Survivor Nicaragua: Episode 3 Live Blog

Episode 2 Quick Thoughts: There are a lot of crazies on this show. That is all.

We open up with La Flor coming back to camp, and Naonka trash talking the Alina/Fabio/Kelly B alliance. Naonka could be entertaining if she lasts and contains her sarcasm to confessionals.



Espada - Older Tribe to come back from the break, and we're on a hunt for fruit (or "food sources" as Marty says.) They find a bunch of monkeys, and Jimmy Johnson tries to communicate with them. Seriously. He makes a joke about Terry Bradshaw being able to communicate with the monkeys, and Marty showing how jealous he is of Jimmy Johnson.

Marty and Jill talk about the immunity idol that JILL figured out the location of, but let MARTY find! Jill correctly points out that Marty is thinking way ahead of where he needs to, and he should just be concerned with keeping the tribe as strong as possible for now.

Judd (Fabio) is trying to light fire, and basically acts like he's stoned (complete with shot of him having the baked look). He explains that his plan is to have fun and try to convince everybody to keep the fun guy around. Naonka hates him (as she points out AGAIN), and claims he has a hollow head (complete with sound effect while she knocks - good job Survivor Sound Editor!)

Back to the old tribe, and Marty shows off that he has the immunity idol. (Wow. Not a bad move.) They want to use it after the merge, while Jimmy T explains that he would have hid it. Tyrone talks about how this might show how Marty is playing for himself (observant, that Tyrone.)

Marty explains that it would have gotten out anyway that he had the idol, so the only way to play it is to make it appear as though the idol was being used for the team, but really, only one person can really have it (left unsaid was that it's him who has it.)



Old Tribe again, with them drying Jane's laundry. Meanwhile, Dan complains about not getting much sleep, and that this is harder than he expected. He says that the women aren't as strong as him, even if they are built like "moose". Whatshername (young MILF) says that Dan is struggling, no matter how much he tries to hide it.

La Flor gives us young people in bikinis. They talk about getting rid of Alina or Kelly B. Alina acknowledges she is in trouble, while Naonka is her normal, classy self.

Challenge time! Get barrels, arrange them in a pyramid, then throw sandbags on top of each barrel. The young kids could start with 2 less barrels and sandbags (of 10), but they pass. The winners get immunity AND a Survivor garden (which is sustainable.)

The younger tribe has a slight lead in getting the barrels to the area, but then dominate in getting the barrels standing up. And yet, they only have a small lead.
Tyrone starts to dominate the game, giving the older tribe a 5-2 lead. Benry makes it 8-6, while Tyrone won't give up the shot. Tyrone shoots down Jimmy T.

9-7 and Jimmy T makes it 9-8, but the younger tribe ends up winning 10-8, thanks to Benry.

Kelly B finds the immunity idol clue, but so does Naonka. Kelly B says shoot, but Naonka is going to agressively go for the idol. This could be a bad thing for her.



Back to the younger tribe, and Kelly B and Naonka fight for the immunity idol clue, with Naonka winning. With that said, everybody doesn't seem so happy about Naonka's actions. Naonka believes that Kelly B is claiming that she doesn't know what happened, while Naonka says that she got all "hood", and that "my name is Naonka, not fool", while claiming it will take her forever to figure out the immunity idol clue. Naonka shows it to Brenda, who thinks Naonka has all the power so she needs to stay close to her.

Jimmy T claims he has talents that are being wasted, and he wants Jimmy J to evaluate his talents. Jimmy T then claims he could be a great leader. Tyrone takes exception to Jimmy T's claim that Jimmy T could have done better, and comes across as a bit of a glory hound. Jimmy J tries to put Tyrone in his place by letting him know that Tyrone started missing shots and putting Jimmy T in was a good move. Tyrone agrees, then disagrees.

Meanwhile, Marty is excited for tribal council since (a) there's tension, (b) people are going to start playing the game and (c) he's nowhere close to being a threat to go home. (Note, (c) is implied, not actually said.)

I have to agree with Marty. Tribal Council will be interesting. While Dan is probably going to be the one that goes home, the Tyrone/Jimmy T conflict gives us two more possibilities as to who can go. Hopefully this means another fun tribal council.



