"Survivor: Gabon" - October 30, 2008 and November 6, 2008 and November 13, 2008 episodes

October 30, 2008 episode

At Fang, Crystal ends up spilling some rice, and with the rice shortage, she then refuses to eat to make up for it, clashing with Ace and Matty in the process. Meanwhile, at Kota, where they're mostly doing well, Dan is feeling a bit left out and for some reason decides to tell his tribe mates that. What, are they in second grade?

The reward challenge is for a helicopter ride to a picnic with a nice view. The task is to play keepaway of a ball from the other team, and the opposing team member is trying to smash the ball. Sugar is completely ineffectual during her turn, and Kota ends up winning three straight points to win the challenge, and they again send Sugar to exile. Kota enjoys a lovely meal, and they get the added reward of getting letters from home. Sugar's performance angers Matty, who wants to vote her out, but Ace wants Crystal out instead, and unbeknownst to them, Ken wants to get Crystal and Sugar to help him vote Ace out. Sugar reveals to the camera that she's been using Ace all along and isn't the bubblehead everyone thinks she is.

At the immunity challenge, they are told that both tribes will be voting out a member that night. The challenge is then for individual immunity and involves a log roll - whoever stays on the longest in head-to-head competition wins. They start off in pairs first, and then the last three (Sugar, Ace and Marcus) compete all at the same time. Sugar is the first to get knocked off, and Ace is knocked off just before Marcus, who wins immunity. Marcus is then told that he can assign immunity to a member of Fang, and he picks Sugar.

Back at Fang, Ken talks to Sugar about Ace using her, and when Ace later asks Sugar for the idol, exactly as Ken had predicted, her suspicions about Ace are raised. At tribal council, she does indeed help to blindside Ace, who is angry at having been voted out, but she just got to him before he got to her. Matty is also shocked at the results of tribal council.

Kota is having to make their own decisions about who to vote out. Dan is annoying many of them, but after Susie tells Corinne that she was going to vote for Corinne, Corinne wants Susie out. In the end, they decide to vote Dan off, but because they were afraid he might have the hidden immunity idol from his visit to exile, they split their votes so that if he had the idol, Susie would have been voted out. However, in doing so, they showed their hand to Susie and let her know in no uncertain terms that she's next to go. I get that they were concerned, but all they really had to do was convince Dan that they were all voting Susie out, and as long as he voted for Susie, it didn't matter if he played the immunity idol - Susie would have been out anyway since she would have been the only person with a vote.


November 6, 2008 episode

Kota is worried that Susie might not stick with them and might flip in the event of a merge. The remaining Fang members are united, but Matty is worried that he's the next to go. The two tribes have a feast on the beach and assume that it's their merge food reward. Ken sees a clue to a hidden immunity idol, but Charlie sees him looking at the clue and outs him. They all want to find it, but it's Randy who ends up pinpointing exactly where it is and digs it up. He says he doesn't want it, though, and offers it to anyone who wants it. Some people do, but they know it won't look good if they take it in front of everyone, and Marcus convinces them all to throw it in the ocean. I wonder if it will wash back up somewhere?

I was really looking forward to some kind of reaction from Kota when they discovered that Ace had been voted out, so I was disappointed that they didn't show anything.

After the feast, they open a box as instructed, which ends up reshuffling their tribes and it's not a merger as they'd expected. The new Kota tribe is now Bob, Marcus, Susie, Crystal and Ken, and the new Fang is now Randy, Matty, Sugar, Corinne and Charlie. It happens to end up that both new tribes consist of three old Kota members and two old Fang members, so old Kota is glad they still have the edge.

During conversation, it turns out that a very good friend of Marcus' is actually Crystal's cousin. How weird is that?

Matty talks to Sugar and tells her that Ace wasn't going to go after her, but that sure sounds like a lie because of what we were shown, but Sugar is upset that she voted Ace out. Randy voices an idea to Corinne and Charlie to throw the immunity challenge so that they can vote out Matty.

The immunity challenge is to hold two poles on the backside of each hand so that it's up against a higher shelf. Whoever holds the pole the longest wins immunity for their entire tribe. As various people drop off, it comes down to Bob and Matty, who fight it out hard, but in the end, Bob drops out first, and Matty wins immunity for Fang, much to the disappointment of Randy, Corinne and Charlie.

At Kota, Crystal and Ken are working on Susie to switch sides when Marcus targets Ken. In the end, Crystal is able to convince Susie, who helps Crystal and Ken vote out Marcus. Charlie is going to be very unhappy to have lost his boy toy.


November 13, 2008 episode

When the tribes show up for the reward challenge, Corinne and Charlie are shocked and dismayed to find out that Marcus was voted out. The reward challenge is for a visit to a Gabonese village where they will be treated to a dance ceremony, a meal and be able to spend the night there. The challenge itself is using a human-controlled slingshot to play golf, and the team that wins two out of three wins it all. Kota starts out well, but in the end, it's Fang who wins this time, and they send Bob to exile.

Back at Kota, Ken does some fishing for his tribe in Bob's absence, and Bob doesn't find the hidden immunity idol (since Sugar has it), but he fabricates something that looks like one, and it sounds like he's going to pretend to have found it.

At the immunity challenge, Jeff confirms that they're merged, so the challenge is for individual immunity. The task is to make a fire that will burn through a rope. Surprisingly, most of them have trouble starting a fire with flint and a knife and supplies, and only Susie and Sugar are even able to start a fire at all, with Susie winning. Jeff then tells them that their new tribe will be at the old Fang camp. They pick Nobag as their new tribe name, which is "Gabon" backwards. OK, that's a really dumb name.

Crystal and Charlie are targeted by each of the two factions, and Sugar ends up being the swing vote. Corinne thinks they have her on their side, and she dismisses Sugar as being dumb for being swayed so easily, but in the end, Sugar ends up voting with the other side and votes out Charlie (who was targeted by Ken), but at least Charlie is happy that he will get to spend three whole days with Marcus by himself as the sole members of the jury for that time.

People keep underestimating Sugar and then regret having done so.