It's Not Poop, It's Dirt

S24E07

Reward Challenge: The merged tribe is divided again into two teams for the challenge only. Obviously, they planned this challenge before realizing that they had to merge since the gender numbers were equal again. They have to dig in the sand to find puzzle pieces and then assemble the puzzle to win. Leif goes first for the blue team and fails to dig a hole big enough to get under an obstacle, causing his team to lose a lot of time. Luckily, Sabrina for the orange team totally sucks at digging up her puzzle pieces, which allows the blue team to catch up, and the two teams are even when starting to solve the puzzle. Christina and Troy work for the orange team and Tarzan and Jonas work for the blue team. Tarzan seems fairly useless and despite Jonas's best efforts, the orange team wins the reward, which is pizza and beer. So that means Chelsea, Alicia, Sabrina, Jay, Troy, and Christina get to eat and drink. They also get a secret note to read after their reward. The big secret is that there's another Immunity Idol hidden. They all agree to keep it to themselves.

After the challenge, Tarzan and Jonas get into a big fight because Jonas thinks Tarzan is going behind his back, trying to shore up votes. Tarzan gets really pissed! So does Jonas! And then Troy wakes up early and finds an Immunity Idol, so that happened.

Immunity Challenge: They have to stand on a log and balance a ball on a disk. At regular intervals, they have to add another ball. Dropping a ball or falling off the log means they're out. It's fairly windy, and the wind blows the balls around a bit. Tarzan is first out, falling off his perch fairly quickly. By the third round, the only people left are Troy, Kat, Sabrina, Alicia, Jonas, Leif, and Jay. They drop out one by one, and ultimately. Troy wins immunity. So he has double immunity! He's looking like a contender.

Chelsea and Jay decide to pick off the non-Salani members from strongest to weakest, and they think the strongest is Jonas. Troy tells Jonas that he's getting the women's votes (?), and Jonas realizes he needs to support. He apologizes to Tarzan and then reminds everyone that he's the one who cooks all the meals. Jonas thinks all of the men are going to vote for Kat. Then Chelsea starts to reconsider the Jonas vote when Tarzan throws his dirty underwear in her clean laundry, but Jay counters that they have to stick to their plan or else chaos will reign.

At Tribal Council, Jonas says that he's voting Michael out, because he's too strong. Tarzan interrupts to say that Jonas is actually voting for Kat. In the end, Jay prevailed and the former Salanis plus the women stick to the plan and vote out Jonas. Jonas tries to make up with Tarzan on the way out, but Tarzan rebuffs him.

The newly merged tribe returns from Tribal Council and finds food and champagne at their camp, much to their delight. Troy interviews that this is what he wanted out of Survivor, to be playing as an individual in a merged tribe. Everyone starts swigging champagne, except for Jonas who doesn't drink, so he gives up his sip to someone else. Alicia interviews that she didn't know the merge was coming so soon, and this might change Christina's fate. Alicia also knows that she's screwed without Colton or his Immunity Idol and she might return to the women and their "girl power" alliance. She might? She should. What's her other shot, to be a turncoat and join the men who will ditch her as soon as they get rid of the rest of the women? That would be a real Cochran move.

The morning, the tribe realizes that they need to come up with a new name. Troy suggests Tikianu, because Tiki means god and anu means year. So God Year? Why is that a good tribe name? They're not there for a year and God has nothing to do with this game.

Jonas is cooking diced coconut in a frying pan and he gives a whole Top Chef-style speech about his cooking method, which actually made me laugh. I think it's because I've often lampooned the pretentious Top Chef descriptions of their dishes. Kim expresses appreciation for Jonas's cooking skills.

Jay starts making coffee from the Reward Package that the former Salanis won before the merge. Tarzan says something about how to make it and Jay says it's only for the people who won it. Because of his accent, Tarzan thinks Jay says it's for the people that want it. They clear up that confusion and Tarzan mumbles something about it being for everyone on the tribe, but he doesn't ask for coffee again. Jay pours it out for those who won it and Tarzan stands creepily in the group and stares at their coffee. I mean, I get why they don't want to share, I guess, but they're making it clear where their allegiance lies. I wouldn't ask for it if I didn't win it, but if I did win it, I think I would offer to share at least a few sips for the sake of goodwill. It's hard to say how you'd act in reality though; it's easy for me to claim I'd share when I can just go to the store and buy more coffee. Jay interviews that the former Salani tribe has the numbers and plans to pick off the others one by one. Tarzan interviews that he thought the guys would reform their alliance after the merge, but now it doesn't seem like that's going to happen.

