By: Mary Cavaliere

Tonight’s Survivor continued with the newly formed AIRAI Tribe consisting of Natalie, James, Alexis, Jonathon, Jason, Parvati, Kathy, and Eliza and the MALAKAL Tribe consisting of Ozzy, Joel, Amanda, Eric, Ami, Tracy, Cirie, and Chet.

The first challenge required the tribes to swim out into the ocean to collect bundles of planks, sticks, and rope. Each team had ten minutes to build a blockage in the other tribe’s tunnel. Once ten minutes were up, another ten minutes was given so each team could undo a portion or all of the blockage built by the other team so they could travel through to the other side of their tunnel. Did you get all that because it took me three times of rewinding my Tivo to follow the instructions myself! Once all tribe members were through the tunnel and onto their mat, the challenge was won.

This week’s reward was quality time spent with native Micronesians to better learn how to survive on this particular island. The Airai tribe won and in turn sent Chet to Exile Island. Jason, from the Airai tribe volunteered to join him in the hopes of finding the immunity idol. While Chet lay in the water nursing a wound on his foot, Jason searched Exile Island for the idol which he eventually found. The only problem is he didn’t find the real deal. He found Ozzy’s fake immunity idol. Now Jason, if you were really an avid fan of the show, you should know by now that no immunity idol looks like a stick with a little bit of carving on it. Its artistic design is usually a bit more complex don’t you think? Duh! The winning Airai tribe learned how to fish and that night filled their bellies with 25 different types of fish for dinner. Yum!

The biggest disappointment of the show this week was Jonathon’s departure. It turns out his knee was not healing all that well and had become infected. Survivor medics suggested he leave the game to have immediate surgery because if the infection traveled it could be fatal. What choice did he really have? His departure was emotional for him as well as his team. Heck I almost cried myself because watching Jonathon and Ozzy play the game is half the fun of watching the show.

With Jonathon gone the tribes were now even – seven to seven. The immunity challenge consisted of transferring two tribe members on poles that were being held by other team members in the water. The objective was to get two tribe members to one big platform. Once that was accomplished the second part of the challenge was for all seven tribe members to swim out to a tower where all would climb to the top deck that was a bit too small to hold seven pairs of feet. The Airi tribe truly deserved to win because they used a completely different strategy to get their two tribe members to the big platform. I was a bit disappointed that Ozzy wasn’t as creative since this is normally the way he plays the game - with his brain!

For three weeks in a row Chet walked around with a target on his back, and each and every week he escaped elimination. But this week he actually asked his tribe to vote him out. He felt he had enough and needed to leave. But a couple of his tribe members, Tracy and Eric, begged him to hang tight through a few more days so they could blind-side Ozzy and vote him out instead. Earlier in the game these two were plotting to remove Cirie. Unfortunately neither strategy worked, and Chet was the fifth person to leave the game. After Jonathon leaving, if Ozzy had been voted out, I’m not sure the remainder of the game would even have been worth watching!



You can read more of Mary’s television blogs at www.myspace.com/italiangirl57


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