Nate spends a little time at Aitu listening to JessiFlicka complain that she wasn't kept informed about what was going on with the boot of Cao Boi, and he finds it very interesting. At the reward challenge, he winds up sitting out, and Brad thinks that he's better at puzzles than swimming, so when Raro has to come up with three swimmers, Rebecca winds up being one of them and nearly kills herself, only to see the team lose anyway. Rather than blame Rebecca for being a bad swimmer, the team decides to blame Brad for wanting to do the puzzle, going so far in Nate's case as to call Brad a "nancy boy." That is...an extremely unfortunate development, to say the least. Over at Aitu, things are unstable, because the alliance Yul and Jonathan put together can't seem to stay together. Becky and Candice keep rethinking what to do, particularly because they are fascinated by the idea of keeping challenge-intense Ozzy and getting rid of Jonathan. Ultimately, a middle ground is chosen, and despite the fact that Ozzy was originally slated to go , after Aitu loses the immunity challenge, they punt by getting rid of JessiFlicka. So they still have an alliance, but they can also eat. Gee, I wonder if JessiFlicka and Cao Boi will get together and conclude that they were booted because they didn't fit in.
Previously on You Are Pre-Approved For Booting: Cao Boi had a dream. A dream involving credit-card applications, but a dream nevertheless. Naturally, this dream about credit-card applications convinced him that he needed to organize a tricky voting plan to split the votes of his tribe between Jonathan and Candice, forcing one of them to reveal and use the individual immunity idol, which neither of them had, because Yul had it, which Cao Boi didn't realize, which was a small flaw in his otherwise foolproof plan. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the sweeps episode of Everybody Hates Cristina, she was trying to recover with the tribe, but it wasn't working very well. An all-out wrestling challenge proved that Flicka is pretty tough, but Candice is really tough, while Ozzy is wiry but not particularly hard to carry around. Even though Aitu won the challenge, largely on the strength of its women, both tribes had to vote someone off. In what ultimately were pretty anticlimactic bootings, Cao Boi and Cristina were sent home for bugging people, because it's not quite close enough to the merge yet to keep people around because they're so annoying that they're not threats. Aitu got to eat some food, and they also got to kidnap a member of Raro. They chose Nate, meaning they would get to keep him through the reward challenge, pecs and all. Thirteen left -- who will be voted out tonight?
The sun rises. All the animals of the jungle are called together to greet the son of the lion king. A pelican goes fishing. We are at Aitu on Day 16, where Ozzy is chopping a coconut while the rest of the tribe makes small talk with Nate. Jonathan says that he supposes their camp is nicer than Raro's, and Nate says that it has more space, but he thinks there are more coconuts back home. Also more hibiscus. I'm interested that Nate would mention that there are more pretty flowers at Raro's camp, considering the direction his comments will take later. Nate gives an interview in which he says that he "took it as an honor" that they kidnapped him, because he assumes it's because they think he's the strongest player. I'll tell you what I suspect is strong: the scent of that green stripey sweater he seems to be wearing every time I see him. I suspect it no longer needs Nate inside it to stand up in the shape of Nate. Nate goes on to explain that Aitu started asking him lots of questions, trying to get information about his group, and he says that he held back and didn't really give them anything of value. He tells them, for instance, that Raro eats lots and lots of octopus meat. You just gave it away, Nate! Now they know the strategy! Last week, somebody almost cracked the game based on credit-card solicitations, dude! These people are not to be underestimated! Nate says that he, in fact, is just listening to see what he can find out.
As the tribe sits around talking about having had to get rid of Cao Boi, JessiFlicka pipes up to complain that she wasn't told what was happening. "I'd rather be on the same page and know what's going on than not," she says. In an interview, she tells us that the vote "knocked [her] off [her] socks for a moment." That takes some work, considering just how long her socks are. She says that everybody went right along, telling her they were doing Cao Boi's Plan Voodoo thing, and then it wasn't that way at all. As Candice picks her teeth demurely with a stick, JessiFlicka tells everyone that she doesn't want to not know where people's heads are. Nate tells us that this happened because he "played [his] cards right," which...I'm not really seeing, unless he is the one with the Plan Voodoo, and he's making people do things with his mind. But Nate says that this was useful information to have, anyway. He says he'll be taking this information back to Raro, so that they can "make some moves." Secret moves! Tricky moves!
