Surviving Africa, Episode 4: Linda Cracks

We begin episode 4 on the night after Tribal Council for Samburu. Needless to say, they don’t exactly go back to the camp and immediately begin healing. Lindsey is feeling powerful with her big win over Carl (looking back, is it any surprise that she knows more about parasites than he does? I mean, look at how she and her pals had acted!). “I’m still here and I’m smiling big.” Smiling is one thing, but gloating is quite another, and she does ‘em both.

Silas is trying to calm everybody down and play Mr. Leader. He tells the remaining oldsters – Frank, Linda, and Teresa – that the kids are willing to help. Just let them know if water is needed, and they’ll go, but just be patient when you get up so early. Meanwhile, Lindsey, still in gloat mode, talks about how she is seriously pumped and people shouldn’t f*ck with her! Silas is not amused – he wants to get support and she’s going off the deep end. Indeed, she even calls out, “Come here team!” but only means her three pals, not the full Samburu tribe. As Frank says, “Damn you, Carl, for leaving me with a bunch of misfits… It’s gonna be pretty miserable the next couple days.”

Indeed, the next morning Frank decides to sit back and see how the kids manage the household. They do so by sleeping. In fact, they sleep so late that when Linda and Frank get the mail, they only have 30 minutes to get to the reward challenge. No time to get to the water hole. Linda hopes this will get it through to them that they just can’t sleep all day. Yeah, right. She does manage to annoy them, though, by waking them in a sugary-sweet voice and telling them to read the mail about the challenge.

Silas again tries to take the leadership role by calling everybody over and saying they should come together as a team. Linda thinks the whole thing is cheesy (this from the woman who goes on and on about African spirits all the time!). She breaks in and talks about how Lindsey was behaving the previous night and slowly comes unglued. Eventually she is jumping around saying, “I’m ready to be on the team!” and hugging Lindsey, who is not exactly ready to give Linda a hug back. She does, however, cry. Yeah, I’m feeling really sorry for her.

Over in Boran, they don’t have much to fight about right now. The biggest thing on their minds is that Tom is having trouble getting the corn meal mush down, so he wants to find something else to eat. He and Clarence go out and find a palm tree with some fruit (like miniature coconuts) on it. Tom tries to climb up and, after making a spectacle of himself, decides that’s not really feasible. So he and Clarence start throwing things up at the tree. Eventually, a couple of the little fruits fall down. Then they have to cut ‘em open, which is another job in itself. After all of that, they get something about the size of a thumb to eat. So much for their additional food source.

The reward challenge, however, is about additional food sources – or at least spicing up what they’ve already got. 12 items, including things like olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, soup mix, jelly, etc., are hung up on a rope “web.” Each contestant must run up a ramp, over a rope-net bridge, and climb the web to pull down an item and bring it back. They do this one at a time, with the first team to get all 12 winning.

The teams are running pretty much neck-and-neck almost throughout the entire race. Then it happens – Kim J. (the older Kim on Boran) trips and falls, and is slow to get back up. She falls behind in trying to get item #10, leaving pretty much no time for the tribe to catch up. Frank is the final Samburu runner, and he brings it back with ease (so much for anybody who thought he’d intentionally blow challenges as revenge upon the youngsters).

As Boran walks back, Ethan says that it unfortunately came down to Kim being slow, and he knows how hard that must be for her. The others try to cheer her up, as they did in episode 2 when she fell during the first reward challenge. She is developing a rather poor track record in physical challenges, and she knows it. Last time, she was lucky to have Jessie’s illness to divert attention. This time, she knows she’s done for if they lose immunity. The others aren’t thrilled about it, but they know it as well.

In Samburu, their morale is temporarily boosted by the win. Kim admits that she and her cohorts were more interested in manipulation than working since Frank and Carl were doing all that was necessary. As Peggy Keller said in her article on the slackers, the older folks were “enabling” the behavior of the younger ones.

So it’s time to get some water. Brandon realizes that, to prove a point, the oldsters allowed the water reserves to go down to almost nothing. No? Ya think? The real question, Brandon, is if you understood the point they were making. Frank indicates privately that, yes, indeed, he did plan to let the comfort level go down so the youngsters would have to actually do something.

Unfortunately, in boiling the water, one of their pots broke. The other one had broken earlier and they could only use it on its side. They were not in good shape.

Boran meanwhile bumps into some more animals while out hiking around. It looks like they were on a water run, but since they have all the clean water they could ever want, it’s unclear as to why they were on a run – unless the producers put even the clean water at some distance from them, which seems the most likely explanation. Anyway, first they encounter a barrel of monkeys. Then they come upon a water buffalo (at least that’s what I think it is), which Lex calls the most dangerous animal in the land. I’m not sure of that, but I still wouldn’t want to run into one. In any event, Lex starts going on about how the danger is very real and they “need to respect the land.” Oh, jeez – it’s another Linda!

That immunity challenge is a moving one. No, it’s not emotional, it’s literally moving. They have to emulate the tribes of East Africa and move a camp from point A to point B, 200 yards up a hill. There is a hut, animal pen, various supplies, and a flag pole (which has to be moved last). Two members must be the architects – they go to the new site and make sure everything is laid out exactly like it was at the old one (yeah, because I’m sure the East Africans are worried about that when they move around). Brandon and Linda are the architects for Samburu, Kim and Kelly for Boran. And Teresa has to sit out because Samburu is still ahead one member.

