Episode Report Card Sara M: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Magic!
By Sara M | Season 19 | Episode 7 | Aired on 10.29.2009
Probst says go and the tribes are off. Foa Foa takes the lead by having Natalie and Liz hang out in the boat while the men push it as far out to sea as possible. Probst claims they're "using the height of Jaison," but the water is only like waist-level on Mick. Although I guess that means that Li'l Russell is underwater. Galu tries to follow the rules and row their boat, but they go nowhere and end up copying Foa Foa and jumping out to push it. Well, that's stupid. Way to put the challenge in such shallow water that it's actually faster to push the boat than row it. Both tribes arrive at the first puzzle-piece-retrieval area, where two tribemates must use fishing poles with hooks on the end to catch the sets. Too bad Galu hasn't been doing any fishing to practice for this despite winning that fishing set weeks ago. Liz and Natalie do a great job getting their pieces, keeping Foa Foa in the lead. Shambo tries to cheer Dave Ball on in his fishing, only for him to say "can you be quiet? That'd be great." She doesn't listen though, still saying "you can do it!" while he continues to tell her to shut up. Meanwhile, Foa Foa got all of their puzzle pieces and are making their way back to the beach. "Get on it, both of ya!" Shambo cheers her team. "QUIET!" Dave Ball requests. Galu manages to catch up to Foa Foa by the time both team boats hit the beach, as they have three people paddling and Foa Foa is still trying to swim their canoe back. Also, Jaison has dropped back and isn't helping them with the canoe at all, which Probst makes sure to loudly call out.
Both teams seem to start the puzzle at about the same time. Jaison, Mick, and Liz are doing it for Foa Foa while Kelly, Brett, and Dave Ball do it for Galu. Both teams think the key to solving it is to keep the similarly-colored fish pieces together, but that's just a red herring. Haw haw haw! They key is that the pieces don't all fit together, but leave gaps, so you're looking for a pattern in those gaps. Liz appears to have already figured that out at Foa Foa, only for Galu to realize the same thing just after her, with Brett leading the way. Not like he'll get any airtime for that. Sure enough, Galu solves the puzzle first while Foa Foa isn't even close. Wow, Foa Foa just sucks. At everything! Probst awards the idol to Galu, and Shambo makes sure to give it to Brett, the MVP. Mick doesn't have much to say for his team, but Li'l Russell VOs that "these idiots are probably gonna cost me a million dollars." Well, you could have done the puzzle, but then if you had failed you couldn't have bragged about how smart you are. So you didn't. He says he's starting to think about voting Jaison out because he gave up during the challenge.