Survivor South Pacific episode 7 recap, October 26, 2011.

Welcome to the seventh episode of Survivor: South Pacific!

It’s the night of Day 16 as the Upolu tribe marches back to camp from tribal council “and then there were six”. Coach and Rick, still loyal to Coach, talk after the council. They talk about Brandon’s unpredictable outburst during the council. “Man, if we get to the merge…” Rick comments, “and he has another like that, we’re screwed.” Coach understands and says, “We’ll keep him under control, man.” Rick continues, “I hope so, ’cause if he has another blow apart it’s like…”

In confessional, Coach admits Brandon is becoming a liability. “In this game, it’s kill or be killed.”

It’s time for the Redemption Island duel between four-time winner Christine and newly ousted Mikayla. Witnessing the duel are Sophie & Albert and Ozzy & Cochran. The task for the duel is to take apart a boarded crate, use the boards to build a bridge, and then flip the boards over to rearrange some of the boards into the Redemption Island Arena symbol.

Christine is the first to disassemble her crate and begin building the bridge, but Mikayla is not far behind. Christine finishes the bridge first with Mikayla still having to put on four more boards on her bridge. Christine starts turning her planks over for pieces of the symbol, with blank boards being discarded. Mikayla is less than half a minute behind as she completes her bridge. Mikayla makes up some time, starting her symbol puzzle just a few seconds behind Christine. Mikayla thinks she solves it, but the center pieces of the symbol are upside down and Jeff tells her that it’s not right.

Christine almost makes the same mistake as Mikayla did, but she but arranges it correctly and she calls Jeff. “Christine stays alive!” Jeff announces her fifth consecutive duel victory and Mikayla leaves in tears. Jeff calls Christine “a legitimate force” and Christine agrees, “I’ve always been a legitimate force. My whole life.” In confessional, Ozzy thinks the merge is coming after the next challenge and that it might be worthwhile to send somebody to Redemption to take Christine out. “That might be a big move worth making,” he posits. And a risky one!

It’s Day 17 and before Ozzy and Cochran return to the Savaii camp, Ozzy has a chat with Cochran. Ozzy tells Cochran that if they don’t win the next tribal challenge, then they’ll have to send someone to duel with Christine on Redemption Island. Ozzy says, “I don’t want to go to Redemption, but if it comes down to it, if it’s like a do or die situation, I will go.” He will also have to leave his individual immunity idol with someone for safekeeping. Whoa, this guy is thinking about putting his neck on the line to keep his tribe intact!

Meanwhile, we see Coach in a lagoon, knee-high in water, saying a prayer. “Father, you’ve been so faithful to me in this game. I give you the glory, Father. I priase your name for everything that you have given me to this point. I am not worthy, I am not worthy, I am not worthy.” Wow.

“There’s waves within waves in the game of Survivor to survive,” Coach expounds profoundly.

Coach, Brandon, Rick and Sophie are gathered and Brandon’s going on about the clue to the individual immunity idol, unaware that Coach has already found it. Albert and Sophie are the only ones who know he has it. Coach calls for a tribal prayer as they all hold hands, asking divine support in rejuvenating the tribe, finding the idol (which he already has!) and victory in the next challenge. Sophie privately thinks that Coach is “questionable” by asking God to help them find the idol when he knows he has the idol in his pocket. “It gives me a little bit of an icky feeling.” Just you, Sophie? Meanwhile, the other members of the tribe go fruitlessly searching for it.

Then while Coach and Sophie are out, they find tree mail:

You’ll garner trust from tribal brothers and sisters
and ensure survival if your “family” wins,
for an awesome reward, and respite from the game…
everything depends on the best pairs of twins.

Then there’s another one:

Today your tribe will paint your faces and
bodies, as well as adorn yourselves in your
best “Warrior Look”.
In the challenge you will compete in PAIRS.
Choose pairs of players to compete together,
Their face and body painting and their attire
should be IDENTICAL to each other yet unique
to the other pairs.
The odd tribe’s person out should paint
themselves in their own unique style.

Coach tells Sophie that they’ll go back to camp, grab the idol and the approach the rest of the tribe and say, “This is our day, this is our day.” Soon afterward, he announces that they’ve found the idol. Brandon celebrates by giving Edna a python squeeze around her waist from behind her. Brandon (unaware Coach had found it earlier) says, “It’s definitely an advantage having the Big Guy Upstairs on your side.” Good heavens, do these people really think God is playing this game with them?

Now it’s time for the challenge between the Savaii (left) and Upolu (right) tribes, each dressed in their “Warrior Look” with twins!

Jeff tells them that winning tribe will not only enjoy immunity, but also be taken to the Survivor Island Cinema where they will enjoy a sneak preview of Jack and Jill, starring Adam Sandler. Of course, popcorn will cost $10 per bucket and other goodies will be provided free.

One set of twins will be the “callers” while another set of twins will be blindfolded and collect bags through an obstacle course. After all of the bags are collected, the finishing set of blindfolded twins will open the bags and place masks on a rack, pairing them up only through the sense of touch.

For Upolu, the callers are Coach and Rick with Brandon and Edna initially as the blindfolded bag collectors; for Savaii, the callers are Jim and Cochran with Keith and Dawn initially as the collectors. The collectors just follow a rope but someone forgets to tell Edna to duck at one point and she whacks her head hard on a horizontal pole. After collecting the first bag, each team swaps blindfolded pairs within their tribe.

