Previously: Jalapao eats bugs. Timbira has some personality issues. The first Exile takes place and Taj & Brendan share the Hidden Immunity Idol clue. Coach thinks that Tribal Council is a form of chemotherapy and Candace is sent packing. Who will be voted out...tonight?
Night 6 in Timbira and Erinn is worried that her previous pairing up with Candace may hurt her in the end. She spends some time backpedaling with the rest of the tribe. Coach interviews that this insults his intelligence and that of the rest of the tribe. Because he knows what everyone's thinking.
Credits. Sydney's got some serious blue in those eyes.
Sunrise on Day 7 and we're still in Timbira. Erinn is still a little weirded out by her position in the new tribe. She opines that she has to "outperform" in the next challenge, because she's feeling vulnerable.
Jerry decides to pass on breakfast, since it's beans. He hasn't eaten dinner the night before, and he thinks the beans are affecting his digestive system. He opts for a little rice instead. Jerry interviews that he's been to Afghanistan and doesn't like to show any weakness; maybe another day or so will have him feeling better. Jerry relaxes in the shelter. Erinn asks him how he's feeling, and he spouts the show's title.
Meanwhile in Jalapao, several tribe members are fishing in the water with the net. They're essentially catching bait, rather than the gigantic fish feast Stephen had expected. The net is too big to be a throw net, so perhaps maybe they should be stringing it across part of the river. They use the minnows to catch some larger fish. Stephen catches probably his first ever. JT catches a nice one, and the tribe has fresh fish. Joe says that the fish "tastes like victory." Maybe they shouldn't have used napalm to start the fire that morning?
Come on in, guys!
The reward challenge involves six tribe members being blindfolded and tied in pairs. They'll be guided by the seventh tribe member, through a maze to collect buckets, then out of the maze to a tower which will dispense water into the buckets. The bucket is brought to another station and dumped down a chute. When enough water goes down the chute, a flag wll raise for the tribe. Then the tribe does it again with dried corn from another tower. The prize is a tarp, umbrella, pillows, chairs and a hammock. Winning team chooses someone for Exile, exiled loser chooses a winner to join in the Exile Goodness.
Joe is calling for Jalapao, Debra is calling for Timbira. Survivors ready?...Go!
Probst's narration makes it tough to hear how the directions are going but it's pretty clear through the entire thing that Jalapao has their act together while Timbira, not so much. Brendan and Jerry practically leave the course altogether despite the directions they're given. They don't even have their bucket yet. Timbira tries stringing the entire team together into a train. Jalapao has the first flag up before Timbira has their first bucket of water in the chute. How Debra's shouting "Right! Right! Right!" can be so wrong is beyond me. Probst notes that Timbira is "really blowing this challenge." Jalapao's second flag goes up and that's that.
Coach lets out with a couple of nonverbal "argh""-type noises, and Stephen looks more taken aback by this than perhaps he ought. I'm thinking that there was some editing going on there, and Coach actually hollered something that they couldn't air.
Brendan is sent to Exile and he takes Taj with him again. Probst asks Spencer whether this is suspicious, and Spencer thinks not. Off they go to Exile. Before we go to commercials, Coach spouts a little more nonsense about winners and losers.
Timbira returns to camp and Coach is interviewing about his scream at the end of the challenge, what he described as a "primal yell" because he was so pissed off. See what I mean? This isn't anything like what we saw earlier. Debra (I think, the voice is off-camera) thinks it's counterproductive to give in to the anger. On camera, she thinks she let the team down somehow. Coach suggests NOT going into groups to discussed who screwed up today. Next thing we see, of course, is Coach and Tyson discussing who screwed up today. Tyson thinks it's somewhere between funny and empowering that Coach thinks of him as his "assistant coach", and notes that the rest of the tribe is seeing what he calls "a little bit of a schoolboy crush on me". He interviews that, who knows, maybe he'll be promoted. And if he gets put on the other tribe, he'll demand that they call him "Coach", too. And the weird thing is that I STILL can't tell if he was joking or not.
