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Even without Eliza, the game continues. For the reward challenge, two team captains are chosen at random (Natalie, now the perennial team captain, and Jason), and they select teams of four. Since there's an uneven number of contestants, the one who is not chosen for a team gets to go to Exile Island. And that person is Cirie. The team of Jason, Ozzy, Amanda, and Erik win the challenge, a combination obstacle course and memory game, and get a trip to the island nation of Yap, where Erik gets cracked out on betel nuts and everyone eats well. Meanwhile, Cirie suffers away on Exile Island and the losing team goes back to Malakal and gets on each other's nerves. The winning team comes back and Ozzy brags about the amazing food they ate, which pisses some of the losing team off. The immunity challenge is an endurance test where players are tethered to a bucket. If they move enough, the bucket tips over and dumps paint on them. Of course, Probst is there to entice players out with goodies, and in one pretty funny scene, Alexis gets so excited by the prospect of whatever Probst has behind his back that she accidentally tips her bucket over. So not only is she out of the challenge, but she also doesn't get the cookies, which Probst is all too happy to inform her. James has a blast laughing at her, and then his bucket tips over in the name of poetic justice. Surprisingly, Ozzy bows out of the competition after an hour for donuts, which makes Jason's day. But Parvati and Amanda prove surprisingly hard to beat, as four more hours go by before Amanda quits because she has to pee. After another hour, Probst comes forward with a huge plate of goodies and says if one of them gives up, both that person and everyone on the bench will get the plate. Everyone guarantees not to vote Jason out if he steps down, but they're all crossing their fingers like assholes. And Jason is a moron, so he believes them. He looks like a goner, but then Cirie takes advantage of the situation to plot against Ozzy with Parvati, Alexis, and Natalie, as Ozzy thinks they're all voting Jason out and won't suspect anything and play his idol. At tribal council, James pretty much says he's voting Jason out, and everyone else agrees with him. They're convincing enough that Ozzy does not play the idol and smirks smugly all over the place. But when the votes are read, Jason gets four, while Ozzy gets five! Jurist Eliza can't believe it. Ozzy can't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Cirie, you are amazing.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!As usual, we open on the tribe returning home post-tribal council. As soon as they're allowed to speak, they have a few things to say to each other. "Jason, what just happened?" Parvati asks. "I'm confused -- you gave her an idol," Alexis supplies. Jason "explains" that his only shot in the game was to send Ozzy home and keep his two-person alliance intact. The rest of Dabu now realize that they are dealing with an absolute moron, if they didn't know this already. Jason tells us that he's glad that Eliza was the one who got the fake idol and not him. "I would've hated to play the idol and then actually go home looking like even more of a fool," he says. Hey -- maybe some of Eliza's self-awareness actually rubbed off on him? Ozzy tries to look humble as he tells the group that he made a fake idol, taking a lesson from Yau-Man. He fails, by the way. Cirie apparently wasn't paying attention during tribal council, as she tells us that Eliza played the fake idol with all kinds of smugness and confidence and then got her ass handed to her. In reality, Eliza certainly wasn't at all smug or confident when she played the stick that she was pretty sure was fake but knew she had to try anyway. Cirie gets much closer to the truth when she says that it wouldn't have been that bad if Eliza had had the real idol, because then it would have been out of the game and so would Ozzy. With that, we get some night-vision footage of Cirie looking pensive. Better watch out, Ozzy!
The credits still have Eliza listed but now she's in the new "the jury" section. It looks kind of weird with just one member, like she's super awesome important as the sole decider of everyone's fates. I believe that's actually Cirie's job.
The morning, Jason is off by himself. He tells us that Ozzy might have fooled him with the fake idol, but Jason still beat him in the challenge, so "Ozzy's not the only godlike competitor who can play this game." Ozzy's not godlike at all, and neither are you, Jason. I believe that's actually Cirie's job. Jason says he'll do just fine in this game as long as he wins every single immunity challenge. I'm sure that won't be too difficult at all, considering that it's never happened in the history of this show.
