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In the absence of Kelly B., La Flor self-destructs, losing both the reward and immunity challenges to Espada, even though they still have Dan. Espada gets to visit a Nicaraguan farm, and Alina's tears of happiness at eating some real food anger Naonka for some reason. It doesn't really matter, since they don't go to Tribal tonight and so we only spend like five minutes with them. At La Flor, Marty and Jill know their numbers are pretty much up, and Jane is really enjoying watching them squirm when she isn't catching, cooking and eating secret fish. Sash offers Marty a deal: his immunity idol for Sash's promise that he won't be voted out and that he'll give Marty the idol back later. This seems a ridiculous idea with every reason for Marty not to agree to it, but he does, so we all wait for his ouster to inevitably follow. Except that it doesn't -- Marty gets two votes to Jill's three, and she goes home. And we're left not understanding anyone's logic. Oh, and the other Kelly got her first confessional.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!I like how Probst says the tribe swap and last week's individual immunity challenges where huge surprises when they happen almost every season now. And also how he called Holly an "older mom" when she's like 44 and younger than he is. Espada return to camp after a strange freeze frame on a crowing rooster. Dan thanks his tribe for considering him so useless that they kept him over Yve, then says that he's starting to feel like John Gotti, the "Teflon Don." He calls himself the Teflon Dan. That's fine until you remember that John Gotti died in prison. I do love how the little Mafia guy's only point of reference is the Mafia, though. Chase interviews that he hopes voting Yve out was the right decision, and he'll feel pretty stupid if they lose the challenge because of Dan's inability to move. Despite this, he and NaOnka want to vote Alina out . Even though they know that her only real ally in this game was just voted out, so she might actually be less of a threat than Dan is. Also, WHERE IS NAONKA'S REACTION TO KELLY B. GOING HOME??? How DARE they build up her hatred of Kelly B. without giving us any payoff. NaOnka says she never trusted Alina, although she certainly seemed to trust her when she needed her shoulder to cry on.
Over at La Flor, Marty doesn't know what to say about the fact that he's still here except "WOW." Jill, on the other hand, wants to know why the young people didn't just tell them to vote Kelly B. Jud says they were hoping to flush the idol. They did a really good job of that, too, seeing as how they had every opportunity to get rid of the guy holding the idol and didn't. Marty runs over and interviews about how amazing he is for holding on to the idol. He says "something told me" not to play it. I]'ll bet something did. And that something is called "a producer." Marty says his mission is to "deal with" Jane's deception.
The day, Marty talks to Jane on the beach. He informs her that he has never lied to her, never voted for her, and never suggested that her name be written down. He was only going to vote for Jane last night because that's what the young people told him to do and he felt like it was his only option. And even then, he ended up voting for Brenda. Jane claims that she had no idea what was going on last night, and when Marty says he's pretty sure she voted for him, she just laughs and gives him a slap on the back. Marty runs to Jill and tells her what just happened. She says nothing, then interviews that she hopes Jane is the person to go but doesn't have much hope.
Reward challenge! Probst explains: one member of each tribe will be chosen as a "defender" and stand on a perch in the middle of a pool while, one by one, the rest of the contestants run, jump off a platform, and then, while in the air, try to throw a ball past the defender and into a net for one point. The first tribe to score five points wins a trip to a Nicaraguan farm for food, horseback riding, and fresh milk straight from the cow. Ew, on that last one. I like my milk cold and pasteurized. La Flor chooses to sit Jane out and put Jud up as the defender, while Espada picks Chase as their defender. NaOnka goes first for Espada, and while she might be a horrible person inside, I'll be damned if she doesn't throw that ball like a champion, sending it past Jud for her tribe's first point. up is Jill. She is also able to sent the ball past Espada's defender. Ben fakes Jud out on his throw and gets another point for Espada. Marty does not get a point for his tribe, as he sucks at challenges and he ends up throwing the ball right into Chase's crotch. Probst says Marty just hit Chase in a spot that "no guy" wants to be hit in as Marty apologizes to Chase and Jane just laughs and laughs.
Holly gets a chance to put Espada even further ahead, but her throw is kind of weak and Jud blocks it easily. What happened to my Holly challenge monster? Meanwhile, that other Kelly girl scores a point for La Flor, as her invisibility makes it impossible for Chase to block her shot. That ties it up, but now it's Dan's turn. He does not score a point, but that doesn't make what just happened any less awesome. He slowly makes his way to the end of the platform, stops, and throws weakly. Jud blocks it with one hand. Dan then jumps in the water. Probst is disgusted. He says Dan is not allowed to throw and then jump; he must do them both at the same time. "He can't jump either," NaOnka sighs, like, what did they expect? They knew this was going to happen when they chose him to stay in over Yve. And even with that, they're probably still going to vote Alina out before Dan.