Yul, Becky, and Candice have a chat. Becky talks about how JessiFlicka is all freaked out about not knowing what's up. Yul tells them that he's kind of unhappy that she aired all that stuff in front of Nate, all things considered. It now appears that this threesome is the inner threesome out of the five-person alliance they've put together, so Yul says that the order of bootings would logically be Ozzy, Flicka, Jonathan, and then Sundra. Yul explains in an interview that originally, this was a foursome that intended to just kick off Ozzy, Flicka, and Sundra -- incidentally, just as many of us suspected, Sundra really was an add-on and not a full member of the team. But now, Yul says, everyone seems very uncomfortable with Jonathan. I secretly believe this is because they've all seen him in movies or on television and they can't think of where they've seen him and it's driving them crazy. "I know that guy, where do I know that guy? There's something so sneaky about him." And it never occurs to them that they know him from The Nanny. Yul says that the concern is also that Jonathan would be tougher in an individual challenge than Sundra, and they're all suspecting a merge before too long. I'm not sure Jonathan is a challenge monster, actually. Puzzles, maybe. I'm not sure he's an athlete.
Credits. I guarantee you, people are out there right now deciding that because there's a tree after Cecilia's picture, that means the merge will be week. There's an entire science of credit-sequence fortune-telling, in case you don't know, and despite the fact that it's all utter nonsense, hundreds of hours are devoted to it. Thus concludes this week's lesson in The Internet: Go Figure.
We return to Aitu, still on Day 16, where it is raining lightly. Jonathan is reading a piece of treemail to the Nate-enriched tribe (more Nate than ever before!), and it implies that the upcoming challenge involves swimming and a whole lot of other stuff. It also advises the tribe to look through a little booklet, referred to as a "catalog," from which it can choose two items it wants. The prizes include oil and spices, a sewing kit, and a whole lot of other stuff. Nobody wants the sewing kit, which is too bad, because I'd love to see a little quilting bee. I like the idea of Jonathan with a needle and thread. The only things people are interested in, however, involve food. There is much love at Aitu for peanut butter in particular.
Raro, same time. Over there, the discussion quickly turns to peanut butter as well, but there's a disagreement over whether the accompanying carbohydrate of choice should be bread or potatoes. Brad is advocating potatoes, on the theory that they'll last a lot longer. Ultimately, the rest of the tribe admits that the bread won't last as long, but Parvati just viscerally wants a peanut-butter sandwich, which makes this the first time that any of the women on this show who need a sandwich have demonstrated an actual conscious wish for a sandwich. In the end, in spite of Brad's attempts to talk sense to them, they wind up opting for bread. Brad interviews that he was trying to do what was best for the tribe, but there's not much you can do when you lose the majority vote. And this is, of course, quite true, even when it comes to potatoes.
We zoom over to a challenge clearing. We are on a stretch of sand. Jeff waits for the tribes to arrive, then explains that in today's challenge, each tribe will pick three swimmers and two puzzle-solvers. Each swimmer, in turn, grabs a wooden club and swims out to a tower. The swimmer climbs to the top, then jumps off and, in mid-air, uses the club to smash a plaster box that's dangling in the air that contains a key. Are you with me? Oh, good. Then the swimmer fishes the key out of the water below and brings it back to shore. There are a total of six keys for the swimmers to retrieve, every swimmer has to go out at least once, and you can only bring back one key at a time. When your team has all six keys, the puzzle-makers will use the keys to open a box of puzzle pieces. They'll assemble the pieces into a map of the world, and then they'll be done. First tribe to finish will get the reward items that it chose. Raro chose the bread and peanut butter; as it turns out, Aitu chose potatoes and peanut butter. Brad looks bitter. He wishes he were with the potato tribe.
Sitting out for Aitu are Jessica, Sundra, and Nate. As Jeff points out, Aitu didn't want Nate competing with Raro, but they don't trust him to compete with them, either. Neither would I, of course, since it's not like he gets to go back with them and eat peanut butter. If they win, he presumably gets nothing, so it's kind of a no-brainer that you wouldn't have him go with your team. Oh, and the winning tribe will, of course, send someone from the losing tribe to Exile Island. As the teams discuss who will do what, Brad says, "I would rather do puzzles [than swim]. I can do puzzles like the back of my hand." You would think that would be a relatively routine moment that no one could later decide was a comment on his merit as a person or his manliness, but you underestimate the ability of a certain person to be an asshole, and his name rhymes with Nate.