But now it's time for the reward challenge. The contestants arrive at an obstacle course of logs and nets in the water. Oh, I'm sorry -- Probst calls it a "multi-level net tunnel." That's much more sophisticated. Contestants will split into two teams and race through the net tunnel of multiple levels until they reach a platform with a bunch of "Micronesian symbols" on it. They must then memorize as much of the picture as possible and go back to the start, where they'll attempt to recreate the picture with symbols of their own. Then the person will go, etc. until the picture has been recreated exactly. There are also a bunch of pieces that don't match the picture at all, just make things harder. For reward, the winning team will be flown to "one of the most cultural places in all of Micronesia -- Yap," Probst says. I thought he was saying "yep" this whole time, like, "Yep! It's CULTURAL!" But that's the name of the island. Alexis has apparently heard some great things about Yap, as she goes crazy before Probst even mentions the food and sleepover party they'll enjoy there. Maybe she just loves culture. I kind of doubt that, though. And then Probst drops the other shoe -- there are nine players right now, which means one person will not be competing. They'll select teams schoolyard style, and the one person who is not picked gets to go on a cultural island sleepover of his or her own -- to Exile Island!
Jason and Natalie are randomly selected as captains (this is the second time Natalie's been randomly selected as captain. She should try playing the lottery) and Jason wins the right to choose first (on second thought, maybe she should stick to those scratch cards). He takes Ozzy, of course. Natalie winds up with James, Parvati, and Alexis and Jason's team is completed by Erik and Amanda. Which means Cirie is going to Exile Island. She doesn't look thrilled about it, but she probably knew this was coming as soon as they said the person not picked would be going there. I wonder what she'll get up to all by her lonesome?
The competition starts with Jason and Parvati going first for their teams. Jason is first to the platform and he takes his time memorizing the picture before heading back. They both reach their answer boards at about the same time with Parvati finishing as much as she can remember on hers before Jason. Ozzy and Alexis go , and Ozzy quickly catches up to Alexis in the net tunnel and heads back quickly while Alexis chooses to take her time and memorize as much of the picture as possible. Nevertheless, Ozzy puts a decent amount of pieces in. I guess his godlike powers allow him to memorize things faster. James and Erik leave the platform at about the same time and reach their answer boards at the same time, too. Natalie and Amanda go for their teams. Natalie returns to her answer board while Amanda takes her time. "It is better to be right than fast," Probst warns. Sure enough, Natalie finishes the board first, but after Probst carefully compares it to the answer key, it's wrong. Parvati is so upset about this that her mouth blurs. James heads back out for the team while Amanda completes the answer board. And they are correct! Natalie's team heads back to camp empty-handed, with James walking like he has a load in his pants. He does that a lot, actually. Why? Anyway, I hope everyone on Natalie's team is regretting voting Eliza out right now, since she would have memorized that entire board herself and won the game in one round.
Jason's team heads for Yap. They board a small plane and I feel sorry for the pilot, who will be trapped in a confined space with four people who must smell pretty funky. For some reason, Jason is allowed to sit in the co-pilot's seat, even though there appear to be quite a few empty seats in the cabin of the plane. And he gets to play with the plane's controls. What happens on this show if half of the contestants die in a stupidity-related plane crash? As they fly, Erik tells us that Yap is a tiny island nation he's never heard of. But no one's ever heard of whatever tiny town he grew up in either, so that's cool. A town isn't quite the same thing as an entire country, but whatever, Ice Cream Scooper.
The castaways are welcomed to the island by Francis and his family, who are dressed in traditional ceremonial gear. They walk on a really cool ancient stone walkway covered in moss through the jungle until they reach the village, where they see lots of people wearing traditional clothes and doing traditional things. I tend to doubt that this is what things are like every day on this island, as modern conveniences such as electricity and even the internet have now come to Yap. This village is probably more of a tourist destination than anything else, but now everyone in America can think this is how everyone on Yap lives and dresses. Thanks, Survivor! Loopy Erik feels like he's gone back in time. Way back, actually, as he says he half-expected a dinosaur to come out of the woods. Yes, dinosaurs, who were around at the same time as these naturally-occurring huts and villages. There is no dinosaur, but there is a roasted pig/boar thing. And lots of chicken, probably from the KFC downtown. The contestants fill their plates with delicious and their cups with beer. Another guy offers them betel nuts, which make people crazy. Well, not all people. Just people on this show. I think it was the Palau season I worked on where everyone ate betel nuts and acted like that girl in the bar who takes a sip of beer and then announces that she's plastered and staggers all over the place, irritating everyone. But that's how people on this show act after one bite of betel nut, which isn't even as strong as coffee and which children can eat without turning into spazzes.