Then it's the increasingly skeletal Sash up for La Flor. He gets the ball past Chase, but his aim is off and he misses the net. Alina goes and she gets the point. Brenda goes for La Flor, but she, like her best buddy Sash, misses the net. Jud is on his way back up to the defender perch when he decides to take a short time out and pee in the pool. For some reason, he announces this. Chase is not pleased, as he has to swim in that water. Probst notices Jud treading water for a while and asks him what's going on. Jud replies truthfully that he just peed in the water. I don't understand any of this. Why didn't he just pee in the bushes? Unlike the ladies, he can do this quickly and easily. And if he just had to pee in the water, why announce it to a bunch of people who all have to jump in that water? Just do it and don't tell anyone. Jud doesn't think it's a problem, though, since the water is already "so dirty" and everyone pees in pools. The contestants all deny that they pee in pools. And just because they may or may not pee in other pools doesn't mean any of them peed in or think it's okay to pee in this pool and then announce it to a group of people who all have to swim in that water.
Meanwhile, Brenda is grinning away up there because she knows that she just had her turn, so the chances that she'll have to go again at this point are slim and therefore, she probably won't have to hop in the pee water. The same can't be said for NaOnka, who has to go . Probst says that now that Jud is "fully relieved," the game can continue. NaOnka shows no signs of being totally grossed out at the thought of jumping into Jud's pee-water, and drills her ball into the net for another Espada point, their fourth. Jill answers with a point for La Flor. She has now scored two points for them. The other Kelly got one. Everyone else on La Flor got zero. Ben goes , and, using the same technique he did before, scores the winning point for Espada. Even though the water is full of Jud-pee, Chase jumps in there to hug Ben. La Flor does the Slo-Mo Walk of Shame out, and the other Kelly gets her first interview segment if the season, where she shows us all why the editors thought it best to leave her out of things: "you get to milk your own milk I guess. I don't know if that makes sense. You get to milk your own milk and that sounds amazing. We should've won. Giggle."
The morning, Jane tries to catch her tribe's breakfast. Then she collects firewood and brags in an interview that she is strong and capable, much more so than Jill and Marty ever gave her credit for. Is that true? I don't remember them ever not giving her credit for anything. In fact, I think they were just as happy as everyone else when Jane started that fire. Jane hopes her hard work will keep her in the younger people's good graces, and she's happy to let them lounge around and sleep all day as long as they keep her in the game and appreciate her efforts. Sash wakes up from his latest nap and Jane tells him she's going to check some fishing lines "over yonder" to see if she got anything. Sash offers to help if she needs it, knowing that she won't. He then interviews that the old people can work and feed him all they want; it'll just make Sash stronger but it won't guarantee that anyone stays in the game. He only cares about how loyal people are to him, not how much work they do.
Espada enjoy their reward, starting with a horseback ride. Why would they do the horseback ride first when surely everyone can't appreciate it because they're just waiting for the food to show up? Although I guess they're not going to be able to enjoy a horseback ride after they gorge themselves either. Chase especially loves this reward because he grew up on a horse farm, although they haven't kept horses since his dad died. This show sure does make people think about their dead dads a lot. And then it's time to milk the milk. After a short demonstration from the farmer, Dan's knee graciously allows him to sit down and give cow milking a try. "I think I went on a date with her," he jokes. NaOnka goes , but has no luck getting any milk out. "I don't play with animal's nipples trying to get milk out," she interviews. But now, she says, at least she can says that she "touched a cow's nipple." Immediately after saying this, she makes this face like "what has happened to my life?" that I would have found much more hilarious if I didn't hate NaOnka so very much. I was hoping someone would ask the Nicaraguan farmer if the tribe was right to keep the rooster alive and kill an egg-producing chicken, just so I could see him laugh at them, but no.
Meanwhile, back at La Flor, Jane caught a fish! Several of them, in fact. She says she and she alone has been working all day on this, so she's planning to eat one of her catches herself, just like the Little Red Hen. She heads off to a spot in the woods to build a fire, cook a fish, and eat it, all without anyone else on her tribe finding out. I get why she wants to eat a fish herself and I'm especially happy to see it given that Sash and the others are all assuming that Jane is happily doing all the work and evenly dividing the fruits of her labor among them, but this cannot be a good idea. She'd be better off just eating the thing raw; how can she start a fire and cook a fish without anyone seeing or smelling the smoke? As the fish cooks, Jane says that she deserves this meal and since her tribe sat her out of the reward challenge and lost, she's getting her own reward. "Bon Appétit!" she says, cutting into her cooked fish. And when she's done, she'd better hope she buries the fish bones and that large fire sufficiently that no one else in La Flor will stumble upon it.
