Surviving Africa, Episode 3: The Generation Gap

Man, I should know better than to fall for Survivor “next episode” promos. We’ve heard the rumors of Lindsey ending up in the hospital, and then the promo for this week saw her getting sick or injuring herself. Seemed obvious what would happen, right? Wrong! What the heck was I thinking?

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s move on to the episode. Night 6 at Boran is interrupted by a curious cat. A rather large cat that is growling and has really big teeth. Kelly, who is on night watch with Clarence, helpfully yells at it to “go away.” Have a lot of experience with lions, do ya Kelly? She rattles some cans and then, when that surprisingly still doesn’t work, they wake up Lex, who would later say that he knew Survivor would be real, he just didn’t know it would be that real. Eventually, they are all awakened. As Ethan says, being startled out of your sleep by a roar is not the best way to wake up. Eventually, the lions (turns out there were two of ‘em) leave without any supper. Shucks. Boran decides that morning that it might be a good idea to fix the gaps in the fence. Ya think?

Day 7 begins in Samburu with the usual generational battle. The older folks get up early and want to go get water. The younger crowd wants to sleep in. After the village elders leave, Brandon notes that they are “conniving miserable little people.” Why? Because they allied against the young do-nothings? And the young do-nothings allied against the elders. So what does that make you, Brandon?

While getting water, Teresa says she thinks Silas is playing both sides. Just figured that out, didja? Linda lectures some more about spirits. Now, I haven’t mentioned this much previously because I thought it was just so much running at the mouth and not worth the effort. However, the woman just won’t shut up about it. This won’t be the last time in this episode that she rambles on about spirits.

Meanwhile, Brandon is cooking up their “mush” for breakfast. He says he likes to cook and, when he does, his pals get more food. He encourages them to pig out and leave what’s left for the others. Hmmm. Maybe they should let you get your own water? Who else out there in RealityTV-land wants to bitch-slap Brandon?

Later, Lindsey’s beaded necklace, representing all her friends, breaks. While she and her fellow do-nothings are fixing it, they all decide to make beaded necklaces for themselves, to show how much they mean to each other. Frank, not surprisingly, views this as a waste of time. Food, shelter, and water are important, not beads or tanning. Brandon says the necklace thing is either ballsy or stupid, depending on how things fall. Carl notes that it is immature and they are just trying to get under the skin of the elders – and it’s working.

Silas is no longer sitting on the fence. He says he’s definitely with the younger group, because if they don’t stick together, they will be picked off one-by-one. Um, not if you were on the team doing the picking, Silas.

But age is not the only problem. Apparently Carl has plenty of money and isn’t shy about this fact. For example, he drives a Porsche. This bothers Brandon, because, after all, this is a game that they are playing for money. Really? I thought it was a trip to the mall to hang out with your girlfriends. Carl notes that this generation has no work ethic. Carl, please don’t judge a whole generation by this group of beach bums.

On to the reward challenge. Remember, Boran hasn’t won a single challenge yet. Today’s reward is 100 gallons of clean water – enough for one gallon per person per day until the merge. Oh, and some organic shampoo if they want to waste some water. Yeah, that’s likely. The challenge is rolling two big honking boulders – okay, fake boulders; if those were real stones, Brandon is the hardest-working person on Samburu. Don’t get me wrong, they were still big and heavy, just not BIG and HEAVY.

All they have to do is roll the boulders along a course and to the finish line. Kim and Brandon sit this one out so the teams would be even.

Boran takes an early lead. We’ve seen that before, and then they end up choking in the end, right? Nope, not this time. Even after Samburu runs over Kim J. with their boulder (which is one way I knew they were not real – she got up), Boran is still winning. They are helped by Samburu losing control of their rock and rolling it off the course not once but twice. So Boran finally pulls off a win. Unfortunately, it’s one vote too late to save Jessie, who would have benefited the most from clean water. I have one piece of advice for Boran: Don’t leave Clarence alone with the water.

Later, at Samburu, a small dust devil blows through camp, ominously knocking over the immunity idol. Must be those spirits Linda is always going on about. And, let’s face it, would they have shown that if Samburu was going to win the immunity challenge? No. So guess what? They lose.

The challenge harkens back to a reward challenge from Survivor 1; the team that makes the most noticeable distress signal, as seen from the air, wins.

Samburu (Frank) decides that their camp makes a perfect “O” so all they need are “S”s on either side. They go to work (well, some of them) dragging branches and the like to form the signal. Lindsey is actually working hard, until she ends up collapsed under a tree in pain from dehydration. Kim P. tries to help her, but isn’t very successful. When Linda walks over, Lindsey tells her to go away. I guess she didn’t want to hear about how the spirits are mad at her or something. Linda, for her part, says Lindsey always talks about how strong she is, but, she adds, “guess she’s not so strong.” Oooh, bad karma for that one!