Erik takes in the sights, which include a guy climbing a tree to retrieve betel nuts and so many topless women. "I'm sitting there ready to eat my food and the lunch lady doesn't have a shirt on," he reports. I'm sure she's thrilled to be called a "lunch lady." That's what you get for preparing a feast for American assholes who compare everything to high school. "Oh my gooood," Erik mutters to himself. I'm sorry, but even though they're all blurry, I can still tell you that these aren't exactly sexy boobs. Go watch some National Geographic and jerk off, child. "That's the most boobs I've probably seen in my whole life," Erik admits. The children of the village then engage in a tribal dance and song that involves whacking sticks together. Erik helpfully summarizes it as "some legend about their culture." "That was amazing," Erik says while wandering around aimlessly. Ozzy tells us that he loves going places with Erik because Erik is a naïve child who hasn't seen much of the world and so everything is new and awesome to him. We see Erik playing with a little kid, which was cute. Then he tries to learn the stick choreography from one of the dancers. He has trouble and requests betel nut. Yeah, that'll help. Erik reports that the betel nut relaxed him: "maybe too much." Sure enough, when night falls and everyone is sleeping in the super-special traditional hut for visiting dignitaries, Erik has to barf off the side. I'll bet the people of Yap were thrilled to discover that in the morning. Hooray for culture!
A bolt of lightning takes us to Exile Island. Uh oh. Life sucks for Cirie. Huddled in a cave and bundled up in little clothing she has, Cirie says that it rained all night and put her fire out. "Not a good night," she says, plotting the doom of every contestant that put her here. And that's all of them, by the way. The morning, the rain continues. Cirie is stuck in the cave with nothing to do but think about how Ozzy has the idol and is a huge competitor. "Maybe I'll just have to work on getting rid of Ozzy and his idol," she says. DO IT, CIRIE! You are our only hope for an interesting season!
Over at the Dabu beach, it's also raining. Ha! I'll bet they wish they were back on the Airai beach with its independent weather system now, don't they? While Natalie, Alexis, and Parvati sleep, James decides to start hacking away at a stick. Loudly. Really loudly, actually -- I have a feeling the editors cranked up the sound on him just a little bit. Even if they hadn't, it'd be enough to wake me up and chuck a rock at James. The fact none of the three girls have done that so far makes them all more tolerant of being woken up by loud noises than me. But it's not good enough for James, so he starts hitting the stick against a rock. The girls toss and turn. Seriously, I would have shoved that stick up his ass by now. Don't you be disturbing my beauty rest. I don't care if you're chopping firewood. Let the fire go out! Just don't wake me up. His wood work apparently done, James decides that now is the best time to sharpen his axe with the machete. Metal grinds against metal until, finally, Parvati speaks up. "There's three people that are trying to sleep. It's kind of obnoxious," she says. James goes out into the martyr rain to get some water, and he is pissed. He claims that the noise he was making was to keep the fire going all night to keep the mosquitos away from those ungrateful, lazy ladies. How dare Parvati complain! And while I certainly do see his side of things, I also think he was making all that noise on purpose because he decided to stay up all night tending the fire and grew to resent everyone else for sleeping.
