Survivor Gabon: 11.13.08

Probst was sounding pretty gleeful about the show pulling a fast one on the Survivors last week. Back from Tribal, Ken says that his Inner Crystal came out at Tribal, and he stood up for himself. I feel very badly for Bob. I hope that the game changes in such a way to keep him in it.

My friend and reader Ed brought to my attention last week that they changed the opening credits to only include the Survivors still in the game. That's new for this season, and I like it. This week, they also included "The Jury" in the opening credits, which so far is just Marcus. I really like that.

Fang is looking pretty pitiful. They retrieve Tree Mail, and it's Survivor Golf with a sling shot. The Onion is rocked to it's inner layers at the vision of Kota without Marcus. Corinne is pissed, and says so. Charlie is sad and looked about to cry. Ken asserted that no one really deserves to leave the game, so it's all in the fair and part of it. I tend to agree with him.

The slingshot takes the place of a club, and the tribe that takes the least amount of shots to get in the hole (a big sand pit) wins. The reward is a wonderful cultural experience.

Bob helps Kota get a really good drive, and Fang does a good job, too. It's close. Bob's second shot brings it right next to the pit. Fang's gets a good bounce and ends up pretty close. Ken takes the third shot for Kota and drops it in. Kota wins the first hole.

Bob's first shot for the second hole brings them over 125 yards, and Fang also gets close. Fang's second shot is amazing and they end up bouncing to just 6 inches from the hole. Ken's second shot for Kota is long, and Matty pops their close shot in for Fang.

The third shot stars for Fang and does a decent job. Bob's shot is wonderful. Matty has a good bounce off the second shot and they get really close. Bob launches the second one for a good bounce and ends up near the hole. Ken (the putter) misses by about 6 inches and goes past. Matty ends up just short for Fang. Ken putts again and gets very close, but misses. Randy talks too much and there is a lot of discussion about how to get the ball in for Fang. Randy is pissing everyone off, but Matty ends up getting it in. I am happy for Fang's win, though Bob is wonderful. Randy can't be happy about the win, because they didn't win it on his terms. Fang decides to send Bob to Exile, in hopes that he finds the Idol. Sugar is acting pretty sure that Bob won't find the idol, because it's all hers, and though I love her, I hope for Bob's sake that there is another Idol out there and that he finds it.

The Reward started with them getting washed by the tribe members, and they got new tribal clothes. Corinne got chummy with a little girl, and admitted that she was the last person who you would expect to see making friends with a little kid. Charlie admitted that Marcus did a lot of the strategic thinking for The Onion. Randy thinks that one of the tribal women was coming onto him when they were all dancing, and I don't know about that, but they had fun. Sugar looked like she had a total blast. I was happy for Matty, because he was just stuck in the pit of despair that was Fang for so long, he deserved a respite.

Over at Kota, Ken was stuck going around in circles in the boat until he finally figured out how to get moving. He managed to bring in three tilapia, and that is cool. He is justifiably proud of himself for being the tribal provider while Bob is at Exile. Good for him.

Bob is doing his best to find the (hopefully) hidden Idol. He quickly found the clues and waded through the same river that Sugar had ... and found no idol. The nail was there in the tree, but no idol. I am saddened. Bob comes up with a Yau plan to build a fake idol. He did a good job - he used tree resin and very decorative looking things to make a very convincing idol! Much better than Yau's stick. Good luck to him!

There was a tree mail about a fire starting immunity challenge, and it sounds individual. Randy made some pretty disparaging comments about Crystal, calling her Sasquatch, Big Foot, and other nasty things. When they get to the challenge, it's a merge. Bob handily replaced his old Buff Bow Tie with a brand new bright blue one. Have I mentioned that I love Bob?

Immunity is simple - it's a redux of the Stephanie/Bobby John challenge from a few seasons ago. Flint, steal, kindling and the like, and they have to be the first to start a fire and burn through a rope to raise a flag. I like this kind of challenge, which is actually relevant to something they need to do to survive, literally. Bob was getting some pretty good looking sparks, but Susie was the first to get a flame. That was surprising. Matty cut himself but kept going. Sugar gets flame second. They both build impressive fires. Susie wins the immunity, and Sugar pouted. No one else even began to get flame.

They get reward items from the Kota camp, but the merged tribe is going over to old Fang camp. Matty was thrilled with the luxury items - mainly the food. People then took off to the forest to start strategizing. The Onion (well, Randy) wants Crystal out. They need Sugar to help their plan. Sugar doesn't want to work with Randy. Corinne makes a good show of caring for Sugar's feelings, but admits it was a complete strategy, and that she thinks Sugar is a moron for believing her. The original Fang wants to split up Charlie and Corinne. They were leaning towards Corinne, but Ken convinced them that Charlie needs to go, in reality because he was mad at him for taking the Immunity clue, but he convinced them that Charlie is the brains behind the whole Onion. Ken tries to chat Sugar up, and Sugar listens to him, but admits that she doesn't trust anyone, so it is unclear who she is going to vote for.

The new tribe name is Nobag, which is Gabon backwards. Come on, they could have come up with something more original than that, don't you think? I like when they get the name from a word in the indiginous language. Oh well.

It's Tribal time. Randy is defending his behavior at the Reward Challenge, and still looks like a complete moron. Crystal asked Randy flat out why he has an issue with her. Randy said that she and GC ran the tribe like a gang (he called it a posse) in the beginning of the game. He ends up just sounding like a racist bigot, which I would not doubt. I don't doubt that Crystal is kind of annoying and not very strong, but Randy is just being obnoxious about it. Charlie says that people really need to process what comes out of their mouth at this point in the game. Ken says that he likes Charlie (but does not admit that he wants him gone), and Charlie says that he likes Ken. Even Randy says that he likes Ken's growth in the game. Sugar says that she doesn't like talking crap about people, and she is hoping that being gone at Exile so much didn't hurt her.

Randy's sole word when writing down Crystal's name was "Bitch" but only wrote down C.C. God, I hate him. Charlie is funny, though, voting for Crystal because "you took out my Marcus, and that makes me really mad." Sugar was in tears before casting her vote.

How is it going to end up?

Probst called out Randy for his C.C. vote, asking who wrote it, and then when Randy said it was him, telling him "you want to vote somebody out, you have to write their name down." It's 4 vs. 4, and Sugar voted for Charlie! He gets to be with "his Marcus" in the jury, and the Fang alliance looks to be taking down The Onion. I hope that they get rid of Crystal in their alliance and bring in Bob! Maybe he can fool them with his fake idol.

What a good episode! Next week, Randy looks to be even more obnoxious. I didn't think that would be possible, but it is. And yay, he's getting naked. Can you feel my sarcasm? Hope so. Until then.

Can't wait to see what Probst blogs about this episode.