Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Removal Of Rudy
By Miss Alli | Season 8 | Episode 2 | Aired on 02.04.2004
Howling and circling birds. We return to Saboga, where the team wanders out into the woods and finds a large crate that is locked with three padlocks. It has a note attached to it that says, "Don't Open, Very Valuable, Keep Dry." They return to camp with the crate, wondering if they're going to be playing later for a set of keys to go with it.
Over at Mogo Mogo, as some of the recycled happy pirate music from last season plays, Colby and Jenna M. are retrieving their crate, Colby opining that it feels like "something substantial" is inside. "Maybe it's an animal," Jenna says. Not that there are any air holes. And not that there's any indication that you're going to get to open the box any time soon. And not that you wouldn't probably be aware of movement or noise inside the box if it were, say, a chicken. But Jenna thinks, nevertheless, that it might be an animal. She interviews that it's interesting when you get a box, because that makes you wonder what's in it. And, of course, whether whatever is in it needs to be fed or bathed or have its coat brushed. As the tribe considers the crate, Hatch guesses that it could be food, while Shii Ann guesses that it could be matches. As Mogo Mogo stares longingly at the mystery box, Colby interviews that anything they give you is good, because it's "like a gift."
Over at Chapera, however, Boston Rob has a different idea. He wants to just crack it open. He grins devilishly, and then he explains in an interview that they were starving, so he figured to hell with the note; they should just open the box. The rest of the team, however, thinks they'll ruin their chance to keep it if they open it. Boston Rob interviews that everyone else feared that they'd "upset pretty-boy Probst." Heh. I understand his feeling that there's not a whole lot they're going to do to you as punishment for opening it, given that they're not going to send the tribe home or anything, but I do think the one thing they'd certainly do is take it away from you, so the point seems fairly obvious -- there's no point in opening something you'd probably then lose anyway. I think Boston Rob is so hungry he's become delirious.
Next thing you know, the teams are gathering for this week's reward challenge. This is the first the rest of the teams learn that Tina was voted out. Hatch tries to smile bravely, but he is extremely unconvincing -- there is naked insecurity (rimshot!) hiding behind that smirk. Morasca isn't looking too happy, either, and it's not just because she's concerned that the locked crate they left back at camp contains a kitty. In this challenge, Jeff explains, each team will retrieve a series of logs that will be inserted into a frame to build a ladder. (Jeff calls it a "staircase," because he's more of a hanging-out-of-helicopters guy than a verbal-skills guy.) The logs are tied up out in the ocean, in a line from fairly near the shore to fairly far away. The entire team (well, five members, because somebody from each of the two intact teams will have to sit out) will swim out to the farthest log to retrieve it, bring it back, and put it into the ladder frame. Then somebody drops out and four swim out, then three, then two, then the final person swims out to get the final log, and when they've assembled the ladder, they climb to the top and they're done. As Jeff points out, your "anchor" -- that last person -- will have to swim all five times, so that's a lot of swimming, especially when everybody is hungry and tired and wondering whether they're showing their best sides to the camera. The reward, Jeff claims, is blankets. Blankets? Considering the level of suffering, I think Jeff is lucky no one rushed him and ripped his photogenic arms clean off when he said all they would get would be freakin' blankets. ["The Eagle-Eyed Glark would want me to note that he could tell, from the way the pile of blankets was sitting, there was something underneath it." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Big Tom will be sitting out for Chapera, and Jenna will be sitting out for Mogo Mogo. She's like the invisible tribe member. She's there, she's not there...who can tell?