Tyson is worried that they don't have many chances to get rid of Aras before the merge, and he approaches Gervase with the thought of getting rid of Aras as soon as possible. Gervase seems amenable.
Ciera obviously doesn't trade places with her mom on Redemption Island. John, Brad and Laura M. compete in the Redemption Island truel where they have to walk across a beam while stopping to retrieve bags of numbered tiles. Then they have to put the 100 numbered tiles in order on a board. Laura makes quick work of it and wins. They weren't kidding that she's good at these types of challenges. Brad has many chances, but John still earns second place and Brad goes home. Guess that means Monica will stay in the game for a while. Laura M. gives the clue to Vytas, who burns it.
Then Probst announces that they're going to switch the tribes up. Everyone picks a random buff. Galang is now Tina, Katie, Vytas, Laura B., Monica and Kat. Tadhana is now Gervase, Tyson, Aras, Caleb, Hayden and Ciera. Wait, so Vytas is the only dude on Galang? That seems… unbalanced.
As soon as the new Tadhana gets back to camp, they spill all the details to the new tribe members about what went down in their camp and what they know about the Hidden Immunity Idol. Then Tyson sneaks up to camp and eats a ton of food while pretending that he's getting food to share. I wonder how much people have done that in past seasons and it just wasn't shown. It seems so obvious.
Meanwhile over at Galang, Vytas is trying to figure out how to bond with the women, and he decides to tell his backstory and make himself vulnerable, which pretty much works. Although now they're worried that Aras and Vytas are going to win the whole game.
Immunity Challenge: Teams have to run two-at-a-time into the water and retrieve three underwater fish traps, one at a time, and bring them back to the beach. Since there are three traps, and they go out as pairs, everyone has to swim. The fish traps contain (shocker!) puzzle pieces, which then must be assembled correctly to win immunity and a picnic. Galang ends up way behind because Tina and Laura B. go out first and swim back without a fish trap, wasting a lot of time. Tina and Monica make up a lot of time on the puzzle, but they keep thinking they're done only to find out they have at least one piece in the wrong spot. This happens twice, and after the second time, Tyson and Aras finish their puzzle and Tadhana wins.
Tadhana, at first, agrees to get rid of Vytas. Then Kat starts rabble-rousing to get rid of Monica, because she annoys her. Monica catches wind of it, and starts rabble-rousing to get rid of Kat. Yeesh, good thing these guys haven't had to go to Tribal Council much, because they are terrible at it. At Tribal Council, Vytas argues that Kat has proven that she can't be trusted and Vytas hasn't broken any trusts. He makes a good argument, because he knows he's arguing for his life. Give Vytas another week and I think he could manipulate all of these women into turning on one another. Wow, and he does get another week as Kat is voted out. I am shocked! Vytas is even better than I realized. The best part is when Kat arrives at Redemption Island and her biggest concern is whether Hayden will dump her for being uncool because no one wants to date someone who didn't even make the merge. Hilarious.
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Once Galang returns from their first tribal council, Laura B. is happy to still be there, and thinks Rupert would be proud of her. Tina says that she feels like an octopus who lost a leg. What does that even mean? I'm guessing she couldn't think of anything else that had eight parts. Aras admits that he looked at Laura when she was leaving and got a "You're a jerk" look back. Tina asks, "Why'd you look at her?" Tina knows how to fly under the radar, y'all. She knows about plausible deniability. They all wonder if Laura M. will try to get them back at the truel. Aras interviews that he seems to be the ringleader of Laura M's ouster, and it's not a position he wants, but he's not sure how to get out. Stop coming up with blindside ideas and the urging others to follow you? Make people think they came up with the ideas themselves?
The morning, Tyson and Gervase discuss what to do about Aras. Tyson takes the lead and says that right now he likes Aras, but if they lose the challenge, that might be their last chance to get rid of Aras before the merge. And Tyson is worried that if Aras and Vytas are reunited, they will identify Tyson as a threat and get rid of him. Gervase agrees, so while they don't agree right now to take any concrete action, they agree that Aras is dangerous.
Tyson interviews that he likes Aras, other than his Zen beliefs, because Tyson has zero beliefs, except for magic, which is awesome. I dig Tyson's deadpan delivery. He cracks me up. I would love to see Tyson play against Malcolm. I think they play a similar game. In their little confab, Gervase agrees that Aras is leading the tribe right now, and Tyson brings up some great points. Gervase doesn't totally agree to get rid of Aras , he agrees to think about it. Tyson promises that if Gervase isn't comfortable with it, he will forget about it. It must be so weird for Gervase to play again. Remember on the first season, when people got mad at you for even thinking about having an alliance? Or talking strategy? Anyway, Gervase interviews that he and Tyson are the new power couple. They kind of are, from what we've seen.
