Sylvia returns from Exile Island, joins Ravu, and proceeds to get on everyone's nerves immediately -- not only the nerves of the annoying people, like Rocky, but even the nice people, like Anthony. Over at Moto, Boo is proving to be highly accident-prone, and even the annoying "Dreamz" gets in a good line when he notes that we're not even through the first week, and already, Boo is down a leg, a hand, and an eye. And then the hammock falls down, which is just hilariously great. When we finally experience a challenge, Ravu is already exhausted and dehydrated, but they get out ahead in boat-paddling, only to fall behind in pole-assembling, especially after Erica freaks out and starts screaming at everyone to listen to her instructions, which turn out not to be correct. So Moto wins again, and Ravu has to go to tribal council again. It looks like Sylvia is on her way home, but then Mookie and Rocky (yes, we are now under the Mookie/Rocky reign) decide that Erica's panic attack during the challenge was so severe that they'd rather keep Sylvia. Weirdly, they advocate getting rid of Erica both because she lost the challenge and because she's "a threat." Hard to figure out, that. With Earl away on Exile Island (good move, Moto! Send the strong, well-liked guy to potentially get the idol!), Anthony and Rita stick with the Sylvia boot, but they're badly outnumbered, and it's all about Erica, who takes the very surprised walk to Bootville. In her parting words, it's not like she's mad or anything, but she really thinks maybe everybody else should think about what they did.
Previously on To Have And Have Not: nineteen survivors -- down one from the original plan as a result of a big quitter and apparent non-go-getter who barely missed her chance to be covered with bites and voted off before the merge -- worked together for a couple of days to build a fancy shelter, which everyone (and I do mean everyone) found noteworthy primarily because it had a toilet. Then, they were split apart into two tribes. I personally would have called them Potty and Latrine, but that's because I'm not sophisticated. There are a lot of complex vagaries to the Survivor caste system. The winners of the challenge, Moto, landed the nice camp and didn't have to go to tribal council, so they sat around on hammocks and ate with spoons and drank tea with their pinkies up, while the losers went off to an empty beach to eat dirt with their hands and scratch themselves and ponder the first boot. James -- who appears to irreversibly be going by "Rocky" now, which weirdly seems like it might just be something he decided would be cool for television -- got together with Jessica and Erica, figured he had it made, and was surprised when it turned out that the few can't really use pure force to tell the many how to live. (He has, however, learned this now, making him arter-smay than the esident-pray.) In the end, Jessica took a powder based on the perception of her performance in the challenge. Sylvia, meanwhile, was rewarded for her leadership with a trip to Exile Island and a promised return to whichever tribe wound up being the bad one. Perhaps this is destined to be a Jenna Morasca-type season, in which working hard only makes bad things happen to you. Time to vote off the ugly old women! They're just jealous! Let them eat wrinkle cream!
The day after tribal council, we check in at Ravu, where things are dire. Like, lie-on-your-back-and-moan dire. There's no fire, so there's no boiling water, so there's no water, so everybody is very, very unhappy. Some of the men are experimenting with licking water off leaves, as Earl explains that they have to do what's necessary to survive, at this point. He says that they honestly can't even think straight until they get some water. Anthony leans down to lick a leaf. "We're all just dehydrated," Earl says. "It makes you delirious." Hey, "delirious" sounds like fun. It sounds like more fun than leaf-licking.
Credits. Did you know there's someone playing whose name is "Liliana"? I sure didn't. But there is. And she has been completely, utterly unnoticed until this week. And (SPOILER!) she's not getting any more visible this week. I guess she's on Moto, since at least we saw everybody else voting last week and I think I know who's on Ravu. Wait, maybe she's one of the ones with a nickname. Is she Mookie? Boo? Stinky? Boner?
We swoop in, as we must, on picturesque views of hills and sloping valleys, complete with a waterfall. We note the presence of a skull with things stabbed into it, which turns out to be resting near the Moto tribe flag. Here it is, Day 4, and Moto is having a blast. As Lisi settles into the hammock, she talks about how well she slept, and they all agree that having pillows makes sleeping a lot easier. Lisi interviews that they're "very fortunate" with regard to the living conditions. As Edgardo takes the world's most chaste and manly shower, Lisi begins talking in a sort of...cartoon Popeye voice, I guess?... and she sings a little song. It would get old really fast, and it causes uncomfortable flashbacks to Dave Coulier, but it might get a giggle out of me once or twice. She talks in her interview about the two hammocks, the silverware and cups, and the fact that they're all "more than happy" right now. She claims that they're all thinking that "this game is so vicious it's delicious." That is stupid, because the only people who have ever thought that are people who design t-shirts for tourism boards or and people who are on Flavor Of Love. And then Lisi kills an ant with a hammer, and she starts laughing this aggressive, tuneless, rapid-fire "hanh-hanh-hanh" laugh that just...if there's such a thing as the laugh you would expect to hear from a woman who kills an ant with a hammer, Lisi has that laugh.
