Survivor: The Amazon Spoilers
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Episode 12
"The Amazon Heats Up"

Filmed Dec. 7-9, 2002
Airs May 8, 2003

Click below for:
RC speculation
IC speculation
Boot predictions
Video resources
Ep12 promo vidcaps
CBS Ep12 web promo
Ep11 Yahoo! Platinum transcripts
CBS Ep11 videos:
Christy's final words,
2
, 3, IC, 5.
Episode descriptions
CBS: The Survivors react to Butch's bizarre behavior when he obsessively stacks firewood everywhere throughout the camp.
Returning to their camp, the Survivors find devastation after a fire rages through their shelter and belongings, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Believing they are on the chopping block, Jenna and Heidi refuse to help in rebuilding the camp. Will this seal their fate?
One Survivor is worn out and sick, and begs to be voted out. Will the others comply?
REWARD CHALLENGE/ Super challenge for a Saturn ION - Butch wins?
The Early Show preview shows this is indeed that the traditional recycled obstacle course-type challenge for a car. The first part involves removing knots from the door of a wooden cage. We see Butch opening his cage first, leaving four other closed doors behind him. So Butch takes the early lead. While irrelevant to the outcome of the RC, the Early Show also shows the fire occurs while the contestants are competing in the RC. While most of the challenge comes from previous ones, Probst implies one comes from a future challenge. We think this is likely the rope swing Rob is shown completing. The end of the course involves a zipline ride down to grab the key to the car.

We see Heidi and Jenna walking, seemingly disgruntled, with those same cages in the background, as well as a smiling Butch, walking arm in arm with Heidi and Jenna. This is clearly after the race, because Butch is wearing his cap before the race. So is Butch happy because he won, or is he just putting on a good, supportive face to lift the spirits of Sticks and Twigs? If Butch's giddiness at having won an ION clouds his judgement enough to allow him to hug Heidi and Jenna, that would fit with a purported spoiler from jautionjoann at Survivor Sucks, claiming Butch wins the car.

On the other hand, Rob is the only contestant shown on a part of the course (rope swing near the river) that nobody else is. And when he swings, there are at least four other unused ropes still there. As such, Rob would appear to have the best evidence for a late lead in this challenge, unless of course that pic is from the IC. Rob is dressed exactly the same as the RC there, right down to the placement of his buff. But we still can't definitively place that shot. So we'll lean with Smilin' Butch taking the prize.
 
Reward challenge pictures: Click thumbnails above for larger pictures. Pictures below are actual size, but feel free to click if you feel it's necessary.

Butch gets free, right into the sun.

Sour grapes? That was last episode! (Cages in the background).

Butch looks awful happy about something. Probably not the accessories to either side of him.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE/ Another race, involving swinging - Rob wins?
If the fire truly does destroy all but the clothes the Survivors are wearing, this makes separating challenges difficult. Luckily, Heidi and Jenna comply here, by sharing Heidi's shirt and moving their buffs around. We can see Heidi, presumably pre-challenge, in the immunity necklace, with Butch and Matt behind her in brown shirts. New promos show that the rope swing between platforms Butch and Jenna are shown (separately) completing must be from the IC, because Jenna is wearing Heidi's blue shirt at both times, but is wearing her yellow top throughout the RC (the RC appears to be the day of the fire). From the position of Heidi's buff, the rope tunnel appears to be from this challenge, as well. We note that Heidi did fairly well at this sort of scrambling activity back in Ep1. But if the picture of Rob on the rope is from this episode (the rest of the RC that we can see seems to be in deep forest, rather than on the banks of the river), there's a decent chance Rob wins.
Immunity challenge pictures: Click thumbnails above for larger pictures. Pictures below are actual size, but feel free to click if you feel it's necessary.

Heidi, wearing the necklace, probably before the immunity challenge.

Jenna, different shirt and buff location than the RC, same background.

Rob is a swingin' man.
 
BOOT/ Heidi?
Heidi remains a top candidate for boot this week. For the men, splitting up the Jenna-Heidi pair should be the first order of business, since they have a 3-2 advantage. By refusing to rebuild the camp, they might be on the chopping block, although so far they've gone 30 days without doing a lick of work, so why start now? Milkshaky originally predicted Heidi would finish fifth or sixth, and that would still be possible here.

Then again, there's always Rob, who nobody trusts. But with two factions fighting for dominance, better to hope he doesn't backstab you, than to be tied at F4 with those you know will vote against you. Maybe next time.

And finally, there's Butch, who was on the outside of the last vote. He (or Rob) may also commit the same error as Sean Rector and Ted Rogers before him: winning the car. Plus, nobody wants to go up against Butch in the final two. So Butch would appear vulnerable this week, unless he can pull off an IC win. Anything's possible, we suppose.

Really, though, this week seems to be a toss-up between Heidi and Rob. Either is potentially vulnerable, and while there are plenty of alleged spoilers suggesting Heidi either does or doesn't get this boot, there is really no solid info to separate fact from fiction. If you flip a coin, it comes out Heidi.


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