After all the rain the contestants have been dealing with on Survivor: Cambodia, Kelly Wiglesworth was probably a little relieved to be sent to the jury after last week’s vote. Unfortunately, for everyone else, it doesn’t look like it’s letting up any time soon. Let’s hope for their sake they can keep their heads in the game and persevere through it.
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Jeremy knows he has work to do after he, Stephen and Spencer blindsided Kelly. He especially knows that Tasha is going to be upset. Tasha isn’t happy that she wasn’t part of the majority voting bloc, and she’ll let it slide this time, but she’s not about to let it happen again.
Another person who is pretty upset about what happened is Joe. His closest ally in the game is gone now so he knows he needs to keep winning immunity.
The rain continues through the night and the next day which is really putting a cramp in Ciera’s game. She wants more one-on-one conversations with people, but instead, everyone is just struck inside the shelter.
Everyone’s complaining about the poor conditions except for Keith. He’d stay out here in the cold and rain for another 50 days for a million dollars, no matter how pruney his feet and hands get.
Playing for Relief
The ten remaining Survivors are split into two groups of five. Three people from each team will try to score a basket for their team while the other three try to stop them. The first team to make three baskets wins a getaway trip that will include spending time with a roof over their heads and plenty of food.
The Pink team is Joe, Ciera, Spencer, Tasha and Abi and the Blue team is Jeremy, Keith, Kimmi, Kelley and Stephen.
Joe pretty much dominates the challenge, throwing people around like they weighed more than rag dolls. He and Spencer score for Pink, and while Jeremy manages to score for Blue, Tasha puts in the final basket for Pink to win reward.
At the reward, Spencer says that it’s almost as important to win reward challenges as it does to win immunity challenges. It helps your moral, it gets you fed, it gets you ready for immunity challenges, and most importantly, it helps you work on your relationships in the game.
Ciera does her thing and pitches to the rest of them that Stephen should be the next to go home, because with his advantage, he’s the most powerful person in the game. Joe hasn’t forgotten how Stephen targeted him before so he’s completely on board with this plan. Spencer and Tasha don’t seem as convinced.
Back at camp, everyone is so miserable, but they have time to talk about who they want gone next too. They all think that Joe needs to be stopped at the next immunity challenge and should go home. Now, someone just needs to actually beat him.
Some people are struggling with the weather more than others. Poor Stephen is dealing with stomach issues on top of the cold and the rain. And Kimmi tries to draw strength from her kids. If her son can deal with being in the hospital for 49 days dealing with a kidney disease, then she can tough out this weather.
White Rock/Black Rock
Before we get to the challenge, Jeff gives each person a white rock and a black rock. Then he tells them the challenge for immunity is to balance on one foot on a small block of wood while balancing a ball against an overhanging piece of wood. But the twist is, if five people choose to give up their spot in the challenge, a construction crew will build them a new shelter with a roof and a place for the fire in the center. If they want to sit out the challenge, they’ll show Jeff their white rock, and if they want to play, they show the black.
Everyone chooses to sit out the challenge, except Joe and Keith. Keith is stunned that it’s on him alone to beat Joe. And Joe knows he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Things go pretty quickly considering there are only two people. Keith’s ball slips and Joe wins his fourth challenge in a row.
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Loser Scramble
Everyone’s happy to come back to a nice shelter, a roaring fire and even tea and cookies, but Spencer says it will be short-lived for someone who chose to sit out and won’t be around to enjoy the luxury of their new camp.
Stephen talks to Jeremy and Kimmi. He thinks that Ciera needs to be the next one to go because she’s too dangerous. He thinks he can work with Kimmi and Kelley, but Ciera’s just too sneaky to keep around.
Ciera’s plan, on the other hand, is to vote out Stephen. She thinks she can get Keith and Joe on board to blindside Stephen. But just in case he tries to play his advantage, even though they don’t know what it is, the Witches are going to throw a couple of votes Kimmi’s way.