Boo lies in the hammock talking slowly, with a grin, about how great things are. He says that the tribe is eating rice and mangoes and drinking lemonade. He definitely has a touch of the Gump, just in terms of his delivery. And a touch of the fourth-grade girl as far as the contents of his diary. ("Dear Diary: I had pancakes for breakfast.") The plot of this sequence is that there actually seems to be some extra rice that they're thinking of throwing away (!), but Boo tells them not to -- he'll eat it if nobody else does. Yes, that's right: they have extra food. They're thinking of throwing some away. Who needs it? It's just food. As the group sits around later, chilling out and digesting, Boo lets out a mighty, trumpeting fart (apparently; I think/hope/pray/assume the tuba sound is dubbed, because cinema verité should have its limits), and the entire tribe reacts. Boo protests that it's "air, it's not, like, a sea urchin." Now if he could fart a sea urchin, that would be interesting. That would get you on Letterman, I think. He goes on to mutter something I can't make out at all, but it appears to be something cocky.
Ravu, Day 4. They're trying to make fire using the rub-sticks-together method. As we've discussed before, it doesn't seem entirely clear that this can actually be done with the kinds of wood they seem to have on the island, at least without substantially more expertise than one can develop as a layperson. At least they're trying. They're trading off as people get tired, but as Anthony explains, they're all exhausted and dehydrated, and it's a pretty labor-intensive process trying to create that much friction (in the physics sense, not the mutual-hating sense), so basically, they're screwed. Even more than usual. We end on a shot of Rocky, laid out and looking, frankly, like Apollo Creed just kicked the shit out of him. Poor Rocky.
In more productive news, Yau Man is still whacking away at coconuts with a machete, which is not as glamorous as trying to make fire. But, as he explains, they basically have to do this, because coconuts are their alternate source of hydration. He also tells us, though, that with a bad machete like the one they have, it takes several minutes of chopping to make it into a coconut you can drink from. I don't think I've ever seen a contestant before who knew the difference between good and bad machetes. I think for many of the people who go on this show, this is the only really big knife with which they will ever hack anything but the ribbon at the opening of a Best Buy. Earl also seems to be getting the hang of the coconut-hacking, and we watch as he empties quite a bit of coconut water into a canteen. I think their idea of trying to do a bunch at once is a good one, rather than getting up and exerting themselves again every time they want another coconut. Just get tired, and then rest. And I know a lot about this, because of all the times I've had to parcel out my energy over a series of coconuts. As you can tell, it's making me lethargic just looking at them. I sort of want to lay down my figurative machete and nap. Delightfully, it turns out that some coconuts give up a lot more water than others, as Mookie learns when he finally gets one open, and he tips it over to find that it only has about a tablespoon of water in it. It's a little bit wrong, how deliciously satisfying that is. It makes me want to pull out my Nelson Muntz/Natalie Maines voice. Rocky tells us that they're all so low on energy that they can only chop a few coconuts before everybody needs a nap. I'm sure that's true, too. As he talks about how half of them are too tired to stand, we watch as Michelle's legs literally buckle under her, which is a little scary. "I've never experienced dehydration like this so much," Rocky says, not very grammatically, but fairly evocatively. He eats a raw clam right from the beach, then interviews that this isn't exactly something he would normally do. "It's crazy. We're stahhhvin' here, bro," he says. Eggs! Raw eggs in a glass! Otherwise, by the time you get home, you'll be a pencilweight.
