After getting all of one vote from the person who just left, John decides he needs to change things around and cut open three coconuts so his tribe will see him as a provider. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, as the Ozzy, Keith, and Jim already have a solid game-winning alliance. Well, except for Jim, who continues to be suspicious of Ozzy. And he should be, since Ozzy goes off on his own and immediately finds the stupid idol without even finding the clue first, because once again, the people behind the scenes can't be bothered to even try to hide that thing.
Over at Camp Upolu, Christine is able to find the clue, but not the idol itself. That's bad news for her, since everyone knows that she was looking for it before and she doesn't appear to be in an alliance with anyone. She's certainly not in Coach's majority alliance, due to being stupid enough to express her desire to vote him out about three seconds into the game last week. Now Coach wants her gone, and after Upolu loses the immunity, it seems like there's nothing stopping him from getting that wish. Until Li'l Li'l Russell, who is so pure of heart and honest and Christian that he can't keep lying to Coach about the fact that he's related to Li'l Russell (Coach magnanimously decides not to hold that against him – for now), decides that Mikayla and her more-attractive-than-Li'l-Li'l-Russell's-wife ways must leave the game ASAP no matter what and lies to his alliance that Stacey and Christine are planning to vote for her. They aren't, so they're both shocked and pretty pissed off when Coach accuses them of it at Tribal Council. It seems like everyone is going to vote for Mikayla, even after Li'l Li'l Russell admits to lying about Stacey and Christine, only for her to receive no votes whatsoever. Stacey and Christine, who still didn't realize that they were on the outs together, vote apart for Sophie and Edna, while the other seven split their votes between Stacey and Christine just in case one of them found the idol. Neither did, and Christine is the first to go from Upolu, the scowl never leaving her face.
We open on Redemption Island, where night vision is in full effect. Semhar's Complain Train is also on full effect, and she sobs that her tribe sent her to Redemption Island even though she gave them her "every last strength." "Figures," she whines. When you put it that way, Semhar, it totally does figure. Semhar says she has "abandonment issues," which makes her decision to come on this show make that much more sense. "I don't understand how people can be so cold-hearted," she continues, completely forgetting that she is on a reality show where the goal is to eliminate everyone else. And then she decides to make herself feel better with some spoken word poetry, which her tiny crab audience really seems to enjoy even though she thinks "damage" and "stand it" rhyme.
The Semhar-less Savaii return to camp. John thanks everyone profusely for keeping him in the game even though they clearly were never going to vote him out in the first place, as proven by the unanimous vote for Semhar. John says he's going to have to try to be cool and mellow from here on out and not his usual panicky nerd self. Ozzy interviews that he decided to "let" John stay in the game because he respects his "passion." Didn't Ozzy respect Semhar's passion, like, the day before? While John sleeps, Ozzy and Keith talk about his usefulness in upcoming challenges and how they're assuming he'll be good at the puzzles because he's so smart. They then talk about Jim, who they also think is smart as well as a good worker around camp. They decide to try to pull him into their alliance. Keith interviews that he likes Ozzy and all, but he is aware that he's played the game before and wants to win it just as much as everyone else does. "I'm gonna have to watch him like a hawk," he says. We'll see if he actually does that.
Day 4 dawns on Upolu. Coach takes a walk with Edna and thanks her for being the only person on the tribe who was initially interested in getting to know him, which he has since repaid her by forming an alliance without her in it. He says Edna may not be an ally, but he still thinks she can be a friend. Wow, Coach is "I still want to be friends"-ing Edna. And since I'm sure Coach has been on the receiving end of that more than once, I'm surprised he'd do it to someone else. Coach then gets a little bit savvy about playing the game and tries to find out through Edna if Christine has the immunity idol. Edna says she knows Christine spent hours looking for it, but she hasn't looked at all today, which Edna thinks means Christine already found it.
