… and they all head back to camp after Tribal Council and they have those famous post-council giddies that everyone gets when they really stick it to the unsuspecting.
GC, as their new leader, makes a roaring fire and everyone is all, “GC IS DA BOMB! WE LOVE GC! HE’S THE BEST LEADER EVER!”
Back at Kota, everyone is happy and eating rice pudding… and Charlie and Marcus do some more strategizing.
Marcus: I think our strategy will work if we don’t stray from our plan.
Charlie: I feel really, REALLY safe with you.
Marcus: We need to bring other people into the fold, though.
Charlie: Other……. people?
Marcus: So we are four-strong!
Charlie: Okaaaay. But only if we are an onion and they are the outer onion layers and we are the middle layers. Delicious middley middle. Just us. Middle.
I have to say that Marcus is remarkably patient with Charlie and never turns to the camera and says anything smirky about Charlie. He seems like a decent fellow. They have a secret meeting with Corinne and Jacquie and bring them into their loving fold.
Charlie (to the camera): It was amazing! It was like we all had one collective brain! It was so amazing!
Charlie feels things DEEPLY, yo.
In the morning at Fang, GC is all do this and do that to everyone, and they are all, “GC SUCKS! GC IS A TERRIBLE LEADER! WE HATE GC!” There was a little pissing match between in GC and Randy when GC tried to use the boiled water to….um…. boil water… for the rice.
Randy was all, “Yo, that water is already boiled for our drinking water” and GC was like, “Duh. I know it’s boiled water, that’s why I’m going to boil it again.” and Randy was all, “But..but…but… just use the lake water because you don’t need to boil the boiled water again.” and GC was all, “It’s JUST WATER, MAN. It’s JUST WATER. GAWD!” Randy decided to “just sit back and watch everything implode”….oh Randy, you won’t wait long, my man.
Back at Fang, GC gets up in the middle of night and begins banging around and doing laundry (like one does). Ken gets up when he hears him and they start talking and one by one people join them. Gillian, the Angry Hobbit, gets up and tells them all to keep down their BLAH BLAH BLAH because people need sleep to win challenges and also the Orcs might hear us!
GC goes all 12-years-old on her and is like, “You’re not my MOMMY! You can’t tell me what to do! I quit! I don’t want to play this stupid game anymore! I’m not the leader any more! WAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Everyone looks shocked, and it’s in that moment that I truly fear for this tribe because if not a one of them saw THAT coming, they are all screwed.
GC tries to give the leadership to Dan, who tells them his “leadership style would not mesh well with the dynamic” and then tells that camera that he’d actually like to be a “silent leader”. That’s EXACTLY what these people need! Total lack of actual physical leadership with a silent puppet-master. Can you feel the love?
At reward challenge, it’s a bunch of unlocking of locks with keys and undoing knots and pushing boulders. Gillian is all “WHOOPSY DAISY! OH FIDDLE! I WENT WUMPUS ON MY BUM!” again and holds Fang back. Both teams take a similar approach to the challenge and have the tallest, thinnest man on their respective teams leap onto the bolder at each stop to undo the knots. Watching Bob and Ken fling their whippet-thin, veiny bodies up onto the boulders was like watching grasshoppers in tshirts bounce around… breath-taking!
Fang is in this fight and almost makes it, but Kota takes yet another challenge and gets to send one member of Fang to Exile Island. There are a few strategies to consider when sending someone to the island:
- Do you send a strong player to separate them from their tribe and create distrust?
- Do you send a weak player because you don’t want them to find the hidden Immunity Idol?
- Do you send a big player because the days on the island without food will weaken them?
- Do you send someone who seems to have buddies to create a rift?
They send Dan.
Dan and his silent management style that may or may not work with the dynamic of exile.
Kota also won fishing gear and then go back to camp and decide to fish and it goes like this:
Drop line in water. Get fish.
Drop line in again. Get another fish.
Almost drop line in, but change mind. Get a fish anyway!
Stare at the water. Get more fish!
The pile of fish is stacking up at an alarming rate and Kota seems to truly be riding some unstoppable rush of good luck. (Or else there is a Survivor intern underwater passing fish up to shore.) In the past 16 seasons, FOR SOME REASON, fishing was always sort of hard. Only the really skilled members of the tribe were able to catch fish…but this season, the fish are shamefully desperate and easy. You don’t even have to buy them a drink.
At Exile Island, Dan is given the option between food OR a clue to the location of the idol. He takes the clue and is told to look for a sandy crater. Dan, the GENIOUS, decides this means the bottom of the lake. And spends hours walking the lake and making a cup around his eyes and cramming his face in the water to look for secret, hidden, underwater craters.
*Cough* Um, Dan? Here’s the thing….
Cupping your hands around your eyes to look like goggles doesn’t actually make them goggles. It just means that when you sploosh your face into the water, you can’t use your hands or arms. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that I drew your name in the Survivor Pool, because you are clearly a dynamic, silent leader who is firing on all cylinders. Way to be, man.
Back at camp, everyone wants to vote for Gillian, except for Gillian and Susie… oh wait, Susie wants to vote for Gillian, too. However, with Dan on Exile Island, there is talk about whether he has the idol or not…
Randy manages to bend a piece of his eyeglasses into a hook and actually catches fish with it, becoming something of a reluctant hero to the group. This is the best of Randy, I feel. Given any power, he would be insufferable.
Dan comes back and the camp erupts into the pondering of DOES HE OR DOESNT HE… Randy doesn’t think Dan has it, Crystal is convinced he does. Really, Crystal? You think he has the idol? Ok, raise your hand here if you have an Olympic medal. Umm-hmm. That’s what I thought.
Tribal Council…. Gillian is voted out in a landslide, and as Jeff snuffs out her torch, she’s all, ‘
“OH TUT TUT AND PISH-POSH! I’M GOING TO GO FIND MYSELF SOME ELEVENSIES!“