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Episode 5 - Jeff Does It Again!

Jeff Probst: Next time on Survivor: <The Airai tribe's flickering fire is shown, before the camera scrolls over to Mary, Jason, and Tracy who are all sitting around the fire trying to warm up>

Jason: Kinda gives you the heebie-jeebies to wake up and have rats in your hair… <The camera switches angles to show an expressionless Tracy nodding her head>

Jeff Probst: <narration> Airai's camp is invaded by four-legged friends… <A clip of two rats scurrying in the shelter is shown, before the camera cuts back to the three Airai members by the fire>

Mary: <to Jason> It's just creepy… <The camera shows an underwater clip of a reef shark swimming in the shallow ocean waters, and then fades into a wide view of both tribes gathered at a challenge>

Jeff Probst: Drop your buffs; <short pause> we are switching tribes… <An uneasy Eliza is shown>

Jeff Probst: <narration> It's Fans vs. Favorites no more… <The camera shows a close-up view of a male castaway's hand, as she reaches into a bag and pulls out a purple Malakal buff>

Joel - CONFESSIONAL: My world is spinning upside down right now. <The camera turns to Ian>

Jeff Probst: <narration> And friendships and alliances are broken. <A prominent sound is heard, as the camera cuts ahead to show several members of the new Airai tribe>

Terry: I'm seein' a lot of severed alliances. <The camera now shows a distraught Kathy>

Kathy - CONFESSIONAL: I am not a happy camper. <A prominent drumbeat is heard, as the camera shows rapid clips of several castaways from both tribes. The screen then fades out>

Natalie's Final Words:

<'Island Council' plays, as the camera shows a close-up view of a surprised and frustrated Natalie, who is sitting at a torch-lit confessional with several dark Micronesian huts visible in the background>

Natalie: Well, the vote was supposed to go six for Mikey and somehow I'm sitting here. Hmm. <short pause> I don't know about that. I hope it's because I was a strong, powerful, very intelligent woman, you know, which was a threat to them. I can't see why else I would've been voted out. <The camera now cuts ahead to show a later portion of Natalie's Final Words> From the Fans, I'm rooting for Alexis and I'm rooting for Mary only. <short pause> I honestly think the Fans are doomed, but I hope they can find a way to stick it out because they're both extraordinary individuals, and very deserving. <The screen fades out>

EPISODE 4 NOTES:

Here are a few important notes about Episode 4 and the rest of this story. Please be sure to read them so that you have a better understanding of what is going on.

1) Well, there is Episode 4. I think this is one of the most complicated episodes I've ever written in terms of everything that was going on, so I hope these notes will be able to clarify a few things for you.

2) Let me make a few general and theme-related notes here. Last episode we saw the rise and fall of Erik, and this week we saw the rise and fall of Natalie. Somebody (I think it was island sun) pointed out a possible theme of "being the leader = death" on Airai, and this is definitely something that I was trying to suggest through the editing. Tracy saved herself from this fate by stepping down in Episode 1, and then Jason took the reigns and became the big target. Then, Erik took the lead strategically and got the tribe to target Jason, but things turned around on him and he met his demise. Now, this week, Natalie provided to be the spokesperson for the three younger girls and also a strategic leader who took control and tried to oust Mikey. And we saw what her fate was? So now there remains the question of who the true leader of Airai was: was it really Tracy who was calling the shots or was she just meant to appear that way so she would be the target? Or is Jason or Kathy the true (unexpected) mastermind? And how does Mary fit in?

I don't realize how much I could have further used Natalie in this story until I saw Episode 11 of the real show. I definitely could have had her as an evil, deceptive villain, so like last week with Erik, if I was planning this story out now, Natalie probably would have lasted longer. But she had an important purpose in the story (that goes beyond Episode 4), and I'm happy with the way her character went.

3) The rest of the notes will go through the whole episode in order, and I'll also answer a few questions that I think you might have about what is going on right now:

4) So the episode begins with the aftermath of the crazy Episode 3 vote, and the younger girls are obviously upset about being left out of the vote. However, neither Alexis nor Mary seemed to be the confrontational type and Natalie definitely did, so she was the main person who spoke up to Mikey. Mikey tried to explain what happened, but both Mikey and Natalie were angry for their own reasons. After that, Jason vowed to try to forgive his tribe so they could work on becoming a team again. The main thing to take away from this scene is that the majority alliance was split along gender lines because Joel and Mikey lost the trust of Natalie-Alexis-Mary. For simplicity's sake, Mary is just being grouped in with the girls.

