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by Jim Van Nest Published: December 7, 2001
LEX SMELLS A SNAKE? Well, as hinted in the previews for this week's episode, the show opens with Lex freaking out about getting 2 votes in the last Tribal Council. He figures one of those votes came from Clarence, but it's the second vote that is troubling him. In fact, he's quite obsessed in finding the "snake" that would actually dare to vote for him. He talks to Kelly about it. She swears she wasn't the one to cast the vote. And she feels they can eliminate Ethan, Tom, and Kim J. right away. During this conversation he vows to find the person and make sure they are the next one to go. As an aside, we see Kelly talking about what a jerk Lex is being and he really needs to get over himself if he thought he'd get in this game and breeze through without ever getting a vote. Meanwhile, Brandon is watching Lex freak out and is getting quite a kick out of it. He tells us that whoever did it must have been trying to get into his head and it's working. The only bummer is that he didn't think of it. Back to Lex's witch-hunt, he's now talking to Teresa. Writer's aside: Glancing down at my handy-dandy little vote history chart, I see that it was, in fact, Teresa that cast the "phantom vote" for Lex. This conversation is Lex letting Teresa know that he doesn't suspect her at all and that he knew from the start that he could trust her. His gut tells him that and he always trusts his gut. Teresa is in a little bit of shock at how hard Lex is taking this. The bottom line was real simple. She promised Clarence she would not vote for him. And she didn't. Why Lex? Why not Lex. That's whom she picked and figured who would care. I guess she knows now. REWARD CHALLENGE #8 This week's reward challenge is one of persistence and coordination. As the survivors arrive to the challenge spot, they see a group of towers standing with baskets on top of them. One for each person. The object is pretty simple to explain, but not near as simple to actually perform. Each person has nine items to get from the ground into the basket atop their tower. They must put each item on the end of a plank, then stomp on the other end of the plank, catapulting each item into the basket. Easy enough, right? Um...wrong. Oh yeah, the reward. This is also interesting. The winner will win 2 goats. The next day, that person will take these goats into an African village to barter them for whatever it is they might want for themselves and their tribe. And they're off. Ethan wastes no time striking first. In fact, he has 2 in the basket before anyone else gets their first. Kim J., Lex, Tom and Frank get in on the act, but this is clearly Ethan's show. Lex tries to make a competition of it, by being only one behind Ethan. But, with Lex having 2 items left, Ethan pots the 9th item and walks away with the goats and a trip "to town." As they head back to camp, Jeff suggests possibly getting some other items to take to town to barter with. Who knows what he could end up coming back with? THE TRADING OF THE GOATS Bright and early the next morning, the tribe is getting all sorts of items together for Ethan to try to trade for sweets, food, souvenirs and anything else he can get. Jeff shows up and asks everyone to come with him to see Ethan off. What they find is the big truck they were dropped off in some 23 days ago, and the same driver that hollered at them to get off the truck. Here is where Jeff springs what every Survivor hates to hear. "Ok, you're going to have this great day, this great reward...now pick someone to go with you." So, Ethan has to choose someone. Because he doesn't want to upset anyone or play favorites or try to figure out a strategy behind it, he made what I think was a very good decision. He decided to take the person that finished in second place in the reward challenge. That was Lex. So, with goats and stuff loaded, the trek begins. After a 3 1/2 hour drive, they are finally brought to the village of Wamba. It's basically a one street town with several different shops lining the street. In all honesty, it reminded me a lot of how towns in the Old West are portrayed in movies. Needless to say, 2 dirty, scraggly looking white guys dropped off in the middle of a small African village drew a crowd. They didn't know what to do, so they just started walking around asking people if they wanted to buy some goats. They had a few offers, but the best offer they received was 1600 shillings for the pair. Lex did the conversion and they netted about $25 for the 2 goats. The guy that bought the goats turned right around and walked about 20 feet straight to the butchery. Anyway, with money in hand, it's chow time. By this time, they've now got an entourage, wherever they go. One of the locals who seems to be "the guy in the know" is helping them around the village. They finally settle on a restaurant that offers 3 different things. One is basically the same mush they've been living off back at camp, one is some sort of meat dish, and the 3rd is French fries. Not feeling too comfortable