After blindsiding Aras, Vytas tries to be magnanimous but Tina tells everyone that they now will have five votes against them on the jury. Her, Katie, Vytas, Aras, and who else? Then it comes out that Aras had made alliances with pretty much everyone, so that's why they voted him out. After that, Tina tells Katie to make her own gameplan, because Tina has a huge target on her and will only drag Katie down.
First Immunity Challenge is eating gross things. It all comes down to Monica and Gervase having to eat giant grubs, just like Gervase failed to do in the first season. And Monica wins immunity. Everyone talks about splitting the vote between Vytas and Katie, and Vytas begs to get fewer votes. Tyson is somewhat swayed by the idea of keeping another male and getting rid of a potential female-alliance member as well as one of a pair.
At Tribal Council, Vytas must know he's going because he burns some SERIOUS bridges with Monica, with Tyson and with Gervase. And Vytas does in fact join his brother on Redemption Island. The men were supposed to vote for Vytas and the women for Katie but Monica gets pissed and switches her vote to Vytas. It doesn't affect the outcome but it does piss some people off.
Right away, we get another Immunity Challenge. They have to balance a sword on a shield and then balance a stack of coins on top of that. It comes down to Hayden, Tyson, and Katie, and the two men's stacks drop at almost exactly the same time leaving Katie as the winner.
When they return to camp, Tina heads out to look for the Hidden Immunity Idol since she knows it's probably her only chance to stay in the game. Tyson, Hayden, and Caleb follow her to prevent her from finding it or possibly find it as well. Except Tyson knows she's not going to find it, because he has it. So then there's a weird standoff in the jungle and Tina tries to make them think she might have found the Idol.
At Tribal Council, Tina campaigns hard against Monica sucks and tries to pretend she has the Idol. Boy, she must feel dumb watching this now, knowing that Tyson actually had it all along. And then after all that talk, they vote out Tina anyway.
When they return to camp after blindsiding Aras, Vytas puts on this super fake chill bro tone as he congratulates everyone on getting rid of Aras, because it was great gameplay, even if he hates to see Aras go. I hope everyone can see how fake Vytas is being right now. Tyson agrees that he hated to see Aras go, but it was the best move. Aras reveals his true feelings in an interview where he says that "vengeance is going to be mine at some point." I'm guessing his only revenge might be withholding a jury vote.
Then it's Tina's turn to speak up. She uses that tone some women have where they act like they're really happy and jolly but you can tell they're actually really angry. She congratulates Tyson and Monica but says that there are now five jury votes they won't get. Five? Tina, Katie, Aras, Vytas, and who? Who does she think is still in her alliance? Gervase? Tyson counters that they pushed him out of their original alliance, or at least Aras did. Tina says that she didn't, and then points at Ciera and Laura and says that they were never in the alliance. Then everyone drops the bomb that Aras had made alliances with each of them, which is why they had to get rid of him. Tyson sums it up: Aras had promised all of them top three (presumably with him and Vytas), so he's the one that flipped. Tina backs down, chastened. Tyson interviews that the game has broken his heart twice, but now he's back in love with it. He knew Aras wasn't going to take him to the end, and that Tina would put Katie ahead of him, so this was absolutely the right move.
The morning, some sad music plays as Tina takes Katie down to the beach alone. Tina says that she's got a big target on her back, and Katie needs to do whatever she can to disassociate herself from her mother and stay in the game. Tina gives her permission to do that, with no hard feelings. I wonder if it goes both ways; if Tina were given an opportunity to backstab Katie and stay, would she? They don't discuss it. Katie interviews that she doesn't know how to start selling herself without throwing her mom under the bus. I think her mom just gave her permission to be thrown under the bus. Wasn't that what that conversation was all about?
Time for a challenge already! Probst explains that this is an immunity challenge, and they'll be eating gross stuff, just like in the first ever season. Remember Gervase? In the first season, it was a team challenge that ended in a tie, so each tribe picked the other tribe's most squeamish member to compete. Gervase faced off against Stacey, and lost. Anyway, this time, they will be competing in two quarterfinals, and the top three from each go to the semifinals, and then the top two go to the finals.