And we're still watching Espada's reward. They sit at a big table and the farmer presents them with some fresh homemade cheese. They all coo over this, but, like that fresh milk, I'd be concerned that it would give me some horrible parasite death bug like I saw on an episode of House when a guy ate non-pasteurized cheese and his heart exploded. But these people are starving, so all they care about is eating. Holly starts getting emotional about everything, saying that their new tribe is starting to feel like a real family now that they've shared a meal like this. Alina begins to cry with Holly. NaOnka also feels an emotion, but it's anger. She shakes her head angrily and interviews that Alina is "grimy." Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that they're all grimy. And that NaOnka meant to say "slimy," since she follows that up with calling Alina sneaky and says she thinks Alina was just putting on an act to make her tribe feel sorry for her and not want to vote her out or whatever. NaOnka says that she's just as capable of pretending, as she is pretending to be Alina's friend until she votes her out. I love how when NaOnka cries in the shelter, it's 100% legitimate and the worst day of her life and everyone has to run up to comfort her and beg her not to quit, but when Alina gets tearful over eating real food for the first time in almost three weeks, it's an act.
Day 18 arrives, and so does the immunity challenge. Probst takes back the silly necklaces in favor of the return of the immunity gnome and explains the challenge: two tribe members from each team will stand on top of a tall platform with a long chute attached. At the bottom of the platform, the rest of the contestants pull on rope to control chute's aim. The two at the top will then roll balls down the chute to try to break a bunch of tiles. The first tribe to break all five tiles wins immunity. La Flor chooses to sit Sash out, which causes a long, awkward pause for some reason. I mean, it's not like Sash has any particular ability in the area of aiming a ball down a long chute and so sitting him out would be foolish. This challenge is something that pretty much anyone except Dan can do.
Anyway, Ben and Alina and Brenda and the other Kelly take their spots on the top of the platforms and we begin. Espada gets their chute lined up first, and Ben releases the first ball. He misses, while La Flor's roll connects and gives them the early lead. Ben tries to come back by giving NaOnka instructions on where to aim the chute, telling her to "CHEEEEP! Boom," while the other Kelly contributes to her tribe by saying the chute looks "super good." In the end, Espada's roll breaks a tile while La Flor's misses by quite a bit. Now there's dissension in the ranks at La Flor, as Jud and Jill disagree with Brenda's latest chute placement. She agrees to let them position it however they wish. Espada's roll breaks another tile; La Flor's misses. Brenda takes this opportunity to tell everyone that she knew that wouldn't work and they should listen to her time. The other Kelly repeats everything Brenda says. While Ben and Alina talk about big balls and Ben accidentally smacks one of them into Alina's face, Brenda tells her tribe that six to eight inches is not enough. Ben tells his tribe to "trust" that he knows where the chute should go, while Brenda and Jud argue again over chute placement. Espada gets another tile, and La Flor misses again. Ben quickly drops down a few levels and releases one of the smaller balls towards the closest tile, and the strategy pays off with a fourth broken tile. La Flor misses yet again, as they seem to be just keeping the chute in the same place and rolling the same balls from the same place and then wondering why they keep landing in the same spot.
Espada is in high spirits as they move the chute to break the fifth and final tile while La Flor is still yelling at each other. Jud tells the girls to talk things over and not let Brenda run everything. The other Kelly snaps at him that they are. Even though they aren't. Alina's roll misses the last tile by a hair. La Flor manages to break a second tile in the meantime, but Espada has plenty of time to line up their shot, knowing that the chute is already lined up pretty much on target. Ben and Alina watch the ball roll down the chute confidently and it breaks the last tile. "I should be a pirate!" Ben says. Yes, because one thing pirates are known for is rolling balls down a chute to break tiles. La Flor sulks as Espada leaves triumphantly. During the slo-mo walk of shame, Jill says she's pretty sure that either she or Marty will be going home tonight, and since Marty has an immunity idol, it'll probably be her. I'll bet she wishes she hadn't basically given it to him now.