Samburu starts the race with the small stuff while Boran takes the roof off the hut and moves the hut up first. It’s hard to say who is in the lead until the very end because they are carrying different items, but Boran comes through in the end, winning immunity. They did so not because they are more muscular necessarily (though the recently exiled Carl would probably have been of more help than, say, Lindsey), but because Boran was smarter. Samburu didn’t move their hut – the heaviest object – until they were already tired from moving other things and running around. Also, they moved their roof before their hut, rather than just moving it aside like Boran did. This meant Samburu had to move the roof to the new site, drop it off, move the hut, then pick up the roof again and put it back on top. Boran just took off the roof, moved the hut into place, and then moved the roof right into place as soon as they got it to the new site. They definitely outwitted Samburu on this one. And they received immunity because of it.

The winners in Boran, where they don’t have to worry about Tribal Council, are all happy that Kim has been spared. But Samburu has another choice. Well, four members of Samburu have a choice.

Day 12 brings Frank’s birthday. Uh oh. Are the kids going to do what the anti-Tagi alliance couldn’t do to Rich – voting him off on his own birthday? He’ll have to wait to find out, but meanwhile he is carving the names of his wife and kids into his torch handle so they can be with him wherever he goes. Linda comes to sit next to him and talk about how they could have used Carl the previous day. Yes, but they could have used some brains even more.

When the kids get up, they start talking openly about how they are going to have to vote. It’s obviously no secret that it will be Linda, Teresa, or Frank – the only real question is which one. So they ask. But before anybody answers, Silas decides he’s going to lecture them all on teamwork by saying the three losers – er, older folks – should vote for Lindsey because she already has votes against her. Therefore, if they merge and there are ties (like there were in Survivor 2), only one person will have votes. The older folks wonder aloud what’s in it for them. Brandon answers truthfully, “Nothing.” But Silas goes on, asking if they want to bring the whole ship down.

I just wanted to reach through the TV and smack Silas around. Does he really think they are going to go into the merge and the older Samburu folks are going to band together with the younger ones just because they’re in the same tribe? Why the hell would they do that? No, the remaining older ones will want to turn on them as quickly as possible, so spreading out the votes is the best way to do it! Besides, Linda very much doesn’t want Silas to win. She wouldn’t even mind the others, but not Silas.

After the older folks have the nerve to say that they’re not just going to go along like lambs to slaughter, Brandon gets huffy and says they were going to tell them who would be voted off, but now they’re not. So there.

The last thing we hear before Tribal Council is Silas saying he can’t wait for the merge because he is planning on winning this thing. As if he thinks he’s Rich Hatch, he says they “might as well write the check and hand it to me.” Give me a break.

At Tribal Council, host Jeff Probst begins by asking if there has been any bonding. Silas says it was an emotional first night after the last vote, but after that it was much better and they came together more as a unit. What is it about these guys that they just can’t tell the truth? What does lying at Tribal Council get them? It’s not like the secretive alliances of old. Everybody in the tribe – hell, everybody in the country – knows what’s going on, so why try to lie to Probst? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway, Frank can always be counted on for an honest answer. He says they know one of the three older folks are leaving tonight, and it is still two tribes in one. Probst starts to lecture them, saying it’s the first time he’s seen something like this, and asks where the logic is (actually, he’s somewhat wrong – it’s not the first time he’s seen it, just the first time it’s been out in the open). Going into the merge, he continues, you need numbers. If Samburu goes in with four solid and one not, and Boran goes in with five solid, Samburu loses. Hmmm. I didn’t realize game show hosts were supposed to give strategic advice. Frank, again being honest (perhaps a little too honest for his own good this time) indicates that he does have a game plan, he’s just waiting for the right time to enact it.

Probst asks Lindsey if she’s made any mistakes. Lindsey replies that she has been a “walking mistake.” Hey, the youngsters are capable of honesty! She admits she got too into the manipulation and is bad at keeping the “game” in perspective because she’s sensitive. Probst moves on to Brandon, asking if he ever takes a walk by himself. Before he can finish the question, Brandon answers that he never goes anywhere by himself because he’s always with his friends. They are not just his allies, but friends, even outside the game. How sweet. It’s like Rodger and Elisabeth twice over. Oh, wait – Rodger and Elisabeth were likeable.

It’s time for the vote, and we see that the elder members of the tribe concentrated their votes on Silas. Brandon makes a big show of rolling his eyes when the first Silas vote comes in. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but they just didn’t listen and vote for Lindsey. The youngsters decided once again to keep Frank around and instead got rid of Linda. Perhaps they realized that they still need his strength. Perhaps her sermons about Mother Africa just annoyed them. Or perhaps they thought she was just going to completely snap after her jumping around and hugging. No matter the reason, they actually made the best decision. In addition to being the most annoying, she’s also the weakest of the older ones.

As Linda leaves, she takes a page from Colleen’s book and tells the others to “play nicely.” In her goodbye speech she talks about how the older players had honor and integrity. She further says that she truly believes it’s not whether you win, but how you play the game. Well, that may be true in life, but this is a game show. Here, it is whether you win or lose that matters. Sure, after the game how you played may matter to advertisers or the like, but somehow I don’t see too many taking an interest in a wacky spirit-talker anyway.

Next week, it looks like those rumors about a three-way split might very well be true. Moving the 12 remaining people into three tribes of four? I hope it does happen, because I want to see the young Samburu folks having to turn on one another. We’ll see if Brandon is still good friends with all of them.

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