Going into the third bag, they’re running neck and neck and it’s still anybody’s challenge to win. Then Savaii takes a bit of a lead as Brandon and Edna have trouble making their way back and end up smacking into the bag collection table. The Savaii tribe ends up getting tangled up in their ropes when exchanging partners for the last leg and lose a lot of time. But Albert can’t yank the last bag down, while Ozzy and Whitney catch up and Ozzy forcefully yanks his bag off, giving them the lead.

Albert and Sophie of the Upolu tribe are the first to deliver the fourth and final bag to the mask rack and they begin placing the masks on the rack. Meanwhile, Ozzy decides to unhook from the rope and he and Whitney deliver their fourth bags. Meanwhile, Coach begs holy Father to intercede and help them win this competition. Sophie quickly gets the masks sorted out and paired up and Upolu wins the challenge! Coach leads a little victory prayer of thanks and praise to the Almighty. Sheesh, enough of this already! Do you think they’ll say a little prayer for Jack and Jill, too, before the movie starts?

Ozzy is mightily upset, kicking and stomping around. Jeff tells him it was intense and Ozzy goes on a rant about the mistakes their tribe made in the challenge, particularly with Cochran’s rope hook work. Recall that Ozzy had said he’d offer himself for Redemption, and now Cochran says privately that he thinks “that plan went out the window” based on what he heard Ozzy say just after the challenge.

We arrive to the Survivor Island Cinema, where a huge spread of popcorn, candy, hot dogs, coke, and other goodies await the Upolu tribe members. Not only are they given a sneak preview of the movie, we are too. {Cue several minutes of movie clips to induce us to really spend $10 for a ticket and the same for snacks, per person.} The Upolu tribe members are enjoying the movie and, perhaps even more than that, the snacks after eating fish and coconuts day in and day out.

Meanwhile, the glum Savaii tribe members trudge back to camp. Ozzy continues to rant about how they lost the competition that he thought they could have easily won. Cochran feels ostracized more than ever and tells Ozzy to go ahead and vent his frustrations on him. Now, Ozzy rethinks his self-sacrificing plan, saying “it’s a risk to send Cochran to Redemption, but it’s a riskier move to send me.” Cochran privately says that he thinks Ozzy is viewing him as “the court jester.” Cochran isn’t interesting in “being the hero” by knocking off Christine for his tribe; rather, he’s fighting for his own survival! He doesn’t want to go to Redemption Island. Who would, except maybe Ozzy in one of his off-the-wall strategic moves?

Day 18 dawns at the Savaii camp with Ozzy’s yawns. Ozzy decides to go fetch his idol and marches into camp with it, much to the surprise of everyone there. Ozzy’s talking about sending himself to Redemption island and Cochran says, “I don’t know what’s going on right now, it’s creeping me out.” Cochran thinks he’s in serious danger, but here Ozzy is telling everyone he’s not.

Albert says privately that he doesn’t agree with Ozzy’s idea to send himself to Redemption Island and that Cochran should go out as the weakest link in the tribe. Jim also thinks that if the tribe loses Ozzy, they’re in serious trouble in any future challenges if the tribes do not merge after the next duel. “Scary position to be in,” he adds.

It’s now time for the tribal council. This should be interesting.

Jeff asks Ozzy whether there was any finger-pointing after losing the challenge. Ozzy admits that fingers were pointed at Cochran. Cochran admits that he panicked when he saw Dawn and Keith tangled up in the rope and didn’t know “how to deal with it in a fast way… I’m usually calm and collected, this is a new experience for me.” Ozzy’s plan is revealed and Dawn gives details about how they plan to even the tribe numbers 6-6 with one of them defeating Christine and keeping their tribe intact.

Jeff says, “I’m a little confused… I hear you saying on one hand, Cochran, Cochran, Cochran…” To this, Ozzy replies, “The thing about it, Jeff, is I’m putting my life on the line.” Jeff looks amazed, “You’re putting your life on the line?”

“Yes”, Ozzy simply responds. “I saw my chance at my own Redemption, which has been haunting me since the last time I played.” The plan is for the tribe to tell a story to the other tribe that Cochran found the idol, used it to save himself, and forced Ozzy off to Redemption.

“So, Cochran is not only the villain but he’s the double agent,” Jeff comments. “But what if we don’t merge?” Ozzy admit that’s a possibility, but their plan is a way to totally catch the other tribe by surprise. And if he loses, “I’m going out on my terms, not somebody else’s terms.” Jeff adds, “If you lose tomorrow, then you go out a bigger fool than last time.” “Yeah,” Ozzy simply responds.

Jeff asks around for what the other tribe members’ take is on it. Keith thinks Cochran should be the one to have to redeem himself. Whitney agrees, expressing her concern about Ozzy potentially losing the duel. “We’re not at 100% without Ozzy.” Jeff concludes, “It is definitely a risky move. Let’s see if you have the courage to go through with it. It is time to vote.”

Just before the votes are about to be tallied, Jeff asks if anyone has the immunity idol, they can play it now or give it to someone else. Ozzy pulls out the idol and jokes, “I think I changed my mind, I’m going to let Cochran go to Redemption.” He laughs and Cochran laughs with him as he hands the idol to Cochran for safekeeping.

The votes are read… Ozzy, Oz, Ozzy, Ozzy and he goes to Redemption Island cheerfully!

Will the merge really happen next as they have assumed? And will Ozzy win the duel on Redemption Island?

Next week: Cochran says, “First you get the ego maniac voted out, then you get his idol, then you get the million dollars.”

Stay tuned!