Palau Episode 11- I’ll Show You How Threatening I Am

In this episode, Stephenie tried to prevent herself from getting voted out. She went to the other women on Koror, who outnumbered the men. The alliance would never happen. The reward challenge was actually the Survivor auction. It proceeded in a normal way with no real changes in the game because of it. Camp life had no real dramatic game play happening. But poor Stephenie would not be able to outwit, outplay, or outlast anyone. Her time in the game would be coming to an end. Tom was worried that he might be the next to go and Ian won immunity. While Stephenie would vote for Caryn, every other member of Koror would get rid of Stephenie, making her the last Ulong tribe member to leave the game. After this episode, everyone left was originally a part of Koror making it quite possibly the first final six of all one tribe. I'm not sure if it has happened before and I don't know if it happened since. But Stephenie would return to the game in Survivor: Guatemala and make it all the way to the end, but only got one vote in the jury because she was more of a villain this time around. She returned a third time to Survivor: Heroes Versus Villains where she was part of the Heroes tribe but was voted out quickly for being jinxed, as her tribe thought she was. If she ever played the game again, it would be her fourth time as a player. I give it about a 12% chance that she would return to a future game.

Continuing Look Back

Here I continue my look back at Survivor: Palau.

Palau Episode 6- Jellyfish N' Chips

 

    This episode features twice as many Koror members as Ulong members. The Ulong would win reward. It would be their last win in the game. They got to eat Pringles chips and swim with jellyfish. Not much happened in terms of the game except Janu feeling bummed out. Koror would win immunity like they normally do. Throughout the game, a jackass known as James was in the game. He helped his tribe lose some challenges and was overall unhelpful in the game. Why it took him this long to leave the game is anyone's guess. In fact, the vote at tribal council was originally a tie with James and Stephenie voting for Ibrehem and Bobby Jon and Ibrehem voting for James. But at a revote, the constant complainer James was finally voted out of the game. This is the point where I'd like to give an award to the producers for a stupid move. They never switched the tribes up and they really should have. The stupidest move was the two people who chose the tribes on the first day. The silver winner of the stupidest move this season wasn't until the final episode. But as for James, I'd say there's a 50% chance that he could do better if he could play another time. He was an asshole and assholes do make interesting players. How he lasted this lost is beyond my understanding. As for the Ulong tribe, there would be only three members, a feat that hadn't happened since Survivor: Marquesas and Thailand and wouldn't happen again until Survivor: Exile Island which started with four tribes of four. But Ulong's troubles would not be over until they had only one member left. This is where the game gets incredibly strange. Such an event has never happened before or since. The Koror tribe now has over twice as many members as Ulong and would win every challenge for the rest of the game until they're the only tribe left. But we'll get to that later, as the blog goes on.

 

Palau Episode 7- The Great White Shark Hunter

 

    In this episode, the Ulong tribe kept getting weaker. Because no merge was planned at this point in the game, the Koror tribe was two strong and even if they had to split their tribe in half, they would still have the numbers against Koror. It is rumored that the merge buff for this season would have been green. As to whether or not that would be used in a season set in Palau with two new tribes and a returning tribe of players from this season would be interesting indeed, but probably will never happen unless someone who actually works on the show can think of that idea, then it will never be used. So if you are reading this and work on the show, you didn't hear it from me. You have my permission to use this idea. If I had a life, I wouldn't be writing this blog.

 

One could wonder how a season is planned verses how it plays out. The Ulong tribe shouldn't have lost every immunity challenge anyways. The reward challenge had only three members working on the challenge that wondered if a tribe could be seen from a plane. Since the Koror tribe had more members, they had better ideas and could prove effective at the challenge. The challenge should have been done sooner in the season when both tribes had more members. Besides, the Koror tribe might have cheated at a challenge like this. All this proves is that if you are stranded on an island and need rescued, you don't want to be with just three people who have voted off anyone who could help them with the challenge. Of course, in reality, you wouldn't have had to. I digress.

 

Since three members to a tribe are very unusual, then it doesn't matter who you are on an island with. Why would you even be there in the first place? And if you were there, how could you be reading this blog? Does wi-fi suddenly exist on islands? Did you bring your laptop for no good reason? How did you get a laptop if you are stuck on an island and stranded? And why do you suddenly care about Survivor? Wasn't that just a lame reality show that could never happened to you? I just hope that the three people you are stuck on an island with could do better in challenges than the two people you are stuck with all the time.

 

At the immunity challenge, Ulong didn't listen to whoever was doing the floating sliding puzzle. But since I've never done one on the sea, I don't know how hard it is. Meanwhile, Stephenie was probably wondering why Bobby Jon chose her for this tribe when she had a secret alliance with three members who wound up on Koror. Ulong lost the challenge again but because Koror had more players, they chose people who might not have done much at camp and never really helped much with challenges. It's a shame that we can't get to see what all Jenn did in the game because she has since died as I'm writing this. The three Ulong member ending up taking out Ibrehem although he wanted Stephenie out of the game. Since he seemed pretty weak and only seemed to luck his way this far, it is unknown why both Stephenie and Bobby Jon wanted him out of the game. It could have easily been a three way tie and we have no idea what would have happened since it didn't. As for Ibrehem, it would be about a 25% chance that he would do better the next time around.

