Episode
6
"The Power of One"
Days 16-18: June
25-27, 2002
Aired: October 24, 2002
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Dude!
Every so often, we have to wonder at the titles chosen
for Survivor episodes. This week's episode was called "The
Power of One." Could it be the power of one banana to turn the
Sook-Jai tribe against Robb? (Nah, they were already against him). The
power of one argument with Ken to get Robb booted? (Probably not). The
power of one person to singlehandedly win a feast for his tribe, then
get repaid by being booted? The power of one bottle of wine to convert
Robb's screen time into a sobbing audition video for Real World:
Las Vegas? The power of Robb's one remaining brain cell to somehow
control all of his bodily functions, including his ceaselessly flapping
gums?
Given the mathematical themes bubbling through
this episode, we think the title may have referred to the fact that
any number, raised to the power of one, equals itself. Much like the
intriguing way the much-vaunted "all new challenges" somehow
end up bearing striking resemblences to the same old sh..., uh, "challenges."
Or how every Survivor season, given a different name and cast,
pretty much is the same as the ones that came before it. Phew! This
is all way too confusing, we'll let you figure it out.
We start the show in a new and exciting way: Penny
talks! Actually, we see quite a bit of the MIA duo, Ken and Penny, in
this episode, so we can probably call off the search party. We're seeing
Penny because she's the instigator of some patented Sook-Jai Drama.
As we've seen over the last five episodes, this mostly involves Robb
doing something, and everyone around him staring in slack-jawed disbelief.
Okay that's pretty much all that ever happens at Sook-Jai, since the
activities of the non-Robb tribemates there generally run the gamut
from motionless staring to stationary observing. Next week, we expect
to performance art piece, in which the Sook-Jais take turns impersonating
statues.
Anyway, it seems somebody, at some time, considered
voting against Robb. The exact details are hazy, but nonetheless, Robb
is dumbfounded, because (1) it's completely inexplicable that anyone
could possibly consider this, (2) Ken may have been involved, although
he actually wasn't, and (3) this is Robb we're talking about, dumbfounded
kind of comes with the territory. As one might expect, Robb proceeds
to rant and rave, flailing his arms about (with apparently so much motion
that he manages to change from a long-sleeved shirt and no buff into
a sleeveless shirt with a buff on his head in the space of about 0.75
seconds - nice continuity checking, SEG!). As you might expect, there
are a lot of "dude"s involved, in addition to several words
that you can't say on TV. We're not sure what is accomplished by all
this, apart from Robb demonstrating with great vehemence that while
he doesn't really mind being voted against, it's other people thinking
about voting for him that really gets him riled up. Oooookay...
Things are taking an even more logical turn
at Chuay-Gahn. Despite having only three days left of needing to fetch
water from their distant well, an activity Helen and Brian seemed able
to complete with minimal fuss in the previous episode, the guys decide
they need to swim to the island in front of their beach, to look for
their missing boat. Never mind that: (1) the island is nearly as far
away as their water source, (2) the incredible odds that the boat would
actually be there, and not on some other part of their own island, or
(3) Ted and Clay can't swim a lick, this must be done, and it must be
done now, right before a physical reward challenge.
As luck would have it (here, "luck" would
be a tip from the cameramen who towed it over there in the previous
episode), the island does indeed contain the missing Chuay-Gahn boat.
But of course, not within the five square feet of shoreline the guys
search before making the twenty thousand league return swim. As always,
the ever-helpful cameras zoom around to the far side of the island to
show the location of the boat, as the guys are swimming home.
You'd think that with that much nail-biting
excitement in the first ten minutes, the producers would slow down the
pace for a bit, so as not to upset pregnant women or people with pacemakers.
But no, we dive right back into the hubbub at Sook-Jai, this time involving
Robb (surprise!) eating a banana. This of course throws everyone into
a tizzy, which involves (surprise!) them sitting around, rolling their
eyes (this is a strenuous activity at Sook-Jai), and orally re-examining
their extensive collection of rules for banana eating. Robb, having
almost single-handedly won them in the first place, is anxious to eat
them, ripe or not, before he gets booted in two days. Shii Ann, having
sat out the challenge in which the bananas were won, thinks this is
incredibly selfish. Rightfully, they should have been saved until after
Robb is booted, but before she is.
Luckily, this scintillating "action"
is eventually interrupted by another reward challenge, in which Robb
wins them more food. Surprisingly, by Survivor standards, it's actually
a fairly entertaining competition, possibly because it involves giant
slingshots, and people running into each other, waving sticks. It's
really tough to go wrong with those ingredients. Okay, they could have
blindfolded them, and put them on horseback, but we'll have to wait
for that when it's an "all new challenge" on Survivor:
Amazon.