While Marty hangs his idol in a prominent location, Sash and Brenda try to make Jud feel like he has any say in tonight's vote, asking him who he thinks should go home tonight. Jud wants three votes for Marty, two for Jill, and two for whoever Marty and Jill vote for, thus ensuring that Marty either goes home with the idol in his pocket or he plays his idol and then Jill is voted out in the re-vote. Sash and Brenda agree. Wasn't Jud all about teaming up with Marty last week? Didn't he say he didn't want to get rid of the idol? What happened to that? Anyway, Brenda says they'll let Jane vote for Marty, since she has made it known on no uncertain terms that she wants to vote for him over and over again. "I was the ugly duckling," she says. "You're a prized possession over here," Sash smiles, thinking his sweet talk has totally tricked Jane into giving him all of the fish she catches and never dreaming that she'd keep one for herself. "I'm a firm believer. What goes around, comes around," Jane says, with kind of a scary look on her face. She interviews once again that Jill and Marty were mean to her and she felt like an "ugly duckling," which is not the same as two ticks or peanut butter and jelly. The ugly duckling is alone. "I know I've gained the respect of Brenda, Purple Kelly, Fabio, and Sash," she says. Yes, you've gained the respect of four people, three of whom are being referred to by ridiculous nicknames. That's a group you want to take seriously.
Sash comes up with a plan: he's going to ask Marty for the idol in exchange for his promise that they'll vote for Jill tonight. Well, that sounds ridiculous. Why on earth would Marty agree to such a plan? All it would do is get him to one more Tribal, which playing his immunity idol tonight is going to do anyway. Brenda then talks to Sash just the two of them, telling him that if he can convince Marty to give his idol away, they'll vote Marty out tonight. Sash says the "only problem" he sees with this insane plan is that it'll leave them with Jill, who will now have no faith in her tribemates. Brenda points out that that's going to be the case no matter what happens. Neither Marty nor Jill is "that dumb" that they'd trust the rest of La Flor after seeing his or her ally voted out. Meanwhile, Brenda seems to think that Marty is dumb enough to give away his immunity idol. She says she's looking forward to being "super mean" (THESE PEOPLE HAVE GOT TO STOP TALKING TO THE OTHER KELLY AND PUTTING "SUPER" BEFORE EVERYTHING) by convincing Marty to give up his idol and then voting him out.
Sash and Marty have a discussion on the beach. Sash tells him that the plan tonight is to give Marty three votes. If he plays the idol, then Jill goes home and the idol has been flushed. If he doesn't play it, then he goes and the idol has still been flushed. But, Sash says, there is a third way: Marty gives Sash his idol and Sash gives him his word, "man-to-man," that Marty isn't going home tonight. Marty does not laugh in Sash's face, but says his offer is meaningless since he'll just be voted out the time. Sash has an answer for that: if they lose the immunity challenge, he'll give Marty his idol back. Marty is actually considering this for reasons beyond my comprehension. He says he won't vote Jill out. Sash says he won't have to. "I think it makes sense," Sash concludes. Yeah, except the part where it doesn't. And also the part where the last time we saw someone give immunity away on Survivor, it blew up in his face and he won that "stupidest moment in Survivor history" award. One of his fellow nominees also gave immunity away, and we are still laughing at him.
Meanwhile, Bob spent most of his season not giving a shit about anything and even he was smart enough not to give his immunity away to Ken. AND THEN HE WON. Marty interviews that he's pretty much powerless now, even with the idol, so he might as well give it to Sash. He figures that if he doesn't give it to Sash, he's going to have to play it and then he'll lose it anyway. But if he does give it to Sash, while he might be going home tonight, he may also gain Sash's trust and shake things up. Which is a good point, I guess, but I'd still hold onto that idol, play it at Tribal, and hope that I found the idol or La Flor didn't lose another immunity challenge until the merge. And so, Marty gives the idol to Sash, but not without a stupid little speech about how the idol can be both a blessing and a curse. They shake on it, and Sash says "we're in this together." Marty interviews that his hope is that if Sash is true to his word, it'll get him through to the merge. Meanwhile, Sash sticks his newly-acquired idol in his pocket and interviews that he doesn't even have to dig for idols; if he asks for them, he gets them. As long as he asks a gullible idiot. Which, actually, describes most of the people in this game. "Marty made a big mistake," Sash says.