The reward winners return to the beach. Alexis asks Jason if Yap was "the land of milk and honey." "Pretty much," he says. BULLSHIT! I didn't see milk OR honey there. Just a lot of chicken. And boobs. Blurry ones. In an impressive show of continuity, James is just coming back from collecting water in the martyr rain, just in time to hear Ozzy tell everyone all about how much food they had at Yap, going into great detail while the rest of the reward winners stay silent and look kind of ashamed and the reward losers shoot Ozzy death glares. Meanwhile, whatever happened to those chickens they won? I thought Ozzy was going to save them for their renewable egg resources, and yet...they've disappeared.
The rain has stopped, so Ozzy goes to the water for a soak. This allows Parvati to complain to Alexis about what a brat Ozzy is, describing all the delicious food he got to eat and they didn't. I mean, come on, Ozzy. Even Jason knew better than to brag like that, and he is beyond dumb. A worried James goes up to Amanda and says "Parvati's tripping." Amanda agrees that Parvati has gotten close to Alexis and Natalie, and that she and Parvati haven't been as close since the merge. Neither have Amanda and Ozzy, ha ha ha! Amanda's life kind of sucks, and it's all thanks to Alexis, the friend- and boyfriend-stealer. "She's in love with girl power," James frets. Amanda doesn't tell him about Parvati's all-girl alliance, but she tells us that she's worried about Parvati, making alliances on her behalf with Alexis and Natalie, who Amanda has no interest in joining with and who Amanda doesn't know or trust. Meanwhile, the alliance she wants to stick with has Ozzy, who's a huge target with his idol and competitive edge. So huge, in fact, that Amanda worries someone in their alliance could turn against the others. Not that she'll do anything to prevent this, but she is worried.
Jason tells Erik that he knows his only chance is to win every single immunity challenge. Erik agrees, and says Ozzy is getting ready to win the challenge at all costs. Thanks for the tip, Erik. Now be a good boy and stick a spoon in some Rocky Road. Jason says he'll be just as ready as Ozzy, and that his motivation to win is much stronger than Ozzy's. Ordinarily, I'd say that's not good enough, but it seemed to be in the last immunity challenge and (spoiler!!) it got him pretty far in this one as well.
With that, the contestants head into immunity challenge. Cirie also returns to a round of applause and hugs from all the assholes who didn't pick her to compete. Probst takes back the immunity necklace while Ozzy eyes it hungrily. Perhaps too hungrily, as we'll soon see. For today's immunity challenge, each contestant's arm will be raised and tied to a bucket. If you lower your arm, the bucket will tip over and dump colored water on you. That's right -- they put paint in the water just to make these people even more uncomfortable than they already are. I mean, it's not like it's paintball, where you need the paint to identify that someone's been hit. The paint does match the color of the buckets, though, so that's pretty. The challenge begins. After twenty minutes, Probst walks up with a bowl behind his back. "If there's food I'm out!" Cirie decides. Oh, Cirie -- I know you have this game in the palm of your hand and everything, but you could at least try to pretend you're fighting to stay in it. Probst reveals the bowl's contents, and it's sort of food, I guess: candy. Gross-looking candy, too. Like the kind in those dispensers at the grocery store. And what appear to be Skittles, but since they didn't pay for the product placement we'll never know. Cirie and Erik decide to go out together and split the prize. So not only do they lose immunity for some cheap nasty candy, but they only get half of it! How disappointing. "What in the nickelodeon is going on around here?" James wonders nonsensically yet adorably. Allow me to answer him: I'd say some people are way too confident that they aren't going home and really, really want candy. Even though one of them just had a giant feast, Erik.
Forty-five minutes into the contest, Probst returns with another treat behind his back. James says if it's a steak, he's out. We don't get to see what it is before Alexis pulls her bucket down on her. The contestants can't believe it; she didn't even know what was behind Probst's back yet. Probst says Alexis got so excited that she lost her concentration and got out of the game. That means she will not be getting whatever's behind Probst's back. Alexis can't believe it. Everyone laughs, especially James. Which is kind of mean of him, but that was pretty funny. Especially if you don't really like Alexis. In fact, I'm surprised that Amanda's ass isn't sitting on the ground right now after she laughed it off. Probst denies Alexis's claims with a cheerful "no chance!" Heh heh heh. Probst totally hates all the contestants and enjoys the hell out of denying them. Alexis sits on the bench, looking really, really angry. "You can mope and be mad," Probst graciously allows her. He tells the other contestants that they have to say they're quitting the game for the food if they want it. Some people think it was unfair of Probst not to give Alexis the food, but it really looked to me that she didn't mean to drop her arm and did, in fact, lose her concentration. And I'm going to give Probst the benefit of the doubt and figure he advised the contestants of the rules ahead of time and said they had to announce their intention to drop out for food before doing so.