Tarzan approaches Michael and asks if he wants to rejoin the team, which consists of all the men plus Alicia. Michael says that he's in, but then interviews that he doesn't like or trust any of the guys and he doesn't like Tarzan, so he's not in at all. The men are in trouble.

Reward Challenge! Probst explains that for this challenge only, they will be divided into two tribes again. So obviously this challenge was planned before they knew they were going to merge early. Each team has to send members through an obstacle course to dig in the sand and retrieve puzzle pieces. Once all the puzzle pieces are back, two members will solve a puzzle. The winner gets a pizza and beer reward, plus a secret note.

The contestants are randomly divided into two tribes. The Orange team is Alicia, Jay, Sabrina, Chelsea, Troy, and Christina. The Blue team is Leif, Kat, Kim, Michael, Tarzan, and Jonas. So the Orange team is going to win, right? Do we even have to go through with this charade? I guess we do.

Leif and Jay go first for their respective teams and the first obstacle is to dig a hole to squeeze under a fence. They both dig like crazy, but Jay turns and slides through on his back while Leif tries to squeeze through on his stomach, which is clearly the wrong move, because he gets stuck. Jay is back with his puzzle pieces as Leif JUST wiggles through, so the Orange team has a huge lead. On the way back through, Leif goes through on his back and it takes just a few seconds.

Chelsea retrieves a bag of pieces for Orange and then Alicia goes out and gets the third bag of pieces. Kim is just getting back with her team's second bag. Then the Blue team catches a break as Kat flies through the course and returns with the third bag for her tribe, while Sabrina can't find the fourth bag for her team and is just digging all over the place. She finally gets it and returns with the fourth bag, but Michael is right behind her with his tribe's fourth bag. They return at nearly the same time.

So the teams are tied going into the puzzle round. Tarzan and Jonas are doing the puzzle for Blue and Troy and Christina are doing the puzzle for Orange. It stays close throughout, although Jonas gets annoyed with Tarzan for not helping and then for talking too much. The Orange team finishes first and Troy pounds the puzzle and yells, "This is MY ISLAND!" Calm down, dude. You did a turtle puzzle. My toddlers do that every day.

Why does Survivor pizza always look so terrible? I guess it's because they don't have pizza joints in Samoa, at least not in that part? They seriously look like the Chef Boyardee pizzas that my mom used to make from a box kit on Sunday evenings. Everyone talks about how awesome the pizza is -- which, of course, they think that -- because they've been eating rice and the occasional few bites of gamy chicken. Once everyone is done eating, they open the secret note. Alicia reads it and it says that there's another Immunity Idol "hidden" back at camp. Chelsea says that her preference would be for the six of them to keep it a secret, since that increases the odds that one of them will find it. Chelsea interviews that her biggest fear is that someone from the Manono tribe will find the Idol and mess up their numbers, because they need everyone in their alliance to stick around. Just to review, their alliance is now Chelsea, Kim, Sabrina, Kat, Troy and Jay. I'm not sure what they think about Alicia at this point.

By Kim

Back at camp, Leif laments not getting pizza and that he has sand everywhere. Jonas tells Michael that they need to "get stuff together," and Michael asks if he means supplies or ideas. Michael says that Tarzan told him the plan was for the guys to stick together and that Alicia would vote with them. Jonas doesn't say anything and Michael expresses surprise that Jonas didn't know the plan. Is he surprised? Isn't it obvious that would be the plan? Jonas just says that he just didn't have a chance to talk to Tarzan and tries to play it off. Jonas interviews that he can't believe Tarzan talked to Michael without informing him, and that Tarzan makes zero sense and is a loose cannon. Okay, Tarzan is a weirdo and annoying. Affirmed. But isn't he right about the plan? And why does Jonas assume that he's the leader of their alliance now that Colton is gone? Did they have a vote about it? Why shouldn't Tarzan make a move? Tarzan noticed that some of the guys seem really friendly with some of the ladies and he's trying to shore up support. Yes, he should have told Jonas he did it, but maybe he just didn't get a chance yet. I think Jonas's ego is bruised more than anything.