La Flor arrives at Tribal. Probst starts in with Jud, asking him if Espada now has the momentum after winning lots of challenges and rewards. Jud says of course they do, but La Flor is still a strong tribe with just as much chance of winning the challenge. Probst then asks Jane what things were like around camp today considering the craziness that was their last Tribal. Jane says that the people who "mesh together" made a "decision" on who to vote out tonight and it was that simple. Probst asks Jane if it's obvious who is on the outs in this tribe. She says it definitely is, and Marty agrees, adding that while some of the old people tried to help out around camp and incorporate themselves into the new tribe, that deceitful lying bitch Jane "flip-flopped." "She'll go wherever the wind blows in terms of making sure that she saves her own skin," he says, because if he's going down, he's going to try to take Jane with him. Jane says she figured that when she was put on the yellow tribe, she when they "became yellow. " That's not really an answer, but Probst asks Brenda if she agrees. Brenda says that Jane was a genuine person who it was easy for her to form a "natural friendship" with. Probst asks Jill if she wouldn't mind contributing a few thoughts, seeing as how she hasn't really spoken in like three episodes now. Jill says there's an obvious "old-young division" in La Flor, and it's a frustrating situation that she's been placed in, but she just has to try to play her way out of it. Or do absolutely nothing and wait to get picked off, as she has been doing up until and including this point.
Probst then brings up the idol, asking Marty if his idol was the topic of conversation back at camp. Marty says that it was, and he counted on his "gut instincts" and didn't play it last time, but tonight he's at Tribal for the first time with no idol to protect him. Probst assumes that Brenda is somehow responsible for this, but she says that she only "thinks" Sash has it. "The idol is in my pocket," Sash says. Probst shoots Marty the most disgusted glare at this news. Marty just shakes his head and looks very sad. Probst asks Marty what the hell happened. Marty says he agreed to "transfer" the idol to Sash, knowing that it could "go down as one of the stupidest moves ever" but saying there's a slim chance it could work out for him. Jud says that Marty should be worried, as no matter what happens tonight, "we have the idol." Probst expertly picks up on this and asks Brenda if Jud is correct in using the word "we." Brenda says he is, since they trust Sash. Probst then asks Sash if he'd give the idol to Brenda right now, since she thinks it's her idol, too. A look of stunned panic flashes across Sash's face and he answers that he "might" give Brenda the idol "back at camp" if the group agrees to this. Right now, though, he's going to hold onto it, and "if there's a time when I lose trust in them -- or, I'm sorry, if there's a time when they lose trust in me" then he'll hand the idol over. Meanwhile, Probst isn't letting that slip of the tongue slide, and asks Sash if his "I lose trust in them" comment was a Freudian slip. Sash calmly says he didn't mean to say that, but he did say it.
Probst knows he isn't going to get much out of Sash now that he's proven that speaking up only gets him in trouble, so he asks Jud if he knows who Freud even is. It turns out that Jud is not as stupid as everyone, including me, assumed. He not only knows who Freud is, but he's also "a little bit familiar with Freudian psychology" and proves it by saying that perhaps that ninety percent of Sash's subconscious just overpowered his conscious mind. Okay, well, that was awesome. Probst's attempt to make Jud look stupid just got blown to bits, so he quickly moves on from him and asks Brenda if she'll be thinking about what Sash accidentally said later on. She says she will. So it looks like, if nothing else, Marty's idol giveaway did shake things up in the La Flor alliance a bit. Thanks to Probst crossing the line a bit with his questioning, but still. He asks Jane if she thinks what Marty did was a good idea. Jane says she's watched this show enough to know that when you give the idol away "it comes back to haunt you." Jane is all about karma this week. Meanwhile, she ate a whole fish and didn't share it with her tribe, so she'd better hope what goes around doesn't come back to haunt her.
Now that Probst has talked to everyone except the other Kelly, it is time to vote. Jane votes for Marty, of course. Marty votes for Jane, saying "this game ain't over yet." Good for him for not turning against Jill to save himself, by the way. She returns the favor by not voting for him, writing Jane's name down in the biggest possible letters just to get her point across. Probst returns with the urn. Jane gets the first two votes, followed by two for Jill and two for Marty. Marty prepares to see his name a third and final time, as do we all. Sash turns and looks at Marty... and Jill's name comes up. WHAT? I don't understand. Why wouldn't Sash vote Marty out? What was the point of that? Did his tribemates know he was going to switch his vote to Jill like that? My only explanation for this is that Sash is trying to win favor with people outside of his alliance in the hopes that their loyalty will come in handy for him down the road as well as give him a leg up on his other allies, who are hopefully too stupid to realize that he's playing a very selfish game. Anyway, Jill doesn't have much to say about any of this. She hugs Marty, who says he'll miss her. I will, too. The Jill we saw in episodes two and three was so awesome, but then she just kind of gave up. Marty didn't, so he's still in the game. Well, because of that and the fact that the La Flor alliance members don't seem to know what they're doing.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, follow her on Twitter, or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.
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