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by Jim Van Nest Published: March 8, 2002
SO HAPPY TOGETHER The show opens the evening of the first Tribal Council, but not with Maraamu (who just expelled Peter) but with Rotu. And they're all...get this...massaging each other. It's obvious that this tribe is really bonding right now. This is getting to be the type of bond that will last through any switcheroo or down period that may happen during the course of the show. Four of these people will be the last ones standing...I'm sure of it. One thing I'm also sure of, Kathy won't be one of them. She is not bonding with the folks at all. She's not even hanging out with them. Hell, she isn't even sleeping with them. They're all under their makeshift shelter and Kathy's out sleeping by the fire. Um, I may not be a genius, but this don't look good for the real estate agent. Morning comes and we see Kathy out looking for food. She's not too thrilled with the shelter they have built and she's hoping she can find her niche as the provider of food so she can get some things done her way around the tribe. Not a good way to get people to want to help you, if you ask me. Back at camp, we learn that Robert isn't feeling well. The thought is that a lack of food is hurting the big guy most of all. The tribe sets out to make some weapons and John comes up with a plan for a pig trap. It's amazing the stuff that these folks are coming up with. Almost as if not to be undone, we flip to Maraamu and their morning ritual of putting on a radio morning show. Sean seems to run things, with Hunter giving the weather forecast and Rob reporting on the food. The Sean breaks into song and everyone sings and dances. Wheee!!! Time to get to work and what do you know? Patricia (now lovingly called Mama) has come out of her shell quite a bit. She's now running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Working and lifting and building and unfortunately, barking orders. THE QUEST FOR FOOD AND SHELTER Back at Rotu, John is doing everything he can to be the provider of food. He starts by catching one shrimp in his homemade shrimp catcher thingy. Meanwhile, Kathy is finding all sorts of shellfish. She shows everyone where she's looking and finding these and is getting really upset that the tribe isn't bending over backwards to praise her for her fine work. Her incessant bitching is finally starting to get to John. Once they begin the preparation of their first catch, we find that everything that lives in the sea is incredibly slimy and not very appealing to the eye. It seems, it's not too appealing to the pallet too as Neleh is having trouble actually getting it down without gagging. Very interesting foreshadowing on CBS' part. Meanwhile, all Kathy can do is complain that everyone didn't shower her with praise for her incredible shell catching abilities. Things are taking a similar turn over at Maraamu, where Mama is beginning to get a little out of hand. She's doing some great stuff, but she's ordering everyone around and Vee and Sean (for starters) are getting a little tired of it. Now here's where this tribe takes an interesting turn, I think. We are then shown a conversation between Vee and Sean discussing the issue of race on the island. They seem to feel like they can't really be themselves or have to hold back some of their personality due to the majority being white. Normally, a conversation that took this turn would scream "reverse racism" at me. But in this case, they just may be right. If you look at all the other Survivors, the black folks haven't fared very well. Why? Not sure. Coincidence? Possibly. Racism? I don't think so, but then again...you never know. Anyway, the conversation boiled down to Vee and Sean will be sticking together no matter what. If they can only get some folks to join them, they could become a force. Of course, while being concerned that his skin color might cause him to get kicked off the island, Sean goes about getting in the tribe's good graces by doing absolutely nothing. The entire tribe is working on making the shelter and he's out in the ocean standing there. I don't know...tanning? Hunter and his shadow, Gina, are getting quite annoyed by this. Hunter sends Sean off to get some water. While away, Sean lets us know that the rest of the tribe basically calls attention to every little thing they do, so Hunter will feel like they're contributing. He simply refuses to kiss Hunter's butt. Plain and simple. With Sean away, the talk can turn to Rob and Sarah. They seem to be running off together a lot. Hunter feels that Sarah's laziness is really bringing Rob down. Just killing his productivity and potential. Rob, on the other hand, is carrying Sarah for a reason. He essentially has 2 votes now. She'll vote however he says. This comes with a bad side, of course. As he