Edna interviews that she realizes that she's on the bottom of the totem pole in her tribe, possibly because she's wearing treemail as a hat right now and that's something only crazy people do. Or maybe she's hoping this will win Coach over, since he loves to wear random things in his hair, too. His preference is for feathers, though. Edna says Coach is probably her best bet at an alliance. Coach claims to agree, saying loyalty is more important to him than strength. "It's my job to protect [Edna]," he interviews. Ugh. Anyway, Coach and Edna make an agreement to stick together, and Coach says he hopes this is the time when an alliance he forms with someone he believes to be trustworthy actually works out for him. Hopefully, Edna will wise up enough to screw Coach over like everyone else does.
At Savaii, John is going on a coconut-chopping, third-person-referral tear. He interviews that this will upset his mother, who told him that she didn't want him to handle a machete "without supervision." Clearly, his mother is just as savvy about this show as John is. John thinks providing the tribe with one coconut will win them all over, but then he gives the coconut milk to Keith and says, while Keith is drinking it, that this is "like his child." Keith hands the coconut back to John at this point.
Ozzy, meanwhile, is also providing -- for himself, that is. For while he tells the tribe he's going off to fish, he's actually looking for the idol. He says he doesn't have a clue, but he thinks he'll be able to find it anyway by looking for "any sort of weird idol placement," a.k.a. the stupid worthless idol hiders making it ridiculously obvious that the idol is there. Like sticking it under a rock in the middle of a tree. Even Ozzy knows rocks don't appear in trees unless someone on the show's crew put them there, and he lifts it up to reveal the idol. What I do like about this is that Ozzy then looks at the camera and makes fun of the fact that he was able to find it so easily in the first place. He reminds us of how badly things went for him the last time he had one of these and promises it won't happen again. And it probably won't, since I'm sure the producers wouldn't make the mistake of casting someone as devious and brilliant as Parvati again.
Anyway, we've had our Li'l Li'l Russell-less fun so it's time to remember that the Great Li'l Russell's nephew is still in this game. Coach and Li'l Li'l Russell take a walk as Li'l Li'l Russell tells us that he just couldn't bear hiding his shameful family tree from Coach, who we all know values honesty and forthrightness unless it's as his expense. Of course, Li'l Li'l Russell ties this all in to the bible, because only people who read the bible ever want to tell the truth. The rest of us just lie and lie! He reveals his Li'l Hantz tattoo to Coach while the music plays a suspenseful note, and my god is that an ugly tattoo. It is the ugliest tattoo I have ever seen. And I played roller derby, so I've seen a lot of them. This tattoo is uglier than one I once saw of a unicorn wearing roller-skates sitting on a toilet throwing up rainbows. It takes Coach a while to catch on as to what "Li'l Hantz" means, so Li'l Li'l Russell has to spell out that he's related to Li'l Russell. The editors slap in a shot of a bird flying away at this point, like Li'l Russell is important enough that birds know to hate him. Coach's tiny mind is blown by this, but I'm not looking at him at all because he has a blur on his crotch and I don't want to think about that. Just do us all a favor and give these people swimsuits, show. Please. Coach interviews that his new ally is the nephew of his "number one nemesis." He says Li'l Russell claimed to be just as Christian as Li'l Li'l Russell claims to be before he blind-sided him out of the game, so that makes it a little bit harder to trust Li'l Li'l Russell's constant swears to god that he's telling the truth about anything.
Li'l Li'l Russell points out that Coach should still be able to trust him because he told him the truth simply because he thought he should be honest about everything with his ally. Yeah, and he knows there's no way he's going to be able to keep that T-shirt on for the rest of the game so why not act like he meant to reveal the tattoo now? But Coach tells Li'l Li'l Russell he still trusts him and won't tell his secret to anyone else. And he apparently means it, too, as he interviews that Li'l Li'l Russell had nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling him about his uncle, so he probably is sincere. With that, they pray to the well and man-hug. Coach interviews that he's either going to fall for another Hantz family lie or Li'l Li'l Russell is going to play honorably and redeem his family's name. Interestingly, Coach never suggests an option that puts himself in any active position. He either gets screwed over or he doesn't, depending on whether or not Li'l Li'l Russell is telling the truth. Coach having a brain and figuring Li'l Li'l Russell out before he can blind-side him is simply too much for even Coach to hope for.