5) Then we have another Airai scene. This one focuses mostly on Kathy and I really like this scene. It's one that would be a lot better to see on the show, but hopefully it's still fun to read about. The gist of it: Kathy gets up really early, goes for walks every day and she always takes the machete with her, which makes the tribe unable to do things like chop coconuts, etc. She basically describes that she encountered sea snakes, she can see crabs moving on the beach, and talks about possible hallucinations. It goes back-and-forth a few times from Kathy to her tribemates wondering where she disappeared to, etc. The scene was not absolutely critical, but it was meant to establish a bit more of Kathy's character so that she seemed like a possible boot target if Airai lost.

6) Now we move on to the first Malakal scene, which is the other half of what was supposed to be in Episode 3. Last week focused on the women, and this week, we focus on Ian and Earl's alliance and strategy. Basically, they pick up on the women coming together (which actually is, in part, due to Ian/Earl's close bond) and they begin their counter-move against it. Recall that in Episode 3 Brooke had a confessional saying that there might still be some loyalty to Ian and Earl as the original alliance. Well, here's where it comes up because I/E want to secure Brooke in the Final Three AND get her to vote with the four guys. Please see the 'insider clips' for a secret scene of when Terry and Aras are brought into the alliance. The problem is that I/E want to vote out ELIZA and as we know, Brooke and Eliza also have a secret alliance, so that's not going to go over too well. But this scene is important for establishing Earl and Ian as characters, and for showing Brooke's position in the tribe, which is basically in an alliance with everyone (except sortof Terry and Aras).

What is Brooke's cunning plan that she speaks of?

I'm not going to reveal this quite yet because it might reveal whether it does or not happen, but Brooke definitely has a pretty decent strategy to deal with all of her alliances, and I'll talk more about what it is within the next episode or two. I just don't want to reveal it and ruin a surprise of what it is/if it comes true.

7) Back to Airai again, and this is the scene that I said was similar to something in Episode 3: Last week, we saw the women of Malakal forming a women's alliance. This week, Natalie tries to orchestrate a women's alliance on Airai. She feels miffed about not being included in the full plans last time, and she's done with Mikey and Joel. So Natalie goes to Tracy and says that she wants to have an alliance of the five women plus Jason, but this is where she makes her game-ending mistake because she tells Tracy that the two of them are strategically ahead of everyone else, which makes herself a threat to Tracy. The fact that she also says she has two votes locked up, and Tracy has Kathy and Jason makes the younger girls a force to be reckoned with because it would eventually come down to 3-3. Anyways, Natalie talks to Tracy and then they both tell Kathy. Both women are nervous about the arrangement though because Kathy does not feel comfortable with the younger women and they both feel that Natalie's manipulative skills make her a big threat. I liked Kathy's comment about Natalie putting people under her Fembot spell.

8) The Reward Challenge is one that has appeared on the real show before and I really don't have much to say about it other than the fact that Aras and Terry once again performed extremely well for the Favorites and kept them in the game. I cut this out of the rules, but each tribe had to have a pair of two men, two women, and then a co-ed pair, which is why Eliza was holding the weight with Earl instead of Ian. Malakal probably should have sat out Eliza instead of Sherea, but they won the challenge anyway and I needed to have Sherea sit out so the part about her throwing Immunity could work.

Again, Malakal won and Eliza brought up a good point that they shouldn't send Jason again because he obviously found the idol. This time, they went with Mikey B for two reasons: 1) the losers comment that he made upset some of the Favorites; 2) Jason told Eliza that Mikey couldn't survive on his own, which is why I specifically mentioned that in Episode 2 as the only "true thing" that Jason said. And then Mikey copied Jason's strategy of picking Ruth Marie for the exact same reasons. More on that later…

9) The Malakal victory scene: not much to say on this one other than the fact that it let me showcase Ian a little bit more and draw some parallels to him being on a winning tribe in both seasons. I liked that part of it, but other than that, there really wasn't much going on. Ami and Sherea got pretty typical confessionals. Ami's was a little bit more significant game-wise whereas Sherea's was just explaining the Reward.

10) The next scene is Exile Island, and instead of showing them looking for the idol, I showed a night scene of Mikey and Ruth Marie suffering from a storm. This (sortof) ties in to something later in the episode, which sortof ties in to something later in the season. But the main thing is that neither castaway is shown looking for the idol, although RM does tell Mikey about the way the clues work. They each got an obligatory confessional, but nothing too significant there either.

11) Now we go back to Airai again, where Joel talks about hating to lose 5 challenges in a row. Alexis gets a pretty standard confessional about the tribe needing to win (there was actually more from her earlier in the episode that was cut out, again), and then Jason has a confessional about the importance of the Immunity Challenge. He does give some advice for the challenge, which is only noteworthy because Kathy completely falls apart and doesn't follow what he says.