Redemption Island Truel. Ciera finds out that her mom was voted out, but Laura M. won't even hear talk of them switching places, because she's confident in her ability to win against Brad and John. Probst explains how this challenge will go; they have to walk across a beam, untying bags of tiles along the way. Once all of the bags are retrieved, they have to put the tiles in order from 1 to 100. I know it's a fairly easy puzzle, but it's still difficult to do under pressure. Those tiles are small and when you're freaking out and your hands are shaking, it can be rough.
They start, and Laura is some sort of knot-untying savant. She unties a knot faster than anyone I've ever seen. In his rush to catch up to Brad, John keeps doing things like dropping the bag of tiles or falling off the beam, which aren't helping. Laura finishes first, way ahead of the other two. Brad and John seem pretty close, but John is just faster at placing his tiles. Brad doesn't seem like he's in any hurry, to be honest. I wonder if he realized he wasn't going to win if he got back in, and his presence was only hurting Monica's chances, so he threw it. Probably not. He's not that smart, or giving, or self-aware, I don't think.
Aw, Probst is so sad that one of his strong men is going home. But first, he wants to hear how playing in the NFL compares to playing Survivor. I would guess that, in the NFL, they don't starve you, you don't have to sleep on a wood pallet in the buggy wilderness, and your teammates aren't going to stab you in the back. Just a guess. Giving credence to my "Brad threw it" theory, Brad tells Monica that he came on to be a shield, and he ended up being an anchor to her, so now that he's gone, she can "sail hard." Monica realizes that she's playing the game alone now. She just figured that out? I really liked Monica the first time around, but she seems a lot dumber now.
Laura M. decides to give the Idol Clue to Vytas, who throws it in the fire immediately. Probst is just gobsmacked. They might want to rethink this twist for future games, like maybe let the winner secretly pick who gets a clue? And then the person is secretly given a clue somehow? Anyway, Laura M. and John head back to Redemption Island.
But before the rest of them can leave, Probst stops them to announce that they are going to switch things up. No one was expecting that announcement, I don't think. They figured things would stay the same until the merge. They all take tubes that have new buffs inside, indicating which tribe they will join. Tyson refuses to pick one, instead taking whichever is left. Oh, whatever Tyson. You had me and then you lost me.
Buffs are revealed, and everyone looks around to try to figure out who is on which tribe. Thankfully, they are not changing the tribe names, because I just learned these. Once the dust settles, Galang is now Monica, Tina, Kat, Katie, Laura B., and Vytas. Yep, Vytas is the only dude now, and Katie's with her mom. That means Tadhana is now Caleb, Hayden, Ciera, Tyson, Gervase, and Aras. So Ciera is the only chick on the big beefy male tribe. Probst talks to Ciera and Katie, and neither have much to say. Vytas jokes (I think?) that he fancies himself a ladies' man, so he's on the perfect tribe for him. Aras interviews what everyone is probably thinking: that he put a lot of work into making alliances on his old tribe, and he hopes he doesn't find himself the first one on the chopping block on his new tribe. The one alliance that we know about (Monica, Tina, Tyson, Gervase, Aras) did get split in half, so the merge will be interesting. They could get torn apart, or they could reform with new information.
The new Tadhana tribe returns to their beach. The new members are impressed by the setup, which is interesting since this is what the rookies put together. Caleb interviews that, at this point, no one knows if everyone will stick together along tribal lines, and what information people will give out about their former tribes. So Caleb gives up pretty much everything: why they voted people out at certain times, that John didn't find an Idol, what John told them about the clues, everything. Tyson interviews that he can't believe Caleb and Hayden are telling him clues to the Idol. I can't either. Dummies.
Then Tyson, Gervase, and Aras start checking out the Tadhana food supply and helping themselves to some food. Hayden interviews that he was kind of annoyed that they helped themselves, but he couldn't say anything. The new tribe hangs out in the water together, and Tyson gets out to get some fruit for everyone, and open a coconut. He takes advantage of the alone time to also down a banana and drink most of the coconut water himself, when no one can see him. On the one hand, I admire his chutzpah. On the other hand, that is kind of a dick move. I'm so torn with Tyson because I sort of admire the way he's playing the game and I sort of think he's an asshole. Anyway, Tyson returns to the group with fruit and water, and interviews that he doesn't want to be seen as a food thief or lazy, so he has to be careful. He "jokes" to his tribemates, "I'm going to hit all that food like a one-man wrecking ball." Everyone laughs, but he's kind of telling the truth. There's a part of me that hopes he get busted.