It's still Day 4. I really miss the reward challenges. These people are boring. At Savaii, Elyse sees some fish swimming around her feet and instead of, like, grabbing some fishing equipment to try to catch them, she tries to channel her Native American ancestors to help. If only she were missing a pair of underwear. That's the only thing we've seen that Native American ancestors are good at helping out with on this show. If you want to eat, you're pretty much screwed. The menfolk -- Jim, Ozzy, and Keith -- canoe out to try to catch something while the women stay behind and "joke" that they'll be doing the laundry back at camp. Jim interviews that this was a part of his brilliant poker-tour-winning plan of thinking ahead and making alliances with people. Yeah, that is fucking revolutionary in this game. No one has ever made an alliance early in the game while fishing before. Jim is really bringing something to the table, here. Jim has what he calls the "3 plus 2 plan," in which he aligns with Ozzy and Keith as his core three and puts the hot girls in as their peripheral and disposable two. While Ozzy actually does some work and catches fish, Jim proposes his plan to Keith, who agrees that it seems solid. Keith then interviews that he and Ozzy already had this plan, but now they'll happily let Jim think he put it all together and is in control. So the poker champion just got bluffed by Keith. With that, Jim tells us that John, Dawn, and Mike will be the three to go because "they just don't fit in." Being someone who didn't fit in at times himself, Jim knows how important it is to be accepted by the really cool people and has no sympathy for the outcast group he used to be in and, by the way, will be put right back into as soon as Ozzy's alliance no longer needs him.
Finally, it's Day 5. Upolu's menfolk decide to try to fish, but unlike at Savaii, one woman insists on joining them -- Mikayla. Mikayla reminds us that she plays in a "professional women's football league" while neglecting to mention the fact that they wear lingerie and have team names like "Fantasy," "Sin," and "Temptation." She thinks the men see her as a "tough chick." While Li'l Li'l Russell, Albert, and Mikayla prepare to leave for their fishing trip, Coach randomly changes his clothes in front of them all. Li'l Li'l Russell doesn't seem to mind Coach flaunting his body because Coach is a man therefore not inherently evil. Mikayla continues that the guys at camp don't see her as a girl, but as a person who can do everything they can do and help the tribe overall because of it. Uh, yeah. I'm sure. Guys love it when girls can do the same things they can do. They especially like it when you can do it better.
So, while Mikayla flirtiously flaunts her body in evil ways by casting a net into the water, Li'l Li'l Russell cannot keep his creepy eyes off of her. He interviews that he does not like Mikayla and doesn't feel comfortable around her and how she's obviously trying to use her "seductive ways" to win like Parvati did. Li'l Li'l Russell says it's important to "get rid of" the hot girls as soon as possible. "Being a married man, I have to stay away from that kind of stuff," he adds. That's funny - I know plenty of married men who don't have a problem being around and working with attractive women. Maybe it's because they are actually attracted to and love their wives and so they don't feel threatened by someone else's beauty or are worried they won't be able to control themselves. "Ain't no chick in this world getting in the way of me, my family, and a million dollars," he concludes.
One chick Li'l Li'l Russell certainly doesn't have to worry about is Christine, although she would be attractive if she didn't have that nasty scowl on her face all the time. She's looking for the immunity idol again, while the rest of her tribemates stand around talking about her and how she's looking for it all the time and how dangerous that is. Sophie thinks Christine already found it, but Stacey says if she did, she didn't tell her. Christine does manage to find that clue that Stacey and her always-open, never-sleeping eyes missed. The clue basically says that the idol is hidden in a tree close to the beach. Christine is very pleased to have found the clue, but isn't sure what to do .