The first round consists of Tyson, Vytas, Monica, Katie and Laura. They are given a shot glass full of forty live mealworms. When Probst tells them to start, they all try to down them like a shot, which seems like a mistake. That's a lot of mealworms to take on at once and I don't know that you can swallow them whole. Seems like there needs to be some chewing. Tyson finishes first. Vytas cough-chokes and a bunch of worms come out of his mouth. He has to pick them up off the ground and eat them, and he does. That's hardcore. Monica finishes, so there's one slot left. Vytas manages to chew chew chew and swallow just ahead of Katie, so he's the third semifinalist. Laura wasn't even close.
The second round consists of Hayden, Ciera, Tina, Gervase and Caleb. They also have the mealworms. They start, and Tina has trouble because a bunch of her worms hopped out of the glass and she has to pick them all up off the table. Just think about that sentence for a minute. Gervase jumps up and down like a crazy person and Ciera gives up pretty much immediately, gagging and spitting the worms out into the sand. Tina battles Gervase for most dramatic as she acts like they're biting the inside of her mouth. Look, I probably shouldn't judge because I've never eaten a mealworm (nor do I plan to) but it seems like the people who just calmly chew and swallow finish first. Like Hayden, who is the first one done. Gervase yells that he can't swallow them, but he does, and he's the second semifinalist from this round. Tina can't do it and spits hers out, while Caleb finally gets his down so he's the last one into the semifinals.
The six semifinalists line up: Hayden, Caleb, Gervase, Vytas, Monica, and Tyson. They have to eat three ounces of pig intestines. Everyone is suitably grossed out; Monica seems to be near tears. They start eating and Tyson spits a bunch of half-chewed… product back onto his plate. Monica and Hayden are doing a lot of gagging. The winning strategy seems to be to break it up into bite-sized pieces and then just get each one down as quickly as you can. You know, in case you're ever in a pig-intestine eating contest. Monica, of all people, finishes first. Vytas and Gervase take their last bite at about the same time, but Vytas starts gagging and horking. Before Vytas can fully swallow all of it, Gervase finishes and becomes the other finalist. I wonder how many of the others just puked once they didn't win.
So now what gross thing will Gervase and Monica have to try to eat to win immunity? Grubs. Giant, wriggling, grubs. I mean, these things are about the size of a bratwurst. Gross. Gervase keeps saying he can't do it because this is where he failed in season one. They start, and I think Gervase tries to flip his plate up and throw both grubs in his mouth but he chickens out so they just fall on the table? It was pretty hilarious. Then he bites one and a bunch of juices and blood squirt out and it's SO GROSS. He's jumping up and down and hitting himself in the head while Monica gags and groans really loudly. Probst cheers for Gervase to "change history" and then tries to be fair and calls Monica "Culpepper" which might be a first – he called a lady by her last name! He usually reserves that for his macho males. Monica finishes the first grub and moves on to the second. Gervase is trying to eat both at once. It looks close but Monica swallows the second grub and runs over to Probst to be declared the winner, and she is. She thanks Gervase for helping her? Gervase is sad.
Once they are back at camp, the majority alliance (Tyson, Gervase, Caleb, Hayden, Monica, Ciera, and Laura) decide to give four votes to Vytas (all the guys) and three votes to Katie (all the women). Tyson interviews that he didn't come up with the idea of splitting the votes, and he's not sure if he should tell them about the Idol so that they don't have to split the votes, since the other side has three votes, and that could spoil things if one person in the alliance gets squirrelly. Tyson ultimately decides that he doesn't want to tell them about the Idol yet.
Vytas returns to camp and asks everyone what they talked about and who's going . No one wants to say, since it's Vytas. He knows it's probably him, so he makes some last-ditch efforts. Hayden tells Vytas that they're splitting the vote between Vytas and Katie and pretends like he doesn't know who's getting four votes and who's getting three. Vytas begs Hayden to spare him and Hayden won't commit. Vytas knows that staying for two more days, everything could change.
Meanwhile, Katie has no alliance and no idea what's going on. Vytas pretends like he's still sticking with a female alliance that doesn't exist anymore. Katie interviews that she needs to figure out a game plan. Now? Just now she's figuring out a game plan? She is terrible at this game.
Monica's paranoia takes over. She knows they were planning to split the vote between Vytas and Katie, but now she's seeing everyone scrambling around and talking. Monica, you HAVE IMMUNITY. Relax. Of course, Vytas and Katie are scrambling. Of course, people are pretending to listen to their ideas; they're courting jury votes. But what Monica comes up with is that she was supposed to go home tonight, and winning immunity screwed up the plan so now there's a scramble to see what to do now. They told you the plan! They already had that plan in place! I wish they could send her home just for being annoying. Laura assures her that the plan is still in place, and I think Katie is sitting right there while they are talking about voting her out? I don't know.
