Survivor South Pacific Episode 3 recap, September 28, 2011

Welcome to the third episode of Survivor: South Pacific! Tonight’s show begins with a recap of events leading to the ouster of Semhar on Week 1 and Christina on Week 2. We then join Semhar and Christine on Redemption Island on Night 5.

Christine meets Semhar, who is all wrapped up in blankets and sounds rather ill with a scratchy voice. As the two huddle over a fire, Semhar asks Christine what her tribe is like. Christine comments, “My tribe was not ready for someone who wanted to play the game right out of the box.” Christine likens Coach to “King Farouk… a big fat pain in the ass”. In confessional, Christine says she still has a chance to stay in the game. “The fat lady has not sung.” Did she just call herself fat?

Back at the Upolu camp, the tribe regroups after the Tribal Council. “We’re all here to see another day,” Coach remarks to them on their trek back. In confessional, Mikayla is confused why Brandon would want to have her voted out. “What did I do? What did I do? I couldn’t pinpoint a thing.” She is clearly unaware of Brandon’s inner turmoil at the mere sight of her.

On the other hand, Brendon privately says he was “almost 150% sure Mikayla was going home.” He seems to have forgotten about the Redemption Island duel to stay in the game, even if she was voted out. He realizes his plan backfired and he got caught with a blatant lie, which isn’t what he really wanted to do. “I wanted to be a hero, someone you could look up to… I reap what I sow, man.” Indeed, he could be in for a bumper (out of the tribe) harvest.

The next morning brings tree mail to the Upolu tribe, which Stacey reads. It instructs the tribe that they can send two members of the tribe to witness the upcoming duel between Semhar and Christine on Redemption Island. Coach “humbly requests that the tribe allow” him to go and Stacey asks to go with him. Coach privately says he hopes Christine loses so she doesn’t come back to the tribe.

We go to Redemption Island where Coach, Stacy, Ozzy and Elyse arrive and seat themselves as witnesses to the upcoming duel. Jeff asks Christine if she still holds any animosity toward either of her tribe members present. She says that Coach Wade didn’t like her right from the beginning. Asked about what it was like being alone on Redemption Island, Semhar replies that it was scary and she was alone, but she is ready to keeping going.

The challenge calls for placing a wooden totem on top of a small platform on a pole and then adding additional sections of pole. After assembling the pole while the totem is balanced on top, they will have to maintain their balancing of the pole and the totem on top. The competitor whose totem is first to fall is out of the game.

Semhar recites some rather bizarre lover “poetry” to “my honey, my boo” and both Coach and Ozzy look at each other like, “Yeah, right, now we see why she’s here.” Both Semhar and Christine both successfully get a second and then third section of pole on to the original pole and keep the totem balanced on top. Semhar eventually loses her concentration and her totem drops. Jeff gives her an brief exit interview and she actually looks a bit happy to leave.

Christine survives the duel and, while Stacey looks somewhat pleased for Christine, Coach isn’t pleased at all. Jeff tells the four witnesses that it’s up to them to tell what they want to their fellow tribe members.

Back at the Upolu tribe, Brandon literally treats the confessional like a religious confessional, saying “He {God and Jesus} was not pleased with me and I know my family wouldn’t be pleased with me… I don’t want to lie anymore.” We see Brandon on the beach together with the tribe and for once he decides not to hide his HANTZ tattoo, opting to take off his shirt and sit bare-chested.

“My name is Brandon Hantz and I’m Russell Hantz’ nephew,” Brandon tells them all. Stacey freaks out and waves her hands like there’s a fly buzzing around her head. “I’m not the same person he is. I apologize… and I accept the consequences for what I did.” Whoa!

Mikayla has that “whut?” look as it dawns on her that Brandon is a little more complex (with a complex) than she thought. (Did anyone else notice what else the camera operator shot in conjunction with Brandon’s HANTZ tattoo? Clue: They belong to Sophie. And what’s that tattoo on Brandon’s chest?) Coach and Brandon go for one of their routine walks and Coach tells him that it was good that Brandon came clean, “Honesty is the best policy.” Brandon comments, “I kind of had a relapse of what my uncle used to do. And it sucked!” Hmmm… you have to kind of wonder what uncle Russell is thinking when this hits the air and he sees this. (Duck!)

Finally we join the Savaii tribe. Papa Bear is on the hammock and privately remarks that the tribe is getting along well yet also adds, “But the reality is, in every tribe there is a pecking order.” He feels like he is not clicking with anyone at all and does not feel safe. Ozzy recounts his allies and goes out for a walk with Keith, telling him that he has the Idol, adding, “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have said anything.” What did Ozzy hope to gain by this? To complicate matters a little, Keith then tells Whitney about Ozzy finding the Idol. Whitney tells Keith that she’s surprised Ozzy told him. (Just you, Whitney?) Later, she’s helping rock his hammock while he’s relaxing on it.

