A plot, a discovery, and an execution.

After finally viewing the second episode of survivor, here are my thoughts.

The show opens with a small section showing the mood in each tribe. Hiki, the black tribe, tries to bounce back from Tribal Council last week by getting the fire going. This brings them together and eliminates the male/female divide that was apparent last week. The Puka tribe once again grows sick of Cao Boi's ethnic jokes, while tolerant of his headache remedy. Ironically, While the Asian tribe seems to not care about being the same ethnicity (except for the Korean alliance in the making), the Hispanic tribe finds Billy's lack of bonding irritating. To be far, Billy is also shirking duties, or at least not taking on any responsibility. Because of this Ozzy asks his tribe mates to throw the next challenge to give Billy the boot.

Now, throwing a challenge is a big risk. First, the tribes are only comprised of five people right now, so with each person lost a greater amount of work falls on each remaining person. (One could argue that with Billy, he's already not doing his share of the work.) Second, with five people, you have a one-in-five shot at getting booted, so Ozzy needs complete confidence that the rest of his tribe mates will follow through. This is why he comes down hard on Cristina who finds the idea of throwing a challenge shady.

Onto this week's challenge.

That's right, singular. Once again the producers clumped reward and immunity, giving me less to analyze. This week we are treated to another sectioned race. The start of the race is a story about which tribes must memorize details. Then, tied together, they must go under and over a set of logs, navigate a bamboo jungle-gym kinda of set-up that has 7 answer planks tied up. They are to retrieve the answers and cross a rope bridge over water. Then tribes arrive at a question board to match 5 of the answers with 5 questions. First tribe to answer the five questions gets immunity and tarps, the second and third immunity, and the last get a date with Jeff Probst.

As an added element, teams could elect to read over the story before starting on the logs during the challenge. When Jeff starts the event, that's exactly what Aitu does, aiming to boot Billy. When it comes down to the end, Jeff proclaims Puka the winner, even though it seems that Raro had finished just as fast. In fact after the dust settles and tapes are reviewed, Jeff claims it was a tie. That's what you get when you only have one ref.

While we're talking about Jeff, he makes a really good announcer. He either is informed on the team's progress via earpiece/production team, is very good at keeping track of who's got how many planks, or they put his progress checks in afterward. But still, most of the time hosts in such shows are typically distant, a rare entity only around to provide judgement upon elimination ceremonies and invoke boardroom-like interrogations. Jeff however has become quite settled in his role and a part of the survivor experience, giving color commentary, encouragement, discipline, reffing, and temptation. He's an all around hosting/emcee machine. And to think he was going to quit.

Moving on, the challenge was good. Survivor, having used many options, has decided multi-part challenges are the easiest way to not be repetitive. I had recently viewed Survivor:Africa, and those challenges were as simple as "roll this boulder to the finish along this course" or "shot the arrows at the targets". Now we get puzzle boats and shackles in the first two weeks alone. This challenge was not very mental though, as the story to be memorized was more of a short 7-sentence affair. But hey, this isn't supposed to be Jeopardy or Dog Eat Dog (the biggest, weirdest combinations of wits, smarts, and guts ever. And not just because the commercials said so.) This is survivor.

So yeah, Billy tries to work Cristina to get Ozzy out instead of him, but the fact that Billy was slacking off seemed to be the determining factor as the vote was unanimous, sans Billy.

So I'll be back whenever I get a look at the newest AR episode.

PS I just realized that CBS provides the episode online now, but inner tube is currently hating my FireFox on OS X

PPS Where the hell did the Billy and Candice thing come from? I mean I get it now that they showed Candice saying she feels bad, but man. Weird.

PPPS Yul found the hidden immunity idol, and the clues were actually pretty cool, with the island forming the letter and all. Just as good, if not better, than a Y shaped tree.