In Survivor: China episode 1, Todd started scheming already, James didn’t say much but pushed over some trees, and Chicken overplayed the ignorant card (or was he just being himself?) and earned a quick boot because of it. Will this week’s elimination be that easy to choose? Stick around for another live blog to find out.
Dave jumps right into his leadership role when they get back to camp. His problem is he takes it a bit too aggressively, which is when it becomes problematic. Peih-Gee wanting to be the leader doesn’t help matters any.
Todd and Amanda make an alliance… at least until the merge she says. They decide to pull Aaron in because he’s strong and a leader so they have a target to deflect off if anyone starts blaming someone.
While everybody else is working, Jean-Robert is sleeping, and sleeping some more. He believes he can act lazy and get away with it so that people are impressed when he starts working later. Alienating the whole tribe this early is a bad idea no matter how you justify it.
Jaime tries to get Dave to let her build a small fire to cook some rice. He says no. The rest of the girls quickly rally behind her. Jaime was polite and just walked away, but Ashley gives him a piece of her mind.
Heading into the reward challenge, Jeff tells them to prepare to get dirty. Giant balls will be released into a mud pit and must be pushed across a goal. The reward will be fishing gear, a fishing boat, and one other twist to be revealed later. Fei Long must sit out one guy, and Todd is the pick. Aaron has a free run to the goal, until Probst mentions it. Aaron’s got no problem wrestling with the women. Eventually, the strategy evolves to pulling people’s clothes off. A dirty and topless Amanda ends up scoring the first point for Fei Long. James and Jean-Robert do a great job of being a team in the second matchup and take the win 2-0.
Then the twist is revealed. No more Exile Island (finally). Instead, the winner gets to kidnap a member of the other tribe until the next immunity challenge. Fei Long wants Jaime. She gets something that she must open and read in private when she gets to their beach.
When Zhan Hu gets back to camp, they find it under water. Dave takes this as a sign that his idea to build a pit instead of a fire was good.
Fei Long picked Jaime in an effort to demoralize the other tribe because she seems like a happy person. When she opens the note, it forces her to give the clue to a hidden immunity idol (which she can’t read) to a member of the Fei Long tribe. Interesting. Could either be dangerous or really good. But I’ve gotta say this. The damn hidden immunity idol twist isn’t dead? Oh c’mon. This is another stupid twist that’s gotta go. Let’s not ruin another season by giving someone a free pass to the final three, at the expense of better players.
She decides to give it to who she thinks is the weakest link, Leslie. I think this is a smart move because Leslie’s the type of person who will remember it, should she happen to get to the merge. She wants to use it to gain someone’s trust, someone who’s smart. She picks Todd. He’s a little too smart, though. He hopes she gets booted so he’s the only one who knows about it. I think he’d be better off forming a group of 5 rather than plucking off people who obviously trust him.
Ashley and Dave continue their catfight. She’s tired of him being patronizing.
At the immunity challenge, they must use a puzzle log to bash through walls. The puzzle of that log must then be solved. To get down to 6-on-6, Zhan Hu sits out Jaime, and Fei Long sits out Courtney and Leslie. Fei Long gets off to an early lead with the strength of James and Jean-Robert, plus overall good teamwork. Dave falls apart on the other tribe. Fei Long pretty easily wins, as they continue to work together well at the puzzle.
Dave takes full responsibility for the challenge loss. Never a good idea. He thinks he’s safe, but it’s between him and Ashley. Ashley decides to wait until tribal council before strategizing, also never a good idea.
At tribal council, people take issue with Dave’s over the top leadership style. Dave pretends he’s not doing anything wrong, though he keeps snapping at people, and 6 days in Sherea doesn’t even know half the tribe’s last names. The main concern is just that one of them needs to go to break the tension. When asked what the criteria is for her vote, Ashley just says she’s voting for Dave.
Votes:
Ashley
Dave
Ashley
Ashley
Ashley
Ashley has been voted off. Can’t say I agree with the choice, as she’s a lot better than some others on the tribe, but hopefully at least Dave’s been given a wakeup call. Unfortunately, the previews suggest he gets even worse next week.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live blog of Survivor: China episode 3, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.