Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites – Episode 2, "You're Not The Boss Of Me!"

On this week’s episode of Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites I was hoping for a continuation of the glimmers of strategic thinking we saw last week. I wasn’t disappointed. The strategies are already flying fast and furious this season. But are the strategies being flung around any good? Will these early decisions come back to haunt some of the Survivors down the road?

After the Tribal Council that ousted Jonny Fairplay, the remaining Malakal Tribe (the Faves) return to their camp. On the way back, Ozzy, being the Living Legend that he is, apparently catches some weird sort of fish with his bare hands. They eat it. The Faves are still pretty confident despite having to lop off one of their own. Jonathan is upset about getting rid of the person he wanted to take to the final Tribal Council with him (woh, slow down there Cowboy, you haven’t made it just yet). They think they can beat the Airai Tribe (the Fans) in pretty much any challenge…um…except the one they already lost, I guess…

The Fans Camp

Over at the Fans camp, things aren’t quite as upbeat. They realize they have no shelter but most of them seem to be more concerned with complaining about it than actually building one. Everyone else is consumed with seeing how much flint they can use trying to light one lousy fire. They fail miserably, not even able to start a fire. Everyone is mad at everyone else.

Somehow the Fans have split themselves into two groups with Kathy (the crazy), Tracy (fake boobs), and Chet (the gay) being in one group (the older ones) and everyone else in another. Kathy complains a lot so Joel (the big, muscle bound guy) yells tells at her and tells her if she wants shelter to do something instead of running her mouth. She decides to get Tracy and Chet and go live in this little cave. Unfortunately, Jason has already claimed the cave for himself and tells them they aren’t welcomed. He tells the camera that the three of them haven’t done a single productive thing all day and he doesn’t even want to be around them.

Tracy doesn’t understand why the “kids” don’t like them. Kathy says it’s like being in high school where she apparently was just as crazy as she is now. Them two and Chet (The Three Elders) decide to build their own lean-to.

The Favorites Camp

Over in Faveland, The Four Lovers (Amanda/Ozzy, Parvati/James) are shown being oblivious to the fact that everyone is aware that they all have the hots for each other. Time is spent telling the camera how they don’t want to appear to be couples because that’ll put huge targets on their backs…while we see everyone else talking about how they’re couples.

Ozzy catches the world’s largest clam – the legend grows…

I guess love was in the air or something in the islands of Micronesia because Mary and Mikey B of the Fans have the hots for one another too. The Fans camp actually settles down quite a bit once The Three Elders build their kick-butt lean-to and show the young ‘uns how it’s done. They offer to help the kids build them a lean-to. Then someone makes fire. Suddenly everyone’s happy.

Well, everyone except Mr. Testosterone, Joel. Joel doesn’t like Mikey B making goo goo eyes at Mary. Joel says what Mikey B is doing is straight out of “Player School 101.â€Â? Come on Joel, don’t hate the Playa, hate the game! Joel’s gonna keep his eye on Mikey B.

The Sounds Of Jungle Love

Two of The Four Lovers meanwhile, decide to kick it up a notch. Bam! Amanda and Ozzie apparently think a cave full of other Survivors is a happening place to get some crazy monkey love on because they start swapping spit and making jungle love noises which doesn’t do much to impress Cirie or Jonathan who think the two part-time lovers are pretty stupid. Jonathan points out that they should stop to think that someone else just might be awake.

I gotta go with Jonathan on this one. It’s one thing to be attracted to someone and to maybe think about wanting to get to know them better or whatever. But, to do it on Survivor is slightly crazy. To make out with someone on Survivor is a lot crazy. To make out with someone on Survivor after four days of not brushing your teeth is just gross.

It’s obvious that Amanda and Ozzy aren’t thinking clearly at this point. For better or worse they’ve now locked themselves into an alliance till the end. Both of them are probably smart enough to realize that a couple by themselves is a bad thing to be in this game so now they’re going to have to hook up with someone else. The most obvious choice has already been made for them because of the hook-up between James and Parvati (who are pretty much in the same boat). Cirie pointed out the concern the others will all have with the four of them now that they’ve hooked up.

