The Koror Tribe: Caryn, Coby, Gregg, Ian, Janu, Jennifer, Katie, Tom
The Ulong Tribe: Stephenie
The Losers: Angie, Ashlee, Bobby Jon, Ibrehem, James, Jeff, Jolanda, Jonathan, Kim, Wanda, Willard
Well, we’re back to the same old routine, the show opens with Ulong returning from Tribal Council yet again. Steph thanks Bobby Jon for keeping his word and not voting her off the island. After personal comments to the camera, both Bobby Jon and Stephenie think they can still win this game. Yeah, right! And the DemonRats in congress are going to wake up on April 15th and decide to give us all a 100% tax refund!
Speaking of Rats, the next morning, the rats have gotten quite comfortable over at Koror. No, I’m not talking about the Survivors. I’m talking about the four pawed variety. They’re everywhere. Tom sagely comments that “It’s the rats that have gotten comfortable with us. They’ve realized that we’re not a threat to them.” Of course, not to be outdone, Coby whines “The rats have become bolder and bolder and it’s all our tribes fault because no one will listen to me.” He continues, on and on whining about all the coconut shells lying about and how the shark’s head is attracting too many flies, and how he’s not going to do anything. Of course he says this right before he removes the shark’s head and starts to clean up around camp. Then he continues with his whine fest about how the girls don’t do anything because the “alpha males” have spoiled them by serving them and how it makes him mad because He’s too much of a feminist. Excuse me, I think I’m gonna be sick.
Speaking of things that make me ill, we return from commercial break to find the tribes gathered for the Reward Challenge. Jeff introduces them to a “Traditional Filipino delicacy” called “Balut” (pronounced Bah-Lute). Now in my youth, I spent some time in the Philippines (while on active duty in the Navy) and I was offered some Balut. Granted, I was about three sheets to the wind on another Filipino concoction called “MoJo” (we won’t get into that!) but I couldn’t get past the smell. I don’t know how the survivors managed.
Anyway, both Ulongs competed against Ian and Tom. First round has Tom against Bobby Jon with each eating one Balut. Second round has Ian against Steph with each eating two Balut. The third round has again Tom vrs Bobby Jon with three Balut each, followed by round four with Ian and Steph each downing 4 Balut. In each of the first four rounds there was no time limit. They only had to eat the eggs and show Jeff “an empty mouth.” Of course, if I wanted to get picky, I could say that no one managed to show Jeff an “empty” mouth. They all had bits and specks of duck egg, but the show must go on.
It’s on to the tie breaker, a timed event. Tom against Bobby Jon. The first to down five Baluts and show Jeff an empty mouth wins reward. Reward consists of a crate of toiletries and a 55 gallon barrel of fresh water delivered to the winning camps site.
Jeff says go and Bobby Jon tries to stuff all five in his big mouth at once. Tom however takes the slow methodical approach. (Keep in mind the old fable of the tortoise and the hare.) The producers try to edit it to make it look very close, but we’ve known all along that Koror will win, and sure enough Tom does. Steph and Bobby Jon slink back to camp while Koror toasts each other with Scope shooters.
Back at camp, the Koror tribe is showing some more splintering. Tom says that they should save the 55 gallons of fresh water for drinking instead of showering. The women disagree, but only to the camera, not to Tom or each other. So, in the end, when a vote is taken all vote to agree with Tom, because they are all afraid of being the “lone hold out” and getting the first boot.
Over at Ulong, they’re upset they lost . . . again . . . and they make the same comments . . . again . . . about how close they come to winning, just to have the victory snatched away from them . . . again. Bobby Jon, decides to take out his frustration on some poor innocent bamboo, by whacking it with the machete. Steph says she is happy to finally see Bobby Jon get mad about losing. (As if that’s gonna make all the difference in the world!)