Probst finally reveals the prize that Alexis won't be receiving, and we get it in a great camera angle that captures both the food and her reaction to it. Heh heh heh. It's milk and a chocolate chip cookie. No sooner is he done saying that when Natalie, like, gets the vapors and pulls her bucket down. So not only does she get white water all over herself, but her pants fall down. Damn, that's embarrassing. Pretty funny, too. She staggers around while Probst asks what just happened. She says something about being about to pass out, but gets no medical attention and no cookies. Meanwhile, James is still laughing at this turn of events. "That would suck," he says sympathetically. And then he finds out just how much it would suck when he waves his arm too much and dumps his bucket. A split second before getting doused, he realizes what just happened and gets out an "oh, BITCH!" before it hits. Okay, that was hilarious. That whole segment, really. Thank you, Alexis, Natalie, and James: your inability to focus on one simple task gave me many laughs upon multiple rewinds.
An hour has gone by since the beginning of the challenge, and it's time for more Probst goodies. This time, it's a plate of three chocolate glazed donuts. "I'll take it!" Ozzy says, dumping water on himself. Wow -- I was not expecting that. Maybe he knew he was about to go anyway and decided to give himself a little treat at the same time? Or maybe he's sick of being the one person who has to beat Jason in the immunity challenge and decided to put the onus on Amanda and Parvati to do it instead. Jason grins and tastes victory while Ozzy tastes his donuts. Hope they're worth it!
I'm surprised and impressed that, after three hours, Parvati and Amanda are still in the game. And it's raining, now. Two more hours go by, the rain has stopped, and Probst is bored out of his skull. But then something happens! Amanda says she's done -- "I have to pee!" She's even doing the pee-pee dance. Now that I think about it, it's kind of unfair that men can just turn around and relieve themselves without having to bow out of the competition but women have to either drop out and hide in some bushes or basically drop trou and pee in front of everyone and on camera. Anyway, Amanda pulls her bucket down, unties herself, and goes running off into the jungle to pee. I guess she really had to go!
We are now six hours into the challenge, and I have to say I admire Parvati's endurance here. Especially since I wouldn't have expected her to have much strength in her arm; it's not like she raised it much in school. Probst comes forward with a plate full of what I'm assuming is everything he's tried to bribe them with so far: cookies, milk, donuts, candy, peanut butter, two chocolate bars, beer, and pizza. And just to make things tricky, he says that if one of them steps down to take the prize, they'll be able to share it with everyone on the bench. Oh, fuck that -- they've been up there for six hours! Whoever steps down should get everything. Maybe Amanda can get, like, one slice of pizza since she was there for five hours. But no beer with that tiny bladder of hers. "Jason -- you could make friends!" Parvati says, because having friends is really important to someone like her and therefore, must be to everyone else. Then again, she's definitely doing a great job with the social aspect of this game so far, so maybe her advice is worth taking. Hungry Natalie speaks up and says that if Jason goes out, they might all decide not to vote him out. "I'd need a guarantee," Jason says. And he wants one from everyone. Natalie is the first to make it. Erik is the second. Parvati is the third, even though she won't be getting any food if Jason steps down. That would make me think these guarantees were worthless if I was Jason. In fact, I wouldn't even have bothered asking for guarantees in the first place. Meanwhile, Cirie and Ozzy are whispering to each other. Jason is turned away from the bench so he can't see their blatant plotting. Cirie crosses her fingers behind Erik's back, where everyone else can see except Jason. Then she uncrosses them and guarantees. So her crossing her fingers was more telling everyone else to lie to Jason rather than her thinking crossing one's fingers automatically means it's okay to lie. Because that would have been childish. For example, Alexis crosses her fingers when she makes her guarantee, because she is a child. Amanda and Ozzy guarantee. James is the last person to guarantee, albeit reluctantly. Probst asks Jason if he trusts them. Jason says he'll have to think about it. Uh oh -- he doesn't know how to think! Who knows what could happen if he tries! Incredible naïve stupidity, apparently, because he then says "Either I'm making the biggest mistake of the game right now, or it could keep me out here for a little while longer," crosses his fingers (for luck, not grade school promise-breaker protection), and steps down. Oh, Jason. That was dumb. DUMB. DUMB!!!! So dumb! Parvati releases herself from the tether and groans in shoulder pain. She gets the immunity necklace and everyone else gets the pizza. There's a particularly unflattering shot of Alexis finally enjoying those cookies.