Jonas goes up to Tarzan and yells at him for telling Michael, who is "the least reliable guy," what the plan is now. Jonas thinks they should have waited until right before the vote to fill him in, in case he's playing both sides, so he couldn't give up their plan to the women. Tarzan didn't say who they're voting for, so I'm not sure what valuable information that Michael could give up. That Alicia's a traitor? I'm sure the women could figure that out all by themselves. So Tarzan and Jonas start cursing at one another. Tarzan is mad that Jonas is accusing him of something (trying to strike out on his own?). Jonas is mad that Tarzan didn't keep him in the loop. Tarzan pauses for a minute and then says that there's too much confusion, so he's going to "drop out of the tribe." Michael comes over and asks what they're fighting about and Tarzan says it was a misunderstanding. Tarzan is one of those people who says, "I'm done!" and then keeps talking. If you're done, be done. Stop coming back and saying things like, "I don't like you, Jonas!" and "I will fall on the sword." Jonas, for his part, does stop talking and walks away as Tarzan continues to mutter crazily to himself. Tarzan interviews that he doesn't like Jonas and when he says something, he won't go back on it. Jonas walks down to the beach and Tarzan fumbles around camp and mutters, "I can't look at that face anymore." Apparently what Tarzan actually said was, "I can't look at that Asian face anymore" but at the last second, the editors cut it. Probst was live-tweeting the episode and he mentioned it, not knowing that it got cut. Oops. I don't know that it changes my opinion about Tarzan any; I already thought he was a loon.

The morning, it's Day 19. Troy is up, drinking coffee, while everyone else is still sleeping. He takes advantage of his solitude to look for the Immunity Idol. He reaches into a couple of holes in trees and seems to find it pretty quickly. He puts it around his neck, just for the feel of it and whispers, "This could take me pretty far." He's not wrong.

Immunity Challenge. The tribe walks in and Probst asks about their new name, "Tikiano." Troy explains about the "Year of the God" thing and Probst doesn't comment, because it's dumb. Then again, my suggestion for the tribe's name would be like, "Tribe" or "The Bev Niners" or something equally dumb and not island-related, so I guess I shouldn't make too much fun.

Probst reminds them that they are now playing for individual immunity. The challenge is to stand on a small log while balancing a ball on a wooden disk. At regular intervals, they will add more balls, making it more difficult. If they drop a ball or step off the log, they're out and the last person standing wins immunity. Simple enough.

Each tribe member steps up on his or her perch and balances a ball on a disk as Probst counts down. A gust of wind comes up and blows the balls around a bit. Tarzan loses his balance after like ten seconds so he's the first and only one out in the first round. They get a quick break before stepping back up and putting two balls on the disk. Christina is the second person out and then Probst notes that Michael has "balls hanging on both sides of his disk." Oh, he's having fun with this. Anyway, Michael's out. Chelsea's out. Kim's out. And the second round ends.

So headed into the third round, we have Troy, Kat, Sabrina, Jonas, Alicia, Leif, and Jay. They step up and place all three balls on their disk. Probst says that this is the last round, so it keeps going until only one person remains. Alicia is out quickly and Jay follows. Probst snarks, "Troy-zan's balls haven't moved in a long time" and Troy lets out a burst of laughter. Jonas is out. Sabrina is out. Only Troy, Kat, and Leif remain and then Leif is out. So it's down to Kat or Troy. Troy's balls are rolling all over the place, but he manages to keep them on the disk, while Kat is just solidly standing not moving. Troy's feet are quivering, but then Kat unexpectedly straightens up and loses. Troy wins immunity. He gets emotional about it, because he's a big fan of the game and now he's wearing the necklace and touching Jeff Probst. At least he's not yelling that it's his island anymore. That was obnoxious.

Back at camp, Leif compliments Troy's win and then says that they need to talk later. Troy says that everyone will be scrambling and then interviews that he plans to stick with his Salani alliance. So basically, Leif, Jonas, and Tarzan think that the men plus Alicia are going to stick together. Jay and Troy plan to stick with Kat, Chelsea, Kim, and Sabrina. Alicia and Christina's plans are unclear, but they will probably stick with the women. And Michael... who knows? It's not clear how aware he is of the Salani alliance or if he's part of it.

