“Survivor”: Death of Dave
I’m going to first treat you to some recap goodness. Don’t you feel privilaged?
The short of it is that Leslie, the big Christian of Fei Long, was sent packing.
Jean Robert sure bugs, doesn’t he? I think what rubs me the wrong way is the overconfidence. Sometimes, it’s charming. And sometimes it’s damn annoying. He hasn’t figured out the whole charming part yet. Courtney and him butt heads, moreso now that she knows he’s gunning for him. I don’t know how I feel about her quite yet. She seems decent but this early on it’s hard to tell.
Zhan Hu discovers their rice is rather moldy. Uhm, EW! Of course, they don’t have much choice but to go through, toss the moldy stuff and try to salvage the rest. Sherea and Dave get into a little spat over the whole thing. Okay, maybe the spat isn’t o little. The rest of the tribe stands around and watches, expressionless. Hmm. Not the first time Dave has gotten into a spat with someone, is it? The man is just plain hard to get along with, I think. Frosti tries to tell him to tone it down, that he’s not doing himself (or anyone else) any service by being confrontational.
Fei Long gets a shock in treemail… both tribes are going to Tribal Council tonight. Sounds as if it’s just a meeting through. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but there’ll be a competition (tomorrow?) and the winning tribe will get food. Which makes them all very excited. So both tribes arrive to find a cleared spot for a challenge. It involves transporting fireballs and igniting fireworks. Suh-weet! They’re playing for a fisherman. He’ll come to their camp and teach them how to fish and will make them a righteous meal. Meh. I’d rather have a steak dinner but that’s just me. Courtney sits out while the rest get to work. The fireworks are muy, muy fabulous. A nice change of pace (and no nakedness, which is also a nice change). It’s a pretty clever and interesting challenge, I like the ingenuity here. Fei Long pulls off the victory, though Zhan Hu could really have used it. They chose to kidnap Dave, of all people. That’s sort of a reward for Zhan Hu if you ask me.
Back at Fei Long, Dave is adjusting to life with the reds. He says he feels like he’s on vacation. If I were him, I wouldn’t be so happy because the last person to get kidnapped got booted out. Or one of them, at least. Sure, he says he’s spying, but I’m sure Zhan Hu will see this as another excuse to boot him out. Dave gets his clue and has to decide who to share it with. Everyone, meanwhile, thinks Dave is a “nutcase” (according to Todd). So he thinks he can trust Todd (?) and gives him the clue. Dave thinks he has a “loose alliance” with Todd, and that if Zhan Hu wins the next reward, that if Todd were kidnapped that he’d share the clue with Dave. That’s a lot of “ifs” there, Dave.
Zhan Hu is taking this moment to bitch about Dave. They’re quite glad to be rid of him for the moment. Of course, the mood around camp is rather relaxed, now that the taskmaster isn’t there. They’re realizing that, gosh, there’s a lot to do. And what is Sherea doing? Taking it easy, yo. She doesn’t want to waste her energy, conserving it instead for the challenge. Riiiight.
Meanwhile, Fei Long’s fisherman (and his family) arrive amid much fanfare. And apparently, Jean Robert knows Mandarin so communicating is much easier than they expected it to be. Basically, they’re going to make the birds fish for them. They tie their necks so they can’t swallow the fish. Then the birds come back and spit the fish back out for them. YIKES. But hey, it works. James starts to feel like Jean Robert is barking orders at him, but he didn’t really fault him too much because he really sort of saved their bacon with the whole language thing. They were also shown how to fish with their net and found out they’d been using it all wrong. So the family helps them prepare a pretty considerable feast and everyone is practically giddy with it.
So we return to watch the immunity challenge. Dave rejoins his tribe (rather reluctantly). As usual, it is a physical and mental challenge. However, it requires wearing traditional Chinese armor. I’m not going to do a blow by blow (because I sorta suck at that), but it was an interesting challenge to watch. Fei Long wins, fairly narrowly. Zhan Hu goes back to Tribal Council after having a week off. (Well, a week for us anyhow.)
Who to vote out? Hmm, that’s a tough one. Gee, no one comes to mind… Obviously, the big target here is Dave. For show, the rest of the tribe is also considering Sherea who is about as useful as a lump of wood at the moment. They make a good effort, discussing her and her virtues. Sherea feels the heat of this and starts to worry. But not worried enough to stop laying around all the time. DUDE. Get up and get working. It’s not rocket science.
At Tribal Council, Sherea is encouraged to bitch a little about Dave and talk about how nice it was without Dave there for that one glorious day. Erik says Dave has great leadership qualities, which makes Sherea roll her eyes. This is a tribe divided. Jeff asks Sherea about people pulling their weight and she says it’s getting better. Everyone looks a little surprised at this. She thinks challenges are more important than camp life, but Dave insists that camp life is just as important as the challenges. I’d be likely to agree with him. Anyhow, everyone votes and save for one for Sherea from Dave, the rest of the votes are for Dave and he’s booted. Bubye, Dave! It was inevitable.

October 19th, 2007 at 4:56 am
[...] Shakeup by Marilyn Porter Last time on Survivor: Dave was given the ol’ heave-ho by Zhan Hu. And not one person was terribly surprised. [...]