Swimmers for Aitu are Ozzy, Candice, and Yul. For Raro, the swimmers are Rebecca, Parvati, and Adam. Considering what we learned about Candice's athleticism in the last challenge, this does seem like a lineup that would favor Aitu. Ready? Go! When it starts out, Ozzy against Rebecca isn't as much as a massacre as you'd think, if you only count the run to the water. Despite the fact that she has a substantial chest and an almost completely unsupportive bathing suit (WHY do the busty women keep doing that?), Rebecca runs full-out to the water, and she and Ozzy get there at about the same time. But Ozzy is a great swimmer, and he also quickly realizes that the club will float, so what you do is throw it out ahead of you so you don't have to swim with it in your hand. You throw it, and then you swim to it, and then you throw it again. Using this technique, Ozzy gets to the tower with a significant lead over Rebecca. He smashes the box and dives to find the key. He grabs it and heads back. He returns the first key, and Yul heads out while Rebecca is still trying to get to the tower. She finally gets up onto the platform as Yul swims out. Rebecca climbs up and manages to jump and hit the box with the club, and the key drops. Her swimming, however, is poor enough that she's not able to find the key at all, and she swims back without it, and without particularly making a major effort to retrieve it, even. As Rebecca heads back, Yul, wearing a very funny and extremely intense expression, leaps from the platform and smashes the box open. He gets the key and is swimming back, and now the only question is whether he's going to lap Rebecca before they hit the shore. As these two swim, Nate looks over at Brad and says, "Brad, why aren't you swimming?" "Because I'm better at puzzles," Brad simply answeres. Yul gets to shore and Candice heads out, so Rebecca has indeed been lapped. As Rebecca finally does get out of the water, her chest is completely blurred, because it turns out that she has completely come out of her suit. "Pull your top down, baby," Jenny says loudly. That is an act of kindness, I think, so that's one for Jenny. Rebecca, however, either doesn't hear her or doesn't care, because she doesn't immediately react. Even Jeff has to prod Rebecca to hurry up so she can tag someone who can go. And also, of course, so she can cover herself. Finally, Rebecca drags herself in.
Candice is out at the platform. Adam heads out into the water to find the key Rebecca knocked down but did not retrieve. Adam looks for the key. Candice swims down to look for the key she got down. Adam swims in ahead of her with Raro's key, and Candice can't find hers. "This is the break that Raro needs!" Jeff announces. He is so unhelpful. He's the anti-suspense announcer. Everything he says makes everything seem less urgent. Now, Parvati heads out into the water. Candice is unable to find her key, so she finally returns to shore defeated, as Parvati leaps out and breaks the key box for Raro. Ozzy -- whose swim trunks apparently permanently expose his butt cleavage, which is blurred at all times -- swims out for Aitu to look for Candice's key. He does not take a club with him, since he's just getting the key and coming right back, much as Adam did for Raro. As Ozzy looks around, he realizes that Candice's key never came down from the box, even though the box broke. The team hollers at him to use his fist, which...yikes. I guess Jeff did say the boxes were made of plaster, so it's probably not going to give him horrible gashes or anything. Proving that he really is rather fearless, Ozzy climbs up, and as he jumps through the air, he smashes the box with his fist, and the key falls. On the other side, Parvati dives to the bottom to get her key. So as they come back together, Raro is down by one key, plus the distance between Ozzy and Parvati, since he's a bit ahead of her.