with the idea of eating meat out there, the duo decides on the fries. Lex orders a beer and Ethan, a soda. They say they're the best fries they've ever had, although they don't agree with Ethan's stomach very well. It seems his stomach has shrunk quite a bit and the grease of the fries just did not agree. Lex on the other hand, downs his without a side effect. Having just spent 1000 shillings on lunch, the two head back out into the street to trade some of their articles for more money to buy some stuff to take back to the tribe. They have hats, sunglasses and Ethan even trades the t-shirt off his back. In what is one of my favorite moments in Survivor history, Ethan takes out his hacky sack (his luxury item) and starts kicking it around with several of the local children. While we're not there, it certainly looks like everyone had a great time. All the while in a voiceover, we hear Ethan talking about this being one of the greatest experiences of his life. About how for a couple hours, he and Lex were embraced by these people and felt like they were a part of the culture for just a short time. And when it was time to go, he gave his hacky sack to one of the children. You could tell that this just made their day. Truly a touching moment, in my opinion. DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK While Lex and Ethan are having the time of their lives in Wamba, the rest of Motomaji seems to be planning. Teresa has rounded up Brandon and Kim P and is trying to bring the Samburu tribe back together. Frank isn't too thrilled with this idea as he doesn't trust the kids at all, but he realizes that he doesn't have much of a choice in the matter, so he's in. Once they get agreement from Brandon and Kim, they decide their best bet would be to try to lure Kelly into an alliance with them, effectively giving them the majority. Kim and Kelly finally get some time alone and Kim starts working on her. She tells Kelly that the plan is to vote for Lex and the Samburu tribe members are all in it. She mentions Lex specifically because she knows that Kelly doesn't really care for Lex and thinks this might be the best way to get her to switch her alliance. Kelly refuses to do so. Basically, she made a pact with the remaining Boran and she plans to keep it. Ethan and Lex come back to the tribe, both planning to downplay the time they had a little, so as not to make everyone else jealous. They also have the fun of handing out all the stuff they bought while they were gone. Ethan tossed out several pieces of candy to everyone and then held up the grand prize, an entire unopened case of cookies. Needless to say, for those few minutes, Ethan was everyone's favorite guy. IMMUNITY CHALLENGE #8 This week's immunity challenge was an interesting one. It didn't rely on strength, endurance, trivia or even eating anything gross. It relied on memory. When the tribe arrived for the challenge, Jeff gave them 30 seconds to look into a barrel that he had there waiting for them. The barrel was divided into 9 squares. Each square had an item in it. Rocks, leaves, twigs, and the like. The challenge is simple. In 30 seconds, remember as much as you can about the items and their placement inside the barrel. When the 30 seconds were up, everyone was directed to a barrel of their own. Jeff broke down how each section was numbered, and informed everyone that all of the items were spread out within about a 150 ft radius of them. The plan, Jeff calls a number, the survivors go and find the item that was in that square and put it in their barrel. You get the wrong item, you're out. The first item called out was #7, a leaf and a seedpod. Frank and both Kims got that one wrong. The second item was # 2, elephant dung. (I know, real nice isn't it?) This one knocks out Teresa and Kelly. We are down to 4. Lex, Ethan, Tom and Brandon. Rather than call out another number, Jeff has the remaining 4 look into a different barrel, this time for only 15 seconds. The plan this time is that they all have 1 minute to run out and grab as many of the 9 items as they can find and place them in the correct squares. The one who gets the most right, wins immunity. And they're off. The gathering is quite dull, as I couldn't remember what was in the barrel, nor could I really tell what they were picking up. So, when the minute was up, Jeff started checking the barrels. Brandon was up first and he managed to get 6 items found and placed correctly. Lex came next but he could only muster up 5. He's out. Tom clocked in next with 6 items as well. He had a 7th, but it was in the wrong place, so he had to settle for a tie with Brandon. Ethan was last and when all was said and done, Ethan had found and placed 8 items correctly. Seems to be a good week to be Ethan, as he won immunity to go along with his reward challenge earlier. TIME TO SMOKE OUT THE RAT With immunity for this week's Tribal Council decided, Lex is back in the business of smoking out the rat that stabbed him in the back at the last TC. He's pretty sure that it was Kelly, so he begins to plan for her ousting. He realizes that without her