Back at Koror, Tom and Ian are discussing the Tribe amongst themselves. Jenn and Gregg’s closeness is brought up and the decision is made that one of them is gonna have to go, and soon. We are then informed of the alliance that was made way back on day two between Ian, Katie, Tom and (wait for it . . . . wait for it . . . . .TAH-DAH!) Stephenie! Yep, we now know that this is they’re final four plan. Of course, they are going to keep this to themselves. (At least until they propose voting out one of their own over Stephenie, at which time all hell is gonna break loose! And lets face it, they’re still not merged and Stephenie may be voted out before then.)
Back at Ulong, Bobby Jon is turning into a caveman, much to Stephenie’s disgust. He is shown “blowing snot rockets” here and there while Stephenie narrates. The scene then shifts to the two trying to manhandle their heavy outrigger into the water. Then we are treated to Steph showing her feminine side by weeping and telling us about how she feels lonely and how she feels like she has hit a dead end. Unfortunately, she is not the only person shown weeping and boo-hooing in this show.
Anyway, Bobby Jon is shown catching a fish with the sling and tearing open a huge clam he found on the beach. They both eat well, have full bellies and all is good in the world. At least until Bobby Jon blows another snot rocket and gets Steph weeping again.
Jeff calls them to the Immunity Challenge. The challenge is again, two against two. They have to swim out to floating platforms, pull themselves on a rope under water to a bag full of puzzle pieces, unhook the bag, climb on top of the platform, walk across a balance beam, and swim back to shore with the bag. There are four bags of puzzles pieces, each bag is further in distance than the one before it. Once the all four bags are collected, the tribe can open them and complete the puzzle. The puzzle creates a word search. When two words intersect on the word search the intersecting letters are used in a three word phrase. The first tribe to discover the three word phrase wins immunity.
Jeff asks which two members of Koror will compete, and is informed that Gregg and Coby will. Jeff says go, and the race is on. During the race into the water and retrieving the bags, Stephenie manages to take a slight lead over Gregg both times, but Bobby Jon keeps losing the lead to Coby. Both tribes manage to open their puzzle bags at around the same time, but Ulong hits a snag when they can’t seem to put their puzzle together. Koror has their puzzle together and has found all their word searches when Ulong finally manages to get their puzzle put together. Steph boldly cheats by looking over at Koror’s circled words, until Coby pulls the burlap over their puzzle. Koror wins immunity by solving the three word phrase. “Victory at Sea.”
Jeff then informs Ulong that they will compete in an individual immunity challenge at tribal council, with the looser going home. Ulong slinks off while Koror struts back to camp.
Back at Koror’s camp, the celebration continues. Katie comments to the camera how she is amazed that they keep winning even though they are the underdogs. (I could see how she might feel this way. After all, at the beginning of the season, Ulong had all the young folks, and Koror had all the “old farts”. Relatively speaking of course.) But you’d think that by now, she would have realized that they are no longer the underdogs.
Meanwhile, Coby starts in on how he was never part of a team, (sniffle) or at least never part of a winning team. (sniffle, snort) How as a kid, all the jocks picked on him and chased him around the play ground. (There goes the water works!) Because of this, he had to quit school! (sniffle, snort, boo-hoo, WAHHHHH!). But he’s not going to quite this time, no matter how hard it is. Because that’s why he’s here and no one is going to take this away from him. It was just about this time, I half expected him to raise his fist into the air as the camera shows him silhouetted against the red setting sun as he proclaims “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” Hey, if it worked for drama queen Scarlet O’Hara, it could work for drama queen Coby Archa!
Over at Ulong, the losers are mad that they lost . . . again. Steph is worried about what will happen after Tribal Council. Gotta admire this gal’s confidence, she’s already decided that she is not going home and that’s that! Of course, Bobby Jon does a lot of the work around camp and she doesn’t know what she’ll do when she comes back to camp alone. How’s that for drama, showing her backbone by stating that she will be the one to survive Tribal Council and at the same time, playing the oh woe is me, I’m just a frail, weak female. How shall I survive without my big manly Bobby Jon to protect me.