Back at the beach, Jason says he could have stayed in the game longer, while Parvati reveals that she was about to go, just to make Jason feel stupider. Jason tells us that he spent six and a half hours up there trying to win immunity, only to give it up for food and verbal guarantees. "I'm taking a chance here," he says. Uh...yeah. Just a little bit. For a "Fan," you sure don't know much about what people's verbal word means on this show. Jason walks away from everyone in order to let them plot against him amongst themselves. Parvati immediately thanks everyone for getting him out of the challenge with their guarantees. Meanwhile, Ozzy tells Alexis he has no intention of keeping Jason in the game. "He should've known better," he says of Jason. Yeah, he should've. I have no idea what he thought this was going to accomplish. "I think one of the dumbest, most naïve moves in Survivor history just got played out," Ozzy tells us; "[Jason is] going to go home." This quotation is especially funny considering what happens to Ozzy later (spoiler!!). As Jason sits off by himself, James says he has no idea what Jason was thinking, stepping down like that. Ozzy says he must have been delirious from being up there so long. "He just wanted a friend," James laughs rather cruelly. "This game is outwit, outplay -- " Ozzy starts; "outlast, yeah," James finishes. "He just got outwitted," Ozzy says, so confidently. The votes haven't been cast yet, Mr. Awesome. Meanwhile, Amanda actually has a tiny sliver of morals and is surprised to hear that they're voting for Jason despite giving him their guarantees. Ozzy says they should do it now, lest Jason goes on an "immunity rampage" and they never get the chance again.
So it looks like Jason is a goner. But wait! I see a spider knitting a web, and that means scheming is afoot! Sure enough, there's Cirie. She tells us that Ozzy wants to vote Jason out despite the guarantees, which makes this the perfect time to vote Ozzy out instead. He'll never see it coming and therefore won't play his idol. This is a brilliant plan, but can she pull it off? Ami was always thinking of plans like this and they never worked. Cirie goes to Natalie, Alexis, and Parvati and explains her plan. They apparently agree to it, as Cirie then warns them not to tell Amanda, James, or Erik about this for fear of giving the game away. With Jason's vote, they'll have five votes for Ozzy to four votes for Jason, which is all they need. But will Jason go along with it? He might be stupid enough to tell Ozzy about this plan in yet another misguided attempt to make friends. Amanda walks up and everyone immediately stops talking. Suspicious. But Parvati saves it by walking up to Amanda and asking if the plan is to vote out Jason tonight. They all say they're planning to do just that, as they crossed their fingers when making the guarantee, thereby absolving them of all blame and making everything a-okay. Amanda walks away, seemingly placated.
Parvati tells us that she thinks if she went to the final five with Ozzy, she'd lose to him. And she wants to win. Yes, turning against your alliance and making promises you know you'll be forced to break eventually is totally the path to victory. Parvati talks to Ozzy in the cave. He gives her a pat on the back for helping to get Jason out of the game and says "we'd have to be idiots not to vote him out tonight." Parvati plays along and tells us that she also knows that voting for Ozzy will ruin her alliance and probably her friendships with Ozzy, James, and Amanda. "What do I do?" she wonders.