Yul is heading out into the water for Aitu, trying to get its fourth key. Adam goes back out looking for Raro's third key. Smash! Smash! They're both pretty efficient. It takes Yul a little longer to get the key and start back, so Adam has Raro slightly less than one key behind as he approaches shore. Parvati and Candice go out . They basically maintain their positions, even though Candice stops the key as it's sinking, before it even gets to the bottom, so she did especially well there. Nevertheless, Adam is out after Raro's fifth key before Candice can return with Aitu's fifth. But when she does get back, Ozzy is going, which has to be good for Aitu. Ozzy burns rubber, as far as swimming goes, as he heads out to get Aitu's final key. Adam has Raro's fifth key. Yul and Candice hug each other and watch Ozzy swim, looking very much like they are watching an approaching tornado in a Lifetime movie. They're both very pretty, so it's quite a visual. I think the actual reason is that this is your first clue that it's actually pretty cold on this particular day, especially since they're all so wet, and especially since Candice is already small and isn't eating. Ozzy smashes the box and returns with Aitu's last key as Parvati goes back out to get Raro's last key.
Jonathan and Becky work on the locks on Aitu's puzzle box. Meanwhile, Parvati finds out that the first time she hit the box with the club, the key didn't fall, so she has to go back up again, reducing the likelihood that they're going to be able to make up this deficit at the puzzle. Jonathan and Becky have all the locks open, so they get their puzzle pieces out. "Parvati up for a second hit at her box!" Jeff says, and he doesn't mean it that way, he swears. Finally, Parvati gets the key as Becky and Jonathan are puzzle-solving. Suddenly, Becky gets all excited and starts jumping up and down, because she thinks she knows how the puzzle goes. Indeed, after this, it goes very quickly, and before you know it, Aitu has won reward. There is lots of hugging. Adam scowls. Adam is unhappy! Jenny hugs poor Rebecca, who still looks half-dead. Jeff tells Nate that his visit to Aitu is concluded, and he can return to his tribe. Aitu has to decide who goes to Exile Island, and they send Adam, without thinking about it very much. I don't even know what would go into your thinking at this point about whom to send. I honestly think it makes essentially no difference what you do about sending someone to Exile Island when everyone seems to suspect that the idol is already gone. Jeff sends sad little Raro back to camp empty-handed, while Aitu gets peanut butter and potatoes and goes "wee wee wee" all the way home.
When we return from commercials, it is still the same endless Day 16 at Aitu, and they are enjoying their bounty. Apparently, they have both smooth and crunchy peanut butter. Crunchy rules! Smooth drools! I'm not sure I can think of anything off the top of my head that involves peanut butter and potatoes, unless you were making some kind of Asian stir-fry, which they aren't really situated to pull off. So it's not surprising that they seem to be just eating the peanut butter in great fistfuls. Candice and JessiFlicka are so happy about the peanut butter that they come very close to making out. Candice is really friendly. She loves everyone! But it's still cold and rainy, so when the peanut butter porn is over, Yul huddles with Candice and JessiFlicka under a blanket as JessiFlicka voices over that she hopes that they continue growing together and so forth. She is overly optimistic on a variety of fronts.
Day 16 at Raro. Rain is dripping from trees. I have a feeling they're in that kind of weather where, when it rains endlessly, it gets a little chilly and it's hard to get warm. I used to live in Portland, Oregon, and it's totally like that all winter long. Nate is telling a sad Rebecca that she did her best at the challenge and "stepped to the plate." He puts an arm around her. No hard feelings about being unable to swim from point A to point B without dying, after all. Rebecca tells Nate that she feels like the loss was her fault. Which, of course, it was. Nate says in an interview that the team could really have used him today. He seems utterly convinced that with his help, they would have won. He says he was frustrated, though, because he couldn't do anything and couldn't really compete. He insists that he's a good swimmer.
Talk among the tribe turns to Brad's decision to sit out the swim and do the puzzle instead. He explains that he feels like they keep losing challenges at the end and choking, and he wanted to be there at the end. In the end, though, he agrees that they needed another strong swimmer. So the debate is over, right? He agrees that it was probably the wrong choice, and they understand what he was thinking? Of course not! No, in an interview, Nate says, "For Brad to want to take the back seat today, and want to be puzzle boy? When we have a swimming challenge? Pissed me off. I don't know what his deal was. Maybe he didn't want to get wet, maybe he was cold, maybe he's a nancy boy, I don't know what he was thinking. But he did not get his ass up and swim. We needed him there, I don't care about no stupid puzzle." And then Nate adopts a distinctly soft, mincing tone and says, "'I'm good at puzzles, I'm real --' I don't care about that nonsense." First of all, there's no excuse for "nancy boy" under any circumstances. Obviously, it has a homophobic stench, whether you mean it that way or not. Second of all, why isn't this just a matter of Brad making a bad strategy decision? Why would it mean he was weak, or that he didn't want to swim? What about Brad's wrestling Ozzy last week made anybody think he was weak? What about Brad in general would make anyone think that he would shy away from a physical task? "Afraid to get wet"? It's just a little suspicious to me that Brad happens to be the only gay person on the tribe, and he happens to be the one being called a "nancy boy." Is it possible? Oh, I suppose. Is it the most likely explanation? I think not.