She won't get a chance to do anything just yet, as it's time for the immunity challenge! The tribes arrive, and Upolu members are not surprised to see that Semhar is out of Savaii. Probst is surprised to see that everyone on Upolu is eating what looks like a giant candy corn and asks what the deal is. Upolu Official Spokesperson Coach says these are pandanus fruits, which are supposedly delicious. I bet they aren't as delicious as candy corn. Also, how has this show filmed in Samoa like 8 times by now and we've never seen anyone eating that stuff before? It's probably poisonous and the entire tribe is literally going to lose the game of Survivor because of it. Coach says that "the team that eats pandanus together, sticks together. And wins together." Savaii is like "whatever." Probst decides to explain the challenge: four members of each tribe will run around a pole to unwrap a bunch of ribbons and release a key that will unlock the other four members, who will then move a bunch of crates around to release the largest one. The first tribe to get the largest crate on the finish platform will win immunity and comfort items. Upolu decides to sit Edna out due to her terrible fashion choice of a visor made out of paper, and the challenge begins.
The pole teams consist of seven women and one man. Guess who? Yes, it's John. Probst says go, and they're off. Upolu takes an early lead due to being amazing at unbraiding ribbons, while John gets caught up over at Savaii. Stacey grabs the keys and unlocks Coach, Rick, Albert, and Li'l Li'l Russell while Dawn takes her sweet time fetching the key ring, causing Probst to scream at her to "pick up the pace! This is not a picnic!!" Elyse finally frees Ozzy, Jim, Keith, and Mark to work on the puzzle, but they haven't fallen behind too much in the end, for the four Upolu men are stupid and may have made their puzzle even harder to solve for all of the time they just wasted on it, thus earning them a "pick up the pace!" from Probst. Savaii gets their final piece into place first and starts to shove it out of the puzzle, causing Christine's mouth to blur, which is more pleasant to look at than her usual expression. As Upolu moves their piece into the proper place, it's too late and Savaii get theirs to the finishing mat to win it.
Probst hands them their immunity idol, and no one is grinning more than John, for good reason. Savaii make a big show out of hugging their new blankets and towels on their way out. During the slo-mo walk of shame, Li'l Li'l Russell blames his tribe's cockiness for their defeat. That's weird - I thought it was because four of them sucked at sliding large crates around. But it's all good for Li'l Li'l Russell, who says he will now get the chance to get rid of Mikayla, a.k.a. the only person on their tribe who is worth anything in challenges.
The losers return to their camp. Coach singles out the women for praise in the challenge, since they did, after all, kick ass at ribbon-unraveling. Christine runs off to an interview to talk about how the guys blew the challenge and now they have to vote someone out. She claims to understand that being voted out herself is a possibility. While some kind of horrible worm/snake/maggot thing crawls along the beach, Coach pulls his alliance together to talk about tonight. He's assuming that Mikayla, Christine, and Stacey are smart and aware enough to have their own alliance and that one of them has the idol, so it's their best bet to split their votes to make sure the idol doesn't have any effect if it's played. Coach, of course, is happy to get rid of Christine before she can get rid of him. He says they can use Edna as their necessary sixth vote, but she's on a "need-to-know" basis right now, not like she really seems to care what happens one way or the other. Upon hearing that tonight's targets are Stacey and Christine, Li'l Li'l Russell frowns.
Later, he and Coach talk, and Li'l Li'l Russell admits that he isn't thrilled with how things are going. Coach ridiculously puts his arm on Li'l Li'l Russell's shoulder and leans in to ask what's wrong. Li'l Li'l Russell says he doesn't like Mikayla "because [he's] faithful to [his] wife," like, you can be on a tribe with Mikayla and still be faithful to your wife! Or maybe not if you're convinced that you're just so irresistible that someone like Mikayla who can do a lot better would love to have sex with you and you're so not into your wife that you'd be willing to have sex with someone else. "It makes me feel uncomfortable being around her a lot of times," Li'l Li'l Russell whines. "I respect that," Coach nods sagely. Li'l Li'l Russell says Mikayla reminds him too much of Parvati, who "screwed many a man." She's also fucked over a few women, too, Li'l Li'l Russell.