The Four Lovers is actually a very strong alliance. James and Ozzy are strong and could be overwhelming in challenges. Amanda and Parvati are also strong in challenges and are both smart and strategic thinkers. The four of them together make a great team. But you can’t win with a team of four. They MUST add a fifth person into their alliance immediately in order to save themselves. The most logical person to add is Cirie.

Now, Cirie should want to join their alliance as well. The strength of the position of a single person is actually enhanced when in an alliance with two sets of two people (two dyads). The reason for that is that eventually each dyad will require the single person’s vote in order to avoid a possible tie and gain the upper hand over the other dyad. If Cirie were to be the fifth wheel in this lover’s alliance she would position herself as a final three candidate. Her position as a singleton in an alliance of five singletons is considerably weaker as there is no underlying motive for any of the other four to keep her in the group once they’re down to five. She could survive past that point, but it would be because of decisions that are completely beyond her control.

Unfortunately, the jungle love noises seems to have made Cirie lean towards The Four Flukes (Jonathan, Ami, Yau-Man, and Eliza). Cirie obviously isn’t thinking strategically, but then, she wasn’t last week either. The Four Lovers need to acknowledge their positions (no pun intended) and make an immediate move to bring Cirie into their alliance. Cirie is smart enough to understand the advantages of being in their alliance if The Four Lovers are smart enough to point them out.

The Reward/Immunity Challenge

Once again the Reward Challenge and the Immunity Challenge is rolled into one challenge. And it looks like they have decided to mix in some things we’ve seen in past seasons. In this challenge each tribe will select five swimmers, three puzzle-makers, and one key master. The swimmers will race over some floating things and swim out to a platform, climb to the top, jump off smashing a tile that releases a key in the process, dive down to retrieve the key, and then bring that key back to shore. Once all five keys are ashore, the key master will unlock a bunch of locks to open a chest that contains puzzle pieces. The puzzle-makers will then use the puzzle pieces to assemble a map of Micronesia.

The tribes are playing for immunity as well as a reward of fishing gear and a bamboo fishing boat. Jeff says the winners will also select one person from the losing tribe to go to Exile Island. He also says there’s another twist that will be revealed after the challenge.

So the challenge begins and the Faves take an early lead (Ozzy is the first swimmer…and we all know he swims like a fish…the legend continues). Chet is one of the swimmers for the Fans and he pretty much sucks. He can’t find his key. He eventually gives up and slowly…so very slowly…makes it back to shore so someone else can go in his place. It’s too little too late by then, though. The Faves have this one in the bag early.

Exile Island

With the win the Faves get to choose someone to send to Exile Island. They pick Kathy. I’m guessing it’s because she already has immunity and there’s an immunity idol on Exile Island but they don’t really say for sure. Now the twist!

The winning tribe also has to pick someone from their own tribe to go to Exile Island as well. They will both spend the night there and get the first clue to the location of the idol, but there is still only one idol. For some reason that remains unclear, Cirie volunteers.

So, off they go to Exile Island. Kathy is actually happy that it’s Cirie because she really liked Cirie on her season (although Kathy doesn’t remember what season it was – ironically it was Exile Island – also ironically, Cirie never went to Exile Island on her season).

Upon arriving they get the first clue to the whereabouts of the immunity idol. They waste little time and work together to figure out that the clue is pointing them to another island a short distance away. They swim over and find another clue. They have to swim back but then they find a third clue. The third clue forces them to do some more swimming. They’re both getting pretty tired by now but they keep at it.

They find a fourth clue, and…you guessed it…have to do some more swimming. It’s starting to get dark by then. They use the fourth clue to search some more but they have no luck (or at least none that we see).

King Of All That Is Strategic

Alexis tries to keep everyone’s spirits up after their defeat but no one’s having any of it. Chet looks like he’s dying…which we assume he is…in the game anyway.

It’s around this time that Mikey B decides to be King Of All That Is Strategic. Mikey is teamed up tight with Mary and thinks he has everything figured out so he starts spinning all kinds of scenarios for the others. Mikey doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. He wants some of them to vote for Chet and some to vote for Tracy…all on the off chance that Kathy gets a second immunity idol and gives it to one of them. Mikey tells everyone who they need to vote for. Everyone agrees…to his face.