Over at Galang, Tina couldn't be happier to be playing with Katie. Interesting how they don't show any interviews about how Katie feels to play with Tina. Vytas interviews that he was in control of his destiny on his old tribe, and now he's the "odd man out" since he is from another tribe. So is Katie, but she's got Tina to protect her. Vytas might be in trouble.
Monica and Tina are washing dishes, and Monica approaches Kat with an alliance of their original tribemates. Kat agrees but doesn't really want to have a long talk about strategy. Monica says that if they lose, maybe they should vote out Vytas. OBVIOUSLY. Even dumb old Kat can see that writing on the wall. Kat interviews that she's annoyed with Monica's desire to constantly talk strategy and she needs to shut it.
At Tadhana, they are getting ready to cook some food. Aras suggests that they create a post to hang the pot from, and everyone is like, "I think it's fine just sitting in the fire." Tyson takes the opportunity to crack wise about how he thinks they should go with what they've always done and ignore Aras. Tyson interviews that part of his strategy is to continue to point out the ways in which Aras is trying to take charge, and make it clear that Aras is calling the shots and Tyson is no threat to them or their tribe. The way it comes off to me is more like Tyson and Aras are joking around together. Maybe Tyson is hoping that the other tribe realizes that his jokes contain truth? I don't know.
The morning, Galang is starting off their day with a prayer by Kat before eating breakfast, but she stumbles when trying to say either "less fortunate" or "unfortunate" and it's a typical Kat-like mess. Everyone just laughs it off. Vytas interviews that he knows that his only chance at surviving until the merge is somehow getting into these women's good graces, and he's found the best way to do that is show some vulnerability.
And what is Vytas's vulnerability? His past, obviously. He tells his tribe about his jail time, and how scary it was, and how hard he has worked since he's been sober to rebuild his relationship with Aras. I feel like he might be hitting the "I love Aras more than anything and would do anything to have a good relationship with him" point too hard. If I were on his tribe, it would make me think, "Hmm, Vytas will drop me like a hot potato once he's back with his brother." But I guess right now, he's just trying to get his tribemates to feel sorry for him and it seems to be working. Although Laura B. does interview that she needs to keep her heart out of it and remember that Vytas and Aras could run away with the whole game. Everyone keeps saying that, but no one seems to be doing anything to prevent that from happening.
Immunity Challenge! A pair from each tribe has to run into the water, dive down and release a fish trap, and then bring that fish trap back to shore. When all of the fish traps are on shore, they can open them and take out puzzle pieces, and then solve the puzzle to win immunity and a picnic lunch.
The first two pairs head for the water: Gervase and Aras for Tadhana and Tina and Laura B. for Galang. I'm not sure what the strategy would be here. These first two pairs have the furthest to go so you would want your strongest swimmers, right? And Tadhana chose…Gervase? He actually does really well, and Gervase and Aras get the first gate untied and start back with the first trap. Tina and Laura B. (unsung hero of water challenges if you ask me) get their gate untied and then…just start swimming back. They totally forgot or didn't know that they were supposed to bring back the trap. Their tribe goes nuts yelling at them but they are swimming so hard that they don't hear anything until they get almost back to shore, and then they don't understand what the problem is and walk all the way back to where the rest of their tribe waits. Finally, they learn that they have to head back out and get the trap. So now their tribe is way behind.
The rest of the untying and retrieving of fish traps goes fairly uneventfully, and Tadhana gets all three fish traps while Galang is just going out for their third. Ciera stumbles on her way in, completely exhausted. I can't believe she's lasted as long in this game as she has; she must have a sparkling personality. Anyway, Aras and Tyson start working on the puzzle for Tadhana while Kat and Katie are just starting to release their tribe's final fish trap.
Aras and Tyson get a lot of work done on the puzzle before Tina and Monica can finally start, but I don't know that it's good work. The puzzle involves sliding slats into a frame to make a picture, sort of like a picket fence. I think Aras and Tyson get the whole picture shifted over too far one way, which means they have to slide all of the pickets out and shift them all over one or two places. Monica and Tina, on the other hand, get the center pieces done first, so they are guaranteed to avoid those time-costing shifts.
Monica and Tina actually catch up and finish the puzzle first! Their tribe celebrates! Except it's not quite right. Monica and Tina rush back to the puzzle and switch a few pieces around, but not the pieces that need to be switched. They think they are done again, but even I can see that one of the fish in the pictures is pretty fucked up. Probst tells the celebrating Galang that their puzzle still isn't right.
