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EPISODE 7 NOTES:

Here are a few important notes about Episode 7 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, despite some unusual setbacks, I am finally finished Episode 7. This one really took a toll on me in a lot of ways, and I will forever remember it as the episode that never ended. It seemed like I would never finish it for a while. There have been very few episodes that I've been THIS happy to just get through, if only because I want to get some normalcy back and try to stay with the schedule of one episode per week from now on (barring any computer crashes, alien abductions, attacks by dinosaurs, etc.).

2) I said about a week ago now that Episode 7 is probably the least eventful one since Episode 2, and it will be one of the least eventful of the whole season compared to what happens in the rest of the episode. Don't get me wrong, I still like this one, but aside from having a few moments that I think might be a little funny, there's nothing really that spectacular about it. It's an episode where Malakal probably should have lost Immunity and if I were re-planning out this story again, I would likely make that change. But I guess the Terry/Eliza showdown was okay - it just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. Maybe I'll be proven wrong in some of your comments, but I see this episode being one of the few this season around the 8.5ish range in your votes.

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

4) So this episode begins after Malakal's Tribal Council and Sherea and Brooke are both upset about Ami going home. They are upset with Alexis, Mary, AND Aras, but for story purposes, I focus the most on Aras here rather than the two girls. Ian's confessional kindof sets the stage, but it was very close to being cut, and if there's no Ian confessional there when you read the episode, then it did get cut. Anyway, the main thing to know here is that even though the women planned on turning on Aras at the next Tribal Council, Brooke and Sherea both try to say that they NEVER broke the alliance and that Aras was the one who betrayed them. They were definitely going to vote out Aras next, but they're trying to play the victims and say Aras turned on them first. This was partially so that Ian would be sympathetic to them, as Ian used similar logic with Tom in Palau at the Final Four when Ian said that he never got the chance to make the decision of whether or not to vote out Tom. There's a bit more on this in the Insider scene.

I shortened this scene down (it was WAY too long), so some of it might not have been clear, but Brooke and Sherea also tried to say that they could have been lying to the women about voting out Aras next, so Aras should have come to them first before voting out Ami. That was the other part of their argument.

5) We stay with Malakal for the next scene, where Joel opens up with a confessional about Aras and Mary, and how their relationship plays into his strategy. There's then a bit about Aras, Mary, and Alexis doing yoga on the beach while Mary describes her strategy and the three make the Final Four alliance that Alexis talked about in the last episode. Somehow Ian is consulted at some point, but it's just assumed that he is included right now. There's a brief clip of Kathy and Joel watching what's going on and Kathy once had a confessional in there about her role being just to stay put by the fire and watch everybody because she had a 360 degree view of the camp, but I got rid of it because it wasn't really essential. This scene is important for developing the Aras/Mary relationship and for introducing that four alliance.

6) Now we go to Airai where Eliza rambles on quite a bit about Ruth Marie being voted out and not liking the feeling of being blindsided. She does mention that it was very fitting because she gloated about Earl and Terry being blindsided and then the same thing happened to her at the next TC. That does show some awareness, which is good. Anyway, Tracy basically reassures her that she's not going to be next, and since I'm assuming you all know that Terry is voted out, this is a good time for me to mention this next point: the reason that I edited the last episode the way I did (with Eliza being cocky and negative, and Terry being somewhat of a sympathetic underdog) was because I wanted to be deceptive and make you think that Eliza would go before Terry - when really this would never happen. I just didn't want it to be obvious that Terry would be voted out.

Back to this scene, Kitty Pryde1 was definitely right last week in predicting that I was setting up a showdown between Terry and Eliza and this was it. Both of them basically starting promises that their allies from Malakal would flip over with the three Fans after the merge, and they were trying to outdo each other's offers. Terry offered Aras and Ian, whereas Eliza offered Ami, Brooke, and Sherea (remember, she didn't know Ami was voted off yet at first). Eliza also said that Ian wouldn't just betray people like that, which is probably true. So that was part of their "showdown." Both of them were also very annoyed with each other, and had a little bit of banter since they both knew they were openly targeting the other. Terry DID feel like he could get Mikey and Jason, since Jason had always talked about keeping the stronger tribe, but I'll explain why he voted out Terry later on.

