Survivor South Pacific episode 8 recap, November 2, 2011.

Welcome to the eighth episode of Survivor: South Pacific!

It’s the night of Day 18 after the Savaii tribal council that saw Ozzy off to Redemption Island. The tribe’s plan is for Ozzy to defeat Christine in their duel, point to Cochran as the instigator that divided their tribe, and then plant Cochran as a double agent within the Upolu tribe. Will it work? Or work too well?

“If everything connects the way we hope it will, this is going to go down as one of the single, biggest move in Survivor history,” Cochran suggests privately. He says that he’s been pretending to like the people in his tribe for 18 days and “I think deserve an Academy Award for that performance.” Whoa, what about the million dollars? Cochran has an answer for that, too. “First you get the ego maniac voted out. Then you get his Idol. Then you get the million dollars.” {whistle}

The same night, Ozzy appears in the Redemption Island camp to greet Christine. Little does she know of what has transpired apart from Ozzy might tell her. She asks what happened. “Idol,” he simply says. She asked who had it and he asks her to guess. She guesses it’s Cochran and he asks her, “How did you know that?” “From listening to people,” she replies! Ozzy privately says the plan is for him to take her out and plant Cochran as a double agent within the Upolu tribe. He calls it “possibly the craziest, ballsiest thing I could have ever thought of doing.”

Dawn breaks over Redemption Island on Day 19 as the duel is about to begin. For the first time, the witnesses to the duel are all the members of both tribes. Coach raises his eyebrows when he sees Ozzy come out for the duel, like “What?” Ozzy then spins the story about how he was evicted from the Savaii tribe with Cochran playing the Idol and “that from this time on, tribe boundaries at the merge don’t exist anymore.” Albert looks dubious and Coach is stroking his lip with his fingers, carefully studying Ozzy’s words and expressions. Albert leans over and tells Coach that he’s not buying it and Coach nods. After Ozzy tells his story, Jeff immediately begins the duel.

Duelists will have to build a long pole out of a bundle of large sticks and use the pole to retrieve three keys. The keys will open locks to a door through a barricade that the duelists are behind while they try to retrieve their keys. The first person to step through the door of their barricade wins the duel. The big difference with this duel from previous ones is that the winner does not stay on Redemption Island and they are back in the game.

“Here we go,” Jeff begins.” The first goal is to build a pole that is long enough and strong enough to reach the keys hanging about fifteen feet from the barricade. Christine builds a pole using fewer sticks with less overlap between the sticks that are tied together to make the pole. Ozzy is building his pole with the sticks overlapping for additional strength instead of length. Christine is the first to finish the pole and begins to attempt retrieving her keys. Christine’s pole is just long enough, but as she almost retrieves her first key, the stick on the end of her pole falls off. She has to rebuild the tip of the pole.

Meanwhile, Ozzy has just completed his pole. He’s the first one to retrieve a key, but it drops halfway back. He manages to retrieve it and then goes for his second key. Christine is still having problems with her pole weakening. Ozzy quickly retrieves the other two keys and he is already opening his locks even before Christine has retrieved her first key. Ozzy wins the duel! Christine is sent off and she walks the path going out of the game.

Jeff tells everyone that they can drop their buffs signifying that their tribal alliances are over and they are now merged. Jeff tosses a bag containing the Merged Tribe buffs to Cochran for him to distribute to all of the other tribe members.

Although tribal alliances are technically over, it’s assumed that the tribes still hold some semblance of an alliance within themselves. The plan is now for Savaii to take out all of Coach’s Upolu tribe with Cochran as the infiltrator. All it takes is one vote and the Savaii tribe can break the current 6-6 tie in tribe members to vote out the Upolu members one by one thereafter. But historically, both in politics and on this show, alliances have a way of shifting and breaking over the course of time. Sometimes very quickly, as we may soon find out.

It’s Day 19 as the merged tribe walks single file along the beach. Awaiting them is a feast spread out on large rattan mats, including bottles of wine. Dawn, a practicing Mormon, says, “I don’t drink, so you guys are good now.” Members of the two tribes who have never had a chance to talk with each other now share about where they are from and what they do.

Cochran privately says the plan worked perfectly, so he’s in a position to change the game. With Cochran swinging on a hammock and Coach sitting on a large tree root, Coach quizzes him. Cochran goes on about how Keith ostracized him. “Strategically,” Cochran begins, “I wonder if I am working with the right people.” Coach doesn’t buy it. “I’ll tell you right now,” Coach fires back, “you guys are trying to play us. You guys came up with a story, you sent Ozzy to Redemption, you have an Idol in your pocket.” Whoa! If Cochran wasn’t already pale before, he is now!