Jay and Chelsea take a walk and reiterate their plan to stick together with their Salani tribe and pick off the others (Jonas, Leif, Tarzan, Alicia, and Christina) from strongest to weakest. Jay thinks Jonas should be first to go, but they plan to ask around and find out for sure. They run into Sabrina and Kim and affirm that Jonas is their vote. Chelsea interviews that she hates to see Jonas go, because he's a positive person and a good cook, but that's their plan.

Kim relaxes on the beach in the sun, alone. That is someone very confident about her standing in the tribe, I think. Alicia wanders up and says that no one has talked to her about the vote. Kim lies that it's not up to her (I think she's the puppet master of Salani), and says that she's heard people are thinking Jonas, but they don't really want to lose him because he's a good cook and a nice person. Alicia says she'll vote out Jonas. Kim interviews that her goal is to protect her Salani alliance, but also keep Alicia and Christina around in case they need to go back to the girls' alliance at some point. Kim feels like she has two good options going forward and she's right.

Troy asks Kim who's they're voting out and Kim says that a lot of people are talking about Jonas, because he's really smart. Troy interviews that people think Jonas is a threat, but Troy thinks it's dumb to get rid of him because he feeds them and provides for them.

So Troy goes and tells Jonas that his name is floating around to be voted out. Jonas comments that he seems to be out of the loop. Jonas interviews that voting him out doesn't make any sense, because he's not threatening at all especially when compared to Michael. Jonas realizes he needs to do something, so he apologizes to Tarzan for being out of line. Tarzan accepts his apology and they shake hands. Tarzan interviews that he and Jonas have a personality conflict but they do respect one another and Tarzan was moved by his apology. He even teared up. Tarzan is a strange bird. Anyway, Troy, Tarzan, Jonas, and Leif agree to all vote for Kat. Jonas interviews that he'd rather vote Mike out instead. Does Jonas know how to count? I'm just not getting a good sense for who thinks which alliances are still standing, post-merge. This group is talking about voting four people strong, when there are twelve people left. How do they think that's going to work? I am confused as to their motivations.

Sabrina asks the camp if they have any clothing that needs to be boiled and Tarzan says he needs to wash his underwear. He brings it over to Sabrina and says, "This is not poop, okay? It's dirt." Okay, if you have something brown on your underwear, wash it yourself. Scrub all the brown off and THEN boil it. But don't ask anyone else to deal with your brown underwear stains, regardless of origin. Sabrina won't even look at his underwear stains and then Tarzan says if you're boiling it, it doesn't matter what microbes might be on it. I guess he's right, but it's more of a comfort issue than a strictly bacterial issue. Like if you can't stop thinking about your clothes in the same pot as someone's poop pants, it doesn't matter if they were bleached or boiled or whatever. It FEELS gross.

Chelsea interviews that her goal for the day was to get all of her clothes nice and clean, so she took them and scrubbed them really well with sand. Apparently, the laundry procedure is that you scrub them really well with sand to remove any dirt or stains and then stick them in a pot of boiling water to disinfect and probably remove the salt water. So Chelsea brings her scrubbed clothes up to the fire and puts the first piece into the pot of boiling water. And Tarzan walks over and just throws his poopy underwear into the pot without even asking first. What a dick. He tells Chelsea that it's definitely dirt and not poop. Chelsea looks just exhausted and takes the underwear out with a stick while explaining that her clothes were pre-scrubbed. Tarzan claims that his were too and then Chelsea offers to scrub them herself, saying that she'll take her stuff out so Tarzan can use the pot. Tarzan lets her take her stuff out while he lectures her about microbes and microbiology and he just doesn't get why it's gross. As I said above, it's not that he's wrong about the biology, but it just FEELS gross. And why can't Tarzan wait until everyone else is done with the pot? Is there a laundry deadline? Chelsea sighs that she's going to puke now and yes it was childish, but I understand her disgust and I'm not a germaphobe AT ALL.

Chelsea walks away and sits alone on the beach while Tarzan continues to split wood and says that everyone is so offended by his shorts that they don't want to share the pot. Why is it so important to him that he share the pot? Can't he just wait his turn like a normal person? He doesn't get that this has nothing to do with poop (well, very little) and is really about his inability to compromise or be empathetic. Chelsea interviews that she'd like to get rid of Tarzan instead of Jonas, because Jonas is a positive person who brings everyone up and is a joy to be around and Tarzan is the opposite of that. Jay, Kim, Kat, and Mike join Chelsea on the beach and Chelsea asks if they can get rid of Tarzan instead of Jonas and at least spare Jonas for a few more days. Jay says that he understands wanting to get rid of dead weight and he'd like to get rid of Alicia and Christina because they do nothing, but they've set a plan in place and if they start changing it now, it will lead to chaos.

