Day 3 Puka Tribe On the morning of day three, we find Brad holding his head from a headache that is still lingering from the seasickness he suffered on Day 1. Cao Boi motions him over and tells him to sit down on the beach. Dr. Cao Boi then starts explaining that Brad is suffering from no ordinary headache, but from what the Vietnamese call a “bad nguyen” (Okay, someone please help me here. On the show it sounded like he pronounced it “bad win”, and the only way I know how to spell “win” in Vietnamese is “nguyen”. Now, I can barely spell in my native tongue, as I’m sure you’ve discovered. They only way I came up with nguyen is because there is this awesome noodle house near where I live called Andy Nguyen’s, and that’s how you pronounce it and say it there. (hi Andy!) But I am SO far out of my league here… if someone can help me correctly define and spell this, I’d be so very appreciative!) So anyway, for now we’ll refer to it as the “BW” until we can get a review from the line judges. Cao Boi sits Brad down, and begins to “help” him by mushing his face together and sticking his thumbs in his eyes. (I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look like it’s going to relieve any pain from where I’m sitting. This reminds me of when I was little, and if I told my dad I had a headache, he would offer to kick me in the shin to take my mind off the pain in my head. But my dad’s no Vietnamese monk, so I shouldn’t let that color my judgment here.) So Cao Boi continues to ferociously attack this BW, now plucking and pinching the skin between Brad’s eyes. He really looks like he’s plucking a chicken, and it beginning to leave quite a distinct red mark on Brad’s face. Cao Boi says, “you got it, you got a touch of BW… it’s not real bad, but it’s not real great.” Then suddenly he stops the commotion and stands up and says, “There, you feel better now, you’re headache will be gone in a few minutes.” Brad looks a little dazed, and the camera zooms in on the dark red mark between his eyes. Cao Boi looks at the mark and says, “That will go away in a day or two… that’s your indicator.” I guess the mark is a measure of how severe the BW was? Both Cao Boi and Brad admit it’s not too bad (Brad has no mirror though, how does he know?). However, as soon as Brad stumbles back to camp, Becky and Jenny start cracking up and pointing at his face, wondering what the heck Cao Boi did to him. Brad however, is satisfied. He has a new mark on his face, and a heck of a story to tell his friends back home… but no more headache. Aitu Tribe Billy, J.P. and Ozzy go to retrieve tree mail. They find their tribal flag waiting for them, as well as the notification of their first competition, which will be a combined immunity and reward challenge. And then suddenly we hear Billy sharing his thoughts on the upcoming competition. Of course he wants to see his team win, but then he adds “…but even if we lose, it’s not the end of the world, it’s the beginning of the game.” Nicely stated, Billy! Way to keep things in perspective! Combined Reward and Immunity Challenge The cameras zoom up towards the beach, and we find Jeff waiting for the survivors. He looks all sporty in his straw cowboy hat and cool blue linen shirt. Jeff wants to talk for a moment about the marooning and the chickens. Yul gives his account about how he had a chicken, handed it off to a tribe mate, and the next thing he knew the chicken was gone and someone else was making off with it. Jeff asks him to point out who took the chicken, and Yul looks around a bit, and then points out Jonathan from the Raro tribe who is busy looking up at the sky and avoiding eye contact. Jonathan makes light of it, and says he just grabbed the chicken I the midst of the chaos. And then throws out a “Sorry, dude” in the general direction of Yul. It’s time for the challenge. And this first time around, they have to assemble a puzzle boat, and then install seven braces on the boat to keep it together. They then all have to paddle out and retrieve a lit torch off the beach, and then paddle back to shore. Then they disassemble the boat, grab the braces, and run them up the beach. There they find a set of four puzzles that they have to put together, one representing each direction (North, South, East, West) of a compass. Once the puzzles are together, the braces are uses as the rungs of a ladder to get them up a platform. They have to put the four directional puzzles in the correct spot in a large picture of a compass that is halfway up the platform. Once that’s done, they have to get all members of their tribe up to the top of the platform, and light their tribes fire barrel at the top. The first three tribes that light their barrel get flint, and avoid going to tribal council. In addition, the first