Original Airdate: June 21, 2000
Before we get to the summary, here are the contestants who remain.
Tagi:
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| Sean - Doctor |
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| Kelly - River guide |
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| Rudy - Retired Navy Seal |
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| Richard - Corporate trainer |
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| Susan - Truck driver |
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| Dirk - Dairy farmer |
Pagong:
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| Gervase - Youth basketball coach |
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| Colleen - College student |
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| Romana - Biochemist |
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| Gretchen - Teacher |
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| Greg - Recent Ivy League graduate |
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| Jenna - College student |
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| Joel - Health Club consultant |
During the torrential downpour, Pagong had a miserable night. And Gretchen has had enough. From the very beginning, she wanted their shelter to be under the canopy as opposed to on the beach, but was outvoted (partially by B.B.). And she's not backing down, as she states: "You want to vote me off? Fine, but we got to organize this."
And so they work together and move their camp. Or most of them do, anyway. Ramona's still not quite pulling her weight, and it's grating more and more on people. Jenna doesn't believe that she can really function. Greg, in a way, defends her, stating that the "only person Ramona can be is herself." Ramona doesn't believe that she can do anything more than she's doing already. Gervase had faith in her, but is losing it: "Every chance she got, she was making it worse."
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| A overly-dejected Ramona |
On Tagi, Sean spends his time creating a bowling alley, while Susan and Kelly try to find food. Both equally valid goals, I'm sure. Susan's tired of pulling Sean's weight, and if she had to vote someone off, Sean would be number one of her list.
The Reward challenge is a unique one - both tribes must create a distress signal on their beach, something an overhead airplane could see. The tribe that creates the most visible signal gets the reward, being towels, pillows, and something extra a single member from each tribe choose - a spice rack and a filet knife.
Both tribes argue about what they should build. Gretchen wants a simple bonfire, but Colleen wants to sell it, likening it to advertising. Dirk doesn't want anything "classless" (including condoms, nudity, etc.), while Susan wants to get going. Sean shoots down ideas without presenting much of his own, bothering Richard.
And it bothers Richard so much that he wants to deal with it. The best way to deal with it, in his eyes, is to begin building alliances. The main goal would be to gather the votes necessary to ensure he moves past Tribal Council without risking being voted off. More on that a bit later.
Ramona begins busting her ass the morning of the challenge, working with the tribe, claiming she's feeling better, and more so, she is beginning to feel like an actual member of the tribe, which she didn't feel before. Greg moderately annoys and/or creeps people out by talking into a coconut and pretending it's a cellphone - the escapism seems to help him keep his edge.
The results of the challenge are below:
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| Tagi |
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| Pagong |
Tagi ends up winning, their members more visible in yellow, which sways the reward in their direction.
After the challenge, we see an alliance begin to form. Richard spoke to Susan, and pulled in Kelly (though Kelly says that she and Susan pulled in Richard). To Richard, sticking together will be a way to control their fate. The three of them consider pulling Rudy into it, but for the time being, it doesn't seem like he's interested, as he sees it as ganging up unfairly on people. Susan states that as far as the three-member alliance goes, it's the three of them "against the world."
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| Alliance of Richard, Kelly, and Susan |
Ramona's fitting in much better in over at Pagong, and working far more, but Jenna sees it as "too little, too late." Gervase thinks the redemption is going pretty well, though admits that others could see it differently.
The Immunity challenge upcoming is an important one - Tagi's down one member, and if they lose one more, then Pagong would likely have the upper hand. If Pagong loses, it's a stalemate, as both tribes would have equal members. In many ways, at least for Tagi, it's do or die.
The challenge is a relay divided into five parts - a swimming portion, a balancing portion, a rowing portion, a running portion, and a digging portion. From the beginning Tagi gets a strong lead, when Sean proves himself a far quicker swimmer than Colleen. Pagong has a chance to catch-up, but on the running portion, Gervase fails them, losing his breath multiple times and seemingly giving up, walking half the way back to his team.
It was, in many ways, do or die for Tagi, and they did. For now, Richard's plans of alliances is on the backburner, as Pagong must vote out one of their own.
Jenna really doesn't want to vote anyone off, and gets teary-eyed when thinking about it. Colleen fears for her safely, as she fumbled the opening of the challenge. Jenna doesn't know if she dug as quick as she could. Gervase states that he'd vote for Jenna over Colleen, as Jenna was "more annoying." Greg, unlike Jenna, sees the vote as far easier to deal with. You boot someone out, and move on. Simple as that.