Back around the fire, Jenny, Nate, and Parvati are continuing their little snotty business about this. Jenny bitches that Brad knows he's one of the better swimmers, and she's like, "How hard is it to do a puzzle?" HA HA HA! Oh, dear. Ask the four billion teams who have lost challenges at the puzzle portion, folks. You know how Jeff always says fire is life? Actually, puzzles are life. If your team is good enough at puzzles, you can usually win, and if they're not, you can't. The idea of blowing off puzzle-solving as a useful skill is just idiotic, and it suggests that they're not being logical, they're just being pissy. Parvati is on about how this really made her angry, too, and she chooses to be indignant on behalf of Rebecca, who of course almost killed herself by swimming out once. "I don't know why he insisted on the puzzle," she says of Brad. Of course, we didn't see any insisting. It's not that there couldn't have been any, but I didn't see any. In fact, we didn't even see anyone questioning Brad on whether he should do the puzzle or swim, nor are they claiming here that they did. All we saw was a choice on Brad's part, in a task where everyone was called upon to do one task or the other, that he'd rather do the puzzle than swim. Parvati goes on to say that she's so angry she could punch Brad in the mouth. For that? You'd better be careful, lady, or somebody's going to think it's not a coincidence that the one guy who you can't effectively wave your boobs at happens to be the one you don't like. And she finishes up with, "God, that was miserable today," which is what this is really about. They're all unhappy, and they're looking for someone to blame, and it would be so refreshing if they could just own it, you know? Nate complains about how now, there's a storm, and he has to take care of the women, and apparently they're just sitting around camp knitting and churning butter, and it's just so hard to be the only real man with a nancy boy, you know?
Exile Island. Adam is not having a nice time. He says that his tribe just keeps losing, and he's kind of starting to doubt them. I'd say he's coming to the doubting a little late, then. "It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys," he complains. Poor dear. It's also hard to soar like an eagle when your head is made of cement. Adam huddles against the "rotted-out" "hull" of a "ship" that's been provided by the prop department. It rains. (I kind of feel like "it rains" is becoming the "they fight" of this show.) The time-lapse photography suggests that the apocalypse has come to Exile Island. A woman's voice begins to sing as the night-vision cameras look on a wet and windblown Adam. He tells us that the conditions were most unfavorable. "I was pretty much just in a fetal position and just hoped that it would go away," he says. What a nancy boy! I hope Nate calls him one. I bet he totally will.
"HYAHH!" says the soundtrack, for no particular reason. Now, it is Day 17 at Aitu. Perhaps it is the day when they do karate. If it is, they don't show it, which is hardly fair. What we see is that it is the day when it's very rainy. Sundra emerges, looking very unhappy, from the shelter and looks around camp. There are aggressive angry-bird noises, and although it initially sounds like Sundra has disturbed a sleeping pterodactyl, it turns out that Ozzy is bringing back a wild chicken that he is holding in his hands, and at the moment, it's still alive. He explains that he caught it. "You are such a crazy guy," Becky mutters, and she means it. Catching chickens is apparently crazy now. Ozzy asks Becky and Jonathan what he thinks they should do with the chicken. Jonathan equivocates, and then says they should eat it. Becky points out that this is presumably why Ozzy caught it, so they might as well eat it. It does seem kind of weird to bring it back like a cat bringing back a bird it hasn't even killed, being like, "So here's a live chicken; what do you want to do?" For some reason, this requires them all to wake up Yul, who wants to know how Ozzy caught the thing. Ozzy says that he caught it on his way to the bathroom. It was asleep in the bushes, and he sneaked up on it. (Chicken: "Can't a freakin' chicken get some sleep without this jackhole coming and grabbing me up like a football? Put me down, you punk!") It appears that Yul and Ozzy team up to break the chicken's neck, and then Yul takes it off to be plucked. Everyone is a little freaked out about waking up to this, so Jonathan tries to rally them by saying they can "respect it and eat it and enjoy it and get nourishment from it." Just the way I like people to show me respect, I know.