 

Palau Episode 8- Neanderthal Man

 

    Bobby Jon and Stephenie are the last remaining remembers of Ulong. Both would return for Survivor: Guatemala and start on different tribes. For now, they probably seem like brother and sister and hate each other. Or they could be husband and wife. Or boyfriend and girlfriend. Or two best friends of different genders. Or, just two strangers on a reality show who never even knew who the other one was until this season started. You can only stand someone for so long before you just wish that you could be on separate tribes. That's probably why they were on separate tribes when they played the game again. But it doesn't matter as to who is better anyways. That's probably why they became fan favorites. I wonder if they are still friends.

 

At the reward challenge, the prize was the contestants smelling good and getting clean, which I'm sure nobody who writes or read blogs ever does. It was a challenge of just simply eating a strange looking food. I'm sure some of the contestants enjoyed eating it. Since I've never eaten this food before, I might have enjoyed it like Tom who wasn't used to eating anything in all his time at the game. He helped win the challenge for Koror, who frankly didn't need another win. All this winning would come back to haunt them because it would soon be an individual game. Stephenie must have hated losing more than Amber did in Survivor: Australia. (Amber would win the next time she played Survivor.)

 

Ulong had trouble again with the challenge because they're the only people who cared about winning and Koror just breezed through the challenge because any member still left on the tribe wanted to win and were much stronger than Koror with more members. The tribe Ulong would have a firebreaker challenge to see who would continue the fight against Koror. Bobby Jon would lose that challenge. But neither player knew that they were coming back anyways. This is considered the first game without a merge since Ulong had only one member, but the players think that it is a merge anyways. One wonders if Palau has even done the Survivor reality show or if they've just watched the American version. Palau could do a season of Survivor set in America and Americans might not even know that it existed. Once could wondering if this challenge led to the American version of Redemption Island. I hope that they use it again. As for Bobby Jon, in Survivor: Guatemala he was dealt a new hand from the start, but only lasted just three days longer. I don't know if he'll ever play the game again and I wouldn't choose him to compete again anyways. There's a 50% chance that he'd do better a third time, but not many contestants have ever used that anyways.

 

Palau Episode 9- I Will Not Give Up

 

    While Stephenie was feeling bummed out about being the last member of Ulong, the members of Koror were all fed up with themselves. They had no idea what was going to happen. Stephenie took everything she could with her and went to the Koror camp as instructed by tree mail. She thinks that this meant that it was a merge, but no one on the show considers it such. They consider this to be the only season without one. Stephenie is now a member of Koror and this has never happened before or since. There was no merge as there was no tribe to merge to. Two people from Palau visited the tribe and gave a sort of merge feast. I am surprised that Stephenie wasn't given some sort of special immunity for at least the first tribal council, but as the whole situation was unusual in the first place, the producers must not have been able to have much influence on the game outside of what they arguably already messed up. With only one tribe, the game quickly became individual. There would be no reward challenge in this episode with everyone on the tribe celebrating.

 

    You may think that Stephenie would be an easy out for the Koror tribe. But since they actually had to go to tribal, things changed quickly. Tom would win the first individual immunity challenge which we'll get to later. But as for the person going home, it was Coby who would get the votes of almost every tribe member. Coby voted for Janu and Janu voted for Stephenie. Everyone else would vote Coby out of the game. Why? He started to be a complainer that no one liked. Since Ulong's James was gone, Coby seemed like the next jackass of the game. Sometimes they make it far and sometimes they don't make it far at all. During the endurance challenge, Jeff got the tribes to talk about strategy in the game. He also tempted them with food items. Coby was the first to leave for doughnuts. I hope he enjoyed them because that was the last pleasure he had in the game. What's interesting is how the first two to leave the challenge would be the next two out of the game. After the challenge ended, the tribe went straight to tribal council. There was no time for any of them to talk about who they wanted gone from the game in the meantime. A lot of people jumped out of the challenge for cookies and everyone else jumped out for pizza, leaving Tom the only one without any food. But at least they couldn't vote him out of the game.

 

    At the tribal council, every member except Stephenie had only been there only once before. The free ride for Koror members would be over. It was a surprise for most members of the game that Koror would vote out a lifelong member of their tribe. But it was only their second tribal council and no one knew that Stephenie would even last much longer anyways. Every member from this point forward would become part of the jury. Would Coby ever return to the game? I give it about a 50% chance that he would do better a second time. But he gets to be on the jury this season.

 

Palau Episode 10- Exile Island

 

    Survivor fans, it you are ever wondering where Exile Island came from, this was the season the unofficially introduced it. It would play out differently in this season than any other season in the game. In fact, some may think that it played out too well. The game was continuing normally. The reward challenge had a team of four fighting against another team. They won a reward of a feast. But, Janu was throwing up because of something that disagreed with her. At the immunity challenge, she was the first one out of the challenge and as punishment, had to be exiled. Although Exile Island wouldn't officially appear until Survivor: Panama, it worked well this season. Tom won immunity, although the game didn't go as it should have gone. There was no vote at the tribal council. Due to the uncertainty of what was supposed to happen, the game let her join the jury and even deliver her last words to the team. But, no other person who quit had made it this far in the game. Stephenie wanted to stay, but felt like she was going home. Stephenie got really emotional at tribal council and Janu didn't even want to stay in the game. As soon as Janu made it official, she quit the game. Jeff accepted her request and she got to be a part of the jury. Would she ever return to the game? It seems very unlikely to me, and I give it about a 3% chance that would happen, if they even would let a quitter return.