tribe wins an extra reward of a fire-making kit containing: kindling, waterproof matches, and kerosene. The last tribe must of course vote someone out later that night at tribal council. Jeff then mentions that there is one more twist. He holds up a note, but says the contents of the note will remain secret until after the challenge. So then they’re off! It’s like every Survivor challenge you’ve seen. Herds of castaways running down the beach and attacking their first roadblock. Both the Puka and Aitu tribes make fast work of the puzzle boat. Puka has just a slight lead, but both head out to the fire torches without much incident. The Raro tribe fumbles up a bit, but finally gets it together and push off from shore just as the first two tribes are reaching their torches. The Hiki tribe however is having all sorts of problems, everyone kind of frantically doing their own thing and not working together very well. Suddenly, the Raro tribe’s boat begins to fall apart in the water. It slows them way down, but they get to their torch just as the first two teams hit the beach. Puka and Aitu race up to the puzzles as Hiki finally shoves off and heads towards their torch. Raro suddenly has a brain freeze, and can’t seem to coordinate their paddling. They flail in the water as Hiki starts making up ground. Meanwhile, Puka and Aitu attack the puzzles, and are almost halfway through by the time Raro finally makes it up to shore. Jonathan and Adam start working on the puzzles for Raro, and Hiki finally paddles back up to the beach. Puka finally gets the last puzzle together and starts building the ladder… Aitu is right behind. Puka makes quick work of the ladder and races up to claim first. Aitu follows shortly after. Adam and Jonathan of Raro finally figure out the puzzles, and in their haste the start building the ladder and racing up it… forgetting the puzzles behind them. It isn’t until Candice is going up the ladder, the second to last team member, that she sees that the spots meant to hold them are empty. Candice scrambles back down to grab them as Hiki tries to take advantage of the blunder and finish their puzzles. But Hiki is too far behind, and after the puzzles are placed correctly, Raro scoots up the ladder and lights their fire barrel to come in third. They look relieved, but a little sheepish for stumbling so badly. Jeff distributes the three parts of the immunity idol to the three winning teams. Hiki is told that they will have to go to tribal council tonight and vote off one of their own, but first Jeff has to reveal the twist that he mentioned before the challenge. The twist is familiar; the losing tribe has to pick one member of any of the other tribes to go spend two nights along on Exile Island. On the island there is one bag of water, a machete, flint, and a pot… and somewhere is hidden an immunity idol that will keep the bearer safe up until the final four. Every time someone is sent to Exile Island, they will receive an additional clue to help them discover the location of the idol. The Hiki tribe starts deliberating, but for some strange reason the guys step out to get a good look at the rest of the tribes as they are deciding, and all of the women hang back. It ends up being only Sekou and Nate that make the decision, and the girls all just go along with it. (Hey… ladies… get your butts out there! You have a voice too!) After the little overview of the “chicken stealing” incident was rehashed in front of all of the tribes, Nate and Sekou decided to punish the thief and send Jonathan to Exile Island. Exile Island Jonathan pouts, being the first person sent to be alone with his thoughts on Exile Island. They drop him off on a small island with a flat beach and what looks like an ancient shipwreck sticking up from the sand. He trudges up the beach with his handy-dandy clue notebook under his arm. He’s still reeling from the decision, trying to make sense of why he was chosen for such a fate. “I think it was because I took the Asian guys’ chicken that the African-American guys chose me. I was so shocked by what happened, I didn’t even have a comeback.” Well, good to know that this separation by race hasn’t resulted in Jonathan grouping everyone together under a label. I was all impressed by your insights on Day 1, Jonathan, now you’re sounding like a whiney kid that was sent to time out. He reviews the clue of the day: To make a top grade, stand in a line. If the southern isle vanishes, a salvation you’ll find. Jonathan thinks, I believe rightly so, that the first line of the clue is referring to the letter “A”. He sees something in the formation of the shipwreck that kind of looks like an “A”, so he plops down and starts digging beneath it. It’s reminiscent of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World” and