7) Back to Malakal again, and this is a scene about another storm (I said there'd be storms in Episodes 7 AND 8, which is why I got rid of the one from Episode 6), and I didn't want this seen to be anything overly long or spectacular, but it was just to lead up to the Reward. Mary had a confessional about the tribe being dirty and miserable, and then there was the part about Joel being so rugged and looking like a cave man (of course, Joel was the one who didn't get to go on the Reward). I just don't like to have the Rewards sprung out of nowhere, so since it was a bathroom/shower-type Reward, I wanted to have a mini scene to show that the tribe needed it.

8) The Reward Challenge was one of the first challenge ideas that I had for this season when I was planning it out. I wanted to have challenges that incorporate parts of Micronesia and I knew that stone money was a big part (I used it in one or two challenges before), so what I did was basically adapt a challenge from Thailand where they had to arrange the pieces of a temple from largest to smallest. Instead of using the temple pieces, I decided to change it to stone money so that it fit this theme better, and I really liked it.

I actually spend almost an hour yesterday doing this exact challenge with household objects so that I could figure out what exactly the strategy was behind it. It's the first time I've *done* one of the challenges myself. I screwed it up the first few times, but then I figured out how it works and there were far too many moves involved for me to show every single one of them, which is why the challenge might appear jumpy in some parts.

Airai ended up losing again. I honestly didn't have a strong preference for which tribe would win this, but I knew that whichever tribe had Kathy would have to win for me to be able to give her her two moments of the episode (the Coffee Queen part, and the confessional about herself compared to Mary). I think that's probably the last time there'll be anything about Mary's breasts this season, but I had been waiting to have that confessional for a long time.

As far as Exile, Mikey was chosen again for the reason that Jason said later in the episode. They didn't want to give somebody new the clues, and Jason had already found an idol and didn't really need to be weakened anymore since Airai was already so worn out. So they sent Mikey back, thinking he would have a tough time out there. Mikey chose Joel since Joel was his ally and he figured he could get some honest information from Joel, as well as reveal the hidden Immunity Idol to him.

9) The next Airai scene is just a really short one where Eliza talks about her surprise and disappointment when she found out that Ami was voted out, and Jason also talked about thinking that Mikey has the hidden Immunity Idol. He wants to keep this information to himself for now though - until it becomes useful to let other people know about it. Also, he's still not 100% sure, but he's pretty confident that Mikey does have it.

10) Onto Malakal's Reward scene: I enjoy this scene as a whole, but it's mostly Kathy that I enjoy the most in it. I also like the fact that Sherea and Alexis were able to get some good narrative confessionals so that I could show them a little more than I have in the past. I know the beginning of the scene was probably fairly boring, but I think with Kathy's clip about the coffee and then the confessional with Mary, it got better. I don't really have much else to say though, other than the fact that I liked it.

11) Now we go to Exile Island for the scene with Mikey and Joel. We get to hear them telling each other a little bit about their tribes and what's going on, and Joel also attempts to influence what's going on at Airai by telling Mikey that he should get rid of Eliza so that the girls can't join up at the merge. This is a large part of why Mikey does end up voting with Terry at the end of the episode. What goes on at Exile Island makes the earlier proposed alliance of Mikey, Jason, Terry, Joel, Aras, and Ian seem like it will just naturally fall into place, but as we know, it doesn't quite work out that way.

Also in this scene, we hear a little bit from Mikey about how he's learning to be more of an outdoors guy when he had never been camping before, and he reveals to Joel that he has the hidden Immunity Idol, which I think was a nice scene and it was good to confirm who actually had it. Mikey is also NOT going to tell his tribemates (although he doesn't suspect that Jason knows about it), so with both of those guys not saying anything, it seems like it will remain a secret for now about Mikey having the idol.

12) The next scene is another short one at Airai. This episode has quite a few very brief scenes, but believe it or not, these are closer in length to the scenes in a regular episode - it just seems like there is no content there at all. But anyway, this scene gave a confessional from Tracy where she said she was getting tired of losing so much and also that it was her 10^th anniversary. As always, I like to develop the characters a little more than they are on the real show and I like to throw in these personal stories whenever I can just so you can relate to the character more. So Tracy was feeling guilty about being away from home because she felt like it was her own adventure and she left her family to go and do something for herself. Of course, whatever money she wins will help but she doesn't feel like she's playing the game for the money. And then I gave Terry a confessional about needing Immunity before the challenge. I could have got rid of this, but I wanted it to seem like he still could be voted out if Airai lost.

