Original Airdate: July 5, 2000
Below are the remaining contestants.
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 |
Pagong:
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| Gervase - Youth basketball coach |
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| Colleen - College student |
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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 |
The merge is upcoming, and both tribes know it. In three days, Tagi and Pagong will be no more, and they shall move to one location and become a single tribe of ten individuals, which has members of both tribes a little anxious. But life goes on.
At Pagong, they eat one of the chickens, and of course, it's deeply appreciated by the tribe. They plan to eat one chicken a day, so by the time of the merge, none's left and Pagong members have an advantage insofar as their protein intake.
Richard has began walking around in the nude around Tagi. To him, it's a completely fair way to combat the high heats, and he feels zero shame in it. Rudy is less than pleased to have a gay guy walking around naked, which should come as no surprise. On a more serious note, Rudy has finally officially joined the Tagi Four, reasoning that if he didn't he'd be voted out either the next opportunity, or after Sean. Richard's comfortable with his position on the tribe, stating in a confessional that he is in control of who gets voted off Tagi.
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| Richard in his natural habitat |
Over at Pagong, Gervase makes a joke that offends all of the women, stating that "girls are the stupidest thing on the planet next to cows." Jenna, Gretchen, and Colleen are less than pleased. Jenna wonders why she has never voted for him before, and believes that he's on a free-ride to the merge. It doesn't help that Gervase doesn't do much around camp, which he says as much in his own words.
"I haven't done a thing at all out here since I've been here it seems and that's cool."When he goes fishing with Joel, it's Joel who's rowing and paddling - Gervase is there simply to hang out. He didn't help build the shelter at all, and while everyone has at least cooked rice once, Gervase never has, he's happy to report. Again, Jenna doesn't believe he's pulling his own weight, and as she "knows for a fact" that Gervase voted against her (he actually didn't), she's not feeling too happy with him. According to Gervase, it's his charm that's most important, and why he's been getting by. Colleen muses that he does possess charm, but that charm is running out.
Both tribes get word of their next Reward challenge, along with a can of dog food. Members of each tribe try the dog food, but it's pretty inedible. The challenge, which takes place at night, is moderately easy - one by one, a member of each tribe much run into an old house and find one of three items. The catch - if they bring back a duplicate item, they are disqualified, and the other tribe wins.
Which is what happens. For most of the challenge, the tribes are neck-in-neck. Richard messes up, though, as he grabs a duplicate item, and just like that Tagi is disqualified, and they lose out on a goody basket, containing such things as good canned good, peas, tuna, and perhaps most important to some, chocolate. But Richard messes up, and Tagi goes back to camp with nothing.
At Pagong, Joel talks about the importance of sticking together as a tribe once they merge. If not, Tagi will just pick them off one-by one. Gervase is in agreement, as are most of the tribe, save Gretchen, who doesn't see herself joining a voting alliance. Joel's constant talk about what to do post-merge bothers Colleen, and Gretchen has stated that Joel's belittlement and condescension of women has really gotten on her nerves; Jenna and Colleen agree.
The Immunity challenge is an obstacle course, an official U.S. Army one, for that matter. The Immunity is important, as if Pagong loses, the tribes will merge even, as opposed to merging with six against Tagi's four should Pagong fail. Rudy (Tagi) and Colleen, along with Gervase (Pagong) sit the challenge out. For the most part, both tribes are even, but at a more mental portion, Tagi gets ahead and keeps their lead, winning Immunity.
At Pagong, they discover that their remaining chickens were eaten by a monitor lizard. Gretchen tries to salvage what she can, and they eat the little meat they can. Joel suspects that Jenna will vote for him, and she confirms this in a confessional, though states that she can't speak for everyone on the tribe. Colleen's gunning for Gervase, partially because he gave her a vote a few episodes back.
Tribal Council goes moderately well. The joke is brought up, and while it's made light of, and Gervase sort of laughs it off, Joel is chastised for laughing along with Gervase by the female members. Gervase admits that, for some reason, he still feels secure in his place on the tribe - no one owns up to feeling vulnerable.
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| Gervase laughing off comment he made about women |
Jenna: 2 [Joel, Gervase]
Joel: 4 [Gretchen, Jenna, Greg, Colleen]
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| Joel's torch being snuffed |
Really, insofar as Tagi's concerned, Richard, Rudy, Susan and Kelly are pretty safe - it looks like Sean would have been gone this episode if Tagi has lost Immunity, and in fact, if they had lost, going into the merge down two members likely would have meant their demise (this isn't certain, though, as Pagong isn't firmly behind the idea of forming alliances). But Tagi won, and while both tribes are going into the merge even, I think that Tagi will have the advantage because while they have a strong alliance of four, Pagong just booted the one member who was constantly talking about picking off Tagi post-merge, and while others agreed with Joel, without Joel, I don't know if they'll be able to get that ball rolling.