When we head over to Moto, Land of the Haves, we see that Boo is holding his hand over his eye. It turns out that he has somehow poked himself in the eyeball with "the sign." The...the "Home Sweet Home" sign? The flag? I do not get it -- neither what he's referring to, or how that possibly could have happened. Unless it was a "keep your eye on the flag" misunderstanding. Alex, despite being a lawyer and not a doctor, takes over caring for Boo and tells him just to hold his eye open while Alex pours water in it. [Description of eyeball activity omitted for the same reason I don't have contacts.] Shortly thereafter, when Boo is breaking up wood for some use or other, he manages to hack himself in the hand. And he does it in such a way that the machete (or axe, or whatever) goes right by past his hand and also slices his leg. Basically, he does this by following the not-recommended method of bracing things against your leg as you hack at them with an axe. I cut my hand that way once, but I was in seventh grade, and it was a linoleum cutter, not an axe, and it was art class, not the jungle. I can still see my three stitches scarred into my finger. Anyway, Boo initially says that he needs medical attention, but apparently, once he gets the cut wrapped up, he's not too worried about it. It does look like it bled a good bit at the beginning, but that can be misleading. Alex is a little surprised to explain to us that, right after he finished taking care of Boo's eye, Boo went and sliced himself in the hand and leg. Boo tells the rest of the tribe that he's fine now, and not to worry about it. "He's a real hazard to his self [sic]," says "Dreamz.". He's not sure they're even going to have to vote anyone out, because he thinks maybe Boo will medically disqualify himself. "He's got one leg, one hand, and one eye," "Dreamz" tells the tribe, the other members of which can't really help laughing. And then, in one of my favorite shots ever, we're just watching Boo hang in the hammock with "Dreamz" and Gary in the foreground, when the hammock abruptly lets go, and Boo lands on the ground. Poor Boo. That one wasn't even his fault. It just was, like destiny demanded it.
We come back to a giant, open-mouthed skull of something on the ground. I like the way you can always count on plenty of rotting bones on this show. There's so little you can count on, but on Survivor, if it's any day, it must be Dry Bones On the Beach Day. Specifically, it's Day 5 at Ravu, and Sylvia is returning from Exile Island, where she apparently spent two nights. No one looks particularly pleased about her return, to the point where most of them don't even get off their asses to say hello, which is pretty cold. At least Anthony goes out to greet her. The rest finally and halfheartedly follow. Some hugs are offered. All offered hugs are insincere. The absolute best part is when Yau Man enthusiastically hugs Sylvia, all, "Welcome home!," and then reaches down and opens her bag with his hand, trying to peek inside to see if she has the idol. Damn. The Professor is not fooling around. More hugs. Yau Man refers to this move as "feel[ing] her up" to see if he can locate the idol, which is a trifle unfortunate, but hey, it's still funny.
Sylvia is distraught to learn that, unlike Exile Island, their camp did not come with a free flint, and they have no fire. She asks them how many canteens are filled right now, and they tell her they're just starting the process. She tries to jump into the coconut-breaking, but she doesn't seem to be very good at it, and I think the fact that she's had flint and therefore water and they haven't is kind of making people annoyed. She looks a lot fresher than the rest of them do, I'm saying, and when you feel like this, that will make you hate a person. Sylvia interviews that she feels a bit like an outsider, as a result of missing a whole day at camp. I think there are other reasons relating to her personality, but I do agree that it's always a disadvantage not to be there at the beginning. In this case, Sylvia was there just long enough to grate, and then she was evacuated. But whatever the reasons, she's not really feeling included in the group, and she seems to be largely correct. The real problem is that in the early going, people are looking for just about any excuse to vote somebody out, since they don't have very many real Sylvia, so you have to be careful that you don't stand out in any way in those early episodes. She made a mistake there, and she also got kind of unlucky.
The tribe is trying, smartly, to see if they can use anyone's glasses to make fire, and Sylvia seems to be offering suggestions that are not going over great. Michelle, who's one of those girls who says everything? Like it's a question? Well, she says she wasn't "excited" about Sylvia's return, because of "her personality." What's the watchword from Michelle? "Bossy." I have to say, from what they show, I don't really see "bossy." I see Sylvia trying to make suggestions, but she seems to be doing a decent job of making them sound like actual suggestions and not demands. I really think that if the initial reaction to her has some time to settle down, she's not that bad. She could be one of those people like Lydia or Rudy, where they barely avoid elimination right at the beginning, and then they last for-freaking-ever because nobody hates them anymore and it doesn't seem like you really need to worry about them. Anthony allows that Sylvia "does rub people the wrong way." Again, he mentions the b-word. Mookie, Rocky, and Anthony sit around talking, and Rocky says that, fairly obviously, if they had to boot someone tomorrow, it would be Sylvia. They accuse her of attempting a "dictatorship," which...maybe they just didn't show it, but everything she's said since she got back certainly seemed to be throwing things out for discussion, rather than demanding her own way. I think we're getting that thing again, where they bond over not liking someone, the identity of whom is chosen largely at random. Rocky, Anthony, and Mookie talk about learning what Sylvia can teach and then booting her, and then somebody says "cutthroat bastard," and it's like they're happy at last.