Old Cagayan friends, Spencer and Tasha, check in. Tasha’s not eager to vote with the Witches because she thinks it will give Ciera too much power. But Spencer doesn’t trust Stephen and wants to see him out.
Jeremy meanwhile is not okay with voting out Stephen. He’s his closest ally in the game. He also doesn’t want Ciera and the Witches gaining any more traction.
Tribal Council #1
Everyone talks about how terrible the weather’s been. Kelley says it’s the lowest she’s ever felt and Stephen complains of being sick.
Ciera says she made the decision she made because she wanted to show that she was willing to sacrifice to make her tribe stronger. Tasha says she wouldn’t be able to live herself if she made the “selfish” decision. Joe says he wasn’t in the position to make the “unselfish” decision, because he knows if he didn’t win immunity he’d be gone.
Spencer says he thinks Keith is safe from the vote, and that means that someone who opted out of the challenge made a million dollar mistake, and that will be a bitter pill to swallow.
Stephen thinks the voting blocs are so unpredictable because everyone’s just trying to do what’s best for them for the next couple of days. That said, he’s not sure what’s going to happen tonight, but it will probably be a blindside.
To the Vote!
Abi votes for Stephen, but the rest of the votes are hidden.
Before the vote, Jeremy tells Jeff that he’s playing his idol for Stephen because it comes down to who he can trust moving forward. Stephen is stunned, and he’s even more stunned to see his name written down so many times. The idol negates the majority of the votes and his ass is saved for tonight.
Jeremy, Stephen and Kimmi all voted for Ciera so she’s sent home. She’s obviously bummed, but she knew that she was asking people to play the game, and the irony isn’t lost on her that they finally started playing and she went home because of it.
Idol Fallout
Kimmi thinks it was classy of Jeremy to play his idol for his ally. I’m sure Jeremy hopes the jury sees it that way, too.
Stephen pulls Jeremy aside to thank him and says he’s with him until the end. Jeremy is glad that now he has a rock solid ally in the game who will take him to the end. Not to mention he has some wiggle room with his second idol.
Jeremy tells Spencer that he would have done the same thing for Jeremy if he had needed to. But Spencer feels like Jeremy pulled a fast one on him and he doesn’t trust him as much as he did before.
Stephen is annoyed with himself for being so out of the loop, especially since he is a self-proclaimed Survivor “Know It All.” The problem, is he’s playing against a bunch of other expert players this time, unlike the amateurs in his original season (cough, the Dragon Slayer, cough). Add to that, he’s feeling physically beat. His feet are swollen and he hasn’t eaten or slept in days and he’s in general feeling overwhelmed by it all.
‘Survivor’ Folklore
We’re really throwing it back for this reward challenge. It’s a Survivor Folklore challenge, done commonly on the earliest seasons. Jeff reads a story about Cambodian history and then the Survivors have to race through the jungle to answer questions about the story. If they get an answer right, they get a gold medallion. Thew first person to get five medallions will win the reward. The winner will be picked up in a chopper and brought to a resort where they will get to eat, relax and spend time at the spa.
To make things even more interesting, there’s a clue to the hidden immunity idol mixed in with the medallions.
Stephen and Spencer are in the lead, dominating the challenge, which makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, Joe can’t get a single answer right.
It’s Kelley who gets the clue to the hidden immunity idol. Talk about lucky! It could have been anyone to grab the clue and she ends up with her second idol clue of the season.
The race continues between Spencer and Stephen. Stephen even sabotages Abi while she’s at the same station as he, which is funny, but also rude. Spencer is wrong on his last medallion which leaves Stephen room to come in for the win.
Stephen gets to pick two people to go on the reward with him. He chooses Tasha because he needs to repair his alliance with her and he chooses Jeremy to repay him for playing his idol. Spencer thinks it’s a questionable decision. Now, he thinks that the three of them are closer and he’s on the outs.