Boran’s strategy is to make use of color and, apparently, to scare any pilots flying over. They use Kim J.’s paints (brought as a luxury item) to color the mosquito netting. Tom sticks a feather down his butt crack. Clarence walks around in “tighty whiteys.” The others take off most of their clothes.

When the plane comes, Lindsey does nothing to help. The spotter/judge says that while he sees the SOS, it is difficult to pick out and looks like any other community. When they get to Boran, though, he sees people running around waving colored towels. We see Tom shaking his feathered butt (which has to be blurred out because his shorts sag so much). We also find that Boran had made a nice SOS in a clearing, where it is easily seen. No doubt about it, Boran wins this one.

Which sets up another lecture from Linda over in Samburu. She says the Idol Goddess won’t live in a house of conflict, so it went to find some peace. Jeez, woman, it’s a freaking piece of carved wood made as a prop. If it went anywhere, I suspect it was to get away from your ramblings. It’s made of wood – unlike the rest of us, it can’t roll its eyes at you.

The next day, Lindsey feels somewhat better, though still a little weak. She sees no reason to exert herself. Then again, she never did before, either. Frank snidely comments to his fellow elders, “Barbi went down in Africa.”

As they prepare for their first Tribal Council, Kim notes that there isn’t much unity in the group (no, really?) and most are thinking that voting somebody off isn’t such a bad thing.

When they get there, they are subjected to host Jeff Probst’s usual banter. Brandon claims the time they’ve spent together hasn’t been that unpleasant. Lindsey laughs but says it’s great, they’ve all gotten along well. What, do they think saying it will make it so? What’s the point of lying when everybody knows what’s going on? Carl says there is indeed some tension, and that some people don’t always take things seriously. Silas agrees but says people have to bend and mold when in a group; if they don’t bend, they break. Ah, so the elders should mold into doing nothing?

Probst notices the four necklaces and asks about them (as if he didn’t already know). The youngsters say it just shows their friendship, and doesn’t “disclude” the elders. Linda wants to know where hers is, though. Hey, Linda, maybe the necklace spirit didn’t want to be with you. In other discussion of the obvious, Lindsey feels vulnerable because she passed out. Frank says he sometimes gets a little too aggressive.

So it’s time for the vote. The only surprise is that, although the youngsters have complained about Frank forever, they end up going against Carl instead. While casting her vote, Lindsey notes that he doesn’t need the money. The elders vote against Lindsey, with Linda explaining that she has a lot of potential, but then rambles something about the gods and goddesses watching. You know, I was going to put a joke line in there about gods and spirits, but it turns out I didn’t have to – Linda followed along in her own caricature and took that opportunity away from me.

So, it’s four votes for Lindsey to four for Carl. They each plead their case for a tiebreaker. Carl talks about how he works hard and sensibly, gets water, maintains the fire, and is a valuable asset. Um, Carl, do you really think the do-nothings care about that? Lindsey admits that she’s not terribly domestic, but puts in the work when she needs to, and nobody can stop her at the challenges (um, you mean like the immunity challenge that you just blew off?). Besides, Carl doesn’t need the money.

Needless to say, these awe-inspiring speeches didn’t change a single mind. So, since this is their first Tribal Council and there are no previous votes to fall back on, they go into a sudden death tiebreaker where they are asked questions from the “Bush Survival Guide” that they all apparently got a copy of. The first time one misses and the other gets it right, the loser walks.

The first question asks if it is true or false that smoke from burning elephant dung keeps mosquitoes away. It’s true and they both get it right. Gosh, I can’t imagine why Off hasn’t come out with an elephant dung scented mosquito candle…

Second question deals with what the fruit pulp of a palm is helpful for. Both choose different answers, but both get it wrong; it’s good for worm infestation. Third question asks if it is true or false that African Rock Pythons have been known to fully digest whole gazelles. Both answer false, but it’s true.

The fourth question is again true/false, and asks if pouring hot water on a tick will cause it to retract its bite. Lindsey says it’s true, Carl says it’s false. Carl is wrong (not too many ticks in dentistry, I guess). Carl is gone.

In his final words, Carl acknowledges the split in the tribe according to the generation gap. He says four people had a sense of responsibility, four were confused. He’s right, and those confused folks are in control right now. Boran should be cheering.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Because of one wrong answer, the entire older group may fall to the do-nothings, which would mean that the entire Samburu tribe will fall.

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