Day 5, Moto. Bat on a branch. Gary hoists "Dreamz" up into a tree, and then manages to throw him a machete, which goes straight up and does not cause injury, despite the obvious risk of disaster. "Dreamz" tells us that life on the island is "a little bit easier" than homelessness. He explains that he was homeless starting at about age seven, because of his mother's drug problem. He and his brothers and sisters decided that they'd have to take care of themselves, so they used to get food out of the trash. So, of course, scrounging for coconuts is kind of like that. Hmm. "Dreamz" kind of tries to parlay it into something about how his experiences have made him generous, because he knows everyone is hungry and so forth. It looks like he's telling some of this story to the tribe, but most of them are busy eating coconuts, and they're not really up for "my mother was a crackhead" in the middle of dinner. It's one of those situations where, if you don't know how to set the stage for revealing your personal details, it seems cheap, like you're doing a dramatic monologue at theater camp. He assures us that he's the only one on the tribe who really knows what it means to struggle. Eh. During this sequence, Stacy (who exists, I swear) is weaving a fairly well-executed basket. I think I'm more interested in the basket than I am in "Dreamz" and his life story, at this particular moment. "Dreamz" tells the tribe, as they eat, that lots of homeless people have less than they have right here. True. Irritating. The tribe acts duly sad. I think they're getting tired of this. And the one making the face is Liliana! From the credits! I've heard of her, but only in passing! "Dreamz" tells us that he's at an "amazing spot" in his life, and that he wants to help his family. I don't like where this arc is going at all. I don't like Queen For A Day as a structure anyway, and I don't like the sense I get that this is the theme of the season -- "Dreamz" and his attempt to help his family.
Earl, Rocky, and Erica take a walk together, as Earl explains that he's now "beyond starving." They wander, and notice clusters of things hanging in the trees. They look almost like nuts, but they turn out to be very, very small mangoes, and not really edible. They continue with what looks like a pretty strenuous climb all over their island, but it seems to be coming to nothing. Later, back at camp, Earl is explaining to Yau Man that they looked everywhere and didn't have any luck looking for new fruit. He seems very surprised that they haven't been able to find anything anywhere. Elsewhere, Erica whacks her way through the brush, and she pulls out something that looks very familiar. In fact, it looks just like a pineapple. In fact, it is a pineapple. SpongeBob's house! Not really. I just know too many five-year-olds right now. Anyway, there are apparently a large number of pineapple, and Erica's stumbled on a sort of a patch. She gives a triumphant yell. A minute later, Rocky is yelling, "PINEAPPLE!," and the tribe comes running. Heh. They hack one open and start eating it, and they're overwhelmed by how good it is. Seriously, pineapple, even though it's kind of acidic for a delicate stomach, would taste so good if you were dead thirsty. It's pretty tasty anyway. They're all really enraptured as they eat. Rocky comments that, for tomorrow's challenge, they will have "pineapple power." Heh. ["I'm pretty sure that's the name of a smoothie at Jamba Juice, and if it isn't, it really should be." -- Wing Chun] Earl looks straight-faced into the camera and says, "Me and Erica? We're getting married now." Hey, I've seen reality-show contestants get engaged for less than pineapple-finding, believe me.
Back from commercials, it's Ravu Day 6, and Rocky and Earl are returning from somewhere with a little box. Everyone initially hopes it's fire, but...no. The treemail suggests that they will need the will to win in order to grab the upcoming challenge, which promises fire. So, will to win...fire...got it. Erica gets psyched and chops a coconut, telling us that today is "all about payback" for the loss of the shelter they helped to build. It's good, I think, always to look at everything in terms of personal revenge, even when it seems to be more about taking care of yourself and not dying of dehydration. After all, which is more motivating: resentment, or your tongue turning black? I think we all know the answer. For her part, Sylvia wants to win because she's pretty sure she's going home if she doesn't. No flies on her. Sylvia and Michelle do some yoga together, and Sylvia seems to be trying to bond and be friendly, but it doesn't really seem like that's happening. It's like she's beyond the tipping point, where everything she does that's nice is perceived as irritating in some way. Sylvia also adds that while she knows the immunity idol is around camp somewhere, she has had neither the energy nor the private time to rustle around looking for it. Also, she knows absolutely nothing about where it is, so shut up, Sylvia. The team leaves for the challenge.
