Thursday (Oct. 30) night's "Survivor: Pearl Islands" arrives with the promise of a shocking twist, but who wants to wait? We want our twist and we want it now. Whatever the twist is, it had better be more surprising than the fact that both "Whoopi" and "Threat Matrix" have been given full-season commitments.

It's night in the Drake tribe, and Rupert is out for blood. He deduces that if he got two votes for eviction and only one of them was Trish, somebody else was against him and he quickly souses out Jon as the second traitor. Rupert bellows, spits, grunts, swears, devours several small children, crushes Tokyo and generally makes Jon look like a tool.

Jon, in his defense, observes that he was just following orders. Oh Rupert, it would have taken much less effort to make Jon look like a tool. He does fine all by himself.

You would think that after several big wins in a row, things would be more jovial over at Morgan, but instead the tribe is cold and whining. Andrew declares that they would do anything to reacquire Rupert and the ensuing bounty of fish.

"My kingdom for a bushy-haired, spear-wielding youth counselor," he might say.

The emaciated Morgan tribe is even recalling the late, lamented Ryan No-Shoulders. They don't necessarily want the stoner produce clerk back, but they figure if he were still around, they could just eat him for protein. Morgan could soon be renamed the Donner Party.

Drake is expecting a crucial tree mail and the rest of the tribe is figuring that a merge is pending, but Rupert isn't ready to merge. As Rupert goes, so goes the game and thus there's no mention of joining tribes, only a cryptic note and a ring of keys.

Somehow, grabbing a snack before the challenge leads to a throw-down between Shawn and Jon over coconut popcorn, or something equally important. One of them should have the common decency to make up a good lie to justify the aggression. Geez, Jon, the least you could do is accuse Shawn of having weapons of mass destruction. No blows are exchanged, though, between the blowhards.

At the 15-minute point, the Twist arrives in the form of the six evicted tribemates. Calling themselves The Outcasts, they return for revenge.

Honestly, though, who are these people? Were viewers at home really yearning to get to know Nicole or Michelle any better? Was there some primal craving for more Scout-based wisdom from Lillian or Piggly Wiggly-generated genius from Ryan No-Shoulders? Isn't it a little too soon for nostalgia? Nobody wants to question whether this twist is unfair to the contestants who have worked hard for six weeks without getting voted off, but this may not be fair for the viewers.

The Twist goes like this: In the challenge, if The Outcasts beat either tribe, that tribe will go to Tribal Council and they'll vote off one member to be replaced by one Outcast. If the Outcasts beat both Drake and Morgan, one member of each tribe will be gone and two Outcasts will be voted back in. If both tribes beat The Outcasts? The producers have egg on their face and the twist is moot. What do you figure the odds of that are?

The challenge is a mixture of a prison break and Capture the Flag. There's a lot of digging and shimmying under poles. Drake has the lead going into the home stretch with The Outcasts close behind. It's a tense climax, but The Outcasts pull ahead.

"Hey Ya!" is all we have to say. This means we're looking at three tribal councils for the end of the show, two to remove dead wood from Drake and Morgan and one to, well, add dead wood back to Drake and Morgan.

In Morgan camp, Andrew is already plotting against whichever "Misfit" comes back to the tribe. Osten, naturally, volunteers to get voted off. This is the weekly segment where he tells everybody that he's spent and that he wants to quit. Tijuana says that she's done sticking up for the Topless Weakling.

Jon, always classy, mocks the incoming losers and observes that winners don't need second chances. This may come back to pinch him in the butt like a multi-colored crab, since Rupert and the ladies figure that either Jon or Shawn should be the one to go. Rupert gives them both a chance to offer a defense, which puts "Survivor" in serious danger of moving into "Big Brother" territory and nobody wants that.

Drake arrives first at Tribal Council, where host Jeff Probst mocks them all and gives Shawn and Jon yet another chance to argue their case. Jon's only defense is that he knows how to split a coconut five ways. Apparently it's a persuasive argument, because the tribe votes Shawn out. This will probably come back to haunt both them and, well, me.

It's Morgan's turn and a storm arrives, bringing rain, lighting and misery. Tribal Council offers more discussion of Osten's urge to quit. Jeff, uninterested in mocking the tribe as a whole, just taunts Osten. Even Mississippi Mortician Darrah says she wants to stay, even though Jeff lewdly points out that she's not holding up her top so well anymore. Darrah says something else after that. I think she endorses Dennis Kucinich for president, but I could be wrong. Has there ever been a "Survivor" contestant to last in the game for so long who has been allowed to say so little? Even the foreign women on "The Next Joe Millionaire" are given subtitles.

In a "Survivor" first, Jeff skips the secret ballot procedure, sneers at Osten and says, "Go home."

Having dedicated nearly ten minutes to belittling poor, pathetic Osten, there's no time for the Outcast Tribal Council. Viewers will have to wait for next week to welcome two people they barely remember back onto the show. If I got to choose my favorite Outkasts, I'd welcome Antwan "Big Boi" Patton and Andre "3000" Benjamin into the game, but maybe that's just me.