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by Jim Van Nest Published: November 2, 2001
AFTER TRIBAL COUNCIL As Samburu returns from Tribal Council, it is no surprise that Lindsey is feeling quite relieved at living through the tiebreaker against Carl. However, her relief quickly shifts to anger at even getting any votes in the first place. She is very vocal about how happy she is to have won out and how pissed she is to have been chosen the one to get the votes. The young ones (referred to as Brat Pack last week) are sure to show off their unity by having a little mini-tribe pep talk before trying to make friends with the remaining members of the Rat Pack. In one of his interviews, even Silas acknowledges that Lindsey went a little overboard telling everyone how they shouldn't **** with her, etc. The whole situation is summed up by Frank, "Damn you, Carl, for leaving me with a bunch of misfits...." KISS MY GRITS As we wake up with Boran, the talk is centered on the food. Their main source of nutrition is cornmeal. Basically, grits. Tom doesn't care for how it feels going down, so he isn't eating near as much as he should be, which is drawing a little concern from Clarence. Not that the food is terrible, but it's very bland with a pretty nasty feeling texture to it. Tom decides he knows where they can get some different food. He and Clarence head out to check out some of the local vegetation. They come across some palm trees, which, of course, have palm fruit in them. Problem is, these particular trees are near 50 feet high. Right now begins the funniest moment of this episode as we watch Tom's giant country butt try to shimmy up this palm tree. Needless to say, he doesn't make it. Plan B consists of picking up rocks and throwing them at the fruit in hopes of knocking some loose. Amazingly enough, this plan works as they knock down 2 pieces of the fruit. Some 20 minutes later when Clarence has finally managed to break through the shell of the fruit, he manages to pull out a piece of fruit described as the size of your thumbnail. After an experiment that probably wasted an hour or so for a thumbnail sized piece of fruit, I think it's safe to say that Boran will not be going that route next time they're hungry. LINDA HAS A MELTDOWN When we finally get back to Samburu, Frank, Linda and Teresa are all awake, while everyone else remains asleep. Frank discusses stepping back a bit and letting them run things for a while. To prove a point, Frank and Linda head off to get the Tree Mail announcing the Reward Challenge, but don't wake the youngsters until 30 minutes before they're supposed to be there. Linda, as condescending as she can be, wakes them up and insists that one of them read the mail to the group. It appears as though the reward will be some type of food. That sure perks everyone up in a hurry. As they are getting prepared for the challenge, Silas decides he better make nice with the older folks and try to spark some sense of unity in the tribe to go out there and win the challenge. He gets down on one knee in the typical "Coach is gonna rally the team" stance. Linda, not surprisingly, takes exception to this. So, in her ultimate wisdom, Linda figures now is the best time to bring up how obnoxious Lindsey was the night before and how she would never disrespect the rest of them like that, yadda, yadda, yadda. She goes on to sarcastically say she wants to be part of the team, of course referring to the Brat Pack. She decides to seal this up by giving Lindsey a big hug. Needless to say, Lindsey doesn't want a big hug from her. And up sprouts our next issue, Lindsey doesn't hug her right. Can it get any worse? You'd hope not. Writer's aside - Ok, the bottom line is this, if they don't get rid of this woman tonight, I may just stop watching the show. There has not been one person out of 48 contestants on any of the Survivors that have annoyed me like she does. Not Richard, not Susan, not even Jerri can match how annoying she is to me. In the name of all that is good, please choose her as the next to go. REWARD CHALLENGE #4 The Reward Challenge turns out to be entirely physical. They've set up a couple rigs with baskets hanging in a mesh of nets not unlike a spider web. The players have to run to the rig, climb a ramp, run across netting to a platform, and then climb up the web like mesh of nets to where the baskets are hanging. They must grab one basket, run back down the rig and back to the starting line where the next member of the team will take their turn. There are 12 baskets in all, each one containing different food to take back to the camp. Examples Jeff gives are olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes. The first tribe with all 12 baskets