13) But before the Immunity Challenge, there's another quick scene at Malakal, which is basically an extended confessional from Aras. Like Sherea did a few episodes back, Aras is now contemplating throwing the challenge (he tried to throw one in my Exile Island story as well), and also like Sherea, his reasons appear to be pretty solid: 1) he wants to ensure that Terry is safe since everyone expects either Eliza or Terry to go, and 2) he wants to get rid of Sherea/Brooke, and throwing the challenge would ensure that one of them went home. However, he was still conflicted about what to do and he ultimately did not throw the challenge. I mentioned earlier that Malakal probably should have gone to TC in this episode, so again, if I were planning this out now, I most likely would have had Aras throw this challenge and Sherea or Brooke would have been voted out (probably Sherea, since Mary definitely wouldn't give her Immunity). But that would have probably altered the eventual outcome and I think that once the whole season is over, Airai losing this one will be okay.

14) So now we get to the Immunity Challenge, which combines a few aspects from several challenges, mostly from Palau and real Micronesia though. I realized after coming up with the challenge that there actually has to be enough intersecting letters to be able to spell out the phrase SAFE FROM THE VOTE (duh!). So I figured out that the only letters it would not be possible to get from intersecting tribe names are the 2 Fs, so my solution to this was that they were just given two letter tiles with the Fs on them, and they had to figure out all the rest of the letters. Of course this isn't a huge deal, but I want to make sure that all of the challenges are actually doable (which is why I did a real-life version of the Reward Challenge).

Yes, Malakal won yet again. There's a reason behind all of this though, which you'll start to figure out by the end of the season…

The one thing I do want to point out is that during the middle of the challenge, Tracy asked Joel to send her to Exile Island next time.

15) The Airai strategy scene: I don't really have much to say about this surprisingly. This scene begins with a general confessional from Terry where he talks about the fact that the numbers will be 8-4 for Malakal, and that he's hoping Jason and Mikey B will vote for Eliza with him. There's then a scene of these three men talking where Mikey returns what Joel told him on Exile Island. Mikey seems more interested in booting Eliza than Jason does. Jason is undecided at this point, and he has a confessional saying that it doesn't matter if they vote out strong or weak members, they still don't win. Basically, it ends up with Eliza and Tracy wanting to vote out Terry, and Mikey and Terry wanting to vote out Eliza. Jason ends up as the swing vote, and no decision is reached before Tribal Council. The three Fans agree to disagree; they agree to vote 2 for T, 2 for E, and let Jason decide, and the three of them are still going to stick together after this regardless of who goes. And Terry gets a final confessional saying that he's not going to go down without a fight - again. That's it for this scene…

16) The Airai Tribal Council in this episode is, again, not one of the greatest Tribal Councils but I like it because it serves its purpose well. I liked the question of Tracy sizing up the Favorites and talking about how they're just regular people, and then Eliza got to give her take on Tracy. That was important more for general character/story development more so than what is going on right now. The major part of Tribal Council was of course the "showdown" between Terry and Eliza, where they both fought hard for the right to stay in the game. Mostly, like before, they are offering their allies up as allies for the Fans after the merge, and it comes down to Jason as the deciding factor because Mikey is leaning more towards booting Eliza and Tracy is leaning more towards booting Terry. Then Mikey and Tracy get some other questions about how secure they feel…

17) You might think that a TCQ for Jason was strangely absent because usually when someone is the swing vote they get questioned about it, but I left this off because Jason would basically be restating what he just said in the strategy scene and I didn't want to be repetitive. The ultimate reason behind Jason's decision was that he expects to be around at the merge and he basically wants to win as many individual Immunity Challenges as he possibly can, so he thinks that even if Airai does lose another challenge, if he sticks with people like Eliza, Tracy, Sherea, Brooke, Kathy (the women, mostly), he will have an extremely high chance of winning all of the individual Immunities as opposed to having to compete against Terry, Aras, Ian, Joel, etc. So Jason basically decided at that moment that he was going to go with the (weaker?) women as a strategic advantage after the merge. That's where his head is at now.

