Survivor: Exile Island – Who Wil Go in Episode 2?

It's week two of Survivor: Exile Island, and already there's plenty to be excited about. Four tribes! Early alliances! Early bluffs! And last but most certainly not least, Exile Island and the hidden immunity. For those new to this column, each week I will be analyzing the situation of the Survivors and providing my prediction for the one to be sent home. As always, I will use no spoiler information to make my predictions. The only information that will be used is televised commercials, the CBS website, and the show itself.

Now, before I continue with the analysis, I would like to make a note about last season's predictions. I have already had two readers email me inquiring about my daughter, whom I allowed to make additional predictions for me last season.. I did not include her in my initial article this season, and they were concerned that she might not appear. Now keep in mind that this is a girl that made a grand total of one correct prediction last season. And with her first birthday coming up this Friday, she may be feeling too old for this kind of thing. However, she has informed me that if enough readers request her return, then she'll do it “for the people.” Actually she said, “bah, dah, giggle,” but I'm pretty sure I got the translation right.

At any rate, the four tribe setup gives us a nice spread to work with. Unfortunately, the CBS website explains that this week will already see the four tribes merge to two. So proper predictions may already be deemed unusable, considering the only two that we know with any clarity will be on the same tribe are Cirie and Shane. And that's only because the preview on last week's episode had Cirie encouraging him to quit the game.

So with no easily discernible way to group the remaining Survivors, I'm just going to base this round of predictions on the original four tribes. And since the producers didn't give any concerted effort to promote the tribe names, I shall refer to them by the rather bland (but accurate) older/younger women/men.

In the older male tribe the first boot is beyond obvious. Even if the previews didn't show a fellow who wanted to quit the game, Shane would be in serious trouble. You see, he went cold turkey on his three-pack-a-day smoking habit. His lack of foresight (he should have at least slapped on a nicotine patch or started chewing the gum when he found out he'd be on the show) has caused him serious difficulties already. Additionally, his grumpy attitude is doubled by the fact that his personality just doesn't mesh with his seemingly straight-laced fellow tribemates. Shane is a goner.

The tribe of younger men also harbors a possibly self-ostracized player. Though we haven't seen much of the younger men (beyond their general incompetence in shelter-building and the immunity challenge), one has shown a particular ability to set himself apart from the others. Aras's creative hand energy exercise for starting fire may have already caused too much damage with the rest of the tribe. Remember Peter Harkey? Of course you don't. That's because he was the first Survivor booted off Survivor: Marquesas. His tribemates quickly grew nervous around him as he openly discussed his mystic beliefs and voted him off immediately. Aras may be in a similar situation at this point.

The younger women's tribe has an Aras of their own. Courtney “The dead turtle is our earth-mother Gaea” Marit has done as much for her cause as Aras has for his own. Unfortunately for her, it has also set her apart from her teammates. Yes, Misty was alone on Exile Island for a while, but I think at this point Courtney has become more damaged goods than Misty on her tribe.

The tribe of older women has already cut loose their strongest player, so it's not entirely clear what their strategy might be. But if I have to make a choice, then I'll say Cirie will be the one going home. It's not just because of her unhealthy fear of a grove of sycamores in autumn. It also appears that Melinda and Ruth Marie have already formed a tighter bond.

Now this being a prediction article, I've decided that this season in addition to predicting the booted contestants I'm also going to predict the location of the hidden immunity idol (until it is found and revealed of course). Each week we should have more clues, so each week I will either confirm, revise, or narrow my search.

The key element this week is in Probst's words “You will have a lot of time to think about why fate chose you to be the first one out here, which is also why immunity is already so important.” Now, Misty has already made the mistake of looking in all the wrong places on the island behind her based on her poor hearing, which somehow heard Probst mentioning the others leaving her behind. The key words that jump out at me, however, are “why” and “fate.” Probst stressed the “why” and “you” in particular, which makes me think of something Y-shaped or U-shaped. But he also mentioned “fate,” which means he must have studied. And in studying he would have learned that man was mortal, so he would have put the idol as far away from himself as possible. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me! Uh, sorry. Got off on a tangent there... uh, name that movie! But I digress (terribly so). Anyway, fate implies death, so as of this writing I surmise that the idol is located inside a skull on either a Y- or U-shaped outcropping somewhere. Or perhaps there's a Y- or U-shape inside that giant skull. That's my guess for the moment at any rate.