gets to keep them all. The losing team gets nothing. The challenge, while interesting, is pretty uneventful through the first 9 baskets or so, with the tribes switching off the lead, but noone gaining more than about 5 seconds on anyone else. But on the 10th basket, poor Boran Kim completely loses it on the rig. By the time she gets down with the 10th basket, Frank is heading up to get Samburu's 12th and final basket. Obviously, Boran cannot catch up; Samburu wins the reward. As we get back to Boran camp, it's no shock that the mood is very low. Kim knows she cost her team yet another reward. And her team knows it too. The bummer is, all of these people genuinely like each other and you can tell that voting one member, even the weakest member, off at this point would be a real drag to each and every one of them. But for the good of the tribe, it's pretty safe to say the writing's on the wall for Kim J. She better do everything she can to help them win immunity if she wants to have any chance of staying in the game. Back in Samburu, the celebrating is quickly halted at the realization that they have no water. Frank has let the water dwindle down to nothing as his own little punishment to the Brat Pack. So, the entire tribe heads off to get water, still flying pretty high off their Reward Challenge win. When they get back with the water, things go from not too bad to absolutely terrible. Their 2 big water-boiling jugs have cracked to the point of being unable to hold water anymore. At this point, it doesn't seem as though they have any way to boil their water, which, as we all know, is essential to being able to drink the water. Frank's plan was to sit back and watch it fall apart, and his plan seems to be coming to fruition right in front of his eyes. We take a quick glance over at Boran to find that while out the tribe has run into a tribe of another kind. A large tribe of baboons is not too far away. However, they're nothing compared to the big wildebeest they are about to see. As the tribe comes to a complete halt, Lex's voiceover is heard saying that this is the one animal they didn't want to run into out here. It is the most dangerous of them all. At that moment, he says, the situation in Africa just became very real for them. While it is just a game, the conditions are very real and they have to always be alert. IMMUNITY CHALLENGE #4 The immunity challenge, like the reward challenge before it, is almost entirely physical. However, not everyone has to participate in the physical part. I know Kim J breathed a large sigh of relief on hearing that news. The challenge is an interesting one. Since the people native to this part of Africa are mostly nomadic, our tribes will have to move a campsite in this week's immunity challenge. They've set up two little camps, complete with huts, animal pens, flagpoles and other supplies. The object, move your camp 200 yards to the new campsite and rebuild it in exact replica. 2 tribe members will be "the architects." Their job is to remember how the site looked and help set it up once it is moved. The rest of the group will do the actual moving and assist in setting the site up. Boran selects Kelly and Kim as their "architects", leaving Ethan, Lex, Tom and Clarence to do the heavy work. Samburu, since they still have one more person has to select someone to sit out. They select Teresa to sit out and Brandon and Linda as their "architects." It doesn't take but a couple seconds to see that the tribes have two different strategies. Samburu quickly takes apart the animal pen and grabs a bunch of supplies and heads for the new campsite. Boran has removed the roof of the hut and begun carrying the rest of the hut to the new campsite. It doesn't take long to see that since Boran has the strongest people moving the camp, that they are likely to win this challenge. But, anything can happen. The next step for Samburu is to take the roof of the hut to the new site. Not a wise move, in my opinion, as they had nowhere to put it. Boran, meanwhile, has picked up every supply and the animal pen. The only things remaining for them are the roof of the hut and the flagpole. As the teams get to the new campsite, you see the "architects" working hard to get the animal pens set up and you also see that Boran is comfortably in the lead. The last step has Samburu trying to carry the hut to the new site. You can tell they're tired from the rest of the challenge. Boran has a much easier time bringing the roof and the flagpole. Once at the new site, Boran puts the roof on the hut, gets everyone inside the circle and plants the flagpole. Boran wins immunity for the second week in a row. The next day in Samburu camp, not surprisingly Frank and Linda are the only