Filmed: July 5-7, 2005 | Aired:
October 6, 2005
- Not really an Ep4 Reward challenge: "Tribal
Switch" - Sure, Jamie, Danni, Gary, Bobby Jon, Gary (again),
Amy, Margaret, and Judd get rewards. But other people get
screwed (Brooke, Blake, Brian, and Amy, mostly), as half of
one tribe moves to the other, and vice-versa.
- Ep4 Immunity challenge: "Rows
and Throws" - Yaxhá wins. Thanks, Judd.
- Voted out: Brooke, 5-3 over Lydia.
Thanks again, Judd.
Episode 4 scoring notes
- Lydia sits out the IC (alternatively: Lydia sits out all
the challenges in this episode). Apart from that, simple
scoring, although an overall odd episode, as swaps go. An
odd (but interesting) mechanism for swapping tribes (at an
odd time) that, in its favor, managed to produce two
(three?) surprise reveals, with the latter two (?) coming as
the oblivious picnic attendees returned to their
now-infiltrated camps. But it's also notable for what didn't
happen:
- No throwing of the IC: It's weird that, handed a
tailor-made 4-3 advantage on NuYaxhá, the
ex-Nakúms (Bobby Jon, Danni, Brandon, Blake) never even
seemed to think of simply throwing the IC. Clearly, they
couldn't have dreamed up an easier challenge in which to do
so. Maybe it was the earliness of the swap (Day 9! 15 people
left!), and people were worried there might be more than
three boots left before the merge. Maybe the just-played-out
Palau season's lack of a merge so scarred everyone
(especially Bobby Jon) that nobody wanted to gamble on
running their just-swapped tribe into the ground and
coasting on a 4-3 majority. Maybe it was, as Brian suggests
on twitter,
the ex-Nakúms would never even consider throwing a
challenge. Their loss, we guess. Or, more accurately, their
ill-advised win.
- No talk of an all-female alliance on NuNakúm: Again,
here was another built-in majority, this time a 5-3
advantage for women on what was otherwise the evenly split,
4-4 swapped tribe. Furthermore, Cindy/Margaret/Brooke seemed
at best distantly connected to Judd (and vice-versa,
obviously), and they seemed to get along quite well with
Lydia. And for the past two Yaxhá votes, women had been
the sole vote recipients because of some crazy notion that
they were inferior in challenges (except that Rafe actually
was, it's just that his failure was displaced by Brianna's
... recency bias). We'd guess the impediment here was
Stephenie. She seemed to have little use for her female
tribemates, and seemed locked in with Jamie and Judd almost
immediately (with the familiar "we have to keep the tribe
strong" talk, which to be fair, is what she should be saying
to them ... it's just that we suspect that's what she
actually thought).
- The parade of highly implausible lying: Which is
less believable? Gary's "Oh yeah, I went to Central
Michigan, but I didn't play" in response to Danni nailing
his college football team? Or could it be Judd's "Oh yeah,
you've really got my wheels turning!" as Margaret points out
(correctly!) that siding with the four Yaxhás here
simply moves Judd to the end of the Nakúm boot order?
It's so hard to choose.
Vote count:
- Brooke received 5 votes, from Stephenie,
Rafe, Lydia, Judd, and Jamie (voted out, 5-3).
- Lydia received 3 votes, from Cindy,
Margaret, and Brooke.