Episode Report Card Sara M: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Crystal Clear
By Sara M | Season 17 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.23.2008
Fang arrives at Tribal, and Probst lets out a big sigh to start the night. A big sigh for a big douche. He reminds Fang that they've lost eight out of the last ten challenges, and asks Matty how the tribe feels about this. "We're cursed!" Matty says. Probst asks Kelly what's going wrong, and she says they aren't able to come together and work as a team. Probst agrees with her, which means he's temporarily unable to say anything about Fang sucking because she's the worst challenge competitor ever and somehow drags the team down by being stronger than Ken. He says the challenge today was a good example of that. Crystal speaks up, saying that Ace dominated the flagpole assembly and wouldn't let them work as a team the way she wanted. Ace just says they didn't "come together as a group" in the end. Does he realize it's because he ordered everyone to step back and let him do it himself or is he actually this oblivious? He graciously says that he's probably mostly to blame for that. Probst asks Crystal if it would be "fair" to vote for Ace tonight because he screwed up at the end of the challenge. "Yeah," she says immediately. The musical flourish is shocked!
Probst then asks Crystal about her post-reward challenge crying jag. Crystal says she's sure some of her tribe mates saw it as a weakness and may well vote against her tonight because of it. The camera stays on Kelly, and Probst points out that she's nodding her head. "I never said she was weak," Kelly says, adding that the crying does make her think that the crier is "not stable." Ace has to stop himself from laughing, while Crystal is outraged. She says Kelly doesn't know why Crystal is crying. She's crying because they're losing and they're starving, and if Kelly can't understand that then she won't last too much longer in this game. "You took me crying one time as a sign of weakness? I don't think so," Crystal pouts. Okay, she's way too hung up on this crying = weakness thing. Kelly never said she was weak. I really don't think Kelly saw it as a weakness. I think Crystal sees it as a weakness, and that's why she keeps accusing everyone else of that. As for Probst, he gets off a great line with: "Kelly didn't say you were weak. Kelly said you were unstable." "That's worse," Crystal realizes. Kelly says she didn't get an explanation as to why Crystal was upset, so she had to guess. Crystal says it should have been obvious that she wasn't crying "over no dag-gone Danishes!" Sugar giggles. It was funny, but I'm still not sure what this fight is even about other than Crystal's insecurities.