the digging under the giant “W”. But maybe Jonathan can’t see the similarities like I do from my couch at home. Regardless, he’s still pouting and not really into it, so he gives up after a while. Hiki Tribe Back at the doomed camp, the racially unified tribe quickly splits down gender lines, and the boys and girls discuss strategy, separately. The girls quickly realize they have numbers in their favor, and decide that their difficulties are a result of the fact that the tribe has had a hard time establishing leadership, and as a result no one is working in unison. They decide that Sekou is the one to blame for that, and he quickly becomes their target. On the other side of the beach, the boys also realize that the girls have the numbers, and determine that they have to coax one of the girls to their side. Since Stephannie has been left out of all the reindeer games, they target her. Sekou soon corrals her in the bushes, and tells her that she is in a dangerous position. That even if the three girls successfully vote off the two boys, she will then be odd man out because Rebecca and Sundra are like “two peas in a pod.” Sekou then tries to convince her that it makes more sense to align herself with folks that are together not because of where they live (both of the other girls are from New York), but that she should stick with people that will be better equipped to help her survive in the harsh environment. Sekou then begins to ramble on in what must be one of the worst thought-out speeches in Survivor history, to demonstrate why he is clearly the right person to align with… saying she should stick with him, someone that can “bring on some fire.” Stephannie stops him. “We don’t have any fire yet, though.” Sekou shifts his weight, looks uncomfortable, “That’s alright… when I build a fire, (pause) …then I better keep it going, because if you all boot me out there ain’t gonna be no more fire!” What the hell? Can someone please draw me a diagram so I can follow this logic? Obviously, I’m not the only one that was less than convinced by this argument. Stephannie politely listens to the rest of Sekou’s rambling, and then they separate. Stephannie then revels in the fact that as the outsider, she has all the power because she is the swing vote. The girls want to get rid of Sekou. The boys want to get rid of Sundra. Stephannie gets to stay put either way. We then get a sweeping camera view of the huge shipwreck set built for tribal council. They make their way up to the fire and grab their torches. Jeff quickly asks to be caught up on how things are going and if anyone has stepped up as leader. Rebecca pipes up and said that Sekou did kind of by default, since he seemed to know the quickest and best way to put up a shelter. Sekou agrees, and seems to enjoy about bit talking about how he applied what he know to help the tribe get settled, and everyone seemed to gravitate to him as a leader as a result. The girls all roll their eyes… ever so slightly. Then Nate gets his turn to describe the tribe, and sweetly says the tribe has a “beautiful spirit”, and that they are like a little family. The girls all nod their agreement. They do some more small talk, discussing the obvious pairing with Sundra and Rebecca, and with Sekou and Nate. Stephannie knows she’s the one with the decision to make, and says her vote will be based on trying to fix where she thinks the weakness are in the tribe. And then it’s time to vote. It’s already pre-determined how everyone will vote except for Stephannie. They tease us, by letting us see her write the first letter of her selection, “S”. Of course we don’t really know if the S is for Sekou or for Sundra… and we’ll have to wait a whole 30 seconds or so to find out. Then it’s time to read the votes. One for Sekou, one for Sundra, one for Sekou, one for Sundra… and the final vote: Sekou. Sekou is gracious about it, and wishes his tribe luck. Jeff, (clearly puzzled as once again the first person voted out of the season is a strong player that could be a great help to his tribe in these early days), hands them flint for fire and sends them on their way. We get a little goodbye speech from Sekou. He tells us how he believes a good leader can instill some guidance, and that he’s sure that he did that for his tribe. He tells us that they must of seen that he was a “real strong leader”, and as a result they are going to be a “real strong tribe”, and that he’s proud of that. Again… the logic of his statements is a bit puzzling, because of course if they DID view him as a good strong leader, he probably would still be there. But he’s taking it all in stride, and we leave Sekou with him telling us, “My torch may be out, but my flame is still burning.” Awww, Sekou… we’re gonna miss you.