Jalapao, standing around and congratulating themselves. They put the tarp up over their shelter just in time for the rain.
Timbira, getting rained on. Coach interviews that Jalapao seems to be a dirtier group than they are, overall, so maybe they need the tarp and such more than Timbira does. Then he starts talking about how the pillows maybe weren't that comfortable and the blankets were probably scratchy anyway. (OK, I may have made that last part up.) He says that he doesn't care about comfort or shelter anymore. "Let me bury myself in the sand, get eaten by tarantulas, and bitten by snakes." As if he'd actually come through on that promise.
Exile "Island", as if the producers are kidding anyone. The urns are again waiting for Brendan & Taj, and this time it's Taj who gets the clue. They already know that the Hidden Immunity Idol is back at their camp somewhere, but now they know it's "surrounded by wood". Brendan thinks it's either in the shelter or near the Treemail area. That night, they concoct a means to ensure that they send someone they trust back to Exile should the HIIs not be found before the next time around. Taj tells Brendan to send Stephen; Brendan tells Taj that Sierra should go. They each agree to work their own tribemates, effectively setting up a four-person alliance that actually crosses the tribal lines. It's actually a pretty good idea, IF they can keep it quiet, and IF there are no tribe shakeups before the merge. In a very theatrical moment, Taj laughs about this plan evilly while thunder and lightning punctuate her glee.
Commercials. All the Kool Kids shop at JC Penney! And then they go to their boyfriend at the bodega where he works!
Jalapao's members all comment on how well they slept because of the tarp and blankets, etc, plus they engage in a little schadenfreude about how poorly Timbira probably did in the rain. Sandy jokes about what a sex kitten she is in the morning, and the others react appropriately.
Challenge Field. Brendan and Taj return from Exile. After taking Immunity back from Sandy, Probst explains the challenge. There are a half-dozen crates about four feet tall at the end of a course. Teams run down in pairs to roll the crates back to the near end. The crates are then arranged in a staircase fashion, but in addition to being set up that way, it has to be done in such a way that the tribe's name is spelled out on the side of the completed staircase. So it's a 3-D word puzzle, in a sense. Once the structure is completed, the entire tribe scales the structure and first team to the top, wins.
JT and Taj are first up for Jalapao; Debra and Brendan will start for Timbira. Survivors ready?...Go! Despite Timbira reaching their crate first, JT and Taj have a pretty good rhythm going, and they get their crate back first. Stephen and Sydney are out next for Jalapao, followed closely by Tyson and Sierra. They actually finish first, and now Erinn and Coach are way ahead of Joe and Sandy. Then it's Brendan and Jerry, and JT and Spencer. Jerry is clearly in bad shape by the time he gets back. Joe and Stephen hit the course, as do Coach and Tyson--I'm sorry, Coach and Coach. See? We all have to get into the habit. Heh. The Coaches get back first, and Tyson returns to the course with Brendan. Spencer and Taj go out for the last crate. Timbira gets back with their last crate, and the construction begins. JT seems to have a pretty good idea of what's going on, and so does Erinn. However, Erinn gets into a lot of confused discussion with the rest of the tribe, while Jalapao is moving smoothly. Despite the original lead, Jalapao gets their staircase together first and wins immunity. Timbira is disappointed, but Jerry looks nearly dead. In fact he makes a point of saying "I'm through. I'm finished." He interviews that he felt responsible because he's so weak, and he's a likely target for the Tribal Council that night.
Commercials. It just occurred to me that I never know who gets voted Player of the Week by all the people texting to Sprint. What to do? WHAT TO DO??