Coach interviews that he "understands" Li'l Li'l Russell's problem with Mikayla, but since she's the strongest woman on their tribe right now, he is not going to vote her out. He thinks Li'l Li'l Russell has "demons" that are causing him to have such a problem with the tribe's strongest asset. Yeah, demons like a penis. Having no luck with Coach, Li'l Li'l Russell talks to Sophie and Rick about Mikayla, who he thinks is "not to be trusted" and needs to leave as soon as possible. Sophie and Rick are just like "uh ... what? Who? That girl who has been fishing for the last five days, you mean?" In an interview consisting of no less than five separate audio clips patched together, Sophie says she can't figure out why Li'l Li'l Russell hates Mikayla so much, other than he feels threatened by how awesome she is at everything. Sophie says that could be a problem, since she sees herself as a strong woman, too. Yeah. I don't think she has too much to worry about. She's a med student, not a lingerie football player.
Edna and Coach appear, and Coach is not pleased to see that Li'l Li'l Russell is rallying the troops against Mikayla. Sophie says they should use Mikayla as another vote for Christine, while Coach says they need Mikayla's strength for at least one more challenge. Meanwhile, Christine spots the group talking and wonders "what could they possible be talking about?" GEE, I DON'T KNOW, CHRISTINE. Honestly, she should be voted out if she's going to say things that stupid. Christine is also furious to see Edna, who she apparently thought was her ally, talking with them. And then Mikayla walks up to say hello, only for Coach to ask her to give them "a little bit of privacy." Mikayla looks surprised by this request but doesn't move, and then Stacey strolls up and everything is ruined. "Oh, here's Stacey. I'm just gonna walk this way," Coach says sadly. He leaves, and Albert "covers" for him by saying he's just really paranoid right now because Tribal Council is coming up. Yes, that's right, Mikayla: Tribal Council is coming up! Maybe you should do something about that, rather than assume you're safe. Mikayla whineterviews that she doesn't understand why her tribemates have a problem with her when she "didn't even do anything." And she still isn't doing anything! DO SOMETHING, MIKAYLA.
Edna wanders over to Stacey and Christine, and Christine demands to know what she was talking about with Coach and Friends. Edna is the worst liar in the entire world, so she stammers out that they were talking about voting Sophie out. Even though Sophie was standing right there the entire time. Christine points that out, and Edna doesn't have much to say for herself. Christine interviews that they're all about to leave for Tribal, and she has "no idea what's going on" and no inclination to change that. She just assumed they were going to vote off the weakest person -- that being Edna -- only to just now realize that she could be in danger tonight instead. She asks Li'l Li'l Russell about this, and he says everything is up in the air but he's definitely voting for Mikayla. Stacey joins them, and both women say they'll vote for whoever isn't them. Li'l Li'l Russell says that should be "the biggest threat in this game." Christine has no idea why Li'l Li'l Russell has such a problem with Mikayla. I love how every person who finds out about Li'l Li'l Russell's hatred of Mikayla is just completely baffled by it. Christine decides not to take any chances. She sets out to find the hidden immunity idol again, because she may well need it.
Over a symbolic shot of a rotten, fly-infested pandarua fruit, Coach calls his troops together again to discuss the vote. But there's no talking to Li'l Li'l Russell, who now says Mikalya is going tonight no matter what. He tries to swing Coach to his side by saying that Christine and Stacey are voting for Mikayla, even though he loves Jesus and Jesus never lied, but that was a lie. I guess it didn't take long for Li'l Li'l Russell to find a way to go against his rigid moral code after all. Shocking. Satisfied his job is done, he walks off, and Coach scoffs and dismisses Li'l Li'l Russell as an "amateur" before realizing that it's not good that he's allied with someone who will do or say anything to get what he wants. As the rain begins, he calls everyone over to speechify about how important loyalty is in this game.
Upolu arrive at Tribal Council. Probst does not hesitate to call on Li'l Li'l Russell to tell him about the first impression he believes he made on his new tribe, and Li'l Li'l Russell says he's sure the tribe responded positively to his incredible work ethic and pleasantness to be around. Probst then asks Coach about the first impression he made on his tribe, and Coach admits that he had a lot of work to do with them after losing the first challenge and because of the simple fact that he is Coach and has played this game twice before. But he thinks he's done that work, and now Mikayla is the target of some people on his tribe's vote, specifically Stacey and Christine's. Stacey and Christine, of course, have no idea what Coach is talking about, and protest while Coach and Probst exchange quips. Coach says it's all about the truth for him, and he doesn't want Mikayla to be voted out tonight because the tribe needs her in challenges.