Meanwhile, Alexis and Natalie work on Jason. They tell him that Ozzy is still planning to vote him out, but they have the numbers to get rid of Ozzy. Fortunately, Jason has enough basic reasoning skills to go along with this. Alexis tells us that this plan hinges on Ozzy not being suspicious and using his idol. And despite everyone's attempts to act nonchalant, Ozzy asks James if they should be worried about Parvati, Natalie, and Alexis's seemingly close bond. James admits he's getting a "bad feeling." Ozzy tells us that he realizes that this would be a good opportunity for the contestants to get him to throw down his idol, but he's confident enough in his alliance that he won't do it. He says the "Favorites" know that the way to win is to stick with your alliance at all costs, and that's what's happened so far. For example, back on Malakal, his alliance always voted with each other, and had ample opportunities to do so since they lost every single immunity challenge. Even so, Ozzy says he "may" decide to take the idol to tribal council with him tonight. "MAY?!?!?!" Has he not been taking it there with him every time? WHY NOT? If you have the immunity idol and you aren't taking it with to every single tribal council, you deserve to go home.
And with that, it's time for tribal council. Eliza is brought in, looking clean and fed and relishing her sort-of powerful position. Everyone smiles at her to suck up. Probst starts off by asking Cirie about her time on Exile Island. She says she didn't have time to look for the hidden idol while she was there since it rained, and Ozzy has it anyway so why bother? Eliza grins and nods at this, and I'm sure it feels a little bit good to know that her ouster caused everyone else to know that Ozzy has the real idol. Which is also why creating a fake idol may not have been the awesome idea Ozzy thought it was. When asked, Parvati says that yes, everyone is taking it as fact that Ozzy has the idol. Probst asks Ozzy if that makes him nervous. I'm going to give Probst the benefit of the doubt here and say that he knew Ozzy didn't bring the idol to tribal council with him and therefore it was okay to ask some of these rather leading questions since he knew they wouldn't have any impact on whether or not Ozzy played the idol. Ozzy says having the idol does put a target on his back. A really small target apparently, since he didn't bother taking the idol to tribal council with him. Probst turns to Jason and says that what he did at the immunity challenge today was extremely risky. Shockingly, Jason actually seems to have put some thought into that decision and says that he figured his odds of winning every immunity challenge were really slim, and this was a chance to try something else. And while I did say what he did was incredibly stupid at the time, it seems that he might have been right after all. Not that he had anything to do with it other than giving up the immunity -- this is all Cirie and possibly Parvati's doing, not his -- but he was hoping to shake things up and he definitely did. Jason says he hopes everyone will stick to his word as Ozzy outright laughs at him.
Probst asks James to speak for the entire tribe and whether they're going to keep up their end of the bargain to Jason and vote against one of their own, or if their guarantees aren't worth the invisible paper they're written on. James assholishly responds that getting on everyone's nerves can't be appeased by a donut. Okay, but what about a donut and pizza and beer? That'd be about enough for me, and I'm not starving on an island. "If you tempt somebody with a donut and they say, 'oh yeah, sure?' -- they might've just wanted a damn donut," James says. Ozzy and Erik smile. Why be so happy to be an asshole on TV, guys? Millions of people are watching you delight in having no honor. Although I guess they'll also think "Oh, but they had their fingers crossed so their verbal promises don't have to count! Well played, you guys." Probst asks Cirie if James just said that the group isn't planning on keeping its word to Jason. "Sounds like what he said, Jeff," Cirie responds. Probst asks Parvati what she thinks of all this. "I think it was a crazy deal," she says; "if it works out for him, then that's great for him. But if he made this deal and he gets voted out tonight? That's a huge risk that he took." Good thing we asked for her input; she certainly shed some light on things.
Probst asks Ozzy if having the idol gives him some comfort tonight in what is an "uneasy situation." It doesn't seem very uneasy to me. Sounds like everyone's planning to take Jason out. "A certain amount," Ozzy says; continuing that he'll see how he feels once all the votes are cast and he's read everyone's faces. Parvati looks worried, which makes me happy since it means she's planning on voting for Ozzy. Probst says that either everyone is going to go back on their word and boot Jason or someone else is getting a "big surprise." Time to vote!