says, he feels like he's playing Survivor for 2, cause she isn't doing anything to help her cause any. Seems the race is on over at Rotu for who can be the person to provide the most food. And the contestants are John and Kathy. Turns out John's pig snare worked, however, the pig got away. But, he's just stoked that it even worked at all. Right about this time, we hear Kathy calling for a meeting. Her idea of a meeting is essentially, "I'm gonna tell you what I want done and you're going to do it." Needless to say, that pissed off a lot of people. She basically used a bag full of food as her way to get what she wanted. She has an "I'll give you this food, but here's what you're going to do for me" attitude. Her concern now is that the shelter isn't good enough. She complains about not having enough room. She also wants people to fall into a role. Her role being food gatherer. Writer's aside: Of course she'd like that to happen. Whoever catches the food is the one who won't be kicked off, for crying out loud. Jeez, she wants the role of the person to never be voted off! No shit! What kind of frickin idiot would go along with that plan? Someone please get her out of here before I go postal! After this little idea, Gabriel is quick to shoot her down. He tells her falling into roles is a bad idea and that frankly, changing the shelter isn't that important to him. He'd rather get to know everyone in the tribe first, then worry about the shelter. I was kinda surprised that he was the one to stand up to her. However, a few minutes later, here he was getting the shelter remade. REWARD CHALLENGE #1 And for our first reward challenge we have quite the physical challenge ahead of us. The payoff isn't as good as some other reward challenges. The prize is a snorkel, mask and fins. Sure, it'll help with fishing, but it seems like they could have gotten a little more. Course, that could just be me. Anyway, the challenge. Out in the ocean, there are 2 boats stuck on the bottom with 250 large rocks holding them down. The plan is simple. Swim down to the boat, remove the rocks, let the boat float up to the surface, empty the water and row it back to shore. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. While they didn't say how far down the boats were, I'd have to guess at least fifty feet, probably more. So this is a major fitness challenge. Nothing too terribly exciting happens during this challenge, but a very interesting thing happens. On average, as people are diving down to the boats, they are taking out an average of 3-6 rocks. But, when Gabriel goes down there, he dumped out like 18 rocks. He seemed like he was down there forever. In my preview, I rated him a 12-1 favorite. I'm thinking I didn't give this guy enough credit. Finally, the Rotu tribe (minus Robert as they have one extra person) decides the guys should go down and turn the boat over and dump out the rocks. This works and they are first to have their boat at the surface. Maraamu does the same, but it's too little too late as Rotu runs away with the second straight challenge. A dejected Maraamu tribe gets back to camp to realize that the rains will be coming. And soon. So, it's time to really get on making their shelter. Sarah is getting upset because she feels that no one is listening to any of her ideas. And they're not, but can you really blame them? I mean her only contribution so far has been to show off her boobs as much as possible. She has some good ideas, but I think she really needs to work on her delivery a little. An apology along with a concerted effort to actually DO something might not hurt either. IMMUNITY CHALLENGE #2 And here it is, ladies and gentlemen, what we've all been waiting for. The Gross Food Challenge. What disgusting creature will this season's survivors have to eat? What awful piece of mush will they have to ingest? Fish. That's all. Just some raw fish. Oh yeah, the preparation is a little odd. They call it "fafaru". Broken down to its essence, it's marinated raw fish. However, it's marinated in a sauce made of fish bones, crab legs, lobster legs and the like all left to soak in sea water for 3 days. This marinade is then poured over the fish and left out in the baking sun for a couple hours. To hear Jeff describe it, the aroma of this "meal" is somewhere between "Porta Potty Row" at the Mardi Gras around 2am and Big Tom's feet after 30 days in Africa. And to make matters worse, this stuff is just covered in flies, so you know it's some nasty stuff. The final touch to the challenge, no hands. They'll be bobbing for fafaru. Since Maraamu is down by one player, one person will have to go twice. Hunter steps up to that challenge. Surprisingly, most everyone gets it down with little or no trouble. But Neleh (remember from earlier) has a real hard time getting her piece down. She does, but with