Ozzy climbs a tree trunk as Candice voices over that he is "amazing," in that he's "half-animal, half-man." He's also part fish and part monkey. Ozzy kicks coconuts out of the tree with one foot as she explains that he's "kind of like the little jungle boy." Ah, yes. The Little Jungle Boy. One of my favorite Christmas carols. "Come, they told me, AIIEE-AAAH, EEE-AH-EEE-AAAAAHHH!" "Ozzy," Candice finally sighs, "he's just...Ozzy." As Ozzy downs a chicken liver, Yul tells us that he probably underestimated Ozzy at first. He's very good at providing food, but they're very worried about letting him get as far as a merge, where individual immunity will come into play.
JessiFlicka and Ozzy now initiate a discussion with Candice in which, as the two women lie in the hammock, the three of them discuss "a plan." Flicka says that the big issue is not trusting Jonathan. Candice looks uncomfortable. Ozzy thinks that the three of them could make a great alliance, since these are the two strongest women. Candice is all, "Three doesn't make anything," and Ozzy, who doesn't know which way the wind is blowing at all, apparently, says that they could join up with two other people -- Yul and Becky, for instance. Or possibly Sundra. It is safe to say that Ozzy is open to options. Basically, Ozzy would like to have an alliance with everyone except Jonathan, which is not much of a strategy at this point, if you think about it. Ozzy just wants Candice to know that he's willing, if she ever wants...an alliance. Chicka-bamp. He also tells her that if he leaves, they'll all starve. Ozzy opines in an interview that he's more valuable than Jonathan, because Jonathan "can't provide for people." He says, "If they get rid of me, where's that going to leave them?" Let's see...in the same position the other tribe, which also doesn't have you, is in? He presses this point with Candice, then interviews that at least the people who stick with him won't starve. The way that Raro is starving without him, I guess.
We return from commercials and find ourselves at a challenge beach again. Everyone assembles on their mats, and then Adam is brought in from Exile Island. He hugs his tribe. Jeff tells Adam he had the worst night of anyone ever on Exile Island. Adam characterizes it as "extremely rough." Jeff asks about the storm, and Adam goes on for a bit about how it was hitting him and stinging him and so forth. He was shivering all night. Probably because he didn't have Candice to snuggle with him and act as a shield from the wind. Jeff asks if everyone is ready for the challenge, and then he takes back the immunity idol from Aitu.
Today, each tribe will race to put together a bunch of logs in a series of holes from shortest to tallest, to use the ends as a staircase of sorts. Then they'll climb up the steps to the top of a tower, where three tribe members will, in turn, take a zip line down into the water, grab a bag of puzzle pieces, and bring it back to shore. The other three tribe members use the pieces to put together a puzzle. First tribe to finish gets immunity; losers vote somebody out. Sitting out this challenge for Aitu will be Jonathan.
Ready...go! The logs are dragged over toward where the stairs will be assembled. The women of Raro, as Jeff points out, start putting the smaller logs in sequentially "while the guys debate which is the longest log." Oh, Jeff. If you did indeed come up with that on the fly, I love you a little for it, not that you don't have a strong streak of log-measuring in you, as well. Aitu finishes assembling their steps first, so they all head up toward the tower. Once they're at the top, they can start down the zip line, though it seems to take them a minute to realize it. Yul goes first. When he's already down in the water, Raro finishes assembling their poles. They climb up. Yul brings back his bag of puzzle pieces. Brad is first down the zip line for Raro, and he uses his rather impressive abs to hold his feet way, way up, and then to swing his legs in an attempt to build speed. I'm not sure that will work, overall, but I see what he was going for. He fetches a bag of puzzle pieces and heads back.
