Survivor Recap: Men vs. Women again?

Last week Jay was suspicious of the women and voiced his concern to Chelsea. He feared that the women had reunited and were going to vote out the men one by one.

Mike was voted out last week because Kim cleverly played on Troy’s ego and said Mike was working to get him voted out. Troy jumped on that steaming locomotive and didn’t give a second thought to the fact that Kim might be playing him.

After tribal council, Tarzan tells Troy simply that the girls will be getting rid of the guys. Troy tries to calm Tarzan down but it appears to have planted a seed in Troy’s brain that Tarzan might actually be right.

REWARD CHALLENGE:

The Survivors gather tree mail to learn that they are playing a reward challenge in their own camp. Troy takes it upon himself to host the competition. They draw rocks. The red team consists of Troy, Jay, Tarzan, Kat and Alicia. On the black team, Christina, Sabrina, Kim, Lief and Chelsea. They are provided with a chalkboard for score keeping and a series of pegs attached to a pole with numbers on them. They are given two balls attached by a string. Swing the balls and try to wrap your string around the highest numbered peg on the pole. After everyone has a turn the high score wins reward. It’s pretty much a slam dunk when Tarzan scores the highest number. Sabrina is unable to tie the score so the red team wins reward.

The red team is taken by boat to another secluded beach where a Pacific Islander prepares a chicken, fish and shellfish BBQ. They enjoy rum with fresh coconut milk. Jay has a talk with Kat about strategy. He again admits his concern that Mike went home last tribal and is afraid the girls are getting ready to do some major blindsides. He hopes it’s not him.

After the red team returns to camp the girls are chatting amongst themselves on the boat. Kim says that it has to be Jay or Troy next tribal. Whoever doesn’t win immunity must go home. They could win every individual immunity until the end. Chelsea isn’t feeling right about her commitment to Jay. She said she promised him she wouldn’t turn on him and that he could trust her. She’s weakening at the thought of flipping their alliance back to the all girl alliance. Sabrina and Kat have a discussion about not needing a weak link. During her confessional, Sabrina says ‘It’s time to put your big girl panties on and make big girl decisions!” Kim also questions Chelsea about how she’s feeling and Chelsea’s hesitation makes her uneasy. From Alicia’s perspective she says that the girls had an alliance first and Chelsea should have never mixed with the men if she didn’t want this to happen.

Jay wants things set in stone. He pulls Kat aside and says that he wants an understanding that all of their alliance including, Troy, Sabrina, Kat, Kim, Chelsea and Jay will vote out Alicia if she doesn’t win immunity. If she wins immunity they will vote out Christina. Kat isn’t very convincing and says she needs to confirm. She gets the rest of the girls to come over and they not very convincingly agree with Jay that they will vote out Alicia. Apparently Jay isn’t a master at reading body language. The majority of the girls didn’t even give their promise verbally. There were evasive eyes and a lot of dirt kicking. Troy has seen the girls talking on the beach and has a hinky feeling about it. He tells Jay. This time Jay calms Troy down by insisting they have all agreed to vote out Alicia. The suspicion seems to have switched from Jay to Troy in the last 3 days. Troy is much more observant than Jay and has noticed the whispers to Alicia from Kim.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE:

Yay I don’t have to go into a long drawn out explanation of this challenge. It’s a Survivor Classic. Stand on a small log while holding a tether attached to a bucket of water. Waver or fall off the log and your bucket spills on you. You are then out of the challenge. The first second of the challenge Tarzan is out! He blamed failure, pure failure at his inept attempt. Please don’t ever let this man cut into me! Christina is the next to fall even before Jeff has had a chance to tempt anyone with food. Now let’s just put this into perspective. If you are trying to make the men in your alliance think they are safe why would you have all the women jump off their perches to enjoy a food temptation? With the exception of Chelsea every woman dropped out to eat food. Jay is apparently not too worried about a blindside as he drops out for chicken wings and beer. Troy is hanging on but unfortunately falls off, not even getting any food. Troy had wanted that immunity necklace badly. Alicia drops out rather quickly which should have been a red flag to Troy and Jay. Leif and Chelsea are left. Chelsea says she could stand there for days and tells Leif that dropping out makes you look like less of a threat. With the chance to enjoy hamburgers and beer Leif looks to Chelsea for confirmation. She affirms what she’s said and he gleefully jumps down to enjoy his snack. Chelsea wins immunity.

THE SCRAMBLE:

Back at camp the scramble begins. Kim confirms with her girl alliance that they have to split the vote because Troy may play an idol. She tells half to vote for Jay and half for Troy. She talks Tarzan into voting for Jay. At this point Troy is paranoid beyond belief. He digs up his idol and tells Jay he’s playing it. He is certain the girls are going to make a move. He hatches a plan to vote out Kim. He asks Jay if he will vote out Kim and tries to rally Tarzan, Leif, Alicia and Christina, the old Manono tribe. If he can pull this off it would be really exciting and really change the game up. Jay is surprised that Troy has an idol and tells Kim that Troy is rallying to vote her out. Jay’s plan is to vote out Alicia but flush out Troy’s idol and get him next time. He tells Kim this in a last ditch effort to save himself in case they are gunning for him.

TRIBAL COUNCIL:

Jeff points out that it looks like the girls are picking off the men because it’s 6-4 women.

And the last two castoffs are men. He asks Tarzan how can this be. Tarzan says that it’s because the women are smarter than the men. (ed note: First thing Tarzan has said that I agree with!), however Jeff, the game is afoot! It’s time to vote. Prior to reading the votes Jeff asks if anyone wants to play an idol. Troy doesn’t hesitate and presents his idol to Jeff saying that he doesn’t want to be in the club of those that have gotten voted out while carrying an idol in their pocket. Good choice Troy, if he hadn’t played his idol he would have gone home. Alas, it’s Jay who wasn’t completely blindsided as he knew it might be coming, but was bamboozled by Kim.

In Jay’s parting confessional he states that it’s part of the game and congratulates the girls.

Look forward to our interview with Jay!

Until next week, outwit, outplay, outlast!
Go Leif!