Journal M.C. Hampster's Journal: Survivor: Pearl Islands - Episodes 3 & 4 7

Survivor - Weeks 3 & 4

Well, I screwed up and completely missed last week. Several of you had the great idea of me handing the job off to someone. Since it was such a great idea, and I hadn't thought of it, I ignored all of you. Ha!

So, for a quick recap of Week 3: Drake kicked. Morgan sucked. The Scoutmaster was sent packin' (Ha!)

Now, on to week 4!

We finally have found some trouble in the Drake tribe. Looks like a few of the Drake members are tired of winning becuase they would really like to get rid of some people. Some are even planning on purposely losing a challenge. Personally, I am with Rupert who says something to the effect of "DAAAT DERRS GOTTA BE THE STOOOOPIDEST IDEA EVER!!", which roughly translated means "No." Purposely losing a challenge is something that seriously ticks off the producers of this show because it makes for bad TV. But we'll get to that later.

Reward Challenge: Dig up some stuff and go swim and get some stuff, and then make a puzzle. This is a fairly standard, derivitve challenge on Survivor, but it actually made an important point. Just because you think someone is physically strong, don't keep them around if THEY ASK TO BE VOTED OFF. For a minute there it looked like Morgan may have actually WON a challenge (without Drake throwing it). But, of course, with the amount of time taken to go save their drowning member, Morgan managed to pull off one of their spectacular signature losses.

So Drake gets the third piece to their puzzle and finds their treasure. Now, if I remember correctly, Jeff talked of this treasure like naked women (for the guys) and men (for the girls and Burton) were going to hop out of it with bags of hamburgers and beer that would last the rest of the game. Instead, they find a bunch of nasty stuff and some chocolates. Yummy.

Again, we get treated to more of the internal politics going on in Drake. Looks like Burton is really wanting to get rid of Christa so he orchestrates a move to purposely lose a challenge. Now, it seems quite obvious to me that Christa and Rupert get along pretty well. So what does Burton do? He goes to Rupert with his plan. I really think that Burton and Shawn believe that Rupert is their good pal, especially with all of their teasing that Rupert HATES. So bringing Rupert into the conspiracy was just a stupid move. But, Burton hasn't shown himself to be the smartest guy of the bunch (i.e. losing their main source of food because he can't follow simple instructions)

So, the challenge this time is rather physical and involves throwing people into the water. It is quite obvious Drake plans on losing this one when they sit out the two strongest guys on their team. So Morgan finally wins a challenge after losing a record 6 in a row. And then we get the real gem of the episode.

As I mentioned before, the producers don't want the contestants feeling so comfortable in their game playing that they actually lose a challenge purposely. So, this time they've thrown in a bonus reward for the winning team of the immunity challenge. This is an absolute first for Survivor and obviously happened because they knew Drake was going to throw the challenge. And what is this reward? They get to pick one member of the other tribe to join them until the next immunity challenge. Of course, Morgan picks Rupert who is the strongest member of Drake. This is bad news for the Rupert alliance, and makes me sad.

But to make a long story short, it looks like Jon is a bigger friend of Rupert than he is of Shawn/Burton, and they end up kicking Burton off. Looks like that stupid little plan of his backfired. To recap, the moral of this episode is:

NEVER PURPOSELY LOSE A TRIBAL IMMUNITY CHALLENGE. EVER. EVER AND EVER.

Preview for next week: It looks like Rupert works pretty well with the Morgan tribe, which can only mean that he'll be sticking around a while. This is good news for Rupert fans and bad news for those who love the spoken English language.