well, David’s the most entertaining Deal or No Deal player we’ve seen so far. If only he brought this playful energy to the rest of the game! Ultimately, he took the banker’s cheeky offer of $999,999 (“For Luke,” who won only one dollar during the first Deal or No Deal round of the game), which turned out to be an excellent deal. Cue the treachery!

Some players are predictable in a good way, and this week David was one of them. Of course he eliminated Dr. Will. He has hated his guts since day one, and he’s also one of the biggest threats not just to David’s game but to his whole alliance. By sticking with his crew, David has kept himself insulated and proven that his allies can trust him. Yes, this will likely put him in icy waters with Lete, but with Parvati and Dickson on his side, he’s probably better protected than she is. Lete’s only remaining ally in this game is Phillip. No one wants to play with C.K. (for now, at least), and La Shell remains a free agent. If I were David or Lete, I’d be looking to bring La Shell into the fold.

But before we sign off and float out to sea for another week, let’s sit with the biggest news of this week’s game. Is Dr. Will really done with reality-TV competitions, as he said? David might be thrilled that he has retired “Dr. Evil,” but I’m not convinced. Then again, I must also admit that I had Dr. Will at No. 3 last week, so truly what do I know? I’m just gonna go bury my head in the sand.

Island Power Rankings

See you all next week!