By Kim

That night, the tribe heads to Tribal Council. Probst asks Sabrina what has changed since they merged and Sabrina says that it's chaotic with everyone trying to figure out where he or she stands and which alliances are going to hold strong. Probst asks Jonas if people are already thinking about the end and Jonas says that he thinks people are thinking too far ahead and they're talking about voting him out even though he's a provider, while leaving Mike in the team, even though he's a challenge threat. Mike protests that he did terrible in the Immunity challenge today. Jonas says that he's not done talking (he seems to say that a lot -- maybe he needs to start being more concise) and says that he's voting for Mike tonight and anyone who agrees with his strategy should vote with him.

By Kim

Probst says that Mike is on the hot seat, but before Probst can ask a question, Tarzan butts in and says that he doesn't respect how Jonas just threw Mike under the bus and Tarzan is sure that Jonas doesn't have to fight for his life. Oh, really Tarzan? Tarzan adds that he thought Jonas was safe, but he might have ruined it with that last speech. Jonas says that, "despite [Tarzan's] brilliant plan," they don't have the votes to vote off Kat. Ooh, Jonas is just putting it all on front street. Kat wonders what she did, and Tarzan says that Jonas is lying. What? Tarzan is crazy, so then he says that they should all vote Jonas out. Everyone on the Salani alliance is like, "Done and DONE!" But they say it with their eyes.

Probst asks Tarzan why he's having such a big reaction to Jonas and Tarzan says that Jonas has been on his back since day one and is always undermining him. He kind of sounds like my mother-in-law, who had to change grocery stores because she was sure the manager at her old one was watching her shop and close to accusing her of stealing. Yes, the grocery store personnel are extremely concerned about senior Italian ladies and their thieving ways. Anyway, Jonas says that he's just trying to play the game and you can't fault him for that.

Chelsea speaks up and says that she thinks more people have had run-ins with Tarzan than Jonas and Sabrina agrees. Tarzan says that he's not as likable as Jonas and he's awkward outside of his environment, which is the operating room. He's used to being "captain of the ship," and here he tries to put forth his ideas to help people, but they don't agree and it frustrates him. That actually explains a lot. I forget that he's a doctor, but I've met many doctors with that "my way or the highway" attitude, especially surgeons. Probst begins a question to Kim about the differences between likable Jonas and anti-social Tarzan and Kim says that the beauty of a merge (episode title) is that people like Jonas become a threat and people like Tarzan become an asset. She's obviously thinking about her endgame. You'd rather sit to Tarzan in the finals than Jonas. Chelsea adds that there are people you want to keep around because they're positive and people who are just dead weight. Tarzan asks if he's the dead weight and Chelsea smirks and says, "Maybe."

By Kim

Probst asks Tarzan if he's concerned about his safety in the game and Tarzan says that he came there wondering about allegiances and if they would hold. It seems like they're not holding together. If people want to vote for him, that's fine by Tarzan, but he's voting for Jonas because of what he did. Because he played the game and tried to ensure his own safety? I guess Tarzan thinks that Jonas was betraying their alliance of men, but I think Jonas figured out that alliance was dead in the water anyway. And it's time to vote.

I generally don't mention the voting process because they only show us the votes that we already knew were happening anyway. Probst tallies the votes and then asks if anyone will be playing an Immunity Idol. No one does. Probst starts reading them off. Jonas gets the first vote, then two votes for Mike. Jonas gets the six votes, so he's out. Tarzan probably thinks that happened because he made such a compelling argument. Jonas goes up to Tarzan and says that there are no hard feelings and Tarzan responds, "Hard feelings to you." That's not even a thing, is it? What a dick. Jonas's parting words are, "Good luck with that food situation." Probst notes that they just voted out one of the most likable people, and that shows that no one is safe. The final shot shows that everyone except Jonas and Leif voted for Jonas. Those two voted for Mike. So it looks like Leif and Tarzan are on the outs of the Salani alliance. I wonder if they will figure it out in time to make a move.

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