Marty and Jimmy J have a tete a tete. Jimmy J wants to have the strong still around, and he doesn't know where Dan's head is. Marty wants Jimmy J out to either shake up the tribe to its core my getting rid of "daddy", or to have them come to Marty.

Marty approaches Jill and wants to get Coach out. Jill wants Danny out and doesn't understand Marty's approach. Marty then gets Dan and Jimmy T on board. These people are fools.

Marty: "There are a bunch of smart people here. Okay there aren't that many"

Meanwhile, Holly is paranoid. Jane reassures her that she isn't going. Jane wants the weak to go, which is unfortunately Dan.

Coach kinda tries to swing an alliance with Holly and whatshername. Meanwhile,

Marty approaches Tyrone to vote Coach out. Tyrone isn't sure, and he seems to be leaning towards Dan. Tyrone also doesn't trust Marty.

Marty, OTOH, thinks Tyrone isn't playing the game because he doesn't want to get rid of the long term threat, instead of getting rid of the short-term liability. Marty thinks this has to be done now. Marty is totally overplaying his hand right now, and can't see the forest from the trees here. You need to remain strong. Dan isn't the one.

Tribal Council time: Jimmy T starts to show conflict with Jimmy J, and Tyrone comes to Jimmy J's defense. Then talk moves to the weak, and the target goes to Dan. Meanwhile, Jimmy Johnson is the only person to claim to be one of the weaker players. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Meanwhile, Marty says that people need to start playing the game, while Jeff tells Marty that is he thought that others weren't thinking that way, he wouldn't point that out.

Votes: Jimmy J votes for Dan, Jimmy T votes for Jimmy J.

Prediction - Jimmy J gets the boot.

Sure enough, out goes Jimmy Johnson. If he hadn't said that he was one of the weaker players, maybe he could have stayed. But by admitting he thinks of himself as a weak player, he basically gave up any advantage he had over Dan.

Jeff hammers home that they now don't have a leader and that somebody has to step up. (Guess what the theme is going ot be if the old tribe goes on a losing streak?)

See you next week!

Survivor Nicaragua: Episode 1 Thoughts

The Old vs. Young gimmick is both a win and lose situation for us viewers. It's a lose because we're going to be subjected to the not-that-interesting puzzle dominated challenges. Any physical advantage is going to have to be negated, or else we would have an Ulong situation on our hands. But most of the puzzle challenges are not interesting unless you have teams that end up bickering as they lose. Until the young tribe experiences multiple losses, we will not get that bickering.

Now, the show is a win because they've put all of the young punks who think they know everything together. So instead of getting two tribes where youngsters want to rebel against the old, there is one where they can and will feed off of each other. Meanwhile, we get an older tribe to cheer for as the underdogs. This is a big win.

Because of the divide, poor Wendy stood absolutely no chance of making it past her first tribal council. The old tribe are less likely to take offense should somebody do something that seems like taking a leadership role, so they're going to instead look for the weakest and annoying to pick off. To her deterement, Wendy falls under both categories. Of course, she did absolutely nothing to help her cause by (a) complaining that nobody attempted to get to know her (using the fact that nobody knows her age as an example) and (b) interrupting Jeff just before voting started in order to give a speech where she says she's valuable and uses the fact that she doesn't have blisters on her feet as proof of this. Somebody who's that out of tune with the social aspect of their tribe is just asking to get voted out.

(Aside: I really think that the CBS.com profiles are somebody's idea of a rib. Wendy's profile has her say that she is nowhere close to being similiar to Shambo. And yet, watching the show, that's the obvious comparison - though Wendy did not last anywhere close to as long as Shambo.)

Before I finish, I should probably say a few words about Jimmy Johnson. As the most famous person to ever play Survivor, we were bound to get a lot of him in the first episode. What we got was pure Jimmy Johnson, forever in coach mode. I do think he made a critical mistake though; by calling the tribe together and then announcing that he knew he wouldn't win but hey, one of them could and he could help them with it, it confirmed the suspicions of some, and made others suspicious. If this was something he mentioned to a select couple of people, he would have been fine. But announcing it to the tribe just drew even more unwanted attention to himself. It's probably going to be a short journey for Jimmy; let's hope he provides some more entertainment.