We rejoin to Upolu and catch Brandon walking with Mikayla. She asks him, “So I just want to know what you have against me.” He doesn’t do a good job of explaining it her (how could he?) about her “attitude”. The conversation is tense and he feels like she’s a bulldog about to attack him. He rants on in the presence of several other tribe members and says to Mikayla, “You don’t have much of an alliance. Does anybody have anything to say?” And they’re all standing there quietly, like “what’s going on here?”

Sophie gets it all correct about “loose cannon” Brandon and his thoughts of Mikayla being a “whore of Babylon” during her private confessional. Although Sophie is emotionally removed from the whole mess, viewing it objectively, Mikayla is taking it personally and goes into tears while she is alone. Brandon says it’s a constant battle for him, “Good, evil… good, evil… good, evil.” Well, needless to say, his inner turmoils are affecting the whole tribe for the worse, particularly Mikayla.

Enough drama. It’s time for the next tribal immunity challenge! It looks like a water course with two floating footbridges situated just off of the beach. One member of each tribe will carry a body board attached to a long rope across the bridge. There they will grab a bag and the other members of the tribe have to winch them back on the board. After the bags are retrieved, the other tribe members will need to get a hold of the bags with a grappling hook to pull them over a wall. Inside the bags are tribe banners, which must be hung up on the wall in proper order to correctly display their tribal banner.

In additional to tribal immunity, there is a reward of jars of chocolate, milk, cookies, coffee, tea and sugar. Yummy! Also, the winning tribe will get another clue near their camp about the location of the hidden individual Immunity Idol.

Ozzy and Brandon are the ones from each tribe to race out across the floating footbridge with their body boards. They immediately have trouble as the rope attached to the board doesn’t have slack and the tribe members have to unreel the rope as they go. Ozzy’s tribe is having trouble loosening the rope, while Brandon’s tribe develops a routine, giving him a large lead. Dawn makes up the distance while she and Albert cross next. Ozzy and Mikayla go in the next leg and Ozzy picks up a lead for the Savaii tribe. Dawn and Brandon go the fourth leg and Dawn falls in the water at the platform, with Brandon regaining the lead for the Upolu tribe. Ozzy and Albert are the fifth and last pair to go back out and it’s a close race.

Next comes the grappling hook stage, with takes a bit more patience and dexterity. Whitney and Coach are the two doing the grappling for their tribes. Coach grapples the five bags more quickly than Whitney does, although she’s pretty good at it herself. The Upolu tribe are already hanging their five banners by the time Savaii have all five bags up. Mikayla directs the Upolu banner hangers from below and they quickly win the challenge! Now it’s the Savaii tribe’s turn to go to Tribal Council.

Ozzy says privately that it’ll come down to voting someone out who’s not good at challenges and it would be between Cochran and Papa Bear Mark. Papa Bear, lazing out on a hammock, talks with Cochran and tells him that the other five in the tribe are really connected, whereas they’re not. They both seem to realize they’re out of the loop.

Meanwhile, the rest of the tribe are arriving at a consensus to vote Papa Bear out. Ozzy tells Cochran that it’s going to be Papa Bear, so don’t sweat it, although they’ll tell Papa Bear it’s Cochran. They all go tell Papa Bear that, but he knows better and doesn’t buy it. Instead, he goes looking for the Idol, the only move he can really make. The rest of the tribe see him go and Elyse goes and spies on him. Realizing he won’t be able to find it, Papa Bear tries a ruse. He works at fabricating a fake Idol, hoping it’ll scare the rest of the tribe from voting for him if they think he has it. Little does he know that Ozzy has already found it and that Keith and Whitney are already aware of it.

Papa Bear comes out of the woods, cheerfully smiling with a bulge in his pants (no, not that one!) saying he found the Idol. This clearly puts Cochran, who sees through the ruse, in danger, so he wants to make sure the rest of the tribe do not fall for it. Ozzy, however, does not intervene. He knows Keith knows he has the Idol, but not that Whitney does.

It’s time for the Tribal Council. In response to Jeff, Cochran says he’s doing what he can to be an asset for the tribe. Papa Bear, on the other hand, says Cochran is “physically a threat to himself.” In response to Jeff’s question about being a leader, Mark says that in his professional life, he’s a leader, but for some reason he isn’t a leader “with this team.” Mark adds that “For some reason, the five have taken control”. (And, yes, they have.)

The votes are cast. Papa Bear, Cochran, Jim, Papa Bear, Papa Bear and Papa Bear gets his torch snuffed.

Next episode: Mark and Jim shake on a “done deal” in a “Survivor move” and Brandon’s “paranoia hits new heights.”

Stay tuned!