18) Why does Mikey give Immunity to Jason?

Let me first say that Jason has been immune THREE times before the merge out of the six Tribal Councils that he's been at, which is definitely a new record for Survivor.

Mikey gave Immunity to Jason for a few reasons: 1) he couldn't give it to Terry since Terry gave it to him and you can't give it back to the person who gave it to you; 2) he obviously didn't want to give it to Eliza, and there still might be some uneasy feelings between him and Tracy; 3) Jason was the swing vote and by giving Jason Immunity it might have made Jason more likely to go to Mikey's side since it seemed like Mikey would protect him.

19) THEME-RELATED NOTE

I just want to comment on another one of the themes right now, which a couple people have brought up and posted comments about already. I don't want to give a lot away, but think back to the first episode where there was the quote about Eliza being the "ultimate Fan." Then, in Episode 2, Eliza says that she would definitely play the game with the Fans. Then, in Episode 3 or 4, Aras had a confessional about Eliza sinking the whole ship of the Favorites if they don't get her out before a switch. This is what has happened so far: Eliza was partially (mostly) responsible for instigating the Earl blindside. This left the Favorites down in numbers and intensified the rivalry between her and Terry, which opened the door for the Fans to blindside Ruth Marie. Now Eliza succeeds in taking out Terry, so all of the Favorites except her have been voted out of Airai. Will the entire ship sink with Eliza's impending ouster or will she be able to survive as the last Favorite on Airai???

There's more to this theme coming, so it might be something for you guys to pay attention to. Again, I don't want to give anything away, but I think it's okay for me to point this out now.

I decided that after the finale, I'm going to go through all the episodes with a fine-tooth comb and pick out all of the things that I considered to be important in terms of themes, foreshadowing, irony, larger storylines, etc. because there are a lot of them that I always mean to bring up and then forget. Some of the ones I mentioned above are definitely important though. Hope you guys enjoy this special look at some of these cryptic things…

20) So that's it for Episode 7. I enjoyed this one, but I think Episode 8 is going to be a lot better and it's much more eventful as well. I'm going to keep everything a surprise as not to ruin any of the suspense, but I'm predicting that Episode 8 will be one of the higher rated ones of the season. I'm trying my best to have it up next Wednesday, but if that's not possible, it won't be much longer after that. As always, thanks for your patience and continued support.

Thanks to all of you for being loyal readers. Hope you all enjoyed Episode 7, and I'm interested to see the comments on 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, especially considering recent events. I expected this episode to be somewhat rushed, or sub-par, but I loved it. Mikey and Joel's strategy talk on Exile was a great source of cross-tribe communication. That said, I'm left wondering whether Mikey's idol reveal could leak... Speaking of Mikey B., I kinda hated him during tribal council.

lmao What a cocky SOB! With him to the side, loved Kathy's reward talk as Kitty Pryde stated above. Haha it seemed almost perfect for her character

Amazing. So suspenseful. The Terry/Eliza showdown was awesome to watch and I was happy with the outcome.

Post IC fight for Jason's vote.

It seems Jason is now considering Mikey a big ally, but is he still closer to Tracy, who saved him a few rounds earlier?

The suspense of The Eliza vs Terry votes as cool and trhe detail and discription put into the episodes are really cool

Kathy's funny Speech and Terry going home

What's happening to Tracy?

I'm not sure what you mean by this question. In the last two episodes, she's been slightly less CP than before, but that's probably better for her chances, if anything. She's still an important part of her tribe and it's been mostly her plans that are going through and the people that she wants voted off get voted off, so I don't think anything's really happening to her character. I think you'll like her more again in the next episode since she has a strong presence.

Thanks for your Episode 8 predictions, and for filling out the Popularity Poll!

Finally, great Edgic Contenders and Eliminated lists. Theoretically, you might be able to eliminate a few more people (like Ian and Mary) since they both have an INV1, but I'm glad you're still giving them a chance to recover from that. We'll have to see how it plays out...

Thanks again for your comments, and for being a loyal reader. I definitely enjoyed reading your thoughts. Hope you enjoy the rest of the story. Have a great weekend! :)