Survivor Micronesia - Episode 4

We open with Malakala the morning after swing vote Cirie engineered Yau-Man’s eviction by switching sides from the Yau-Man/Jonathan/Eliza/Ami alliance to the couples alliance of James-Parvarti and Ozzy-Amanda. Her reason for doing so was her fear that master puzzle-solver Yau-Man would find the hidden immunity idol if he ever got sent to Exile Island.

Eliza, Cirie and Ami sit around the morning fire, Eliza in the background.
Cirie whispers to Ami: “We have to talk.”
Ami whispers back: “Yeah, I know. We need to go for a walk.”
Maybe they have sore throats; maybe that’s why they’re whispering. It certainly can’t be because they don’t want Eliza to know they’re talking – she’s looking right at their faces from across the fire and several feet back.

Jonathan comes, bearing firewood, and shortly gets into a confrontation with Cirie. He’s pissed; she’s having none of it. His point is, "You stabbed us in the back." Cirie prefers to let bygones be landed immigrants: "You know that I broke your alliance. I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me, everybody knows it. Done.”

Over at Airia the Fans discuss who went home. General consensus is Eliza or Yau-Man. Joel is surprised and doesn’t get it. He needs to get rid of the second strongest guy on Airia, his sworn enemy Mikey. He needs to believe that getting rid of the weakest first isn’t good strategy.

We get a sequence of Airia members complaining about beauty queen coach Chet’s lack of contribution. The voice-overs are accompanied by shots of Chet doing nothing while others work around him. Even personal trainer Natalie, who has been lying so low you forget she’s around, has an opinion and it isn’t good. Mikey closes the sequence. The shot is Chet, standing waist deep in the ocean, in a position that makes you sure he’s taking a leak. “He’s gone,” Mike declares. “Chet is gone.” At least he referred to Chet as a “he” this time. Maybe that’s progress.

At Malakala James comforts Eliza, who is feeling sick. He leaves her on the beach and tells Ozzy that she’s feeling very weak. They discuss what a stupid move it was for them to give up on their plan to get rid of Eliza and yield to Cirie’s choice of wiry, clever Yau-Man. Nice to see contestants who care enough for the game to admit their own mistakes before it’s too late.

The guys go back to camp, where their alliance partners Amanda and Pavarti sit around the fire with Eliza lying on a tarp near-by. As Ami and Cirie did earlier, but without even the pretense of whispers, James and Ozzy start talking as if Eliza isn’t there. They carry on their discussion of how stupid it was for them to get rid of Yau-Man instead of Eliza. Finally she speaks up.

“I’m still sitting right here,” she says. Actually she’s not sitting, she’s prone (proning?).
“Yeah, I know,” James says. “But you’re about to die.”
“I’m not going to die. I’m just taking it real easy so I can perform well in the challenge.”

On that basis, they better watch out, because Chet’s going to be hell on wheels for Airia.

Challenge time. 4 members from each tribe swim out to a floating platform. One at a time they dive down to a 30 foot long steel cage with 20 coconuts floating at the end farthest from the door. The coconuts are painted in tribe colors and have letters on them. Each team retrieves its coconuts and drops them in a bin floating on surface. Once all coconuts have been placed in the bin, they swim the bin to shore, where the remaining 4 tribe members use the coconuts to spell a one word answer. What’s the question, I wonder, but Jeff just continues on, lifting a tarp to reveal the prize – three hens in cages, 3 eggs already laid, a rooster and chicken feed.

Airia sits out Chet. Start. Ozzy uses his time under to move all Malakala coconuts closer to the door, while Airia uses a get one done strategy. Ozzy’s strategy is the correct one. The Faves continue their dominance of the luxury competitions, winning by a large margin.

Malakala sends poor Kathy to Exile Island for the third time, a strategy I don’t get. Don’t you think the more times somebody gets on the island, the better their chance of finding the immunity idol? Ozzy accompanies her.

But, no, I’m wrong. Kathy is so demoralized that she has entirely given up on looking for the idol. Ozzy, on the other hand, is Ozzy. The following sequence just amazed me. The guy’s determination is like a physical force. He goes back and forth across the lagoon, following the same 4 clues the other exiled survivors have. Only after clue 4, as he makes his way back to “the place of your arrival,” he sees a rock that seems out of place on a tree growing parallel to the water. And that’s it – the idol is his. But he doesn’t stop there. Telling the camera that he’s following Yau-Man’s example, he fashions a crude fake idol to leave behind. But I gotta say, the peeled piece of tree he leaves behind won’t fool anybody, with the possible exception of Joel.

Back at Malakala Jonathan walks up behind Eliza bad mouthing him to Amanda. Jonathan doesn’t seem to begrudge her tactics, so convinced is he that she will be the next to go, despite being a member of his alliance.

The immunity challenge has a doozy of a word puzzle at the end. If the Faves lose, Cirie is going to blamed for forcing Yau-Man out. The start of the challenge involves 6 members from each tribe racing to a 6 point hub, where they get in individual harnesses at the tip of each spoke. They have to maneuver through a treed area, retrieve necklaces made of fist size beads. The necklaces are brought to a roulette wheel-like contraption. The 2 puzzle solvers then have to lay the 2-colored necklaces in the right order where the roulette ball lands. This will spell a 3 word phrase.

Faves get in harness first and build a good lead while the Fans can’t figure out how to work together as a team to navigate through the tress. Eliza and Cirie solve the word puzzle before the Fans have finished collecting their necklaces.

Back at Airia the scheming begins. Mikey tells the camera he will pretend to be Joel’s ally until right before the merge and then he’ll cut his head off. Watch out for the baseball bat, Mikey.

In the dinosaur den Tracy tries to rally the troops, but Chet says he is too physically weak to do anything. His heads in the game, he says, but not his body, and there’s nothing he can do about it. With him and Kathy – who’s given up on looking for the idol – as her alliance buddies, you have to feel sorry for Tracy, who still wants to play.

Woah – I just had a thought. What if Kathy found the idol on her first stay on Exile Island and the producers are setting us up? That would explain why she hasn’t looked on her other 2 visits and it means she did just what Ozzy did – left behind a fake for someone else to find. If this is the case, remember you read it here, first.

Joel and the dinos find themselves together. He tells them straight up that Chet is going, but says it’s Mikey’s call. Tracy jumps in with both feet, wanting to know why Joel is rolling over for Mikey. Great move. She feeds him a numbers scenario that concludes that if a dino gets eliminated he will no longer have the numbers to get Mikey. Numbers make Hulk’s head hurt.

At tribal council Joel tells Jeff that keeping the tribe strong for challenges is what’s important. Jeff then puts Chet on the spot. Chet will only admit to blowing the one challenge and denies he shirks work around camp. Mikey say not true – Chet’s been a basket case for 4 days. Tracy defends Chet by pointing out that he wasn’t part of all the other physical challenges that the tribe has lost, neatly causing the boys’ club to study their feet.

Jeff reads the votes. When Mikey gets his 4th vote he knows he’s been had and shoots a look at Joel, who won’t look him in the eye.

Nicely played, Tracy. Chet is a worthless ally, but he’s your worthless ally. Next week – the merge.