Survivor: Cook Island Episode 4 Thoughts

Though we are only 4 shows in, it's safe to say that anybody who wants to play the game of Survivor should watch this season and learn from it. The number of mistakes made in only the first 4 episodes has been amazing.

This week, it was an early version of "I'm in the clear, so who cares if I act arrogantly?" Previously, this had done in such competitors as Judd from Guatemala and Greg from Pualu. Now, JP took the fall because of his arrogance.

It was bad enough that he (and the rest of the men) chose to avoid doing work more often than not. And his sitting back, throwing orders around, while the women made fire, was a bit too much as well. He might as well have said "Hey look at me! I'm creating easy excuses to get voted off if it should come to that!"

His arrogance towards Aitu was rather annoying as well - "Our men are better than their's, so we're going to rule this game, and the men of our tribe is going to rule this tribe!" isn't exactly the humbling statements of a person who is concerned. What does that mean? That Aitu was set up for a big win in the reward challenge (which seemed like a challenge from last season - having to wind a person through obstacles while that person is hooked to a rope). Which they did.

This didn't seem to phase the men of the blue tribe (some day I will learn their tribe name). And Adam, who was selected to go to Exile Island, had a look on his face that said "I don't deserve to be going to here. It should be somebody beneath me." Nate seemed to learn a bit and has a secret alliance with Parvati, though how solid this is is still to be seen.

On to the immunity challenge, where Adam returned. This recycling of a challenge? Build a stretcher out of puzzle pieces provided (last seen - this year in the build your boat challenge at the beginning), carry that stretcher to the beach where one member of your tribe swims out to a stand where another member is being held in stockades. Once they are freed, both members of the tribe swim back to shore holding on to a life preserver. Once back at shore, the person stuck in the stockage has to get on to the stretcher and have her tribemates carry her back (Survivor 1). Once back, the remaining tribe mates have to build a fire to break a rope and hoist their flag (normally this is an individual immunity challenge).

While the blue tribe got off to an early lead, Aitu made up time and then Ozzy the superhuman swimmer put Aitu in the lead. From there Raro never made it back in, especially with Cao Boi's unusual methods to get a fire going. It really didn't help when Jenny split her hand open while trying to get a fire going.

So back to camp for the blue tribe and Stephannie decides to have a brain fart. She figured admitting her mistake and saying that she would understand if she got voted out would be a good way to stay in the game. Oops. The guys of course immediately jumped on this and deemed her to be gone. But Rebecca had other ideas, and realized that THERE WERE MORE WOMEN THEN MEN! Why not vote a man out?

(Aside: If you are going to play Survivor, please have basic math skills. An alliance of 4 in a 9 person group is not a true majority.)

Of course, this would involve geting Parvati onside, and she seemed a bit reluctant. Brad was then brought in and he also seemed a bit reluctant. Would this work out for the women?

Tribal council gave the obvious answer. It would, because JP is stupid. Did he really think answering a question about being a leader by pointing out that sometimes he just sits around and sleeps while everybody else does work would be a way to pull people to his way of thinking? Sometimes I wonder if people think about what they are going to say before they actually say it.

Other random things about this week:

- Cao Boi is very, very lucky that the bird accepted the baby chick back. Though I have to agree with Brian, the triumphant music once the bird was put back successfully was rather funny.

(Speaking of Brian, make sure you read the blog that I linked to, especially Brian's entries. Funny and insightful stuff.)

- One other observation, as made by Brian, out of everybody in the tribe, Nate was the only one who wasn't clued into JP's imminent exit. Obviously Parvati and Nate aren't that close.

- What exactly is with all of the construction that's going on in the challenges? I understand that this season was all about combining phsyical challenges with mental challenges, but could they try not to make the challenges seem so contrived and forced?

- Dalton and Jenna are right - Yul is too nice to effectively play this game if he considers hsi first tribal council to be that hard. Hopefully Becky can be the sneaky one.

- Random thing I found on Stephanie LaGrossa's bio at the blog:

LaGrossa is currently the new In Arena Host for all of the Philadelphia Flyers home games

That's pretty random (and maybe a reason to go see the Flyers).


And finally, the boot pick. I'm riding high on at least getting the scenario right for the boot this past week, even if I got the person wrong. So, I'm going to go out on a lmb and say that Nate goes this week, and we see the end of the Nate/Pavarti alliance/relationship. He is officially the outsider now, and I doubt he can rally the support to stick around.