Meanwhile, at Moto, the team puts on face paint as "Dreamz" prattles on to everyone about "go home day" and how none of them wants to leave. He is officially talking too much for me, by a lot. It's interesting that because they don't have to vote anyone off, they're not sitting around talking about how annoying he is, which I think they totally would if they had harder conditions and tribal council to deal with. Boo tells us that his tribe has a huge advantage, because they're eating and sleeping. Which is true, of course, but also has the potential to make any possible defeat even more embarrassing.
Challenge beach. The contestants greet Jeff Probst, who indeed is going to wear that dumb hat all season. Moto predictably doesn't react too much to Jessica being gone, considering that they only knew her for two days, and everybody was pretty much blending together at that point. Jeff throws Sylvia her buff, taking care of one of those pieces of business that they could totally have done off-screen without anyone minding. But they added it because everything is official, people. Sylvia's teammates, who hate her, applaud. Jeff takes back the idol from Moto, and says that it's back up for grabs, believe it or not. He explains that, in this challenge, each team will paddle out to a flag and grab it, and then on the way back, you paddle past four crates, and you attach a single long rope to each of the crates in turn, so that the rope eventually runs through all four. When you're back on shore, you haul in the crates and carry them up the beach. When you untie the crates, you find six pieces of a "puzzle pole" that you have to assemble, along with a flag. Put the pole together with the flag at the top and raise it, and you win. The winning team gets "a lot of fishing gear." Plus, if Ravu wins, they get fire. And seriously, if these people don't get water soon, the producers are going to have to give them an intervention of some sort. Winning tribe also gets immunity and the ability to send someone to Exile Island.
So they all declare that it's worth playing for, and now we can get started. Survivors ready...go! The contestants run to their boats. They're initially neck and neck with the paddling, but Ravu hits the first crate first, and they keep going, and before you know it, they have a little bit of a lead as they head back to shore. Not bad for people who are starving. Moto's rope also gets tangled up at one point, and Ravu continues to stretch out ahead a bit. Once Ravu hits the beach and starts hauling crates in, Moto begins to make up a little time on its much more tired opponent. Ravu's lead is pretty small by the time they start opening the crates, it seems. Soon, Moto and Ravu are both taking pieces of the pole out of crates, and Erica is yelling at Ravu about how to hold the pieces, turn them, handle them...she's being pretty aggressive with the instruction-giving. She starts to yell at them that they need to go back and put in a piece they've rejected: "I'm telling you all the one Earl has is it!" Jeff decides to put in, "Erica certain she's right! Nobody's listening!" This seems to egg Erica on, and she starts screeching "That was it!" and so forth. Finally, somebody says that they'll need to listen to Erica, so they try the piece she wants, and of course, that piece is not it. Sylvia tells Erica to "calm down." Over at Moto, things are going substantially more smoothly. As Moto gets closer to being done, Ravu -- Erica, in particular -- starts just standing there and watching Moto instead of doing their puzzle. All they do is watch while Moto finishes putting the pole together and raises the flag, so there is no fire for Ravu, and somebody's going home. Rocky "RAR!"s in frustration. Jeff takes the immunity idol over to Moto. To them, it's just more decorating. They also get the fishing gear, and they need to send someone to Exile Island -- someone who, of course, won't get voted off. And whom does Moto send? They send Earl, which is incredibly stupid, because Earl is a strong, well-liked player. You don't send that guy! What is the one lesson of the last couple of seasons, idiots? You don't send that guy! Earl is sent off to Exile. "Watch out for the sea snakes," says Jeff as Earl heads for the boat. "I'll eat 'em," says Earl confidently, and Jeff grins. Jeff reminds Ravu that they have to boot someone tonight, and then he sends everyone home. How depressing.
