Surviving Africa, Episode 1: The Weak Shall Inherit the Vote

We’ve been waiting all summer for this -- Survivor is back! Executive producer Mark Burnett said that within the first three minutes of the show, we’d be hooked all over again. So what happened in those first three minutes? Well, I didn’t have a stopwatch going, but it all started in the back of a truck driven by an armed man. C’mon, these players may end up being backstabbing and vicious, but is an assault rifle really necessary?

The driver got out and yelled for them to hurry up and get down out of the truck. After a brief struggle with NRA Frank for the gun, the driver got back in, told them to “Have a nice day,” and left. Okay, I’m kidding about the struggle with Frank, but you just know he was thinking about it.

Samburu tribe will wear red. Boran will wear gold. In case you didn’t read the RealityNewsOnline preview analysis (and shame on you if you didn’t), here is an introduction of the cast (for more details, see the other article):

Samburu

• Brandon: 25, bartender
• Carl: 46, dentist
• Teresa: 42, flight attendant
• Kim P.: 29, freelance marketer
• Lindsey: 27, former ad account executive
• Linda: 44, career counselor at Harvard
• Silas: 23, bartender/aspiring actor
• Frank: 43, phone technician, NRA guy

Boran

• Diane: 42, mail carrier
• Ethan: 27, soccer goalie
• Jessie: 27, sheriff’s deputy
• Clarence: 24, high school basketball coach
• Kim J.: 57, retired teacher
• Kelly: 22, behavioral research analyst
• Lex: 38, marketing manager
• Tom: 46, goat farmer

So they are standing in the middle of the desert, and told to gather supplies, which they will have to lug to their campsite. They are specifically told that water is the most important because they will have to boil the water they find from that point on. So what happens? Boran decides the water is too heavy and dumps a bunch of it. Good thinking!

Diane somehow gets in charge of the map and the rest follow more or less blindly while she wanders around the desert for 40 years. Whoops! Wrong story. The funny thing is that several Boran tribe members comment on how they are following her blindly, yet they continue to do so. Meanwhile, she walks too fast for the rest of them. That might have something to do with the fact that the rest of them are carrying heavy loads.

Over in Samburu, Frank takes the lead role as he plays Army sergeant. He walks ahead and then has to wait while the others catch up. Meanwhile, he complains that they’re chatting as if at the mall. One of the women announces that she is getting her period. When I wrote about the Survivor preview show last week, I noted that perhaps this was too much information. In response, I received a comment that it’s just a normal biological activity, so I should get over it. Well, yes, it is. So is going to the bathroom. That doesn’t mean I need to know about it whenever somebody does it (yes, it was too much information in S2 when they spent a great deal of time discussing that aspect of their lives).

However, the most amusing part of this e-mail was when my correspondent noted: “I think if men had periods, they would be talking about them all the time, like bragging about their flow and making a big deal about being one with the moon time and such.” So now I’m imagining NRA Frank standing around bragging about his menstrual flow. I have to say, this is giving me quite an odd picture in my mind. In any event, the fact that she is getting her period doesn’t seem to have any bearing on, well, anything. So let’s move on.

As Samburu continues walking, Frank starts grating on some of his companions’ nerves – not a good thing to do the very first day, Frank. Did you ever watch any of the other Survivor shows? Does the name “Debb” mean anything to you? To add to his already gruff and grumpy appearance, when somebody asks him what branch of service he was in, he answers, “I was in the American branch.” Gee, thanks.

Both tribes make it to their campsites and are then told that they need to repair the hut that will be their shelter (it’s pretty much not there) and also make sure the “fence” (made of spiked vines and branches) is secure so predators don’t wander in. They are supposed to keep a fire going all night and always keep two people awake to watch for wild animals. Sounds like a great time for plotting. Finally, they are told where they can find water. Well, they call it water, anyway. It’s really more like extra-wet mud. Of course, they need to boil it, which means they need fire.

Frank immediately takes charge of the Samburu camp and starts ordering people around to get everything fixed up. Kim is already becoming annoyed because she doesn’t like that much structure in her life, and just wants to get to know people. Frank, have you ever heard of a guy named B.B.? Just wondering.

Brandon notes that on the way over, they broke three gourds and lost the cap to another one, which caused the water to foul somehow. So they need water and more to the point, they need a fire to boil that water. So off they go to the swampy ground to get some. Along the way, Linda apparently gets upset that people are cracking jokes rather than respecting Africa. She sounds like a barrel of fun.

Over in Boran, the need for water is possibly even greater (thanks to their brilliant idea of dumping some). Jessie is vomiting and getting more dehydrated by the minute (this from a woman whose audition video talked about how she was used to the heat).

Neither tribe managed to get fire the first night. However, when Kim and Lindsey on Samburu opened the medkit, they found a telescope (I’m still trying to figure out what medical purpose that serves). They popped out a lens and Silas used it to actually start a fire. As he’s blowing on it to get it to light up instead of just smoke, one of the women is telling him, “Don’t inhale the smoke. Do not pass out.” Where were you when Mike Skupin needed you?

Over at Boran, since they couldn’t get fire to make drinkable water, they instead opened a can of cherries. They carefully passed the can around, with each person taking one. Well, each person except Clarence, who took two. Ethan was not a happy camper when he saw that. It was not really a brilliant move on Clarence’s part – especially on only the second day. Was the extra cherry really worth the possibility of getting voted out first?

Ah, but that was nothing compared to Clarence’s later actions.