So the Tagi Four is safe, pretty much, save for internal strife, which is entirely possible. Where that could come from isn't clear. Richard seems like he'd not do anything to threaten his position. Rudy's likely going to shut up about the ethics behind it to save his butt. Susan and Kelly are possibly more wishy-washy, but we've seen nothing from either about how they'd join an opposing alliance post-merge. So for now, they're safe.
What's Sean plan post-merge? I know that I insult Sean moderately often, but it really appears that he doesn't have one. He was friends with one of the least strategic players in the game from the beginning (being Dirk), and even though Dirk was voted off by all of his tribe mates, he seemingly hasn't connected that action to an alliance. Will he go over and work with Pagong once they merge? I think in later seasons, were you in Sean's position, you definitely would at least try, but Sean, in this season? Very unlikely, I think, unless he wises up quickly.
At Pagong, we got an answer to a question I posed last week. Actually, two questions. 1) Who on Pagong was most likely to get the ball rolling and start forming alliances, and 2) If Pagong had to vote someone off, who would it be?
Joel's the answer to both inquiries. Truth be told, Joel did more this episode than we've seen him do most of the first five episodes. He apparently is somewhat scheming and strategic, wanting Pagong to gang up and take out Tagi one-by-one past the merge (what he doesn't seem to consider is what happens should Pagong lose the Immunity challenge, and go into the merge five-five). And most people agree with this plan, save Gretchen, who apparently has no interest in joining voting alliances (I get the sense that unlike Sean, who's not an overly smart player, that in Gretchen's case, it's more about the ethics behind it).
The problem is, he talks about his ideas a lot, and it's driving some people crazy, such as Jenna and Colleen. It doesn't help that Gretchen views his conversational style as one that's demeaning to women, as do the other females on Pagong, and this is ultimately why he's voted off.*
(*Quick note: The name of this episode is terribly misleading. From what I can sense from Gretchen, Colleen, and Jenna in the episode, it was much more Joel's seemingly belittlement of women that caused them to band together and vote him off, as opposed to his reaction to Gervase's joke. If anything, his reaction to the joke just further confirmed their beliefs, but if Gervase had never made the joke, and Joel had never laughed at it, I'm about 90% sure Joel still would have been the one going home. In short, I think the focus on the joke as the reason Joel was booted is completely unjustified.)
Was it wise to vote Joel off? Truth be told, I was never much a fan of him from the first episode. B.B., despite his annoyingly high work ethic, got the feeling that Joel wasn't pulling his weight, along with most of Pagong. Joel verbally sparred with B.B. from time to time, and didn't seem overly concerned with proving B.B. wrong. And from there on out, he's been friends with Gervase, who does less than Joel, and Joel sees nothing wrong with this. In fact, even though his friend does almost nothing around camp, Joel votes for Jenna, along with his buddy, Gervase.
So no, I didn't really like Joel. But this episode did supply a reason to, being that he was thinking strategically on how best to move Pagong's interests further. The problem was, he apparently did so with such sexist undertones that it rubbed the women on his tribe poorly, and they voted him off. Truth be told, I can't much blame them for doing this, though I do think it'd have been wiser if they got together and decided to boot Gervase instead. As annoying as Joel might be, at least he's proven himself useful around camp, as where Gervase has not.
Gervase does possess charm, though, which Colleen admits. Gervase keeps people happy, keeps people amused, and hence, has not gotten a single vote against him yet. Once he is on one tribe with the more competitive and strategic Tagi, he may restructure his plan of action, but we've seen no signs that will happen.
I don't have much to say about Jenna, but I do want to bring to light the fact that she mentioned that she knew "for a fact" that Gervase voted against her in the past (she's referring to the vote she got from Greg in episode four), which obviously isn't true. So she doesn't like Gervase partially for a completely false reason. Jenna has absolutely no idea that Greg cast that vote for her. None at all. Now, since I mentioned last episode that I don't think Greg has any ill-will toward Jenna, I don't think he'd try voting her off again (especially with the merge upcoming), but the fact that Jenna has no idea at all is quite interesting, and shows that among anyone on Pagong, Greg knows best how to keep his votes and thoughts close to his chest.
We didn't see much of Greg this episode (shouting "Who counted that chicken?" when they got back to camp to find the two dead chickens was pretty funny), but hopefully that will change. He's a pretty bizarre character, and he seems damn smart too, so he could shake things up on the merged tribe in ways I can't imagine. We just need to keep an eye out for him and hope he's not the target of the Tagi Four post-merge. If Greg did get with Jenna, Gervase, Colleen, though, that alliance of four could effectively ward off the votes of the Tagi Four, but since Joel was the one pushing this most, I don't know if that alliance would come to fruition.
It still seems that, although both tribes will be tied going into the merge, that Tagi actually has a plan of action. Joel thought he knew what Pagong should do, and told them such, but since he's gone, the tribe's not going to have that reinforcement they might need in order to effectively form together and stay in the game. Truth be told, it's not looking great for Pagong, and it's looking worse for Sean, but a lot can change in the course of three days.
Maybe within the next three days, the tables will have turned.
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