When we come back from commercials, Earl is on Exile Island, and he's not too happy to find the clue that the idol is back at camp. The new material he receives says something about the "highest point" and becoming "centered." So...maybe that big peak? It seems possible. He interviews that it was "very shocking" to hear that the idol was at camp, but he doesn't really think it makes any difference that Sylvia has the first clue from last week, because she's going home tonight anyway. Earl makes himself a fire, so he has that advantage, but as he explains, he also has the disadvantage of not being around to see what's happening. As he watches his fire, he suddenly sees something out of the corner of his eye and jumps a little. This is a sea snake, and it turns out that Earl is not so much going to eat it. What he is going to do is stalk it with his machete and chop it in half. The camera operator looks away with the camera at the point where Earl actually chops it, because they don't want you to see snake gore. When he has taken care of this, he mutters to himself, "Can't take that chance." The chance, presumably, of being killed by a sea snake and losing the million dollars. He also feels bad about the poor snake. So bad that he makes a Saving Private Ryan reference about how if you let the one live, it will come back later and be the one that kills you. Hee hee. He does add that he's sorry. "Snakes are misunderstood," he episode-titles, adding, "We have an understanding now." If only more people who date "misunderstood" individuals could -- metaphorically, of course -- wind up with the same "understanding" with their snakes.
Ravu, Day 6. The tribe members are predictably unhappy about another loss and another stretch of however long without fire. Rocky is muttering that all they have to do is wait for the challenges without puzzles. Heh. Anthony interviews that he's very frustrated and angry about not having water and not having anything and heading to tribal council again. "It's only Day 6," he adds, somewhat despairingly.
Mookie and Rocky stand in the shallow water and have an intellectual strategy session. Mookie says, "Erica was just killing me today." Turns out he's really unhappy about the way she kind of freaked out at the challenge. Rocky agrees. Mookie asks if they're still booting Sylvia, in that way that makes it clear he's open to suggestions. Rocky says he'd say so, but then he adds, "Now you want Erica, huh?" Mookie says that Erica's reaction to the challenge "just irritated" him. Rocky interviews that they all can freak out, but you kind of have to not do it during the challenges. And as self-serving as this is right now, I do kind of see his point. It's like an assumption of risk thing: if you're going to literally scream at the challenge that everyone had better listen to you, then you really, really need to be right, and if you're not, then you're the goat. It's like screaming at the point guard to pass you the ball and then putting up a brick. Back with Mookie, Rocky says of Erica that he "love[s] her to death," but that he understands how Mookie feels about the boot. They agree that they'll try to flip the tribe to vote out Erica, based on the challenge. Rocky reveals in an interview that this is his new alliance, this thing with Mookie. Considering that he's now trying to boot the second of the two members of his original "alliance" in just the second episode, you might indeed think he needs a new one. Otherwise, he may have assigned the term "alliance" a meaning different from its traditional meaning. He allows in an interview that this kind of makes him look like scum, but that he sees no alternative.
Rocky walks on the beach with Anthony and tells him about the new plan. Anthony seems to think it's still really a much better idea to boot Sylvia now, but Rocky insists that Erica is "a threat." Day 6! You can't be thinking about threats after the second challenge, idiot! You have to get to the merge first. Anthony says that they need Erica's strength, but Rocky says that he "can't always read her." Rocky says that Sylvia, of course, will go .
Elsewhere, Mookie is transmitting the plan to Sylvia and Rita. Sylvia is openly grateful, admitting that she was sure it was going to be her. Rita, on the other hand, is openly scornful of this decision, beginning her reaction with -- I kid you not -- "Oh, no." Incidentally, Sylvia is sitting her buff on top of her head in a sort of improvised pillbox hat. That is a bad decision, fashion-wise. Sylvia, you are not Jackie O. Sylvia interviews that if this development shows you one thing, it's that you can't flip out in a survival situation. Unfortunately, instead of keeping this entirely correct observation to herself, she can't keep her yap shut and goes on to explain this in a chat with Rita, Anthony, and Rocky. Which is sort of making everyone like Sylvia less, right this minute, and most of them already don't like her. Clearly, Anthony doesn't like this decision about booting Erica, but equally clearly, he's uncomfortable saying in front of Sylvia that it makes infinitely more sense to boot Sylvia, so Anthony is kind of reduced to rubbing his head unhappily. Rita looks none too happy either. In an interview, Anthony says that Erica really hurt herself by freaking out at the challenge, and now everybody's trying to get rid of her.