“There is a line in that sand. Come across that line,” Coach dares him as he literally draws a line in the sand. Now he has Cochran thinking and in private confession, Cochran considers the consequences of “jumping ship, betraying my own tribe and join Upolu.” Cochran joins up with Coach, Albert and Sophie and spills all the beans about Ozzy’s dream about Redemption and the whole plan. Cochran also goes and has a chat with Brandon, telling him about the plan and how he’s supposed to gather information. Brandon asks him who’s been the worst in mistreating him and Cochran says that Keith has been the most consistent in being against him.

Privately Cochran says he’s a strategist and a mastermind, “but not an evil mastermind.” He sees the Upolu tribe as being strong and honest and thus freely tells them what he knows. He returns the Idol to Ozzy, since Ozzy gave it to him in trust and he doesn’t want to betray that trust. As a pivotal person in the original 6-6 tribe split, he thinks he can decide how the game “takes shape and possibly ends.”

It’s Day 21 and Dawn is out for a walk with Cochran on the way to fetch tree mail. “What’s your plan?” she asks him. He talks about the undesirable result of a tie through drawing rocks by chance to determine who goes out. Dawn tells him, “I know there’s been a lot of disrespect” and that the two of them have been “on the outs” with the Savaii tribe. Dawn breaks down, feeling sad that people do the things they do to each other for a million dollars. She wants to do the ethical thing by being loyal, but she doesn’t like the disrespect that they have been showing Cochran, not treating him as an equal. He says it’s up to her.

Now it’s time for the individual immunity challenge! First Jeff asks Keith what the new tribe name is and it’s “Te Tuna”. There are two immunity necklaces up for grabs, for “one man and one woman”. The survivors must stand on a narrow perch and then use a pair of draw strings attached to rods to hold up a coconut. The last man and last woman to hold up their coconut win the challenge.

In the first round, Edna and Cochran drop coconuts and they’re out. For the second round, the ropes attached to the rods are longer, making it more difficult. Whitney and Sophie drop theirs, so Dawn wins. Coach, Rick, Jim and Keith drop their coconuts in succession, leaving only Brandon, Albert and Ozzy for round three. In round three, Brandon fails first, followed by Albert and Ozzy wins immunity. Thus, Dawn and Ozzy are safe at the upcoming tribal council. One of the remaining ten will be voted out and sent to Redemption Island.

Ozzy and the original Savaii tribe (with Dawn, Jim, Keith, Cochran, and Whitney) talk about the upcoming vote. Even with two of them (Ozzy and Dawn) immune from being voted out, there’s talk about drawing rocks to determine who goes out. Some of them, particularly Jim and Cochran, don’t like the idea of drawing rocks for a million dollars and reducing it to a game of chance. Those who think that they have better odds than that won’t want leave it to chance while those who think they could potentially be voted out soon would rather go with the random draw. They also talk about who to play the immunity idol on (found earlier by Ozzy) to protect one of their own members, and Whitney’s name comes up.

Cochran reveals to Sophie that the Savaii plan is to vote Rick out. He later meets with Coach and tells him that he thinks his tribe is “going to eat me alive.” Coach disagrees and says, “I think you’re going to eat them alive.” Coach is trying to sway Cochran so (as he privately put it) “that the nerd will finally rise up against the bully and give him a bully beat down.” Cochran talks with Dawn and she fears the outbreak of a “war” by flipping her vote. She has individual immunity and isn’t willing to rock the boat. Instead, she now decides that, unlike Cochran, she wants to remain loyal to the tribe and hopes that Cochran, for his own sake, does too.

It’s now time for tribal council. Jeff asks Coach and Ozzy whether it’s likely to be an expected 6-6 split. They both say yes, and Jeff warns them that a tie leads to a chance draw of rocks and it would take somebody to flip to turn the vote. Jeff asks around what some of them think about drawing rocks to break a tie vote. Cochran says, “I don’t do odds, I do Survivor.” Then there’s talk about whether one or the other tribe found their idol. Albert says he wonders if Ozzy’s story about their having the idol wasn’t “all just a show” and questions whether they have it. Ozzy says he has it, then “we have it” and “don’t take my word for it, just do it.”

“With that,” Jeff says, “it’s time to vote.” One by one, they vote (none are revealed). Now it’s time to play the idol if anyone wants to do so. Ozzy plays the individual immunity idol on Whitney. The votes are read:

Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick. A 6-6 tie!

Now it comes to a re-vote and they can only vote for Keith or Rick, who don’t vote. And the re-votes are read:

Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, and… Keith (!) is out by a 6-4 vote.

Whitney cusses. Cochran turns around and tells Ozzy and Jim that he swapped votes. Jim calls him a coward. Jeff snuffs Keith’s flame and sends him off. Jim calls Cochran a coward again. Brandon speaks up, “Don’t talk to him like that. That’s what you get for talking to him like that in the first place.” Hah, hah! Line of the night.

On the way out, Brandon tells Cochran, “Stay close to me.” Cochran has a new friend.

Next week: The angry Savaii tribe talk about ousting Cochran from the game.

Stay tuned!