Vytas takes his, "If you're going to split the vote, make me the three and not the four" argument to Tyson. Vytas's reasoning is that it's "salt in the wound" to go right after his brother (BZZZT, Tyson doesn't care) and that he's no longer part of a pair, so they should get rid of someone who is (DING DING, that's actually a good argument.) Vytas also says that he might give Tyson a vote on the jury, which is his only remaining leverage. Tyson interviews that his real concern is that the women will band together, so he kind of wants to get rid of a woman tonight to prevent that.
Tyson tells Monica, Hayden, Ciera, and Caleb to finalize their plan. Tyson thinks Katie is playing harder right now, so she should go. Ciera doesn't think the order really matters if they are a solid alliance. Tyson folds and says he'll go with whatever everything thinks, then interviews that he needs to be careful because he doesn't want people to think he's running the alliance, since that would make him a target. So we don't really know what their final decision is going into Tribal, which is just how the editors like it.
Tribal Council! Tina starts by telling Jeff how she called out Tyson and Monica after the last vote. Vytas says he agreed with what Tina said, and he vowed to [bleep] up the people responsible. Wow, this is a very different tune than what Vytas was saying publicly earlier. I'm guessing someone clued him in that the vote isn't going his way so he doesn't give a shit anymore. Gervase says that he understands Vytas's emotions, because he vowed revenge after Marissa was voted out.
Vytas admits that it was a good game move, and that people took advantage of the paranoia of people like Monica to change their votes. Monica is offended, of course, and says that Vytas flipped on her husband and yet she still "stuck [her] neck out" to get Vytas this far in the game. I guess? It was a dumb move by Monica to keep Vytas in the game this long, if you ask me, and it's dumb of her to turn around now and act like she actually hated Vytas this whole time. Vytas says that they don't trust one another anymore, and that's that.
Probst asks Katie if it's safe to assume that it's her, Tina, or Vytas going tonight. Katie says that's a safe assumption, but if she stays, she'll be looking for cracks in the alliance to exploit. That would be a first. Katie has done very little actual gameplay that we've seen. Probst asks Vytas why they should keep him, and Vytas says that the guys should keep another guy around in case the women form an alliance. Then Vytas blows it wide open and says that Tyson and Gervase are running their alliance, and the women should take them out. Yeah, he absolutely knows he's going home. We've seen Vytas at Tribal when he had a small chance of staying and he was all charm and flattery. These are the words of a guy who has run out of fucks to give.
Time to vote. Remember, the men are supposed to vote for Vytas and the women are supposed to vote for Katie, and if the remaining three got their act together, they probably voted for someone else. So we should see four for Vytas, three for Katie, and three for someone else. Monica screws that up by voting for Vytas out of spite, because of Brad, I guess? Anyway, Probst reveals the votes and we see one vote each for Katie and Tyson, and then five for Vytas. I'm guessing there were two more in there for Tyson, although you'd think they would show them to make it more suspenseful.
Everyone returns to camp, and Monica interviews that she switched her vote. And she tells Katie and Hayden about it, and how she shouted out Brad when she did it. Gervase interviews that he's a little pissed that Monica switched her vote, because if there had been an Idol in play, she could have caused Tyson or Gervase to go home. So he's pretty close to getting rid of Monica .
Aras and Vytas meet up on Redemption Island. Vytas blames Aras for both of their oustings, since he was going around making promises to people on Vytas's behalf. Aras tries to argue that they're still in the game, and interviews that he has a positive energy and Vytas has a negative energy. Aras says he'd be happy if either he or Vytas gets back into the game; Vytas says he wants to get out, but not Aras. They're like the Heat Miser and the Cold Miser.
Another challenge already! Since we know either Tina or Katie is probably going home , let's just get it over with. This isn't going to be interesting again until the alliance has to start eating itself. The challenge today is to balance a sword on a shield, and then balance coins on the handle. The last person to have their stack of coins still balanced wins immunity.