During the reward, Stephen makes it clear to Tasha and Jeremy that they can trust each other so they can be solid all the way to the end. He tells them about his advantage, and while Tasha feels good about working with these two, she’s worried that Joe will continue to win. They agree that Joe has to be the next one to go. It’s a conversation that happens nearly every day… and then Joe wins immunity again. Maybe they should have a backup plan?
Back at camp, as soon as Kimmi leaves, the rest of the group agree that Stephen has to go next, speaking of deja vu. Abi is worried that if Stephen plays his advantage, she could be the one to go home. She tries to convince Joe to let her win immunity, which is laughable, but it was worth a shot.
Kelley isn’t bummed that she’s not going on reward, because now she has a clue to another idol. It’s underneath the shelter, but she can’t find it at night. The next day, she has to wait for everyone to leave before she can go after it, but Abi won’t leave the camp! Finally, she leaves to go lie in the hammock and Kelley takes her chance to snag the idol. So Kelley Wentworth has yet another idol! Those San Juan del Sur folks sure are cleaning up when it comes to idols this season.
Nine Little Piggies Played ‘Survivor’
For the second immunity challenge of the evening, the Survivors have to build blocks in three platforms and place a flag in the center of their blocks using only their feet. The first person to place their flag wins immunity. Not only did Jeremy lose this challenge on his season, but he went home at the following Tribal Council. Ouch.
Kelley and Abi are the first to release their bricks followed one-by-one by the rest of them. Spencer is the last to get his blocks and Stephen is hopeless at building with his poor, swollen feet. Even Jeff can’t help but laugh at his monster feet.
Soon, it’s a race between Spencer and Joe. It’s intense, but Spencer finally manages to knock of the king of immunity challenges for his first immunity win of the season.
For the first time, Joe will be vulnerable at tonight’s Tribal, and that’s a scary thing for him.
To Scramble or Not to Scramble
Joe apparently isn’t scared enough to do any scrambling. He doesn’t exactly trust his plan with Spencer and Kelley to blindside Stephen, but that’s his only game plan right now.
Stephen says that it’s finally time to pounce on Joe, now that he’s not immune. But he’s worried that he may have an idol so he, Kimmi, Tasha and Jeremy are going to use his advantage to split the votes between Joe and Abi.
All should go according to Kelley and Spencer’s plan except there’s one wildcard: Abi-Maria. She doesn’t trust Joe and she wants him gone. Both Kelley and Spencer try their hands at training the wild Abi, but she says she hasn’t made up her mind just yet.
Tribal Council #2
Jeff starts off by pointing out the obvious; for the first time since the merge, Joe doesn’t have immunity. He says all he can do is hope that people who say they’re voting with him are telling the truth, but if not, he’s ready to go home.
Abi says that there are alliances, and that everything comes down to trust. Tasha thinks the whole “voting bloc” systems is out the window and you need a core of three or four to be solid with in order to succeed.
Stephen knows there is a target on his back since his tribe clearly tried to vote him out at the previous Tribal. Spencer says that there a ton of different things that could happen considering idols, advantages, alliances and/or voting blocs, so he’s doesn’t really know what’s going to happen. But what he does know is that it will probably be another blindside.
Stephen announces that he’s playing his advantage. He tells Jeff he’s stealing Joe’s vote, which means Joe won’t get to vote, and Stephen will vote twice.
With his two votes, he splits them between Joe and Abi. Which turns out to be a mistake because the majority votes for Stephen. Had he not split the votes and placed both of them on Abi (or had his whole alliance placed their votes on Joe), Stephen wouldn’t be the one blindsided. But he is.
So, Joe somehow manages to lose immunity and then only get two votes. I would never have thought that a possibility. But it’s still probably his best game plan to just keep winning going forward.
Next week: It’s the loved ones visit. And it looks like someone gets hurt in a challenge.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