Anyway, after the typical inane questions at tribal council, Jeff informs them that they will have to build fire. “You each will get 25 matches, a supply of coconut husks and kindling. The first person to make a flame high enough to light the torch above wins immunity.” Survivors ready, go.
Bobby Jon starts by making a fire as he typically would. Coconut husks first, then a stack of kindling on top. Light the husks and blow till the kindling catches.
Steph on the other hand, used the kindling to build an elevated structure onto which she stacked coconut husks. She then lit the husks and blew on it to cause a flare up. This ignited her torch before Bobby Jon’s to win the challenge and yet another night on the island.
Jeff snuffs Bobby Jon’s torch as he tells him that the tribe hasn’t spoken, but he has to leave anyway. Bobby Jon than takes that long walk of shame, joining Paschal English as the only player to never be voted out, quit, or removed from the game due to injury.
Bobby Jon’s Final comments:(Boy, talk about rambling on and on and never saying nuthin!)
I guess I just like to say that I really enjoyed my experience out here. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I’m real glad I got to come here. I guess I am a little disappointed because I wasn’t able to start the fire soon enough, but I said tonight that whoever got the fire first was the best person to win the game. So I’m glad I got to come here, and I’m looking forward to seeing everybody when I get home. Thanks.
(Laughs) I have no regrets at all. I’ve totally fulfilled my destiny, fulfilled everything I wanted to do. I can honestly say that I left every inch, every effort, every blood, sweat that I had in my body, every toenail, out on that island. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There’s nothing that I would go back and trade, other than to make that fire a little sooner (laughs). And Stephenie, I’ll tell you what – Stephenie must be the luckiest individual I’ve ever seen in my life. She wins everything, she beats everything. I have no hard feelings or no type of - she won.
I enjoyed surviving out here. There’s nothing else I’ve ever done to feel what I accomplished so far in these 21 days. I know 21’s not 39, but 21 is a slight of a dent to live off the land. Honestly, living off the land, and gathering our food and gathering our water and watching just, waking up in the mornings and watching the world come alive. And then in the evening just watching the world just settle down. That’s something I’ve never really experienced before. I tell you, I feel like a brand new man. I really do. I wish I could keep going, but I still have a lot in me. Hopefully, I can turn that energy and that attitude into something positive from here on out.
I’m going to take away Mother Nature and the respect I have for Mother Nature. Because I never really respected Mother Nature like I do now. I didn’t realize this earth can give us everything we need to live on and to appreciate. That’s definitely what I take away from this, is the earth and what it has for us, and the love it has for humans.
I definitely learned a lot about myself. I knew that I could push myself beyond the point where you can’t go anymore, but I know definitely that I swung that axe when I knew I couldn’t swing it. And I went fishing when I knew I couldn’t go. And I got up in the middle of the night and put fire on the, put wood on the fire when I knew I couldn’t do it. And I did it. I knew I could but I had another battery in me that was kind of churning along. But you know, sometimes in life I think we try to hard or we don’t try hard enough and there’s that medium right in there that you gotta hit. Stephenie hit it. And I hope the best for her.
I am proud of myself. I am proud of myself. My tribe got beat every single time throughout this game, but I’m still proud of myself. I’m taking away memories, I’m taking away lots of, to me, answers of gold if you want to say because I know that I’ve done something that I never thought I could do. I actually did do some things on my own. I may not be good in this game, but there’s a lot of things in life that I am good at. I don’t know. I still – I wouldn’t trade anything. And if I came out here and I was voted off in one day, shoot, I was out here one day around something I’ll never, ever see again.
I’m definitely proud of Stephenie, because I think she honestly is the top player in the game. She’s definitely the smartest - she may not be the smartest but she’s definitely up there. And overall probably the most athletic. So I’m thinking she’s going to go make some good alliances. Overall she’s a good human being. She goes out to do well. Very well.
Take care,
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside,
thoroughly used up,
totally worn out,
and loudly proclaiming....
Wow, what a ride!"
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