Ozzy votes first, and flashes Eliza a smile on his way up. Dude, you voted her out three days ago. Save the smile, okay? We don't see who Alexis votes for, but she's shaking her head when she puts it in the urn, seemingly because she's disgusted with herself for breaking her promise to Jason. Uh oh. Jason votes for Ozzy, of course. James votes for Jason, saying "I thought I was the dumbest Survivor ever." Meanwhile, he forgot he was in the middle of an immunity competition and lost it after laughing at two other people who did the same thing. Parvati walks up to vote as Erik seemingly bobs his head in time with the music. As she sits back down, Cirie smirks. I don't know what's going to happen, but it's got to be Jason going home tonight, right? It would be so amazing if they got Ozzy out, which is what makes me think they won't.
Probst tallies the votes and asks if anyone wants to play the idol. There's a tense moment as everyone looks to Ozzy. He shifts around, but...no. He does not play the idol. Jason and Cirie grin. I'm starting to have some hope that she actually made this happen. First vote is for Jason. Second vote: Jason, done in Erik's typical silly fancy handwriting. This time it's bubble letters with a star in the "o." Third vote is Jason's vote for Ozzy. Fourth vote is for Jason again. It's looking bad. Ozzy smiles. The fifth vote is for Jason. That's four votes. One more and he's out. Ozzy smirks and rubs his chin. He thinks he's amazing. And now...the sixth vote. And it's for Ozzy! Ozzy's facial expression changes quite a bit now as he tries to figure out who voted for him and why -- and if he or she brought friends. Amanda, too, looks confused. The seventh vote is also for Ozzy. James and Amanda are shocked. I can't believe Cirie actually did it. She did it! I never should have doubted her. Now it remains to be seen whether or not everyone went along with the plan. Meanwhile, Eliza is on the jury bench and she is FLABBERGASTED. I have never seen anyone look so surprised. Ozzy gets another vote, tying him with Jason at four votes each. The last vote will decide it. Did Parvati go against one of her alliances? Could she have screwed her good friend Ozzy over so hard? Amanda has her head in her hands. Eliza has a hand on her chest. She cannot believe this! I have no idea what's going to happen, but then Cirie smirks and I know that everything is going to go according to plan. See you later, Ozzy! James smiles and puts his head in his hands, knowing that they all just got played. Sure enough, the last vote is read and it's for Ozzy.
Amanda gapes. Ozzy buries his head in his hands. I hope he's hearing all the stuff he said about Jason being stupid and naïve playing back in his head right now. Jason cheers to himself. Eliza almost barfs in shock and happiness. God, her expressions were amazing. Is there a way we can see her reactions to everything all the time? Maybe as an extra on the official Survivor site? I would have loved to see what she thought of Alexis, Natalie, and James' performance at the immunity challenge, for instance.
A really pissed off Ozzy gets his bag and says "Thanks, guys." Go cry, crybaby! It's all a part of the game you thought you were the master of. He brings his torch to Probst, who snuffs it as Ozzy looks back at the players with a death glare, probably trying to decide which one of them was responsible for this. It's probably easy enough to tell, since the people who voted for Jason are sitting there looking shocked and the people who voted for Ozzy are either smirking or Parvati. Ozzy leaves, and Amanda is still catching flies with her slack jaw of shock. "That was a very big blindside," says Captain Obvious Probst. As the remaining contestants stand, Eliza has to stifle her laughter.
For his farewell speech, Ozzy admits to being an idiot and getting way too comfortable. Seriously. He left the challenge for donuts. "To whoever it was in my alliance that voted the other way, right now I pretty much hate you," Ozzy graciously says as we see footage of Cirie voting for Ozzy with a big ol' smile on her face; "So screw you, basically." See you on the jury, you smug bastard! You just got outwitted!
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she's bored at work. Or you can try your luck emailing her at saramorrison@gmail.com with news that some Nigerian king died and she stands to gain ten percent of his fortune if she hands over her bank account info.