Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites – Episode 4, "I'm Very Intuitive and I Know A Lot of Stuff"

On this week’s episode of Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites the promos promised us that the women would be taking control of the game. But was that the case? Have the men completely turned a blind eye to the women and allowed them to take over the game? Does Cirie continue to hold the power in the Faves? Who will gain control of the Fans?

The Fave’s Camp

Things get started the morning after the Tribal Council. Cirie wants to talk to Ami about why Ami wrote down Cirie’s name at Tribal Council. How she found out Ami is the one who voted for her is unclear. Ami says she wouldn’t have done it, but Cirie said she was fine with voting out Parvati until the very end. Cirie says she was fine with it, but she didn’t trust Yau-Man and Jonathan. I have no idea what any of it means.

Somehow Jonathan gets involved in the conversation and he and Cirie start going back and forth. Neither one of them is really giving the other the chance to say anything. Cirie finally breaks it down for them and us: She broke the alliance and he’s upset. He doesn’t trust her; she doesn’t trust him. Everybody knows it, and that’s that.

The Fan’s Camp

The fans are discussing who might have gotten voted off from the Faves. Joel is saying there’s been some dissension in the tribe (no, really?) so the immunity win was good for them. Someone runs and kills and eel that is near the water.

Natalie finally gets some face time with the camera. She tells us that she thinks everybody needs to work and have a role. She thinks she’s been working hard her whole time out here, but Chet hasn’t been doing anything. If she’s working so hard and he’s not, how can she not tell him to either pick it up or go home?

Natalie’s not the only one talking about Chet’s lack of motivation. We see him just sort of standing out in the water while Mikey and another of his tribemates discuss how little work Chet does. Mikey says that Chet is a physical and mental liability and is horrible for morale. He finishes by saying, “Chet is gone.” Hmmm…

Eliza Is Sick

Back at the Fave camp, Eliza is feeling pretty sickly. Eliza figures she’s probably the next to go if they lose immunity. James and Ozzy are beating themselves up for not voting her out instead of Yau-Man. He continues to rant and rave about this to pretty much anyone and everyone, even right in front of Eliza. Eliza claims that she’s just conserving her strength so she’ll be ready for the next challenge.

Ozzy says that he didn’t know Eliza was so sick. Eliza tells him that she’ll do better in the next challenge sick then Yau-Man would have done well. James isn’t really buying that. I don’t think I am either. Eliza tells them that the way they are treating her doesn’t make her want to do better at the challenge. James just points out that now she’s sick and has an attitude. Eliza tells the camera that she hates these people and almost hopes they get so sick that they have to be removed from the game. Meow!

Reward Challenge

On Jeff’s “Go,” four members of each tribe will swim out to a floating platform. One person at a time will then dive down to a 30 foot long cage containing tribe-colored coconuts. Each tribe has ten coconuts that have letters painted on them. The goal is for the diver to remove their tribe’s letter coconuts one at a time and place them on a floating bin. Once all 10 letter-coconuts are in the bin, the four members will take them back to shore where the four remaining members of the tribe will unscramble the letters to form a one word answer – “triumphant.”

The tribes will be playing for three egg laying chickens, a rooster, some chicken feed, a chicken pen, and three already laid eggs. The Fans will be sitting out Chet. (I’m thinking I would have saved his sit-out for the Immunity Challenge, but whatever.)

They start off with a blur, but I do know that Ozzy and Jason are the first two divers. Ozzy, of course, is the king of all challenges so he has already formed a superior strategy before ever entering the water. Since he is capable of staying underwater for long periods of time, Ozzy moves multiple letter coconuts towards the end of the cage at the same time. Jeff never said this couldn’t be done. Jason does not use this strategy.

At first it appears as though the Fans are ahead because Jason is the first out of the water with a coconut and then they have two. However, once Ozzy comes up, they Faves get their next three in quick succession. They lead four to two.

It appears as though the Fans try to use the same strategy Ozzy was using but with much less success. They do catch up at one point but then Ozzy goes back and gets the 8th, 9th, and 10th coconuts to the end of the cage. The Faves have their coconuts in the bin in no time and are on shore, working on their puzzle before the Fans know what hit them.

The most amazing thing about the whole challenge is that it is James who manages to figure out that the puzzle spells out “triumphant.” He says it out loud a couple of times, sort of wondering if it’s a word. It is, and it’s the answer. The Faves win!