12) In the final Malakal scene, Terry and Ami have a very minor spat about whether they should get water before a challenge, which prompts Sherea's confessional about wanting to lose the challenge on purpose because she's tired of waiting around to vote out Terry. She explains her position to the women who all immediately say no. Eliza is generally opposed to throwing challenges, Ami wants to keep their numbers, and Brooke doesn't want to reveal which side she is really on. Three clear reasons, but I must say that Sherea's reasoning actually made sense too. Image if the tribes were switched and it ended up with Terry or Aras and then a couple of the Malakal girls, Terry/Aras might flip over with the Fans. And if they end up together on a switched tribe, that tribe could win a lot of challenges. So it did kindof make sense to get rid of one of them, but it's also good for Malakal to go into a switch with numbers. Whether they'll stay together, though, is a different story. So Eliza gets a confessional about worrying about the challenge and then we go to Immunity… Oh, and this scene was supposed to cause some doubt about which tribe would go to TC since they both had some relevant story this week.

13) I really like this challenge, and it's another one that I would like to see on TV because something like Kathy's breakdown or panic attack can really not be fully enjoyed in this form. She is crying and sobbing during the challenge though and she loses A LOT of time for Airai, just like Sherea loses a lot of time for the Favorites. Sherea does try to throw the challenge (remember, the men don't know), and Aras watches in horror as she screws up on purpose and makes it really obvious. Her other tribemates are still blindfolded, but Eliza knows what is going on, so Ami yells that Sherea would be voted out if the Favorites lose, which ultimate kicks Sherea back into gear.

Then, Kathy goes out for Airai and the Fans, who were actually winning for once (due to Sherea wasting time), completely fall apart. Kathy, for some reason, begins to panic in the dark and starts crying and sobbing. She mentally breaks down for a while, loses track of what's going on around her and therefore can't hear what Joel is saying, so she ends up single-handedly costing Airai their first victory since Episode 1. The Favorites take home Immunity despite Sherea's attempt to throw the challenge. She could be in hot water after that…

14) Time for me to explain the crazy dynamics on Airai. This will be a challenge, but let me say that I set out to make this tribe of Fans extremely chaotic and dysfunctional. I hope you feel I succeeded in that. The thing I love about this scene is that practically the entire tribe was legitimately in danger of being voted off at one point, and I will go through everything in order and clarify things as best as I can:

Target #1: KATHY

--- MIKEY comes back from Exile Island certain that everyone is going to vote off Kathy because she was so bad at the challenge. JOEL has now focused his attention on unifying the tribe and thinks that voting out Kathy would be the best thing for everyone because it's a clear reason for her to go that everyone can agree on. Despite the fact that the women had aligned, even KATHY feels like she might be voted out by everyone.

Target #2: MIKEY

---TRACY decides that she's going to give Kathy her Immunity so that that option is no longer there, and the former majority alliance will be more likely to keep itself split. The women are still planning on voting out Mikey. NATALIE believes that Mikey did not find the hidden Immunity Idol and that Mikey will be voted out, so she decides to vent her frustration with him thinking that he can't do anything about it

***NOT SHOWN IN THE EPISODE: Target #3: JOEL, but really still Mikey

---Taking a page from Mikey's book last time, NATALIE explains that just incase Mikey *did* find the idol, Tracy and Kathy should both vote for Joel. That way, the vote would be 4 for Mikey, 2 for Joel, and 2 for whoever Mikey/Joel voted for. There would be a revote and the women would all vote Joel out with only 1 vote going to whoever Joel voted for. I did not show this part of the plan in the episode because it was not important to what really happened, and it would have made the strategy scene way too long! This plan ultimately doesn't go through.

Target #4: NATALIE

---Because of the above plan and because of other instances (such as when Natalie said her and Tracy are the best at strategy), TRACY and KATHY worry about Natalie's ability to manipulate and they start to think about voting her off to get rid of the biggest threat. KATHY says that it's better to have 3, 2, and 2. This is referring to the fact that it would be T/K/J, Alexis and Mary, and then Joel and Mikey as opposed to T/K/J, Alexis/Mary/Natalie/ and Joel.

---We temporarily go back to Target #1 before TRACY reveals that she is giving her Immunity to KATHY

Target #5: TRACY

---MIKEY and JOEL begin to feel that Tracy is too powerful and they consider trying to take her out, but they realize they don't have the votes for it. I imagine they tried to talk to the three younger girls but it didn't go over well.

Target #6: ALEXIS

---This wasn't really shown too much in the episode, but Joel initially wanted Alexis over Natalie because Natalie supposedly worked harder

---In the end, with Mary's input (see insider clip), it was decided that Natalie was going to go, which was always going to happen anyway, since she was the biggest threat to T/K/J. Mikey and Joel went along with it knowing that their 2 votes could not upset the balance of power at all, and once again, they will return from Tribal Council as a tribe divided.

