Lots of strategy and scheming happens in front of Nate while he is still with the Aitu tribe. He’s, of course, smart enough to take lots of mental notes to bring back to his own tribe. We’ll see how this all plays out for him.

Jessica in Aitu said that she was completely surprised by Cao Boi’s elimination. She said that no one would tell her who was going. (Gee, I’ve watched enough Survivor to know that when you don’t know who’s going, it’s pretty likely that it’s you…heads up, Jessica!) So the rest of the group comes up with a story to tell her.

Originally, Aitu had the following order for elimination: Ozzy, Flicka (Jessica), Sundra, then Jonathan. But they have a lot to think about before the next immunity challenge.

The tree mail was awesome. It was a catalog of things the tribe can go for in the reward challenge. Aitu chose a bag of potatoes and peanut butter. Raro chose peanut butter and bread.

Again, Ozzy is the biggest superstar of the challenge. There’s just no stopping him! Rebecca slowed things down for Raro, then gives the group a free shot at her breasts when her top was all out of place when she came out of the water. Brad wasn’t swimming because he’s “better with puzzles.” You’ve got to wonder how much better Raro would have done if Brad had been a swimmer. After the challenge, Nate got to go back to Raro. Nate was really p***ed off at Brad for not swimming. The whole team is now upset with him. (Look out, Brad!)

Aitu won the challenge and sent Adam to Exile Island. A huge storm blew up and he had to make a little makeshift shelter. It looked pretty miserable.

Ozzy caught a seagull and the group decided to eat it. then he did his tree climbing coconut gathering thing. They’d be stupid to vote him off at this point. He’s the provider. They’re thinking they should vote him off before the merge. None of the tribe members trust Jonathan so he’s a possible person to go too.

The immunity challenge involved another puzzle and getting puzzle pieces over water. Have they run out of new ideas for challenges? But take a look at Yul’s arms!

Finally, Raro won the immunity. They really needed that. That means that Aitu had to go to tribal counsel and eliminate someone.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Jonathan’s voice sounds exactly like Alan Alda? It’s a bit strange….

The team was debating about sending home either Jonathan, Ozzy or Jessica. Everyone got annoyed with Jessica because she tried to play all the sides.

The tribe talked about the whole ethnicity question at the tribal counsel. They all said that people made friends and alliances because of their personalities, not their ethnicities. I’m glad to see that my fears were unrealized.

Jessica didn’t see it coming, but she got voted off the island.

My college roommate used to have a saying: “When you least expect it…expect it!” Jessica should have known.

What do you think of keeping Ozzy around since he’s such a threat? Will he be the one to take it all if he gets through the merge? Do you think Jonathan is a player and he should go? Let me know your thoughts!

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Tonight’s episode of Survivor: Cook Islands leads us thorough the first 18 days of the Survivor adventure. We got to re-witness Billy’s admission of love at first sight with Candice (which she was totally shocked to hear about when back at camp.)

We saw Cao Boi’s mistaken mission for eggs that resulted in a baby bird being temporarily homeless. As an animal lover, when I first saw this, I was upset about the baby bird until they showed Jonathan and Cao Boi rescuing it and placing it back in the tree for the mother to care for. This was good editing, because I’m sure there’s a ton of really meaningless footage they have to sift through for each episode. I always enjoy the more unexpected things, like this.

There was a lot of discussion of the cast members’ thoughts on the division by ethnicities. I wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable with the decision to start the season that way. It just seems meaningless to me. And there was so much potential for negativity, prejudice and disharmony. I still tend to think it was a low point for reality TV…a bad publicity stunt.

We got to see Cao Boi give his traditional healing treatments for headaches that left marks. What a hoot! But there are times that I wish I knew the trick to get rid of my own headaches.

Some funny, never before aired scenes showed boats capsizing, people being uncoordinated, people getting drunk and some comments we haven’t heard before.

Adam and Candice nearly got carried out to sea in their boat and had to sacrifice it to get back to the island.

Sekou, the jazz musician was the first to go. Followed by Billy the heavy metal musician. I guess this was a bad season for musicians.

On day 6, Yul, the second person to stay on Exile island, found the immunity idol. We got to see unaired footage of how he hid the fact that it was found. He tore up the note and threw it into the ocean. Then he wrapped the box the idol had been inside in coconut husks, then set it adrift in the ocean as well. Very clever forethought! I wonder why they didn’t show it in the original show. I guess they have to leave some new things for the mid-season show.

On day 7, the teams “integrated.” They combined from 4 teams into two new teams. Now it was time to see if the old team allegiances would hold up.

Cecelia was the third to go, allowing Becky to escape elimination that had seemed inevitable earlier in the day.

Next, the women outsmarted and outnumbered the men on the raro tribe by making sure that J.P. was the next to be eliminated. His bossy ways would no longer be a problem in the camp.

Cao Boi, Jessica and Ozzie set out to look for food on a nearby island and ended up finding the other tribe. There was an awkward moment as the visitors joined the other team for stories around the fire. They didn’t seem to realize they were really not all that welcome. What a funny first…one of the teams dropping in unexpectedly on the other.

Stephannie was eliminated on day 14 after talking far too much about home and mashed potatoes. Then, in a double elimination, my favorite player, Cao Boi, and Cristina, the cop, were eliminated. Apparently, they both got on their teammates’ nerves. Even Cao Boi’s “plan voodoo” failed miserably.

Now we go on to see when the immunity idol will be revealed.

We’ll follow Ozzie who is the fabulous fisherman, the one who can climb the palm trees and bring down the coconuts, the athletic one that excels in the challenges. He’s such a fierce competitor that he will either continue to dominate or be eliminated because he’s such a threat. It will be interesting to watch how it progresses.

Nate has been kidnapped by the other tribe. He gets to witness some disharmony in the Aitu tribe. It will be interesting to see how all of it affects strategy.

Now only thirteen players remain. Stay tuned for next week’s details after the show airs.

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When it was first announced that this season’s Survivor was going to start with the teams divided by ethnicities, I nearly got nauseous. I was actually upset with the idea that CBS would pull what I considered a publicity stunt in very bad taste. I discussed it with some friends who watch the show too and quickly started to see several possibilities for how it would play out. I decided to watch before drawing my final conclusions.

My original opinion was that this was a HUGE step in the wrong direction for race relations. I know that Survivor has needed a more ethnically diverse cast, but to divide them that way would only cause negative attitudes toward the other ethnicities. I couldn’t see any way that this would be a positive thing.

Then, my good friend, Cindy, told me that she thought this might actually turn out to be a big positive instead. She told me that we would probably expect to find all kinds of stereotypes played out, but would actually find that there really is no difference after all. If the issue is put out there right from the beginning, it becomes a non-issue.

I had my doubts that to purposefully announce such a thing could have a positive effect, but was willing to wait to judge.

I agree that there really is no difference when you put a bunch of people on a deserted island and make them fend for themselves, but I did not want to see the worst side of people emerge to create added barriers to communication. Luckily, the teams took the whole thing in stride and decided to use it as a unifying bond between the four original groups. No racial slurs were thrown around in the competitions (at least none made it on the air) and the teams integrated after the show barely got started, so it’s now just a nicely diverse group of people on two teams.

I’m not sure that the original plan for dividing the teams by ethnicity even had an effect at all. But the controversy was definitely created, which had to be the real goal for the show. I’m still not happy that they decided to do this, but am relieved to see that it had no real impact on the show or the people.

I’m looking forward to a great remainder of the season and hope that the more interesting characters stay around for a while. (Go, Ozzie!)

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