First, though, they had the immunity/reward challenge. Most importantly to Boran, one part of the reward was fire. For Samburu, winning at least kept fire out of Boran’s hands for another night – not to mention the immunity part. Also, the winner would get to take home the cart that was used in the challenge, though after seeing them drag it around, I’m not sure that was really a “reward.”

The challenge was a race. The tribes had to drag a cart carrying a lit torch. They then had to use that fire to light three torches on a course – one on a bridge, one on a mountain that a single player would have to climb for each tribe, and one on the beach. First one to light all three and cross the finish line would win.

After much stumbling over hard terrain, Boran took an early lead. At some points, they pretty much had to lift the cart over obstacles. Boran maintained the lead past the first two torches, but they were slowing down. By the time they got to the beach, they were showing signs of trouble. Think about it – how difficult is it to walk on sand? Now think about it lugging a cart. Now think about it after you’ve had almost no water and have been out in the hot sun and this is the third leg of the race. Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a sprint to the finish so much as a stumble.

Samburu pulled ahead and stayed there. Diane, on Boran, pretty much passed out. Showing great concern for her well-being, host Jeff Probst talked to the winning Samburu tribe while Diane’s fellow Boranians practically dragged her away.

Once they got back in the Boran camp, Diane was still not doing well. Clarence volunteered to stay at camp and take care of her while the rest of the people went to get water (water that they still couldn’t drink because they had no fire). Tom suspected that they should have counted their foodstuffs before leaving, because there was a bit of thought that Clarence might sneak a snack.

They were right. This was no beef jerky accusation – Clarence opened a can of green beans, gave some to the ill Diane, and then gobbled down the rest himself. So when the rest of the tribe returned, Diane was feeling a little better. Clarence was forced to admit why, though he claimed Diane had told him she could use the food, so he opened it up for her. What a guy! Then he just ate the rest because nobody else was around to discuss it with. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

It’s not like these folks were out for days. They went to get water. The beans were not going to go bad in that time. But Clarence says he made “a judgment call.” Tom retorted it was “bad judgment.” The others all take Tom’s side, saying nobody should eat without everybody having a say in it. As if dealing with a small child, Tom forces Clarence to apologize individually to each and every tribe member. Not wanting to get in deeper than he already is, Clarence actually does it. Lex notes that the trust has been broken and now they need to start from scratch. Later he adds, as if he needed to, that they have to vote somebody out today, so it was not a really good time to pull a stunt like this. Etc.

Then, just as things are dying down, Diane chimes in. She says she didn’t ask Clarence to open it for her – he suggested that it would be good for her to eat. Hmmm. So who is lying? Clarence obviously has motive to lie, and he has already shown himself to be untrustworthy. Oh, and did I mention the excuse he used for where the can went? Ethan had asked where it went, and Clarence responded that he just threw it somewhere, but he wasn’t trying to hide it. Yeah, right. You’re in Africa, you have few supplies, but you just throw away a can that might come in useful for something later? And where did you throw it? You don’t know. Uh huh.

So, like I said, he isn’t the most trustworthy guy in the tribe right now. Diane, however, also has motivation to lie. She has to know that the weakest player is going to be voted out first (see: Sonja). So why not try to turn them against Clarence by feeding off of the distrust they already have? It’s a good plan, actually. Unfortunately, at least for now it will have to remain a mystery, since both of them cling to their stories even in the privacy of the voting booth later.

Speaking of voting, that’s where we’re off to next. In case you were wondering, fire does still represent life, and, yes, they will get fire when they leave. But we begin with the usual round of questions.

Probst asks Jessie what they’ll do when they get back. Not surprisingly, she says they’ll boil water all night and drink. Diane is asked how things are going and she notes that they are tough. She says she just ran out of gas after trying to make fire all day in the heat. Probst asks Clarence how things are so far, and Clarence replies that they are “awesome” and they have really gelled together. Perhaps he’s thinking that if he says this aloud, it might make it come true. Anyway, he continues that even when you mess up, you feel bad, which only happens with people you care about. Probst, of course, feeds off of this to ask what happened. Clarence says, “I decided to open a can of beans,” and that he ate some and that wasn’t fair to the others. He hopes they forgive him. Now, whether he was lying or Diane was, what he did was a smart move here. He accepted the blame rather than continuing to argue with Diane. If he had kept arguing, it would have only dragged things out more and probably turned more people against him.

Probst asks Ethan what he thought of this, and Ethan responds that he was “pissed off” and surprised. Tom says Clarence had a weak moment, and he forgives but he doesn’t forget.

So, it’s time for the vote. Would they get rid of their strong man in Clarence because of his apparently lies? Or would they get rid of their weakest link.

Unlike last season’s Ogakor tribe, Boran does not get rid of their strength (even though they had better reasons to do so). Only Tom and Diane vote to get rid of Clarence. Diane calls him deceitful, so she is sticking to her story. In response, Clarence votes against her (as does everybody else) and says he took the heat for her. Then he says that although he had apparently said she was like his mother, she really wasn’t. So there!

By a vote of six to two (although only five votes against her were shown), Diane is the first to go – something that pretty much everybody knew would happen even before the first episode. Probst sends them back to camp and urges them to try to do some mending.

Diane leaves by saying that although she is the first to go, she has no regrets. It was tougher than she thought and she was glad to have the experience she had.

Next time, we can pretty much be sure that Silas does not get voted off, because we see clips of him supposedly playing both sides of an alliance.

Make sure to also read Why Diane Lost, which takes an in-depth look at what she did right and wrong.

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