Exile Island

The Faves choose Krazy Kathy to go back to Exile Island, of course. Surprisingly (or maybe not), Ozzie is the Fave who is chosen to go with her. They walk off together hand in hand. Nice touch, Ozzie, you devil.

Once they get to Exile Island, Kathy says she doesn’t really care about the Immunity Idol (and that’s why we call her Krazy Kathy). She says that she already went looking for it once and doesn’t want to go again.

Ozzy, of course, wants to go looking for the Idol. He tells Kathy that he’s going to go looking for food and heads off to look for the Idol. He makes short work of all the clues that Kathy and Cirie found when they looked and quickly uncovers the Immunity Idol itself hidden among some tree trunks and wrapped in some kind of material.

Now, Ozzy’s no dummy so he sticks that Idol in his big old hat and sets to carving a fake idol! That’s right, he’s going to pull a Yau-Man! He almost gets busted when Kathy comes looking for him but he easily fools her into thinking he’s still looking for food and then finishes up his task. He wraps the Ozzy Idol in the material the real Idol was wrapped in then places it back in the location where he found the actual Idol. He says he hopes somebody tries to play it. He’s not the only one!

Eliza Works On Parvati

Back at the Faves camp, Eliza is working hard on Parvati. Eliza knows that the Four Flukes alliance is all but done and she’s the next on the chopping block. Eliza swears to Parvati that she would be loyal to the end whereas Jonathan couldn’t make that promise. Well, he would make the promise, but he’d break it. Parvati says as much.

Eliza tells us she’s glad Jonathan is untrustworthy and pissing people off because she’s hoping the others will think he’s more of a threat than she is.

Jonathan comes up behind the girls and overhears Eliza talking about how the rest of the them should get rid of him. Jonathan tells the camera that he heard her and that it’s obvious she’ll say anything to save her own skin. But then, who wouldn’t, Jonathan? Parvati tells the camera that Eliza is trying to throw Jonathan under the bus to save herself, but if they went to Tribal Council they’d be voting for her so Eliza should be saying anything she can.

Immunity Challenge

Jeff brings back Ozzy and Kathy and asks if Exile Island was tough or an opportunity to get a clue to the idol. Ozzy proves that he’s playing the game by responding with a surprisingly believable lie about how he was thinking all the clues would be in the same place and it would be as simple as digging a hole, but it’s a lot harder than he thought it would be.

The Challenge: On Jeff’s “Go,” six members from each tribe will race to a six-point sliding hub that is secured to a stand with six locks (we’ve seen this on another season). They are given a keychain with multiple keys and each player must find the key that works for their lock. Once all six are unlocked, they must maneuver through the forest by moving, shifting, and sliding, being sure to collect some necklaces along the way. When the tribe has all six necklaces, the two remaining tribe members must take them and place them on a decoding wheel. When they are placed in the right order the letters will spell out a three word phrase – “Tribe Stays Intact.”

The Fans sit out Tracy. But even harder to understand is their decision to have Chet and Kathy be the two who will solve the puzzle at the end of the race. Really? The Faves let Cirie and Eliza do the puzzle solving.

The challenge seems to be over before it even begins. The Faves make short work of their locks and begin deftly maneuvering through the forest collecting their necklaces while the Fans can’t seem to even unlock their locks.

The Fans finally start trying to maneuver through the forest to get their necklaces around the time the Faves are coming back and beginning to work on the puzzle. It takes mere moments for Cirie and Eliza to decipher the code. Favorites Win!

Strategy 102 With Mikey B

When the Fans get back to camp, Mikey tells us his plan now is to pretend to be Joel’s ally and pretend that he forgives Joel, voting Chet out and keeping Joel around until the merge – and then cutting his head off. That’s Mikey’s brilliant plan.

So Mikey goes and talks to Joel and tells him he wants to vote with him. Joel, however, wants to vote for Kathy because she gets on everyone’s nerves. Well, Mikey wants to lose Chet because he’s the weakest and doesn’t deserve to be there. Then Mikey goes against what he was just telling us by telling Joel that if Joel will bow down to Mikey’s wish (my words) to vote out Chet, Mikey will feel a lot better about their overall position in the game because he’ll know that Joel controls the game but isn’t dominating it… Um… Okay. I guess I see what he thinks he means.

Tracy Begins Taking Control

It is obvious by now that Tracy, Chet and Kathy have, out of pure necessity, formed an alliance. I will call them the Flakes (not to be confused with the Flukes which are no more).