Meanwhile, Tyson and Aras think they're done. Their tribe wisely holds off from celebrating until Probst gives his verdict. He says it's right, and Tadhana wins. Wow. That was a pretty intense challenge, and the loss was largely Tina's fault, if you ask me. Do you think she will pay the price with her tribe? Or will they make the easy vote and get rid of Vytas? This is why tribal mix-ups are interesting to me. I have no idea who these nerds are going to vote out.
Galang returns to their beach after the challenge. Vytas interviews that he's so angry with Tina and Laura B. for screwing up, but he can't say anything to them because of his place in the tribe. Once they get back to camp, Tina gathers everyone and says she's really sorry, and she understands if they vote her out tonight, and if they don't, she will feel major guilt because she feels partially responsible for the loss. The other women seem to forgive her. I mean, no one is sending Tina home. She's not worried. Vytas says he really had to bite his tongue, and he knows he's at the mercy of these five women.
Kat interviews that they're going to send Vytas home tonight, but she wishes they could send Monica home because Monica will not shut up about game strategy and the like. Kat is such a dummy that instead of just keeping her mouth shut and going with the flow until the merge, she decides to act like she's making a big move. She goes to Tina and suggests they get rid of Monica now instead of later. There is seriously no strategic reason to get rid of Monica, especially with Brad gone. She will be totally loyal to the women. Kat is a dummy. Tina interviews that when Kat suggests voting out Monica, it makes Tina question KAT'S loyalty, and she thinks everyone should know about it.
Monica, Tina, and Vytas go to get water. Tina says that Kat was talking about getting rid of Monica. Monica is worried, because if Kat would flip on her that easily, once they merge, she would probably flip again instead of staying with their alliance. Tina and Monica openly admit to Vytas that they were planning on voting him out tonight, but now they're not so sure.
Monica confronts Kat alone. Kat continues to deny that she brought up Monica's name to be voted out, and Monica knows that Kat is lying. Especially because a few minutes later, Kat admits that she is tired of talking about strategy and their alliance all of the time.
So everyone talks about voting out Vytas, but then Monica interviews that she learned that the Golden Rule of Survivor is "Do unto others before they do unto you." So Monica is pushing to vote Kat out, but Tina thinks they should stick with the plan and vote Vytas out. I thought there was no way they'd ditch Kat at this point. Vytas is too much of a wild card, right?
Tribal Council. Probst starts out by asking who's not getting along and Kat says that she tried to talk to Monica and it didn't go well. Monica says she just wants to trust Kat, but Kat is making it difficult. Kat tries to backpedal as fast as she can, realizing that she's in trouble, and says that she thinks the women should all stick together. Vytas says that Kat's going to write his name down tonight, but Vytas doesn't know if it's fair that he goes home tonight when he has worked hard to build relationships with the women. In the, you know, three days that he's been there.
Kat seems to define trust as "having your back" because she says that phrase about a hundred times in the five minutes, assuring the other women that she has their back. What does that even mean? She will vote with them? She won't vote against them? She will help them row a boat? I don't know anymore. Monica says that she's not sure she believes what Kat is saying.
Kat begs her alliance mates to keep her around. Vytas says that Kat is doing a lot of apologizing for her mistakes, when he hasn't made any mistakes. No one points out that it's easy to avoid making mistakes when you've only been there for like two days. Actually, Kat does point that out. Tina reminds us that she now has a loved one on her tribe, and I wonder if Katie vouched for Vytas, and if that made a difference?
Vytas says again that he's just trying to be a stand-up guy and show everyone what he's made of. Kat's final words are that she loves everyone in her alliance and she will always have their backs. Vytas shakes his head and says that he's heard stories where Kat didn't have people's backs. What stories? Is he just making stuff up now? Vytas lays it all out and says that Kat sounds like someone who got busted throwing out alliance member's names and now she's trying to backpedal, which is exactly what happened. Kat begs her alliance to just stick together. I have to say, I'm pretty sure the alliance knew how they were going to vote going into this Tribal Council, so this was all theater and didn't change anyone's actual vote. That said, Vytas seems even more desperate than Kat to me. However, he is making eye contact with Monica and Kat is just looking down at the ground.
Voting happens. No one plays an Idol. Probst starts reading the votes and as soon as Kat sees two votes against her, she knows what's up. She starts crying as Probst tells her that the tribe has spoken, then picks up her torch and heads to Redemption Island. When she gets there, she tells John and Laura that her biggest concern is that Hayden will dump her because "who wants to date someone who doesn't make the merge." God, that made me laugh.