The Tribal Council goes moderately smoothly. Gervase makes a small, somewhat amusing stumble, saying he believe he's not vulnerable, but then almost immediately takes it back. Jenna believes that taking anyone away would create a weaker tribe, but they've no choice - they must vote.
Below are the results, with those who voted for the individual in brackets:
Ramona: 4 [Jenna, Gretchen, Colleen, Joel]
Colleen: 2 [Gervase, Ramona]
Jenna: 1 [Greg]
This was a very busy episode with both tribes, so let's jump in, starting with Tagi.
The formation of a feasible alliance is pivotal, I feel, to the direction of this tribe, and more so, to the security of Richard. Because it's not just Richard now - it's Susan and Kelly also. Well, and Rudy, because while he may not officially consider himself part of an alliance, he'd likely take Richard's words into consideration before casting a vote, and hence is a de facto member. Richard likely doesn't trust any of these people, but for the time being, it's a good idea, as the three (read: four) of them could outvote any of the opposing members, and those members would have no recourse. This is only mildly important now, but should the tribes merge into one down the line, it could become a force to be reckoned with, especially as Richard seems steps ahead of everyone else.
That's not to say that Richard is the originator of this idea, though. Kelly makes it sound like she and Susan were already in a two-person alliance, and Richard latched onto them. As Susan and Kelly have never voted once for the same person, though, this strikes me as doubtful. Regardless, the alliance is a good idea, even if they can't wrangle Rudy into joining them.
Sean's clueless to all of this, most likely, and Dirk's probably not far behind. Neither one is playing strategically, and for that matter, neither is Rudy. The difference is Rudy has friends in Richard and Susan, and respect from Kelly (as he's one of the few blunt people out there). Dirk and Sean have themselves, and that's not likely to amount to much at all. The divide is now set in stone, really. And I don't think Dirk or Sean even realize it.
Things aren't rosy over in Pagong, either.
Ramona's last-ditch attempt at pitching in around the camp impressed some (and by some, I mean Gervase), but you can't be at 30% for nine days, and 95% for one and expect it to save your butt. She wasn't guaranteed to go, though - both Colleen and Gervase should have been on the chopping block, and so was Jenna.
Colleen's folly, in my eyes, wasn't a huge one. She swam far slower than did Sean, and Pagong got terribly behind, but that should have been canceled out by Gervase (a basketball coach) who was Pagong's runner. And yet his failure in this challenge, along with two past challenges (as Jeff brings up at Tribal Council) is swept under the rug because he's (theoretically) stronger. Not a soul voted for him, or even discussed voting for him, so perhaps Gervase is right: at this moment, he's nowhere close to vulnerable.
Why did Gervase change his mind, though? Gervase votes for Colleen, which is the exact opposite of what he said he'd do five minutes before. Why the change? It's likely that both Colleen and Jenna were on the chopping block for him. It could have been either one, and by the time he got up there to cast his vote, Colleen just struck him as the weaker of the two. It may simply have been a flip-of-the-coin type decision. We don't know.
Another thing we don't know is why Greg voted for Jenna. Or for that matter, why Greg does much of what he does? Strange quotes, strange behavior. He's a treat and a half to watch most of the time. His vote for Jenna seems pretty random. Perhaps he believes her the weakest on their team? Or perhaps he views Colleen as the weakest, but given their platonic relationship, refuses to vote for her. But if that were the case, wouldn't he tip Colleen off to this, so Jenna would get two votes?
Unless Greg knew that aside from Colleen, he could get two more votes, it'd be too much a risk for Colleen to take. Could he have maneuvered others to vote for Jenna? Possibly, but two things would possibly prevent him from doing that. One, he knew the tide was too heavily against Ramona to get them to consider going after Jenna, and two, it's possible he just wasn't all that invested in getting Jenna off the tribe, and voted for her just as a way to waste his vote.
Truth be told, I don't understand much about Greg - his actions, most of his words, or this vote. He may well be a big player coming up - he doesn't strike me as the leader type, but it could be argued he's half the soul of Pagong (the other half being Gervase).
Which tribe is stronger at the moment?
Well, Tagi has a clear division arising, while Pagong has no clear alliances. Physically, Pagong has a slight advantage, but losing two challenges this time around, along with living off rats, is making that mean less and less. Gretchen seems a fair leader, but Richard seems a better one. Right now, with equal members, I'd say Tagi has the advantage, but who knows how quickly that could turn?
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