Survivor Cook Islands: week 9

The most remarkable thing about this week’s episode was how much it resembled the previous week:

1. Aitu won both challenges;
2. Those members of Raro who sat out the challenge spent most of the time with their heads in the hands, groaning;
3. Candice got sent to Exile Island;
4. Jonathan worked really hard to keep his tentative new spot on Raro;
5. Adam and Candice spent what little time they had together either scheming or making out; and
6. The tree mail poem was really bad.

OK that last one is pretty much a given, but this week’s was noteworthily bad. How bad? Bad enough for me to pause the video, copy it out and reproduce it here for your own private moment of horror:

Any explorer knows
To study about where he goes
Disappointment shows
And for the losers…the "Tribal Council Woes".

Both challenges this week had required pre-reading, which automatically put Aitu at an advantage since they seem to hold most of the brains. The Reward Challenge featured treasure chests buried in the sand below various points of the compass, with nautical signal flags hidden in each one. The flags spelt out the word Victory (which could also have been "OR ICY TV" but I supposed Jeff did say it was a word, singular), and Aitu had it before Raro even had their fourth chest out of the sand. Highlights included Jonathan deciding that the first clue was NNW instead of NNE, Jonathan falling over, Jenny having to be told to help him dig, Candice telling Jenny to dig with both hands, Jonathan and Jenny tagging out too early and having to go back and touch the mat again, and Jenny getting the opportunity to VERY sarcastically tell Candice to dig with both hands.

It was far easier for Aitu to send Candice back to Exile Island than it was for her to understand why they did it. She’s now spent more of her post-Mutiny time on Exile Island than she has with her new tribe, and most of this visit was spent crying into her buff in genuine shock because the people she betrayed were mean to her. Maybe she’s not so smart after all.

Aitu, meanwhile, were being welcomed to a traditional Cook Island village in the manner of returning victorious warriors. Most series seem to involve this kind of event, but Aitu clicked with their hosts better than any tribe I remember. Yul and Ozzy each got sandwiched between a pair of grass-skirted, hula-dancing local women, with Ozzy’s seducers being on the young and slender side (much to his enjoyment) and Yul’s being on the older and more rotund side (much to everyone else’s enjoyment!)

The Indemnity Challenge also required study, with the subject this time being a map of the South Pacific including such familiar countries as Palau and Vanuatu. Since Rebecca had sat out the previous challenge everyone knew that she’d have to participate this time, and it wasn’t looking like she’d be much help to the tribe when Parvarti the cocktail waitress / model / female boxer came up with a simple mnemonic device and got an utterly blank look in return.

As you already know, Aitu won yet again and sent Raro back to Tribal Council, but not before Jeff sent them back to camp for a few hours holding a small glass bottle, sealed up with wax and containing a mystery note that would only be opened after the vote. Candice was spot on when she predicted that it must be something bad, because it would have been given to the winners if it were something good. And by now it’s very clear that Raro are not winners.

Sure enough, after a vote in which Rebecca’s lack of performance in challenges and housework around camp were punished despite her membership of the core Raro alliance, the note was read out: "You’ve just voted out one member of your tribe. You will now vote out another." Yep, without any chance to consult with each other the remaining six had to vote again, and yet again they voted out a member of their original alliance. If Rebecca looked unimpressed when her torch was snuffed, Jenny was positively ropable and I doubt either new Jury member will forget their betrayal in a hurry.

The ad for next week claims that "things heat up between Adam and Candice". That’s going to be something of a worry for the censors, since this week had them alone in the shelter doing that routine from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Adam kissing Candice everywhere she had cut herself with the machete. Why am I’m not surprised those two couldn’t come up with something more original?