Episode 5: "Crocs, Cowboys, and
City Slickers"
Survivor:
Guatemala boxscores Episode
5
Filmed: July 8-10, 2005 | Aired:
October 13, 2005
- Ep5 Reward challenge: "Slave to the Grind" - Yaxhá wins, thanks to Brandon's super-heroic stone chopping technique, and Jamie's lack thereof. Yaxhá gets a pool, chips, guac, and several earfuls of Blake's stories.
- Ep5 Immunity challenge: "What's for Launch" - Nakúm wins, 5-2. Jamie rejoices loudly.
- Voted out: Blake, 5-2 over Brian.
Episode 5 scoring notes
- Even tribes, no sit-outs (even though only one Nakum participated in the RC), and no vote splits. A straightforward episode, scoring-wise. Still, a strategically curious episode from Danni. She had an easy, no-brainer path to the merge by simply keeping to original tribal lines, and voting off Brian. Yet Brian's "bait Blake" tactic seemingly worked, and Blake instead found himself voted out. Our guess is that Danni felt like (1) the merge was not imminent, and (2) she could better depend on Gary than on most of the Nakúm guys that came over with her (especially Blake), and wanted to at least gain Gary's trust with this vote. If Gary seemed like a good alliance choice post-merge (not the least because she could use the NFL thing against him at the final Tribal Council, if need be), maybe this makes sense. Still, a difficult choice to intentionally create a 3-3 tie going forward.
- For those who claim Guatemala was not a good
season, look no further than this episode for proof that
this opinion is dead wrong:
- Jamie's spectacular, slow-motion implosion in the RC. Painful to watch, yet gripping, especially in his sad attempt to keep playing after the challenge has ended.
- Danni's debut as a social/strategic player. Even if her reasoning was hidden, her decision to join the Blake-booting group was key to the episode. She was then able to recruit Bobby Jon, but not Brandon.
- Brian's scheming escalates, as he successfully erases the original Yaxhás' post-swap numbers deficit. His power ultimately ends around here, but at the moment, he's Mr. Platinum.
- Just as Brian's edit begins to shine, Stephenie's hero narrative rapidly begins to tarnish, as she calls Bobby Jon "a fricking girl" and "gay" for celebrating the RC win, then later admits she's jealous and breaks down in tears during confessional.
- Lydia emerges as her tribe's spirits-lifter, doing The Pancake, and proclaiming herself the Queen of Rock.
- The fortunes-reversing Nakúm IC victory, replete with excessive Jamie celebration and a near-explosion in response by Bobby Jon (foreshadowing their almost-brawl in the next episode).
- It's also, by modern standards, a strangely edited season. A huge amount of the early narration has come from the late pre-merge boots: Margaret, Brian, Amy (especially this episode), and Brandon. Of the late-game people, only Gary, Judd, and Stephenie have really had extensive screen time. Danni, Rafe, Lydia, and Cindy have been largely hidden. Maybe the rapid die-off of beloved narrators in the next three episodes is to blame for fans' displeasure?
Vote count:
- Blake received 5 votes, from Danni, Gary, Bobby Jon, Amy, and Brian (voted out, 5-2).
- Brian received 2 votes, from Blake and Brandon.
| Reward Challenge | Immunity Challenge | Tribal council stats | Overall scores | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contestant | ChW | ChA | ChW | ChA | VFB | VAP | TotV | TCA | SurvSc | SurvAv |
| Bobby Jon | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 1 | - | 7 | 1 | 1.78 | 7.90 |
| Danni | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 1 | - | 7 | 1 | 1.78 | 7.90 |
| Amy | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 1 | - | 7 | 1 | 1.34 | 7.40 |
| Gary | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 1 | - | 7 | 1 | 1.34 | 7.40 |
| Brian | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 1.32 | 5.06 |
| Brandon | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0 | - | 7 | 1 | 1.28 | 4.40 |
| Blake | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 1.12 | 2.45 |
| Judd | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.66 | 7.75 |
| Jamie | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.22 | 7.25 |
| Rafe | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.22 | 7.25 |
| Stephenie | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.22 | 7.25 |
| Cindy | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.16 | 4.25 |
| Margaret | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.13 | 3.55 |
| Lydia | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.00 | 0.14 | - | - | - | - | 1.15 | 3.37 |
| Brooke | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1.06 | 2.17 |
| Brianna | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0.45 | 1.38 |
| Morgan | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -0.65 | 0.11 |
| Jim | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -0.39 | 0.11 |
Glossary of terms
- Challenge
stats
- ChW: Challenge Wins. For tribal challenges, a contestant earns a fraction of 1 win, depending on if they participated (no points for sitting out). So in a five-person tribe's win, each participant gets (1/5) of a point, or 0.2 points. Duels (or individual RCs as in Ep1) at Redemption Island count as half a challenge (and half a win). Individual challenge wins count as a full point.
- ChA: Challenge Appearances. Used to calculate ChW%. Fractional for tribal challenges (same as ChW), except sit-outs get charged for an appearance, because they could have participated.
- ChW%: Challenge Win%. Simply, ChW% = ChW / ChA.
- SO: The number of times a contestant sat out of a challenge.
- Tribal
Council stats
- VFB: Votes For Bootee. The number of times the contestant has voted for the person who was ultimately voted out. Applies only to initial votes (no points for revotes in case of a tie). Special case: In a final three TC, where only one vote is cast (by the F3 IC winner), only that vote counts.
- VAP: Votes Against the Player. The total number of tribal council votes cast against the contestant. Again, only initial votes count (no penalty for revotes), and here a hidden immunity idol (if played) erases the votes. In the special case of a final three tribal council above, only the F3 bootee receives a vote against.
- TotV: Total votes cast during the tribal councils the player has attended (again, only initial votes count). Used to adjust for different vote totals as tribes shrink.
- TCA: Tribal council appearances. The number of times a contestant has attended tribal council (at which they voted).
- TC%: Tribal Council percent. Attempts to reward voting for the bootee (which players controlling the vote almost always do), while punishing receiving votes yourself. The formula is: TC% = [VFB - (VAP/TotV)] / TCA.
- wTCR: weighted Tribal Council Ratio. Very similar in intent to TC%, but calculated as a ratio of VFB to VAP, while also scaling to a uniform number of TC appearances. The formula is as follows: wTCR =2* [VFB / (4+VAP)] x (14/TCA). I originally tried (1+VAP) to avoid dividing by zero, but this overly rewarded getting zero votes against relative to just one vote against, which seemed silly. (4+VAP) scaled that effect back comfortably. 14 was used as the scaling factor for TC appearances because there are usually 14 episodes, then a final scaling factor of 2 to bring maximal scores up to roughly even with ChW and JV% high scores.
- Jury
stats
- JVF: Number of jury votes for the contestant to win. Maximum nine (Earl Cole, Fiji), theoretically.
- TotJ: Total number of jurors. Necessary to not punish unanimous 7-juror winners (JT Thomas, Tocantins).
- JV%: The percent of total jury votes cast for the contestant, or Jur% = JVF/ TotJ. This number is used, raw, in SurvSc, and is scaled in SurvAv (multiplied by six) to make it similar in size to ChW and wTCR.
- Overall
scores
- Survival Score (SurvSc). It's simply the sum of Challenge Win% (ChW%) + Tribal Council% (TC%) + Jury Vote%, for a maximum possible score of 2 (3 after the finale).
- Survival Average (SurvAv). It's a simple sum of fractional Challenge Wins (ChW), weighted TC Ratio (wTCR), and (eventually) a weighted Jury%. The latter two max out at six points total, for a theoretical maximum score of around 18 or so.
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