Survivorfest week 6

Penner and Chet are set adrift in week 6! They take the hopes of a big payday for many of us along with them...

My week 6 thoughts:

Erik continues to grow on me. When reflecting on being surprised (again) by the vote at tribal council he remarked: "if the playing field has been lowered to lying and tricking people, I might have to do some of that!" Gee, Erik...have you seen this show before?

Tracy continued to work Erik over to make sure he stayed in the fold by telling him that the former Favorites were united and were likely to vote him off next. You could actually see the pieces clicking into place as that thought settled in on him. "That pisses me off!" he sputtered.

Ami began to show signs of turning away from the Favorites faction of Malakal. She cautioned Tracy not to get too down and to keep working hard. She also weighed in with the Survivor Hall of Fame quote "I'm not gonna be a poop pants!" Indeed. Indeed.

The reward challenge involved swimming out to retrieve bundles of planks and then returning to use the planks as a barricade to block a fence-tunnel that the other team would have to crawl through. The first entire tribe through would win reward.

Penner, even with his bad knee, insisted on joining this challenge while Natalie sat out for Airai.

Predictably, Ozzy reached the bundles first and Malakal took an early lead on working on the inserting the blocking boards into the tunnels. After ten minutes Probst called time and had the tribes stop making the barricades and start trying to disassemble the ones the other tribe made.

Malakal, led by Ozzy, were the first to make it part way through the tunnel, but progress was quickly stalled. Cirie was a bottleneck behind Ozzy and even Aqualad took an inordinate amount of time working his way through the maze of remaining boards.

Penner was clearly hobbled by his injured leg, taking a nasty spill while carrying bundles of planks.

Chet, as usual, did nothing. He watched a lot and kind of wiggled a few of the barricade boards.

Despite the head start, Airai quickly made a hole in the Malakal barricade and the team squirmed through. James exhorted the last person in line, Penner, by yelling "Come on wit' your bad knee, boy!"

Reward for Airai came with a price. After the challenge, Probst called for the medical staff to check Penner's injury. The news was not good. The doctor indicated that infection was spreading and recommended immediate evacuation to a hospital for intravenous antibiotics and surgical care.

Although clearly not wanting to leave, there wasn't much choice. I felt bad for him...he clearly came to kick butt this season, in much better physical condition than his last appearance.

In addition to winning reward, Airai got to select members to head out to Exile Island. Chet was forced to go and Jason was selected to join him. I couldn't tell if Chet was happy or chagrined to have Jason with him.

The reward for Airai was two Micronesian dudes who would come to camp, teach them how to find food and prepare it.

Calling these guys micro anything was a stretch. They both looked like Mr. Fuji. Although they clearly had to have known lots about finding, preparing and eating food...

Parvarti immediately broke out the charm, asking one of them "sooooo, are you married?" to which he replied "yes, I do!" Hmm. I wonder what "are you married" translates to in Micronesian...

A short time later, he was calling her "baby". You can't make this stuff up.

Ozzy reflected on his decision to replace the hidden immunity idol he'd found with an oddly-shaped stick: "Jason might be naive enough to fall for it". That's about as close as Ozzy gets to saying that someone might be stupid.

On Exile Island, Jason went looking for the idol while Chet lay lifeless on the beach. It's a microcosm of this season that Chet assumed that Ozzy had found the idol so was willing to put forth no effort, while Jason was willing to try to find it and will possibly end up getting duped in the process.

Sure enough, Jason found the idol. I wonder what the exchange between Jason and the camera really went like.

What we saw: Jason smiling and wondering if this silly-looking hunk of wood with a few nicks in it could really be the idol. He shrugs, decides it is and sticks it in his pants for safe keeping.

What probably happened: Jason wonders aloud whether the idol is real and the cameraman mouths "yeah!" and gives the thumbs up sign. Jason pockets the idol while the cameraman suppresses fits of laughter.

On return to the tribe, Jason indicated he was unable to find the idol and stated his belief that Ozzy already has it. I find it amusing that everyone seems to believe that Ozzy quite probably has the idol after being on Exile Island once, while Kathleen practically has a beach house there and no one is even considering the possibility that she found it.

The immunity challenge involved each tribe setting up two pillars for two of their tribe to move across a span of water. Once the tribe had transported the people across the water to a platform, the first tribe to balance all of its members on the platform would win.

Airai made a crucial decision to use only one pillar and carry the person over rather than the projected method of holding one pillar, having the person climb to another and then moving the first pillar for the next step.

Other than Parvarti falling at the very end and having to restart, this strategy allowed Airai an easy victory. Malakal took way too long to get their first person over before attempting to adopt the Airai strategy. One of the biggest margins of victory I've seen in a while.

While being transported over on the pillar Parvarti kept sticking her tongue out in concentration. My wife exclaimed "better keep your tongue in your mouth, Parvarti!" I'm not sure she knows how...

Probst takes a moment to let everyone know that Penner had successful surgery in a hospital to clear out his wound and was resting comfortably. Which led to this exchange:

Me: "Well, I'm sure that having surgery in a hospital in Micronesia probably wasn't a slam-dunk, either"
My ten-year-old: "He could have caught micronesia?!?"
Me (shaking head).

Back at camp, Chet immediately began complaining about his sore heel and asking to be sent home. Ozzy wondered aloud "was there any question that we weren't going to do that anyway?" Um...let's review the last two weeks, Ozzy.

Erik continued to amaze: "Chet wants to go home...he thinks he's doing the honorable thing by going home. But it would be totally more honorable for Chet to stay and help Tracy and me [vote off Ozzy or Cirie]". Totally. Indeed.

Tracy, Ami and Erik worked Chet over for the rest of the day, trying to get him to stay and help vote out one of the former Favorites.

Erik's contribution: "It would be the craziest play in Survivor history!" Yup. For the third or fourth week in a row. This season has been nuts.

Once Erik started talking the gems just kept coming out:

"Chet, you need to use your last dying breath [to stick with this]!" I think he spent that three weeks ago.

"What Jason said...it put thoughts in my head!" I'm pretty sure there was room.

At council, things were still up in the air about whether Chet would try to stay and flip the vote or go quietly.

Ozzy had no doubt: "I'm not going home tonight...If I get voted off I'll jump naked off the pier!"

At that point I could almost hear Chet thinking "Ozzy, you had me at ‘naked’!

Any of you with money on Ozzy must’ve been squirming a little at this point.

But, alas, Chet's lack of effort would extend even to the point where he was unwilling to continue to lie on the beach and screw up challenges by doing nothing. He was voted off.

Not sure who else saw this, but two of the tribe (Tracy and, I think, Chet) voted for Erik. What?!? Why? This makes no sense at all! Can anyone think of why they would have done that?

This is definitely one of the weirder seasons yet. See you next week on....Survivorfest!