Survivor Tocantins - March 5/09

As Survivor Stardate Day 10 dawns on the Brazilian highlands, Jalapao is concerned about poor Taj going off to Exile Island and having to endure such hardships. Little do they know that Taj is using her visits to Exile Island to plot their demise. And speaking of alliances, Taj continues to cement her friendship with Stephen, asking him if he wants to be part of the biggest Survivor upset in history. If Taj and Stephen link up and keep their secret alliance with Brendan and Sierra from the other tribe, they will be unstoppable when the tribes merge. Stephen is not turning down an offer like that.


Over at the Timbira camp Brendan is worried because he hasn't had a chance to pull Sierra aside and tell her about the proposed alliance. They all head off to the reward challenge where Dimples explains that three members from each tribe will be selected to hold a bar across their shoulders. The other tribe can then determine which of the three will have two 10 pound sandbags added to their bar. The tribe with the last man or woman standing as weight is added will win reward. Jalapao weighs Brendan down and he is out first, but only after tieing a Survivor record for most weight supported in this particular challenge. One by one the men are loaded up and drop out of the competition until only Taj and Debbie are left. Taj eventually wins the fourth consecutive challenge for Jalapoa. The reward is that Jalapoa gets to raid the Timbira camp and take any two items. They also get to select a Timbit to go to Exile Island (Sierra) who then gets to select a Jalap to go with her (Taj). As Brendan watches Taj and Sierra walk away together, he is fervently hoping that Taj will explain the plan to Sierra.


At the Timbira camp, they are awaiting the arrival of the Jalapao raiders and speculating on what they will take. As expected, when JT and Joe arrive they head straight for the beans. Realizing that they could at any time be sent to this camp, Joe and JT wisely decide not to take all the food and take one bag of beans and a water can. When they return to camp Sandy is ticked that they didn't take all of Timbira's food (gee and she seemed like such a harmless crazy lady). Sandy goes on and on about the "fartin' beans" and generally drives her tribe-mates crazy, thereby painting a large target on her back. But Sandy, after nearly drowning in a puddle of male saliva, figures that Sydney should go because she is using her considerable beauty to short circuit the men's thought processes.


At Exile Island Taj gets the next clue to the wherabouts of the hidden immunity (the one at her camp, because, as you will recall, Brendan has already found the one at Camp Timbira). She also has a chance to tell Sierra about the alliance between Taj, Brendan, Stephen and Sierra. Sierra is delighted, having clawed her way up from the bottom of the heap on day one to the top of the heap on day 11.


At the Timbira camp they are relaxing and generally not looking like a tribe who has lost all of the last four challenges. Tyson makes himself a loincloth and models it for the tribe, wondering if he can reintroduce the loin cloth to civilized man. Erinn is not joining in the fun though. She tells us that she can't seem to connect with her tribe. She is recovering from a bad break up and she feels if she talks to anyone it is sure to come up and she will cry. Meanwhile the others are noticing that Erinn prefers to be on her own and that is seldom a good thing in Survivor. Its far better to be with the group where you can be suitably annoying and conniving.

For the Immunity Challenge Survivors must race, one at a time, along a course to untie and unclip long puzzle pieces. When all eight puzzle pieces are detached and returned to the start line, they must be laid out in the right order and rotated in the right way to spell out a secret phrase. Timbira nails this one and finally wins a challenge.

As the Jalapaolubians begin their pre-council deliberations, Sandy naturally becomes a topic of conversation. But Taj suggests that Sandy may be stronger than Sydney. Even Stephen and JT have to take their eyes off the pretty shiney thing for a moment to give this one some thought. Their decision is made even harder when Stephen asks Sydney what she loves most about the game and she answers "the sneakiness". There is a collective hmmmm among the men in camp who apparently have never thought of Sydney as a sneaky pretty shiney thing. But when tribal council is over and Dimples counts the votes there is one vote for Joe (cast by Taj..what the hell?) one vote for Sydney and 4 votes for Sandy. And so the dynamic duo of Pam and Donna will be turning in their buffs and Pam will not be repeating her win from last season.

Until next week,
Outwit, Outlast, Outplay
Pat (aka JT I'm just the cutest little country boy ever Thomas)