ones up. It's Frank's birthday and he is whittling on his torch the names of his wife and daughters. They're very dejected and Frank even suggests that should he make it to the merge, he wouldn't hesitate to "...go behind enemy lines." The mood in Boran naturally is one of relief. Not just for Kim, but for the entire tribe. The attitude in the tribe is that they won that immunity challenge for Kim. They know she's gone if they lose again, but they don't want to see her go, so they just refused to lose. With no Tribal Council looming and their water situation taken care of from last week's reward challenge, they decided to see a little bit of Africa. They climbed a small mountain and just hung out taking it all in. Honestly, I'd like to see all of these people split the million bucks. TRIBAL COUNCIL #4 As Samburu is preparing to make the trek to Tribal Council, the tribe seems to be having a big ole honesty session. Teresa, who's never one to beat around the bush, flat out asks who is going to be voted off. They know it's down to her, Linda or Frank, so which one will it be? Not too surprisingly, Silas refuses to tell them as he has another plan. Since he knows they will all block vote and Lindsey is the only person with votes, his idea is for them to all vote for Lindsey again. That way, the tribe as a whole will be stronger come time for the merge. Needless to say, the Rat Pak balked at that pretty hard and yet another conflict arose. Linda mentions that she could live with anyone winning the money, except Silas. I'm guessing if he makes the final 2, he won't be getting her vote. Tribal Council was actually quite dull and not too surprising. I still like how Jeff never shies away from asking the questions that need to be ask and making the comments that need to be made. First question was whether or not the tribe had worked on bonding at all. Silas tried to be diplomatic in saying that Lindsey basically lost it after the last Council. Jeff hit them pretty hard on the logic behind being so divided. Silas came right back with a comment about how nothing in this game is certain. Jeff made sure to let him know that one thing is certain. He pointed out that when the tribes merge if Samburu has 4 really tight members and one that's just out there and Boran come is with 5 tight members, Samburu is in a heap of trouble. There was a little more jabber about how united the 4 younger folks are and then we moved onto the vote. The only vote they showed was Linda voting for Silas. Not too surprising considering her comment about anyone winning but Silas. Jeff comes back with the votes and he reads the first 3 votes all for Silas. Then comes back with 4 in a row for Linda. They voted right along age lines, as expected and Linda was sent packing. (Whew, now I can keep watching.) Jeff sends them back to camp, but not before mentioning the fact that Silas and Lindsey are both sitting on a lot of votes now, and this could come back to haunt them. I'll mention right now that Jeff, while usually pretty neutral when dealing with the tribes at Tribal Council, was clearly annoyed by this group. You can tell that he is thoroughly disgusted with the way they're playing the game. Bottom line: it's stupid. Voting off Carl was a huge mistake. And they've only gone downhill from there. He sees, as does everyone else watching the show, that these folks have no chance of surviving the merge unless they are up by 2 people on Boran. And even then, I'd expect Frank to switch sides and offer up Lindsey as a sacrifice to Lex and Ethan. I could be wrong, but one thing's for sure, it should be fun. I know most people will be buzzing about the super-duper surprise that they have in store fro us next week. While I have my ideas what it might be, I'm not going to address that here. The members of The Trades are discussing it right now, and sometime early next week, we'll be posting our discussion on that topic and we'll see if we can't get to the bottom of Mark Burnett's secret. On to the quote of the week. Again, I found 2 quotes that I couldn't choose between, so I'm going to put both of them here. The first comes from Lindsey. In her tirade following the first of Samburu's Tribal Council's, among other things, Lindsey says, "Don't underestimate me, people." The only way it could have been better is if she'd been the one voted off tonight. The second and one of the most arrogant things to be said by a Survivor not named Richard Hatch, comes from Silas. He's talking about how he plans on winning the whole thing, "You may as well write the check and hand it to me." As you can see the voting history table has been updated. Until next week, so long and God bless.
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