15) Just a quick note about Mary: the reason she is INV1 or close to it in this episode is because if I added her in as another layer to the strategizing, I think it would have been WAY too hard to follow. But I think her secret scene is really important to understanding what her position in the tribe is and I encourage you all to look at it. For the first time, I decided to write out a full confessional so that Mary could explain things herself. Basically, she did know that Natalie was going to be voted out, but she didn't want to vote for Natalie or Mikey since she's close with both of them so she voted for Tracy instead, knowing (presumably) that Tracy would be safe.

With Natalie going home, the potential danger to T/K/J would be that the other four would team up against them, but as Mary said in the interview, she was approached about being the fourth member in the T/K/J alliance, which would prevent that counter-alliance was forming if she goes with it. So that's where Mary's at right now, and I promise that FINALLY you'll see more of Mary and Alexis in the next episode.

16) I like this Tribal Council again, although the Q & A session is definitely not as great as it was last week. Kathy cries about losing the challenge again, and the rest of the questions are mostly about how to improve the tribe and what they can do to start winning. Joel contradicts his answers from last week, but I liked the fact that he admitted he wasn't an expert on the game and he was learning as he went along. He did have a bit of a rocky start strategically, so maybe he'll start to understand the game a little more as time goes on. The other noteworthy thing in that Natalie admitted in front of everyone that she was strong strategically and that she was a good persuader, which sealed her fate because this is the true reason why she was voted out now. And Mikey has a short rant before they vote.

17) So Tracy gave up her Immunity to Kathy like she said she was going to…

Would Kathy have been voted out if she was still an option?

This is a hard question for me to answer. I never planned on having Kathy voted out at this point, so I don't think that the Immunity actually saved her life in the game. I think it was more of a way of ensuring that the votes stayed between Natalie and Mikey, and also because Kathy can now give the Immunity to Jason again next time. The rule is that you can't give it to the person who gave it to you, so Kathy can't give it to Tracy.

If Tracy wanted to be very safe, she would have given it to Mary who was the only person who wasn't really in danger, but then there was no guarantee of what direction Mary would go with it after that.

Why was Jason not a target this time?

Erik was the main person really pushing for Jason to go, that alliance split up between the girls and the guys so there wouldn't be enough votes to vote him out, and Joel admitted that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

18) And we have another blindside - one that did *not* involve the hidden Immunity Idol, but that came about from a lot of complex strategizing instead. I definitely prefer that to what was happening on the real show at the end. Now Alexis is left kindof on her own, since Mary was aware of what was going on. There is going to be a lot of interesting tribal dynamics in Episode 5, especially because…

19) There is a tribal switch in Episode 5, and Malakal has a 9-7 advantage. The good: I guarantee that the story continues to get really interesting over the next few episodes. The bad: it appears, right now, as if there's a lot of unresolved story lines on Malakal that went nowhere --- but that is not true. My planning for these stories is always really extensive, and the things that went on at Malakal will definitely link up with other story lines and some of the loose ends will be tied up. There is definitely importance to all of the stuff that has gone on in the story so far.

As I said already, I feel that this episode was one of the most complicated ones ever. For those of you who enjoyed that, I'm glad and there will be a few more of these types of episodes. For those of you who didn't enjoy that, don't worry --- I don't think there's any that will be quite *this* complex, and I'm not going to lose sight of my main goals which are character-development and story-telling over strategy.

20) So that's it for Episode 4. I was very, very pleased by the response to Episode 3. The number of comments was really high and everyone seemed to like the episode. I look forward to seeing what the responses are like to Episode 4. My personal thought is that it did NOT exceed Episode 3, as I thought it might, but I still like this one.

My sincere thanks to you for reading this episode. I'm amazed to still have so many people reading and commenting into the seventh season. I would greatly appreciate it if you could spend a few minutes to leave some comments on the episode and let me know what you thought. Thanks in advance for all the replies!

Best regards,

- Guatemala fanfic

Great episode!!!I loved the tension in the end with a lot of castaways in the chopping block

The Tribal council... Amazing!!!

10!!!

I don't understand why Tracy didin't want to stick with the women, it seemed, for me at least, the best choice, because she never had nothing with Joel and Mikey B, and Natalie promised a final six to her.

Terry - UTRN1 (N because he looked obnoxious in the scene with Ami and Sherea)

I enjoyed, though i still prefer episode 3. It's kind of funny that the alliance at power in Airai is the one who was the weakest on the real show.

I really enjoyed the strategizing, and with the tribal switch it's going to be a mess.

Mikey being called out by Natalie

8

I liked it a lot, actually. Some very interesting dynamics at the Airai camp for sure. It was interesting to see so many potential vote-outs, yet it ended up working very well. Thanks for the Ian/Earl development!

Smiled at Mikey's "Ridonculous" line. Also loved seeing Natalie getting voted out early. I think you got her character perfectly. I can almost hear all of the italicized words you write for her...So definitely a great interpretation of her

Well there will be a shuffle so that's a little hard