Joel isn’t happy, though. Joel doesn’t think that Mikey B is the boss of him and Joel isn’t going to let Mikey tell Joel what to do. Well, that’s the gist of it anyway. Joel develops his own plan. He decides that he’ll get the others to realize that Mikey B and Mary are dangerous together and that Mikey shouldn’t be telling everyone what to do…and then Joel will tell them what to do. Joel will have them vote out Mary. Joel is man. Hear Joel roar!

Well, there’s problems with pretty much all of this as you might imagine. The first problem comes to us from Mikey B. Mikey started using WAY too much strategizing, way too soon in the game. The Fans are, by definition, fans of the show and are bound to be suspicious of anyone who wants to try to take over the strategy aspect of the game and “lead” them. Presumably, all of the Fans think THEY are the best strategist in the group. For Mikey to try to take on that role this early in the game with this group of Survivors was just suicidal. Or it should have been.

The second problem comes to us from Joel. Joel is almost as bad as Mikey because he does the exact same thing Mikey does but his only real reason for doing it is so that he’ll be the King Strategist and not Mikey (despite what Joel actually said). If Joel truly believes that Mikey is his biggest strategic threat as he claims then why would he want to take out Mary and not Joel? If Mikey is really that big of a strategic threat, leaving him in the game is the worst thing you can do. He’s bound to find out who turned the tables on him and launch a countermove. Mary might be less productive in challenges but she would also pose much less of a threat strategically in the long run.

The truth is, Mikey didn’t need to worry about a vote blowback at all. He was overanalyzing everything. The odds that Kathy would get the other immunity idol were slim to none. Mikey already knew that Jason was the target of the Three Elders. Should something unforeseen occur at Tribal Council and Jason got voted off, Mikey would have lost nothing. It would still be an alliance of six against an alliance of three. A seven member alliance is far too large and unwieldy to work anyway. There was never a reason for Mikey to worry about the outside chance that something might go wrong.

Tribal Council

The Fans all come in and light their torches. Jeff goes through the same old song and dance about fire being life before he gets right in to it.

Jeff wants to go back to the beginning so he asks Kathy how she got the first immunity idol (which is only good for tonight – her first trip to Tribal Council). To her credit, Kathy admits that she did absolutely nothing except blindly stumble by Yau-Man who told her to pick it up.

Jeff moves on to Chet and the Immunity Challenge. Probst points out that Chet was exhausted before he got halfway to the platform. Chet tries to act like that isn’t true and that he just couldn’t find the key so he decided to come back so someone else could look. Jeff isn’t buying it and he points out to Chet that it took Chet for-e-ver to make it back to the shore.

Before sending them off to vote Jeff simply must point out the divisions within the tribe. Jeff doesn’t think the two different shelters is a very good idea (but who does really?). Everyone gets a chance to talk. They all say pretty much the same thing. No one trusts anyone. Mary is the only one secure in the knowledge that she’s not going anywhere. Uh-oh!

With that, Jeff sends them off to vote. Once they’re finished, Probst tallies and reads the votes: Chet, Chet, Tracy, Mary, Mary (who is starting to get confused), Tracy, Mary (now Mikey is confused), Mary (both Mary and Mikey are confused), Mary. Because of the way the votes are, that’s enough to vote Mary out. The final vote isn’t read. Mikey is pretty much blown away. Mary is in shock. Joel is pretty much smiling from ear to ear.

After Mary walks away, Jeff sums it up: “From what I’ve seen Mary never saw that coming. Congratulations – first Tribal Council, first blindside.â€Â?

For some reason I think we’ll be seeing a lot of blindsides this season. It’s too bad for Mary really since she didn’t really do anything wrong per se. She got caught in the middle of a battle between two men who would be Kings (of strategy). It was really Mikey’s shortsightedness that got Mary sacrificed. Unfortunately, in Survivor, who you decide to form an alliance with can determine everything. Mary made a bad choice and suffered for it.

Favorites – Malakal

Yau-Man Chan, James Clement, Ami Cusack, Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton (Ep1), Cirie Fields, Amanda Kimmel, Ozzy Lusth, Eliza Orlins, Jonathan Penner, Parvati Shallow

Fans – Airai

Joel Anderson, Natalie Bolton, Michael “Mikey B” Bortone, Tracy Hughes-Wolf, Alexis Jones, Erik Reichenbach, Mary Sartain (Ep2), Jason Siska, Kathleen “Kathy” Sleckman, Chet Welch