They start stacking, as Probst tells them which size coin to add to the stack, small, medium, or large. Ciera's hands are shaking like crazy. Monica drops the coin she was trying to stack, and Ciera is right behind her. Tina's fingernails are crazy long. They must have clippers because everyone else has short nails. That's just gross. Anyway, Tina and her gross nails are the ones out.
Gervase is the first dude to go out, and Laura follows, so now it's down to Hayden, Tyson, Katie, and Caleb. Remember Caleb? We haven't heard much from him since he made his big move against Brad. Anyway, Caleb is out. It must be really hot out there. There are beads of sweat dripping off the end of Tyson's nose. Tina stands behind Katie and gives her encouragement. I would find that so annoying and distracting, although maybe it's also distracting to the others, so it's an advantage. And then Tyson and Hayden go out at the same time, and Katie wins. Goodbye, Tina. Unless Monica does something really, really annoying, she's going home.
Katie interviews that winning immunity is great, but she and her mom don't have an alliance. Tina tells Katie that she's got five hours to look for the Idol, so that's what she'll be doing for the rest of the day. The rest of the tribe is aware of her plan, so Tyson, Hayden, and Caleb decide to follow her. What are they going to do exactly? Wrestle it away from her? Tina manages to ditch them, so they split up and Hayden and Tyson find her. Tyson interviews that he could just tell everyone that he has the Idol and then they could all go take a nap, but then he would be a target. So they're going to babysit Tina, who actually looked in the right spot but didn't find it because Tyson moved it somewhere else. Tina interviews that the others don't know if she has it or not, but if she starts looking, they'll know she doesn't have it. So she's just going to sit there for a while.
Hey, look who's paranoid about the voting! Monica! She's asking Laura and Tyson what they're going to do if Tina has the Idol and Katie's immune. Tyson and Laura say that they'll split the votes, but don't say who will get the non-Tina votes. Tyson assures Monica that they're constantly watching Tina and she won't get the Idol. Tyson interviews that they can't split the votes because if they give votes to Monica, she would know she's on the bottom of their alliance, and could do something reckless. Like go home? I mean, it's a moot point because Tyson knows Tina isn't going to find any damn Idol. It must be so frustrating for him to not be able to just say that to Monica to shut her up. I do admire his discipline; usually the Idol holder has revealed it to at least one other person by now.
Tyson and Gervase talk about how Monica is getting paranoid. Gervase is still mad that she voted for Vytas when she wasn't supposed to do that. He interviews that he wouldn't mind voting out Monica and keeping Tina and Katie. The word about Monica being a potential evictee then passed from Gervase to Hayden, and Hayden to Caleb. Eh, Monica's not going anywhere. These guys have been too disciplined in their voting to just randomly decide to keep Tina AND Katie.
Tribal Council. Probst recaps what we know: Tina and Katie are in trouble, and Katie has immunity. Tina says that she spent the day looking for the Hidden Immunity Idol, but she had babysitters. She did manage to elude them twice, though. Way to plant that seed of doubt in Monica's mind.
Tina says that her other option today was to find a crack in the alliance, because all seven of them can't go to the finals, and she tells Monica flat-out that she's on the bottom. Monica falls back on the old standard, "People can have their opinions." Tina asks if Monica really thinks she's not on the bottom. Monica says that Tyson and Gervase are together, Hayden and Caleb are together, and both sets of mothers and daughters are together. So that leaves Monica.
Probst suggests that Tina might want to team up with Monica, but Tina's smarter than that – she's going to argue (without saying it) that Monica should go home. Her gambit is to reveal that the alliance waits to tell Monica who to vote for until the last second, because she's a blabbermouth. Gervase adds that people who talk too much are an instant liability.
Probst asks Monica how it feels to hear that the alliance might dump her, and Monica reveals what they told her about splitting the votes, which was basically, "Don't worry about it." Probst asks Hayden whether or not they have a backup plan, and Hayden gives a non-answer. Monica takes Hayden's non-answer as a threat and says in her annoying slow-talking way, "And that's a really. Silly. Plan. Because I'm. Extremely. Trustworthy." Tina gives it one last shot, trying to convince everyone that she might have the Idol.
Voting. Probst asks for the HII. Tina pretends to look in her bag and then laughs that she wishes that she found it, but she didn't. So Tina knows she's going. Looks like Monica and Tyson each get one vote (from Tina and Katie, presumably) and everyone else votes for Tina, so she's headed to Redemption Island. Katie, you in danger, girl.