| Episode
8 |
| "Now
the Battle Really Begins" |
Filmed July 16-18,
2004
Airs November 4, 2004 |
| Click
below for: |
| RC
speculation |
| IC
speculation |
| Boot
speculation |
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| Episode
descriptions |
CBS: -
A Survivor gets fed up with the tribe and is ready for a change.
- One castaway uses charm, flirtation and cuddling in an attempt
to get in good with a tribemate.
- Anxiety about a possible tribal merge leads one Survivor to make
one-on-one pacts with numerous others.
- One castaway gets into a war of words with a tribemate after
being told what to do. |
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| REWARD
CHALLENGE/ Water tossing - Lopevi wins? |
A
few new promo shots over the weekend cast more light on this challenge.
It's clearly still tribal, and appears to involve a bucket brigade-type
concept, except the water must be tossed along the lines, from
bucket to bucket, rather than by simply passing one bucket. In
the shot of Chad tossing water at Chris, there are also clearly
two
plumes of smoke, suggesting fire is involved as well (possibly
the traditional fill-the-bucket-to-tip-the-fire-on-the-seesaw challenge).
Not overtly
physical, and favors teamwork over strength. So
no obvious favoritism for either tribe (as did the last RC, which
favored smaller people).
So who wins?
For clues elsewhere, all the camp shots
of Lopevi look universally happy, whereas grumpy Rory seems to
be none too pleased over at Yasur, where the rest of his tribemate
are shown as lazy and/or stumbling. Also, the Yasurs don't look
too
pleased
arriving
at IC, while the Lopevis are smiling. So we'll go with a Lopevi
win here,
barring more info.
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| REWARD
CHALLENGE pictures/ Click on thumbnails above for larger
version |
Sorry
Rory, I was aiming for the bucket, I swear! |
Still
more excitement with flying liquids. Next episode: cream pie
catching! |
Arrival
at IC... grumpy Yasur? |
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| IMMUNITY
CHALLENGE/ Individual swimming/ gather the flags- Ami wins? |
The
web promo makes clear that the merge occurs at the IC, and the
new members of the Maroum tribe will compete for individual
immunity. The challenge appears to involve swimming out to color-coded
towers, picking up a flag, and swimming back. As noted
in extensive discussion in MeSS,
the towers contain at least three (possibly
more) flags. After swimming back, there is a rack on the beach
in which to place the flags. We lean to the interpretation that
there are two initial heats with
five
contestants
each, followed
by a
final
round
with
four people, using the top two finishers from each heat.
So who wins? Ami, Chris, Rory, Sarge and Twila are all shown in
detail in the promos, and are likely among the top competitors
(except maybe Rory and Twila). It's difficult to tell who wins,
since it's unclear what's a heat and what's a final round. Chris
and (maybe) Ami are shown racing in the water, flags in hand; Rory
is shown looking at one or more competitors ahead of him. Ami is
shown running to the block in which the flags are placed, but appears
to still have at least one flag left to get. Krautboy has
pointed out at Blows that Sarge appears to
be holding the necklace back at the merge camp, although upon further
scrutiny, KB agrees this may just be a canteen strap. So, with
no obvious winner, then who? The people shown closest to the finish
line are Ami, then Sarge (and maybe Chris). One of them may be
it. We'll go with Ami.
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| IMMUNITY
CHALLENGE pictures/ Click on thumbnails above for larger
version |
They're
off! And, uh, someone is in the lead! Yes,
it appears to be... a contestant. Not Rory, at least. |
Rory's
heading into the home stretch, but he also appears to be
looking in front of him... at whom? |
A
sodden Ami races up the beach to place her (second-to-last?)
flag in the rack. |
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| BOOT/
Rory |
Rory is barely treading water. He's praying
for a merge to escape being booted by Yasur, but he never got
along
well with Sarge in the first place, and either Julie or Twila
(or both) seems to have taken Rory's place in Sarge's Lopevi
pecking order. Rory's best friend in Lopevi was Travis, who's
now cooling his heels in Loser Lodge. Rory also pledged his
fealty to Ami in hopes of survival, but now seems to
be forgetting
to
watch
his temper
around her.
Clearly, the women are neither fond of him, nor trusting him,
so he's not an unlikely target. And yes, it's Rory.
If fire is life, water is... well, not life. |
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