Back at camp, Jerry is trying to tough it out, but he's not quitting; they'll have to put him out. Meanwhile, in the river, the tribe is trying to figure out what went wrong at the challenge. Erinn thinks it was a kind of communication breakdown. Everyone else seems to want to move on and is deciding to send Jerry home because he's so sick. Naturally, Erinn is going to be relieved by this because of her perceived position, but naturally Coach (the douchey one, not Coach Jr.) turns this into her having an "evil sneer". Later, he notes to Coach Jr. that he was disgusted by "the look". In fact, this look was so disgusting that he's been practicing it so that he can show it to others. Coach interviews that he needs to keep Tyson on the same page with him, but he also needs to talk to Debra and Sierra.
Coach tells Debra and Sierra about it as well (fortunately this goes on before we see the three of them together), and Sierra's attitude is, of course Erinn's relieved not to be going this time. That's when Coach breaks out the dreaded I-word: Integrity. And in his eyes, Erinn has none. Ah, crap. It's just like divorce. Once that word comes out, there's no turning back. Now we're going to hear it a million times, just like we heard him say "cancer" last week. Sierra interviews that Coach can be all kinds of pissed off, but she's not going to ostracize Erinn about it. After all, it is a social game. In addition, even though they wanted to vote her off on Day One because she looked weak, she's not stupid. So as far as she's concerned it's bye-bye, Jerry this week.
Tyson talks to Jerry and gets him to believe that Erinn is going next and that nobody's thinking about voting him out. I don't see the point of this lie, frankly. Meanwhile, Brendan goes to the Treemail statue and finds the Hidden Immunity Idol stashed in a hidey-hole in the statue. He finds another place nearby to stash the HII.
The sun starts to go down and Jerry still isn't eating. Erinn is still worried about deflecting attention to Jerry without looking like she's throwing him under the bus. Jerry tells the tribe he's starting to feel better. Tyson thinks that Jerry should probably go, even if it means that they can't blindside Erinn. Not that her ouster would be a blindside, since she's fully expecting to go, dumbass.
Tribal Council. Probst asks Tyson about momentum. He thinks that Jalapao might be getting a little arrogant. Probst notes that Erinn appeared to have a plan but that things fell apart quickly anyway. Erinn agrees with this, pointing out that people argued with her just long enough that they lost time and, ultimately, the challenge. She notes that she was pretty frustrated by this. Brendan thinks that despite these problems, the tribe communicates very well, but Jerry disagrees, noting that if everyone had listened to a single person in the first place, they probably would have won. Probst uses this as an opportunity to ask who the tribe's leader should be. Jerry says it should be Brendan, which Coach doesn't necessarily agree with. He says that, while he isn't a named leader of the tribe, on Day One when they were on the truck (and not yet permitted to speak to one another), he was telling everyone "with [his] eyes" who was to retrieve what from the truck.
Erinn rolls her eyes so hard at this that you can actually hear them rattle against her skull. In fact, all of America probably sounds like a bunch of cans of spray paint for the same reason. Probst catches this and asks her about it. She holds her tongue but notes that while Coach is probably used to the position, Brendan appears to do it better. Coach attributes Erinn's attitude to a clash of personality. Erinn responds that she wasn't aware that there was a personality clash going on between them. She also says that Coach can be a little passive-aggressive about his suggestions. It's time to vote.
Coach and his jacket vote. Erinn votes for Jerry. Debra votes, Brendan votes. Jerry votes for Erinn. Tyson votes even though he doesn't have a coat to sling over his shoulder. Sierra votes. Again we get the point of view shot from the urn as Probst comes in for it.
The votes are read. Jerry, Jerry, Erinn, Jerry, Jerry and that's enough. Snuff! and it's Bye-bye, Jerry.
During his exit speech, we see that Coach wrote "Pimp Daddy" on his vote for Jerry. So again, Douche. Jerry notes that this game, with the 100-degree-plus heat and his inability to eat, was much tougher than his time in Afghanistan, and wishes the rest of his tribe well. Good exit, that.
Next time: Snakes! Sydney is a sexpot! Tyson loses his mind and Taj expands her evil plans.