Anthony talks to Michelle, and they agree that neither of them really thinks this is the right move, but that it seems to be what everybody else wants. This seems like a kind of a lifeless approach. I mean, there are eight people. There are already three people, including Erica, who don't want Erica booted. You have the beginnings of something, if you actually care. Anthony claims to have figured out that Rocky and Mookie have enough votes, so he's not sure there's much choice. Michelle says that if they already have the votes, then she's throwing hers to Sylvia. Hee. Anthony agrees. It's an interesting decision, not going along to get along. Anthony interviews that you "play the cards you're dealt," and that right now he has "a really funky hand." He continues to blame Sylvia for all the tribe's problems, going so far as to say she's been bad for their "mental health." Eh. Anthony chats with Rita, who is still pushing the anti-Sylvia thing, too, saying that she thinks they were all perfectly okay before Sylvia got there. While I think I see her point, trying to attribute the faults in an entire tribe's mental health to someone who hasn't even consistently been around seems like a stretch. Most of these people are fully capable of having a psychotic break without Sylvia.
Later, it looks like they're trying to leave for tribal council, but they've managed to place their boat in such a way that it's now filled with water. Not a good development, and sort of an unfortunate metaphor for their unsuccessful selves. Anthony interviews that he thinks there might be a 4-4 tie, and says that he just wants people to stick with what they were originally going to do. How quaint.
Tribal council. Jeff asks Mookie about the losing "streak." Asked how much of a hole they're in, Mookie says that it's a big one. They don't have fire, so they don't have water, and so forth. He claims that they're running out of coconuts, which seems like it cannot possibly be true unless they have, like, one coconut tree on their entire island. "We need to win," he says sagely. Asked what he thinks happened, Anthony says that he thinks too many people were trying to get in on the puzzle-solving, and maybe too much chaos resulted. Jeff confronts Erica about yelling about the puzzle. Erica says that a lot of people were trying to put in their two cents about the puzzle. She says she's just passionate about winning, and that all she tried to do was get them to go back and try something again.
Now, Jeff turns to Sylvia, asking about the fact that she's the one who made up the tribes, and then she got banished and brought back. Asked if she felt welcome, she says she felt "like an outsider." She says that there was "a lot of bonding" during the time she was gone. Jeff asks Rocky, basically, whether Sylvia is right that nobody likes her. Rocky says that she's used to "dictating" and "telling people what to do," and he seems to be allowing that it gets on people's nerves just a bit. Asked for his opinion, Anthony somewhat sheepishly says that Sylvia tends to throw out ideas and want to do them, rather than wanting to talk about doing them. I don't know; I weirdly sense that Sylvia's getting a bit of a bum rap here. Jeff asks her if she's surprised, because apparently he didn't see the "whatever" face that she made when Anthony made that remark. Sylvia thinks that she isn't pushy; she just makes suggestions about what she's thinking. Erica rolls her eyes. Yes, yes, it's very tiresome for you.
Jeff asks Yau Man about the perception at the last tribal council that it was about getting rid of the weakest person. Is that still what it's about? Yau Man says that this week's elimination is about making the tribe "cohesive." Which certainly sounds like a Sylvia boot, doesn't it? He makes references to removing, maybe, a person who is "stubborn" or "arrogant" and impedes discussion. It's kind of funny to see both Erica and Sylvia thinking, "Damn! I'm stubborn and arrogant!"
Jeff announces new rules for the idol. First of all, it is -- as it always should have been -- only good through the final five, meaning that once you're in F4, you're done. Second of all, you have to play it after the votes are cast, but before they're read, meaning that you have to guess whether you're in danger, and if people can fool you into thinking they're voting for you, they can draw it out and still vote against someone else. Both of these changes make the idol substantially less powerful, and while I loved the idol's power last season because it was protective of my most favoritest nerd contestant of all time, and while Terry never really needed it, I can easily see how it might protect someone I despised, so it's probably just as well that its power is being limited a bit.
The time has come for voting. Erica votes for Sylvia. Yau Man votes. Rocky votes for Erica, saying that he can't "read" her. Sylvia votes. A worm crawls. Rita votes. Anthony votes for Sylvia, calling her "pushy." Mookie votes for Erica. Michelle votes. Jeff goes off to tally. When he returns, he reads the first vote for Erica. Then Sylvia. Then Erica. Sylvia. Erica. Erica. Aaaand the second person voted out this season is...Erica. She stands, gets her torch, and goes off to be snuffed. Jeff snuffs her with his giant snuffing tool. Everyone tries to look sad. Jeff admits that he has nothing to say except "stop losing," and he sends Ravu home without fire.
Erica's parting words can best be summed up thus: "You guys will be sorry."
week: Sylvia digs for the idol. Ravu gets fire. Moto has a medical emergency.