vote, he could fall short of the 5 votes he needs to get rid of her. He searches out Brandon and basically offers Brandon Kelly's spot in the alliance. Brandon certainly does seem interested, but we're not exactly sure what he's going to do. He seems to have his own agenda, so whether booting Kelly fits that agenda, we're just not quite sure. After what he thinks is securing Brandon, Lex begins the task of talking Big Tom into voting off Kelly. Now we all know the soft spot Tom the Horndog seems to have for the ladies in the tribe, so Lex knows he has to hard sell this one. He basically convinces Tom that Kelly is the one that voted for him and that Brandon told him he overheard Kelly talking about being a "free-agent", basically suggesting that she was no longer part of an alliance. With Tom on board, Lex is feeling pretty confident that in a few short hours, he'll be cutting the head off the rat that stabbed him in the back, figuratively speaking, of course. With Tribal Council getting closer, Kelly searches out Lex to see whom they're voting for and Lex makes it pretty darn obvious that they're voting for Kelly. He tells her that apparently alliances aren't as strong as he thought they were. Not surprisingly, Kelly runs straight to Kim P. and decides to join the Samburu folks in voting off Lex. Kelly, Kim P., Teresa and Frank are guaranteed to vote for Lex. Ethan, Tom, Kim J and Lex are guaranteed to vote for Kelly. The only person we're not sure of is Brandon. Oddly enough, though, both groups are VERY confident that Brandon will be voting with them. So as much as this show has focused on Ethan for winning both challenges, it is really Brandon holding the fate of 2 survivors in his hands. Right before Tribal Council, Brandon is heard saying to the camera that he still doesn't know whom he'll vote for. TRIBAL COUNCIL #8 At Tribal Council, Jeff whips out the usual 4 or 5 questions before the vote. This week he asked Ethan on a scale of 1-10 to rank the reward he received. Not surprisingly, he ranked it a 10 without hesitation. Jeff asked Tom if with 2 players gone there was a void left in the tribe. Tom told him that it seemed people were talking and planning more with a couple people away from camp. Kim P. was asked if at this stage of the game she would prefer not to win a reward that took her away from camp. She quickly said no way. Rewards are still rewards and being away from camp for a few hours was well worth whatever their reward would be. And the question of the hour was posed to Lex. Was he surprised to get votes last TC? Of course he was. And he went into a small explanation of how it was messing with his head for 3 days and how seeing his name on one of those pieces of paper was just awful. Ok, let's vote. They show the votes of 3 different people. The first one is Lex. He voted for Kelly basically saying she stabbed him in the back by voting for him in the last TC. Then they show Kelly's vote. Surprise, it's for Lex. She seems very smug in her little speech that she's got the extra vote needed to win this. The third person they show is, surprisingly, Brandon. He cast his vote for Kelly. He says he made a promise to Lex and that making this move, he feels, puts him in a better position to fulfill his real goal, which is making the final 4. The fact that they showed Brandon's vote really threw me off. I mean, they made it pretty clear that his vote was the one that would decide the evictee. Or would it? Let's go tally the votes. Not surprisingly, after the first 8 votes were read, it was a 4-4 tie between Kelly and Lex. When Jeff turned the paper around and said Kelly's name, you could almost hear her jaw hit the floor. She was so sure that Lex was history. This was gonna be her shining moment, watching him leave Tribal Council. D'oh! Sucks to be her. Almost as annoying as Kelly's look of total amazement was the smug grin Lex was giving her as she left. I think it's safe to say that if Lex makes the final 2, he does not have Kelly's vote. QUOTE OF THE WEEK And for this week's Quote of the Week, there were 2 good ones. One from Kelly and one from Frank. Since Frank has won the Quote of the Week already, I've selected Kelly as this week's winner. But it wouldn't be right to ignore one of the few jokes Frank has actually made on the show. Right after Ethan selected Lex to go to town with him, the group was wishing them luck in their trading. As they climbed into the truck, Frank blurted out, "And if you have to trade in Lex, that's ok." But the real Quote of the Week goes to Kelly discussing Lex's obsession with finding the person that cast the second vote against him. "I mean, what do you expect in this game? I mean, I'm sorry someone voted against you, Mr. Ego. Deal with it." Well, kids and this brings my Episode 8 recap to a close. It's nice to be back in the saddle and I look forward to reliving next week's episode with you, too. As always, take care and God bless. I've taken the time to set up yet another chart to keep track of jury members. Let me know what you think.
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