Aitu is still ahead a bit. Candice zip lines , and she gets a bag and heads back. When Brad returns for Raro, Parvati swings down and gets a bag. She's now trailing Candice. When Candice gets back, Ozzy swings down, and while Jeff correctly points out his impressively contorted "monkey pose," I'm not sure he actually did any better than most of the rest of them -- it's mostly about keeping your feet out of the water so there's no drag, and I think there were others who did that just about as well, although their approaches weren't so showy. Ozzy fetches a bag and comes back. He's gaining on Parvati, who's walking instead of swimming back toward shore, which Jeff openly scolds her for. Jeff needs to shut up. It's not like I'm a bit Parvati fan, but I don't think he needs to turn into the Great Jefftini, bouncing basketballs off her head and telling her she'll never amount to anything. Parvati finally returns, and Nate leaves, just shortly before Ozzy returns to shore. Raro did not make up huge ground there on the swimming, even with Brad swimming and Nate swimming. I'm not sure Nate's theory that Brad not swimming totally doomed them in the reward challenge can really hold up. It would probably have been closer, but would it necessarily have changed the outcome? Not sure.
Anyway, Nate swings down and gets a bag of puzzle pieces. He starts back. Ozzy brings back the last bag for Aitu, and he, Yul, and Candice carry the pieces up the ladder. Now, JessiFlicka, Becky, and Sundra are working on the puzzle. Nate finally gets back for Raro, and they all take their puzzle pieces up. The long and the short of it is that Jenny has some kind of crazy puzzle mojo, at least on this particular puzzle, and Raro solves it almost instantly. After sucking wind for the rest of the challenge, Raro actually wins immunity, and why? Because Aitu blew it on the puzzle at the end. Great theory, Raro nitwits, on how crazy it is for a guy to think that it was important for people who were good at puzzles to step up and be good at puzzles. Raro celebrates their victory extravagantly. Jeff hands them the immunity idol. Aitu will now have to send someone home, and they'll have the afternoon to think about it. They head back to camp.
We return to Aitu on Day 18, where Jonathan is giving what I think he intends as a pep talk about how actually they performed very well in the challenge. "It's not like they handed us our asses," he says, sounding even more like Alan Alda than usual. "It was just one of those things," he says. Ozzy tells us that he's "bummed out that someone has to go home." As usual, he sounds halfway like he's stoned, but I think it's actually his hair. I think that secretly, when you have that kind of hair, you talk like a stoner, whether you want to or not. He says that if it's him, then it's him, but he thinks that it won't be. He predicts it will be "someone else." That's quite a limb you're going out on, Karnak: "I predict the person voted off will be one of six people."
Flicka and Candice go for water together, and Flicka asks Candice whether she has thought about what she wants to do. Flicka kind of thinks it's bullshit when Candice says that she doesn't know, but Candice insists it's true. Flicka continues to push for the ouster of Jonathan. Candice tells us that there's been this discussion, presumably between herself, Yul, and Becky, about whether they should send Jonathan, Flicka, or Ozzy home first. Ozzy brings food and is great in challenges, while Flicka is crazy, and Jonathan is "kind of on the cusp" because nobody feels like they can trust him. Flicka now chats with Sundra, again trying to figure out what's going on. Sundra interviews that Flicka is "trying to be everybody's friend" to protect herself from being voted off. "I think Jessica's just covering her ass," Sundra says simply. "She was like a mosquito that won't die." We cut to a shot of flies on a spider on a snail, or something. No mosquitoes, but it's still a terribly dramatic cut.
Flicka approaches Becky, who also says she doesn't know what she's doing about the vote. Flicka says, again, that she thinks they should get rid of Jonathan. Ozzy agrees that he doesn't trust Jonathan at all. Flicka tries to get Becky to agree to "the four of [them]" voting Jonathan out, and Becky doesn't know who Flicka is talking about as a fourth, until she gestures toward a snoozing Yul. Flicka talks about how she doesn't think they need Jonathan for challenges, and Becky somehow comes up with a theory in an interview that today's challenge, in which they sat out Jonathan and lost, proves that they didn't need him. That is a very interesting piece of thinking, there. "We lost, but we would have lost by about the same amount if he had competed, so I figure the outcome really proves we didn't need him."