The challenge involves Robb racing Sook-Jai
out to an insurmountable 4-1 lead in balls caught (out of the five needed
to win). In a stunning display of master strategy, Chuay-Gahn takes
this opportunity to re-group, and concentrate on not letting Robb catch
any more balls. This sees to work, and the old folks manage to tie the
game up. Sook-Jai then decides they need to talk strategy, which as
Penny succinctly puts it, requires one of them to actually catch a ball.
Remarkably, they do.
Back at the dejected Chuay-Gahn camp, we are
re-exposed to Ted's formidable math skills. He laus his tribe for its
ability to put "a million percent" into the challenge (leading
to CBS's new tag line for ads during football games: "Survivor:
we give you ten thousand-fold more than your average sports cliche!").
Still, there's grumbling, as Ted suspects that the Thai feast the Sook-Jais
won may be slightly better than pulling muddy clams off of rocks. Ted
may not be a mathematician, but his psychic skills are top-notch.
At the feast, Robb, who took the lead in chastising
Shii Ann's table manners in the previous episode, educates the rest
of his tribe on the proper techniques required for achieving maximum
volume with your belching. Everyone is dutifully impressed, including
Penny, who bestows the MVP trophy on him for this feat. We're not really
sure what they were eating, but judging from Shii Ann's comments, it
was apparently some magical Thai creature that is half-pig, half-shrimp.
Mmm, making bacon on the beach.
There's no water or food at Chuay-Gahn, but
there's still a lot of thinking going on. The guys (correctly, sort
of) suspect the merge is coming, as Clay states, before two more immunity
challenges. After Clay wanders off, Brian and Ted chat about their alliance
again, particularly the importance of keeping this secret from Clay,
who they don't trust. Being master strategists, they do this while staring
directly at Clay, pointing, and shaking their heads. We're pretty sure
this strategy is going to work out perfectly.
Then it's time for an impromptu nature special
on bats. Robb and Ken find a bat cave while wandering off into the forest.
Ken admits to Robb that the tribe asked him to take Robb out in the
woods, and release him into the wild. But after seeing Robb's giddy
attempts to cover himself in bat guano and swing from more vines, Ken
decides to take Robb back with him instead, just to figure out where
Robb has been stashing all the hallucinogens that make him appreciate
the warm piss water in his canteen so much.
Seeing Robb at one with the bats, it's time
for some "subtle" foreshadowing. Jan has bats of her own.
Possibly in her belfry, but this particular one happens to be a dead
bat fetus, decomposing on the ground. Seeing as this is an area of the
world populated by Buddhists and Muslims, Jan decides to give the fetus
a good Christian burial. As always, many tears are shed, amidst snarky
commentary from Brian and Helen. Surprisingly, Clay has no opinion on
this matter.
Finally, it's time for another immunity challenge.
Chuay-Gahn realizes that winning immunity is important, since they would
then go into the merge tied with Sook-Jai in numerical strength. Sook-Jai,
seeing that it's a mental challenge, wisely realizes that it's a good
challenge to let Robb sit out. The challenge involves the two tribes
taking turns removing from one to three flags from a group of 21, so
as to force the other team into letting you take the final flag.
If, as Seftor from votedoff.tv
did, you did the simple math to figure out that finishing your turn
with four flags (or multiples thereof) remaining was the way to control
the game, you spent the entire challenge groaning, as both tribes stumbled
through, randomly plucking flags, with no eye to strategy. Except for
finishing at four flags, which Chuay-Gahn figured out at the start,
then promptly forgot again, at least until the opportunity was dumped
in their laps by Sook-Jai. This being Survivor, where successfully
counting the number of players in an opposing alliance could qualify
you for the Fields Medal, it was a relative feat of brilliance that
Clay noticed this, winning the game for Chuay-Gahn.
And so, we finally get around to booting out
Robb. But not before some thrilling footage normally reserved for the
last episodes of the series, where the players lay around helplessly,
weeping about their families. Luckily, this is the catatonic Sook-Jai
tribe, and they have liquor left over from their feast, so they end
up in about the same state. Robb tearfully bemoans not having been wasted
for the past 17 days. Tears flow readily from every available eye. Even
stoic Jake cries, and continues to do so the next morning. Although
it could be because there was no way for Mark Burnett to do his patented
pre-tribal council misdirection this episode.
At the tribal council, everyone follows the
traditional script. Shii Ann continues the thoroughly unremarkable line
of contestants answering Jeff Probst's weekly question of "How
will you make the decision of who to vote out tonight?" with the
stock response of "I don't know, it's so hard!" Perhaps the
only note of interest is that not one person managed to spell the name
on their ballot correctly, with five people voting for "Rob"
(perhaps thinking back to Rob Mariano's guest appearance on the previous
episode), and one (Robb) voting for "S.A." Guess math isn't
the only problem subject on this show.
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