So the three Flakes talk and decide that they need to stick together no matter what. Tracy is smart enough to realize that she needs Chet even if Chet seems to have given up. She tries to encourage him to keep up the fight.

Tracy goes to Joel and asks who is being targeted. Joel tells her it’s either Chet or Kathy. Tracy offers up Mikey, but Joel says that they can’t afford to lose his strength right now. He says Mikey and Jason feel Chet is weak and run-down, and the rest will probably do what Mikey wants them to do.

Tracy can’t seem to get the big ox to do any thinking on his own so she has to spell it out for him. She first butters him up by asking Joel why he’s letting Mikey call the shots. That gets his attention. Tracy accuses Joel of just rolling over and she’s angry about it. Joel says he is worried about Mikey which is why he took out Mary…then he says maybe he should have taken out Mikey…gee, ya think?

Tracy further explains to Joel that she has the feeling that his name will be coming up fairly soon. She tells him that if they can get just one more person then they have enough people to vote out Mikey, but if they wait then there will be nothing they can do and Mikey will be free to get rid of Joel. (I’m doing the math in my head but I don’t think it works out that way.) Joel seems to be thinking about it.

Tribal Council

The Fans arrive at Tribal Council and Jeff begins the questioning by asking Jason if the game is now going to be even since after the vote they will have even numbers of people on the two tribes. Jason says the Faves have an advantage because the Fans have lost four of the last six challenges…but maybe they’ll make a stronger tribe after Tribal Council. Yeah.

There’s more questioning about who is weak and who will own up to not doing well in challenges. Chet is the only one to raise his hand. We all know he should be raising his hand. Jeff asks if they should be keeping the tribe strong for challenges. Erik does, but he doesn’t think strength is all about physical attributes. Joel agrees.

With that, it’s time to vote! But not yet! Jason interrupts the great Probst! Now, I can’t recall anyone having ever interrupted Jeff to say something else. This must be good. What do you want to say Jason?

Jason wants to wants to emphasize the importance of this vote in determining their future as a tribe. He wants people to really think about how important it is to decide on who they keep and who they let go. Um, okay, Jason. Yeah, I’m sure everyone will do that now that you’ve reminded them.

Now the vote. Now the count. Now the reveal. Chet, Chet, Mikey, Mikey, Chet, Mikey, Mikey, and Mikey. With that, Mikey is voted out of Survivor. He walks away without saying anything. Looks like Tracy’s power move paid off big.

Thoughts on Mikey, Joel and Tracy

Mikey screwed himself over long before Tribal Council. He started trying to manipulate and play dictator early in the game which was noticed and counter-played by Joel. Now, if Joel had made the correct move, Mikey would have been eliminated last time they went to Tribal Council. It was a colossal blunder on Joel’s part to eliminate Mary, a potential ally, instead of Mikey who would always be the greater threat.

Some would say it worked out for Joel because he got rid of Mikey in the end and he’s still around. The problem is, he has exposed his own weaknesses to the other members of his tribe, namely Tracy. Tracy easily played Joel and directed him the way she wanted him to go in order to achieve what she needed accomplished for her own benefit. Had she left it up to Joel, Mikey would still be in the game and would still be a threat to all of them.

Tracy made the best move by securing her own immediate safety (she isn’t aware that the previews tell us there will be a tribal switch-up). She shored up support among Chet and Kathy with her words then used psychology and logic to bend Joel to her will. Losing Kathy or Chet would have been disastrous to Tracy’s game as far as numbers go so she knew she couldn’t let that happen. The way she played it she not only got her way she managed to form a pseudo-alliance with Joel and whoever else voted with them. If they can shore that alliance up as a solid five they could go a long way.

Of course, we know things are about to change, but looking at it from Tracy’s perspective she made some smart moves. And they could still help her in the long run.

Favorites – Malakal

Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton (Ep1), Yau-Man Chan (Ep3), James Clement, Ami Cusack, , Cirie Fields, Amanda Kimmel, Ozzy Lusth, Eliza Orlins, Jonathan Penner, Parvati Shallow

Fans – Airai

Mary Sartain (Ep2), Michael “Mikey B” Bortone (Ep4), Joel Anderson, Natalie Bolton, Tracy Hughes-Wolf, Alexis Jones, Erik Reichenbach, Jason Siska, Kathleen “Kathy” Sleckman, Chet Welch