Later, Jonathan chats with Candice and Sundra, and Candice talks about "the funky vibe" back at camp. Jonathan, a little oblivious, sees it as a choice where if you think there are a couple of team challenges left, you'd maybe keep Ozzy for those and boot Flicka. If not, then you go ahead and boot Ozzy. Jonathan interviews that "overthinking" may come back to haunt him, and he says that people already think he thinks too much. I'm...not sure that's what they think, exactly, but I know what he means. He says that he's trying to be "one step ahead," and that he might trip himself up. He chats with Yul, informing him that the women think that it would be better to keep Ozzy and get rid of Flicka. He tells us that he plays the best he can, and his assumption is always that anything he thinks of, someone else has also probably thought of. Wow. If he assumes that, then he is a step smarter than most of the people who play this game. Because that's exactly one of the major things they neglect to include in their strategy.
Yul has a chat with Ozzy, asking him why he wants to get rid of Jonathan. Is it because he sees Jonathan as competition after the merge? Ozzy says that it's not the competing; it's the "plotting and scheming." My favorite objection on a show that is genuinely about plotting and scheming. Ozzy says that he doesn't trust Jonathan, because Jonathan asks questions instead of giving up information himself. Hm. I'm not sure I get that, really. Yul says that Jonathan makes everyone in the alliance nervous, and though he doesn't see a lack of trustworthiness himself, the rest of the alliance seems to see it, so he's wondering if he should as well. "It can't help but rub off on me a little bit," he points out.
A weird discussion follows in which JessiFlicka thanks everyone for being honest, even though nobody's telling her anything about what they're going to do. There is plinking piano music playing, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to signify. JessiFlicka says in an interview that she doesn't know who's voting against Jonathan with her. She thinks Ozzy, and she hopes Becky, Candice, and Sundra, and maybe Yul. But she thinks everyone is torn, and that anybody could go.
Tribal council. Jeff brings everyone in. He asks Jonathan about the racially diverse mix, and how there's at least one person left from each of the four ethnic divisions of all humans that were discovered and implemented at the beginning of the season. Jeff says that he doesn't get the sense that the ethnic part has very much to do with anything at this point, and he asks Jonathan if he's surprised. Jonathan says that he isn't -- the game is the game, and that connections were made and merging happened, and what has determined the survival of different bonds is people's personalities, not their ethnicities. Jeff asks Sundra whether there's a tendency to bond with some people and not others, and she says, "Absolutely." She says that you can't calculate or plan who you're going to get along with, and that you can't force it when there's no "natural chemistry." You can pretty much translate that as, "Our motto is: No Weirdos."
Jeff asks JessiFlicka who gets along with whom. She says that for the most part, everyone gets along. She says she likes fishing with Ozzy, and that the girls all do things around camp together, and Jonathan and Yul like to go look for clams. Jeff asks Yul about the fact that JessiFlicka keeps giving answers that are "delightful," but basically provide nothing about the game. Yul says that people like that are cool, because it's not like she's going to be a threat. He likes somebody you can "take at face value." Jonathan watches this entire speech nervously, waiting for the cobra noise that means he has just had a surprised thought. It comes, which is, unsurprisingly, not surprising.
Jeff asks Ozzy about being a provider, and whether it's possible to "provide too much" and turn yourself into a threat. Ozzy says that he sure hopes not. He says that he's never been a hunter for people before, and he likes knowing that he has that responsibility. He says that if it causes him to go out, it's a pretty good way to go. Jeff then reminds everyone that the immunity idol will show up, if necessary, after the voting.
So now, it is time for the voting. Ozzy votes. Jonathan votes for Flicka, saying that he really likes her "spirit," and he thinks she might have fit in better with different people. Candice votes. Sundra votes. Flicka votes for Jonathan, saying she still doesn't trust him. Becky votes. Yul votes. Jeff takes off to tally. When he returns, the first vote is for Jonathan. Then Flicka. Then Flicka. Flicka. Flicka. So that wasn't very suspenseful. She smiles, and then she comes over to Jeff in order to get snuffed. Flicka walks off, and Jeff gives his speech about "momentum." He's sure Raro thinks they have it. He sends them back to camp.
In her exit interview, during which we learn that everyone except herself voted for her, Flicka says that she had a great time and couldn't have asked for more. Except, of course, winning, but there's no point in dwelling on that. She also says she'll be rooting for Ozzy.
week: Brad is in trouble again. There is "a surprise twist." Oh, good.