a struggle. The person who had the most trouble, though, was Rob the construction worker. He almost threw up several times, and Jeff had started the 5-second countdown before he finally swallowed his piece. Of course, with each tribe member doing his or her part, it was a tie. And we all know how they break the ties in the Gross Food Challenge...each team picks a member of the opposite team to not only feast again, but on a substantially bigger portion than the original challenge. The choices were pretty obvious, Neleh for Rotu and Rob for Maraamu. Both are having a hard time choking it down, but Neleh seems to get herself under control, while Rob finally ends up throwing up. Let's check the stats...yep...that's 3 for 3 for Rotu. (Kathy gets spared for one more week.) WHO WILL IT BE? Wow, so many choices, so little time. I mean, we have the Gina/Hunter faction that wants Sarah gone, but is also tired of Sean's laziness. We have Sean/Vee who are tired of Sarah's antics. We have Rob/Sean who are tired of Patricia's orders. Then we have Rob who single-handedly lost the immunity challenge. I mean, this thing go in any direction. I think the one thing that can be said is that Hunter, Gina and my pre-season pick for "1st in her tribe to be voted off" Vee are fairly safe. Rob is concerned for 2 reasons. He knows he lost the challenge and is hoping it won’t get him kicked off. He's also concerned that Sarah might get the boot and then he'd basically have to choose between working for Hunter or hanging with Sean and possibly being next to go. Well, let's head to Tribal Council and see what happens. TRIBAL COUNCIL #2 Man, does Jeff like to talk at Tribal Council. He asks around about how things are going in the tribe. Patricia, speaking as the "Mama" mentions that not everyone is working as hard as they could be. Sarah speaks up that she's an adult and she doesn't want or need to be told what to do every moment of the day. Sean discusses how he is getting worn out from working so hard. While Sarah admits to not working as hard as everyone else. Her reasoning? She wants to be strong for the challenges. Gina interrupts to say that her slacking off makes her stronger in the challenges, but make the rest of the team weaker. Jeff's last question is to Rob. Does he feel vulnerable this time around after losing the challenge, and would he be upset if they voted him off for it. He said not at all. If he goes this time, he'd hold no grudge or hard feelings against anyone. So, once again, who will it be? We see 2 votes this time. Vee votes for Patricia saying she's tired of the Mama thing and the orders. And we see Hunter's vote for Sarah saying that the beach party is over. I'll go tally the votes. Patricia gets the first vote and then alternates with Sarah until it's tied at 3 votes apiece. And the 2nd person voted off Survivor: Marquesas is Patricia. Sorry Mama, but the kids don't need you anymore. What I found the most interesting about this is that Hunter does not have the control over this tribe that he thinks he does. Sean, Vee, Rob and Sarah all voted for Patricia. While they may be idiots, they could be a tough force to beat down the road. QUOTE OF THE WEEK Well, this wasn't one of the best episodes for quotes, however, there was one quote that made me laugh out loud, and both times I watched the show. This one from the host, Jeff Probst. During the food challenge when Rob wasn't looking so hot the first time, you can hear Jeff in the background say, "To your left Rob...not on me." Maybe I was in a weird mood tonight, but that really tickled me. JIM'S PREDICTIONS Well, I still think I'm pretty right on in Rotu. Kathy is the first to go, and John and Tammy seem to be putting themselves in a great position to win this thing. But I seem to have totally messed up Maraamu. I had Patricia with 30-1 odds on winning it all. Not good, but I didn't think she'd be gone yet. To me, Vee and Sarah should be the ones in the hotel right now. Well, if nothing else, Sarah's days do seem to be numbered, so I could get back on track there. One last thing before I go...Quick note: Due to the beginning of the NCAA Tournament and CBS's television schedule, Survivor will be seen at 7pm on Wednesday for the next two weeks. Once the Tournament is over, Survivor will return to it's regular time slot on Thursday. Well kids, that'll do it for this week's edition of Lost and Delirious. I'll see you all back here next week to see if Kathy finally gets her due, or if Maraamu goes another player down. Until then, take care and God bless.
Other Survivor Columns at The Trades: Week 2's S-Ratings | Week 1's S-Ratings | Week 1's Recap | Survivor 4 Preview Other television columns at The Trades: 24 12am-6am | 24 6am-11am | Queer as Folk: Season 2 | Amazing Race 2 Preview |
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