Mikayla finally gets a chance to speak. Oddly grinning from ear-to-ear, she says this talk has made her "nervous" and "you never want to hear your name come up" but she "doesn't get" why her name would come up at all right now. That's boring, so Probst asks Stacey how she feels about all this. Stacey vehemently denies ever telling anyone that she wanted to vote Mikayla out, and says Coach is a big liar for saying that she did. Coach points out that he never said Stacey said anything -- just that someone told him she did, and he has no intention of revealing who it was. Christine and Stacey don't like this at all, and demand that he tell them. "Simmer down, guys," Li'l Li'l Russell says. They do not, which is too bad for them because he probably would have told them it was him if they'd given him a few seconds to speak.
Albert finally interrupts them to say that he wasn't the one who told Coach they were voting for Mikayla. "Boop!" Stacey says, believing that this proves that Coach is making up his story about someone telling him that Stacey and Christine are voting for Mikayla. But that backfires on them when Albert continues that this shows how loyal Coach is, as he's refusing to give up his source because of it. Albert also suggests that all this paranoia is because of the hidden immunity idol, which I don't see the connection to other than mentioning it is a way to call Christine out.
Probst asks Coach about the idol search, and Coach says that it has been an individual one thanks to Christine kicking things off and setting the precedent by going off to look for it herself on the very first day. Probst asks Christine if Coach's repeated accusations against her here are making her nervous. Christine says they just show how threatened by her Coach is. "Totally," Coach grins. Probst gets a brainwave: could Coach and Christine's problems with each other go back to Christine's "temporary player" comment? "I think so," Christine says with fake sadness and an exaggerated tear-rubbing and motion before saying, again, that Coach is "temporary." "I love this girl," Coach grins, pointing at Christine and feeling perfectly safe in the game against her now that she's revealed herself to have little to no athletic ability or social skills.
Probst turns back to Mikayla and asks her if she has any plans to actually ask Christine and Stacey if what Coach said was true. Mikayla does now that Probst mentioned it, and Stacey and Christine vehemently deny wanting to vote her out ever. Finally, Li'l Li'l Russell decides to speak up and admit that he lied to Coach that Stacey and Christine were voting for Mikayla. This sets off a new round of overlapping angry comments from Stacey and Christine directed at Coach and Probst. "That was a lie! You see how the lie just came out?" Stacey says, while at the same time, Christine's all "do you see? I knew who I was voting for. It wasn't Mikayla -- ever." "Boom!" Stacey concludes.
After all that, Mikayla has almost nothing to say for herself, so Probst has to go to Christine and ask her if she has any idea what's going on with all the divisions in her tribe's "big happy family." Christine says that she thinks some of this tribe still is a big happy family, but she's not one of them and that's something she only now realized. Probst wants nothing more to do with someone that oblivious to what's going on and turns to Albert, asking him if he's worried that his tribe is in "such disarray" right now. Albert is really boring, so he just says a lot has come out tonight, but it's good when the truth comes out and people's true characters become apparent.
Probst sends them off for a vote he's sure will be unpredictable. We don't see how anyone votes, and he returns with the urn and asks if anyone would like to play the immunity idol she pissed off everyone in her tribe looking for. Christine stays put, so I guess she didn't find the thing after all of that. Probst reads the votes: one for Sophie out of freaking nowhere. One for Edna, also out of nowhere. I'm guess those were cast by Christine and Stacey who couldn't even get it together enough in this game to vote for the same person. After all of Li'l Li'l Russell's insistence on getting rid of Mikayla tonight, she gets zero votes. Instead, they're split 4-3 between Christine and Stacey. Probst snuffs Christine's torch and sends her on her way with her usual scowl. Coach, on the other hand, exits Tribal Council with a huge shit-eating grin on his face.
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